The First Time I Used My Voice For Myself

Over the first few decades of my life, I pretty much mastered the art of pretending to be whoever I thought others wanted me to be. It was a skill that seemed to serve me well in life, right up to the moment I went into labor.

Even as my husband drove me to the hospital and the nurse told me I wasn’t quite ready, I was polite and clever. All up to the moment it started to hurt, and I was forced to deal with pain I had never dealt with before.

Even so, I tried to remain composed and gracious, but as the hours wore away, so did the energy I had for pretending to be likable. I had never thought of how much energy it took to be everyone else but myself, to get everyone’s approval but my own. But Brautigan was one of those babies who was turned on his side trying to come out and it was the most pain I had ever felt.

I had been so determined to have a natural birth. I had meticulously planned my water birth months before I stepped foot in the hospital. I had my packed bags weeks before with everything I could have possibly needed, along with a laminated and color-coded birth plan. Of course none of that stuff ever left the suitcase. I had no idea that pain would change those plans. I had no idea that what would feel so much better to me than meditating in a birth tub with a candle and mala beads was to slam my head against a metal window sill and scream.

See, though I thought I wanted a natural birth, I had really mostly wanted to be the kind of person to have a natural birth. To my mind, this seemed noble and artful. I thought this plan was my having a voice. And it was to a certain degree, but not to the degree I was being introduced to by my pain.

Because I had been the voice for my identity for so long, I had never thought to be the spokesperson for the self that I had always privately been, deep inside. And now that there was finally no energy for identity, this more real voice was trying, for the first time, to figure out a new way to deal with this pain.

After 26 hours or so, my midwife, a no-nonsense woman whose hand seemed forever holding onto to a mug of tea, said, “Hon, you’re gonna have to let go of your plan and listen to your body. I think we can still get your natural birth but not without an epidural.”

At this point, the pain was so unbearable they had to shut the fire doors bc my screaming was scaring the other moms. Me, scaring people? I had never, ever been the sort of person to scream or carry on in an unsightly manner. Unless I was trying to get a laugh. I had always made sure my pain was hidden deep enough so that even I couldn’t feel it. I could hide years of emotional hurt behind a smile and a joke and take my mind off the hurt by creating a different pain for myself of my own design, like picking various parts of my body until it hurt more than my feelings, but so that no one could see the scabs.

This pain, however, could not be avoided. Or hidden. Or decorated. Or written about. The only way out, I realized, was to push through.

In the room with me I had my doula and Chris of course. They were my support team. Chris and I had taken the Bradley Method courses and my sweet doula was there to help me breathe and relax. Together, the two of them tried to coach me. And though I loved them for being there, their words weren’t helping. They weren’t reaching my deepest parts bc I’d never let anyone in where the pain was. I’d always sat in my secret self all alone bc I’d been so hurt and so betrayed so many times.

But now I was stuck in a brand new dilemma bc there was someone else stuck in there with me and he needed to come out, and something of myself needed to come out to be there for him. And the thing that finally reached me in that moment was my own pain needing me. Needing me to feel it. To be with it. Talk to it. Work with it. And I began to hear my voice in a way I’d never heard it before.

I had finally begun to experience my own pain and I was finally figuring out how I needed to help myself cope. Yet at the same time, Chris and the doula kept interrupting, coaching me to deep breathe, right in the middle of my finally listening to my own body. And because I had completely run out of energy to be there for anyone but myself, this deepest voice rose from my depths and out of my mouth. It was loud and fierce and I couldn’t believe I said it but I told them both to fuck off. The method was very effective. They both immediately fucked off and I went back to listening to my body. My way.

I had always heard my voice, but I had never ever let it out into the world except on paper or in performance, but there it was, finally coming out, along with this person in there. And I pushed for us both. And I pushed and I pushed, and it took an epidural and a suction, but finally I pushed through and quite suddenly, my little boy shot out like a cannon, startled the doctor, refusing like he still does to this day to be stuck anywhere he doesn’t want to be. He was out in the world and I was outside of myself in the world with him. Ready to use my voice to teach him how to use his.

—JLK