Waiting and Vulnerable

My wife and I were watching TED talks yesterday, part of an ongoing new norm in our house of sitting for long periods of time, eating, napping, and sitting again - waiting for the birth of our daughter.  Neither of us are sitters and waiters, so we keep saying to each other: "This waiting for the baby thing is hard."  (Forget labor or child rearing, right?)

So we're watching Brene Brown (researcher and author out of University of Houston) give a TED talk about vulnerability, courage, authenticity, and shame.  And she says two things that ooze of truth from their packaged little sentence containers:  "Vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage," and "Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change."  (Click here to see both of her TED talks: Brene Brown: Listening to Shame and Brene Brown: The Power of Vulnerability)

If vulnerability means things like exposing our true selves, admitting our imperfections, standing in the face of failure and risking it anyway, then I can't think of a time in our life when we've been challenged to be more vulnerable than now... especially my wife.

And it's hard to watch and be present and not really know how to empathize about her situation, because I can't really say, "me too."  I can say a lot of other far reaches of comfort-clauses, but many a man before me has advised to stay away from anything relating to the phrase: "I understand where you're coming from."  We, I, just don't.

My wife is risking everything she can control by going through something that takes most of her control away, yet likely empowers her beyond measure.  Who knows when labor is going to start, how labor will go, how her body will react, and how many eyes and ears our little one will end up having.

But she has so much courage.  And it must come from a place of vulnerability - of stepping forward without knowing...like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, when Indiana has to cross the deep chasm that appears to have no bridge.  And then he takes one step forward...

On second thought, the two are nothing alike.  He's not about to give birth to a baby.

P.S.  As my wife reads this before publishing, she would like me to point out that our ritualistic life pattern of sitting and waiting does also include walking.