Henry Ford, Frank Herbert, And the Process of Giving Birth

Henry Ford said, “Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right.” It's absolutely true with the process of giving birth. Want to know how? Read on...


From the time we are small, women are told that giving birth hurts. As a matter of fact it does. It hurts a lot. I've been there, and you won't hear me telling you any differently. We are also told, that it hurts so much, that we're going to need pain medications, like epidurals, in order to stand the pain. This much is NOT true. I know this for a fact as well. My baby number 2 was born without any pain medications at all. 


So, did baby number 2 hurt any less than baby number 1? I doubt it. It was probably the same. There was one big, huge, gigantic difference, though. My second daughter was born after the first one. (Here's where you day "Duhhhh" and we can get on with the lesson.) 


You see, when I went into labor the second time, I wasn't as afraid. I knew what to expect, and since I had been through it before, I hadn't had to listen to the "Oh God, you're gonna want to DIE!!" stories for the previous nine months. I was better prepared for the pain, and I knew that I could make it through without the drugs. 

Voila!! Henry Ford was proven right. The first time, I thought I needed the meds, and I did. The second time, I knew just as surely that I didn't, and I didn't. As a matter of fact, I was so certain that I wouldn't need the meds, that I resisted some very serious pressure from the hospital staff to take the medications, and did without the medications anyway. 


Amazing, isn't it? The way the mind works in these kinds of things is almost diabolical. 


Frank Herbert, in the book Dune makes one very astute observation. He says “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear... And when it is gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear is gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

In my humble opinion, it's not the pain that does us in, it's the fear of the pain. It's the fear of the situation we're going into, and the fear that we're going to decide wrong. We are afraid that we can't handle what's coming, and we are afraid to question those that we think "know best." Yet, if what others are urging us in a different direction than we want to go, we often question ourselves, and not the other person. It's as if trusting ourselves is so much harder than trusting someone else.

Do we think so little of ourselves and our abilities that we can't see that we are the best judge for us? Why are we so afraid of a natural process? Women have been doing this for thousands upon thousands of years, and it's only in the past 50 or so years, that we have felt the need for the massive amounts of medical interventions. 


Do not be afraid of birth. Yes, there is pain, and things don't always go as planned. I will tell you this... If we trust ourselves and walk boldly and fearlessly into the world, things will go far better for us in the end.