Pregnancy journal: generational reflection on labor
Entering motherhood, what interests (and terrifies) me the most is birth.
On most days, I feel upset, alone, and anxious.
But there are days like tonight (with the help of decaffeinated tea and good readings) that I feel blissful and lucky. Aside from experiencing intense heartburn, nausea, and pelvic pressure, I have a smooth and supportive pregnancy so far. I’m a millennial, borderline Gen-Z, living comfortably in the USA and co-sharing parenthood with a caring partner.
Curious about pregnancy and birth, I asked my mom, má, about her experience. She was pretty nonchalant about it at first. Unlike me, she didn’t experience much vomiting or nausea during the first trimester. She craved cà phê which was too expensive for her to have. She remembered always feeling hungry because, frankly, there wasn’t enough to eat. Most meals were merely rice and salt. On top of that, she just finished breastfeeding my older sister, who was around 1.5 years old at that time. Má also ate a lot of homegrown sweet potatoes and arrowroot (which she attributed as the cause for my light skin).
My parents were extremely poor, like many Southern Vietnamese during the early periods post-Vietnam War. An ally for the American army, both of my grandfather were incarcerated in Vietnam’s “re-education” prison camps, leaving his wife and children empty-handed and a tarnished reputation. During war, the political allegiance of ordinary civilians was very complicated but post-war, poverty was the common denominator.
Luckily, my parents were able to buy a small plot of land from a couple. According to my mom, the couple had a baby boy who passed away. They wanted to move away from the haunted home and sold it for a very low price. ( I would be so creeped out, I am not sure if I would take the offer). In the mountainous area of Ba Ria, Vung Tau, my parents begin a new life under a hut made of bamboo and mud. Both educated but denied college admission, my father was a construction worker and my mother was a subsistence farmer.
What struck me the most was that when my mother was about to give birth, no one wanted to take her to the hospital. My father was away working when she gave birth to me(Back then, they did not have cellphones). He was also absent when she gave birth to my sister. I felt that his absence from our births foreshadowed his lack of availability as a father later on. While a woman experiences childbearing for nine months, her partner has a glimpse of that in the flesh during delivery. How can you process the pain and sacrifice of your lover without witnessing the whims and chaos of labor? As your child made its its way to the birth canal, clamber through the “ring of fire, and leave its maternal sanctuary, there is something intrinsically powerful in witnessing this rite of passage. It is part of the indivisible and unconditional parental bond which I feel privileged to afford and share with my partner.
During her first birth, my mother was back in her hometown, Binh Dinh, where she had a village midwife and maternal family members help deliver my sister. But when she was pregnant with me, my parents were living deep in the mountains with mostly strangers. No one, including their guy friend, wanted to drive my mother on their motorbikes. Unfathomably, it was considered a “bad omen” to drive pregnant women and shoulder the responsibility of their birth. With painful contractions during the wee hours of the night, my mother had to walk two miles to the main road to find transportation to the hospital. My grandmother and my 8-year-old cousin accompanied her. On the way, her water broke. After desperately looking, they finally convinced a lady to drive my mother on a motorbike. As soon as she got to the hospital, she delivered right away. The walking, she said, must have helped with the contractions and sped up my fetal exit. The pain was excruciating but she delivered me without intervention or medicine. “It was so painful, while walking and then delivering you….” my mother recalled over the phone. “It’s amazing what our bodies are made to withstand that type of pain, isn’t it?”
Most days, I complain about pregnancy symptoms and fear labor — as I have every right to do so. But stories like my mother’s affirm how lucky I am to be a mother with modern-day support and resources. Moreover, positive birth stories remind me of how powerful my body is. That it knows how and when to deliver. That the universe will work with me to bring this baby to the world safely — just like it did with my mother, women in refugee camps, prisons, homeless shelters, and unincorporated neighborhoods. From one womb to another, we are wonder women in the flesh.