"Belabored" by Lyz Lenz

Childless-not-by-choice women like me have a love-hate relationship with pregnancy. It was something we once desperately wanted for ourselves. (Those of us who were lucky enough to be pregnant, even briefly, have love-hate memories of the experience -- the joy, followed by the pain, both physical and emotional.) We're happy that others in our life get to have the babies they wanted... but we resent that it comes so effortlessly for some people, and we really hate it when people seem to take the entire experience for granted -- and/or assume that pregnancy is an experience that all women share. (Spoiler alert: we don't!) 

In her new book "Belabored: A Vindication of the Rights of Pregnant Women,"  Lyz Lenz. a columnist with the Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Gazette, examines the paradoxes of pregnancy and motherhood in modern America. It's a time when women find themselves the centre of attention & worship -- and yet also the subject of scrutiny and criticism. (Example: "You're eating for two! -- but don't eat too much, and should you be eating THAT?") Pregnancy and motherhood are rarely about the woman herself or her wishes.  

"To be pregnant, to be a mother, is to occupy a political space where your body is fought over and you feel powerless to control the conversation that rages around you," Lenz writes in the introduction. " Power over our bodies begins with consent and consent  begins with choice and choice is the primary right that is stripped from people in their journeys to and through pregnancy." 

The book is part polemic, part sociological/cultural study, part history lesson and part memoir. It is honest, pointed and frequently funny.  Lenz was raised and homeschooled in a large, conservative Christian family, married to a conservative, Christian man, and gave birth to two children, a boy and a girl. As a teenager, she received a "purity ring" from her father, which she gave to her husband on her wedding night. But she was keeping a dark secret from him:  she was sexually assaulted at a college conference, and remained silent about it until (like so many women) she watched Christine Blasey Ford testifying against Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court. In the years between, she wrestled with her guilt and shame in silence, and the growing rift between the ideals and the realities of pregnancy, motherhood and married life. (She and her husband are now divorced, and as I read the book, I could understand why...!)  

This is a short book, but it packs a lot into its 224 pages: purity, conception, creation, hunger, the desire for children, maternal death, doctors versus midwives, natural childbirth versus C-sections, breastfeeding and pumping versus formula, pain, maternity leave (or the lack thereof in the U.S.), women's bodies and who controls them, and much more.  There is so, so much here to chew on, both in terms of ideas and how well they're presented. I read this on a Kobo e-reader, and I have 10 pages (!) of electronic bookmarks. If I'd had a paper book in my hands, it would have been dog-eared from folded page corners, or papered with yellow post-it notes. 

Last week, before starting to read this, I watched a live conversation between the author and Dr. Jen Gunter, author of The Vagina Bible, sponsored by Books Are Magic. (I blogged about it here.) I was curious to know whether infertility and/or pregnancy loss were addressed in the book, and submitted a question to that effect, but the webcast ended before they got to it.  

I'm happy to say that YES, both subjects are discussed (with some great observations & insights). In addressing the question of "who gets to be a mother?" in the introduction, she doesn't address the fact that some of us don't get to be mothers at all (and what happens then? how kindly does society view THAT?), which I found disappointing -- but I forgave her as I read on, particularly a chapter titled "Miscarriage" (in which she describes her own miscarriage experience) and another titled "Desire." 

I am very glad that Lenz included some of these topics in this book. But make no mistake -- while these subjects are touched on, the book is about pregnancy and motherhood, plain & simple. If that's (still) a sensitive/triggering subject for you, you may want to proceed with caution.

Four stars on Goodreads. 

This was Book #29 read to date in 2020 (Book #5 finished in August). I'm currently at 97% of my 2020 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 30 books, and am (for the moment, anyway...!) 11 (!) books ahead of schedule to meet my goal. :) You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2020 tagged as "2020 books." 

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Some quotes from among the 10 pages worth (!) that I had bookmarked: 

From "Miscarriage":  

In the end, to carry a potential for life is to also carry a potential for death. You cannot separate the two. 

As the concept of home became clearer, women became smaller. For smart, ambitious women with no outlet for their skills except their children, motherhood and homemaking became all-consuming identities. Dalla Costa and James write that women decorate their homes because their homes are the only proof they exist. The same logic could be used for pouring one's life into children. Children become a woman's reason for being, her proof of existence. As if her own existence weren't enough. 

"Be sweet!" is still the dominant advice given to pregnant women today. Take a rest. Sit down. Don't worry your pregnant mind. Think of the baby. Mothers are advised not to be stressed out... But we routinely overlook the culture and system that overworks women physically and mentally, that is so powerfully bigoted and unjust that day-to-day life here can be a potentially deadly stressor for members of marginalized groups, and instead we place the blame and the burden of stress on the mother.

[Interviewing Alyssa Mastromonaco, formerly of the Obama White House, about her book and about how hard it was to write about choosing not to be a mother:]

"It's all people want to talk about," she said. 

I laughed. "When you have kids, it's still the same." 

"Fucked either way," said Mastromonaco. 

I think about that a lot. Fucked either way. Mother or not mother. Pregnant or not, our life is defined by the reproductive role we're expected to play. 

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From "Desire":  

For so many women, pregnancy is an honor -- the canonization of a certain type of femininity. Often, it's the only time that society celebrates a woman, besides her wedding. There are baby showers. Pregnancy photos. Gifts. Special food. Special attention. People on the subway give up their seat for you. Men hold open doors.

Pregnancy is power. Our culture bestows esteem and honor upon women who conceive and carry children. Fawning over and fetishizing the rising tide of our bellies. 

Growing a baby, pregnant women feel empowered to ask for things they'd never dared, or even considered, asking for before... And it's one of the few times that our society allows women to take those things for themselves. We insist on it. Sit in this seat. Put your feet up. Take care of yourself.... But is it the woman or the baby that we are truly caring for? 

Pregnancy feels like power because it is. But it is a tenuous power. 

The power of pregnancy is not accessible to all women, or even all pregnant people... Some women, of course, choose not to be pregnant -- a power in its own right. But others, who want to conceive and can't, describe feeling powerless. 

The problem with centering the womb as the woman's path to goddess-hood is that it completely devalues a woman's other achievements and contributions to the world.

And if we are not mothers, if we choose to do other things, our lives always raise the unanswered question posed by the existence of our wombs. 

It can be freeing to find power in your womb. But if that is the extent of the power we allow women, it's really not power at all. 

I have no more insight, no more voice or vision, just because I used my uterus twice to make humans. 

The power of the womb also leads to powerlessness when a womb cannot be used. 

"When are you having children?" "Do you want children?" "You should have children." These are the relentless slings and arrows our culture lobs at couples once they seem relatively happy and settled -- or, increasingly, at single women of a certain age and stable income. As if children are all a woman could ever or should ever want. The message being that our fulfillment lies in our reproductive capabilities.