birth is trauma & language fails

One of my favorite things about writing, or maybe I mean language in general (and English very specifically), is that it is kind of a failure. I used to say this to an ex, who really hated when I said it. It seemed that my use of the word “failure” had some loaded or double meaning for them that I could not see and was difficult to explain. I always thought it was funny though, that in any conversation where this came up, language was absolutely failing us (and probably our interpersonal dynamics as well, but what can one do) : I felt the thrill and possibility in how we inevitably use words in ways that others find off or inaccurate, and they felt that it was mean spirited or unkind to point out the difficulties of language as failure.

It’s probably ten years later and I am still thinking about the failure of language.

My creative brain switches on at right around 10 PM. It always has. This is not convenient with an infant, when all conventional advice says to “sleep when the baby sleeps!” Instead of forcing myself to sleep when I simply can’t, I try to do something creative while I wait for my son to wake up for his first feeding which should be soon if the other nights are any indicator of a pattern (but um, often they are not). Usually this means I work on odd sewing or panting or collage projects, or read a little bit (I’m re-reading “How to Do Nothing”, which Jenny Odell wrote partly in reaction to the 2016 US election (so following both birth and the 2024 election, it puts me in touch with some life affirming practices)) – but often I am scrolling on Reddit (not a life affirming practice, but–). I come across a post in a forum for new parents titled: “Birth is traumatizing.”

The post is about how the new mother can’t recognize their own experience in portrayals of pregnancy and labor in popular media and fiction. Totally fair. Birth is always portrayed as some connected, easy, blissful miracle OR low comedy with over the top lamaze breathing and screeching. The writer believes that birth is such a powerful experience, that it changes your life forever and takes time to recover from, always physically and sometimes mentally. They wish the world wasn’t so out of touch with the experience of birthing parents. I recognize the frenzied exasperation at the world’s lack of respect for the experience of birthing parents, the “HOW COULD YOU NOT TELL US” tone of the post. Because this post exists on the internet, instead of responding to the grief in the writing, many of the comments on the post focus in on the use of the word “trauma”:

“I don’t know that I would call my experiencing giving birth traumatic.”
“Experiences can vary, my body didn’t feel like it went through a major trauma.”
“I would not make the blanket statement that birth is traumatizing.”
“Almost nothing about birth went like I’d planned, but I wouldn’t call it traumatic”
“I found birth… dull.”

The poster seems to have difficulty connecting their experience to others, and ultimately that tension has generated several small back and forth’s in the comments section, as comment sections are known for. (Kind of a topic for some other time, but this is also an example of how the internet is not a effective replacement for community conversation - but I spend time there, with thousands of other new and nervous parents, and that’s where this spiral thought originated, so here we are). It’s not traumatic, it’s something else. For many it’s not traumatic, it’s difficult or challenging or unexpected. It’s life changing. For someone it was “dull”! But traumatic?

I loved being pregnant, which I know, is lucky. I felt the healthiest and was the happiest I’ve ever been in my body. I loved how big and round my stomach was, I loved all the splotches and marks that popped on my face after being in the sun. In spite of being exhausted and having a hard time eating, I would take myself on long walks and talk to the baby about what I saw - the birds, ferns, trash. I felt connected to myself and to the mystery growing in me. Time expanded and contracted in novel ways.

Even in the easiest labors, I would argue the act of giving birth is a kind of necessary trauma, certainly violent. A portion of your body removes itself or is detached from you, and then in the best case scenario, continues to grow and live in the world separate from you. For me, birth was traumatic in the way I think people are responding to in the post. Not without beauty, but traumatic. As much as I prepared for birth, the event happened suddenly, and to me. So much literature I saw about birth recommended, studied, and praised the idea that I should “let go” and trust that “your body will know what to do.”

About a decade ago, a friend and I were discussing the birth in Maggie Nelson’s “The Argonauts”. In the book, “labor does you.” I could not understand. My friend felt that the description of labor was “emotionally manipulative” (language success?? or failure?? what writer doesn’t aim for some emotional manipulation?? What do I mean by manipulation!?). I remember “The Argonauts” being powerful and I cried through a good portion of the end of the book, but couldn’t really tell you why then, so perhaps I had been manipulated. Now I could tell you why I cried - but if I had to explain it to you, I guarantee that language would fail me. I recognize a complex truth in the writing. I will spend good amount of time trying to air out the emotion of my labor in writing. It’s one reason I write, to uncover the complex truths for myself. Ultimately I know however it is described, it will never connect with a reader exactly as I mean it. My friend and I are overdue to revisit this conversation, as we are now both mothers and wives.

I may be misremembering, but Nelson described labor as a space that felt “low” – a nowhere. Instead of being able to “let go,” control of my body and my mind was forcefully pried from me. I didn’t go somewhere low, I went into non-existence. I rode the waves of pain to the center of the universe, which contained nothing. I had no body, I had no baby, I had no home planet. This isn’t a post about my labor though.

The failure of language is exactly what makes writing so worthy of devotion. Inaccuracy is a generator. My effort is to get my words as close to my felt truth as I can, and even then, you will not be able to come with me. Reading will spawn other thoughts in your mind and you will be sent on a journey of your own, separate from mine. In every phrasing, there is the possibility of a birth. It may make you reflect on how dissimilar/similar/unique your own experiences are. You may fixate on a word like “home” or “planet” and off you go, to the playful space where you will certainly have your own language failures.

(I wish I could show you the amount of parantheticals, “possiblies” and “maybes” I had to edit from this post. Not exactly language failure, more about how much work it is to write something that feels paradoxically intimate and casual.)