Isn't it funny how two experiences of the same thing can be so incredibly different? The memory of my last birth is already slowly slipping away and if anything it is making me sad that I cannot relive it again and again. Whereas the first time I did not even want to think about it, it was too painful to process and deal with. The birth experience that I had last week was hands down the most incredible experience of my whole life. I still cannot believe I did it, that I pushed through and that laying next to me as I type this is my beautiful baby boy that was delivered in the comfort of our own home, into his Dad's arms. The day that I went into labour was such a beautiful one with my toddler. We had so much fun and had spent the afternoon exploring in the forest, building cubby houses with my sister and brother. I kept joking and saying "I wonder if this walk will put me into labour" and "I wonder if building this super, sick cubby will induce me". By the time we had got back to the car something felt different. Sure enough when we got home I started to get waves. I had of course been getting them for weeks and had been slowly losing my mucus plug but that afternoon there was another chunk and I could just feel in my body that it was time... Our little baby was ready to begin their journey Earthside. When my partner got home I was SOOOOOO excited. It was FINALLY happening! The last birth experiences was sort of robbed from me and this time I was going to do it, all on my own. I'd made a HUGE batch of pasta, finished some loaves of sourdough and just knew. I kept thinking to myself that perhaps this little baby was hanging in there until I had cleaned the lounge (birth space), dusted my birth altar and made my sourdough loaves.... All things I had completed earlier that day. Or maybe the baby just needed me to be 100% calm and getting out into nature with my toddler created that... Perhaps he heard how much fun we were having and wanted to be part of it too. We carried on with our usual routine... Dinner, bath time for Edith, then we started getting her ready for bed. I tried doing some yoga cards with Edith before bed and it just felt so gooooood to stretch my body, warm it up a bit. While I read her a bedtime story I could feel my body changing, my stomach dropping and more and more waves. It would have been about 8.00pm when I got in a bath. I was having waves over and over, watching my baby kick and my uterus contract... It was pretty wild. I spent an hour in there before getting into bed. Bed was not fun that night. I was up doing a wee after every contraction that I had. We watched some Netflix for a while before I said "I need to try and rest... It's happening". So off we went into sleep land... Or at least Ricky did. I was way to uncomfortable at this point (11pm). I got up to make myself a hot water bottle for my back. I knew that this baby was posterior and did hope they would flip in labour (he didn't haha). I could tell early on hat he was against my back, the waves seemed a lot stronger there then in my front. Fast forward to 1am and active labour had started. I woke Ricky up and he was over the moon. He sprinted down to the shed to grab the pool, lit all my candles, put some music on for me, contacted our friends who were helping out and was basically the ultimate birth partner from the get go. We were both like little 5 year olds on Christmas Eve that night, so excited, so eager and so ready to meet our baby. The pool took a while to get ready so I was just moving around on the floor... Then the couch... Then the floor... Then the couch. Then I was calling out for a spew bucket. It was pretty intense. Ricky found it hard to work out what was going on as I never really got the whole 5 minutes a part etc. when it came to contractions. They were all over the place, sometimes he thought "Fuck, the baby is going to be here any second" and other times "Wait... This is like the start all over again". So it was a pretty wild ride of unknown. I remember when Ricky helped me get into the pool for the first time and the words that came out of my mouth "This is better than an orgasm". It's true, in that moment it really was better than any orgasm I had ever had. For the next few hours I went from the pool to the toilet to the couch. Our friends arrived at what I think must have been about 4am. I was crying a lot at that point, partly with happiness (I was so relieved to see our friend Kathi), partly because I wasn't sure if it was meant to be like this... After all I had never experienced anything like it. I think it must have been shortly after this that I was in and out of my own little world. I remember having some extremely vivid flashbacks of things that had happened in my life... Like I was in and out of past memories but it felt like I was there again... In high school getting bullied, to watching my surrogate grandmother laying in a hospital bed only hours away from death, to watching bands in Melbourne with Ricky where I had a panic attack, to the birth of Edith. Looking back on it now it almost felt like all the traumatizing and scary moments of my life came back to me and were then released through this birth process. Through the breathing, through the roars and through this experience I was letting go. I was in and