So, two big things happened this week. First, I went to Amsterdam! All by myself – my first real solo trip of many to come. Second, I had a field study to Holbæk Hospital, near Roskilde. I really dislike hospitals, needles, and blood – so encouraging myself to actively participate was a pretty big personal challenge.

The trip to the Hospital was one of the many opportunities to get “hands-on” as part of my course on Pregnancy and Birth. If you know me, you probably know that I strongly dislike medical procedures, squishy things, cutting, poking and tearing of the body. So taking a class all about Pregnancy and Birth might come as a surprise. But, to me, this course was an opportunity to get more educated on these topics, which are often taboo in our society. I decided that learning about my body and how drastically and incredibly it can change, while scary, could also be empowering. But, after visiting the hospital, I’ve also found it can be pretty icky.

While there, we talked with midwifery students about their education and toured a consultation room and a delivery room. Seeing the spectrum of options for pregnant people, from more “natural” process to heavy medicalization, indicated the importance of autonomy and choice in pregnancy and birthing. I was doing fine thinking about the social ramifications of Denmark’s pregnancy system, but then the conversation turned much more medical. Just talking about needles made me nauseous. Then, later, I had to physically sit during one of our modules where we saw real placentas. Placentas are very squishy and bloody – two things that make me squeamish, and I could barely tolerate seeing them.

When I think about tolerance, I think about my trip to Amsterdam. It was simply amazing, and I dream about returning to the Van Gogh museum, strolling along the canals, and exploring new places I didn’t have time to visit. I found power I didn’t know I had when I shut down a man in a penis costume trying to take pictures with tourists (he told his friend I “looked very busy”) but also got surprised when a two-year-old threw a water bottle at me! I think about tolerance, though, because Amsterdam is typically described as a “city of tolerance.” As my tour guide described, the city itself was only possible because of collaboration among residents to remove the water, and later episodes of tolerance (such as the city allowing prostitutions, “coffee shops” for illegal weed, and rich Catholics to host mass after Catholicism was outlawed) came from the mindset of business. This sort of tolerance, though, only occurred if the “outsider” was discrete with their differences – if the Dutch could easily turn a blind eye. Catholics could hold mass, as long as the Church was hidden from plain sight (there is a real church like this! Ons’ Lieve Heer op Solder/Our Lord in the Attic, a Catholic church for 200 hidden in an attic).

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Later, this sort of tolerance became deadly. When World War 2 broke out and Hitler invaded the Netherlands, many Dutch believed the war would soon be over. So they tolerated the Nazis who entered, and city records of people and residence (carefully kept since the start of the Dutch East India Company) were handed over. Here, history shows the dark side of “blind eye” tolerance.

But I think that this sort of tolerance is dangerous in everyday life, too. What does it really mean to be tolerant, if we are only okay with hidden differences? Should that even be our goal?

I really think that celebration of the things that are different from us and the things that scare us is the key. People deserve to be themselves, out in the open. And here, I return to the placentas. Even just pushing myself to find comfort in the factual biology of placentas, I could calm myself down and experience utter fascination with the human body. I moved beyond a space of tolerance into interest and acceptance: yes, bodies are gross, but they also are highly adapted and complex! Accepting the placentas makes me hope that I can better learn how to practice this celebratory tolerance I found with the people around me.