The Labor and Birthing of Middle Age
Video by Y.L. Wolfe
I.
Squat. Get low down to the earth. Hover there. Ground yourself.
You will have to. There’s no other choice. It is too hard to remain standing. The pain can be overwhelming.
I have never done this before, as so many other women have. It’s not the same, of course.
And yet I know exactly what is happening.
There is an opening inside me, stretching wider with each day. Stretching me beyond the shape of the body I had before. The soul I had before.
This is giving birth.
II.
My daughter’s name is ___. But she never came into being.
My other daughter, my eldest…her name is Sara. She did not make it to birth. Though we are both grateful. She deserved more than what I had to give her at the time.
I was so certain ____ would come next, when the time was right.
But she never came.
Maybe the time was never right.
All these years later, there is no more time. It has all run out.
III.
There are rhythms that have marked this time. Every second of my life, and the years in between when I could make one.
The time is measured by blood. Heartbeats and menstrual cycles.
Both are changing now.
I can’t predict them. I can’t measure time with them in the same way.
I expected my cycles to slow and then stop. No one warned me that things might go differently.
For a long time, I bled more. One period after another after another, all in the span of what used to be one normal cycle.
And now it’s my heart. Beating faster, drumming away, rushing in waves.
It scares me.
It occurs to me that this birthing process is even more profound than I ever could have imagined. It is changing my rhythms. Rewiring my clocks.
Even my heartbeat will be different after this.
IV.
I was thirty. Holding him in my arms. Smiling at him. Stroking his bald head.
She turned to me and said, “You’re so good with him. You’ll be such a good mother someday.”
It was the first time I’d felt normal since I’d graduated from high school. The first time I felt I had done something right. The first time I felt like I might be able to be a real woman.
V.
I wove a tapestry of dreams, just like Penelope, while she stalled for time, waiting for Odysseus to return. And like her, I unraveled it with every egg that passed through me.
I performed this ritual at least 450 times. My imagination weaving her as close into being as it could, and then unwinding every thread so I could start from scratch with a new egg.
She became so real to me, I even knew what her breath would smell like.
VI.
I don’t know how I knew it was over. I can’t remember what alerted me.
One day, I just knew.
VII.
I unpacked all the boxes of items I had been saving for her. The ones I had moved from house to house.
There were the toys that had comforted me as a child. My favorite dresses. Baby blankets that had kept me warm in my crib.
I thought I could find good homes for them. Children in my circle who might love these items. Wouldn’t it feel almost as satisfying to pass them on to nieces and nephews? Or the children of friends?
But no one wanted them. Mothers asked me, as if I was a little clueless, “Why would a child want an heirloom from someone who isn’t their parent?”
I suddenly felt so foolish.
VIII.
With every stretch, the portal opened more. And as the opening grew wider, more and more released. The books I had bought for her. The knitting patterns for the hats and blankets I wanted to make her. The movies and TV shows I had bookmarked to watch with her.
Everything released in an overwhelming surge.
I felt like I was walking through puddles on trembling legs.
And I knew it wasn’t over yet.
IX.
This season of a woman’s life is not like typical labor. There are no signs others would recognize. In fact, it is entirely invisible.
There is no one to bring me ice chips. No one to hold my hand. No one to tell me how far along I have come and how much further I have to go.
The only option is total surrender. A surrender more complete than any I have ever known. For you must trust in the process, even when no one can see that you’re in it.
It is a walk into the deepest, darkest woods, without a map or compass, knowing that getting lost is inevitable.
Will you die out here, all alone? Eventually, you come to realize that yes…you will.
X.
The world seems busy with babymaking. Some might find, one day, the desire for a world that reflects our own time. A time of a different kind of birthing.
Yet it only echos with the sounds of the mothers’ bellies growing rounder, the cries of their labor exertions, and the answering wail of new souls emerging into the world.
It is hard to hear over this ceaseless symphony. And we must. Don’t you understand? We must.
Our birthing process requires that we put our ears to the earth and listen to the thrum of the underworld. We have to be able to hear it so that our bodies can synch into this rhythm.
We will soon no longer have a body that keeps time for us. We must reach out to the unseen and let its rhythms overtake us.
XI.
I need space. I need so much space. Every time someone talks to me, I want to push at them. Please be quiet. Please get away from me.
It feels impossible, this transition, on its own. But more so when I must confront the part of myself that has died forever. The part of myself I most longed to be, who will never come into being.
I have to bury her, and I barely have the strength to pick up the shovel.
I am busy with this grief. Few know this exertion. Few can understand.
I find the presence of those who do not recognize this labor intolerable. Almost as if they are taking up all the space in this room.
And I need it, now. For once, I need it.
XII.
This is not a problem to be solved. Nothing needs to be fixed or remedied.
That’s the part that scares everyone so much. One can only surrender.
XIII.
There is still a long way to go. More contractions. More stretching and dilating.
Admittedly, I dread the pain. Sometimes, I collapse because I don’t have the energy to take one more step.
But I also feel the same anticipation I imagine other birthing experiences inspire. At the end of this pain will be something I cannot even imagine. A whole new life.
A whole new person.
I dreamed of my daughters, and likewise, I have visions of the woman being birthed in this moment. I can see her so clearly. Or rather, I sense her so clearly.
Just like my daughters, I don’t know what she looks like – but I can see who she is.
This birthing, I can tell, will create an alchemist. She can turn lead into gold. Refuse into flowers. Betrayal into selfhood.
Sometimes, meeting her feels far off. And then I feel the tug of the cord that connects me to her.
We are separated by nothing but time.
Photo by Y.L. Wolfe