Labor of Love

Music for New Mamas

I just wrote a piece for one of my favorite magazines, Mothering. Feel free to click on the link to read my piece (http://mothering.com/pregnancy-birth/music-for-new-mamas) or to browse other areas of this terrific resource for progressive parents. 

By Taz Tagore
Web Exclusive - September 1, 2009

Music, like birth, is an enigma. Neuroscientists can’t pin down a specific part of the brain that is dedicated to music. Music moves like an apparition through our brain, lighting up neural circuits here, disappearing, then reappearing elsewhere to work its magic. Similarly, we can’t seem to come up with a scientific way to predict how a birth will unfold. Part of the miracle of childbirth is that it is always a surprise. Like childbirth, music’s impact is far-reaching. Music touches our physical bodies, stirs our emotions, and awakens our spirits. Birth and music are deeply connected by their ability to transform us long after their tunes have been played.

I’ve been a student of music for most of my life, and when I found out I was pregnant, one of the first things I did was to create a playlist for my iPod. It was the only way I could express the enormous joy, fear, and anticipation I felt. Words fell short, but music offered a means to express the complex brew of emotions stirring within. The songs I chose were jubilant (“To Zion,” by Lauryn Hill), contemplative (“Swirling Beyond Belief,” by Dean Evenson), and profound (“Landslide,” as performed by Fleetwood Mac).

About midway through the pregnancy, I began working on my labor playlist, as I was sure that music would play an important role in Ayla’s home birth. I worked at it for months, listening to my old favorites as well as following others’ recommendations into undiscovered musical territory, and eventually settled on a soundscape befitting an experience as profound as childbirth. I chose otherworldly instruments—singing bowls, harmonium, flutes—and female singers with ethereal voices: Snatam Kaur, Morgan Doctor, Hayley Westenra. During labor, each song on the playlist helped me release my grasp on the outside world so I could listen to my body and tune in to my daughter’s spirit. Music led me within, to the place where I had the strength and courage to birth my daughter, and myself as a new mother. (See sidebar: “Taz’s Labor Playlist.”)

Scientific research is divided on the topic of music and childbirth. The introduction of music into childbirth education is believed to prepare mothers and fathers for childbirth, but so far the effects are considered not quantitative but qualitative—that is, unmeasurable. (See “References” for studies by Caryl Ann Browning and M. E. Clark et al.) Similarly, researchers who have studied the use of music during childbirth overwhelmingly agree that music offers effective relief of pain and stress, but the devices used to record changes in a woman’s heart rate, blood pressure, and other vital signs have produced statistically insignificant data. Do we need better science and more precise measurement tools? Or are we to conclude that music, like childbirth, can’t be precisely measured by science?

As a childbirth educator, I’ve coached women before, during, and after childbirth. I have a wealth of anecdotal evidence demonstrating that music can have a powerful and positive effect on childbirth. One of my clients, Sarah, who had chosen to birth in a hospital but wanted a natural childbirth, had, on the advice of her doula, packed in her hospital bag an iPod filled with calming music. She was “overdue” and was therefore advised to stay at the hospital and receive prostaglandin treatments to ripen her cervix. During the first two treatments, she nervously chatted on the phone with friends, paced the hospital corridors, and took short walks with her husband. Feeling frustrated that the drugs weren’t working, she turned to her iPod for help. After Sarah had listened to violin concertos for several hours, she spontaneously dilated to four centimeters. While the prostaglandins certainly played a role in advancing labor, Sarah felt that they worked better when she was more relaxed and psychologically open to going into labor. In this regard, music was as important to Sarah as the drugs.

Another of my clients, Willa, explained that listening to the guttural chanting of Tibetan monks during childbirth gave her permission to make her own primal sounds. Nancy, who gave birth last month, found that music helped her to quickly establish a rhythm for managing each surge or contraction. Even after a distracting cab ride, hearing music helped Nancy reestablish her laboring rhythm in the new environment of a hospital labor room.

