Hannah H. Smith Brennan - Return to Trust

 

 

I lower myself, heavy and hot, into my favorite yellow armchair. As I sit, my very large, very pregnant stomach weighs heavy on my thighs. [shallow breathing] I am huge. [audience laughter] I haven't been able to see let alone reach my swollen, tingling feet for weeks. And it is a hot, humid, sweaty, sticky July in Virginia. I'm at home waiting to give birth to my first child. My midwife is soon to arrive with her senior student for what has become her daily visit, because I am three weeks past my due date. [audience laughter] Three weeks. [audience laughter] [audience applause] 

 

What are they going to say today? When I first became pregnant, my husband and I did some research and spoke to other mums. It was 2017, and we discovered that in the USA, medical intervention is common in hospital births, and one in three ends in caesarean section. That is major abdominal surgery. Some people said that it wasn't advisable to have a home birth at my ripe old age of 41. But I really wanted an undisturbed, unmedicated birth at home, and my husband was in full support. 

 

At around four months pregnant, we found our midwife. This woman had been delivering babies longer than I had been alive. It's no exaggeration to say that I loved and trusted her from our very first meeting. My husband and I began monthly prenatal sessions with her, and each one was over an hour. We focused not on charts or measurements, but on conversations about my life. Always giving me the lead, she would ask me questions that made me reflect. 

 

In one of our early prenatal sessions, with my characteristic desire to know and understand, I asked the questions that you ask when you've never had a baby before, how will I know when I'm in proper labor? When will you come? What will happen next? She sat on her stool in front of us swaying slightly, thoughtful and attentive, and said, “You are not going to do labor. Labor is going to do you. [audience laughter] For this birth to go the way that you want it to, you are going to have to get out of your head and trust your body's wisdom.” “Trust my body's wisdom? Trust the wisdom that doesn't come from my head? What does that mean? How do you do that?” 

 

As I reflected, more childhood memories began to return. As a child and a teen, kids had ruthlessly teased me. Teased me for being sensitive and overweight, treating me like something comic and unfeeling. Because I was overweight, men would shout mean things at me in the street. No one in the magazines or on TV looked like me. I received the clear message that I was neither valuable nor desirable. This indelible part of me that everyone could see, my body, I considered a failure, a liability. I was angry, and I was confused and I was really hurt. So, I decided to be smart instead. 

 

And long after my body began to change physically, those messages stayed with me. And being smart and having a plan and being in control became key to my identity and my feelings of success. And then, becoming pregnant, and my body is growing and changing in ways that I don't understand, it still felt pretty important to have a plan and be in control. But that was because I still believed my body to be a liability, not a source of wisdom. 

 

As months went by, my baby grew inside me. And with my midwife's gentle probing, I started to rediscover my body's wisdom. A true teacher, she made it clear in her method that she was the expert in midwifery, and she trusted and believed in me to be the expert in my body and in giving birth. I started to trust that if my body could make a brand-new human being, it probably knew how to get it out. [audience laughter] But here I am, in pain and discomfort in my yellow chair, far too pregnant. 

 

My midwife and her student arrive and sit close to me. She presses her hands gently but keenly on my ankles, checking the level of swelling. After careful observation, she says, “There is no indication that this baby is in distress, nor is there any indication that you are in distress. All the signs suggest that your body is moving towards birth, just very slowly. [audience laughter] We can go to the hospital or we can wait a little longer. It's your choice.” 

 

We sit in silence. Tears trickle down my cheeks. Her advice seemed so wise just a few weeks ago. And now, surrender to my body's wisdom, I'm hot, I'm tired, everything hurts and I'm not feeling too wise right now. I'm telling myself that my body knows how to give birth and I want to believe it. Am I fooling myself? Am I risking my baby's safety? I'm not supposed to be this far past my due date. Is something wrong and wait a little longer? This waiting and trusting is really hard, plus my family and friends are saying with more and more force, “You have got to go to the hospital.” I've turned my phone off. I'm too pregnant and too open to hear their fears and concerns now. Otherwise, I may just start believing them. 

 

Again, I notice her hands on my feet, this time for comfort and reassurance. She knows that going to the hospital will likely lead to the interventions I so want to avoid. Heck, if I was having a hospital birth, I would have been induced two weeks ago. She also knows that in over 40 years of practice, she has rarely seen a woman go this far. She looks at me with such love and says, “It's okay. You can trust yourself.” 

 

That night, under the full moon, I tell myself my body knows how to give birth. This baby knows how to be born. Please moon, help me. This baby has got to come out. The next morning, I go into labor. My husband, my constant support. My midwife's model of care is to stay out of my line of sight. I barely see them, but I know they are there, monitoring me and the baby. My body labors as it needs to. And when it's time for birth, they are there with me. 

 

Their quiet presence makes me feel completely supported, and that my body is completely in charge. And it's like my mum has always said, “Birth is the only pain for something right.” And after 15 hours labor at 43 and a half weeks pregnant, shortly before my 42nd birthday, in the special familiarity of our home, I give birth to our 10 pound 4 ounce, healthy, happy, beautiful son. [audience laughter] [audience cheers and applause] 

 

And I am different. I'm a different woman. My body is neither liability nor failure. My body is a source of great wisdom, and I trust it more and more every day. Thank you.