Benjamin Franklin said “A ship in sail and a big-bellied woman are the two
handsomest things that can be seen commonly.” Both are harbingers of rich cargo, of voyages into port filled with precious things. This has been the common viewpoint of most people in most ages of history. Prehistoric figurines witness to the worship of fertility goddesses with ripe bellies and full breasts.
Grandmothers are older now. Their daughters put off having babies until their thirties, so Nana is closer to 60 instead of 40 when the baby finally comes. That leaves a lot of menopausal years without the traditional role coming into play. Work (let’s be honest – most women have jobs, not careers, just like most men) must fill the hunger for meaning in women’s lives.
And what about our conflicted feelings about conception? We spend billions on birth control and billions on infertility treatments. The two things are not unrelated; many of the most popular birth control methods have side effects that include subfertility after discontinuing.
Being Born Is Important
Carl Sandburg
Being born is important.
You who have stood at the bedposts
and seen a mother on her high harvest day,
the day of the most golden of harvest moons for her.
You who have seen the new wet child dried behind the ears,
swaddled in soft fresh garments,
pursing its lips and sending a groping mouth
toward the nipples where white milk is ready
You who have seen this love’s payday of wild toil and sweet agonizing
You know being born is important.
You know nothing else was ever so important to you.
You understand the payday of love is so old,
So involved, so traced with the circles of the moon,
So cunning with the secrets of the salts of the blood
It must be older than the moon, older than the salt.
I lost a baby in the second trimester and suffered a hemorrhage with the loss. For the 3 days between the time I knew my baby was gone and the actual birth, my feelings were indescribable. My womb, a safe warm nurturing place for new life had become a tomb. I was a tomb. From being fertile and abundant I had become a desert. After the hemorrhage it took over a month before I had any energy at all, but the emotional dead weight was far worse.