If you haven’t already, go read this post at Breaking into Blossom. RLG does a very thoughtful analysis of how the ways in which we advocate for natural birth options can cause unintentional harm, to all parents, both those doing the birthing and not.
She makes lots of smart points, but the theme that stands out to me the most, perhaps not surprisingly given our favorite topics around here, is how preparation for, discussion and assumptions around birth, particularly “natural birth”, impact NGPs (non-gestational-parents, here meaning those with pregnant partners as opposed to adoptive parents, though I think much of what she writes in that post is also important for adoptive parents). R writes:
“If we claim this space as entirely female (and birth-mama centric), then NGPs have no role here. This incredible right/journey/privilege is marked as one that birth-moms take alone. And on the surface, this makes sense. I mean, why shouldn’t birthing women claim this power as theirs and theirs alone? They offer life, for Pete’s sake; they offer life-sustaining milk. These facts are used to empower them. Your babies need you much, much more than they need anyone else. But even as it offers empowerment, this rhetoric puts the heavy weight of early parenthood back on women…There’s very little talk in the natural childbirth community about NGP-child bonding because it’s understood to be secondary. It can wait.But can it? Without the benefit of holding these little beings inside of our bodies, isn’t it especially important to attend to NGP-child bonding? If all we carefully cultivate is bonding between women and their (birth) babies, aren’t we relegating them to being the primary parent at six months, too? And at two years? And at five years? Aren’t we contributing to the creation of the very distance between fathers and their children that we simultaneously bemoan?”
Here at FTST we like to think and write about what it’s like to parent a kid your wife birthed. We’re big on NGP’s, particularly lesbian non-bio-moms, finding our own voices and our own solid place in our families. And yeah, we’ve hit on some themes around the early parenting that R writes about above, about choosing to take your place in your child’s life as early as possible, about how the work we need to do to make that connection is both the our central challenge and our greatest strength. But by placing her observations in the context of birth itself, R helped me realize that we’ve never really written about birth as non-gestational-parents, and come to think of it, I’ve read very few birth stories that deeply incorporate the experience of a non-birthing parent.
So R’s post, and the ensuing conversations, have me thinking we need to change this. We need to tell our birth stories as NGPs. I’m still sorting this out, but I don’t think I mean the stories of how our babies were born, the logistics of what happened when, but rather our internal experience, our own transformation as the process unfolded. We need to add our voices to the conversation around birth, and not as secondary voices, not as the last little paragraph or the occasional editorial comment, but strong stories in their own right.
In one of many conversations we’ve had on this post, Gail said the following:
“Birth is scary and wondrous and will freak your shit out…Having experienced it from both sides, I can say that both experiences are intense in completely different ways, but we don’t really attend to the intensity of birth or post-birth from the NGP’s point of view because it’s all the birth mother’s show.”
So, I’d like to attend to that intensity. Let’s tell our stories. Gail and I are still mulling over our contributions, but I wanted to get this up while R’s post was still a bit fresh (well, at least not a million years old).
Have you written your NGP birth story somewhere already (and I’m including dads here!)? If so, would you be willing to send it our way or link back to this post? If you don’t write anywhere publicly, but want to add your voice to the mix, get in touch with us at firsttimesecondtime at gmail. And to be clear, R wrote her post largely inspired by messages in the natural childbirth community, but here I’m thinking beyond that, to our place in birth, any kind of birth.
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I should see if I can get P to write something, particularly about our first birth– the twins. OK this is purely a logistics piece but during the emergency surgical birth/c-section, he definitely noticed things that I just couldn’t, including the two anesthesiologists, who once the boys were out, were standing over behind my right shoulder debating what they should order for take-out. A completely ho-hum, normal, everyday thing for them during the most knock-your-socks off, change-our-lives thing for us.
And hey, I do not feel any less powerful as a woman for having c-section deliveries. I never felt any sort of failure for having delivered them thus, although I do know others who have struggled with this idea.
