(The story of my second birth)
Last time I wanted a home water birth, with just gas and air. The little one decided he was ready to start emerging at 36 weeks and 6 days, well before our pool or the gas and air had arrived. We had many wonderful hours in the hospital pool, but the natural birth was not to be, and my little boy was dragged out via emergency c-section two days after the first signs of labour had started.
I was traumatised. I felt like a failure. I was in shock. Nothing went easily for me in the following weeks. I hadn't been able to birth and I didn't have enough milk. My child ended up in special care for a few days due to severe jaundice.
All this was last time. This time I had hypnotherapy and learned and practised hypnobirthing. I cleansed myself of old trauma.
This time we wanted a natural birth again and were open to it happening at home. This time our little one took her time, a whole four weeks longer than her brother. Early labour happened on and off for those four weeks. On the Wednesday night, I knew something was happening as I woke to a trickle of liquid making its way down my legs. I felt intense anxiety in the stillness and isolation of the dark. I sought reassurance from our Doula and my husband. I was glad our son was asleep soundly in our bed.
I tried to sleep as nothing happened, but contractions started quickly. I filled the living room with candles, breathed deeply, knelt forwards, leaning on my arms with each surge. I listened to my relaxations and my affirmations. I could do this. My Doula arrived. My mama moved into our room to sleep with our son.
Although the active part of labour happened more quickly this time, more intensely, I feel more clarity in my memories, I feel more aware, more conscious. I remember deciding I'd need gas and air and I made the decision to go to hospital. By this point, my contractions were so frequent and strong that I half walked, half crawled out of the house and into the car. I remember being on my hands and knees in the corridor of the hospital, rocking back and forth with a surge, wondering whose feet had walked where my hands were pressed firmly on the cool floor. I remember a voice asking about whether I wanted a wheel chair. It took all my energy to climb onto it, still on my knees, bent forward over the backrest.
This time, as with last time, all I had was gas and air and the in and out flow of my breath. I felt in the zone. It was hard work. I'd love to be one of those hippy mamas that birth without pain, but this hurt. The surges were intense and took over my whole being, my mind, my soul, every particle of my consciousness.
As with the last time, I felt the urge to push. I felt taken over with a primal earthy need to go completely within, the deepest meditation I have ever experienced. It hurt. It was hard work. I wanted it to end. But it was also a place of sacred bliss, a doorway through which I have never entered before. Time stopped, yet it was eternal. The world ended, yet it was only just beginning. I was more intensely alive than at any other time in my life, yet at the same time I was not me, I was everything. The universe was within me and I was the universe.
I heard the midwife telling me to push, telling me to quieten my voice and go more inwards. It wasn't working. As before, she examined me and our baby was stuck. Head facing sideways. Unable to push her way out.
Our hopes of a natural birth were not to be, but I made the decision to go to c-section with clarity and a knowledge that this was possibly the only way to get her out safely. Knowing she'd probably swallowed some meconium also turned my desires for natural birth to a desire to just get her out safely.
While it wasn't what I'd hoped, it was still precious. I'm glad I had the chance to labour. I'm glad I had the chance to push. I'm glad I had the awareness to ask people's names, where they were from, who they were - this multitude of people helping bring my baby closer to meeting to me. I'm glad I had two people there for me throughout the labour to hold my hand, give me water, provide succour. The whole experience was healing.
I can confidently and with great respect for the process of labour and birth, say that I have been healed - in many ways and of many darknessness, of which I am not yet fully aware, but that I can feel in the depths of my soul.
I have been strengthened. I have been empowered. I have been granted a gift. I have been completed.
