I was asked to sing a lullaby for a show called the Motherload highlighting all things mom at the Fringe Festival. Including Public Breastfeeding! I wonder if a punk rock number would have been a better soundtrack to the madness and rollercoaster ride of becoming a new mother. See that couch in the picture? That was where my daughter was born. I had the bright idea of doing an unassisted birth at home. My family talked me out of it. I had a midwife and hypno birth by my side. I had a birthing tub in my Kitchen. All I can say was, it was bliss. Blistering pain. Good God. The hypnobirth cd used words like "intense" to describe the "surges" Labor was more like the twilight zone or an alien abduction where I went from human to Cyborg. The very last stage of Labor, known as the ring of fire, transformed me into a Fierce Warrior Goddess
I call Mother. My child was a golden orb. I felt I was bestowed with a gift, but I had no idea how to care for her. Floating on a cloud of sleep deprivation I found my true mission. Changing dootie diapers. I was wild and looked the girl from the movie The Ring. No time for showers unless you count the milk showers that were a constant blissful surprise.
The only golden nugget of peace was when my child was sleeping. This is where the lullaby comes in. It is true my daughter loved it when I sang to her. I believe its the magic of 3/4 time, and my amazing gift of perfect pitch. Just kidding I only have relative pitch, its relatively good. I think it was also because I was vulnerable and tender and so was she. Lullabies are soothing like the sounds of the ocean on the shore.
Chantel Newton says "Colwyn Trevarthen, a professor emeritus of child psychology at the University of Edinburgh, studies how moms and babies interact, and his research findings show that newborns are naturally fluent in the language of music. Infants have an excellent sense of rhythm, and they respond to music on an emotional and physical level.
Parents instinctively sing to their children as a way to calm them, but researchers can now back up those beliefs with hard evidence. For example, a recent study published in the journal Psychology of Music found that singing lullabies to children helped lower their heart rates, reduce anxiety and minimize their perception of pain.
Remarkably, the results prove that it’s not merely attention that tots find comforting—because reading stories to the children didn’t produce the same effects. Singing, it seems, is special."
This show brings back all those special memories of the tender times and the sheer CHAOS that birth and motherhood offers us.
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