Nshei Chabad Newsletter, Channukah '04

Book Review: Expecting Miracles: Finding Meaning and Spirituality in Pregnancy Through Judaism www.UrimPublications.com By Chana Weisberg

Reviewed by Rishe Deitsch, Editor

When you read Expecting Miracles, you hear the voices of Jewish women who are or have been pregnant, as well as midwives, doctors, and Jewish leaders, both male and female. The tone is conversational, not literary. The reader does not feel lectured to; rather, she feels as if she is at a kitchen table on a sunny afternoon having a cup of tea with Aviva, Nili, Ella, and the others. Because the topic is such a personal one, the reader gets the feeling that the women who speak in this book are confiding in her. Maybe that is why the book holds the reader's interest so powerfully, although there is no story line. Could you walk away and say "gotta go now" in the middle of a woman telling you about the most intense personal experiences of her life, some of which are so personal that she cannot even give her real name? I couldn't.

The author presents widely differing views on all aspects of pregnancy and childbirth, including the issue of whether to use (or encourage others to use) medical pain relief during labor. For example, there is the well-known prolific author, Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller (page 335):

I believe very strongly that if women were more of a priority in medicine, that much better pain relief would be accessible. I mean, you have better pain relief for tooth extraction than for a birth. People who have certain medical procedures don't suffer what women suffer in childbirth, and I think that there's been medical neglect, and for sure some of it is misogynistic… I'd like there to be perfect pain relief and I think that there should be… ("Better" in what way? What would be the benefit of not taking drugs, and thereby remaining fully alert, active and aware of what is going on, during a tooth extraction? I found the comparison mystifying.)

In agreement with Rebbetzin Tzipporah Heller, we hear from Bambi Chalkowski, a no-nonsense midwife with forty years of experience delivering babies (page 323)

: …Sometimes it happens that someone decides that she doesn't want [drugs] because she wants to have a "natural"delivery and you see that it's absolutely not normal the way she is going through the birth, and it could be a first delivery and she's only four centimeters and you see how she's suffering…I've heard in the name of Rabbi Steinman in Bnei Brak, who is one of the great rabbis of our generation, that if a woman comes out from delivery with a slap to the neshamah, like in a state of shock, it's more dangerous than the dangers of an epidural. He is not talking about ladies with postpartum depression, but women who are in a state of shock from what they went through during labor. And as a midwife, I believe that this is so.

People are speaking so much about the damage that an epidural can do, with pain in the head and pain in the back and things like that, but nobody speaks about the kind of damage that a painful delivery can do to a woman. I know women who didn't become pregnant for five years after giving birth because they were in a state of shock after delivery. So I don't think it's fair to tell women what to take and what not to take… I am entitled to my opinion and I can tell the woman what I think, but I can't do anything more than that. I think if somebody enforces her opinion in an extreme way, it's unfair. In either direction it's unfair.

Bambi asserts that going through a painful labor and delivery without medical pain relief can damage a woman's psyche. I agree, assuming the woman emerges from the experience traumatized BECAUSE she was not given the undivided attention, kindness, and moral support, as well as all the physical support and practical guidance, that she needed, for hours on end. And giving a woman all of that help and attention (especially through a long and arduous first labor) is a grueling job, whereas pronouncing the pain "absolutely not normal" and administering drugs is not.

Note the quotes around "natural" childbirth. My take on it was that the quotes showed contempt but others who read it felt that the quotes meant that one shouldn't assume that a drugged birth is necessarily an unnatural one. To me, that is contemptuous. To tell a woman that being drugged is just as natural (or "natural") as being fully alert and active is not, in my opinion, telling her the truth.

Aviva, age 38 and pregnant, had her first child at the age of 29 and probably due to that has a strong appreciation for the blessings of pregnancy and birth. She is a highly intuitive person, who becomes even more intuitive during pregnancy and birth. She is also a practical person, realistic about what she can and cannot handle in the way of commitments outside her family. One has to envy the way she guiltlessly says no to people who call her, asking favors or suggesting mitzvos she could get involved with, because her plate is overflowing at home. She has an enviable trust in Hashem and does not worry a lot. Although she is comfortable speaking about Hashem and spiritual matters, she is also touchingly honest about her own inevitable moments of self-doubt.

