Born Again

“You are warm. You are wet. You are safe.” Dr. DeAndrea, my regressive birth coach, recites her mantra over and over as I lay curled in a ball, naked and coated in Vaseline, on the floor of her regressive birth studio.

“Birth is a jarring, emotionally scarring experience. When we are thrust from the womb-tomb into the blinding light of the material world, we as adult-infants suffer psychological trauma far more severe than anything tossed at us on a daily basis.”

Dr. DeAndrea’s “Re-Birth Cleansing” has helped me come to terms with the horrors I experienced three decades ago when my very own mother unthinkingly expunged me from her/my uterus.

DeDe DeAndrea is a stern, stout lady in her late fifties. She’s a certified midwife and holds a doctorate in fine arts. I met DeDe at a writer’s conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was promoting her childbirth handbook “Crown… of Thorns!”

She held an open table discussion relating our phobias to our own subconscious birth trials. I discovered my own fear of deadlines is very likely due to the 28 hour labor I put my mother through thirty years ago. She is quick to point out however that my mother put me through the 28 hour labor, not vice versa. Little did I know there was so much more to discover.

Dr. DeAndrea always speaks in a demanding tone, even when whispering to you during the insemination phase of your regression as you roleplay a sperm and ovum meeting and creating the unique fetus-you.

“Swim little one. Your little tail is wagging. You see the cherished land. You see the egg. Swim and push. Push little one. Push with all your might! Ah…sanctuary.”

Her unique methodology is to then in subsequent visits recreate your gestation and eventually the birth experience at least once, sometimes two or three times. The multiple times are crucial because there are tiny details that often patients miss the first time down the canal.

“Only by delivering the subconscious memories of our traumatic birthday into the conscious reality can we attack our fears and successfully abort them.”

“You are warm. You are wet. You are safe.” It was my third time being born in Dr. DeAndrea’s studio. “You hear a woman’s voice in the darkness. He’s crowning doctor!”

I was prone on the floor and DeDe put a tight elastic band around the top of my wet head. The elastic was so tight it felt as though it were cutting through my scalp. She pulled the elastic down my face, over my throat. I was choking, then stretched it around my shoulders, arms, chest, waist, genitals, hips and finally my legs. She encouraged me to cry like an infant. And I did!

She splashed me with pig’s blood before dousing me with ice cold water to simulate my eruption into the world. “It’s a boy doctor!” She roughly grabbed my ankles and slapped me smartly on the buttocks. I cried in pain and euphoric tears flowed down my cheeks.

I suddenly remembered my obstetrician declared me a girl before noticing my tiny infant’s penis hidden behind the remains of my severed umbilicus.

Over coffee I sat with Dr. DeAndrea and we discussed the ramifications being labeled a girl could mean for me as an infant-adult. Although I likely didn’t know what “girl” meant only three seconds onto the planet, DeDe assures me that such a gender gaffe could influence everything from my sexual identity to what brand of cereal I eat in the morning. Being successfully regressed, I have even assisted her in a handful of re-birth cleansings where additional people were needed.

Owen is an obese young man in his early twenties. He’s bald and covered with pale flab. He looks much like an infant to this day. He feels his mother’s over eating during her expectancy is what led to his morbid obesity. Dr. DeAndrea agrees.

I met Owen as he lay on the floor of her studio. He was comfortably in his womb-tomb so I made certain not to make any sudden noises. He lay there like all of Dr. DeAndrea’s patients, naked and slicked with Vaseline, but as his problem dealt with his overeating he had a plastic hose leading from his suckling mouth to wide rimmed funnel in my hands. My job was simple, dumb jars of applesauce into the funnel until Owen couldn’t eat anymore. I had no idea my volunteering would be so hectic.

I simply couldn’t keep up with baby Owen’s ravenous appetite! Del Monte stock went up as I dumbed jar after jar of applesauce down into the twisting, vacuum tube. Owen grunted and suckled at the hose like a feral fetus.

“Is baby hungry? Is baby hungry? Is baby hungry?”

Dr. DeAndrea’s mantra intoned over and over. Owen would grunt yes and continue feeding at the applesauce trough as it slid down the chute and into his mouth, onto his face and all over the floor where he wallowed in greedy anticipation.

When the whole ordeal was done I was exhausted. Owen and Dr. DeAndrea retired to her viewing room to watch videotapes of the experience and discuss. I was left alone to mop the applesauce slicked floor.

I slid the mop across the wooden studio floor I caught a glimpse of myself in the shiny reflection. There I was, newly thirty, sporting a sleazy Tom Selleck moustache having just finished force feeding a naked fat man applesauce through a tube. I thought back on all the bizarre things I’ve done in my adult life. Did that tiny, gender gaffed baby have any idea such weird-o things would be part of his journey?

What a truly lucky kid.

I put away the mop and beneath Owen’s crying in the next room I quietly let myself out into the delightful traumas of the material world.