So
much of whether childbirth is an event to survive or an experience that brings
you closer to God through your vocation to motherhood involves our response to fear. Fear of danger is a legitimate reaction, and
it can be protective in a helpful way.
Fear of pain is understandable, because it hurts. But pain does not necessarily mean something
is wrong with the birth: it could mean that something is wrong in the way the mother is giving birth (through
physical position, or her psychological approach to it). The key to embracing the present moment is to
not be afraid of the typical processes of childbirth.
The
opposite of fear is not so much courage, but trust: trust that God is present and will give you what you need in
the moment. De Caussade illustrates this
trust—this ceding of control to fully cooperate with God’s will--in evocative
language:
"In the state of abandonment the
only rule is the duty of the present moment.
In this the soul is light as a feather, liquid as water, simple as a
child, active as a ball in receiving and following the inspirations of grace. Such souls have no more consistence and
rigidity than molten metal…so these souls are pliant and easily receptive of
any form that God chooses to give them.[1]"
These
images are, interestingly, some of the same images used in the Bradley method
for relaxing the muscles and allowing the uterus to contract and do its work,
unimpeded: imagine yourself as liquid, imagine riding a wave, receive the birth
of your child and allow it to happen. In
addition, there is at least one other person there helping you focus on
accepting and relaxing through the
contractions: your husband (or birth coach).
His (or her) role in this present moment is to attend to your process of
opening up: caressing a brow to release tension, checking the laboring mother
for relaxed positioning, maybe physically supporting the woman during
contractions if she is laboring standing up, and lots of encouragement.
To
be fully present at the time of giving birth is to move into mystery. And that does take courage. But more, it takes trust: trust in someone
outside of oneself. And since our primal
relationships--body and soul, mother and child, human to creation--have
suffered a felt dissociation as a consequence of original sin, trust requires a
radical move to embracing God’s will.
Fear is a potent distraction from the call to trust.
As
I said in the first chapter, receptivity in prayer is hard to explain and hard
to teach. But giving birth in this
manner “teaches” receptivity to the work of God beautifully. It is a gift, fiery indeed, but a gift
nonetheless: it calls our attention to God.
Childbirth as a bodily sign presents the “law of the gift” in an
exquisitely designed manner.
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