As I type this, I’m in the very early stages of labor. Every 15 minutes or so, I’m noticing a small contraction. I’ve never done this before, and I’m nervous, hopeful, antsy.
I read a book that said I should have a “labor project” for these early stages — these long hours in which there’s not much to do but wait. The book suggested cleaning, baking a “birthday cake,” organizing baby clothes, or putting photos in an album. I’m awkward at those things and they don’t relax me, so I’ve decided to write instead.
Two paragraphs in, I do feel a little calmer. I’m reminded that labor isn’t entirely new to me, after all. Writing is labor, right? In fact, I’ve heard the book-baby comparison more times than I can count over the course of the last few months, as I’ve been co-writing a book at the same time as I’m incubating a fetus.
However, it’s worth thinking about how even writing, as devalued as it is in our society, is recognized as “labor” much more widely and readily than labor labor — labor that leads to birth — is. You generally don’t get paid to have contractions. Public recognition of labor as hard work (as opposed to pain inflicted and endured) is rare. There aren’t unions for laboring people.
I doubt there will be laboring-people unions until patriarchy is uprooted, at which point the movement for economic justice may be structured in forms more radical than unions as we know them, anyway. For now, I think it would be a big step to remember that labor is labor. As it’s intensifying for me right now, I’m realizing physically something I’d previously known only intellectually: This could be some of the most difficult work of my life.
At this point, I’m hearing a chorus of voices responding, “This is nothing! Just you wait until you have your kid!” These voices are not unfamiliar. Throughout my pregnancy, whenever I’ve spoken publicly about the weirdness, wildness, pain and/or wonder of being pregnant, a cis man…