It has taken me a while to share our birth story as I let motherhood have it's way with me, altering my mind and body, forever changing my priorities and principles. Days have passed slowly, with an old-fashioned feeling, since Selvina was born.
It's feeling a little hard to get Selvina's birth story down as it was pretty straightforward and sometimes doesn't feel like a lot to write about. But I want to put it out into the collective because I read hundreds of birth stories to design the birth I wanted for myself and my family and I've talked with so many friends that didn't know birthing this way was even an option.
I wanted a physiological and a spiritual birth at home and that is exactly what happened but not without it's share of twists and turns.
I'd initially intended to give birth abroad but our third day in Indonesia, I slipped and broke/sprained my ankle due to the relaxin hormone and slippery, mossy mountains of Indonesia. After much contemplation, we returned to Berkeley where things felt familiar and their was a little more handicap accessibility for my wheelchair/walker. I was in a wheelchair from month seven of pregnancy right up to a couple weeks before birth so that was challenging. It was also when I began to learn to surrender to the care of my husband, friends and complete strangers in shops and restaurants around me. I remember the absolute delight when I began to walk, hugely pregnant, just before birth.
The night before Selvina was born, the contractions began very lightly around 10pm. It was December 16th. Charlie and I fell asleep snuggled tightly around my huge belly in a twin bed meant for the living room postpartum daybed but in a bout of uncomfortable contractions I kicked Charlie out of the bed so I could toss and turn in spaciousness all night. Generally, I slept pretty well.
In the morning I woke up as the sun rose and I was very excited and energized. I focused on resting and eating as much as I comfortably could so I'd have calories inside of me for later in birth when I expected eating to not be so desirable. I cooked eggs and bacon and toasted some sourdough I smeared with butter and jam. I was repulsed by the idea of coffee but drawn to cacao. I ate all the food and finished half the cacao around 10am when suddenly the contraction intensified. It really wasn't too bad. I'd had period cramps much worse than this.
Charlie busied himself preparing the birth pool and texted our midwife updates. We lit the beeswax mother candle on our birth alter. I considered freebirth but ultimately decided I'd like to have a midwife present just in case. But I only wanted a midwife who'd be comfortable with me declining almost everything and hanging out in the next room while I birthed alone and luckily, I found an amazing woman who supported just that.
When I was a little girl my cat gave birth to five kittens alone in our dark basement in the middle of the night. This is how I envisioned my ideal birth. It is my understanding and experience that when nothing (people asking questions, uncomfortable or busy or bright environments) gets in the way of birth, the body births automatically and with zero to minimal pain.
From 10am until about 3pm, I circled from the bed to the toilet to the shower to the bath. I had promised myself that when things felt hard, I'd move deeper into it. Be completely present with it. I was resting and staying comfortable as best as I could.
It wasn't too uncomfortable... I can only liken it to period cramps but it wasn't even as painful as my periods. It was however more tiring. Charlie knew I wanted to be alone so he largely stayed away, checking on me occastionally.
Pretty sure the only word I said all of birth was, "alone" as people peaked in on me. At no point was the pain too much to bear. I just continued resting, sometimes completely sleeping towards the end, in between contractions and letting the contractions roll through my body like waves. Eventually, I felt my daugthers head in my hands. It went in and out of my body for a bit with the contractions and then I did finally have this desire to push. I chose to push twice and she flew out of my body into the birth pool. I had no need to scream or holler her out as it wasn't painful so she entered into the world surrounded in peace and bliss.
I didn't care where she was born, in or out of the water, etc. but the birth tub did a lot to make me comfortable. As did the shower and bathtub. Birth is a very watery event.
I had a beautiful birth alter I'd visit before, during and after birth. As Selvina was born, the beeswax mother candle dripped it's last drops.
Selvina was born with a smile and breathing gently but gave her first holler a few minutes later. Everyone got a quick check over, during which the placenta came out of my body, and we were all wonderful. The midwife pulled me off a tiny bit of the placenta as I had asked her too in advance to place inside my cheek and swallow after a minute or two which supposedly greatly reduces the risk of hemmorage and slows bleeding in general. But I didn't have much bleeding. My husband and the midwives prepared me a big snack of my placenta, just cooked in salt and butter, and a cacao and tucked me and the baby in bed.
The midwives asked if breastfeeding was going ok and I told them I thought it was but the elder assistant midwife asked if she could show me something and touch my nipple to do so. I said sure and she pinched it in a way that enabled Selvina to get it in a totally new way and it hurt like hell. She said, "Ahhaaa, I think you've got it now". It hurt very bad for three weeks, much worse than any birth pain, but then became very pleasant and we breastfed until she was 2 years and about 4 months and I was pregnant again.
We slept with one eye open but all slept really pretty well through the night to wake up the next day as a family of three for the first day ever.
As I approach my second birth, I'm changing nothing. Except perhaps I am ever more relaxed about it than before. I'm planning to incorporate my toddler. And we'll be doing it a lot more outdoors as there's simply not space in our tiny house for a birth pool, bathtub or shower. I look forward to being outside, though worry the sun may be a bit strong midsummer in Vermont, but so beautiful to be outside birthing surrounded by giant trees and streams and birdsong birthing a baby.
Now postpartum is another story and not a story of ease! So my focus this time around is on postpartum preparations and support. I trust birth will just happen. I will have some lovely midwives present who can support at my birth should things not go as expected and I have also done a lot of work to move through all the fears and what-ifs that every birth carries with it.
The spiritual nature of this birth really showed itself four or five months after birth but it's my belief that if the vagina is allowed to open up all the way for a gentle and easeful birth in a safe environment, we can heal multitudes.
