Imperfect Catholic Mama

My dear Wormwood,

How disappointed I am in you that you’ve allowed your patient to conceive life within her; to become pregnant. The only way to get the upper hand in this war is by attacking that which the Enemy loves best: life. Over the centuries we’ve made so much progress, making life less and less appealing to humans and easier and easier to prevent or even destroy, should it occur. And yet, despite all these tools at your disposal, here you are with a woman bearing life in her womb. It’s repulsive!

Our master Satan hates birth, especially birth according to the Enemy’s design: Where women trust in their body, working with it according to it’s design and. trusting and surrendering unto Him. Birth is one of the few things we cannot fully usurp and take over; No matter what we do, it will always be a bringing forth of life. No matter how much we shroud the mystery, eliminate the pain (for suffering often draws humans to him), and numb the joy, it is still life-giving and therefore beautiful to Him and his servants.

But not to fret, all is not completely lost. We have made much progress in this area, and we can get your patient to have a birth as far from the Enemy’s design as possible. We can prevent the Enemy from drawing your patient closer to Him through this life-giving act. Just think about how frequent birth trauma is. It’s everywhere you go, and women are all too eager to share with other women the terrible experience they had, spreading the lies, fear and hatred for birth far and wide, giving us more and more footage on this particular battlefront in the Great War.

Some women naively wonder why birth trauma is so prevalent. Well, my dear Wormwood, I’m happy to report that this is because of the work we do. Our master has made it his top mission to destroy life, that which the Enemy loves best of all, and as an extension of this, to cause as much harm surrounding birth as we can.

We have worked on humans much in these past centuries. Man has naively tried to improve upon what the Enemy has designed, to take it into their control by striving to eliminate the sensations of pain and suffering and to make it something according to their whims and desires. To do away with the functional pain of birth and to make birth according to their convenience. We have encouraged this to take away as much sacredness around birth as we possibly can.

We’ve managed to move most births into hospitals where the standard of care often disrespects women, and disrespecting any life is always in our favour. We’ve created a cascade of interventions. Well, not really, but by seemingly placing more and more control surrounding birth in the humans’ hands, the cascade of interventions is a delightful effect. Often this cascade results in more trauma and things going less and less according to physiological design the Enemy created. Not only in labour and delivery but throughout the rest of the woman’s life, especially in the most vulnerable season of postpartum. We can easily use birth trauma to lead to a woman’s despair in those early weeks, sometimes even years.

We have worked tirelessly over the years to prevent and destroy life at all costs, and to make these destructive acts more and more “normal.” And, I’m pleased to report, that we’ve also made headway on destroying this most “sacred and precious” act of bringing it forth: Birth. Or as we much prefer to have humans call it: delivery.

And this leads to the first of your lessons in treating your patient: The power of language. From calling murder, abortion or termination of a pregnancy, to calling birth, delivery, we can use language greatly in our favour. Birth is something the Enemy has created to be beautiful. He has wondrously and beautifully designed the woman’s body to do this work very well. There are few things more sacred to Him (and thus more awful to us) than birth, espeically a birth according to His design.

Therefore, we do not call it birth. We call it delivery. The woman needs to be delivered of this thing in her; She cannot do it on her own. Delivery: to bring or hand over something to the proper recipient. She needs to be assisted and attended, to merely passively suffer through the necessary hardship of labour until she is delivered of her baby. Delivery is not beautiful, it is just an unfortunate event that occurs for the end of holding that baby; a passive event of something hard, scary, and unknown, which the woman must endure. There is no escape. And once she’s endured this miserable event, then she will be handed her baby. She will have been delivered of him.

Birth is shrouded in mystery, as the Enemy so fondly designed it and wants his servants to see it. But we can use those veils of mystery and make our patients see them as shadows in the storm. Shadows of an unknown origin reaching out to grab and consume her. Birth is mysterious and therefore beautiful. Delivery is a passive, necessary event to be endured. No mystery, no beauty. Many shadows, much fear.

This leads to lesson two: Do everything in your power to make birth scary. Make her fear it. The less she knows, the less she takes responsibility or autonomy, and the more she places all responsibilities on the experts surrounding her, the better. The more you have her place this idea of control into the doctor’s or midwife’s hand, the better you can work on your patient.

Through fear, we can turn birth into the farthest thing from how the Enemy designed this sacred event. Fear, as on almost any battlefront, is our greatest weapon: fear of pain, fear of the unknown, fear of inconvenience, fear of incapability, and so on.

