The journey of motherhood

My sister Marie is due to deliver a new baby very soon, which means that my caring and protective feelings for her are amplified by a factor of at least ten.  I am perfectly content to massage feet, trim toenails, carry luggage, set up the nursery, and watch Youtube videos of Criss Angel as a show of support to my sister.  These protective feelings extend beyond her however.  Last weekend, my show of support for a friend's expectant wife came in the forms of baklava, galatabouriko, dolmas, spanakopita, olives, cheese, salad, and bread because she wanted Greek appetizers at her baby shower and I am experienced in Greek cooking.  Beyond that, I have recently been recruited as the on-call doula for two mothers whose husbands may be out of town when they go into labor.  I have not been a doula since I was 19 and helped with the delivery of my cousin/best friend's baby, but those moms seem to sense my protective nature and say that they would trust me perfectly to care for them while they are in labor.  

As I try to reason through my compulsion to care for pregnant women, I find reason is perhaps lacking.  All I have is an idea that pregnant women go on a painful and dangerous journey that lasts 40 weeks.  The destination seems to be the border between spirits and the living where there exists a passageway for life to come into or exit the world.  A woman, it seems, must brush against death as the final step in collecting a new life at that point of passage.  

While the journey in takes 40 weeks, the journey back takes much longer as nearly every facet of health and life is delivered from mother to child.  Food, warmth, support, love and learning are all provided by mothers who care for their new child with such strong compulsions that reasonable needs like sleep, privacy and personal interests are set aside.

This part of the journey is where my sister Marie has found her passion.  During the first two days of her first child's life, she tried unsuccessfully to breast-feed her daughter after a C-section delivery.  Through the help of a lactation consultant she was able to figure out the problems preventing successful feeding and to then find ways of solving them.  In short, she fought very hard to be able to breast-feed her daughter and was ultimately successful.  Her success ignited her with a desire to help others do the same. She has become a lactation specialist for WIC and energetically calls mothers encouraging them to do the same.  There is no judgement or criticism if they don't do as she has done.  She just tries to share with others something she believes in and that she has fought hard to obtain.

It is great fun to sit around the dinner table and hear her oldest daughter (now 5) discuss the technicalities of breast-feeding with unerring accuracy.   It's even more fun to see the forms my sister's passion takes as she prepares informational packets for new moms and cupcakes decorated like breasts for doctors to increase their awareness of breastfeeding.  She always emphasizes to me that WIC promotes breast-feeding because it supplies babies with natural antibiotics and that breastfed babies are healthier than those fed with formula.  She finds a way of relating breast-feeding to everyone.  As I watch the intensity of her efforts and the joy that she finds in them, I am in awe of her.  Though I feel so protective of her, she is clearly one of the strongest and most fearless people I know.