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What is labour really like? |
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I have heard people compare labour to running a marathon. It’s a reasonable comparison, in many of the physical and psychological demands, but there are two outstanding differences. One is that the marathon runner can, at any time, choose to stop running. The labouring woman does not have this choice. This introduces an element of fear to labour that is simply not present in running or any other athletic challenge. In order to ‘succeed’ at labour, a woman must surrender to her body. She must trust those around her. She will, quite possibly, fear for her life at some moment. A runner’s success is in mastery of her body, in competition with those around her, and if she says ’I’m gonna die’, everyone knows that she is joking.
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The other difference is that running a marathon is a personal achievement, whereas labour is an inherently selfless act. Do I believe that a woman has the right to be proud of the way she labours? Absolutely! People who say that you don’t get a medal for natural childbirth have obviously never witnessed natural childbirth. In labour a woman is stronger, smarter, more beautiful and more woman than she has ever been before or will be again. But she does this not as a personal test. A woman puts her life and her body at risk for the sake of her child’s life and body. She becomes a mother when she experiences her most amazing self and, in the same moment, experiences a complete and willing eclipse of that self in favour of her child’s birth. It is the birth that will be celebrated annually. It is the baby who receives gifts and congratulations. And that is okay with the woman, because it was a selfless act. I recently saw a man with a tattoo on his calf muscle: a drawing of a running man with the time “3:37” written below. Have you ever seen a woman with a tattoo of a dilating cervix and the words “18 hours”? I doubt you ever will. And that is okay too. |
The Marathon Analogy |
