Birthing Asher in ecstasy

Start at the beginning…which beginning???  Three years ago, I embarked on the journey of birthing my first son, Harper.  He was born in our spa at home, with my divine midwife, partner, both parents and my partner’s mother.  It was a good birth.  Only four hours of active labour (after 18 hours of early labour), he was born healthy and strong into Matthews’ arms (with a little help from our midwife) and I suffered only a minor graze.  However it was hard, hard, painful work; at the time as I figured birth was just like that.  Now I know something very different.

Since Harpers birth, I became involved with a few birth groups, The Maternity Coalition, The Home Midwifery Association and Childbirth Education Association.  In the last three years I have learned a lot.  One thing I learned was that there is something called ‘Ecstatic Birth’.  I originally thought ecstatic birth meant that although you were ‘present’ in the birth that somehow the was no discomfort even during the most intense surges, and perhaps for some people it is like that, but for Asher and I his birth was like this…

Matthew came home from work on the 14th of March and said, “Well you can have the baby now, I’m all organised at work.”  To which I replied, “I can’t have the baby tonight I want to go to the Target sale tomorrow to pick up some sheets for Harpers’ new bed.” 

Anyhow… I awoke just after midnight feeling discomfort in my lower back and belly.  With no thought that this might be labour, I went to the toilet.  I was in there long enough to have 4 squeezes lasting about 1 minute each and approximately 6 minutes apart.  ‘Ok,’ I thought.  ‘So this is labour and if they’re already like this I should hurry up and get sorted, we’ll probably have a baby before breakfast.’  I woke up Matthew, as I needed him to inflate the birth pool, and set about getting the birth space ready.  I had curtained off the lounge room, the room where my Blessingway had been only two weeks before.  I placed all the beautiful gifts I had received at the Blessingway around the room and started burning the precious oil that had been made especially for this birth by Alex.  I then called my parents, who had four hours to travel, to give them plenty of time.  Matthew called his parents to let them know to be ready to come soon.  With music on and everything pretty much in place I started to make the baby’s birthday cake.  As it was still so early I made the cake from scratch by hand, so as not to wake Harper.  This energetic mixing should have been enough, I thought, to get labour going properly but it had really tapered off.  The contractions were irregular and their level of intensity waxed and waned.  I had been given a homeopathic birthing kit, by a good friend Natalie and was taking caulophyllum to give my labour a bit of a boost.  Each time I took some I would get a really good contraction and then nothing.  I was finding this fairly annoying and was starting to worry that all this messing around might mean that in a few hours this baby would decide to come in a couple of hours of excruciating pain. 

To keep myself going I ensured that I was taking ‘Floradix’ and water with chlorophyll regularly and kept reminding myself to wee (‘go and do a wee, you don’t want to end up with a hysterectomy’ I kept telling myself).

By about 4am Matthew was snoozing on one couch and I was dozing sitting up on the other.  I found that if I lay down the contractions would stop completely.  Mum and Dad arrived at about 5am.  When they arrived we said they may as well go to bed and we’d wake them when things started to happen.  After a four hour drive they were more than happy to oblige.  By this stage the contractions had completely stopped. 

At 5:30 we had all headed to bed and 20 minutes later, just as I was dozing off, Harper woke up.  I got up with Mum not far behind me and the three of us pottered around the kitchen, while the two dads slept oblivious to it all.  (How does that always happen?)

After a few cups of herbal tea and chats with Mum, I decided to go for a walk to try to kick start things.  I took my phone and a little pouch of stones given to me by my midwife to remind me of the riverbed my feet were grounded on in my birth meditation.  (I kept this pouch in my hand, playing with the stones, until the beginning of the final contraction.)  I headed off toward my friend’s place (a 40 minute round trip) to get a hug, a sympathetic ear and a few things like active Manuka honey (for the birth) and ‘hippy’ baby wipes.  I called my midwife en-route and told her the story of my labour thus far.  She said it sounded more like a third labour and suggested that when I got home I take another dose of caulophyllum and go to bed.

My friend couldn’t believe I was in labour (sort of) and had walked to her house and was planning on walking back with a green-bag full of supplies.  She walked me back a little way and we stood at the side of the road holding hands and laughing about how strange it must be for the early morning motorists to see two women, one of them very pregnant and one still in her pj’s, holding hands at the side of a very busy road.

I made my way back fairly disappointed at how little effect the walk seemed to be having on my labour.  When I got home everyone was up and after breakfast I took my midwife's advice.  After a little lie down Mum and Dad decided to take Harper to the Target sale, so Matt and I were left behind.  Matthew went back to the 'Cricinfo' website (the world cup had just started) and I decided to make some felt booties for the new baby.  Periodically Matthew would update me on the score (because I really cared…) and I was starting to get some more contractions although they were still irregular in both time and intensity.  I found the felting to be great as I could get in to a good rhythm picking up and throwing down the felt and rocking on my feet with a good contraction.

