I was never one of those women who longed for children in my life, I had longed for love, and longed for relationship. I had longed for inner peace, or home, or self love, or whatever… I guess happiness.
My personal longings had taken me out of my family home in Sydney at 19, into many strange men’s bed’s, to Perth with the wrong man, to Art school at 25, to Pune and the Osho commune at 30. To a career in E-commerce at 32, back to Sydney and to Roman who I married (at last!) at 34.
I did many personal development things in that time, and I also had a number of abortions in that time. The first one at 17 was a no-brainer, of course I would get rid of it, there was not a moments thought for my hearts desire for a child. Later I was trying to reconcile with my family and babies and single motherhood just wouldn’t do. Looking back I can see the longing for love and family that those babies were, but then I wasn’t able to.
So when, soon after marriage I was pregnant… with twins… I was pretty scared. I felt like I was facing a black abyss, I was not so worried about the birth – I had lots of experience of facing intense situations, but I was scared about being a mother. What if I hated it, what if I was a bad mother, who would I be? I really wasn’t sure which way it would go, and I had an instinctive notion that it could go horribly wrong, that I may hate it, that I might not like my children, that I might even die.
I would walk into baby shops and walk straight out again, I just couldn’t imagine any of it and was freaked out.
I had a pretty fantastic birth of my twin boys, at King George Labour ward in Sydney. I didn’t do heaps of birth preparation, because I didn’t want to do crap classes. I was going to birth in the birth centre, but after finding out I was carrying twins at 20 weeks (the biggest shock of my life… imagining that double pram was a depressing thought… what happened to my romantic ideal of baby and me?) I had to go to the Threatened Premature Labour Clinic and the Labour ward.
I wanted a natural birth but with twins I faced intervention as a given. I had heard about Doula’s in other countries, but never considered one for myself. All I could hope for was that the right person would be there on the day. That there would be somebody I could trust. That if I was unsure of something I could trust their opinion.
Luckily, this is what happened. I had an amazing male midwife, Russel, and I knew I could trust him straight away. To cut a long story short, I birthed my twins vaginally, including a footling breach, I told the bitchy registrar to get out, and I was triumphant!!!! Hooray.
I found that I knew what to do, that everything was right, that I could have had all of those babies I rejected, that I loved being a mother. It was all natural. I had two gorgeous moon faced boys, Loki and Gabriel. I breastfed them footy hold style together, and I was ecstatic.
Due to our financial situation, and Roman being around heaps, I started back at work part time when they were about 5 months. And a few months after that I was shocked to find I still had a need to find what I was meant to do! I thought the full, amazing, overwhelming role of mother would annihilate the desire for finding my life’s purpose. But I was thinking about what I was going to do, I just couldn’t do the corporate thing any more.
This need was bubbling away within me, when my pregnant friend Gina, asked me to come to her Belly Casting with her Doula Denise. “trust Gina to have a Doula” I thought, she has a personal coach, personal hairdresser, personal astrologer etc. so I went along slightly cynical. The Doula was Denise Love, she conducted the Belly Cast in a simple but ritualistic way, it was beautiful, she asked me about the birth of my babies, and we talked about birthing, and how it should be women and sisters sitting around talking like this. I thought, “ I can’t think of anything I would rather do than hang out with pregnant women and be at births”
It was such a pure thought that it scared the shit out of me. I knew this was momentous for me, that perhaps, at this point in my life, I had found what I had been looking for for so long. Denise has just started a new training and I joined in and started the next week. I was excited and terrified at the same time. I also knew that I would work with Denise in some way too.
Well I started Doula School, and it was fantastic, a circle of women, sharing, talking about birth, learning. I loved Denise’s style, very direct, organic, and knowledgeable. She taught us to trust always, trust the woman, trust you will be there, trust who choses you, trust you will learn something from everybody, trust she has chosen a dickhead husband for a reason, trust. It felt totally right.
I started attending births very soon, and I remember those first few births so well, because that trust was so strong, they were very positive, natural births, and I felt amazing.
I never had to miss a day of work, no births happened on the same day, and being there made a difference. It took a while for me to witness interventions, and it is harder to trust when that is happening, but I especially remember my naïve, open, trust of the beginning of my Doula practice.
At every birth I went to I would think, if I were to give birth again, would I do it this way? Would I do it here? In a birth centre? which hospital? I kept seeing how the system mostly got in the way, I kept thinking about having another child. With all my questioning I had come to the decision that if I was going to have another baby, at first it was the birth centre, and then it was at home, and not even with a midwife, I would trust myself totally, no doctor, no blood pressure checks, no nothing. This would be my way. Trusting nature, trusting my body, trusting life. How can I refute life? How can I say that life is wrong, I had done this so many times in the past with all of the abortions, I knew I couldn’t do it again. Next time I would let nature take its true course and take what I was given.