Most childbirth practitioners have had similar experiences with their clients. Music can calm a woman’s nerves during an uneasy pregnancy. It can help soothe her fears when the first contractions hit. It can coax her into labor at moments when drugs and words fail. Even during the transition phase, when the outside world has largely dissolved and she is exclusively focused on birthing, music can slip through the cracks in her consciousness and quietly allay her deepest fears.

My own experience with laboring women echoes the findings of a small body of research that I find fascinating: the use of music during the postpartum phase. I, too, have discovered countless ways in which music can help ease the transition to motherhood. In my own life, music helped me manage physical pain, calm my child and myself, and establish my own rhythm of parenting.

There were several scenarios in which music helped me cross a difficult threshold. The first occurred in the first weeks of my daughter’s life. There were countless moments when she was unsoothable: Diaper changes, nursing, bouncing or walking in a sling—nothing offered comfort. Each time one of my calming techniques failed, I grew more impatient. Finally, in tears, I put aside my checklist of baby-soothing techniques. I breathed deeply, then spontaneously began to sing. I chanted “Om.” I sang “Kum Ba Yah.” I hummed Vivaldi’s Spring concerto. I felt myself relax. And just as in the in-flight oxygen-mask scenario—first you put on your own mask, then you put a mask on your child—I sang myself into a state of calm in which I was capable of soothing my newborn.

Another personal experience with music therapy unfolded as I suffered through a prolonged period of blocked milk ducts. Listening to music while nursing helped me transcend the physical pain and focus instead on the life-giving exchange taking place. When I nursed without music, I found myself oscillating between crying from the pain and worrying that I couldn’t breastfeed. Music helped me rise above my pain and my fears to a place where I could envision my ducts slowly opening. For the first 12 weeks of Ayla’s life, I used one hand to cup her head in nursing position and the other to hold the remote control for the stereo. When the music flowed, so did my milk.

A third experiment began once Ayla had begun to settle as a baby and I had emerged from the bliss bubble of new motherhood. The calls of the outside world were urgent—friends wanting to catch up, unanswered e-mails, grant proposals waiting to be written—and distracted me from mothering Ayla. On some days, instead of mothering Ayla, I felt as if I were merely managing her with the aid of such devices as her bouncy chair. When I felt myself drift away from her, music helped bring me back. African folk songs, Celtic lullabies, and the gentle sounds of Zen flutes and waterfalls became the soundtrack to our playtime. Music helped me tune in to my daughter rather than being distracted by the noise of everyday life.

Oliver Sacks has published scientific papers and popular articles and books about music and the brain. In his book Musicophilia, he writes of music’s capacity to unlock our creativity and intuition. Although I aspire to parent intuitively, as a thinking person, I’m susceptible to the seductive “answers” offered by parenting books. Here again, I’ve found that music is an important enabler. When Ayla’s behavior baffles me and I’m not sure what to do, music helps set the tone for intuitive exploration. With a soothing tune playing in the background, I try this, then that, without succumbing to anger or frustration. Eventually, I do something that works. My daughter ceases to make dissonant sounds. She laughs. My heart sings with joy. And in this way, we make music together.

TAZ’S LABOR PLAYLIST
Snatam Kaur: “Ek Ong Kaar,” from Shanti
Morgan Doctor: “Drolma-La,” from Is This Home
Dean Evenson: “Swirling Beyond Belief,” from Healing Waters
Krishna Das: “Om Namah Shivaya,” from Heart Full of Soul
Caitlin: “Om Mani Padme Hum,” from Sacred Mantras
Ali Farka Touré & Toumani Diabaté: In the Heart of the Moon
Various Artists: Dream Therapy
SoundScapes: River

TAZ’S BREASTFEEDING PLAYLIST
Michael Maxwell: The Elegance of Pachelbel
Kikujiro: Original Soundtrack (Various Artists)
Putumayo Presents: French Café
Ry Cooder & V. M. Bhatt: A Meeting by the River
Everything But the Girl: Amplified Heart
Ismael Lo: Iso

