Gestational work?

If we are willing to embrace our humanity and face life as it is, we very soon discover that our wellbeing depends on a variety of different ‘works’. Manual labour, study or office work are obvious examples. But we also often make reference to “working on our relationship” or even “working on myself” — as if we are both the sculptor and the stone.

I have found it helpful to think of the interior and relational aspects of my life less as labour and more as an artwork that Someone Else is rendering and to which I am surrendering. This means I am not always in control of what happens, nor can I reasonably expect to be. It also means that I am frequently found in the position of waiting to see what the outcome will be of a certain friendship, work opportunity, or inner struggle. In view of this, gestational work as I understand it may be a helpful way to unify both the internal and external experiences of being pregnant and giving birth.

Gestational work or servitude conceptualises pregnancy and birth as a form of labour of the same ilk as plowing a field or reading for a postgraduate diploma. This is a grave error when it is embraced uncritically. Perhaps, by contrast, a mother’s journey with new life from conception to birth and beyond as the canvas on which her renewed self is being painted. She is not the worker; She is the work.

Conforming to our true nature as woman is not merely an exercise in picking the right work or opting out of the wrong work in an effort to fulfil what we think at this moment will make us happiest.

In pregnancy I am being made alongside my child. Again and again. My child does not employ me to sustain her life, she simply is. She is gently being and becoming and I as her shelter and nourishment am being and becoming too. In this becoming I increase in patience and learn to accept life with many unknown outcomes.

One word I’ve heard to casually describe the physical and emotional effects of being “with child”: taxing. Another economic analogy rears its head. Am I being ‘taxed’ when my ankles swell and I pee three times a night? It’s certainly an inconvenience, let’s not take that away from any mother! But this inconvenience has dignity and meaning that many other forms of work don’t have - whether or not they’re P.A.Y.E! And why is that? Because this work consists in a collaboration with the Source of life itself to usher an entirely unique individual into family and society.

Edith Stein before she took the habit as a Carmelite nun. [Image: Public domain]

Edith Stein was a victim of Auschwitz and an academic who, despite her young death after several years in a convent, became one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th Century. Her Essays on Woman have inspired many to think outside the box of our present era about what it means to be female. She describes femininity not in terms of shallow personal preferences, career paths or romantic lives, but rather in view of our unique desire - when we’re at our best - to see other people flourish.

“To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.” — John Henry Newman

Conforming to our true nature as woman is not merely an exercise in picking the right work or opting out of the wrong work in an effort to fulfil what we think at this moment will make us happiest. For Edith, it is discerning the uniqueness in our soul and letting it be moved toward our good and the good of those around us. In other words, we are naturally motivated by perfection in ourselves and others. This is a very good thing when we understand that this does not mean “perfectionism” so much as a life full to the rim with goodness: gentleness, courage, generosity, love, wisdom, and so on…

The work of becoming a mother, then, is becoming who we are made to be. For this to happen we open ourselves to transformation. When we do that positive change is inevitable. John Henry Newman said, “To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.” Pregnancy and birth affords a woman an opportunity to be changed, and then - through the trial and error of proactive parenthood - to change often. Some women - like our Edith - are not called to traditional motherhood at all, yet like her they discern opportunities to be refined and reformed.

This refinement doesn’t come through our own cleverness or prowess. Something like Inspiration strikes at the heart of the tension we’re sitting in: an awkward moment with a family member, a frustration in our circumstances, discomfort in our heavily pregnant body. Or, put another way, when we hear the voice of Wisdom calling us to let go of some ill feeling or take hold of an invitation to reconciliation, we dare to surrender because we know that letting go is the work of perfection gestating in us.

For me, this also means recognising that I am not already perfect. That might seem obvious but it can be hard to admit in the thick of things, such as when my husband or care provider doesn’t fulfil my expectations during a haze of postpartum stresses. In these moments the peace I dearly need comes from accepting the faults of people or systems as much as I am able to see and accept my own areas for growth. Just as I need grace, a guiding hand from beyond me, to bring me into my truest self, so I can extend grace to those around me who are - like me - “works in progress”. As you can imagine I haven’t mastered this yet because it’s not ultimately within my control, but my heart rests in the knowledge that motherhood is the path chosen for me to one day be given the gift of being finally finished: the big reveal when my best is all that is left of me. One might call it heaven or bliss.

We dare to surrender because we know that letting go is the work of perfection gestating in us.

Ecstasy of St Teresa by Gian Lorenzo Bernini [Image: WestonWestmoreland]

On the subject of bliss, Bernini’s gorgeous rendering of the Ecstasy of St Teresa (see above) is referenced by some midwives and birth workers as a model of what a birthing woman may look like if she has been left undisturbed to enter into ‘labour-land’. St Teresa’s Ecstasy is an artist’s interpretation of one 16th Century nun’s intense spiritual experience which was also physiologically felt. She endured it as though she were pierced by an arrow of Love. Her encounter was both ecstatic and painful, but not in the way we ordinarily interpret pain. Indeed, she must have gone through something much more like labour: ‘pain with a purpose’.

In this view, then, childbearing is not commerce and birth is not a transaction between mother and child - it is transcendent. In the act of bringing forth her baby, a mother can experience her own kind of hormonally-driven ecstasy. Incidentally, this ecstatic nun was also inspiration for Edith Stein when she herself became a nun. In her honour she took the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross - or rendered in English, Teresa the Blessed.

So what is gestational work, really?

It is blessed work. It is the beginning of uncovering the precise shape inside the marble of our lives. It is learning to love more deeply and more inclusively not only our own child but every mother‘s son or daughter with whom we share the air we breathe. It is the simple work of surrender to the Artist.

Where do you need Wisdom on the pregnancy or early parenthood road you’re on?

Take a moment now to quiet yourself and listen to what that inner voice says is within your power to do, so that you can be at peace with yourself, with your child and with others…

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As a birth doula, it’s my job to help my client identify and apply what becoming a mother means to her and to help her feel confident for labour and life with a newborn. If you feel you would benefit from this kind of support you can find out more about my services or reach out to me for a free consultation.

Here’s to the work of the womb!

XO

Deborah