My birth story
I want to share my birth story with you! I imagine a world where birth is centered, and all birthing parents receive recognition and celebration.
I started feeling moderate contractions every evening around week 37. I'd wait for them to get more intense, but after a few hours I'd eventually fall asleep and wake up feeling normal. Around the same time he dropped loooow in my pelvis, and suddenly walking / sitting / standing / living in general became a lot more difficult. If I sat or laid in a certain way it truly felt like my pelvis was pressing on his skull!
Finally at 39 weeks, my midwife gently irritated my cervix to see if we could get things moving. My cervix was so thin he was so low I could reach in and feel his head!
At this point I wanted him here SO bad. It felt like the most significant and intense experience of my life was right around the corner, and the anticipation was killer. I kept saying it was like someone was going to tap me on the shoulder to start running a crazy ultramarathon at any moment, but I didn't know when. I tried to stay fed and rested as best as I could.
His due date arrived, Nov 7! I hadn't had any contractions for a few days, and had surrendered to the idea that maybe I'd be pregnant for eternity, ha. My sweet mom took me out to celebrate making it to my date, I went for a long walk and did the miles circuit, and we went to bed around 10.
I couldn't sleep because he was moving so much and I just felt off. I sat up to try and stretch my hips, and boom! My water broke! I woke Vic up, and we were both so giddy and excited. It was so surreal! It was actually happening!!!
We called my midwife and doula to let them know, and then I went back to bed with the intent to rest and take it easy until things got rolling. Ha! There was no resting. I started feeling contractions almost immediately, and only 10 minutes passed of me trying to stay sleepy until I decided I needed support. It was a little confusing, because I thought that this was early labor and I should be able relax through them, but I just needed help.
In retrospect I'm so glad I listened to what my body was actually experiencing, not what I thought 'should' be happening, because I was definitely not in early labor!
30 minutes later or so I threw up. I didn't make the connection at the time, but this is a major sign that I was in transition and fully dilated. I was already entering the final & most intense stages of labor.
I moved to the tub and this is where things really shifted. I sunk down into an internal place I've never been before. it was like everything outside of my body disappeared and became completely irrelevant. I was completely, totally, absolutely consumed by the experience. Time became irrelevant.
I used my voice through every surge and shifted into squatting and hands and knees as things ebbed and flowed. It was really intense.
I was so held by doula, midwife, and husband Vic. They held my hand, stroked my hair, sang me songs, and looked into my eyes with love.
There were a few times where I started to feel afraid of the intensity. During those times I'd come back to a simple mantra I had learned . . . "yes!" I would repeat it, yes yes yes. I can do it. I'm safe.
We moved back to my bed. My midwife suggested I turn onto my hands and knees to see if that gave me the urge to push. Ohhh boy i felt it! It was so strong, like waves through my whole body.
I felt so exhausted, & was suddenly aware of a deep ache in my hips and the sweat on my face. I started stretching my hips and everyone laughed at me doing some yoga at such an intense moment!
I yelled and yelled as I pushed and my midwife said "Marilyn, reach in and you can feel his head!"
This is when it all got real. Feeling his squishy warm head was absolutely unreal. There was really a baby! And I was really going to meet him on the outside!
From that point on I was deeply focused. I channeled every bit of this roaring energy down. There was one push in particular that I could feel him lowering, and after that I replicated that type of powerful push. Pushing was the most crazy intense, painful, hard, surreal work I've ever experienced.
I started to feel stretching and burning around my vagina, but really the sensation was so minor compared to everything else. My midwife said, "Oh, there's the head! Reach down and grab your baby!" And out he came! The feeling was indescribable. It was such relief, such euphoria, such pain, and depth, and grief, and joy, and disbelief. I could feel is body come out of me, and I grabbed him from under me while on all fours.
I leaned back with his squirmy wet little warm body was on my chest and in my arms. I couldn't believe there was actually my baby! Here! He cried right away. I was just crying and shaking and gasping and holding him and yelling! Vic was crying by me and had both me and Elden in his arms. It was a moment of complete disbelief.
After delivering the placenta a few minutes later, they left vic and I to rest in bed with him for 30 minutes or so. It was so beautiful. I was so exhausted.
Elden was born under a full lunar eclipse. I am so grateful I could bring him into the world in a peaceful place surrounded by people who love us and who I trust. The most holy of events, the most real and raw. I am forever changed. I am now mom.
