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.

Fresh Starts / Chrismas Day 8

New Years day, the new beginning.

A month ago I copied, for some of my UU friends, a New Yorker article about an odd, new, growing church in Danbury CT. The founding pastor is an MBA who has studied churches that grow, not because he wants to be leader of a large business, but because he wants to help people where traditional religions have been too burdened by traditions or texts to respond.

In January, just after New Year’s Day, he does a series on fresh starts. It’s the best time for getting the word out inviting new people. He wants to create in his church an informal, relaxed atmosphere, and to deal with the problems of everyday life. It turns out that the adults who are most open to a new church are people in transition (new job, a move) and those in pain, from, say, a broken marriage, financial trouble, or substance abuse. Fresh start, apply here.

Fresh starts make sense with support. In this article, we learned that it helps for a church to be larger, if only because it then has the numbers to launch a variety of small affinity groups to foster a sense of support and belonging, various groups for, say, blended families, for religious refugees, for people addicted to substances. Fresh starts.

Rebecca reminded me that she misses the fresh start of the beginning school year. Oddly, the Christian calendar has a third fresh start, the beginning of Advent, just after Thanksgiving, the Sunday when the themes turn toward waiting, watching, preparing for a new birth.

The fresh start that I need: I hope to be more intentional in handling time, to accomplish more, to give more (both to family and to my other callings). Also, I hope to swing back into enjoying my body, swimming, skiing, stretching out in Yoga, more automatic with less thinking, fewer false starts. These resolutions may stick. They would make me happier if they do.

When I asked Marin if she had any resolutions, she just chuckled. She’s an occupied nation with few civil liberties at this point. "Pepita" won’t let her find any comfortable reclining position, interrupts her sleep, kicks, punches, the whole nine yards. We’re five weeks out. That’s when she’ll get a new start, better use of time (she’ll be off work) and a better use of her body. She goes from being a domicile to being a food factory, a step up.

If we had the ability to make more than resolutions, to make outcomes, it would be for a safe birth. I think we’re both getting a little disquieted about delivery. Marin’s hoping for a VBAC, vaginal birth after caesarean. We’re both longing for things to go well, our emotional lives are starting to revolve around it. Though it’s hard to make the connection between the daily reality of Matteo and this new, silent, lifelong partnership sailing toward us, weather permitting, just over the near horizon.