Birth - What is the Answer?

Being a part of so many different mother’s birth groups from VBAC support to natural birth in hospitals to doula and midwife groups etc. all I can say is this….we have a very complicated and complex field within which mothers and babies give birth here and now as we are on the cusp of 2017.

We have a mine field of conflicting and concerned views that weave in, around and through our psyche as mothers. It is an art these days to quiet the mind and seek for answers on the inside and balance those with information on the outside.

It doesn’t matter which way we look at the pregnancy and/or birth questions asked or the answers posed, whether with good intentions, heartless comments, confusion or delight, there are so many scenarios at play at any one time. I see the same view that I have always seen and that is…our life’s journey is a vivid kaleidoscope of color, shades and rhythm that at times seems to have no rhyme or reason and at other times all things in view make sense.

The information and commentary probes ever deep like the ocean – the ocean of our minds and hearts swirl in a mass of never ending scenarios.

Is there an answer to it all?

Does there need to be an answer?

birth answer - rumi quote

Surely, the point of this rite of passage journey is that it is a path of a thousand steps and then more…there is mystery, knowing, facts, choice, differing views and pathways…a 360 degree view of birth is what’s required…opening my arms out, breathing in the essence of the mystery and the facts…the love and the science…opening my chest and asking for guidance.

For me the same question poses in my mind over and over.

What is the meaning of life?

The best answer that I have ever received is…

The meaning that you give to life.

Perhaps if I unravel all the birth dialogue and pose the same question

What does birth mean? To me as the mother who carries and births my baby?

Could it also be the meaning I give to my birth experience?

The array of emotions excavated from my inner world of my own birth into mothering journey that I have to face time and time again that leads me to the edge of myself. At the end of the day I try to truly understand and be informed by what I have lived.

I have always responded to birth as a mother with my children as potent self inquiry.

And I acknowledge my babies have also gone on a a journey both as a part of me and as separate from me. They are directly affected by my emotional and physical expression of the journey as well as their own.

What is the answer to this saturation of information that we have every which way we look?