When I finished the booties and set them to dry I put on a CD called women chant and when a contraction arrived I found myself stomp-dancing, rhythmically shaking my fists and singing along to the music.  I reminded myself of an American-Indian medicine man.  At the end of the CD we changed it over to a CD put together by Matthew specifically for this birth.  It was trance inducing music consisting of simple piano music and the constant drone of a didgeridoo in the key of ‘F’ (which according to some aboriginal mobs is the key for healing).

At about 11:30am Mum, Dad and Harper arrived home, at which point Matthew suggested I get into the (waterless) pool, behind the curtains and put on the headphones to avoid distraction (bless him).

Matthew put the hose in the pool and began filling it (which was no where near as irritating as one might think) and I closed my eyes and when a contraction came I turned all my attention to matching my voice with a long Oooooooo to the drone of the didgeridoo in the music.  As I sang this in my head I was saying ‘open, open, open…’ and visualising my cervix stretching.  Unlike Harper’s birth where I was mentally saying ‘no, no, no…’ and fighting the contractions, now I was surrendering to them and saying The Great Yes!  (Thank you Georgina Kelly for her article of the same name!)

The effect this had was truly amazing.  While the contractions at times were uncomfortable, they were never painful and if I thought one was becoming so it was because I had started to resist it.  When this happened I very consciously relaxed my body, welcomed the progress and re-directed my attention back to the drone of the didgeridoo, focusing on matching my voice to it.  At the end of a contraction I would get the most divine rush of endorphins starting at the top of my head and flooding my body.  I was so relaxed during the whole journey that I was smiling between every single contraction, right to the last. In fact the feeling was so good I smiled when the next one started to come because I knew at the end of it would be the most blissful feeling!  Sometime around now Matthew got in the pool behind me and during contractions I would have the added bonus of his hands pushing on my sacrum. 

Suddenly, to my great surprise, I reached second stage.  “That felt pushy,” I said.  To which Matthew thought ‘Ok, here comes two hours of screaming’. “Where’s Jodi?” I asked.  “She’s on her way.”  I was pleased to hear that as this baby would be here very soon and although I felt confident about the birth, I knew everyone would feel more relaxed when she arrived.  I decided to feel for the head after the next contraction (I was still very lucid).  The contractions were on top of each other now, but instead of feeling overwhelming it felt empowering.

“There’s the head.”  I said as Jodi arrived and immediately got the oxygen ready.  I saw her do this out of my half closed eyes and felt satisfied knowing we wouldn’t need it.  She offered to listen to the baby’s heartbeat with the Doppler just as the next contraction started, I refused.  There was no need.

When that one had finished Jodi suggested I get into the position I wanted to birth in.  I threw off my headphones and the bag of stones from around my wrist and knelt on my left leg, with my right leg straight out to the side.

The contraction came on, this was BIG, and I felt so STRONG!  So POWERFUL!

I could feel my baby travel down.  And then I balked, I could feel the beginning of the Chinese burn sensation and if I was going to poo or tear (my big fears) it was going to happen now.  Then in a very Lleyton Hewitt-esque manner I thought to myself ‘come on!’ and marched through the final barrier.

In birth circles you often hear at least one woman say, “Remember all the women in the world who have birthed, you are not alone.”  Now, I have always thought that sounded like a nice idea, but like hell I would be thinking that at the height of labour!  Yet I did.  I called on all the women of all the ages, past, present and future and they came, with all their Divine Feminine energy.  Power rippled through me, the roar of a wild lioness rose up and out of my mouth and the energy of the feminine pushed down.  I felt a pop as my waters broke and a tiny person slipped out of me.  I reached down and drew our baby up to my chest, and then I leaned back on Matthew, smiling.

Still in charge I called for a towel to cover our baby for warmth.  Harper got his kit off quick smart and jumped in the pool.  Someone asked about the sex and before looking I said, “I think you’re a boy.”…  Yes, a boy, a little mate for Harper, perfect.  Harper came over to check him out and then quickly got back to the business of testing his buoyancy in the water.  It was amazing and affirming to see how unfazed he was by everything.  We don’t give kids enough credit when it comes to dealing with the circle of life.

Matthew and I soon got out and just as I stepped over the edge of the pool a giant gush of amniotic fluid and blood fell out and landed on the floor.  Thank god for the tarpaulin.  I sat on the couch and within twenty minutes of the birth of Asher he was breastfeeding and the placenta had been birthed.  “How efficient,” commented my midwife.

This was an extraordinary birth in that it was so simple, so easy.  Why?  Why are not the majority of births like this?  This is how it should be and yet the norm is so far from this.  This is a secret that needs to be revealed.  Birth does not have to be either 1) natural and extremely painful or 2) highly medicalised with the pretence of being pain free.  There is a third option, natural AND ecstatic!  We just need to give ourselves half a chance to achieve it!

Genevieve Searle, Brisbane, Australia