Her due date was March 9th and here we were at March 18th. I had been having false labor contractions for about over a week already and we had been trying various techniques to coax baby out like rebozo, walking, spinning baby stretches, membrane sweep, and what put baby in there in the first place. I was trying to go with the flow and stay relaxed, but I could feel some anxiety creeping up since we were getting closer to that 2 week mark and I really did not want to go into the hospital. It was also the beginnings of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown!
Alia was really caring and checked on me through text every night. On the 18th we decided to try blue and black cohosh and pumping. She checked on me throughout the day as I did the regime. A bit later into the afternoon, we decided to go on a hike on Orcutt trails. It was perfect hiking weather with an overcast sky that called for a light sweater. Loki was wearing a lady bug jacket we had gotten him at the thrift store and I wore my Wonder Woman sweatshirt, like I intuitively knew I was going to need that super hero strength soon. I remember it was a nice hike and I did need to stop a few times as it started to kick my contractions up a bit stronger. When we got home, we just did our regular evening routine and when Loki fell asleep Champ and I did some last minute cleaning and tidying. We had been doing that every night just in case. After, I took a shower and when I got out took what would be my last pregnant selfie. Tomorrow was Champ’s birthday and the first day of spring, so I talked to her and told her tomorrow would be a grand day to be born. Champ and I started watching a movie and “cuddling” but like 3 minutes in the contractions really picked up and became painful. I started timing them for an hour and they were consistently 6 minutes apart for about 1 minute. I texted Alia around 11:40 pm and she said her and Natalie were gathering their things and would come over to camp out.
The contractions were still intense and I found being on my knees and rocking really helped. Champ started to set up the birthing pool in the living room. I remember feeling pretty calm. Maybe it was because I knew Gaia was finally on her way, but I also think being in my own home contributed immensely to that relaxed energy. Loki, my first, was almost 2 days of painful labor contractions and then we had to drive to a birthing center, which was a lot happening and a lot of changing environments. I still would choose a birthing center over a hospital anyday, but being able to stay in my home, the place that is a sanctuary for me and my family, even my childhood home, was something so special and comforting.
By the time Alia and Natalie arrived, I only remember certain things as I moved through labor. Looking back on it now, it makes a silly story, but Champ and I did not get a new hose for the birth tub because we thought we could use the one outside. Of course, we couldn’t because of bacteria risk which seems like common sense, but that thought didn’t even cross our minds in our nesting phase. We ended up having to fill a bucket from the tub and heat hot water on the stove! While Champ worked on that I continued to move through labor contractions as they came. It really was like riding a wave. When I finally was able to get in the tub it offered immediate relaxation. I remember the contractions picking up more, but between them I would close my eyes in the water and just let myself drift. At times it felt like I was leaving my body and then another contraction would pull me back to earth.
I remember eventually getting out of the tub because the buoyancy of the water seemed to be slowing down my needing to push. I laid down on the couch so that Alia could check my cervix and having contractions while laying on my back stuck out as the most painful. I think it was the inability to move as much as I wanted when lying down. I was screaming and squeezing Champ’s arm so tight.! Looking back on it, I can’t help but think that a lot of women, usually in hospitals, give birth like that. Laying flat on their back with restricted movement and how grateful I was that I had the complete freedom and autonomy to move in whatever position I wanted.
At one point I remember going to the bathroom one more time and when I came back out I looked at the kitchen clock and saw that it was a little bit after 5 am. I remember being amazed at how fast things were actually progressing and had a feeling that she would be with us soon. And I was right…
I tried laying down again, but it just didn’t feel right, so I went to my tried and true position that got my son out: squatting. It felt like Earth’s gravity was giving me a helping hand in that position. At one point I felt this strong urge to push and to not stop pushing. I felt the ring of fire and knew she was finally crossing that bridge between heaven and earth. With a few final pushes I felt her tiny body slip out of mine. I remember asking Champ to reach down and grab her. I mean it was his birthday and what’s a better gift? Also, I felt like my arms were the only thing holding me up from that wild ride. I laid down on the couch and met Gaia Swan face to face. Big blue eyes, curly strawberry blonde hair, and her cute little Filipino nose all scrunched together.
March 19, 2020 at 5:37 am.
Champ’s birthday right on the cusp of Aries and Pisces.
The first day of Spring which is so fitting for my little Earth goddess.
Perfection.
When I think back on why choosing home birth was important to me and what the bigger purpose is of going that route, I think of my grandma giving birth to my mom strapped to a hospital bed in the 1950’s, knocked out by drugs because she was “hysterical”, and then just waking up to having a baby in her arms and to top it off- given pills to dry her milk out.
I think of my mother-in-law who was born in a rice field in the Philippines. Her mother just squatted down and plucked her into this world and then went right back to plucking rice shoots.
I think of my mom choosing to have my sister and I in a birthing center as a big beautiful step to break that generational trauma.
Because that is what having a home birth is. It’s reclaiming your power as a woman and realizing that power was never really gone. It was just covered up in white lab coats, hospital gowns, and male driven Western medicine and realizing that homebirth and midwives is just coming full circle to what women have always done. It’s coming to embrace an innate power of metamorphosis from maiden to mother.
When I think back to how both times I gave birth to my children squatting and letting primordial screams escape me, I know that I was breaking generational trauma. I refused to lay on my back in a hospital in order to reclaim power for my grandma. I honored cultures like my mother-in-law’s by birthing in the position that felt natural and free, but also reclaimed power by honoring my postpartum period as a time for rest.
Home birth and having midwives around me who I trusted allowed me to reclaim that power and I would not change my decision for anything. All women should be able to have that freedom to find how they want to reclaim their power as they are born into motherhood.
