Jeanne writes:

<<  It's funny that  my friend should say she didn't want to be out of
control, when in being  a quiet, calm birthing woman she would actually be letting
herself be
 controlled by how she thought others wanted her to act during labor. >>

Jeanne,
Well said. So much of us is constantly out of our total control, but
professionwise perhaps some people do have great control. Frankly, and I hope I don't
offend anyone, I can't imagine anyone who was always in control even enjoying
making a baby, isn't orgasm a pretty out-of-control feeling? Then again, I
love being smacked around by ocean waves, flying down hills on my bike, riding
the Coney Island Cyclone, and singing passionately. I guess all those things
take some kind of aware balance of bodies and minds, the ability to let go and
gently take hold, grab on again. Like growing love, maybe...Walking, at its base
level, is very much automatic, we can control aspects of it, but much of it
is 'hard-wired.' This helps with efficiency. I remember learning, and still
love, the idea that walking is really "a series of losing your balance and
catching it again." Birthing is a series of contractions and rests, it's the balance
of it all, the shifting nature,  that seems to make it work best. A woman who
feels nothing during the birth of her baby is out of balance, sadly. She is
"fixed", both in position, and at a kind of distance from the power of her
personal event. Maybe some people need this distance to not feel afraid or
overwhelmed. I respect that. All I know is that I wonder if women who have epidurals,
and are distanced from their bodies while something amazing is happening,
feel what I felt during my second birth - a kind of surreal communion will all
women of all times who birth in awareness, whether joyous or scared, but so
present... what a gift!
Well, I have gone way over the top this time! :)
Judy LeVan Fram, Brooklyn, USA

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