From Aviva (page 281): Sometimes I have anxiety about whether I am going to be able to handle all these children. I've never felt that before in the past - this is the first time. I've just been thinking, how am I going to handle all of this? Five is a big number, bli ayin harah, I just barely manage with what I have now. You have to let go and know it's not in your control… There's nothing like labor; there's nothing like the pain and the anticipation - it's like the pain of excitement. It's so real, you can't pretend to be a good little girl, you're [making noise] and you have to be very real… It's a very spiritual experience, but it's also a very physical… experience… I think it's the ultimate female experience. And knowing that you're enduring incredible pain for the good… It makes us remember that often to get something good we have to go through pain on the way… That's why I wouldn't get an epidural…

[Women] know that the best in life comes through enduring terrible pain and going through self-sacrifice. And somehow we're able to endure pain and hardships which I don't think men would be able to, since we have this incredible privilege. That's why I wouldn't want to have an epidural, because of the relief afterwards, and I'm always exhausted, but I'm on such a high. I'm on an absolute high afterwards. I think it's important to have a woman there with you… a labor coach… someone who can work with you… I don't think it's for men; I think that birth is a women's experience. This is our privilege, to bring children into the world… Just to smell a new baby and to nurse her - I love it, I love it!

I loved this book. Although I did not agree with everything that was said in it, I felt that every woman interviewed expressed herself honestly. Each spoke in her own unique voice. The author did not make them all sound alike, at all. Chana Weisberg was but a faithful chronicler, who did not insert her own opinions whatsoever. (How does she do that?) Besides the birth stories (which I never get tired of hearing), I appreciated the frank discussions of how it feels to have your tenth or twelfth baby while dealing with pressing financial concerns, r"l illness in the family, and other challenges.

All kinds of people have their say in this book. There are those who think home birth is dangerous and crazy, and there are those who think it is good. And there are those who vacillate (see page 160). There are those who believe wholeheartedly in saying certain prayers and doing certain segulos during pregnancy and labor and birth, and contend that it helped them and their babies tremendously. Sources are given. If you are interested in learning about these, they are discussed in detail in the book. Then there are those who can't imagine such activities at such times. (Personally, I found the list of things to think and say while in labor-- at the very end of the book-- bizarre. But that's just me. And I know there are lots of people who find me bizarre.) There are those who daven more when they are pregnant. There are those who can't daven at all while pregnant. There are those who love taking care of small children full time, and find it the highest calling. There are those who feel they must have an outside job. Bear in mind that in Israel, where these women live, school takes up a short few hours of the day, and then the children are home from very early in the afternoon.

They all speak candidly, unhurriedly, in this arresting and absorbing book. As I read, I folded pages that I thought you might enjoy reading. By the time I finished it, the book looked like an accordion. The hardest part of writing this review was the selection process, when it became obvious that we couldn't print all my "folds." So, just until you can buy the book, these will have to hold you over:

Mrs. Yehudis Golshevsky, page 340: Rabbi Nachman teaches that one should recite psalm 100 for a woman in childbirth… At its core, the teaching where we find this advice is about recognizing the difference between product (the result of our efforts) and process (the efforts themselves)… What many women find most challenging about birth is its demand that we relinquish control and accept that Hashem is orchestrating... Like life, childbirth is a lesson in accepting our limitations and shatters the illusion that we control the situations in which we find ourselves. It is as though Hashem insists that we learn to let go of our attachment to seeing the results we want when we want them and allow Him to guide us through the process of expending pure effort instead. Birth can then become a lens through which we view our own lives more maturely, more honestly… we learn to give thanks for the entire journey with all of its challenges, regardless of where it takes us. This thanksgiving is the essence of faith… During my last birth, after six hours of "no progress," I stood at the wall and said so softly that only G-d and I could hear, "Hashem, You are in this with me. This baby will be born exactly when and how You want it to. I am entrusting myself to Your hands and I will be strengthened by relinquishing my control over what is happening here." Then I went from seven centimeters to full dilation in one very long, very intense contraction.

