birth stuff (boys, go read maxim or something)

uhm. some of my readers know that before i wanted to be anything, i wanted to be a surgeon (as a kid), then in early adolescence, an OB-GYN. but by mid-late high school i was too scared of medical school science classes and had fallen in love with stories of rural midwives in latin america and wanted to just be a nurse-midwife. (i had idealistic visions of learning midwifery once in an MS program, and then again in the developing world "field" ... [and look what i'm doing with my life now. SIGH. the story of how i ended up majoring in english is a boring one, evidencing only my own laziness.]

anyhoodle, i wanted to do these jobs because i was so obsessively fascinated by pregnancy, childbirth, babies, and the women behind all of this magical madness. i loved women. i still do love women, duh. even if it ends up i can't have my own children (for whatever fucking reason), i still might someday come back to this alternate career as a midwife/doula. (you know how on seinfeld, george always wanted to be an architect, so he kind of almost ... thinks he's an architect ... but mostly he just likes saying "i always wanted to be an architect, you know." it's like that with me and midwifery, seriously pathetic as it sounds).

where am i going with this again??

oh yeah: slate just did a review of ricki lake's documentary "the business of being born," which slate calls her "valentine to the home-birth movement," lol. i think it's a good review (and i haven't even seen the film, so my opinion really matters here, i know) mainly because while it acknowledges lake has some good points to make about home deliveries, the review points out that the filmmakers' agenda is to suggest home-birth is A GOOD IDEA FOR EVERY MOTHER. which is crazy-preachy. i'm crazy-preachy myself too much of the time, so i immediately detect it in others. (like my other worst qualities, i detest them in others because i really hate them in myself).

but i wonder: would i attempt a home-birth, ever? i have no idea. i guess it all depends on a million other factors. (such as: is there a hospital in close driving-distance? has it been a healthy pregnancy? is babykins positioned correctly at the right time? is my midwife a wizened sage or a 15-year-old neighbor girl? etc. the list goes on).

well, it's fun to think about as i sit here drinking very strong coffee, smoking, blogging ... birth is often on my mind, ridiculous as it seems ...

SUPER CHEESY ALERT: yes, in a moment of weakness a few years ago i (gulp!) read five people you meet in heaven by mitch albom. [again, i'm not proud of this, but i had heard good things ...] everyone, the main character finds out, has their own kind of heaven. heaven is different for everyone, based on the life they lived (more or less). well anyway, one thing stuck with me (was the part that made me cry in the book): the character that was the old man's wife, having died years before he did, has a very sweet kind of personal heaven: she goes from one wedding to the next all over the world, all the time. to her, this is the most beautiful moment in a lifetime -- when a couple is happiest and most optimistic and full of love and promise and everything else. that's HER heaven, seeing all these deliriously happy people start the adventures of their lives together.

of course, it was more poetic than i could put here. but even reading that then, i felt like if i had my own heaven, it would be seeing babies be born, all the time. it's hard to see a baby be born and not have tears spring from your eyes. hard not to be awed, cowed by the power and energy of the universe and sweat and blood (literally) of the mother. just thinking about it, visualizing it, i get goosebumps.

i am not a religious person. i never will be. but i believe in the SOMETHING. the power that runs through all living things. and every birth, to me, is evidence of something holy, miraculous, sublime -- maybe it's just the complete physical manifestation of LOVE.