Daily Excerpt: Lessons of Labor (Aziz) - Introduction (to the Book)
Excerpt from Lessons of Labor
INTRODUCTION
Before giving birth for the first time, I was warned that
labor would be the most painful physical experience I would ever endure, but no
one ever told me I would be entering into battle with my own mind. No one
explained that the pain of labor was just as much about facing my inner demons
and giving up the pretense of control as it was about physical discomfort. I
didn’t know that I would keep learning from the experience for the rest of my
life.
This book is not a manual for having a “successful” natural
birth or for becoming the ultimate Zen mother. Though you may have been
searching for such a guide, I do not think you need one. I offer you the
stories of my birth and early motherhood experiences to share the learning I
received through this incredible rite of passage. Instead of teaching you how
to labor or how to live your life, my reflections are intended to ignite your
curiosity about your own labor as an opportunity for self-discovery. More than
anything, I hope this book inspires you to trust deeply that your life
experience is your greatest teacher.
A Little about Me
I have been lucky, very much so. I did not encounter any
truly unmanageable complications during my pregnancies or births. I had a
supportive husband and adequate health care. The struggles I encountered
derived mostly from a low-level anxiety I have lived with my whole life. It’s a
default mode of functioning when I’m under duress or facing something new. I
used to try to hide my worry and tension, but now I see that I can be of more
service to both myself and others if I bring these old patterns into the light.
From counseling countless mothers and sharing stories with friends, I have
realized that I am not alone. Most of us get a little crazy sometimes; we just
get crazy about different things. This book is for women who hunger for some
perspective and encouragement that won’t fuel their fears or increase their
self-imposed pressure.
I have three children, the first born in the hospital and
the second two at home. Before any of them were to enter my life, I became
pregnant for the first time but lost that very small baby in an early
miscarriage. That first birth and loss is part of my story, too, and it offers
its own wisdom. For this reason, I share it with you in these pages as well.
Why We Can Learn Something from
Giving Birth
All our life experiences, if viewed through the lens of open
curiosity, can be used for personal growth. In the regular, everyday world, we
perceive change slowly. Days or months can pass with nothing seemingly new, but
with more intense situations, everything we normally experience in our interior
world arrives in a rush. My whole life story—every theme and every emotion—has
seemingly been played out in fast and hard encounters like a ten-day meditation
retreat, a five-week road trip, or twelve hours of labor. What I have seen and
learned there is accessible, raw, and meaningful. The memories are touchstones
to return to again and again.
Birth and death are, by their nature, the most intense
experiences we will have in our lifetime. Most of us cannot remember our own
births, and we can’t tell the story of our deaths. So, giving birth to another
human being, in my opinion, is about as fundamental a transformation as we can
hope to experience consciously. Not only do we become Mother through this
difficult passage, but we also experience the loss of the greatest intimacy
possible—that of one person living inside
another. It is as mundane as it gets but also uniquely amazing and
profound.
Women anticipate labor with every emotion there is, from
eagerness and joy to anxiety and dread, often with good doses of impatience or
ambivalence as well. Many women yearn to have the perfect birth and write birth
plans in an attempt to safeguard their way. I, too, wrote a birth plan the
first time around. I hoped it would protect me from everything I feared and
from the unknown in general. The plan would demonstrate how informed I was and
would help me stay in control. Only during that first labor did I realize how
having a baby is nothing if not an experience of complete loss of control. This
is not something modern women enjoy all that much. So much of our pre-baby
lives are spent making choices and decisions, deciding what we want and
figuring out how to get it. Having a child is nothing like that!
For many of us, once we’ve given birth, the urge to share
our stories is strong, but in the surge of activity involved in taking care of
a newborn baby, these stories soon fade into the distance. They are remembered
with less and less detail and eventually less emotional charge. Soon, they
become quick summaries, judged “good” if they matched our desires and “bad” if
they didn’t.
There may be something more to our stories than just whether
we had a good or bad birth experience, though. We might consider questions
beyond whether or not everything went the way we wanted. Instead, we might ask
what these birth stories tell us about ourselves. What meaning can we find in
the particular way we came face to face with pain, with the unknown, and with
the delivery of new life into this world? How might we use this experience in
the future? Can it teach us something about how we mother our children or about
who we are becoming in this next phase of our lives?
The Book
Lessons of Labor is divided into four parts (Babies 1, 2, 3 and Miscarriage),
each consisting of multiple short chapters. The chapters begin with excerpts
from my birth stories, all of which were recorded within hours of the actual
experiences. After each excerpt, a simple but relevant insight is offered.
These “lessons of labor” are followed by essays that reflect on how the
challenges of birthing are analogous to the personal growth opportunities of
early motherhood. While the birth story excerpts follow the sequential
experience of labor, the discussions after each lesson were written at
different times, and they span the past decade of my life.
To be clear, it’s not as if I gave birth, learned some life
lessons, and then lived happily or wisely ever after. Sometimes, I was inspired
while breathing deeply through a contraction; other times, I discovered
something new when I looked back in retrospect. In the big picture, I have been
learning these lessons since my own birth, and I re-learn them every time I
fall off course. Like a hidden curriculum for my life, they lie beneath the
surface of both my mundane and extraordinary moments.
For You, the Reader
The lessons in this book are not prescriptions for living.
They are reminders, little lamps on in the house next door that let you know
you are not alone. I hope to remind you of what you already know but maybe have
forgotten for a time. I hope to inspire you to look at your own life, no matter
what it encompasses, as an opportunity to learn and to love, to heal and to
grow. Becoming a mother is part of the journey of discovery, one of adventure,
pain, love, and surprises.
Above all, I hope you become your own best advisor in the
birthing process, in parenting, and in living. May this book remind you to dive
deeper into life, to reflect and learn as you go, and to make the most out of
whatever is born to you.
For more posts by and about Julia and her book, click HERE.
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