Nili (page 287): …Binyomin's [a child with chronic liver disease] development has been slow, so since the birth of my youngest a year and four months ago, I decided to stay home with the children and not go back to my job as a social worker. This has been an excellent decision for everyone, but there is a lot of work you must do on yourself when you are only at home. You have to work very hard on being happy. When I was working [outside the home] it was easier [to be happy] since even though there are always a lot of problems, the way I invest in my work, I always got a lot of positive feedback for what I was doing. When you are a housewife there is no feedback, so you have to be stronger and work on yourself more.

Rachel's husband gets the Man of the Book Award. Rachel seems to be burdened with more than her fair share of fears and insecurities about getting married and becoming a mother. Her wise and patient husband is an unsung hero. Here, listen to Rachel (page 72): I have always been nervous about taking on different stages in growing up, and really had tremendous fear about these things. When I was in college, I saw a couple getting married at the chapel on campus and I said to a friend, "How morbid!" since I thought of marriage as one step before death, almost the end of life. Once I got married - and that took quite a bit of convincing, since I had been so worried about it-I took on the same attitude about becoming a mother. I told my husband that I didn't like children and couldn't see myself being tied down and taking on the responsibility of babies who would probably bore me to no end, and how I hated being home. I told him I was the kind of person who needed to be out working and studying. But he …convinced me I shouldn't be so afraid of getting pregnant by reminding me how much I had dreaded getting married, when I had grown to love being married more than anything.

Ella (page 228): By the third birth my husband and I had figured out the secret to painless [expulsion of the baby], but I don't know if it would work for all women…We just realized that every woman is preprogrammed for a certain amount of contractions, whether it be 340 or 500. When this amount of contractions is completed, the baby will come out and no amount of pushing before then is going to do any good… By my third birth, I knew [that the way to avoid pain was not to push until it was absolutely unavoidable], and when the midwife at Shaarei Tzedek told me to stop walking around and get on the bed when I was eight centimeters, I told her that I needed to keep on walking around with my husband, and that was what I did. I waited until the very end and then I got onto the bed and pushed, and the baby came out without pain. The problem is that many midwives don't have the patience to birth a baby. They are rushing you to give birth, and give you pitocin and have you start pushing before your body is ready, and that is why women feel such pain. I don't know if this will work for most women, but it worked for me. (Some of those Israeli midwives sound an awful lot like American obstetricians to me.)

Even Ella's awful birth stories were consoling, somehow, as she and her husband were able to take stock of what went wrong with each one and learn from it, without getting defensive and engaging in revisionism as we humans sometimes tend to do when we are disappointed in a chapter of our personal history. Since I wasn't actually at Ella's births, you might ask, how do I know she didn't rewrite history? Her words have the ring of truth to them, that's all. She speaks with utter simplicity and deep humility.

I cannot conclude this book review without expressing my admiration for the women who, while in labor, daven for those who do not yet have children. I had never heard of this idea before, but it makes perfect sense. Imagine if everyone who reads the book takes upon herself to do that. Maybe then, finally, that segment of our population that is still waiting to experience labor and birth will be helped. May Hashem end their waiting and bless them with the gift of motherhood right now.

Chocolates make you fat, flowers don't last, clothes don't always fit, and money gets quickly spent, but a book, well, a book is The Perfect Gift. I have many books on the topic of birth, but none like this. The lovely Expecting Miracles, with its graceful cover design and focus on the spiritual aspects of pregnancy and birth, is unique. I thank the author, Chana Weisberg, for sending me this gift, and I have already given it to some of my friends (my enemies get the Bronx Yellow Pages). I wish all Jewish women happy, healthy pregnancies, easy births, much nachas, and "ah gringe horevanya." (an easy time bringing them up)