Book Corner: Birth Day
Posted at 7:00 am on August 12, 2009 by Catherine
I love this book. What more can I say? I love it. I have already heartily recommended it to women, men, people with children, people without children, people who don’t even like children.
But I have to confess – when I first picked it up I experienced an instinctual rolling of the eyes. I have given birth twice, accomplishments which were both hard fought and amazingly miraculous. But overshadowing these two best days of my life is the sibling rivalry in-fighting going on between the medical and the midwifery professions.
As so often is the case, I find myself squarely in neither camp, yet somehow part of both. I took a 30 hour Bradley class, but I gave birth in a hospital. An OB was present when I delivered, but so was my Doula. Among my close friends are many who would never dream of giving birth anywhere but at home, and others who schedule their C-sections far in advance. I have heard everything that both sides have to say, and I’ve found both to be short sighted and based on self-serving half-truths. I was afraid this book would be yet another stone thrown in this debate.
Instead I was riveted as Sloan, a Pediatrician, walked me through the history of birth, the biology of birth, the 
evolution of birth and above all, the miracle of birth. He was funny, he was sincere, and he was informative. And he did what nothing else in this season has done.
As I read about the amazing transition a newborn makes in seconds from a water creature to an air breathing baby, I was blown away (for the 512th time?) at the incredible, miraculous experience of birth. And as I read about the amazing journey a newborn makes (if given the chance) to his mother’s breast in the first moments of life, and the various ways that nature has given him what he needs to make this journey successful, I was astonished.
And that astonishment made me realize with new eyes what I have been tentatively celebrating – that my infant has passed successfully through the newborn stage. When I put this book down I looked at B and saw so much. I realized that despite the sleep deprivation, I love him, and I love every moment with him. And I cherish these early days. Or at least, I want to cherish them. And I don’t want to leave them behind so quickly after all.
When you’re the mommy, it all happens so fast. Pregnancy, labor, delivery, newborn stages – there is so much required and there are so little resources; its too hard to take a step back and take it all in. But Mark Sloan is not writing as a Mommy. He writes as a man who has children, who loves children, and who has been watching children birthed for twenty years. He offers the perspective I cannot offer to myself. And he mixes it with information that enriches, not overshadows, the experiences I have had.
Since reading this book I’m hugging my boys a bit tighter, laughing with them a bit easier, and looking back through “old” pictures, remembering. Each day is a miracle, but that day, their Birth Day, is the most miraculous of all.
Leave a Reply