Joy in Birthing

Excerpt from Painless Childbirth: An Empowering Journey Through Pregnancy and Birth

This wonderful experience happened early in my career and really helped me open my heart to all women

My first communication with “O” was through email. The job sounded challenging from the beginning. The woman was hearing impaired, but she was able to read lips and talk. Her speech wasn’t very clear, but her smile was divine! The other challenge was that she was Jewish Orthodox and very observant. There were many rules that I was asked to respect. At that time I didn’t understand the reasons for these rules and only learned about them after the birth.

For example, I was requested not to touch or look her husband straight in the eyes. Later I learned that the relationship between a man and his wife is considered a holy one, and that some orthodox Jewish men voluntarily choose to preserve the sanctity of that relationship by only touching and looking at their own wife and not at other women. There is a whole range of ways to do this. Some orthodox men just try not to stare at other women. This couple happened to be more stringent.

Even more confusing to me was the fact that he couldn’t touch her, nor look at her naked, so I had to make sure her body was covered at all times while he was in the room. This seemed to me oppressive and cold. Later I understood that the relationship between a man and his wife “breathes”. It is cyclical, and alternates between periods of physical contact and periods of abstention. This helps the relationship to endure over time and also respects the woman’s need to have periods without a physical relationship with her husband. Since men are usually more oriented toward the physical and women more toward the spiritual, covering the body helps a man to not just see his wife as a physical being and helps him to tune in more to the spiritual realm. A time of abstention always begins when a woman’s womb opens or when she bleeds. Birth, therefore, is a time of abstention. It is a time for men to concentrate on the spiritual aspect of a new soul being born. It is a time for women to enter “the woman’s realm” with another woman experienced in birth, to strengthen the bonds of womanhood between women.

I didn’t know any of this at the time, though; it just all looked very different to me. They were specifically looking for a non-Jewish doula, which made me feel I was in the midst of some sort of discrimination, even though I couldn’t put my finger on it exactly. She only wanted me to be with her at the hospital and didn’t want to meet me beforehand. I had many feelings; my feminist, my equal opportunity, and my freedom of religion “voices” were having a big discussion in my head. My heart presided over the committee meeting in my brain, and I accepted the job. The birth was amazing.

Her husband first called me on Friday at 3:45 am, he told me she was contracting every five minutes and lamenting that it was painful. I usually get the woman on the phone to assess her state, but due to her hearing impairment I had to go by what he said.

I met them at the hospital at 4:20 am, she was smiling and only 3 1/2 to 4cm. dilated, 80% effaced and the baby was high. Her waters had not broken, but because she was overdue they asked her to stay. Her husband went to pray while we took to the stairs. Up and down we went, talking and getting to know each other. The best position for her to read my lips was on her right side, so I had to make sure throughout the birth that I stayed to her right. After four sets of stairs we returned to the room and I put her to bed, where she dozed off.

By 7 am a nurse checked her and said she was 6 to 7cm. dilated. and her midwife was called. O. did not look like she was in transition, nor in active labor, but I wondered because this was her third child. The midwife promptly came, checked her and declared her dilation was still only 4cm. and 90% effaced. The nurse had made a BIG mistake! The staff wanted to induce, but there is a passage in the Talmud which implies that inducing birth increases the chance of the woman dying during the birth, so orthodox rabbis discourage it if at all possible. The midwife suggested castor oil and that suggestion made her husband really happy. He had been very upset at the mistaken evaluation and now the possible need to induce added to his anxiety, but his rabbi had told him that Castor oil was acceptable according to the Talmud and seemed to be a good alternative.

I was concerned that the oil would cause her diarrhea on top of it all, so I suggested they go home and take a nap and wait another 24 hours before they did anything. They agreed and went home.

Saturday at 5 am I received another call from the doctor at the hospital. Although during life-threatening circumstances such as birth it is allowed to “break” Shabbat by telephoning, driving or using electricity, both this couple and their Jewish midwife wanted to try to keep the Shabbat as much as humanly possible and so the couple did not call me themselves. That is why they specifically wanted a non-Jewish doula in the first place. Because I am in no way obligated to keep Shabbat (and not so inclined!) I could help them with things that they were trying to refrain from doing, like turning on or off electricity, telephoning, dealing with heaters and the like. O. had just gotten to the hospital and according to the doctor was now 5cm dilated. “They want you to come in right away,” he added. I joined them and we progressed for a while as we waited for the midwife to walk to the hospital.
To help labor progress I decided to “spin” her. Spinning is an ancient art created by Mexican midwives. It is done by wrapping a rebozo (a sturdy long Mexican scarf) around the mother in a way that lifts and supports her back. With both hands I began a motion similar to sifting flower, jiggling her belly to help relax the involuntary muscles around the womb. It also lengthens the torso and gives the baby more room. The “spinning” was so helpful that her labor went from active to transition.

I loved the amazing respect the doctors, midwife and hospital staff gave us. They understood that I was the only one that could communicate with her and they simply let me run with it. By this time O. could read only my lips and wasn’t able to understand anyone else’s- she was in “the zone” and had opened the door for me alone to join her. O. was exhausted; she had a very long labor at home and hadn’t slept for two days. She requested an epidural at 6 am. She was 7cm. dilated, but could no longer take the pressure. At 7:20 her bag of water was ruptured by the midwife and by 7:30 she began to push.

I noticed that when she read my lips she would lose concentration and couldn’t push properly. That is when the Divine Spirit whispered in my ears a different way of communication with the laboring woman. I told her that I would squeeze her hand as long as she needed to push and release the hold when she needed to relax and breathe in. I also told her I would pat her fingers if we needed her to stop pushing and pant if the midwife needed to get the cord off the baby’s neck. We rode the waves of labor again, this time her eyes were closed, her concentration was intact, and the only contact with the outside world was my squeezing hand.
She pushed for another 45 minutes until the baby’s head came out. I patted her fingers and she began panting as the midwife removed the cord which was wrapped twice around the baby’s neck. Then back to pushing. At 8:28 a beautiful 8 lb., 38 oz. baby girl graced this world.

Throughout the birth her husband was praying with his back to us. It was magical, sacred, and “b’ezrat Hashem” (with the help of G-d), one of my best experiences to date!