Blessed Be the Womb that Bore Thee...

Young Mother Nursing Her Child, Mary Cassatt

and the breasts that gave thee suck!

I inadvertently titled my last two posts with the same first word--blessed--so I thought I would go for three in a row.

Women have breasts and wombs!

Really!  It's in the Bible repeatedly.  Apparently God knew how confused mankind would become in these latter days and made sure to give us clarity on this concept.

So repeat after me:

Women have breasts and wombs!

Don't you feel better?  I do.  It's because the truth shall set you free.

If you don't have breasts and a womb, you're a MALE.

So easy!

I was reminded of the importance of this distinction again on the Solemnity of St. Joseph in the epistle from Ecclesiasticus:

The God of thy father shall be thy helper, and the Almighty shall bless thee with the blessings of Heaven above, with the blessings of the deep that lieth beneath, with the blessings of the breasts and of the womb.  (italics mine)

Clearly these things that set women apart are highly-valued by God.  I'm so glad to be a woman!  I'm especially glad to know that I am a woman and not to have the burden of trying to convince myself and others that I am something I am not, like a man or a boy or even a cat.  Some people are really doing such things.

In reality, it's earth shattering when you spend some time thinking about why God made women the way that He did--that He lavished our bodies with the means of blessing--and knowing that He has a particular order to His design for our lives.  Yes, God is all about order, not confusion, even in the most basic things like gender.

Thinking about that, I finally understood why this trend of photographing women with their arms crossed in front of their chests always bothers me.  They are denying the blessings of the breasts and the womb!  They are assuming a "tough guy" attitude and saying "no" to being nurturing.  I saw it most recently on a billboard advertising the services of a woman lawyer.  It's been popular also with teenage girls on sports teams but also graduation pictures, etc.

What really needs to go in those arms is a baby...

a nursing baby.  I thought I better clarify.  People have such a hard time with reality these days.

Birth Trauma: A Dad's Perspective

St. Joseph, protector of the Holy Family, pray for us!

I often think about St. Joseph's experiences trying to protect Mary and Baby Jesus, and how fathers today must empathize with him.   Not finding a room at the inn is the equivalent today of having to choose a less than ideal birth environment.  The flight into Egypt could be escaping today's hospitals to avoid vaccinations or other risky procedures.  I remember when a nurse tried to forcibly take Emma from me and give her a Hep B shot.

I have always guessed that for the husband, the wife's traumatic birth experience must strike right at the heart of his vocation because he can't protect her or his child from inept caregivers, be they midwives or obstetricians.   I was glad to finally read a first-hand account of one man's experience with his wife's multiple difficult pregnancies/births HERE.  He says,

"I was there to support Mrs. BWF, but I never realized I needed someone there to support me."

Poor thing!  My heart goes out to him.

In preparation for being a supportive mother-in-law, I am reading lots of home birth stories, focusing on the difficult ones like (Warning: graphic photos in following link) footling breech, to help me get accustomed to the possibilities and how they are handled by knowledgable midwives.

I may not be needed for anything during labor and delivery other than providing a good dinner, but I prefer to be prepared.

Fathers and Childbirth

Now, however, new research has appeared giving males an opt-out from the nonsense of being forced to attend antenatal classes and birth. According to Dr Jonathan Ives of the Centre for Biomedical Ethics at the University of Birmingham, men who are obliged to attend antenatal classes and be present for the birth of their children can actually become “deskilled” at parenting.

Dr Ives is working on a treatise named The Moral Habitus of Fatherhood, but let’s not hold that against him, because the rest of what he says makes eminent sense. He describes the dogma of “equal involvement” in childbirth as, “false, modern rhetoric”, and argues that men who feel a sense of duty to become actively involved in pregnancies are left disenchanted and self-doubting as they realise that they can offer little more than passive support to their partners. --Men are Better Off Building the Cot than Going to Antenatal Classes

"False, modern rhetoric?" My antenna went up when I read that because, thanks to Princess Grace of Monaco, I had already begun re-thinking my support of women expecting their husbands to attend their children's births. I read last week that she believed that men had no place in the delivery room. Until then I had assumed it was a good thing. My husband attended childbirth preparation classes with me and stayed with me through each delivery.

Would he rather not have been there? I don't know.

As I pondered Princess Grace's belief, I thought about the reasons I wanted my husband with me during birth. Primarily, I realized, it was because I felt so vulnerable, and I knew he would protect me and be my voice if needed. Despite the focus of prenatal classes, it was not because I needed him to comfort me or coach me.

Not only that, we had made a pact that if something was wrong, and our newborn had to be taken from me, he would go with him. This brought me immeasurable comfort, as I had a great fear that something would be done to the baby that I did not want or that our baby would accidentally get switched with another.

So I am not sure if fathers attending births goes hand-in-hand with the revolutionary spirit that laid waste to our culture beginning in the 1960s, or if it is a reasonable response to the drastic change from having our babies in the nurturing environment of the home to the cold, clinical, de-humanizing hospital maternity ward.

It is hard for me to fathom that "being there" actually can cause the father to become "de-skilled" at parenting as stated in the article. But the older I get, the more I understand how different men and women are. In my own limited experience with raising a boy and a girl, I have certainly seen it. Maybe the way they handled animal births here at home is really the way it is supposed to be. When our goats birthed, Emma would pull up a chair and station herself as close as she could to the receiving end of the expected kid. Nathaniel would run and hide around the corner of the barn and wait for Emma to give him the all-clear.


Artwork: Piero della Francesca’s Madonna del Parto (Madonna in Labor)