Mother’s Day Mud Pots

I spent 13 years riding the infertility merry-go-round. I can spin tales all day about the crazy up and down cycles. And after adopting our three daughters, I can tell motherhood stories with the best. But what I can’t talk about, is the actual pregnancy and birth process. My experience is limited to interactions with pregnant women and a terrifying black and white health-class film half a century ago, where the screams of the woman giving birth still haunt my dreams.

Recently, my daughters have married and are having babies of their own. Hitchhiking on their journey, I immersed myself in the online community of tracking the life growing inside, a virtually inexhaustible supply of birth stories and the aggressive marketing of everything for baby.

Covid-19 protocols scuttled the first invitation to witness a birth, but actually worked in our favor for the second. Two and only two people could be in the room. My son-in-law and I settled in, both equally inexperienced.

It was a long and brutal labor and delivery. For 30 hours, I shared in the pacing, the monitoring and the contractions until exhaustion nearly overcame my daughter. From where I sit, “labor-pains” is grossly under-named. It was a Herculean effort to bring another life into the world. At times there were almost a dozen women in the room from a top-doc specialist for a possible complication, to the midwives, nurses and techs. As the baby’s head (finally) crowned and then eyes, nose and mouth emerged, it was nothing short of spiritual. We were swept along in a tradition as old as humanity itself, where women gather to support and ease a new life into the world with a welcoming cheer, to be answered by an even more welcoming long and hearty cry. A truly miraculous event, shared by about 385,000 other women in the world.

And therein is the challenge. 385,000 women gave birth the day before and 385,000 will give birth tomorrow. While it isn’t universal, it could be categorized as common. And as humans, we don’t generally care for common. We seem hard-wired to continually strive for something better. Deciding if something is better, requires a comparison. And while a comparison is helpful to highlight Better, Better quickly slides into Best and Best hardens into Only. What starts as helpful advice becomes all-caps edicts and insults followed by too many exclamation points. It bubbles under the surface like a hot, sulfurous mud-pot, spitting up scalding judgements and opinions without warning. It burns. It’s hard to scrape off. It stinks. And it isn’t necessary.

About the only thing truly in common between birth experiences is contractions and a baby. Beyond that, physical, mental and emotional factors create a unique experience for each woman, as is each baby born.

And so, in honor of Mother’s Day, I propose we collectively walk away from the mud pots. Let’s take a break from comparing and defending our choices in the way birth is given, Pinterest nursery décor or baby equipment. And while we’re ditching comparisons, let’s also jettison guilt over not being a better mother. It is the most under-appreciated, difficult, critical job in the world. It is a front row seat to every first in the life of a new human being. It is a chance to be THE Most Valuable Person, literally sustaining life from day to day. It is filled with both joy and angst. It is exhausting and, at times, a slog. It is deeply satisfying and often touches the sacred. And every woman who has summoned the courage to bring a child into the world and every woman that cares for them, however imperfectly – deserves a long and hearty cheer.