I am bound by my love for my children and even love for my husband. He can use that chain of iron, links forged in the fire of duty, love, obligation, expectation and commitment. He can pull that chain when he tells me desperately, “I need…!” and like a dog on a leash, I may resist and pull, but eventually I will give in and go in his direction. I’ve been trained by society since birth. We had a disagreement and, tonight, I feel more like a socially constructed woman than I’ve ever felt. And it is social construction that binds me to his whim. “I submit!” And I don’t know who I am anymore.
Yet, yesterday, I witnessed firsthand the raw, awesome, sublime power of a physically constructed woman. I saw her body transform before my very eyes. I saw her breath and her eyes and her jaw set strong against wave after wave of pure bodily force as she brought a human being into this world. She was the breath of life moving through the dust of the earth. Every breath is what mattered. Every breath took her through each mind-body expanding contraction. Our brains are always surprised at this – at what the dust of the earth can do to our breath in labor. But, by breathing through it, these cells, these organs, and the miraculous human life inside her were all subdued. They submitted to her and worked with her. For all of her – her breath, her mind, her will, her body, and the new life coming forth – all had the same purpose, all were one as the truest physical embodiment of a labor of love.
She stood on the precipice of death and life. She stared at death as she said, “Yes,” when the doctor said they wanted to plunge a knife into her body to extract her child. She stared at death as she pushed out her child and thought that maybe the monitors had something significant to say, that maybe her child was dead. She breathed and became the essence of life as she got on top of each contraction, each mind-altering surge of pain as she said, “I am,” to the forces that would tear her body apart or smother her baby.
The doctor said, “C-section. Stop pushing.” And she felt her body surge in the way it does, telling us the baby also whispers, “I am,” and we agree. She agreed. She pushed with all her might. And with the sudden release of pressure, the emptying out of the head, the shoulders, the body into the world, she had to wonder with this physical relief came dread…for a moment she had a doubt…was all this for naught? And the baby screamed a loud, healthy cry that said to the world, “I AM!” She saw her partner’s face and she knew all was well. The baby was alive. Her body was intact. Her mind and heart were forever changed. But, all was well.
She very well may be a socially constructed woman, like me, in some ways. But, this experience has changed her forever. She will always know somewhere deep down inside who she is and what she is capable of overcoming. She will always know that the “I need’s” of her loved ones are so urgently felt, so desperately begged for, and she will submit. She will say with full agency, “OK, my dear. Yes.” But, she will also know, with a sense of God’s humor and love, that secret truth: that most of the “I need’s” of this world are shallow, but some go deep. Some bring us to the precipice of life and death. Some needs pull out of the depth of our breath, “I am.”
