Interesting. My thought was that it(childbirth) actually doesn't have to be painful at all, we have just forgot the ways we are geared and not working with nature but against it. Trying to bring everything under control with the modern medicine and pills and monitors and what not. I remember something about reading that a lot of indigenous peoples(I mean those who still live in good living conditions, so Inuits etc don't really count) don't expereince this pain and childbirth is a natural thing. I guess they might be able to do it later in their lives too(than the mid-forties that we usually consider the ceiling).
Pain as a gateway to (spiritual) growth? Where has this notion come from? If pain makes us better people, why shouldn't we go and injure ourselves?
Bonding between mother and child seems a good explanation, though. It just sucks that men have a painless life(less spiritual growth too he he - no wonder only feminine is divine
). And then go on and make women suffer even more by oppressing them and etc. Maybe if we(men) would also have a painful existence, we wouldn't go around raping and destructing everyone and everything.
And in the end I'm just curious (and envious) because I just want to know "how it feels like". (And having the right and ability to be worth my child and bonding with her seems to be worth it too..). Anyway, I'll let the normal service resume.