The Medical Birth Story is the dominant birth story in our culture. It is considered the most valid story and therefore is the most validated story. It’s the story of medical diagnosis and management peers ask new mothers to tell. It’s the story elicited by birth peeps during an intake interview for prenatal care; the briefer the better. (“Just the facts m’am, nothing but the facts.”) Women are prepared to participate in the hospital birth culture through medical research (which is another medical birth story) and anecdotes in books, classes, lectures, internet, and television.
When telling their story at this Gate, the storyteller can be emotionally charged, detached, or objective, using medical jargon to justify, explain, or debate their labor “management.” When a birth story is emotionally traumatic, the storyteller can become attached to the meaning she has given the story and to herself because it happened to her. As a result, many get stuck at this Gate, which means that this version becomes their final version. If a woman never progresses beyond the Fifth Story Gate, something will always be missing for her. If she stops here she may never know a deeper, more spiritual meaning—or story--that is waiting up ahead.
What is the Medicine for this Gate?
A coherent birth story is comprised of lots of moments strung together in a certain order. At first “what happened” in a mother’s mind is fragmented and not in sequential order. The endorphin haze of labor clouds her linear memory. One clue that she is approaching the Fifth Gate is when she begins to ask others who were witnessed the labor what happened, when, and why?”
Her story before this gate can be likened to beading a necklace on a string. Before the knot is tied, the beads can slip off the string and scatter. At the Fifth Gate your tasks are to gather up the beads and string the story beads together into chronological order.
It may be difficult for others to hear the storyteller struggle to find missing pieces, sort them out, and put the bits together again. A storyteller should not be rushed through this Gate or offered advice for a do-over birth; it does not help heal to vilify the medical model.