TAZ’S POSTPARTUM PLAYLIST
Putumayo Presents: Dreamland: World Lullabies & Soothing Songs
Louis Armstrong: The Best of the Decca Years
Les Nubians: Princesses Nubiennes
Dean Evenson: Healing Waters
Van Morrison: Days Like This
Gotan Project: La Revancha del Tango

REFERENCES
    Caryl Ann Browning, BEd, BMusTh, MTA, CD (DONA), “Using Music During Childbirth,” Birth 27, no. 4 (December 2000): 272–276.
    M. E. Clark, R. R. McCorkle, and S. B. Williams, “Music Therapy-assisted Labor and Delivery,” Journal of Music Therapy 18, no. 2 (Summer 1981): 88–100.
    Lynn Durham, RN, and Mike Collins, EHD, “The Effect of Music as a Conditioning Aid in Prepared Childbirth Education,” Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic & Neonatal Nursing 15, no. 3 (May 1986): 203–274.
    Sharon L. Olson, RN, PhD, “Bedside Musical Care: Applications in Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Neonatal Care,” Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic & Neonatal Nursing 27, no. 5 (September 1998): 569–575.
    Elizabeth A. Geden, PhD, RN et al., “Effects of Music and Imagery on Physiologic and Self-Report of Analogued Labor Pain,” Nursing Research 38, no. 1 (January–February 1989): 37–41.
    Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia (New York: Vintage, 2008).

Taz Tagore is a mother to Ayla (17 months); the founder of the Reciprocity Foundation, an award-winning nonprofit; and author of a music and mothering blog, “Labor of Love”.

“Back to the Newborn”: My Experience with Time Travel

I’ve always fancied time travel. When I was younger, I wanted to travel into the future. I dreamed that life at 30 would be sophisticated; I would dab Coco Chanel on my wrists before stepping out of my New York City apartment for a glass of champagne with friends. Now I long to travel into the past—to revisit brief pockets of time when my life was insatiably good. If I had a time machine, I would set the clock back to my summer writing retreats or a handful of episodes in my life defined by a particularly poignant friendship or love affair.

Funny enough, I had a chance to travel back in time last week when my daughter’s molars emerged from her gums. I woke up one Saturday morning to find the hands of the clock had turned counter-clockwise—my toddler was in so much pain that she behaved like a newborn. It is a terrible thing to see a child, especially your child, suffer. But there was a silver lining—at least from my perspective. I was able to dive back into my life as a new parent, a second time.

While Ayla whimpered and writhed in pain, I was—for the first time in months—able to hold her close to me, rub her back, hum soft lullabies into her ear. Then, after taking a long morning nap, Ayla walked right over to our Ergo baby carrier and tugged at it’s straps. My heart skipped a beat. “You want mama to put you in the carrier?” I asked, barely able to conceal my excitement. She tugged the straps again. I couldn’t get the carrier on fast enough. I could feel my eyes well up with tears as I lifted her up and placed her against my chest. Instead of squirming around in typical toddler fashion, she put her head against my chest and actually hugged me. My heart melted.

I have persistent memories of the hardest moments of newborn parenting—the sleepless nights, the un-diagnosable tears, the explosive poops. But I had forgotten how life affirming it is to have a child nestled in your bosom, and to feel their heart beat against your chest. During the first two days of Ayla’s retreat into newborn-hood, I was ecstatic. I didn’t realize how much I missed the intimacy of newborn life. I had forgotten how fulfilling it is to give round-the-clock hugs. It was so life affirming to give and receive affection all day and night long.

There were other things too. Traveling back in time helped me realize how much I had grown as a parent. Instead of living in a state of constant anxiety about what to do next, I was relaxed and confident. I wasn’t worried that Ayla would have an outburst in public or that I wouldn’t know how to meet her needs. This time around, reading and responding to Ayla’s signals was near effortless. I could anticipate her exhaustion and her hunger; my responses quickly fulfilled her needs.