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i thought that was a great post over at Breaking into Blossom. i experienced non-natural births (after planning for natural ones) as both the GP and the NGP. the experience as the GP has been more traumatic for me because i’ve felt like a failure for needing a c-section. i haven’t done a whole lot of re-thinking of my role as the NGP in my partner’s birth, but i will now. thanks for keeping this conversation going.
This is such a great topic. You are totally right that the NGP’s birth story isn’t really told. It is also really interesting to think about this from the perspective of the natural birthing community. In our birth class I certainly felt that it was all about L and her power and connection to our child. The “partners” as our teacher unfortunately called the dads and I, as though we were not also parents to these unborn children, were just there to learn how to support the mom’s journey and connection to their babies. The fact that L ended up having a c-section completely changed my role and supported my instant connection with J because there was so much she couldn’t do at the beginning. Now we know that we need to make those things happen the second time, hopefully without the c-section.
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Here’s my post about our son’s birth: http://familyo.blogspot.com/2007/12/birth-story_18.html
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We wrote our birth story together and told it from a third person POV so that it would seem equal. I am always surprised at how many NGP’s feel left out of the experience or not as bonded to the new babies, since I never felt that way. And I was 100% on board with the ‘natural birth’ plan even though our experience didn’t work out that way.
http://1invermillion.wordpress.com/2009/05/09/birth-story/
I am the birth mother, that said when either of us tell our birth story my wife is the star. A precursor in so many ways to our daughters place in our family. We chose natural childbirth, a water birth to be specific. When I was getting towards the end of transition my wife joined me in the birthing tub. After one of my many position changes my water finally broke and with that our daughter was coming right then. As it was I was on my knees on the edge of a triangle shaped tub. My wife behind me and the midwife in front of me. My moving was not an option due to the head lodged in my pelvis. So the midwife talked my wife through the delivery. She watched in amazement as I stretched and was startled when the ripples of downy black hair appeared. And more amazed when with the slightest adjustment (her call) of my perineum led to the full delivery of a yet unknown baby girl. And then she placed our daughter to her chest. While the entire ordeal took but a meer 7.5 minutes In that moment and from that was her baby. No amount of outside opinion or thread of self doubt has had even a chance. While we didn’t plan this, I couldn’t have asked for a more involved ngp birthing experience.
As a dad to a son that my wife conceived by IUI using an anonymous donor, I identify more in some ways with lesbian NGPs than with “typical” dads who are NGPs but also contributed half the genetic material. A lot of what is written in this blog thus resonates very strongly with me, so I hope the readers don’t mind me interloping! Our birth story is essentially a tale of two viewpoints. My wife knew from early in our dating relationship that I had cancer during puberty and was infertile, so she always expected to use donor conception or adoption to start a family, and she had very little emotional journey to make other than to choose from those options and execute them. I, on the other hand, was slightly unsure of how much I wanted to be a father anyway, and not all that enthusiastic about undertaking the expense and the responsibility of trying to conceive or adopt, only to either fail or have the success of the additional expense and responsibility of raising a child to whom I was not related and thus (I feared) whom I might not love with all my heart the way I presumably would love my own (had it been possible to have my own). But, I knew it was important to my wife, and I knew simply by looking around me that I’d be a better father than many even without being enthusiastic. So I sort of rubber-stamped my wife’s decision to choose IUI over adoption, and her choice of which donor to use, how and where to do the birth, etc. But a funny thing happened. As her belly grew I began to want to read to her tummy, and I did so every day (“The Very Hungry Caterpillar”). We learned it would be a boy, and I got my wife to agree that we could name him after me, so that I would have a second bond of my own with him (our shared gender being the first) to complement that my wife would have the genetic and birthing-breastfeeding bonds. By the time of the due date, I was all set to help my wife deliver naturally, but the due date came and went, and after about a week the doctors said that it would be dangerous to wait longer and that she should be induced. The pain