A dream begins it all…
“You’re in labour, it’s time…” spoke a voice in my dream, so
clear, so sure.
I lay in the black of night, rhythmic breathing to either side
of me, so relaxed: half-way between dreams and consciousness.
“Nope, it can’t be time…” I answered in my mind to the voice
of my friend.
But, wait, what was that feeling…in my lower abdomen? That
familiar tightening. I remember this – from just over 4 years ago, with the
first baby.
The pressure waves felt different to the ‘practice’ Braxton-Hicks
waves I’d experienced for the last few weeks – firmer, like they were actually
doing something inside me as well as in my stomach muscles.
I swung myself (slowly) out of bed and walked around dazed
and sleepy for a while. I checked the time – 1.40 am. The waves kept washing
over me. No pattern. No timing. I just rode them. Not long after I thought I
should probably wake my husband, Ryan. I remained indecisive, until after I
told him. Was still questioning, still thinking perhaps they will go away (like
before)? I wandered into the living room, sat on the birth ball and swayed my
hips, while Ryan hesitated.
When he did appear, I’d become more decisive and began
ordering him around. He began his jobs with the aura of a person unsure if any
of his work will really be needed. I questioned whether to begin the rigmarole
of heating the birth pool yet (it would take time – living in the bush and only
having access to hot water bucketed in from another home). It could be ages
before I felt the urge to get in, but then again it could be 5 minutes. I
certainly didn’t feel like relaxing in a hot pool just yet! I continued
swaying, hip rocking and circling, dancing and pacing around. My mind and body
felt so relaxed and ready.
Only the day before I had enjoyed an amazing four person
all-over body massage and the luxury of a (cold) ‘Jacuzzi’ from the nearby
creek – not knowing just several hours later I would begin my birthing journey.
I was so grateful to the women who had organised the mother blessing and helped
me to relax that day and I remember thinking, if baby wants to come anytime now
I am ready. She must have heard me…
Back in my body, where I remained for the rest of this
journey, I began to feel the pace quicken – each opening wave felt more
productive. My body moved with them – bending forward over furniture, squatting
sometimes, swaying in time to some internal birthing song – which I voiced for
a time…
‘I am the blood of the
earth,
I am the flow of the
spirit,
I am the womb of
creation…
My body is the
universe.’
These words never were so true! I felt ecstatic for having
this song to express my feelings so eloquently.
A grounding mantra…
Not long after this I began to really love the simple act of
breathing, deep and long. The sound it made grounded me in the moment. Soon,
the word ‘open’ took my attention and continued to do so for quite some time. I
loved the feeling of saying it, like a deep moaning mantra.
The sky began its transition to indigo and the thought that
I wanted my support person, Rose, popped into my mind. She arrived from the
moonlight, eyes bright, excited for the wondrous event to come.
Ryan busied himself with the birth pool while Rose and I
rode the waves together. Quietly, she drew my portrait, took photos and filmed
me without me really noticing any of it. We chatted about our feelings right
then and my bodily sensations. The sky continued to lighten.
Things heat up…
We tried in vain to get hold of friends and family in the UK
as I’d finally come to the conclusion the pressure waves weren’t going to
fizzle out. Rose slipped my birthing necklace over my head and, reverently, we
cut our red threads, with me secretly hoping the other women I love were doing
the same at the other side of the world.
Suddenly I felt the urge to feel wetness on my skin, so I
got in the birth pool before it was ready. Beautiful – enveloping me with
another all-over body massage. Ryan continued to bucket hot water in beside me
and I slowly felt the pool heat up – along with the opening sensations.
Fingers of weak sunlight poked through the dusky windows and
not long after Nabeela did begin to stir. In my relaxed moments I almost shook
her awake myself to tell her the exciting news!
Another expansion wave rolled through me and I relaxed into
the warm water. I didn’t feel like dancing anymore.
The funny bit…
Nabeela’s eyelids flickered and Rose quietly whispered to her
that the baby was coming. She looked through bleary eyes at the scene – candles
flickering all around, Rose and Ryan sitting around the pool, me propped up
inside – and Rose’s words finally clicked into place. Her face transformed,
suddenly shining like the sun brightening a new day.
Eagerly she whipped off her pyjamas and jumped in with me.
She studied my face carefully as I eased myself into another opening wave. Even
with my eyes closed I could feel her curiosity. When my mind came back to the
outside world I watched her splashing around. She kept surreptitiously trying
to see under the water, between my legs – and at once I knew why – she thought
the baby was coming – right that instant! I mentioned it to the others and
laughter rippled through the peaceful space we had created – it sounded so
right.
A bright idea popped into Nabeela’s head, “Can I have the
snorkel and mask?” she asked. Wearing it, Nabeela began her fruitless effort to
snorkel for babies! I explained to her that baby wasn’t coming quite yet – my
body was still opening. She nodded seriously, looked me in the eyes and then
continued to splash around – if it wasn’t happening yet she would make the most
of the giant bath! I chuckled to myself.
