The Sound, Fury and Reward of Childbirth

Getting pregnant might be a chancy, pleasurable or even a desirable pursuit but childbirth and the resultant task of parenthood is anything but a picnic in the park.

By Stanley Collymore

 

The searing pain, agonizingly wracking every

sinew of your bodily frame; the unashamed

hollering and even the crude obscenities

angrilydirected at him, your partner or

spouse, for putting you in this most

excruciating of situations, as you

solemnly swear a pledge to

yourself never under any

circumstance to ever

let it happen again. Then that concluding

screaming push which encouragingly

but rather business-like you’re

told by the midwife is a must

and cantankerously you

reluctantly accede to;

anything as far as you’re

concerned to finally

get it over with.

 

Then as your body vigorously contorts with

yet more pain and the physical and psychological

strain of your shattering ordeal looks quite set

to drive you thoroughly insane, your shouted

outbursts are suddenly joined by an

entirely different refrain. That of a crying

baby, which in the interim has slipped

unseen by you from within your heaving

body, defiantly making known to the

strange world it has now found

itself in its eventual arrival.

 

It’s finally over thank God your fevered brain in silent

tumult exclaims: this age-long but personal ritual of

procreation characterized first by the consummate

satisfaction of sexual pleasure to predictably

end in the birth pangs of being a mother.

And as you cradle in your receptive

arms amidst your shamefaced

apologies for your conduct and the genuine

congratulations of those few who were present

and witnessed it all, your newborn child and first born

you marvel at the miraculous phenomenon of birth and

motherhood: the pleasure, pain and everything else

in between that accompanied them and of which

you’re now an inescapable part, knowing full

well in your heart that transformatively both

in stature and name you’ll never be the

same; and what’s more will in all

probability do it all over again.

 

© Stanley V. Collymore

23 April 2013.