was so intense (for her) that after about 12 hours over a sleepless hospital night (for both of us) she decided she needed the epidural and no one who saw her then would blame her for that! It took another 14 hours — and two very intense ones at the end, which certainly looked mighty painful even with the epidural — until two amazing delivery nurses and I coached out the last push and I cut my son’s umbilical cord. After that I held him up and cried with teary eyes, “This is my son! Look at my son!” It must have appeared melodramatic, but it was one of the most genuine, irresistible things I have ever done. It was at that moment that I knew that I was his father as much as any father ever was to his son, and that it did not matter one bit what we named him. But, when the nurse asked his name, my wife blurted out “Vincent” before I could stop her, and well, I confess, I let it stand at that. My wife then took three months off from work for maternity leave, and when she went back to work, I took three months off with him. Although she continued to breastfeed him until he was over two (the combination of our never expecting her to breastfeed so long and his being a precocious speaker led to such memorable utterances as “Mommy, more boob!” and “Other side!”), we both worked full time and we both took half the responsibility to do for him everything we had to do. Our goal has been to be his parents together, equally, and I have no doubt that all three of us feel that we have achieved that goal, even now that he is in kindergarten. Of course I don’t know how I would feel if I were the genetic father, or a gestational mom. I just know that I can’t imagine I could love any child more than I love my son.
I’ve been wanting to comment here for awhile to say how much I adore this call out. I’m so excited to be able to add my experience of Rabbit’s birth to this chorus in a few short weeks, as I’ve loved reading the comments this post has elicited. Once our son is here, when I write my birth story, I’ll link to this post; maybe that will generate a few more narratives too. And Vinnie: thank you so much for your affirming.in.every.way story. That is some powerful stuff right there. If you have a blog, please let me know (through L&G) how to find it. I have so much interest in how various forms of otherness (lesbianism. infertility. a thousand others.) lead to similar insights/kinds of understanding. If I weren’t struck dumb by the nearness of our long-awaited baby, I’d try to write something smart about it. As it is, all I can do is feel gratitude and wonderment. Anyway: thank you, Lyn, for doing something useful with my feelings of frustration. Personally, I think we should co-edit a volume or two on all of this. I’ll (hopefully) be out your way for job interviews in about a year; we could meet up and start then!
Thanks for the kind words, RLG! Alas, to answer your question, I have no real blog (I actually technically have one associated with my google account, but I never post to it, and I wouldn’t know how to direct you to it). I’ve always wanted to blog, but I would not be able to find the time to do it regularly, so instead I comment on other people’s blogs. Maybe I will take it up in 13 years when my son starts college …. In the meantime, Happy New Year to you and L & G and everyone who reads this!
As the NGP, I can say that there seemed to be quite different perception about my role as a mother from other people, particularly before The Bean was born. More often than not, it was Jen who was congratulated when we announced the pregnancy and people almost always addressed her when asking about anything baby-related.
Jen, however, never made me feel excluded. I don’t think either of us ever really saw my role as “less” than hers. Different, of course, but never less.
We had a wonderful midwife and attended a very inclusive prenatal class, so during labour and delivery I felt I had a role. I was the first to see our baby. I cut his cord. I stayed with him when the doctors were cleaning him off and checking all of his reflexes.
His first night the three of us slept crowded together in the narrow hospital bed.
When we brought our son home we both fretted about his small size and his difficulty breastfeeding. (I believe Jen felt more responsibility surrounding the breastfeeding, but I certainly felt involved in trying to figure out how to make it work.)
The Bean and I bonded quickly in those early days. I carried him skin-to-skin in the Moby, changed his diapers, and bathed him.
Now, over a year later, I would say that based on his behaviour, The Bean regards Jen and I as equal in his parenting. Though Jen stayed home with him for nearly a year, I tried to be as involved in his parenting as I could be while working full-time. I’m very glad that he does not seem to perceive a difference.
We still get comments about how much he looks like Jen, which sometimes make me feel like we aren’t really regarded as mother/son as much as he and Jen are, but the truth of it is, he does look like her and I think they’re both beautiful.
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