Our birth story
On a Sunday evening at home, I birthed a baby and the baby birthed me
This is Part 4 of a series where I talk about my pregnancy, birth, and postpartum.
The first one talked about the grief that came with the news of being pregnant.
The second one focused on my experience as an enby birthing person.
The third one I explored the spiritual and ancestral connections of my pregnancy.
You don’t have to read these posts sequentially, but if you do, you can check them out here:
It was a Sunday morning, a day after my due date. My partner noticed that I was bleeding before I did because he noticed blood in the bathroom. I faintly remember feeling mild cramps when I was half asleep. I freaked out, not knowing 1. what bleeding meant for my pregnancy, 2. how much blood would be considered normal. So, I reached out to my best friend, Kyle, who was in Amsterdam at the time, for emotional support. Coincidentally, Kyle was hanging out with her friend who is a midwife. I took a photo of my underwear (with consent) and sent it to them. Kyle’s friend was like oh yea, this is totally normal. Just rest and relax. Meanwhile, my partner texted my midwife, who corroborated with what Kyle’s friend said, and told my partner that I could be giving birth in a matter of days or weeks. It marked the longest end of this waiting game of pregnancy. Still, the presence of these midwives comforted me. I knew, no matter what was happening, I was supported.
Whether the birth would launch in suns or minutes, we were going to eat. My partner made me a breakfast croissant sandwich. There were three eggs (for the choline), a couple of strips of bacon, thin slices of tomato, and a little bit of kewpie mayo - just what I was craving for. Not only did he make me breakfast, he started preparing food for the days to come, even accounting for feeding the birth team, whenever they would be here. I starred at my partner who had just gone to the farmer’s market and the grocery store. He said tonight we would have surf and turf for dinner, with sides of roasted vegetables and mashed potatoes. Then he opened the fridge to proudly show me two rotisserie chickens snuggled next to each other. From my point of view, it was clear that my partner was swirling in frantic air. I asked him, what were you going to do next? He said, I need to go to Whole Foods to get this other thing for dinner. We need a lot of food! The birthing team will be hungry! When he said this, I felt an urge to get off the counter stool to stand. My arms stretched in front of me so that my back would curve and make more room between the vertebrates. My body moved before my mind registered a feeling of quiet soreness in my lower back, something that akin a period cramp when I used to have one. The strength of the sensation took my attention away from the breakfast sandwich. I said to him, “Babe, I need you to stop going grocery shopping. I’m pretty sure I’m in labor.”
What happened after was a kaleidoscopic blur. When the surges were 15 minutes apart, I would steal the in-between moments for rest and found comfort from the coziness of our bedroom. 432 Hz music, from a playlist curated by my dear friends, spilled through the speakers. Soon, perhaps a bit too soon, the surges became 10 minutes apart, 5 minutes apart, then the sensation stopped going away, but they would rhythmically crescendo and fall to a low groan. Birth was catharsis epitomized. At each surge, I released through guttural moans. When the sensation crested, my fingers dug into my partner’s arm. A part of me wanted him to feel the intensity of what I was feeling. as if to say, look, you did this to me and it’s not fair that you don’t have to feel a thing. Looking back, it was probably best to keep my mind clear and my body relaxed to fully receive the surges. Ego had no place in this process. “I” was no longer in control. My body was but a vessel that channelled the primordial force of labor. The waters in my body moved like waves thrashing against the shore. In an instant, birth, death, self, universe, all is connected, all is one.
Around dusk, my birth worker, Elydé arrived. The room was dim except for the glow of fire at the end of an ignitor in Elydé’s hand. She swiftly circled a cup with the ignitor and placed it on my lower back. Warmth sept through my skin. A moment of relief, followed by another incoming contraction. The music turned from soothing a cappella to a passionate, determined drumming circle. It felt like a team of spirits and guides were in the room with us. One cup, two cups, three cups. And then, plop! Each one popped off. Elydé pressed her soft hands against my back, kneading into the muscles with care. At some point, we got instructions from my midwife to get into the peanut ball position. I lugged my loud body into the first pose: side laying, with my legs bent, fitting a peanut ball between my legs. 30 minutes later, I would switch sides. But before the timer went off, the surges picked up so much that I told Elydé I was done with the ball. I just wanted to lay in bed and relax. She affirmed me, listen to your body. From this point on, I do not remember labor in a linear fashion. I can recall snippets of what happened but have no idea when they happened.
