Fear. It’s kind of an incongruous word in relation to birth, and to me, it just doesn’t really feel like it belongs in the same sentence. The associations I would choose for birth are joy and beauty and exhilaration and honour and sacredness. These are the things that I would want to permeate the space where birth occurs.
Unfortunately, all too often I hear or read about women who carry fears about birth. And they can be so heavy to carry. It’s astounding how many fears we can fit into the bag we pack for our birth experience. They can bog us down and open doors into self doubt and anxiety about our capacity to safely bring our babies into the world.
I want to spend a bit of time unpacking some of the common fears that get tucked into our bags we plan to take into our birth space. Some of them we pop in there ourselves on a “just in case” basis. You know, like the 5 different outfits in case the weather changes when packing for our holidays. Some we may carry for our birth partner, because their bags are already full to overflowing, and they ask you to fit some into your bag. Some of them are snuck into the side pockets by well meaning friends and relatives who might say, “Look, this was my experience and you might find it useful to have this, in case you need it too.” And then there are the “important” ones given to us by our care providers, kind of like the list of “must have” recommendations given to us by the travel consultant when booking an overseas holiday in a country we’ve never visited before.
All these fears take up space and add weight, and squash our precious hopes and dreams that we initially packed into our birth bag. Plus, I think they secretly reproduce when squashed into that bag, and grow bigger and stronger when we’re not looking. Then before we know it, when we go to check our birth bag when we’re getting closer to birthing, out tumble all these fears. Some of them we didn’t even know were in there, and they overwhelm us to the point that we can hardly find the hopes and dreams we first put into the bag all those months ago.
But have faith. Because the hopes and dreams went into the bag first, they will still be there, albeit a bit squashed and crumpled maybe. We put them in first, because they were the first things we thought about when we first knew we were pregnant. That moment of excitement when just you and your other knew the secret, and love filled the space around you. That’s when you popped your hopes and dreams in your bag. You tucked them in when the thought of having a baby growing inside was such a miraculous and joyous thing, and you wondered at the amazing capacity of your body to grow a whole new person.
Well that’s how it was for me anyway.
Over the next few writings I will carefully take out and rethink what is in that birth bag with you. Let’s see who packed the bag, and what we can leave behind. It can be a really valuable thing to sit with our fears, name them, examine them, see who owns them, and if some of them are actually useful to prompt us to get comfortable with what is causing the fears so we can find ways to overcome them.
Here’s to the journey and the companions we meet on the way.
Lyn xx
