THE BIRTH
Now that our son, Sky, is 12 days old, and I am slowly, but surely, recovering, I want to share a little about the birth. Although it is such an intimate subject that most people don’t care to know the details of, I feel it is such an amazing process of nature, that, a little of which, just has to be shared.
When most of us think about birth, we think of images we have seen in movies of women screaming in fear and agony with their legs up in stirrups as medical professionals take charge of delivering their babies. After 9 months of watching how this body knows perfectly well how to create a fully formed human baby, then when it comes to the birth, it is as if we don’t trust nature to know how to do it anymore. We fear the unknown, and when we hear of other people’s birth horror stories, and we are told of all the terrible things that could go wrong, this just makes us even more fearful. And in fear, our muscles contract and resist the whole natural process. Birthing, like Life, is about letting go, losing control, not understanding, not relying on logic or thinking. It is simply about following and trusting whatever this body needs to feel, express and do. And this is obviously absolutely unique for each individual body.
For me and Sky, it was one of the most powerfully ‘high’, and at the same time the most earthy, bodily experiences, I have known. No matter what ideas or plans Robert and I may have had about how it would or should go, in the end, it was just about following the body and falling into absolute trust with this experience now, now, now… It was amazing how the body knew exactly what to do in each moment. It was such a letting go of convention, politeness, and social decorum, and simply a surrender to the innate wisdom of animal nature. Funnily enough, as much as the thinking may have liked to imagine a serene quiet labour and birth, (having watched several birth videos where the women just quietly breathed through the labour), I found that in my experience this body needed to make loud roaring sounds as an expression of the intense energy that flowed with each surge of the womb. Feeling my body opening and opening, and then my baby moving downwards, and only letting go to this. There was no fear, and nothing in me called these sensations painful. In fact there was not a lot of commenting on, or labeling these sensations at all. Although I felt a sense of spacious euphoria throughout, this was no escape from very much feeling the strong intensity of each wave of energy as Life birthed itself. As much as Robert was with me all the way, making loud roaring sounds alongside me, and our wonderful midwife was there with her own encouraging sounds and gentle touches, I knew without doubt that, it was not up to me, or anyone else to do anything. I was alone with my baby, as Life took us on this amazing journey together. I felt the very raw animal nature of this female body, doing exactly what she was made to do. It was messy, it was noisy, it was intense, but it was so incredibly alive and real.
After Sky was born, and I held him in my arms, all I can say was that I was mind-blown! Looking at Robert with tears streaming down his face, together we fell in love with this sweet little creature that came from nowhere.
~ Unmani