After a while my thoughts of having another child (with two 1 year old boys already in tow) became continuous. I realised I had to get clear, did I want another child? Or did I just want to give birth again, knowing what I know now.
I sat with the question, at the time I had my niece staying with me, and I realised that this is how it should be, there should be a girl here, that my hearts desire, my wish was yes, for another child, and my true longing was for a girl.
I didn’t start trying to get pregnant – I have spent my life trying NOT to get pregnant, but I just accepted my hearts desire and let it be. I did spend lots of time thinking about it. But did not talk much about it with others, or Roman, it was my inner world.
Not long after, for some reason I started teasing Roman that I was pregnant, then I started to feel nausea and then I realised I actually was pregnant. It was so weird, we could barely remember having sex, I felt like I had just willed it to happen. I knew it was a girl. I felt like my wish had come true.
I would wake up in the morning, so happy, my wish had come true! I was getting what I wished for. It was an amazing feeling. A private feeling. It was my biggest wish, my most conscious desire, my hearts desire, and it had been granted!
After a couple of weeks the happiness disappeared and I started to worry, but I thought this was normal, and kept to my plan. An un-assisted home birth. The only way I wanted to do that was if Denise would be my Doula, and she agreed. Thank you again Denise.
We would talk about everything that might happen, all of our fears, mine and hers and I never doubted my decision. I expected to birth well after such a good first experience with the boys, and I was so looking forward to doing it again and feeling it all and understanding it all so much better.
I had birthed well the first time, but I was panicked and alone a lot of the time. I had expected a 12 hour labour so when I was in transition at three hours into it, thought I was just starting. I was screaming and just overtaken by the labour. This time, I knew it would be so much better.
Throughout the pregnancy I had an ongoing worry that something was wrong with the baby, she didn’t move for a long time, and I was just worried, but when I tuned into her she felt fine in herself, just far away. I kept growing, so I knew that even though the baby wasn’t moving it must be alive, I had kinesiology and acupuncture and all seemed to be well. I hoped it was normal pregnancy fears. All I could do was keep coming back to trust.
With me during my Doula training there were two amazing and influential women, one who had had a stillbirth and one who had a child with Downs Syndrome. Hearing those brave stories – the nightmare stories, the “I would die if that happened to me” stories, helped me to get very clear on the decision to not have an ultrasound. I saw how allowing things to come to their natural conclusion, for the organic process to take its course, was actually the best for mother and baby.
For the mother to birth her dead baby un-assisted was a healing and an appropriate completion of the journey of that baby and mother. For the mother of the child with Downs Syndrome, finding out at the moment of birth, was again a much more organic and connected way of meeting her child, rather than being told there was a possible problem during the pregnancy and then being unsure, out of control, and possibly needlessly terrified during the pregnancy.
I held onto the trust. I loved that I was doing it this way, it just was right for me. I was proud of myself for following through on my inner wisdom and trust. There were people who were very afraid for me, and others who trusted and supported me completely. I was SO hoping that I would end up a shining display of how wonderful and safe home birth is. How wonderful and safe BIRTH is.
I loved imagining having a new baby wrapped up with me in my bed, and my little boys waking up in the morning and coming into be with us. I was so looking forward to hanging out in bed, all of us, for weeks. It was going to be wonderful.
I expected the baby to come early, I carried the twins to term, and just thought this one would be early, but she wasn’t. My beloved Perth friend Sono had booked to visit me after the birth but ended up being there when I was about two weeks over. She is the most amazing acupuncturist and we had a lovely three days, relaxing in the summer warmth, rearranging the birthing space, swimming, she giving me treatments, and me sleeping.
I knew she was a girl, I knew the labour would be 3 hours long and I knew she would be born around 3am, but I was still consulting the pendulum and tarot cards a lot for other answers. Why is she late? When will she come? Is she ok? No answers were satisfactory, the only answer that satisfied was “trust”.
Finally, on the eve of my 37th birthday, about 3 weeks over, I went into labour. It started like the last one, with my waters gently breaking. We filled the fire engine pool, set up in the dining room, and pretty soon it was full on. Denise arrived and I decided I didn’t want my mum there. We had planned for her to be there, but I just didn’t want her, I could imagine her coming in all worried and I just didn’t want any one else there. I felt bad but Denise helped me to let this go.
It was fast and intense and beautiful. Candle light only, no sound, just the three of us, Roman, Denise and me. I got into the water pretty quickly and laboured there, with Denise occasionally gently saying “bring it down, bring it down” I was so ecstatic that I was staying focussed, that I was doing it! That it was happening at home, in the water, that it was beautiful, that no one was touching me. It was fantastic.
