My Birth Story

This wasn’t the picture I thought we’d have minutes after our sweet girl landed Earthside.

I thought she’d make her entry into her new world in the water, in the comfort of her dimly-lit new home. Not being pulled from an incision in my body by a stranger’s gloved hands in a bright, sterile environment.

I’d read the books and did the research about physiological birth. I understood the physical mechanics and the energetic components, and I deeply trusted in the wisdom of my body.

Millions of women had given birth without medical intervention, so surely I could, too. Right?

Apparently not.

I’ve been processing and integrating this experience since the day after we left the hospital. I’ve unfollowed many of the Instagram accounts that inspired me during my pregnancy with their posts about the wisdom of the female body and how harmful interventions are, both for Mama and baby.

I’ve found myself triggered when I read about others’ beautiful home births, or when I see photos of a woman being held and supported by her birth team. I catch myself thinking “why couldn’t I have had that experience?”

And while I know my feelings of grief and disappointment are 100% valid, as I said to my doula, “there was more medicine for me in the birth I had than there was in the birth I wanted”.

My water broke around 1am on Thursday, July 15. I went the whole day without any sensations, moving with anticipation and excitement that each thing we did was the last time we’d be doing it as a family of 2 (4, if you count our furry family members).

We went to the river that night where I prayed for strength and ease as I embarked on the next stage of this journey.

By 1am on Friday, July 16, the sensations started. They weren’t too intense; I could still talk through them, still make myself a nutritious breakfast to give myself the energy I knew I’d need. I went about my morning and afternoon as normal as possible—went for a walk, watched some YouTube videos, filled my time with who knows what else.

By 3pm, I started to feel the need to turn inwards. The intensity was picking up and they were coming closer together. I listened to affirmations and moved my body in all the ways I’d read about to support baby’s position.

My doula arrived around 7pm. Somewhere along the way, the intensity I was feeling turned into pain. The sensations in my lower back were excruciating, getting worse with each contraction and no breaks in between.

I knew what to do. This is what I’d been unknowingly training for all these years.

Focus the breath.

Quiet the mind.

When needed, remind my body how strong she was.

I did what I knew how to do and held it together.

But eventually, I got tired. Not so much my body, but my spirit. I needed support to keep myself going, but I didn’t know what kind or how to ask for it. I’d never invited anyone in on difficult moments in the past…what was I supposed to say and how was I supposed to ask for it?

I continued to breathe through the pain. I asked for words of encouragement here, some pressure and massage on my body there.

My body was shaking from what I now know was adrenaline running through me. It scared me. On top of the pain, I also felt fear.

I can pinpoint the exact moment things went south. I expressed to Jordan that I felt alone. That I felt like everyone else had checked out. Sure, it was late at night (early in the morning?) but I needed to know I wasn’t alone.

After navigating these thoughts and feelings for awhile longer (time and details get foggy when you’re in labour-land), I asked my midwife for a cervical check. I’d held off on them up to that point, but it was 5am on Saturday morning. I’d been at it for over 24 hours and thought I might be ready to get pushing soon. When she checked I was only 4cm.

That was it?

My midwife and doula went home to rest. Jordan went to sleep. I tried to sleep but I spiralled, feeling more in pain and more alone. I found some mild relief from the back pain in the shower, but the intensity returned as soon as I got out.

My midwife came back at 9am. Still only 4cm.

I opted to go to the hospital for some oxytocin at 1pm in the hopes it would speed things up. My plan was to try and hold off until the evening, but I was informed that the hospital would be sending patients away due to a lack of staff soon, as that if I wanted to keep working with my midwife we needed to go then (which became irrelevant, because I got transferred an hour after getting there anyway).

I knew further interventions were likely. I knew this was going to become an experience that needed healing from. But the back pain wasn’t letting up and I was desperate.

What followed was a common chain of events that happen once one intervention has been introduced.

Oxytocin by 6pm. It makes your contractions stronger and more powerful, so the pain in my back increased.

I asked for an epidural and got one around 10pm. It didn’t work (who knew that could happen?), and by 2am I was done. Done trying, done lying there hooked up to fetal monitors, done worrying about how I’d still have the energy to push after all this, and still only 7cm dilated.

I asked for a c-section, and at 5:46am on Sunday, July 18, Luna was pulled from my body.

The OB said I made the right call. She said based on Luna’s size we probably would have ended up here anyway, except it would have been an emergency situation and not the relatively chill experience I had (if you can call abdominal surgery “chill”).

In the moment, I felt good about how everything went down. I felt empowered. No one forced anything on me. All the interventions were at my own request.

But after getting home I wondered “WOULD we have ended up there? Was it actually inevitable?”

“Or if I hadn’t felt so alone so many hours earlier, would things have gone differently?”

It was easy for me to place blame. To say “why didn’t you know I needed help? Why didn’t you say more, touch me more, hold me more?”

But this was all too resemblant of a common pattern in my life. People think I’ve got it together, because most of the time I do. At the very least, I make it look like I do. So they leave me alone.

This was a beautiful opportunity for me to ask for help. To say “I’m struggling and I don’t know what I need but I need you here and I need you present”.

Perhaps things may still would have ended up the same way. Perhaps it could have ended up a more traumatic experience. Perhaps my body would have felt safer to open up so my baby could be delivered at home.

But I won’t know, because you only get once chance to birth your baby.

Despite the fullness and beauty of my life, I often play small. I don’t ask for what I need for fear of being a nuisance. I don’t say what I really want to say for fear of ruffling feathers. I don’t go for what I really want for fear of what could happen or what people will think.

Most of the time, I justify it with a “next time I will…”

…speak up.

…do what I want.

…go for it.

But when you birth your baby, there is no next time. Even if you have another, it’s still a completely different situation.

So as hard as it’s been to come to terms with this, the blessing of this whole experience has been to let go of the “next time I will…” thoughts and do or say what my heart is calling for in that moment.

“Next time” is not guaranteed. Never has been, never will be, and while I wish it didn’t take the birth of my sweet baby to realize that, I also know that because of an experience this big, I will never forget it.

So yes, as those tears of grief and thoughts of “what if?” and “why didn’t you?” inevitably continue to rise, they will reside amongst feelings of gratitude for the fact that I will never hold back on my needs in the same way again.

They will become the catalyst for playing my life full-out.

And, obviously, they will live alongside feelings of unconditional love for the sweet little Soul I have the privilege of calling my daughter.