Gaia’s Custodians
The beginning of life
April 21, 1990.
It's my due date. The doctors calculated that I should
see the light of the world today.
My grandma works as a nurse at the hospital where
my mom will give birth to me.
And today is her birthday. All the conditions appear to
be aligned perfectly.
With one exception: me. Somehow I wasn’t really
fond of the plans the doctors made for me. Due date
was just another ordinary day for me to enjoy my
warm and cozy home inside my mom’s belly. The
days passed, and I didn’t give any signs of ambition
to change my habitat. After a week, everybody got
nervous. “Let’s wait another one or two days, but not
more...", they said. After ten days, it was enough. On
May 1, 1990, at 9:50 pm, I was taken out of my
beloved residence. And not in a gentle way. Although
my mom was still feeling calm, the doctors and
nurses pressured her into agreeing to a c-section.
She hesitantly said “yes”. “For the safety of your son,” they told her.
The anesthetics kicked in, the head doctor made an
incision, my dad fainted, and shortly afterward, I was
born. The nurses cleaned me up, weighed me, and
performed a host of routine checks to see if
everything was okay. Then my dad came to
consciousness, and they handed me over to him.
After a while, the effects of the anesthetics wore off,
and my mom also regained awareness. It was a
routine procedure for the doctors and nurses, and
everything proceeded according to plan. Their task
was completed.
But there was one problem. Nothing went according
to plan - according to nature’s plan. When the nurses
put me on my mom’s breast, she didn't feel anything.
No connection to this little being. Just a deep sense
of sadness. What was wrong with her? Nothing. Her
body did a marvelous job. The only natural reason
why there isn’t a warm, breathing little being in her
arms directly after it left her body is that it is dead.
And her body reacts perfectly to this catastrophe: no
motherly feelings and the immediate beginning of the
grieving process. Not even the sense of a newborn
on her skin can convince her body otherwise. Nature
didn’t plan for c-sections.