many thanks to Alison and Mairead for these miraculous posts.
My mind is buzzing with their welter of suggestion: Mandelstam's airplane
constructing itself in mid air, Aristotle's mimesis as mimicry rather than
image, not breaking mother's back, the river of blood, tradition and the
individual, the idea of finding out what one thinks. I haven't felt so many
chords striking since I found out that my grandmother used to play the
banjo.
It think it would be a great loss to the list if this went backchannel,
though of course the decision is yours and that's that.
Louise and I were talking about our daughters births. Margaret in a
hospital, I was sent home, we being told emphatically that she was not in
labour. Louise was offered a sleeping pill, which luckily she refused as
Margaret was nearly born in the toilet she came so quick. Though not quick
enough for the consultant who stood clanking his forceps while the midwives
whispered to Louise to PUSH PUSH so the baby would be born before he got
his hands on it.
Our three subsequent babies were born at home. Louise was talking about
this sense of a power, of being a channel for a power like a hurricane, of
something very big. At home she was able to walk about and take whatever
position she likes. In late pregnancy the coccyx is flexible, and if your
not made lie down it can move a centimetre and a half, which makes a lot
of difference. Also gravity can lend a hand. Our daughters births at home
have been wonderful. The body, all its plumbing, its wisdom, and this
extraordinary ordinary power too. R.D. Laing said of what Louise calls the
"flipped cockroach" position that a man wouldn't have a shite in that
position, never mind a baby. Our most recent baby, Beatrice's birth was in
the tiny ensuite upstairs, just the two of us waiting for her to come (and
for the midwife who was motoring like mad from the other side of the
county). One breath she was out to the shoulder, next breath there she was.
I don't think I've ever felt happiness like that. So quiet, hot and
intimate. And the sense of individuality melting, spilling across time.
I took notes of a talk Sheila Kitzinger gave on the theme of the rise of
the male obstetrician. Would it be too much at right angles to the current
discussions to post it? Probably.
best
Randolph Healy
Visit the Sound Eye website at:
http://indigo.ie/~tjac/sound_eye_hme.htm
or find more Irish writing at:
http://www.nd.edu/~ndr/issues/ndr7/contents.html
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