out of consciousness, I could feel myself drifting away then jolting back awake again. One of my favourite moments of the labour was actually making out with Ricky.... There was something about it that just made me calm, made me feel alive, made me feel powerful... Making out and touching his facial hair. Perhaps it was because he's masculine and facial hair generally represents that? I don't know what it was but I knew I wanted to touch it and knew it made me calm (thank you oxytocin hormones, you were greatly appreciated). Edith woke up at some point. I heard Kathi making her eggs, which of course Edith was over the moon about. She was in and out of the pool all day, so excited, playing with her boats in the water. She was amazing, i wish I remembered more of her looking after me to be honest, or that someone got a video. She was telling me that I was okay, patting and stroking me. She held my hand. told me to take deep breaths and put warm water over my back. She was incredible and despite the fact that I wanted to talk to her so bad, tell her that I love her and kiss her beautiful little face I just couldn't. I was present but I wasn't. So much of my labour was a blur due to the pure exhaustion of it. I worked out that by the time he came out and the time I went to sleep I had been awake for a total of 46 hours. Hence why I kept drifting in and out of consciousness. I keep getting asked if my experience was painful... Pain is interesting and so extremely mind driven. Labour for me was uncomfortable, intense and definitely did hurt at times but all at the same time it was the strongest and most grounded I have ever felt in my life. With my years of practicing breathing and meditation I actually found that it was nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be. Of course in the moment I was sobbing, yelling out that I can't do it... But the whole time I also knew that I could, I would and I WAS! Ricky actually said I was much more quiet than he thought I would be... Until closer to the end where I started to really unleash my inner primal self and roar like there was no tomorrow. In between waves I was apparently humming, almost singing, Then I would roar again. One of my friends who was helping at the birth had to leave at about 4pm so that was the first time I had heard the time... And it was fucking devastating when I found out. I had been laboring for so long and just could not do it anymore. I was in the pool when she had to leave and was just there shaking my head "no, no, no" I kept repeating over and over again. After she left I moved back onto the toilet... My old friend... The place I had spent a lot of my pregnancy with morning sickness in the early days, the constant weeing (especially at night time), the constipation and now the birth of my baby. I'm not going to lie but the toilet was INCREDIBLE. I loved the birth pool but due to the back labour I found it harder in the pool because I wasn't able to lay back or sit down as it would put even more pressure and strain on my lower back. I demanded a hot water bottle and sat on the toilet for hours... Crying, throwing up, pooping (so much pooping... I am still in shock haha), and breathing my baby down. I kept visualizing and breathing deep breaths as much as I could. I must have spent two hours on the toilet when a random affirmation came into my head... It sort of reminded me of something my Dad would say to me "the only way out is through, the only way through is out". This was repeating over and over and over again in my head. It made so much sense to me! It was a message to myself: The only way out of this is to go through it, to surrender. And to my baby: The only way to get through this change from the spirit baby realm to here is to go out, out the opening, out the gateway into this world. It actually really helped to visualize that process... I had read an incredible book in the last few weeks of my pregnancy called Spirit Babies. It had the most amazing view of the birthing process... A totally different perspective and IT. MADE. SO. MUCH. SENSE. Your baby is in the spirit baby realm and you as the mother, the sacred birthing woman are the gateway, the guide to support, love and encourage your baby. I kept visualizing a white light coming from the sky into my crown Chakra and down through the rest of my Chakras til it came to the root one, the one grounded on the earth, the place where my baby would be entering from. After hours on the toilet I was even more exhausted. I could see the exhaustion in Ricky and Kathi's faces as well. I wanted them to be free of this so they could rest. I wanted to rest. I wanted this baby out! I put my hand in between my legs quite often, wiping to see what was going on. I for some reason kept wanting to check to see if my waters were leaking and to make sure there was no mecconium there. It was also a sub-conscious thing that I kept doing. I could tell baby was getting closer as I could feel my perineum swelling, I could feel my body opening and felt more of a head like shape whenever I put my hand down there. At some point I got Ricky to feel down there too. He was amazed! I was unable to really communicate through most of my labour... Like I did not talk to anyone except perhaps a few "yes" or "nos" here and there