This fear will lead to a semblance of control, and will result in more interventions in the name of “danger.” For example, it is dangerous for a woman to go past 40 weeks. Make it according to the human timetable. This leads to our favourite effect: the cascade of interventions. In this, women become victims. They often end up with so much intervention, ruining birth according to the Enemy’s original design as much as possible. More intervention allows the possibility for more opportunities to effect trauma upon our patients. Medicate away the feeling. The hardships, the impossibility of enduring the pain of birth, will be why we present this as an option, but the potential effect it can have on the mother and baby is why we love it so much. Without the suffering of birth, women are less likely to lean on the Enemy and surrender to Him. Further, without being able to feel the pain of birth, how will they feel the pure joy of birth?

We have tried to eliminate the joy of birth, and have even succeeded at points in history in making women completely forget the entire moment of seeing and holding their baby for the first time, even making the removal of the baby from the mother the norm at the moment of birth, disrupting the Enemy’s beautiful gift of joy and bonding that happens in that moment. But unfortunately, it is impossible to destroy that joy of the inherent life-giving event of birth. These despicable humans love that moment of birth, regardless of whether or not they are servants of the Enemy. Regardless of whether or not the woman’s labour and delivery is medicated, surgical, or physiological, humans see something beautiful in birth. And they are more and more enthralled with evidence, which is not on our side. For example, it has shown humans the importance of immediate skin-to-skin, making that moment of joy even greater. Evidence is despicable.

But, if we take autonomy and the concept of surrender away from the patient, having them place all responsibility on the experts, then the births of their babies can result in the most trauma, making these moments memories of pain and unfortunate, but necessary suffering, rather then ones of beauty and joy.

Should you be unsuccessful in persuading your patient, through the fears surrounding the delivery of a baby and the trust she should place in the experts, then you have very hard ground to tread. If she opts for a home birth then this can so easily be much closer to the design that the Enemy has in mind. Granted, a woman can have a beautiful birth in a hospital too, and we must be aware of that, but it is harder, for more things are within our control in hospitals. Once she is at home, a place where she feels loved, relaxed and comforted, much is lost. When our patients are devout servants of the Enemy it is much harder for us to get into their homes; The house blessings, the sacramentals, the house being a place of prayer, love and joy, make it nearly unbearable for us to enter this place. So you must do all you can to prevent home birth.

However, should your patient decide to birth at home then while your task to destroy this birth as much as you can will be a very hard one, it is not impossible. Giving birth at home most often leads to a birth more akin to the Enemy’s design. And there are few things we despise more than births in which women surrender to the Enemy’s design, to the work of her “God-designed” body.

Giving birth without numbing her mind and body, feeling it all, and most importantly the fullness of that moment when her baby is in her arms after the long, hard task in which she trusted her body and surrendered to the Enemy’s design, will most certainly lead her, and her family, closer to Him. She will feel empowered and in awe at her strength and God’s beautiful work. She will be in the presence of people she knows and trusts; Surrounded by people who love her and whom she loves. The husband, who co-created this life, will be in awe at his wife’s strength and amazed at the little human emerging from within her. The more relaxed, loved, comforted and supported the woman feels, the more akin to the Enemy’s design will the work of her labour and her baby’s birth be. He has designed this atrocious event to lead women to trust in Him and His design, and when they do that they are drawn closer to Him. We must stop this at all costs.

Regardless of where your patient decides to give birth, lesson three is to keep her as ignorant as possible. This can go one of two ways. The first is to have them place their entire trust in their doctor, never asking questions but just going along with whatever they say. This allows the most likely scenario to be one of the system, and we have usurped the system. They are most likely to be a victim, especially a victim of the cascade of interventions, if you keep them ignorant in this way. Even if their birth doesn’t result in significant trauma, which it is prevalent too, it will at least be, all things considered, rather bland; nothing extraordinary. Of course, birth in and of itself is extraordinary, but at least with this method, it will be minimized. Questions and self-advocacy, dispelling ignorance, are never in our favour on any battlefront.

If your patient decides to go the unmedicated route, thereby being more likely to go the route of homebirth, keep her as ignorant as possible. Make her think yes, her body was made to do this, so she doesn’t need to do anything to prepare. The less she thinks about her fears the better. For when the Enemy decides that it is time for this baby to be born then we can pounce upon her in full force. We can make her labour all the harder if she hasn’t taken the time to mentally and physically be prepared for the arduous task of labour. If she is allowed to reflect on her fears, she may process them, dispel them, or at the very worst, hand them over to the Enemy, leading to a deeper surrender to Him. If she merely thinks she can do it and doesn’t need to do any work, then we can cause as much havoc as possible in this scenario.

