I recently shared my most precious moment with a friend, and I want to share it now.
I fell pregnant by mistake. 11 years after my first and only child. I was devastated but I chose to continue the pregnancy. Every day, I woke hoping to find bleeding. Everyday my stomach grew, I felt less and less connected to the life inside me. I was convinced my body would break when labour came. So the day it came I refused to leave the house. My mind wouldn’t let my body go, but eventually my body overcame my thoughts and I rushed to the hospital.
I entered the warm water of the birth pool, a beautiful Italian midwife was there, she saw me, her face full of confidence in me, and she backed away. As I became closer and closer to birthing this child my fears left my body, I had almost completely disappeared to some other place. My body was now in control. I heard the midwife say to the father “leave her, she can do this” I felt it too. I had the power, my body wasn’t breaking. When the pain came, I let it go, I moaned, I groaned, my body took control and I rejected all pain relief. I only remember one thing during this hour of labour, the matron entered my room and faced my face and said “I know it hurts but try and keep your voice low”
I couldn’t speak, so I stared hard into her eyes and mentally replied “it doesn’t fucking hurt”
Something happened to me that day, I was awake. I finally knew my power, I was the best woman I could be. I could do anything. When I let go of my mental fears and my physical pain, I also let go of everything painful and frightening in my whole life, and nothing would hold me back again.
So here comes the funny part, the irony.
For 13 years I have felt hate and regret for the choices that were given to me, mother and wife. The hate enslaved me. So I ask how could giving birth again set me free? I don’t know. All I know is it did, I have no regrets and I can embrace it for what it was. My own awakening, more sacred and true then anything I have ever been told by religion.
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