Needing peace…
It wasn’t long before a change took place inside me – I
began to feel irritated and over-whelmed by the people in the room (even though
there were only 3!), the water felt too hot, I couldn’t get comfortable no
matter what position I was in. I tried to relax and centre myself using the
hypnosis techniques I’d learnt during pregnancy, but the energy of my expansion
waves were more than I could cope with in the current situation. I held myself
in check enough to ask nicely, ‘Why don’t you go get breakfast?’ Ryan
understood and they all left quickly.
With my birthing day hypnosis track playing, I lay in bed on
my side, a leg perched on a huge pile of cushions – so I could feel ‘open’.
I relaxed into the hypnosis. It allowed me to feel into the
sensations. When they intensified I relaxed further into them – surrendering
completely to what my body needed to do. It felt good and difficult at the same
time. I groaned, long and loud “Ooooopen!”
An indeterminate amount of time later Ryan, Nabeela and Rose
arrived back – I sighed with relief as only moments before it had come to me
that if they didn’t come now they might miss it!
Deeply relaxed bodily, my mind began to shout at me, “Get
up! Things are changing and this doesn’t feel right anymore!” I needed to be
upright and in the water. I groaned to Ryan, just about managing to say his
name, rather than incomprehensible grunts. He appeared instantly with a
question on his lips.
I answered, “Get me up – Ooooopen” – moaning through another
wave – this one a titan. I was riding in the sky above everything.
I hobbled up with Ryan’s assistance. It felt horrible as all
I needed then was weightlessness. I hung off him for a couple of pressure waves
between walking to the pool, shouting ‘open’ unreservedly and groaning
beautifully.
Somehow I was in the water and, oh, it felt right. Ryan got
in with me and I had a vague awareness of Nabeela saying something about
telling my friend (and a spiritual midwife) the baby was coming. I doubt I
acknowledged her.
Transformation…
I felt restless and overwhelmed. I couldn’t find a position
that felt right and I struggled through some more waves feeling uncomfortable
and telling Ryan it was too hard. I lay on my back for one pressure wave and it
felt so wrong I shouted “No!” Ryan
helped me move with urgency, as the waves were coming one on top of another
now. A forward reclining position and leaning against the side of the pool
seemed to be where I needed to be, so I went with that, but something still didn’t
feel quite right. I settled into the pressure waves more easily. The
overwhelming feeling subsided although the intensity, the energy of the waves
was still high. I felt like a conduit for a bolt of lightning, ripping through
my body from head to womb.
I felt the urge to
check myself, to see where my body was at. This was unplanned. I’d always
wanted to let the journey unfold with no interference, to trust my body, but in
that moment it was a compulsion and I went with it. I wasn’t fully dilated, but
that didn’t matter – getting to feel my body that was what was important: the
soft, smooth tissue of my cervix, the yielding of the water bag, thick and
slippery and the baby’s head! I pressed gently on my waters and beneath felt the
hardness of a head. Oh, yes that was what this journey was all about – I’d
almost forgotten.
The penultimate moment…
I needed to fine-tune my position, as it didn’t feel quite
right yet. Ryan helped me to shuffle my feet further apart into a semi-squat,
whilst still in the water, reclining forward. This was finally right! I was in
my birth position and I felt enormous relief as my body settled there for the
final part of the birthing journey.
Perhaps minutes (or maybe seconds) later an almighty wave –
beginning at my head and pulsating down my body – convulsed through me. It
shook a deep, primal groan from me. I felt a pop and release. “The waters
broke,” I cried. I felt between my legs again and knew she was close. I could
feel that the birth tunnel now held a baby and in a moment the baby would be in
my arms.
Sure enough, another pulsing wave shuddered through me and I
groaned again, without restraint. The baby’s head popped into my waiting hand.
There was an eternal moment here where Ryan and I held this almost born child –
hovering between two worlds – we gasped in awe. “The head,” I remember
breathing in the stillness.
The moment did end, in the excitement of another wave. The
baby’s head was born. Ryan held it tenderly, waiting. Another titanic
convulsion shook my body and I felt the slippery release of the baby’s body.
The release of one world
and the grasp of a new one…
I gasped as the intensity of the waves abruptly ended. In
the quiet of new life I asked a (slightly silly) question – “Is the baby out?”
Yes, yes she was!
I heard Rose utter that the baby was a girl. With that
surprising news I propelled my body around. Her cord appeared quite short however,
so I stopped half-way. Ryan picked her up from the weightlessness of the water
and realised the cord was wrapped reasonably tight around her neck, hence the
short cord. His urgent hands untangled her and helped disentangle my legs too.
In another movement I was around the other way and this new tiny being was free
to breathe her first breaths in my arms.
