Great thread Rory - I feel sick tonight so I can't give this my best.
However, I gave birth to my Motherhood when I birthed my first baby and my birth did set me up for my experience with her which was abysmal in many respects!
However, the strength and fortitude that I found in myself to birth her also set me up for what i needed to be her mother. I reflect on her birth and know that I really drew on my resources to birth her and I needed to do that to mother her.
With DS - well his birth showed me what my body could do in Peace surrounded by Love and a controlled environment of silence and darkness. He taught me to gather my instincts and listen to them - they will never fail me - that's what birthing him taught me.
DD6 taught me that my body Knows" what to do and that there is no by the book labour. Parenting her wasnt by the book either. She taught me that babies make their own rules!
DD5 taught me that I alone birthed - not my support but me. That me listening to my body and joining with the flow of my body, listening to the Wise Women that surround all birth would help me through. And they did. She taught me that I could trust myself, my decisions and my feelings. Thankyou Eva...
My angel babies my DD1 angel taught me that I could survive the death of my precious child. That the sun would still shine and the people in the street sipping coffee had no clues. No idea and that the orld would still go on... So I could go on - through torturous pain I could go on...
DS angel - He taught me that even in death I could feel joy - I cried through his labour, I laughed, I pushed and I felt triumph at the birth - for a moment. He taught me even in death there is joy.
DD angel - she gave me the strength to continue. She whispered to me that there would be a baby to hold warm in my arms. I parented differently from then on. I had a Faith that sometimes was shaken but it was part of me...
Imogen - when she was born I felt like God or the Goddess had spoken - had personally delivered her. I felt this incredible surge of strength for her angel siblings were in the room that day with the Wise Women of birth. I have no doubt. I could almost see tjem - but definitely I could feel them. Her birth confirmed that miracles happen. They happen and they are real. She taught me about thankfulness, gratitude and Grace. I drank in every second of her life with gratitude - as I never knew if she would stay - at least not for a while. That drinking in of her hasn't finished or changed. I hang on her every action, milestone and mannerisim. For in having her I lost so much - but gained her amazing Being.
I believe with each child we birth we change. There is a lesson, a quality that we are given. For me each birth formed my parenting experience.
I have had heaps of experience with making mothers, fathers, siblings, families through adoption and i think those bonds can be just as strong as genetic or gestational ones. Mothers can be strong, competent, capable mothers who trust themselves and know their inner strength without having ever given birth. However, i have also been witness to a birth (as a support person), and feel that i share a really special bond with the mother and child that was born.
Yes, DD's birth made me the mother i am, or at least the mother i was thosefirst few months. Those first few months made me the mother i was the next few months, and THOSE few months made me the mother i was the following year. And so on.
It was an incredibly transforming time for me, her birth, and there have been many subtle transformations since, as i travel the road of motherhood. I think the main thing her birth made me is flexible. It gave me the initial flexibility that i couldn't have made it through the first 3 weeks without. It made me dig deeper than i ever had before, but i know i've dug deeper since (Leasha - your "night after night" comment made me think of this!) Birth is only a day (ok, for the lucky) but you have to go on caring and loving and responding FOREVER. DD's birth made me dig deep enough and rewarded me enough that i could get through the first few weeks. I have been "giving birth" to myself as a mother at regular intervals ever since.
I'll let you know when I give birth and become a mother!
I think if I had have given birth to DS, I would probably be a worse mother at first. I spent so long looking after DS on autopilot feeling nothing, just sticking to the parenting "ideal" I'd set up that I know I'd not have stuck to it otherwise - just looking at my friends drop their ideals and knowing that was OK because they were the Mama convinced me of that! And now those ideals are in part second nature.
I'd no way have been calm and patient after two hours sleep in about five days - I only was because I was expecting DS's mother to turn up soon and take him back. I'd not cuddle him as he screamed because "well, he's just screaming anyway". I'd not have learnt his favourite songs, or been excited to buy him his first Wiggles DVD after hearing about them here (I know, more fool me LOL), or calmly made him toast when he refused to eat the meal I spent two hours making that he won't even try. He wouldn't be able to name composers when I play songs on the piano - nor would he be able to play along. He wouldn't be anywhere near as emotionally aware nor would we spend hours just looking at each other and laughing. He'd just be my child and there tomorrow: I've gotten over the thought that his mum's going to arrive and take him off with her (I'd fight her if she did now - especially now he's sleeping at night!) but I still love watching Liebs grow, change, learn... and I love playing with him.
