As adults, I find that we rarely, truly confront discomfort. We can go years without putting ourselves in that very vulnerable place of learning something new, being in a situation that scares us, or exploring the unknown with no way to predict what might happen. In my work, I see women fighting with the inevitability of the unknown in birth: for many, not knowing what will happen during the course of their labour and birth and not knowing whether they will achieve the outcomes they had hoped for is enough to send them into the throes of in-depth contingency planning or panic, or both.