It is a strange thing to re-visit your life as it was. The gift of time travel was a yardstick against which I could measure my hard-earned maturity as a parent. Just as my daughter had undergone enormous development in the space of a year—so had I. I wasn’t a mother-in-training anymore. At first, motherhood had felt like a badge pinned to my chest. I had given birth—I had done it—I was a mother! Now motherhood felt more like a well-worn sweater; I wore it comfortably, and with more softness, than I had in the past.

When Ayla’s teething pain subsided, she no longer gestured for the carrier. She wanted to be free now. She wanted to explore the world on her own terms, instead of mine. So I put Ayla down to play and headed to the bathroom. I was amazed to find that I was menstruating again; after nearly two years of being free of my moon cycle. Was this a sign from the universe—that I was ready to have another child? Was the experience of time-travel an affirmation of my readiness to give birth again? I started to imagine life with two children and then stopped. For once, I didn’t want to travel into the past or the future. Today, I just wanted to live in the present moment.

My Child, My Teacher

There are moments in books and movies when a small gesture reveals a profound insight about a character.  They might decide to go barefoot, or refuse to board a bus, or turn their face upward to taste the rain.  After consuming enough literature and films, we learn that these moments matter and that the author is helping to reveal a character’s deepest self with these gestures. Recently, I was reminded that those moments aren’t limited to fiction, nor to adults.  My 1-year old daughter Ayla taught me that lesson last week when I found her asleep in the bathtub.  Let me explain.

Since Ayla is now sleeping in her own (door-less) room, she is prone to wake up in the wee hours and wander around the apartment or into my bed.  Last week, Ayla woke up and stumbled into the bathroom.  I’m not sure exactly what transpired but my best guess is that she accidentally closed the bathroom door and couldn’t reach the handle.  She was stuck.

While most babies would scream out in her situation—knowing that their light-sleeping parents would quickly come to the rescue—Ayla stayed put.  She didn’t cry or scream out. Instead, she navigated around the bathroom by the dim glow of the night-light.  She gathered a few towels.  She found a pair of my leggings.  Then she got into the tub and somehow fashioned a small bed out of them.  Finally, she put herself to sleep.

She had just turned one—only a few days before this happened. 

The next morning, unable to get out of her tiny bed, she called out to me and I came running into her room.  When I didn’t find her there, my heart started pounding, loud and fierce.  Then I checked the bathroom and found her standing up in the bathtub.  It took a second to register the salient details of the scene: Her towel-and-legging bed, the scratch on her nose (from the faucet?), her well-rested countenance. There wasn’t a trace of injury—no bruises or bleeding.

I quickly grabbed Ayla and pulled her close.  I scanned her face and body to make sure she wasn’t hurt.   Within seconds she was cooing and laughing—she was her usual, happy self.

Over the next 24 hours, the significance of Ayla’s bathtub adventure unraveled itself from the knot of worry that had formed in my belly.  I had to remind myself that I didn’t sleep through Ayla’s cries—we are too deeply connected for that to happen.  The truth of the matter was that Ayla didn’t call out for me.  Her instinct told her not to panic.  Her gut reaction was to convert a less-than-ideal situation into something agreeable.  She was creative.  She improvised.  She relied on her body and her intuition to guide her to safety.  A 1-year old infant did all of this in the middle of the night. 

In the days since I found Ayla in the bathtub, I keep the bathroom door locked at night.  But more importantly, I see Ayla in a different light.  She is no longer just a baby in my eyes.  I see her as a human being with a formidable character.  She is a tremendous problem solver.  She has the even-handedness of a surgeon.  She is a wise soul.

Last week, I learned that I admire and respect my tiny daughter.  I’m not sure that I, even today, would have handled a similar situation with such grace.  But perhaps the biggest revelation was that it was time to  reassess my relationship with Ayla.  I have evolved so much as a person as a result of giving birth and becoming a mother.  But it’s not just the situation of parenthood that is spurring my growth.  I’m finally ready to look into my daughter’s eyes and see her as more than my child, but also as my teacher. 

And if this is what she can teach me at the one-year mark, I can’t begin to imagine what she'll teach me in my lifetime.  