But, should she decide to educate herself, to prepare herself mentally and physically, then things get even harder for us. Yet they are rarely at a complete loss. Play upon her fears, and make her think they will go away. Whatever you do, do not let her surrender her birth plan, her ideals, to the Enemy; to let go and trust Him. If she does this, then all things will be lost.

If your patient is trending this way, we must do everything we can to make her afraid. Remember, fear is our greatest weapon. Poke at every little fear you can find. If your patient is well-educated and well-prepared, then plant seeds of doubt and fear. The culture we have created around birth, especially homebirth is your resource. Remind her what the world has to say: homebirth is dangerous; birth is hard; she cannot do it on her own. Tell her that her baby could die at home and it would all be her fault. (Of course, a baby may die in any birth, hospital or home, and life and death are unfortunately entirely in the hands of the Enemy and cannot be controlled by humans, but the more she fears death, the better.)

Finally, we must keep these women from freebirthing. But there are two things we mean by that and the one kind we can work with.

The freebirths where women birth without an expert attending them, and they feel completely and totally in control, where they are the masters of birth, (that they, the universe, the moon, whatever it is, are one with them) are not greatly in our favour, but they allow us some room to work. In these freebirths, remind them that they are women of power! Make it about themselves. While this is still a beautiful birth which is repulsive to us, we have tools to work within it and can turn it away from the Creator and towards themselves. Witchcraft, healing crystals, whatever you can use to make their free birth seemingly be in their power and less about relinquishing control to the Enemy, the better.

The freebirths we must steer our patients away from at all costs are the births in which the women are free. Freedom is of the enemy. If we cannot enslave women to the medical system, to fear and convenience, then we can at least enslave them to themselves and their power. But once women realize they are free, realizing what they can and cannot take responsibility for and letting the Enemy take responsibility for that which they cannot (rather than the midwife, doctor, or whichever expert is present) then we have lost all ground.

When a woman has a true free birth, whether that be in the hospital, at home, or elsewhere, then she has placed herself and her baby in God’s hands. We cannot then make her or her baby a victim of the system, we cannot have her blame the attendant when something goes wrong. She can only blame herself or the Enemy, which is what we try for in these circumstances. Unfortunately, more often than not she recognizes that the Enemy alone has power over life and death and she surrenders her labour and birth to Him and His power.

Birth is most sacred to the Enemy my dear Wormwood, which is why we must never give up on this battlefront. He uses birth to draw women closer to Him. He uses it to show forth the beauty of life, the beauty of His design. He uses it to shower families with joy. An undisturbed birth, a birth where a woman trusts God and her body, in which she is surrounded by her spouse and loved ones, is a birth that is steeped in love. A birth steeped in love is a birth in the Enemy’s territory.

This is hard work, as there are few things we despise more than birth. It is inherently a life-giving event. Even when it is via c-section, even when the woman is drugged to the point of non-comprehension, even if she is scared and traumatized to the maximum degree we can manage, it is still a life-giving thing and we cannot change that. The Enemy will always have an upper hand on increasing devotion to Him through any and every birth, simply by it’s inherent design.

Thus, we must do all we can to prevent life in the first place and to destroy it when we can. But since we struggle to stop it when humans believe in its sacredness, then we must make the bringing forth of it something merely “painful to endure.” Something they must be delivered from. We must either make it “no big deal” or the hardest and scariest thing. They must feel as little post-birth euphoria and as much post-traumatic stress as we can manage. Though in most births it will be incredibly hard to shroud the former, we can surround the event with enough disrespect and events opposed to the Enemy’s design that, when the woman recalls the moment of her baby’s birth, it will be lessened. The more trauma and dissatisfaction surrounding birth, the less joy they will experience and the less they will be drawn to the Enemy.

To summarize, have her ignore this miraculous event until the moment arrives, then bombard her with the fears and hardships that are inherent in birth. When this fails, poke and prod at every little fear. When you struggle to find those, plant some, feeding them bit by bit. Culture is full of lies surrounding birth, let her hear them everywhere she goes. As a last resort, make it about the woman and her power, and never about the Enemy’s desire for her and her baby’s wellbeing. Never about surrender. Never about love.

With those tools Wormwood, you are set up as best you can be. I need not tell you the anger and consequences that will come from our master should your patient have a birth according to the Enemy’s design. Therefore, the next time I hear from you, I look forward to reading all about the immense trauma this woman has endured through your work.

Your affectionate uncle,

Screwtape