Do not fear. The following story only takes place in one’s life if you are a daughter of Trudi Anne.
So I drag Ivan to a Birthing From Within birth preparation seminar a few weekends ago (bless these husbands who agree to do this with their wives). We show up a few minutes early (being the eldest children in each of our families). The leader hasn’t arrived yet so we wait. Another couple arrives, clearly about to have a baby in the next month. We introduce ourselves, find out that they also had a traumatic birth experience and discover things we have in common. The leader arrives and right around the same time a bunch of other cars pulls up. Another very pregnant woman gets out of a vehicle as well as two men, each in separate cars. I am trying to put the puzzle together, thinking, um, maybe one of them goes with the leader of the seminar. We all come inside, place our toukases on little itsy bitsy red pillows that are strategically placed in a circle on the hardwood floor.
Um. 3 pregnant women, 4 partners, 1 leader. Something is not right here.
And I am getting even more confused because I really thought one of the dudes belonged to the leader. But for some reason there are two men on either side of this woman perched in a very uncomfortable metal chair since the floor is almost impossible to gracefully get down on with a group of a complete strangers (kind of the beetle caught on his back phenonomen). Naive me starts to think, well maybe the older looking fellow on her right is her husband and they are doing a surrogate pregnancy for this other younger Asian fellow who’s wife was unable to come for whatever reason. Dense. I just was not expecting this. And I was trying to fit these puzzle pieces into my own world view and systems of belief. Clearly, it was not working super well.
The leader opens the group with not your basic introductions. Instead, she wants us to look deep within and search out this question, “Where do I come from?” Not your normal, “I come from Waukegan, this is my husband, we have one little girl, I work as a nurse, etc.” No, we are to look deep within and find the more mystical answer. We close our eyes, we look, we search. Some of us search a little harder. She then has us draw an image that depicts this. We each take turns sharing where we come from. One woman shares how she comes from love. Another man shares how he comes from family and a home. I share how I come from a long string of strong women. And then the guy next to me sitting on the left of the woman with two dudes tells us, “I come from water. I know (he says this with utter confidence and poise) that I was a dolphin in my previous life.” Okay, Shanel, keep a straight face. Whatever you do don’t look at Ivan or it will be over–keeping a straight face, that is.
And if that wasn’t enough entertainment for one session, it gets even better. We discover quite quickly after the dolphin confession that the woman sitting in the chair is the surrogate mother for the gay couple sitting on either side of her. She shares with us that part of the reason they chose her to birth their child was because she wanted to do a water birth (water–dolphin). Shanel, don’t lose it; I can seriously feel a case of the church pew giggles coming over me.
A few hours later, we break for dinner. Ivan and I are the first out the door and into our car. The final door closes and we both break into giggles. I turn to him and say, “Ivan, thank you for coming with me to this class,” meaning it with all my heart. As we eat dinner at a dive in a strip mall that had surprisingly good Italian beef sandwiches with a schload of hot peppers (to my pregnant belly delight) it occurs to me that the only reason this is happening to me is because I belong to Trudi. It is so perfectly fitting for the memoir my sister and I are planning on writing.
So we spent the evening talking about the inner workings of preparing a woman mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically to take on birth with gusto and bravo…with a gay former dolphin.
Hah!