Janus, Ayla & the New Year

Janus, the God representing the month of January, has two faces—one looks to the future, and the other faces the past.  On the precipice of the New Year, most of us try to assume the posture of Janus by reflecting on the year passed and setting aspirations for the year to come.

In the past, I’ve done exactly that.  In some years I’ve gone on retreat and ushered in the New Year after days of quiet reflection.  In others, I’ve written letters to myself that capture all that I’ve learned.  One year, I made two lists—one with everything I wanted to leave behind (this piece of paper was eventually burned in a New Year’s bonfire); the other list everything I hoped to embrace (it was kept under my pillow or worn in a locket for the first week of the year).  On the eve of the new millennium, I gathered my friends and family together and we wrote poems, stories and songs to commemorate a new chapter in the life of our planet and the human race.

But this year, a few days before the New Year, I woke up early enough to take a sunrise walk on the beach.   First, I walked west. My eyes hungrily consumed the beauty of a newly awakened earth.  The ocean glowed pink, the waves lazily rolled out towards land and up above, majestic pelicans swooped down to catch their breakfast.  It was the first time in nine months that I had a chance to really catch my breath.  I reflected on 2008.  It was a big year: There was the joy of being pregnant with Ayla and then the moment that I birthed her by candlelight, in the comfort of our home.

By the time I reached the pier on the north end of the beach, I had “seen” all the poignant moments of 2008 flash before my mind’s eye: Ayla’s first toothless smile.  Watching her ravage a perfectly ripe plum for the first time.  The joy of nursing her to sleep, her lips suckling the air after my nipple slipped out of her mouth.  It was akin to watching the sunset, and making peace with the events of the day.

Then I turned around and walked east.  The sun had risen over the horizon and its golden light shone directly into my eyes.  It was a softly blinding light—rays of gold filled every inch of land and sky.  So instead of looking into the future, I was forced to look down and around me.  I noticed millions of tiny seashells, shuffling sand crabs and sandpipers racing across the sand, their toes barely grazing the land.  What was the lesson in my New Year’s walk home?  That perhaps I should be content not to gaze too far into the future.  Now that I’m a mother, plans and predictions for tomorrow are usually trumped by the here-and-now.

As I walked home to have breakfast with Ayla and the rest of my family, I felt certain that this year I didn’t need to construct lofty aspirations.  My only aspiration was to content myself with living in the present moment, and trusting that the golden light of the future will illuminate the path ahead.

Let Them Eat Cake

I re-started my pastry habit just before I got pregnant with Ayla.  At the time, I attributed it to the fact that I was in France.  To the French, consuming pastries is like sleeping or breathing—just a normal bit of everyday life.  Then, after conceiving Ayla, my “normal bit of everyday life” took on abnormal proportions.

New Yorkers know that Bouchon is a supreme purveyor of pastries.  The cookies are like no cookie you’ve ever had before; try the TKO and you’ll be laughing and crying at once.  The “drinking chocolate” causes an instant throat orgasm.  The traditional French treats—macarons, croissant and dense lemon and chocolate tarts—will bring you to your knees.  I told myself that these treats were to make up for all the meals I couldn’t eat during the first trimester, when even water made me gag.  So, from the second trimester on, I was standing in line at Bouchon every weekend ordering enough pastries for not one, or even two, but three people!

I figured it would pass once Ayla was born.

The day after giving birth to Ayla, we ordered a chocolate truffle cake from Dufflet Pastries in Toronto, another heavenly bakery that makes to-die-for cakes.  (Dufflet cakes are dense, moist and they actually taste like their ingredients—the chocolate banana cake tastes like mashed bananas and dark chocolate; the carrot cake has slivers of carrot, coconut and walnuts and alternately tastes sweet, chewy and crunchy…).  The cake was a celebration of Ayla’s first day on the planet, I reasoned.  I savored her arrival with every last crumb.

