Courage
-by Gloria Lemay, also appearing in Midwifery
Today magazine. Also see by Gloria: Visualizations
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary,
courage is a noun meaning "ability to overcome
fear or despair." Notice that fear has to
be present in order for courage to exist. The
English word "courage" is derived from
the French word for the heart, coeur. Finding
the heart to continue doing the right thing in
the face of great fear inspires others to become
nobler human beings.
In midwifery, we see women and men facing their
fears in birth; we ask them to have faith in the
face of no evidence. We demand that they be bigger
than the circumstances and, when they conquer,
we get a renewed vision of how life can look when
our fears don't stop us. This is the source and
inspiration for our own courage.
The paths of parenting and midwifery push me
up against my fears and despairing attitude on
a daily basis. Luckily, I have found teachers
and teachings that have inspired me to keep going
despite my rapidly beating hummingbird heart.
When my daughters were very young and I was juggling
my heart's desire to be a good parent and make
a difference in childbirth, one of my friends
told me to use the affirmation, "My vulnerability
is my strength." I thought she was insane
and argued that if I lived by that slogan my children
would surely perish. I was sure that my strength
was my strength- and by strength, I meant my ability
to force and push life to suit my will.
I now know that true strength is the elusive
quality of being able to strengthen others. At
that time, I trusted my friend and, on faith in
her alone, began toying with sharing my vulnerability.
I tiptoed into revealing my fears and apprehensions
to a few "safe" people and slowly began
to realize that what my friend had given me as
an affirmation worked a lot better than my stoic,
stubborn, brave warrior act.
After a few harsh lessons, I began to realize
that it wasn't up to me to conceal worrisome information
from the parents at a birth. In fact, if I am
afraid at a birth, the best thing I can do is
name the fear boldly and ask everyone else present
to say what fears they have. One of my dear clients
released her membranes at 36 weeks in her second
pregnancy [her "waters broke" on
their own]. Her first birth had been a beautiful,
straightforward homebirth and I was deeply invested
in her second birth being just as great.
After four days of leaking amniotic fluid, she
began having regular, intense birthing sensations,
and we decided to go to the hospital for the birth.
I drove and the parents were in the back seat
of my car. As we approached the hospital, I had
white knuckles as my hands clutched the wheel,
and a ball of fear formed in my gut. I started
picturing the cord being whacked off immediately
and the baby being taken away from mom. I looked
in the rear view mirror and saw the father with
his eyes looking terrified. I said, "What's
your biggest fear right now, Brian?" He replied,
"I am afraid we're going to have a cesarean."
I never imagined this would be his fear. A cesarean
section was not even a possibility. I explained,
"Your wife is having strong birth sensations...
she has already had one vaginal birth and the
baby is small- for sure, it will be born vaginally."
He asked me, "Then, what are you afraid
of?" I told him honestly. "I'm afraid
that the baby's cord will be cut too quickly and
the baby will be taken away from Karen."
This had not occurred to him but he knew that
my experience was a better barometer of things
to come. He asked me what we could do to prevent
this. I was able to tell him that it was very
important to take the doctor aside and tell him
this: "It means everything to my wife and
I that the cord be left to pulse and that the
baby be placed on her skin until the placenta
comes out." We did a couple of "dress
rehearsals" of what had to be said and then
went in. The staff at the hospital respected the
parents' wishes to have the cord left intact.
The birth went beautifully. I would have wished
that the baby didn't have as heavy doses of antibiotics
as he was given (with resulting colic for months)
but having a birth that involved no induction
or anesthetics was a big accomplishment in these
circumstances.
There was a period in my career when I was unable
to divest myself of fear and dread. I wanted to
have a breakthrough and so I decided to "import"
some courage into my city. I thought about my
heroes in the midwifery movement and asked myself,
"Who is the bravest person I know?"
The answer was, of course, Nancy Wainer Cohen.
Her book Silent Knife had kept my feet
in the room at VBAC births where every cell in
my body had been screaming, "What the h---
are you doing here?" I was sure that if Nancy
came and lived at my house for a few days, I could
get some courage. My husband picked her up at
the airport and she came into my house and hugged
me, wracking with sobs. Nancy cried her way through
several boxes of tissue at the workshop she taught
for my students. Her visit was four days of snot,
tears and intense passion for healing birth. I
learned so much about the vulnerability and strength
connection from her. Nancy is still my hero in
the courage department and she continues to live
her life with her heart pinned right on her sleeve.
The sharing other midwives have done about their
fears has strengthened me to face my fears of
birth. One midwife wrote in Midwifery Today
that "The drive to the birth with all the
‘what ifs' running through my head is the
hard part; when I walk through the door and see
the woman, all that disappears." Another
midwife told me, "The scariest thing for
me is the first prenatal class of a series. Meeting
new people who have so much riding on my teaching
is enough to give me an ulcer."
An acronym for fear is:
F= false
E= evidence
A= appearing
R= real
When I am most afraid, it is because I have forgotten
the truth about how loved and blessed I am. The
fear can dominate and stop me, or it can be used
to alert me to something to which I am deeply
committed.
Using a journal to write out fears in the morning
helps to clear the mind. Once the fears are on
paper, somehow they seem less foreboding. Being
in action is another antidote to the paralysis
that accompanies fear. Any action- cleaning your
desk, organizing a drawer, making a phone call-
will bring a new perspective and lessen the dread.
My favorite philosopher about fear and courage
is the Wizard of Oz speaking to the cowardly lion.
"Courage is doing what's right even though
you're afraid," he said. I have learned courage
from birthing women and other midwives. We are
here to inspire and raise the bar for each other
on what's possible in the domain of courageous
action.
Gloria Lemay is a private birth attendant
in Vancouver, B.C. She is renowned as a birth
practitioner and is a strong proponent of a woman's
right to homebirth. Visit her Web site at www.glorialemay.com.
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