Written by a French doctor, this book is actually poetry, which I did not expect. However, as the birth story is told, new ideas are presented that I will definitely remember. I hope to experience an easy unmedicated birth with this baby as I did with my two boys. From my experiences with the boys, I understand how the birth experience impacts the mother - this book gives insight into what it is like for a baby to leave the womb.
Quotes I liked:
"To be born is to suffer.
Birth is pain...
The nightmare of being born is not so
much the pain as the fear.
For the baby, the world is a terrifying place.
It is the vastness, the enormity or the whole
experience of being born which so terrifies this little traveler.
Blindly, madly, we assume that the newborn baby feels nothing.
In fact, he feels...everything.
Everything, totally, completely utterly,
and with a sensitivity we can't even begin to
imagine.
Birth is a tempest, a tidal wave of sensations
and he doesn't know what to make of them.
Sensations are felt more acutely, more strongly by the child,
because they are all new, and because his skin is
so fresh, so tender,
while our blunted deadened senses have become indifferent.
The result of age, or maybe of habit." (p21)
I like this quote because if you think about personal rebirths as you go through life, they are painful...but with the birth comes a fresh start that is exhilarating. Rebirths can be rebuilding after a relationship ends, after a loved one passes on, or any other life transition...it can even be as simple as letting an old view go and replacing it with the new you...no matter what caused the rebirth to occur, there is pain involved.
In short, everything begins in paradox.
The child was in prison,
and as soon as he's free,
he yells!
This, they say, often happens to prisoners.
We open the cell doors,
and the freedom makes the prisoners disoriented,
goes to their heads!
In fact, they begin to behave as if they missed
their cells, their jail, and would prefer to be locked up
again!
And unconsciously they do everything they
can to find themselves once more safely behind bars!
In the same way, seeing the newborn baby panic-stricken
by his freedom, you feel like saying:
"Why are you crying?
You are absolutely miserable when you should be
rejoicing!
Try and understand what's happened,
so you can enjoy your new freedom!
See how you can stretch yourself'
play and move around!
What are you crying about?"
At that point everything seems to be in a state of
complete confusion, almost impossible to repair.
And yet it is all very simple.
As we shall see.
To communicate we must speak to the child in a language
he can understand, one which doesn't rely on words
and yet may be understood by anyone.
Love.
Speak ... the language of love ... to a newborn!
Why, yes, of course!
How else do lovers communicate?
They don't say anything, they simply touch.
Because they are modest and shy, they shun the
light,
prefer darkness, night.
In obscurity, in silence, they
reach for each other, wrapping their arms around
each other, they re-create the old prison,
in which they feel safe, protected
from the world outside.
Their hands speak,
and it is their bodies that understand.
So this is the way to talk to the newborn:
in silence and darkness,
with gentle but loving hands,
that reassure and move slowly,
and in time with his breathing.
But let us go step by step,
sense by sense as it were.
*******
Fear.
How few of us are aware of how
much unconscious fear there is in our lives!
All this fear linked with the horror which is
birth.
One can only imagine what it would be like to be born
without this fear
or with this fear immediately extinguished like a fire
that's caught before it
gets a hold and becomes out of control.
Yes, if this fear could be extinguished before it can take
hold, how extraordinary life would be for one
so blessed.
The point of this book, of this whole story, is not just
to make birth something nice. It is far, far more
ambitious: it amounts to nothing less than a plan to give
birth to heroes, those extraordinary beings who seem free of
fear, and so can drink fully from the cup of life.
5
A plaguing question was why it seemed no one
was ever concerned about the child's plight, and even
ignored his anguish and despair.
Maybe there is something there that we ourselves do not
want to look at,
possibly because it might awaken something unpleasant
deep within ourselves that we'd rather not know about:
our own fear of death.
Strange, isn't it, that there seems to be such a deep
secret link between birth and death?
It is as if the fear of death, the dark shadow that casts
its gloom over our whole lives, is nothing but the
unconscious memory of... the fear we felt when
we were born.
So that ... but then it's nearly too good to be true ...
one born free of this fear would travel
through life as free as a bird.