It’s important to empty the bowel during labor, because any additional storage there could slow it down. So, Elydé regularly took me to the bathroom. As soon as I sat down the toilet, the contraction increased tenfold. My entire pelvic floor pushed down like the earth’s gravity centered at the toilet bowl. I felt something gushing out of me but it wasn’t pee. I was feeling too weak to see, but I heard Elydé told my partner it was blood, and she took a photo which I assumed was sent to my midwife, Heather.
When I was around 5 months pregnant, my partner and I took a birth course with Care Messer from the Birth Education Center. One week, Care instructed the birthing person to practice pooping only when it felt absolutely imminent. She reasoned that the specific sensation of feeling like you were about to shit your pants likened that of pushing. Like a dutiful student, I spent the following weeks paying attention to the urgency of my bowel movement, waiting until that critical moment before I hurried to the toilet. I thought, this was easy. I barely have to do anything to push. Poop just slid out of me. Birth would be not that bad. For those of you who have given birth before, you’d know my surprise when my body wanted to push on that Sunday at home. Pushing, during labor, was nothing like pushing poop out when poop is already at the door. Pushing felt like every single muscle in the body contracted at once, vacuuming all available space within to squeeze out that last remaining dollop of toothpaste. As I was squeezing the life-force out of me, Elydé reminded me it was too early to push. Slow down, let’s wait until Heather’s here to push. I was frustrated. It’s as if I had any control over my body.
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When Heather and her team arrived, it was dark outside, my consciousness was warped. The sensation of contractions took over all of my sensory awareness. Someone from her team introduced herself to me, I could barely make out her name. I muttered thank you, and closed my eyes and focused on breathing deep and slow. As the birth team prepared the tub for me, I was laboring in bed, regularly changing positions to assist the progress. Sometimes I was laying on my side, sometimes I was squatting down while grabbing onto a rebozo that was hanging down from the door frame. Whatever position I was in, I remember feeling reluctant to change the poses. It took a contraction or two to settle into a new pose. So to move again required additional strength that I felt like I didn’t have. But Heather coached me through the movements, reminding me that changing my poses would help the baby move inside. Perhaps this was the first lesson of parenthood: get up even when you don’t want to do shit anymore.
Eventually the tub was ready for me. Someone from the birth team held my arms while I moved towards the tub. But within those ten steps required to get to my destination, another surge toppled me over. I knelt on the floor and surrendered to the sensations. A minute later, the feelings passed, and someone was there to help me to get into the water. As soon as my body submerged into the tub, I moaned in relief. My body felt so much lighter. I thought, this is great!! I can do this!! But it took just another contraction to make me realize that labor was not going to be easier until the baby was born.
At some point Heather noticed that the baby wasn’t progressing as quickly as expected. She felt like the baby had her hands by her face, so she asked me to visualize the baby’s hands tucked at the chest, away from the head. I didn’t know how she would know what the baby was doing, but I trusted Heather with this birth. I closed my eyes and whispered, we got this, we got this, I love you, I love you. In my mind’s eye, those tiny hands started to move away from her face. Between the surges, the team fed me sesame candy, water, and honey sticks. A while later, Heather asked if I would be open to feeling where the baby was. She showed me her fingers, and gestured to the lines of the joints. She said, tell me how many knuckles in she is. I breathed deeply until the surge subsided. Then I put my fingers in. Soon, I felt something round, soft, and fuzzy. I exhaled. The baby was two knuckles in. She would be born soon.
I was slumped at the edge of the tub. My partner’s hands elevated my tired arms. My body is shaped like the Chinese character of big (大). Each contraction burned my body, my self-concept, my spirit into innumerable pieces. I felt like if I wasn’t careful with my breath, I might just explode. Heather shone a flashlight into the water and said, you might feel the ring of fire. Don’t push! Blow raspberries! The sensation of the ring of fire akin to the vaginal opening becoming a circle made of millions of vigorous and concentrated stings. I tried to blow raspberries but I blew it. My face was too tired to keep my lips pursed. I complained, I can’t blow raspberries! It’s pushing without me trying. I let out a monstrous roar. People seemed unfazed by my noise, nor did I have the capacity to think of what people thought of me. Heather said I was using too much energy at the throat. Move the sound down and push. I didn’t understand her instructions but I stopped thinking and just did what she said. As soon as I moved the sound downwards, the scream became a silent grunt, every inch of my body compressed downwards so the baby could descend. A few more primal grunts synchronized with contractions later, the baby slipped out of me. My midwife and my partner caught her together. Immediately, the strain of surges disappeared. From this moment, a whole new world of roles emerged: a mother, a pom pom, a parent, a birthing person, an elder-in-training, an ancestor-in-the-making. They handed the baby to me, urging me to keep her close to me, because the umbilical cord appeared to be short. I held her in shock, forgetting all the first words I had planned to say to her when she would arrive. The team helped me get out of the tub, ensuring that my newborn baby wouldn’t slip out of my hands, urging me to hold my head up so I would not pass out. Back in bed, I felt like Big Bird after a rough night out. My hair entangled and strawy like a bird’s nest, my body limp, my belly squishy, my pelvis sore.
