We had dinner last night with our best couple friends, whom we don't see nearly enough anymore since we changed churches. While our younger kids ran around their massive yard (all the teens left to go to youth group at the church), we sat around the grill drinking iced Chai teas and arguing about Islam and immigration, I thought about how incredibly important these people are to me. How our 25 years of friendship, (the husband and I went to college together, our spouses came into the picture later) has embedded and taken root in my heart.
On another level, the same thing has happened to me with birth. I didn't know I would feel so passionate about it. It took root and has never waned. Anonymous got me to thinking. She (or he) wrote:
"First, I want to say that your boy Josiah is just about as beautiful a baby as I have ever seen, But being upset by "Knocked Up?" C'mon, lighten up, it's a movie and a pretty funny one at that!"
But a movie scene did upset me. I can't lighten up! I can't watch movies of bad births, or hear conversations about bad births without it affecting me. Sometimes I wish I didn't feel so passionately. Sometimes it feels like a burden I wish I could relieve myself of. Any of you reading this who share this passion will understand what I mean. Folks who just think birth is about how you have a baby just don't get it. I am consumed by this issue. I'm not writing a book, the book is using me as a vehicle to get written. Things will change, I'm certain of that, if only because they always do. Societal mores constantly shift and the young girls of today will wonder why so many of their mothers opted for cesarean or phamaceutically mediated birth. In fact, I see inklings of a shift in beliefs about birth already. I just want to be sure I'm a part of that shift. Perhaps ladies (and gents), things have become so off kilter, partially so we can have a role in setting it to rights. Each of us in our own little part of the world fighting diligently for the kind of birth we believe in, is making a difference. I'm so grateful to know I am not alone, that our sisterhood (which includes the men who get it) is strong and enduring, and that change will eventually come.
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4 comments:
i like what you said about maybe it happens so we can have a prat in making it right. what would the birthing community be like if we didn't have to fight for it??
and isn't it great when you have men who DO get it?? i was just thanking mine the other day, b/c i couldn't do this w/o his support, it takes too much o/o me.
Yes, I agree.
You know, I avoided seeing "Knocked Up" as well. I was scared to death after ridding the demons of PTSD from my system that this movie would throw me back a year of progress in therapy and personal growth.
After reading your brief review of the movie (and not even needing any details of the birth scene, whatsoever), I'm glad I made the choice I did.
Keep up the great writing!
Angela
Angela,
Glad to be of service. Perhaps I should start writing movie birth reviews! In the movie "Waitress" by contrast, her birth scene was powerful and transformative in a way the character was totally unprepared for. She had been a meek little kitty all through the movie, and birth shockingly transformed her into a roaring lioness. (All that even with an epidural!) Now there's a birth scene we all can appreciate.
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