Edith is Here

A Birth Story

You came at dawn, with the first rays of sunlight on a still chilly spring morning. You arrived and my whole center of gravity shifted, my whole world widened, my heart embraced you with a love I’ve never known.

It was 5 days past my due date when something shifted, not labor, but the whispers of it. I went to bed that night wrapped in anticipation. I hardly slept, my back ached, and my mind raced looking for signs that it was time.

Around 5am my husband got up, unaware of the journey that the last eight hours had been for me. When he came back into the room I asked if he wanted to hear the updates. He said, “Yes, but first would you like to hear mine?” For the past 5 months he had been debilitated by a horrible kidney stone, large enough that they were not sure if it would pass naturally. The doctor had recommended surgery, which was scheduled about a month before the baby was due to arrive. As the day approached we both grew weary, what if there were complications? What if he wasn’t able to support me in the ways that I needed as we drew closer to welcoming our first child into the world? We decided to cancel the surgery, but the pain he was living in was immense. And then at 5am, exactly 24 hours before our daughter was born, it passed. Without issue, without complications, it was suddenly gone, and with it the pain, the fear, the worry.

And so as the day started, one kidney stone lighter, we called our midwife, Katherine, and she suggested that we come in to be assessed. The birthing center that we chose was about 45 minutes from home, so we grabbed our birth bags and headed out. It was late late March and we had just been hit by an ice storm, we drove through a tunnel of trees encased in glittering ice. The world frozen, a pause, a portal.

When we arrived at the center I was told that I was about 1 cm dilatated, not in labor, but moving in that direction. “Would you like to meet your baby today?” I wept. “Of course.” And so we checked into a hotel across the way and were told to blend up a combination of apricot juice, almond butter, castor oil, and champagne. I gulped down the odd concoction and started pumping as well - as the stimulation often signals to the body that it is time for labor. Within minutes everything started, my body responded brilliantly, and from there I let it take over.

The contractions came in waves. Intense, but manageable. I quickly learned that I could go inward as the sensations hit me and that on the other side the world would be waiting for me. Friends played in the background, my Mom and my husband were there and we chatted in between the intense moments. I tried to sleep, but it wasn’t possible, and so I simply sat and time started to dance around me. I lost track of life in the linear sense as I started to spiral inward. Katherine came to check on me, at my request, and encouraged me to keep laboring at the hotel. And so we stayed for about 9 hours, though it felt like both an hour and a lifetime.

Around 9pm she suggested that I come to the birth center, just a 2 minute drive across the road, and yet the overwhelm I felt getting myself from the hotel room to the car to the center made me incredibly grateful that we were not still at home 45 minutes away.

The birth center was lit in low lights, candles dotted throughout the space. The first time I visited the space I wept tears of pure knowing that this would be the room where I welcomed my child into the world. And here we were. Our souls already communicating, our breath becoming one, our bodies working so beautifully in tandem.

Once settled in Katherine encouraged me to walk around and she offered me herbal remedies to help move the labor along. I could sense a shift in the new space, the addition of new people, the direction coming from outside sources, the interruption that the herbs created, the brighter lights from the hallway that I was encouraged to walk around. Three more hours ticked by, the contractions getting stronger, but my sense of time and place came back into focus. I felt more aware of the hours on the clock, of the tasks that I was being asked to complete, of the pressure that I felt to slip into the next phase of this birth.

Katherine sensed it too, she could tell that I wasn’t moving closer toward transition, and she didn’t want me to grow exhausted. And so she suggested that we break my waters, my body said no, but my mind was still eager to meet me baby as quickly as possible. I felt the shift in that moment, both feet were now fully planted on the ground, it was 12am, the contractions stopped. Katherine asked if she could check the progress and found that I had gone from 5 cm dilatated back to 2, not only had labor stopped but the work of the past 12 hours was reversing. I crumbled.

Katherine shared that I had two options, I could head back home and wait for things to start up again, or check back into the hotel. There was no way that I was leaving. I had thought that I was mere hours, maybe minutes away from meeting my baby, and now I was being told that it could take another week. I could not speak, I could not move. In my lack of response Katherine decided for me, sleep here she advised, “your body is asking for rest, it is so brilliant, let’s let it rest,” and without waiting for a reply she tucked my husband and I into bed. And everyone left the room.

It was just us, the quiet like a soft blanket holding us, time once again melted away. My husband went to sleep, but my body wouldn’t let me. I paced, the contractions resumed within minutes, I found myself bracing against the tub, swirling my hips while seated in the chair, and finally in the shower.

I hardly remember turning on the water or getting in, but once the hot water was streaming over my body I knew it was time to surrender fully. I was ready to meet my baby. I no longer cared how she got here, only that she did.

When I got out of the shower I woke up my husband, “I want to bring Katherine and my Mom back in here.” It was now 3am. I told Katherine that I couldn’t do this anymore, my body was tired, I needed help, if this was my body resting I wanted to support it in moving things forward. I told her that I was ok heading to the hospital if that was the best next step.

Katherine agreed and checked my progress, I watched as an enormous smile crossed her face. “Holy shit,” her eyes grew wide, “you’re not going anywhere, you’re at 7cm, it’s time to meet your baby.” My body hadn’t been telling me to rest it had been asking me to trust it, to let it take back control, to follow my intuition. On my own, in those quiet hours, I had learned how to listen to it. I have waited a lifetime to become a Mother, and these were the final hours.

She drew up the tub and I got in. And then I disappeared. The dance with time was over, instead it swallowed me whole. I was no longer here, I was there, in the liminal space ready to receive my baby. It took three more hours for her to be born, I don’t remember much from that time. What I do remember is that the room was pitch black, except for a few electric candles and the headlamps from the midwives. I remember that I kept my eyes closed for the entire time, except for the moment when the intensity of pushing made them shoot open. I remember that my Mom held my hand and at some point I asked my husband to get in the tub with me, to sit behind me, to support me and hold me, as I roared our baby into the world. I remember that pushing was the most intense sensation I have ever felt but that it also showed me the wild strength that exists within me.

And I remember with my whole being the moment that she was here. I pushed twice and on the third push my water broke and on the fourth push she was born. She was immediately placed on my chest and in that moment I felt a level of presence that I have never experience. Everything stopped, it was as if she was the only thing that existed, the only thing that had ever needed to exist.

I still didn’t know if she was a boy or girl. We had two names picked out and I had asked my husband to announce who our child was, and so he whispered “Edith is here.” And my entire being knew, has always known. It was her, it was always her, it was always us.