I love being pregnant. It is the most strange, beautiful, crazy, sexy and empowering time of my life. I have one other babe who is nearly two and felt the exact same way during his pregnancy. It is definitely a "I am woman, hear me roar" time of life. I feel like a lioness.
Although I am barely showing at 19 weeks (My brain says "yikes", but my heart knows all is well), I have definitely entered the bliss of feeling my babe dance in my womb. From the way s/he moves and grooves down there, I have the feeling that this child is going to be a fluid, calming person. With my first pregnancy, the little guy was powerful and enthusiastic...exactly how he is at 22 months of earth walking life! When the babe in my womb moves now, it is soft and flowery and calms every inch of my soul.
As all pregnant women know, as we grow larger in accommodation to the love in our belly, people...all people including teen-age boys, stop to look and to smile. It always makes me wonder what they are thinking. If it is an old man, is he remembering his lovely wife of 60 years pregnant with their first child? If it is a middle-aged woman, is her smile to cover up the pain of not being able to conceive herself? Or is she looking with awe, remembering her own pregnancy and honoring herself for the hard work done in raising a child? If it is a teen-age boy, is it due to the fact that pregnancy means sex??!! Whatever the thoughts, pregnancy, birth and babies bring out something in us that is so raw and so real. A primal achievement, created from a primal act and brought fourth in the most primal of all acts....birth!
In natural child birth, the lioness, or the mama bear, or the money (choose your beast!) comes through our soul, down through our uterus, through our mouths and eyes and heart and especially through our vagina! It is cathartic and life changing...and it should be. It teaches us how to be mothers, how to protect our babes, how to surrender to motherhood and the whims of life with serious responsibility! Do not get me wrong, mothers that choose for pain medication are of course still going to be wonderful mothers and protectress of their young, but I would argue that by not going through the honor of true, unadulterated labor, women are robbing themselves of the natural empowerment and beauty that comes with the normal hormonal output, the normal stretching of vaginal muscles, the normal rushes that some people call "contractions", the normal discomforts and some people call "pain"....these all are so important in teaching the mothers physical body, emotional heart and spiritual soul, that she can do anything!