One of Heather’s team members reminded me, if you are feeling like a contraction is coming again, let us know. That is when the placenta will be bor — She wasn’t even able to finish the sentence and I was feeling a cramp coming through, it’s happening now. I’m having the cramp right now. The lower body muscles pushed intuitively. Along with a sensation of taking the most dazzling shit ever was a large and warm and slick placenta being born. Wow, that was pleasurable, I tiredly chuckled. My left hand cupped my baby’s little booty and my right hand supporting her head. I stayed like this for a while, even when Heather was stitching me up from a tear. Eventually, the birth team had to take the baby to weigh. When they lifted the blanket, we saw that she had pooped all over my left hand and my abdomen. I had a little cup of meconium on my palm. This, was parenting lesson number two: laugh when life hands you poop.
Birth had me confused. Did I just win the greatest prize? Or did I lose my final battle? On one hand, I just survived a seismic life event and am now blessed with a little being. On the other, I was suddenly unrecognizable to myself. Birth came with a colossal responsibility as a parent, and I was too exhausted to know if I was up for the task.
When I was in elementary school, my mom treated me to a David Copperfield show. I was, and am still, afraid of loud noises and crowded spaces, so I spent most of the show covering my eyes and ears with these hands that were too small. While I didn’t see most of the show, I remember the final act featured Copperfield on stage, narrating a video taped at the Great Wall of China. Through some extraordinary powers, he walked through the Great Wall of China - not through the length of the Great Wall, but through the cross section of a part of the Great Wall. Copperfield was on a set of stairs, standing against one side of the wall. He leaned forward to feel the wall, as if to whisper a spell, then took a step towards it. The wall appeared to then promptly swallowed Copperfield. On the other side of the wall, two crew members held onto a piece of fabric, each with an arm behind it to create a sort of muppet that looked like a man, presumably Copperfield, stretching out and towards the exit. In moments, Copperfield reappeared on the other side, as if he was just born out of the concrete. Now, this part might not be true due to the fallibility of my memory, but I remember he mentioned that the doctors had examined him during this life-defying feat and concluded that Copperfield’s heart paused briefly in order to travel through the Great Wall. The audience gasped. Copperfield delivered magic, again.
If you watch the video linked above, you will see that Copperfield’s magic trick is really, just a trick. But birth, I’m speaking for my birth, was like performing that kind of impossible magic trick with all the ordinary parts of me. I’d imagine the duration of the labor was like the moments (if it at all happened) Copperfield spent between the concrete walls - compressed and existential. At times, I didn’t know if I could go on anymore. A day later, I felt like I was hit by a truck. My voice course like Bruce Springsteen on the last day of the Born In The U.S.A. tour. When I got up to pee, my knees felt crispy and thin. I inched towards the toilet with my back hunched over and my hands hugging my pelvis which felt like it was falling out. Even though I didn’t want to admit it in the moment, my body had aged a thousand years overnight. My nipple, just one of them, callous and inflamed after a night of being repeatedly suckled. The other looked like Mount Fuji, with a divot in the middle, asleep. I would found out later that this particular breast never woke up, as it produced no more than a few drops of milk in spite of regular pumping and nursing. I will share more of my breast-feeding journey in another post.
While this recollection of birth may sound sobering, my experience now, as I am 3 months postpartum, is one full of gratitude, silliness, and love. When my baby smiles, nothing else in the world matters. I often said that my spiritual practice was one that demanded the heart to be stretched, to widen its capacity to be with the vast range of joys and sorrows in this life.1 Based on this perspective, birth is a spiritual practice, too.
Below is my birth playlist. This playlist is also good as chill background music to help you move through the day:
Thank you for reading my birth story. Please note that everyone’s birth story is different. If you’re expecting a baby right now, please view my story as merely a reference, not a guide.
Lastly, I hope you got something out of this story. To show appreciation, please consider leaving a tip:
A vipassana meditation teacher, Michele McDonald, often speaks about the “vast range of joys and sorrows”.