A Birth Mosaic

Before I began my work as a doula, I had a narrow view of birth. Based on only my personal experience, I imagined birth as two lanes on a highway: the first one, surgical, babies pulled from me, illness, monitors, fear, health scares, sterile; and the second lane - natural, unhindered, beautiful, healthy, full, magical, empowering, free. Ever since my first baby was born, I’ve been stuck in the first lane. I tried so hard to change lanes for each of my two subsequent births, but was never able to get there. What will it take to let me in? 

Now that I’ve attended births as a doula, my imagery is shifting to understand birth as mosaic: a rich, multi-faceted, beautiful, huge art piece, with millions of little tiles. Each tile is a little something of what a birth can be, how it can go, what it might include. Pitocin. High blood pressure. A mother without her mother. A preemie baby. A postdate baby. Anxiety. Going with the flow. Epidural. A failed epidural. Shoulder dystocia. A couple that feels ready. A couple that will never feel ready. A friendly nurse. A sunny day. That first skin to skin feeling. That missed skin to skin opportunity. Back labor. Pressure. Fatigue. Possible c-section. Definite c-section. Loss of control. Tears. Joy. All these tiles make up the larger art piece that answers “What is birth?”

In preparing for birth, a pregnant person starts to build their own birth story mosaic. There’s a few tiles that they are able to choose - their partner, their care team, what books they read and classes they attend. But ultimately, the tiles that fill in the rest of their mosaic are beyond their control. 

Birth planning feels a little like this - 

After your baby is born, you will have your own version of a birth mosaic based on how it went for you. In preparation, let’s look at a few of these tiles from our big birth mosaic that we’ll be pulling from…maybe we can focus on the ones that are most likely to occur. But please know - your experience may fall outside of what’s contained in these tiles, and if it does, I’ll help you learn about the new tiles that were thrown at you. They’ll be your tiles now. We’ll hold them, look at them, even if they are sharp and red. We’ll find others who know these tiles. There’s always people who know.

So many little pieces make up each individual birth story, and I will never know some of those pieces with the understanding of personal experience. But, in each birth, there is a piece, a tile or two, that overlaps with my personal experience. Maybe it's many pieces, but it's never no pieces. Each birth story borrows from the greater birth mosaic, and in that, parents can find each other - no two stories are exactly the same, but what can we connect with each other about? What circumstances are the same? What circumstances aren’t the same, but our feelings around them are the same?

And when we hang our birth mosaics on the wall, next to each others’, and take a big step back, many many steps back…we can see that they are different, but that they borrow from the same huge birth mosaic, and are somehow similar. And we can look at each other's, and say -

Wow - I didn’t know.

You are strong. 

Oh, I wish I had that. 

I’m sorry.

I’m thankful you survived.

I’m happy for you.

Birth is never one thing, it’s many things. 

What does your birth mosaic look like? If you hung it next to mine, what tiles would we have in common?