Birthing Partners...

I finally met my doctor, and I chose my hospital. The hospital is right down the street, is small, has lovely birthing rooms, and the halls are decorated with antique baby clothes, which I love. That and at the maternity tour, I won the raffle for the lion baby shoes, which I wanted, and when it comes down to it, there isn't a whole lot more to base the decision on!!
The doctor has shaved his mustache from the photos I saw of him. Which is a good thing for me. He shook my hand warmly and took time to listen to me cry even when I did not have an appointment with him. He offered to write a letter to the Department of Homeland Security to tell them how much Tino's absence is stressing me out, and could they please hurry up the process and get him here before I give birth??
I don't have a lot of hope in the letter, exactly, because DHS says they only consider expediting applications for immigrant visas for life or death situations. And have forgotten that birth is life. Why do we say life or death if we only mean death? Why do people who are coming here to stay get bumped to the back of the line?

In the meantime, I continue to lay the foundations for the birth.
One of those is exactly that, having a strong foundation. Staying healthy and fit for the endurance challenge of a lifetime (shame I didn’t do that Kilimanjaro marathon. Some other time I am sure!) Doing exercises to improve muscle tone, kegels and squats, and attempting to connect ever more fully with my meditation, and thus, with my body’s sensations, without the needing to react to them, or run from them. Mediation in the past has enabled me to transfer the interpretation of an intense pain, the intense pain of sitting in one position for hours on end, into simply a strong sensation that is a positive thing, because it focuses my awareness, and signifies a release, and moving through, as I remind myself that nothing is permanent.

Another thing that I have visualized is WHO to be birthing WITH.
If I were to have it my way, who would I be with?
Who had the right to be there?
For me, close female mothers would be the optimal choice. This is a female thing. Powerfully so. When it comes to who will be able to assuage my fears, a woman who has been there seems to me to be the most likely answer. Reinforcing the female ring of support, rather than competition, makes sense to me.
Maybe it was influenced by being in Tanzania for so long, but there are certain female roles which I am thankful for. I am thankful to be a woman and to be able to give birth, and I want to experience that with other women who can do the same. This to me is powerful.

Thankfully, I have some amazing friends. I know of at least three women who would be willing to be on a plane and fly down to southern California to be there for me during my birth. The difficulty being that this is not necessarily something that can be planned. No matter how great some folks are at manifesting their vision “I will be laboring for 8 hours, get on plane now and you will make it!”
These women would be thoughtful and powerful and help me to own a birth plan, own my body, and ‘Stand and Deliver’ with dignity when the time came.
If they could make it on time.

Now there is also the option of Tino. If he were here…
I would have loved to have taken the hospital tour with him, he would have been so highly impressed with the hospital, (not to mention so proud to walk around with me in there as an expecting couple!) He loves the idea of supporting me, and always sends me notes about how he wishes he could be massaging me, holding my belly and holding my hand.
But that he is not exactly sure how he can be supporting me.
He can’t do any more than he is doing.
And if he were here to fulfill his wishes, he could not be a better support person, nor a better doula.
He is a sensitive guy, who wants to study nursing, and the more I thought about it, I could see him becoming a nurse mid-wife.
I was picturing him laboring with me through my birth. Would we be traveling from a distant village to a hospital? Would we be close? How would the doctors and nurses there perceive this man who is holding me, supporting me, and massaging me through labor?

To tell you the truth, I initially thought that all this male in lieu of female support is a little unnatural. That we are putting so much pressure on the male partner to understand something that he will never understand, while instead we could be bonding with the other mothers. Bonding with the partner came when we made the baby, are pregnant together planning for the baby, and ultimately, raising the child together. But the chance to bond with our female support team is during the birthing process itself.
However, when I think of male/female relations in Tanzania, not just within the birthing process, but within the marriage relationship and co-parenting, I reconsider what it might mean to have men be more involved in the birth of their children.
Sure, it is a concept that is far from its time there. However, when a man comes to realize that his presence is helpful, and even necessary, and he learns how to respect himself in the context of the family. To support the woman and to love her in order to help her, and to become excited about being a father and forming a family, this is the change that brought about father involvement in the birthing room in the 1970’s. This is a change that developed with the desire of a man to more fully participate in the family dynamics. This may be the sort of change that needs to develop in Tanzania.
Tino would be a great example of that.