Parenting Excerpts

She Births: A Modern Woman’s Guidebook For An Ancient Rite of Passage by Marcie Macari

Reprinted with permission from Infinity Publishing.

The importance of a positive outlook on pregnancy and Birth cannot be overrated. Too many expectant women, when asked how they feel, are quick to focus on the challenges or pregnancy and Birth. I often hear healthy, vibrant women reduce themselves to weak, and their spirited, victorious stories to tales of difficultly, simply by the way they describe their own experience. I’m not suggesting that pregnancy or childbirth are all joy and no difficulty, and I know that being pregnant can be one of the most challenging experiences for a woman particularly when morning sickness or fatigue is severe. But what we believe and communicate about our experience shapes so much more than our own thoughts.

I think if more women understood how far reaching their own perspective about Birth is and how influential their recounts are, more women would strive for a more balanced view. Our perspective on the changes we face and the challenges experienced during pregnancy and Birth can greatly affect the outcome of our own Birth, which can in turn color the telling of our stories, and this will influence the Births of those coming up behind us who listen to us tell those stories…

It is no secret that the path through pregnancy and childbirth is filled with physical, emotional and mental challenges. In nearly every book available, you will see clearly outlined every possible unpleasant aspect of bearing and birthing a baby…hemorrhoids, bloating, constipation, headaches, fatigue, sore back, mood swings and forgetfulness? NOTHANKS! Add to that the loss of a once decent figure and it doesn’t sound like something anyone should be forced to endure – let alone sign up for voluntarily!

With all the challenges facing a woman who chooses to bear children, why in the world would we still want to procreate? I believe it’s because underneath all the concern about physical difficulties, lies a deeper understanding of what Birth is. Women, whether or not they identify naturally with the Spiritual, understand instinctively that there is something amazing waiting for them at the end of this journey. While many would say this feeling is simply the joy of having their own little bundle of love, I feel there is more to this desire and feeling than the little babe at the end. There is something in a woman who has a desire to bear children that is calling her to commune with the Divine, welcoming her to surrender herself so she can fully participate in a miracle, and offering her the opportunity to grow in ways you cannot measure by the height of a fundus, or the month by month timeline provided by the medical community.

I feel it’s very dangerous for a woman to spend too much time focused on her physical changes without consciously embracing Spirit and its role in pregnancy and childbirth. When a woman doesn’t really grasp the part she plays in the miracle of Birth, it is very easy to get bogged down by the changes her body must go through. The physical challenges are a side-effect of the bigger phenomenon – the wonder – that we as women are fortunate to participate in. When the physical difficulties take a back seat to this realization, and pregnancy and Birth become a journey of discovery, these nuisances pale by comparison….

In Birth, women are given a rare gift. It is an opportunity to experience growth and an encounter with themselves and Spirit that is life transforming. It is rare to find any documented information about the ethereal aspects and effects of pregnancy and Birth. It concerns me that with the information readily available to expectant women…, we may know the details of our body’s processes well, but so often we lack any of the deeper understanding about Birth and its potential to transform.

If more women grasped the beauty of the experience and worked as hard to be open and receptive to Spirit’s guidance and lessons in pregnancy and through the Birth as they do to learn the physical processes, more women would feel their Birth experience was positive. Without this, however, the encounter is purely physical. It’s easy to be distracted be these physical, tangible aspects of Birth, since the ethereal is much more difficult to grasp and communicate. I want women to have words to speak this aspect of Birth, so that our collective view on Birth and birthing women will change.

Focusing on the spiritual aspect of Birth and accepting that while some physical changes may not be the most enjoyable part of our passage, women worldwide could begin to grasp the amazing opportunity for transformation Birth affords and their perspectives would be radically changed. This hopeful, positive perspective is a much better place to begin the Birth process.

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