Two weeks later, it was my birthday, so we called Dufflet again.  Another two weeks passed and it was Mother’s Day.  I called Dufflet and had to clarify to the store clerk, “Yes, it’s the same Tagore that ordered a cake two weeks ago!”  Then every two weeks, I ordered another cake.  I didn’t wait for Father’s Day or Arbor Day or Memorial Day.  Justifying the cakes was no longer important.  I spent hours deciding on the next flavor.  Cake felt like my lifeline during those first few months of motherhood. 

By now it’s probably obvious that I’m an emotional eater.  I don’t know many women who aren’t.  I’m not being defensive when I say that I’m thankful that when I’m in a bind, I reach for chocolate rather than Zanax or heroin.  If a little bit of sugar makes me feel happy on the inside, why not?

But in the midst of my sixth, 6-inch cake from Dufflet, I realized it had to stop.  I went cold turkey.  No cake, no chocolate, no pastries of any kind were allowed in the house.  I began power-walking with Ayla in the Moby wrap.  I lifted weights in the gym.  I did sit-ups while she napped in bed.  I lost a few pounds.  More importantly, I stopped craving cake.

I’ve since wondered why I needed to binge.  And then I remembered how out of control it felt to be pregnant for the first time.  When the nausea hit in week 5, I marveled that my baby—who was the size of a grain of rice—had quietly assumed control over my entire body.  While pregnant, there wasn’t an hour that passed when I wasn’t thinking about or planning for or talking to my child.  And after she swam out of the birth canal, everything was either directly or indirectly about Ayla.

It’s a big deal to share your body with another person.  It’s an even bigger deal to gently release the reins of your life, and allow a small child to do the driving.  It was hard on me.  So I ate cake.

Ayla is eight months old now. I have some time to myself, every now and again.  I’m able to write.  I sleep pretty well.  And I haven’t left the house with mismatched socks for about three months. 

Even still, sometimes I need cake to get through the day.  Last night, I bought a single slice of grocery store cake.  After Ayla was deep in slumber, I snuck out to the kitchen, and dared to bring the cake into bed.  I ate it slowly, while observing a ripe moon dangling from an ink-stained sky.  At 5 a.m., Ayla woke up, ready to play.  And I, satiated with cake, was ready to play too. 

Why don't I feel love at first sight?

I’m cautious about saying, “I love you.”  It comes slowly for me.  There are a few people whom I love—my close family and a handful of dear friends.  I don’t love many objects or things.   Other than that, love isn’t bandied about much in my household.

That’s why I was confused when I gave birth to Ayla.  I was in awe.  I was overwhelmed.  I was terrified.  I was joyful.  But the most prominent emotion—in the soupy mass of feelings that had overtaken me—was not love.

Other mothers in my mommy groups confided that they too didn’t feel a blinding love descend upon mother and child at birth. We’re so afraid that the absence of love at first sight is a sign that we’re not capable of loving our children.  Or that we’re deficient in the maternal love department.  But is that so?

When Ayla was living inside my belly, I remember feeling surges of love—often in the evenings or after a yoga class—that were stronger than any emotion I had ever named “love.”  During pre-natal yoga class, as I stretched and breathed and contorted myself around her tiny body, I felt like a mama bear protecting her cub.  My love for her was primarily physical.  Loving her meant being strong and eating the right foods and getting enough rest.  It was relatively easy to love her in utero.   It was all about the body.

But when she was born, I suddenly had to contend with an entirely different Love Scenario.  Now she was no longer a mysterious fetus in need of protection, she was an actual human being that cried and pooped and then cried some more.  True, I still felt the desire to protect her, but our mama bear-baby cub love no longer seemed to fit.  Now we were on more equal footing.  Now she had a face, a name and a loud wail.

For the first few months of her life, I was so overwhelmed with the demands of motherhood that my focus was on keeping us both clean, fed and sane—rather than basking in the bright light of family love.  I reasoned that when her needs were taken care of, then there would be more time for love.   

