A Peaceful Birth

I was 36 weeks pregnant and still all going well. My ankles were a bit swollen and I had a couple of small cramps from time to time. The baby was still kicking vigorously and leap around quite often, but all in all I was fine.

The books say that at this stage my hunger would return due to the ...I was 36 weeks pregnant and still all going well. My ankles were a bit swollen and I had a couple of small cramps from time to time. The baby was still kicking vigorously and leap around quite often, but all in all I was fine.

The books say that at this stage my hunger would return due to the baby sitting lower down and freeing my stomach but, I thought, my hunger had never left me in the first place! I had put on 20 kgs from the beginning of the pregnancy but I wasn’t bothered because I felt it was the way of my body to prepare itself for breastfeeding.

The doctor was still amazed at the progression of my pregnancy and told me that, since everything had gone so well, I could have any birth that I wanted. But he warned me: no first-time mother ever asks for pain relief because they all have this idyllic idea that they want a totally natural birth, but when they turn up to give birth to their second baby, many point at their backs and say: “injection, please!”.

Yes, I was one of those naïve first time-mothers. But I told him, I am not a martyr and I am able to learn from other peoples’ experiences. Until that moment I had not conceived of asking for any pain relief. In fact, I had a lovely written birth plan stating all my requirements, such as meditation music in the background, candles, as few people in the room as possible, talking in whispers rather than in loud voices, etc – all conducive to a peaceful birth.

But after the last check up before the birth at the doctor’s surgery, he said your cervix is still closed. If you find this revision painful, imagine how sore it will be when the head of the baby comes out… and then all my spirituality and best intentions in the world suddenly disappeared and I got real!.

Forget about my ultimate dream of having a water birth among dolphins or at least in the hospital bath tube… I was having a natural birth but, I thought, if the pain becomes unbearable, the chicken in me would ask for help, and be done with it!That was my second wake up call.

My first wake up call came in the form of a very old book lent to me by a friend of mine. The book was called Birth Without Violence, by Frédérick Leboyer.

There was I, feeling sorry for myself (even though I had been repeatedly told that I had had a text-book pregnancy ) thinking of how motherhood is all about sacrifice and giving unconditionally; there was I, trying to understand how could this baby do this to me! The inconvenience, the discomfort, the lack of agility related to the ongoing weight gain, and worse of all, the prospect of horrendous pain and strain not in a too long while to come…

And then, suddenly, somebody tells me what it is like inside my womb and what the baby is really going through. Suddenly, somebody speaks up for this baby who can’t speak up for itself… and I am shocked. Suddenly, what I am going through seems nothing compared to what this poor soul is experiencing. And my attitude changes, just like that!

“One day labour starts. The delivery has begun.Now the child is in the grip of a huge, frenzied, intransigent force.

Curling up is no longer the answer.

Helpless, it huddles up even more tightly. With its head tucked in and its shoulders hunched, it is a compact ball of fright.The prison has gone beserk and seems bent on its inmate’s destruction. The walls close in still further. The cell narrows hatefully, and becomes a funnel.

Its heart bursting, the child is thrust into this hell”.

“[…] Yet all this force, this monstrous unremitting pressure that is crushing the baby, pushing it out towards the world, and this blind, blank wall, which is holding it back, confining it – these things are all one: the mother!She is driving her baby out.

At the same time, she is holding it in, blocking its passage”.

What a horrendous account of being born! For the first time I realised that all the nagging little pains and aches that I had endured were a breeze if I took into account the baby’s epic journey!

When I was studying The Metamorphic Technique in London with its founder, Gaston St Pierre, there was one very clear message within the whole program: the way we come into this world affects the way we transition from one cycle to another for the rest of our lives.

You see, I was born by forceps. I was ready to come out the day I was expected to, but I was unable to make the transition. So the doctors decided that I needed help; you could say that I came into this world in a rather forceful way.

As I grew up, I was finding again and again that every time I had to make a transition, a life change, I couldn’t make up my mind. I truly felt I was going to die. And so only in my early 30’s, when I went through a process called Rebirth, which entails reliving the moment of your birth and healing the pain and any other negative feelings there felt. I realised that I had to break that pattern once and for all since I felt held back and scared. And so the Universe, in its very subtle way, would use its massive forceps in the form of a huge drama throwing me out at the end of a previous cycle and forcefully into the beginning of a new one.

For instance, I was determined to study engineering, but my destiny was that of a teacher and a mentor, so my first year at University I created a bad back and had to be hospitalised for 4 months. It goes without saying that I got behind in my studies so badly that I could not to catch up and wasted that year. So the universe very cleverly placed me where I was meant to be all along, relentless in the pursue of my appointed destiny: I ended up in the teaching University instead.

Or when I knew I needed to move on from a job, I would postpone it for so long that in the end I would be made redundant. Or when I was married and knew that something wasn’t right, only when I learnt that my husband was having an affair did I feel that I could then stop fighting for my marriage and finally walk out.

I saw this pattern repeating itself, again and again… so I decided that I needed to be reborn in a smoother way. And so as I say, after having done the necessary re-birthing work, I am happy to say that now I am able to see change coming my way and can prepare in advance; I listen to my inner guidance and I am able to make the necessary decisions in order to move on to whatever the next cycle requires.

