by Becky Shafi
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On Birthing Girls
I was huge with child. Our house was full and noisy with two little boys already. I was praying for a girl. I would pray so hard trying to visualize her little female body inside my womb. Please God, let this one be a girl. Please, please, please. Each time I went to the mid-wife, she’d listen to the heartbeat. Slow and steady, she’d say, like a boy. She was preparing me, didn’t want me to be disappointed.
During the labor the midwives told me to visualize my baby coming out. They wanted me to take a mirror and watch the baby emerge. I couldn’t do it. I kept imagining the little penis that would finally prove this baby was another boy. I pushed and struggled. Finally not caring what sex the baby was, I just wanted it out. Get out of me! Its time for you to show yourself – be yourself.
When the baby did finally emerge, it was a beautiful baby girl. I could not believe it. I was overjoyed, nearly disbelieving. I had wanted this baby girl so badly, had been praying so hard. I was surprised when I looked on her new, small vagina, the proof of her femaleness, that I felt an instant and deep sorrow. It was a deep woman-knowing vision I held. I knew within my soul that this vagina would cause her much pain in her life. Not the pain from the act of giving birth, but the pain that will come from men wanting to rob her of her sacredness. From men needing her for her sex and mixing it up with love and using her for selfish needs. My sorrow was so instant and so deep. I knew that it was the way of the world and that I could never protect her from it. I could never prepare her for it. And in the deep, woman-knowing way that I experienced in that moment; I knew that she’d never want me to.