or a request for water or to be moved somewhere different. So when I was able to grab Ricky's hand and he was able to feel that there was progress and that this baby would be here soon I think it gave him a burst of energy as well.. Something that he needed. It also encouraged me as he was excited and saying "Wow Maddie you're almost there. You've almost done this". It would have been shortly after we both got to feel my vagina getting stretched to it's limits that I suddenly got up saying I needed to get into the shower. Kathi had been keeping the birth pool warm the whole time, expecting me to want to get back in but nope... I wanted the shower. I knew I would deliver my baby in the shower from a very vivid visualization I had about the birth 6 months earlier. I had a boy, in the shower and Ricky was there to catch his baby boy. I waddled to the shower with my hand in between my legs as there was so much pressure and it truly felt like he was going to just fall out. Once I was in the shower, with the water hitting my back I knew it would happen soon. I was there on my knees. Roaring. Breathing. Humming. I could feel him getting closer and closer. I could feel the energy in the room and could hear Ricky breathing heavily too... He got a huge burst of energy at this point as he knew it was about to happen. He asked me if I wanted music on and I so wanted to say yes because I wanted to listen to this song: But I could not get the words out. So this song was playing in my head alongside my affirmation "the only way out is through, the only way through is out". I loved this part of my labour. It was the most rest I got in between waves. Yes, the waves lasted longer... Much longer but those little 10 second breaks in between were amazing and gave me enough time to breath and gather myself a little before the next roar. I was on my knees with my face in the corner of the shower (the cold from the tiles was amazing as well to be honest... 100% recommend) when I felt this weird bubble sensation. The only way I can describe it would be if you put a glass of lemonade down and watch the bubbles all rise dramatically to the surface. That is the exact feeling that I felt when my waters broke. I could feel bubbles inside my belly and heard strange suction type sound. As soon as I this happened I was up squatting. I could feel my baby kicking throughout the whole labour which I thought was kind of weird as I always heard that they tend to stop moving... Not this little guy. It was like his own special way to reassure me that everything was okay, that he was all good with what was going on. I could feel him moving downwards and put my hand in between my legs. A HEAD! A HEAD! That was when the affirmation stopped and instead playing through my head was "resist the urge to push". You do get an urge to push but I knew that he would do this all on his own if I let him and my body work together... So I did not push once. He did it all by himself. The famous "ring of fire" happened and I had spent a huge deal of my labour really worrying about that... But due to my years and years of constipation as a kid and teenager I actually didn't find it that bad at all... There was a burn but it was a pleasurable burn. My hand was still in between my legs and while roaring and letting him do the work I could almost rest and enjoy the sensation of him coming out. It all happened so quickly from that first moment that I felt a head. At one point I was slightly unsure about what was going on.... Long labour and when I had my hand on his head I had a moment of panic as I thought "oh my god part of my vagina has split and he is stuck"... But then I realised "ohhhh that's just his skull merging into a weird shape so that he can come out". Instant relief and just like that.... His head was OUT! This moment was almost like an out of body experience. I could see if from a different view, from above. There was me in the shower, Ricky saying "Maddie it's out. The baby's head is out"! The excitement in his voice and the sound as our baby instantly spat out some mucus while his body was still inside me. Ricky said there was about 10 seconds between his head coming out and the rest of his body... It was just enough time to turn the shower off, before he put his hands down there to catch the slippery little guy. When his body came out it was like there was a flash of white light... Similar to my visualization of the white light moving through the Chakras. I was not able to catch him. I needed both hands on the wall to support myself as it was so intense. He cried a small cry straight away "is it beautiful?" I asked... "It's a beautiful little boy Maddie". I KNEW IT. I knew he would be a boy from the very beginning. I knew I would be having my little Otis. Ricky handed him back up between my legs and I sat there in the shower... With the worst pins and needles that I've ever had in my legs... But I felt so incredibly powerful. I fucking did it. I pushed this magnificent human out, at home with only those that I love present. I did not give birth in a room full of sanitized medical equipment, or surrounded by white coats and fluorescent light... I was in my favourite room in the house, a place I had spent so much time meditating, working on myself and researching in... The