In another interesting area mentioned in Birth Without Violence, Frédérick Leboyer suggests that “We must talk to the baby in its own language, the language that precedes words […] the universal language which is simply the language of love […]. This is what newborn babies need […], this is how they understand; simply by tenderness, by touch”.

Indeed, when the baby was born I had just not words. All I could do is cry: of relief, of happiness that everything had gone well, that the ordeal was over. I could not comprehend yet what had happened, yet, when they placed my baby on my chest, warm, slippery, small, crying… the feeling of touch was doing all the talking. I placed my two hands around her and simply held her there. I knew that this would make up for the loss of the previous environment only a little bit, but I instinctively wanted to make her feel secure and wanted to surround her like a cocoon.

Being silent, we will listen, “to hear that which is unspoken”.Frédérick says that “the first women whose babies were delivered in silence were so disconcerted by it […] that they quickly became panic-stricken. Instead of howling as expected, each baby merely uttered two or three healthy cries and then contented itself with powerful breathing […]. We tried to explain to these mothers that crying and suffering are not essential to birth”.

“With half-darkness and silence, we have created a deeply peaceful world […]. Darkness and quiet: what else do we need? Patience […]. We must remember that his descent into hell proceeded centimetre by centimetre, or more slowly still. As his movements became more and more constricted, they accumulated a considerable store of force and energy […]. His rhythm is so slow as to be virtually static. Ours is an agitation bordering on frenzy”.

I thought of myself as having a very low pain threshold… that is, until I got the first contractions.

I didn’t wake up my partner because he had to go to work in the morning and I didn’t want to bother him … in case this is not the real thing, I thought. But since 12’30 at night until 8 am these contractions were getting more regular and painful.

So we went to the hospital. My bag was ready. It was a Monday morning and there was nobody else there – no other ladies giving birth. It was quiet and peaceful. No rushing around and hardly any doctors and nurses present.

The nurse that was looking after me was very young. She was an angel!

I was quiet all the time because this is the way I deal with pain: I go inwards, I go into silence.

There was very little noise in that room. The doctor arrived and suggested I would have an epidural. I was half way there and said it would be an unnecessary struggle. So I accepted.

After that, the contractions felt still strong and like a burning sensation in the coxis but bearable. I wanted to avoid any unnecessary noise, aggravation, alteration of the existing peace . Because when we get out of centre, the drama seems to escalate more and more until we are out of control.

My eyes were closed. The doctor wanted to talk to me about certain procedures he needed to carry out. I said, still with my eyes closed: Do what you must but don’t expect me to open my eyes or talk. I was in total silence in order to gather my energy and awareness. I wanted to hear whatever needed to be heard. And I did. I would feel the contractions come and, like a good surfer, I would ride the wave of energy that each one was with all my might because I knew that, this way, each contraction would mean a huge progression for the baby.

That darkness was my ally. It allowed me to gather my courage, strength, patience and hope during a time that could be described as scary, challenging and emotional at least. I wanted to get myself out of the way and allow the professionals to do their work with as little resistance as possible. I wanted to avoid agitation and frenzy.

As it happens, it was an amazingly fast delivery. The doctor could not stop repeating: What a beautiful delivery this was!

“For the baby coming into this world, the burning sensation of air entering the lungs is the worst horror of all […]. And this is the baby’s cry! The cry that marks and celebrates the passage into life. It is a “No”. A passionate, violent protest. A cry that is as desperate as it is useless.

When the baby arrived, she cried, I cried… she screamed for two hours with the most musical and beautiful voice! The doctor called her Maria Callas, the old famous soprano. As a matter of curiosity, when we looked at her birth date later on in a horoscope book we found that most of the famous people born her day were musicians and singers and, among them, Maria Callas! No smacking was necessary. I was grateful that I didn’t have to witness any violence against my baby after she had already gone through such an ordeal. After all, she did make a triumphant entrance!

“When the baby emerges, the doctor seizes it by one foot and holds it dangling, head down.

Those who have had nightmares in which they suddenly plunge into nothingness are familiar with this sensation. It stems directly from this moment during their birth […].

The child feels an obscure anguish: for the first time, its back is unsupported […].

The spinal column has been strained, bent, pushed and twisted to the limit of its endurance – and now it is left to its own devices”.

Luckily for me, when the baby came out, she was gently put on my chest straight away and I was happy that she made her entrance in this world in a way that would say: I am here to be noticed!. I will not go down silently! I felt already that she had a sizeable personality in a tiny body of 2.740 kgs!

There are many words that could be written regarding a baby’s birth, let alone your own baby’s birth. But sometimes feelings can’t be described when they are many, deep and complex. I allowed nature to ultimately take charge of a natural process albeit dramatic, energetic, painful, cataclysmic… and I am happy I did because, truly, all the books in the world can’t prepare you for what giving birth is. But let’s try to see it through the perspective of the baby and let’s spare her any unnecessary suffering so that her future will mirror her entrance in this world in an empowered and positive way.