The Sound, Fury and Reward of Childbirth
By Stanley Collymore
The searing pain, agonizingly wracking every
sinew of your bodily frame; the unashamed
hollering and even the crude obscenities
angrilydirected at him, your partner or
spouse, for putting you in this most
excruciating of situations, as you
solemnly swear a pledge to
yourself never under any
circumstance to ever
let it happen again. Then that concluding
screaming push which encouragingly
but rather business-like you’re
told by the midwife is a must
and cantankerously you
reluctantly accede to;
anything as far as you’re
concerned to finally
get it over with.
Then as your body vigorously contorts with
yet more pain and the physical and psychological
strain of your shattering ordeal looks quite set
to drive you thoroughly insane, your shouted
outbursts are suddenly joined by an
entirely different refrain. That of a crying
baby, which in the interim has slipped
unseen by you from within your heaving
body, defiantly making known to the
strange world it has now found
itself in its eventual arrival.
It’s finally over thank God your fevered brain in silent
tumult exclaims: this age-long but personal ritual of
procreation characterized first by the consummate
satisfaction of sexual pleasure to predictably
end in the birth pangs of being a mother.
And as you cradle in your receptive
arms amidst your shamefaced
apologies for your conduct and the genuine
congratulations of those few who were present
and witnessed it all, your newborn child and first born
you marvel at the miraculous phenomenon of birth and
motherhood: the pleasure, pain and everything else
in between that accompanied them and of which
you’re now an inescapable part, knowing full
well in your heart that transformatively both
in stature and name you’ll never be the
same; and what’s more will in all
probability do it all over again.
© Stanley V. Collymore
23 April 2013.
(2013)
Getting pregnant might be a chancy, pleasurable or even a desirable pursuit but childbirth and the resultant task of parenthood is anything but a picnic in the park.
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