But I now do naughty things, especially when DH is away for the week, because his parents aren't going to find out! We can stay up after bathtime watching a Disney film snuggled on the sofa and not get told off! I'd not do that with my own child, I've always said. Well, not my own toddler. Maybe my own slightly older child on a weekend. But not just so I could maybe get a lie-in the next day. I'd also not consider it important to stand on a cold railway platform for hours with my own child, for Liebling it's his favourite outing so it's great to tell his Dad that we've done that today.
I think I'd be a lot worse mother than I am carer. So I'm kinda glad, for Liebs' sake, that I never gave birth!
eta - I forgot the best thing about not being Liebling's mother... absolutely no guilt when I take him to nursery and go to work!
There are so many variables in this equation. I came out of ds's birth feeling shattered, broken, a shadow of the person I had been. I told my husband I felt like I needed trauma counselling, like I'd been in a horrific car accident- and that was before I'd ever heard the phrase 'birth trauma'. Of course it effected the way I parented him, especially in the early weeks. I was completley disconnected from this screaming, wriggling little bundle. His crying was a stab at my inadequacy, the desicions I made where steeped in guilt.
But, I had a bad case of PND, which effected my parenting more than the birth experience did. And that's where the variables start to add up- was the PND a result of the birth, or would it have happened anyway? If Id had a good birth, would I still have felt that disconnection, or was that partly a result of my whole world turning upside down, the fact that I knew nothing about babies?
I know it's early days yet but dd's birth was so different. It left me feeling confident, empowered, and intuitively connected to this tiny person who I bought into the world. It made me feel whole- completed, not depleted. And so far, the way I parent both kids have been effected by that- it made me more confident, more aware of their needs and my own.
But again, the variables. How much of this is beacuse I empowered myself, how much is luck? Is it just because I've so far avoided the PND? Is it happening this way because this time I have a little girl, or beacuse she's a better sleeper than ds was? Is she better sleeper because I know what I'm doing this time?
Most experiences that colour how we see ourselves and our world are diluted over time, and I imagine that birth is no different. I can't see ds's birth still being a cornerstone of my parenting in five or ten years time, but I'll keep dd's with me forever. Still, both of them are only a fraction of the total number of things that will-and have already- shape how I relate to my children, and how they relate to the world.
I remember in the postnatal classes I took for ds's birth, the mw running them pointed out that however scared we were of labour and birth, that wasn't the hard part- it was the next 18 years that would really be difficult.
It is known that women who have had a traumatic or disappointing birthing experience have a higher risk (that is not to say that it happens to every woman) of bonding and parenting their new born.
I definitely fell into that category with DD14. Like Lady Zaidie experienced I went through the motions of caring for her. I fed her 24/7 and she cried probably 20 out of 24 hours. Some of it was due I think to sensory issues but I believe strongly that it was also to do with her birth.
Like LorieRae I felt traumatised after her birth. My body was torn and sore and I had had to fight off obstetric involvement and was being literally forced to agree to a c/section.
After a few months I was able to harness the strength and fortitude I clearly had during her birth and I could look at it differently.
Kate07: Of course adoptive parents can make wonderful parents. It really cannot be compared here and it'snot really what this is about. Physiologically, spiritually and emotionally when we give birth our bodies have a chemical response. If we have been unsupported emotionally or physically - if we had a traumatic experience this has some affect on how we Mother. That is a given.
That doesn't mean that if you don't physically birth a baby that you can't or won't be an amazing mother - just that the process is different.
When we give birth we give birth to or Mama Bear - she is born aat the same time - I am sure that adoptive Mamas have that also but it's a different journey.
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but dd's birth was so different. It left me feeling confident, empowered, and intuitively connected to this tiny person who I bought into the world. It made me feel whole- completed, not depleted. And so far, the way I parent both kids have been effected by that- it made me more confident, more aware of their needs and my own.
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