“You’re crazy!”
“You did?!”
“Wow, you’re tougher than me.”
“That’s so cool!”
“Why would you do that?”
Above are the common responses I receive when I tell someone I gave birth to my son at home, and by choice.
Many people do not support the option, and most think I’m nuts for doing it. I enjoy seeing the reactions, and sharing details with those who are interested in hearing about it.
For several months I have felt guided to share my birth story, and I believe this nudging is coming from a place of desire to help those concerned about their birthing options, given the pandemic guidelines, and the news reporting on it.
Healthy/unhealthy, positive/negative, and ineffective/neutral patterns are being broken apart like tectonic plates under our feet. The socially constructed norms and the cherished traditions we have enjoyed for decades are falling between the cracks, leaving ourselves vulnerable, fearful, and at our weakest moments, wondering if or when we will fall away with those patterns. Or worse, can we be saved, and if so by whom?
Who would extend a hand to pull me up if I were slipping, and 6 feet away from help?
How much control do we have, when these changes seem to be an everlasting aftershock of the reported pandemic?
In this unusual time on Earth, great opportunities for positive change lie under the uncomfortable flexing that pulls us back and forth out of the world, as we knew it.
I believe reviving home birth is one of them.
There are many channels this piece can meander: mom and baby safety, pain, emergency intervention, spirituality, the physical process and experience, certified nurse practitioners/doulas, placenta encapsulation, circumcision, prenatal/postpartum care, breastfeeding, skin to skin contact, prolonging baby’s first bath, and of course,
the WHY did I choose home over a hospital birth.
Writing about everything listed above would be extremely fulfilling for me because there are endless emotional layers that I’ll never part with, but have a desire to share; to help educate parents-to-be on the possible surprise treasures that can come along with a decision to have a planned home birth.
Like having an outstanding referral for a great doctor, church, spiritual adviser, contractor, lawyer, REALTOR, or travel agent. It’s part of our connecting as a species: to communicate about the good (or bad), that has shaped our lives in the most profound way(s).
With respect to safety measures taken above all else, I now see home birth as a sacred, secret weapon for humanity, that has been under-utilized and misunderstood. I hope to help revive it for the greater good of all parents, babies, and our planet.
To refer women to themselves.
As I’m typing, the first word that comes to mind- and the most important place to begin- is Fear. The fear factor in the birthing process as I knew it, and now know it.
Starting at my beginning, long ago, when I was a young teen, and an ambitious dreamer…
I remember thinking a lot about having kids. The preconceived ideals of raising at least 5: Michael, Miles, Cameron, Kyle and Francesca. Names picked out when I was 15, I think? :) Having a dashing, faithful husband, oodles of fun and love to go around, living happily ever after. I also fantasized about how I’d have a c-section, so I wouldn’t have to endure the physical pain of childbirth.
Where did my ideas of childbirth pain originate from? I had never talked to my mom about it being unbearable.... In fact, she told me I came out it so fast the doctor wasn’t even there! Maybe it was all luck, because my birthday is 07/07/77? Maybe because I was her 6th child and her body was well rehearsed? My arrival didn't seem to be a big deal, in terms of pain. My mother said of the others (eight live birth children in total :) 'you forget any pain as soon as you see the baby.'
Looking back, the only source of childbirth pain that I knew of in my teens was from movies and TV shows. I had never seen a birth with my own eyes, and yet I wholeheartedly feared even the thought of doing it without drugs.
In the coming sections yet to be published, I won’t write my life story, (as it sounded like I might up there ^^^ :)
Rather, will acknowledge and pay tribute to my earlier fears which were built on programming, and how opening my mind to another way, an alternative way, brought me strength that will last a lifetime, and hopefully inspire my son’s family and future generations to come.
Like anything perceived to be physically or mentally difficult, when when we surrender to the unknown, our body function, our POTENTIAL, over fear:
expansion of self is exponential.
A high worth trying once. An addiction of growth. An elimination of limitations.
No one can own you but you.
Is following your intuition, your heart, risky? Can it be rewarding?
That is what I hope to share in this expression of finding not myself in birth, but strength I didn’t know I had, when I let my God-given body do what it was designed to do.
I was a ‘mature’ first time mom because of my age (38), and yet through opening my mind and listening to the beautiful stories of women who chose home birth before me, (my sister included), I abolished the fear, and empowered my choice.
It wasn’t overnight, but over time.
With research, and confirming baby and I were low risk for any foreseeable safety complications, I let nature take its course, with only acupuncture as an intervention prior to going into labor.
We are perfectly made, even when we think we aren’t.
Our worst faults and biggest fears can become our greatest strengths when we change the program to align with the purpose of healing, inner-strength and trusting ourselves.
It all comes down back to the simplicity of love.
Love of ourselves is trusting ourselves, even when we aren't guaranteed what the outcome will be.
More to come on... Home Birth- Part 1
Phenomenal, very fresh,thank you