But even as I mastered the basics of child-rearing, the love didn’t birth itself in the way that I expected.   I didn’t wake up one day and feel “The Great Love” descend upon us.  Instead, it slowly emerged… Every time I observed her tiny fingers flutter while she napped, the light of love flickered.  When I breastfed her, an electric current of love passed between us.  And when I carried her around in a sling and could feel her little heart beating against mine, the love grew some more.  On some days, I felt my love for Ayla wash over me like a giant waterfall.  When a car passed too close to her body, I felt love fill every cell of my body like adrenaline, only more powerful and sacred.  And so I came to love her.

So many mothers feel pressured to instantly love their children at birth. But is that fair?  Or realistic?  Doesn’t human love deepen and mature with time and shared experience?  If so, shouldn’t we feel only the seeds of what could be an enormous love when our children are born?  And then, after thousands of hours of cuddles, play and nursing, our love for them will take on human proportions, and eventually become as big and familiar to us as life itself. 

Nowadays, saying “I love you” to Ayla would be redundant.  Because my love for her is everywhere. Between us.  Around us.  Inside and outside of my body, and hers.  The only question is, “How long will I be able to love her?”  I don’t know for certain, but I hope forever.  

[Note: This song, a lullaby for mamas, was a salve during those first weeks when I doubted my capacity to love…]
'Lullaby' by the Dixie Chicks

Labor Playlist: The Story of my "Labor Trance" Dance

I’ve danced in the hot desert while watching 3-story sculptures burn to the ground.  I’ve been to raves where I danced amidst towering sand dunes.  I’ve danced in the wilderness.  On a mountaintop.  By the sea. I’ve attended parties where I was blindfolded and “free-danced” all night.  And yet, nothing scared me more than the doing the “Labor Trance” dance.

Entering the “Labor Trance” is something that nearly every woman experiences.  Billions have done it.  And it overwhelmingly leads to the birth of a healthy baby.  And yet, the prospect of going in labor—entering this unknown realm that promises physical pain and gut-wrenching screams—is enough to make any woman wish that her baby would find another way out.

Contending with the act of birth is so difficult because we have to surrender to a greater force.  When labor starts, we cannot stop it.  Sure, we can slow it down—with our fears and anxiety—but only for a short time.  We can’t make it go away. Once the process is set in motion, our only choice is to give in, to flow with it…to agree to go wherever it takes us.  Once our contractions become regular, we have to succumb to entering a “Labor Trance” and staying in this strange, otherworldly realm until our baby is born. 

Once I begrudgingly accepted the necessity of labor, I knew that music would play a big role in the experience. What else could I rely on to make the experience a trifle less scary? Music seemed to offer a soothing balm to all of my third-trimester fears. But when I sat down to create a Labor Playlist, I was absolutely baffled.  Would electronic beats, played softly, do the trick? Or should I play lullabies to calm my baby?  Or maybe music sung in a different language—world music from Zimbabwe or Tahiti?  Then I thought I should go the ancestral route and play Indian chants (and perhaps call upon the spirits of my grandmother who had birthed 12 children!)  It’s easy to forget about Zen—but wouldn’t bamboo flutes and soft chimes be gentle enough to ease a new babe into the world?

After much deliberation, I settled for western musicians playing Indian-inspired mantra and Zen.  Snatam Kaur. Krishna Das.  Deva Premal.  Caitlin.  Jane Winther.  Dean Evenson.  The instruments were otherworldly: singing bowls, the santoor, delicate flutes, and the harmonium.   During early labor, the music helped me find my center and regulate my breathing and stay in the present moment.  But as the contractions grew in intensity, my carefully selected playlist, ceased to matter. 

In the end, it was the sound of my baby’s heartbeat, the rhythm of my contractions and my primal moans that became the only soundtrack of note.  It turns out, we make our own music during labor.  It is created spontaneously, with every contraction, we find a new way to release the pain with sound.

And when I had sounded every note on the scale, from guttural grunts to high pitched squeals, Ayla crowned.  This time, I held my breath.  Silence.  I pushed once more and her tiny body slithered out of me.  I held my breath again.  Another beat of silence.  Then Ayla took her first breath.  The sound of life—my firstborn baby’s life—turned out to be the sweetest song I’d ever heard.