Being Born

A new indie film, “The Business of Being Born” is apparently due out on the same day “Pepita” is due out. February 10, 2008. (click on the link if you have a highspeed connection for an incredible preview of the film - it totally depicts in 30 seconds the helplessness, frustration and, much later, the feeling of being betrayed by the hospital process during Teo's birth)

Hot on the trail of this pro-midwife, pro-natural-birth, critical-of-the-medical-model movie I learned about a few minutes ago, I’m sorry to report that the only way anyone can see it before renting it on Netflix (exclusive purveyor) in mid-February, is to fly to New York to see it on the big screen.

Too late for us. Though you could just give Marin a call this morning and walk on to the set of our own version of “Being Born.” (DO NOT CALL MARIN THIS MORNING!)

Step back a moment, and it feels like our little family itself is being inexorably compressed into an existential birth canal.

As Marin enters her final month, she’s mostly exhausted, anxious, work-and-list-focused, efficient, sleepless, and layering pain like a snowpack on her neck and shoulders.

Matteo expects, demands his usually buoyant and cheerful Mama back, and tries various strategies, like being needy, dragging his feet, stuff that usually adds to the stress.

I’ve been trying to do more cooking, dishwashing, laundry, picking up, but I am addicted to “media/ election” world, I lob insights from the front lines, through my laptop, in Marin’s direction (on the couch with Teo). Just last week, I was addicted to “preaching a UU sermon” world. Marin’s been a trooper, though just last night I managed to make a routine neck massage into a relationship “big deal.” Adding to the snowpack.

Marin’s been reading up on her upcoming VBAC, getting too much information on what might go wrong. Then there was the wonderful meeting with two Doulas last week, which melted a lot of the panic away. But they also gave us the reading list Marin’s been reading, catch 22. Last night she went off to the first of three classes in Hypnobirthing, and came home still pretty bound up between shoulders and neck.

Maybe this is like birth itself, impossible. A full-term fetus can’t really “get out.” So there’s this huge, implacable standoff, which builds up pressure as we near the end. It’s like getting to the junk in our garage. Or fixing up the glitches in our marriage. Only something big like a natural disaster: an earthquake, an eruption, a wildfire – the birth of a child – will get things moving again.

Birth pains. Marin – and the rest of us – in the middle.