Sharifa is someone who defies pigeonholes.
Born in a country which does not encourage the education of women, she went to university and became and engineer.
Told she was too fat and unattractive, she became a passionate and disciplined athlete.
Told her educational and professional status would make her unfit for marriage, she found a man who wholeheartedly supported and encouraged her career. The fact that he also found her lovable and desirable clinched the deal.
They moved to Canada, wanting to live in a society where they would be freer to be themselves. She found work with a large engineering firm and he found employment in his field.
Read more about Dates: A box of datesAll this striving for perfection came with a price. Sharifa suffered from sometimes debilitating anxiety, shading into OCD territory. She was someone who studied, worked hard, created order and took control. Lack of control made her nervous.
Then they decided to have a baby.
Being pregnant is the ultimate experience of “embodiment.” Not even the hormonal storms of puberty and menopause can match the experience of having one’s body taken over by the demands of the fetus, that ravenous parasite that hijacks a woman’s blood supply, nutritional resources and makes itself a comfortable home in one’s body.
As much as a woman desires children, getting pregnant is always comes with worry. My old mentor, the much beloved obstetrician, Dr. Bob Kinch, once told me that every woman’s reaction when she first finds out that she is pregnant is “Oh my God, what have I done!” This happens even if the pregnancy follows years of infertility. In my opinion the opposite can also be true. A man’s first reaction to finding out that their partner is pregnant is always, “Yeah! My boys can swim!” Even if the next minute they are saying “Oh my God! What have I done!”
I can almost hear you all thinking, “Wait a minute, is this Perle Feldman, that writer of all those romantic birth stories and well-known birth junkie? Why is she writing about pregnancy as if it’s an invasion?” As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
I do love birthing women, I adore babies, and caring for birthing families has been a big part of my life’s work. But this does not keep me from recognizing that the process is difficult, and the relationship between the placenta and the woman’s body is not always a harmonious one. I also dislike the relentless feto-centrism of our medical culture where the well-being of the mother is often sacrificed or denied for the baby’s.
During Sharifa’s pregnancy she was able to form real bonds of trust with our team. Her anxiety, which flared with the weight gain, the softening, the changes in her self, was mitigated by our loving care. The nurses, dietician, her physiotherapist all supported her on her journey. While she did not want to see a psychologist, we were able to have her leave every visit feeling more confident, more centered and more at peace.
When the war broke out in Gaza, one of the hardest things for me, besides the wanton destruction of innocent people to serve evil political ends, was the flaring of public antisemitism, masquerading as support for the Palestinian cause.
Then there was the reaction of some of my Muslim patients. I’ve been asked more than once: “Will you still take care of me?” A question that almost moved me to tears. “Of course I will, how could I not?” was my answer.
Just before Passover I was in our administrators’ office. This is where the four women, Yuri, Nurit, Hanene and our newest recruit, Merveille, do the often thankless task of making sure that our patients get their appointments, their consultations, their results. They assign the rooms for all the professionals and learners. They manage phone calls from hundreds of people daily, often using our interpreter service to communicate with patients who speak a multitude of languages.
They are also there to give a little support during hectic days, and keep a stash of snacks for emergency purposes. I was in the room for a little gossip. Nurit and I were discussing our Passover recipes. Nurit wrote down for me her recipe for Sephardi style charoset, which is made from dates. “It is hard to get really good dates here in Montreal,” said Hanene. “At home the dates are so fresh and sweet this time of year, but here they are so dried out.” I gratefully wrote down Nurit’s charoset recipe and promised her that I would try it at my Seder.
I then went down to my office and began to see my patients. The charoset recipe was on my desk as I ran from room to room supervising the prenatal clinic.
When Sharifa came I brought her into my room and she noticed the little paper on my desk. “What is this for?” she asked. I explained that it was a recipe for a special Passover dish. “Oh” she said. “When my mother comes from my country for the birth, I will have her bring you a box of dates. They are the best dates in the world.”
Charoset is one of the ritual foods that is on the Seder plate of Passover. It is usually a brownish paste made of crushed nuts, dried fruits, apples, sweet wine and spices. It symbolizes the clay that the Hebrew slaves used to make the bricks, and represents the hardship of slavery. Yet charoset is always sweet, because while the body may be enslaved, the soul within is still free. The apples symbolize the trees where the women hid to give birth to try to save their male children.
Sharifa passed her due date. It was after the Seders when we planned her induction. It was a long hard labour that she faced with great courage and determination as well as surrender to the realities of her body. Her husband was amazing, present, supportive physically and emotionally. He was attuned to her needs. The three shifts of nurses and the residents were all rooting for her. When the time came to push, her physical strength and preparedness gave her power so that despite her exhaustion, she was able to bring the baby down so that with the help of my Obstetrician colleague, we were able to vacuum the baby out, deal with a postpartum hemorrhage and a messy tear.
This does not sound like the hearts and flowers delivery that everyone wants. Yet, it was a delivery that celebrated skill, teamwork, and passion for the birth process.
Sharifa, who had been so afraid that she would not love her baby, held her nursing child in her arms, examining her little body with that look of wonder that new mothers so often have. I could see her heart bloom like a flower.
The next day, her husband brought me a huge box of dates. They were indeed the most delicious dates in the world. I shared them with my team.
