Opening to the Intensity of Birth – a birth story

by Sam Sundara

My birth experience taught me about being open emotionally and how holding onto fear actually creates pain.

I remember a moment through transitioning where I actually completely opened to those overwhelming sensations & feelings, and it was the most exhilarating feeling, I would not call it ecstatic exactly but certainly an intense feeling that was exhilarating & pleasurable.

The sensations during our birth were intense but by using sound and movement I was able to keep it to an intense sensation and out of the pain arena.

Until my fear was triggered when my midwife picked up my baby’s very slight distress, then that changed!

So I got to experience how we could go right through childbirth without suffering if we can maintain an openness emotionally.

Because it actually wasn’t the fear itself that was the problem. It was the fact that I resisted feeling the fear fully. I was holding onto it, which caused my body to contract, causing pain.

Towards the peak of transition, my midwife suggested that I get into a deep squat position. So I tried but it intensified the pain so I resisted.

She told me that this was exactly where I needed to go and I knew she was right. She rigged up a sling over the bedroom door frame for me to hold onto, resting my back onto my partner in between intense contractions.

Huge rushes of energy pulsating through me.

I was grateful to feel free to express freely through each intense rush, then I allowed a complete openness & expression of the intense emotion fully, even just for a few moments.

But it was enough. My body started to fully open and into feeling like I wanted to push.

My body was doing it all automatically.

My pelvis expanded beyond what I thought possible, and out he came, into the arms of the fastest midwife, supporting me to take him.

I’d only had him in my arms for a few moments before whoosh, out came the afterbirth, just about as fast as Zyah had whooshed out sucking his thumb!


Sam Sundara is the creator of HolisticMumma.com, a passionate writer, health coach, educator, and mum. With a background of 18 years as a natural therapist, in community services & counseling and a passion for spiritual psychology, Sam offers a holistic view to parenting & wellbeing.

Read her recent interview with Debra Pascali-Bonaro “How to Have a Positive and Pleasurable Childbirth”

 

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