SB: Personally, the other piece I sometimes find myself miffed by is that notion that birth is necessarily a journey. I'm not saying it can't be, and yet it might not always feel that way.
LGR: For some women, it most definitely is a journey. But not so for all women: for some women, it's a means to an end. To force women to envision this experience as a journey really just places yet another pressure to conform upon them.
SB: Are women competitive about birth?
LGR: One thing is that pregnancy and childrearing are so public. Everyone feels free to weigh in. You're suddenly vulnerable to commentary about everything: how much weight to gain, how and where to give birth, how to feed your baby, where your baby should sleep...
Another thing is that I think women can get pretty competitive around their births; both in the planning of it and afterward, in terms of how successful they feel it turned out. They can even compete for how badly it went as long as the baby was born healthy. The competitive piece isn't distinct to birth and parenting, though. I think it's endemic to our culture and is just the next platform in which it can be played out. Check out Judith Warner's book, Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the age of Anxiety. I also think that in our inherent narcissism -- part of which is organic, part cultural -- that giving birth and mothering are the next big opportunities for us to continue to work on separation from our own mothers and to grow out of the "me". Part of the big work in parenting is not seeing our children as extensions of ourselves, but as individuals separate from us. This work starts as soon as the umbilical cord is cut; we get the opportunity to revisit our own childhoods and ways in which we were parented, including separation from our families of origin. Our children serve as our mirrors.
SB: When you first got involved in childbirth education and support services, what did you aspire to provide for women? What did you hope to experience for yourself?
LGR: From before having kids, I loved being around pregnant women and birth. I had pretty clear ideas about how my births should go. The thing was, the story unfolded differently and through that, I learned a lot. I was organic everything, I spun my own yarn -- in fact, my wedding present from my former mother-in-law was a Shaker spinning wheel -- and in truth, I was very neurotic. I was also dogmatic, so sure my way was the right way. And then, when I was six months pregnant with Indy, I got diagnosed with cancer and had every diagnostic test possible, having refused every routine test or ultrasound offered to me. How could that happen to me, who'd done everything so right?
I had already struggled through infertility. I endured miscarriage. In this arena in which I was so committed, I wasn't experiencing the outcomes I thought were justly mine. And then I ended up with a long Pitocin induction and I refused pain meds. No one said to me that trying an epidural might help, because it'd ease the pain. And as I've said, physically, a pit induction is a very painful, intense experience. As it was, I had no resources left. I ended up with a section after 36 hours. This was a big eye opener. Despite everything, Indy came out this healthy baby. Now, she's graduating from college.
I was very committed to having a VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean) with my second child. This was counter to the times, especially in the Westchester County in 1989, but I persevered with a homebirth, because I wasn't willing to go back to the hospital. I wasn't as well versed with the risks entailed by not being at a hospital as I am today; in fact, I'm not sure I'd have made the same choice if I were to do it again now. But I do think that over time, I've come to respect the fact that rather than placing our ideas or ideals upon our lives, we have to respect that we need to go with the way the story unfolds. When we don't yield to what's happening, we can't really honor who we are or how our lives are really going. It's taken me a very long time to understand and appreciate that life gets life-y. And although I fought against that, in truth, it's much better that way.
SB: Your personal experiences must have made an impact on how you worked with women ever since.
LGR: I really believe that I became so much better equipped to help women. After experiencing infertility, I bring a bird's eye view into the cost to marriages and to self-esteem for those premium babies. And after my VBAC, I knew I wanted to support other women who wanted to try for VBAC. More than anything, I try to support women to listen to themselves; each woman is her own best expert on what makes her most comfortable. I want to help each woman reach the place of feeling responsible for herself and tolerant of herself.
SB: When women come to you disappointed about a previous birth experience, how do you help them to sort those feelings through?
LGR: One thing I've noticed is that it's hard to have conflicting expectations. Sometimes, although we're disappointed about the outcome -- a section for example -- another part of our response is relief -- relief that it's over or the baby's healthy or the doctors took care of things -- but it's hard to live with those conflicting responses. I try to link those conflicting emotions to help a woman find her truth around her experiences. And I do this conscious of the fact that in trying to help her uncover her own truth, I'm also doing so in a supportive way, not a judgmental one.
SB: You've done childbirth education and labor support, so why a book?
LGR: Through my hands-on work, I can only reach women in my area. I wanted women beyond my immediate region to have access to this information. I didn't see this message out there. I am really urging women to look the components of their lives and to find their tolerances and preferences to make their birth experiences and early parenting experiences suit them best. I do not believe there's a specific "right" way to do birth or early parenthood well. I want every woman to know she already possesses her most important information; she knows herself. Her challenge is to uncover the details that will inform her best choice for herself, from whether to use a midwife or a doctor, or to learn about the hospital's policies or to try keeping a baby in her room or a nursery during the first weeks. If she looks at herself first and then tries on different options with that knowledge in mind, she can really help herself find choices that are most comfortable for her.
Mmo : march 2008 |
