Now onto the transformation in the medical domain.
We visit the doctor’s office on a regular basis, and the rhythm there becomes part of our ritual. Waiting room, weigh-in, blood pressure, urine sample, questions for doctor, sonogram…internal exam.
A transformation in the formal education domain occurs. Pregnancy is a time for many women and their partners to read as much as they can about birth and parenting, to see how it will be, how they want to do it, what is “best”. The transformation among your peers happens right in prenatal yoga classes, while you share stories with other pregnant women to prepare for birth. The Baby Shower is the ultimate ritual here in the US for most women. A time to get together and prepare the mother to be with everything she will need becomes a part of this transition.
Finally birth itself with its sheer intensity and overwhelming power has the ability to transform each woman who has a baby, every time she does so. This is perhaps the most important part, the moment when the baby comes out of the mother and into the world. This is the event that is the culmination of the pregnancy and mothers cannot underestimate the importance of the hours of labor and birth on their own psyche. Women report being most satisfied with their birth experience if they felt as if they had a choice in what was happening to them. When a woman feels like her choices were ignored or taken from her there can be serious repercussions for the rest of her life. Birth effects how a woman feels about herself for the rest of her life. Women can certainly remember their birth experiences 10, 15, 20, even 40 years later…and the joy and pain can be just as fresh as on that sacred day.
The work that Davis-Floyd uncovers and talks about in this fascinating book is most important to us as mothers for our own sake. So much throughout pregnancy is for the baby. Do something for yourself…have a great birth experience.
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