Bearing Witness/Bearing Life

Palestine, a pregnant perspective and processing through poetry

Image by Ash Hayes/Unsplash

I was taking part in the Essay Camp by

Summer Brennan

in November. I mostly worked on writing a ‘Five Things’ list each morning. By the 5th day I found myself writing about the horrific events unfolding within Gaza. This is what I wrote then:

This morning I read a post by a Palestinian journalist Yara Eid , reporting the murder by Israeli forces of her close friend and fellow press member, Ibrahim. I’m halfway through a miracle pregnancy after years of loss and trying to conceive in the face of ‘less than 10% chance success’ statistics. I want to be informed, to really pay attention to the world watching a massacre, but have found it much more difficult to bear witness to death whilst bearing this life, this boy of mine. I cried for Ibrahim from the almost sickening safety of my Home Counties bed, within a country whose representatives to the world are devoid of any such dilemma of conscience. It is their job to witness, to act, to protect and serve human life — and here I am an ordinary pregnant woman, crying first thing on a Sunday morning, wracked with guilt that I can’t do more.

5th November 2023

Personal Perspective

Like many of us, I have been deeply affected by the ongoing conflict. From my perspective, I have found myself imagining what it is like for a pregnant woman in Palestine, maybe a woman who has struggled to conceive like me. The sheer terror and helplessness. I have thought of the parents desperate to protect their children with no way of doing this. The women giving birth into a hellish landscape, unsure if they will survive another day. Those keeping vigil over sick children or premature babies in hospitals under siege — ventilators without power, life-ending infections taking hold in the absence of simple medicines.

As someone with a clinical background (I was a midwife) hearing accounts of surgeries being performed without anaesthesia, in particular cesarean sections has been beyond horrifying. I know the pain felt by a woman when just a fraction of her anaesthetic wears off during a c-section, usually resulting in having to give her a general anaesthetic to continue to operate.

I have tried to comprehend the magnitude of the daily decisions being made by Palestinian health professionals having to work beyond the fear for their own lives, as the fabric of society collapses around them.

The chaos of care provision under bombardment.

The futile attempts to restore order, cleanliness and bring broken bodies back from the brink, knowing there is no true recovery or rehabilitation for those people. That they are clinging onto a life strangled in the grip of their oppressors, who have stripped the word ‘mercy’ from the muscle of their hearts.

Processing

A few days after that Sunday morning, a trip to the Apple store for my fiancé with his broken iPad resulted in the spark of a new poem (probably my first in over a year). I’d wanted to experiment with a braided style where two threads or topics alternate on the page creating connections, and as he recalled the shop interaction to me, all I could think of was what was happening that moment in Gaza. How our biggest problem was a smashed iPad screen, safe in a shopping centre with our personal shopper ‘privilege’, at our sides.

As the poem took shape I found the US support of Israel’s actions crept in as something I couldn’t ignore, especially with the link that I was writing about a world-dominating American company.

With the recent US Government veto of the UN ceasefire resolution, and the shocking disproportionate amount of power it displayed — what I wrote a month ago felt right to share now.

It’s just my very small way of bearing witness. To add one more voice to the millions shouting as loud as they can, which I’ve thought multiple times is pointless for me to do, so why bother?

But then I think of my unborn son, and what I would be teaching him by my silence.

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Please consider donating to the United Nations Population Fund who are supplying emergency supplies and support to the estimated 50,000 pregnant women caught within the conflict. I have set up a monthly donation, again just a small way to help that adds up.