bathroom. Edith woke up at the exact moment he came out... 9.24pm so straight away she came in. It was the first time I was able to talk to her properly since I put her to bed the night I went into labour. She was so excited and I will NEVER forget her face. She came sprinting into the bathroom in her jamies "my bubby sister Otis is here". " Yes Edith your baby brother is here"...."Me hold him please"... She of course couldn't hold him just yet as I was in an incredibly awkward position in our tiny shower but she was stroking him on the head, despite him covered in blood. She was in love with him at the start "Me show him my playroom"... "Me show him my Pip The Gnome"... She was out running around finding toys to show him.... Full of so much energy and love. We did call the ambulance after the birth. Turns out we didn't have to but I truly believe it was meant to happen this way. Due to the long labour, the rather short cord he had and the shower water, it made it look like I had lost a lot of blood. To be safe we went to the hospital to make sure. I was gutted when the paramedics arrived and wanted to cut and clamp the cord. We got at least 20-25 minutes of delayed cord clamping and the cord was almost completely white. I more knew that clamping and cutting would mean that I wouldn't birth the placenta naturally. Sure enough I didn't... However I didn't even mind as I had FINALLY had the birth that I've always wanted. The midwives at the hospital were extremely kind and let me try to birth it naturally for two hours... I think if I were given privacy it may have happened.... Maybe dim lights... But all in all they totally respected my wishes and explained everything in a really good way that left me feeling like I had the power... The total opposite to my first experience in the hospital with my c-section.
The universe works in strange ways and my visit to the hospital was meant to happen for a reason... And I think that reason was because the Doctor that I saw with my first pregnancy and who truly made me feel worthless and treated me in a way that Doctors really shouldn't treat their patients, she was working that night. I had written a huge letter to her about a year after my birth experience. I told her about how her treatment made me feel, I told her about the PTSD that was caused, the intimacy issues and the birth trauma. I left out no details. She had tried to contact me after I sent that letter but I chose to ignore as I wanted to have the power this time and no apology would ever be able to take back that awful experience I had. However this night I got the confirmation that she took things on board. Maybe it was just because it was me but I like to think that she took it on board for all of her patients. She asked me for consent for everything, she stopped when I told her to stop, she did not force me into anything or make me feel useless and small... I had the power and she was listening to that. So all in all my hospital experience afterwards further healed me from my traumatic birth. I got the confirmation that I needed, my words, my truth that was spoken was taken on board. I love birth. As soon as he was out I wanted to do it again. To live through that incredible, powerful and spiritual experience again and again. I've grieved a lot over the last week as I know that I won't be birthing again next week or next month... Probably not even next year but my body and mind loved and cherished that incredible experience. I truly hope that I get to experience the power, the perfection and the magnificence of bringing a spirit baby Earthside again one day. Freebirthing was the best experience and decision we made as a family. It's not for everyone but we had never felt more confident, connected with each other and calm. Birth just happened. It wasn't an emergency. It was a process to bring this human that we created out of love, into the world with nothing but love surrounding it. The first human to truly touch our baby was his Dad. my partner Ricky. The love of my life, my divine soulmate and the father to my children. He got to deliver his baby and honestly that alone is enough to make me fall in love with him a thousand times over. He got to experience something that not a lot of Dad's get to experience. He got to do one of the most primal things that a male could do... Help bring his son into the world. Just typing this all out has made me cry (again). It's made me cry at the realization that I am a powerful fucking woman and can do anything. It's made me cry at the love I have for my daughter and at the incredible amount of strength that she has, even as a two and a half year old. It's made me cry at the fact that I am so truly in love with my partner and am still in disbelief that we created two beautiful little babies with the love we have for one another. And it's made me cry because I have my little boy here. We worked together in a way that no one else will to bring him here. I will always look at him with amazement and with a huge sense of thanks as he has given me the opportunity to heal from my traumatic birth. He did this. I did this. We as a family did this. Welcome to the world my little Otis. I will forever cherish that experience that we shared together.
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