Her first squelchy sounding breaths apparently urged me to
get out from the water, as I found myself standing up. I must have intuitively
known the mucus needed to come out and she was too slippery in the water to do
it safely (in my eyes).
The unexpected movement upwards forced some cries from her,
but we were quickly in bed surrounded by the rest of the family with Rose above
taking photos. After Ryan sucked the mucus from her mouth and nose, she quickly
settled on the soft pillow of my belly and we left her to crawl up to my
breast. She latched on, but it felt uncomfortable, so I hoisted her to my side.
We both lay tummy to tummy for her first precious milky connection with me. She
looked into my eyes, causing my heart to engulf my chest, choking me with the
awesomeness of her.
The placenta came around half an hour later – one wave and I
felt the blobby, squelchy mass slither out. It forced another relieved groan
from me. We didn’t cut the cord as we planned on a lotus birth, so we plopped
the placenta into a bowl beside us (she didn’t end up having a lotus birth as
things didn’t go according to plan here! The humidity and heat meant the
placenta degenerated very quickly and after 1 day was already very smelly. We
decided to cut the cord after much agonising thought. It seemed like the right
thing to do and Ocea settled down comfortably afterwards.)
The birthing journey
was over and another journey was beginning – I stared into this new child’s
eyes as we lay touching and she learned about this new world we shared.
She was here! Born one day before her ‘official’ due date at
around 9am, after a 7.5 hour ‘labour’. We spent long moments staring into her
eyes – drinking her in, grinning at her lucidity and softening with her peace.
We had no name for her yet as her sex had been a surprise (I’d convinced myself
early on in the pregnancy she was a ‘he’ and we had called her ‘he’ from the
beginning). It didn’t matter. We would find a name that fit her.
An explanation…
In the hours that followed Ryan explained something to me that gave me the reason
for the intensity of my pressure waves and the urge to find that perfect
position. Ocea was born brow first and facing the same way as me (unlike most
babies who are born facing mother’s bottom). He had got quite a shock on feeling her face with his fingers as she emerged!
I felt relief on hearing this as the intensity almost defeated me during that difficult transitional period just before she was born. I felt that my body almost couldn’t handle the energy coursing through it. But it could, and it did and although I didn’t quite get the completely peaceful, relaxed birth I’d worked towards, this birth was perfect the way it went. It taught me so much and has given me complete trust in my intuition – without that her birth could have ended very differently.
I felt relief on hearing this as the intensity almost defeated me during that difficult transitional period just before she was born. I felt that my body almost couldn’t handle the energy coursing through it. But it could, and it did and although I didn’t quite get the completely peaceful, relaxed birth I’d worked towards, this birth was perfect the way it went. It taught me so much and has given me complete trust in my intuition – without that her birth could have ended very differently.
The entire journey, from conception to birth tried to teach
me surrender and how to let go of control. I may not have learned these lessons
fully, but it has certainly got me well on the way.
I will always look back on the birth of Ocea Storm with awe
and confidence. The energy I contained in my body during her birthing is
testament to the power women are given and can hold within them during birth.
The first few weeks…
The lucidity and peace of my soul during the first days of
Ocea’s life earthside had me walking tall and feeling as strong as a herd of
horses. This feeling still remains within my core – It colours each day and has
increased my confidence in all aspects of my life.
My body feels different –just two weeks after birthing it
was almost back to its pre-pregnancy state, my lochia stopped at 3 weeks and
was much lighter than my first birthing, my vulva and vagina feel and look
normal, with no pain.
The haze and tiredness I lived in after my first birthing
journey couldn’t be more opposing to the freeing birth I had the second time.
Instead I felt grounded, my energy levels soared and I felt happy. I’ve been
able and willing, this time, to honour my need to be alone with my immediate
family, staying close to home and enjoying each new day and the changes they
bring to the entire family, particularly the newest being – Ocea.
Ocea shows such life too. In those first days she drank in
her surroundings and her new experiences with the thirst of a camel. No one who
looked into her ocean deep eyes could tear themselves away from her soulful
magnetism.
Healing old wounds…
Her peace pervaded us all, including her older sister who seemed to
heal from her own birth. She hasn’t asked us about her hospital birth since
Ocea was born, when previously she would often ask me about it.
We have all healed from Nabeela’s birth. Although not
traumatic in the everyday sense, Ryan and I held within her birth space, fear
and tension and a need to protect ourselves and Nabeela from the strangers who
were supposed to be supporting us. This all accumulated into a psychologically
traumatic event, presumably for all three of us, which we failed to acknowledge
properly until we experienced what a truly peaceful and loving birth can be.
Gratitude...
I am truly grateful that we got to experience a birth like
that as a family, together.
Thank you Nabeela – you set us on
this path when you chose to come into our lives.
Thank you Ocea – you gave us
all the experience, you gave us the bliss of the gentle way to birth and be
born.