I had read Ina May Gaskins, Spiritual Midwifery, but could never imagine getting sensual during birth, but at one point Roman and I kissed and it was the most melty beautiful kiss I have ever experienced.
After a while he got into the pool with me and I relaxed back into him, and our skin melted together, it was beautiful.
I had watched and watched Birth into Being, and that was how I wanted to birth myself, just like the midwife in the water tank, and this is just how it was. I went into pushing and when the babies head was out, I just simply said, the head is out, and I stroked her head. I was so happy. Then she was born into my own arms, and I knew immediately something was very wrong. She looked like ET, she was very floppy, and she has extra fingers and toes tangling by threads of skin off each hand and foot. Oh it was so wrong, just so wrong. She was supposed to be beautiful, but she was not, she was wrong.
She also wasn’t breathing, and soon Denise said, “I think you should get out of the water and stimulate her feet”. I don’t know if I was still in an altered state from the Oxytocin, but I wanted to let her go, I felt fine about that, it was ok for her to die. Then Denise said, “if you are going to go, you should go now”. So I grabbed a robe, and holding her, with the placenta still inside, on the way to the card I felt the cord, it was still pulsing so I knew we still had time, we got into the car and drove to the nearby hospital. Into emergency and into the medical nightmare I had done so much to avoid.
In the car Roman kept calling her “come on Aurora” I was in a daze and this would remind me to talk to her too, I didn’t really want to. On the drive – only about 7 minutes to the hospital – she started a weak cry. When we got there I hesitated, I didn’t want to go in, I wanted to turn around and go home, but Roman said, we’re here now, lets go.
I thought they would jump on her in concern but they didn’t. I had a story planned that I would say I was booked into Randwick but the baby came too soon, but this soon became messy and ridiculous and I just told the truth. We had a mixture of bitches and wonderful people as usual, and I was still proud that I birthed at home. We thought if we needed help we would come and so that is why we came.
After the placenta was delivered and Roman was holding the 11 pound – 5 kilo Aurora, I had a shower and started to bleed. By then Denise had arrived and as they were pummelling my uterus to get the blood clots out, she kept coaching me like during the birth. I almost lost consciousness and it was so tempting to go, but I held on and stayed.
Roman was in shock and Aurora was looking a bit blue so she went to special care nursery, This was always devastating when it happened at births I attended but now I didn’t care.
I wanted to go home straight away but that wasn’t going to happen. Aurora wasn’t picking up and the doctors were worried, of course she was started on antibiotics as there might have been an infection causing fluid on her lungs.
It was an absolute nightmare in the special care unit. She was on that horrible pedestal unit, poked and prodded tubes everywhere, buzzes and beeps and alarms sounding all the time, tubes in and out of everywhere. What a hellish place to try to get well. So scary. I would watch terrified fathers come in with their newborns, maybe for just half an hour, jump out of their skins at every beep of the machine – grey faces, lost and bewildered.
Aurora looked so raw I almost couldn’t touch her, it felt like she was so overwhelmed by it all, she couldn’t take another thing. It was so hard to trust the doctors. Ultrasound showed she had cysts in her brain, but there was no explanation for anything.
I spent the first couple of nights in maternity on my own in torture “oh my god my baby is a mutant, oh my god my baby might die” I could see my life ahead, how could I survive this? Do I even want her to live? Making decisions about medical procedures I wasn’t prepared for and had no time to research, just like most births being swept along in a daze. HELL.
They kept taking blood to try to find this infection. They usually get you to leave when any procedure is done, but I thought if she has to go through it, the least I can do is be with her. They had to hold her down and bend her wrist to try to find a vein. The blood takers only seemed to care about getting their blood. She screamed and screamed. We thought if she had been an animal the RSPCA would have the perpetrators prosecuted. I stopped further tests after that.
Roman hates hospitals and was home with Loki and Gabriel so I was pretty much on my own. No lazing around in bed for weeks with my new baby and my two beautiful boys. After a couple of days I went home to sleep at night and went back during the days, perching on a stool next to Aurora who was out of it most of the time, torn between my own recovery, self preservation and not being able to help her, hold her or feed her – it was unbearable.
Having visitors come and be shocked and horrifies as I was about my baby instead of being happy and welcoming. It was no celebration. The grief covers all of the tiniest losses, all of the details. The lost moment of greeting, the lost celebration, the lost baby that was meant to be, my lost beautiful perfect baby. Having her little brothers, just two and a half come in and see her was devastating.
After a week in the special care unit, needing help to breathe Aurora came home. I hoped that all would be all right then, but I knew it wouldn’t be. We didn’t get into much testing, but anytime we went to get answers from the medical system, Aurora got tortured and we only got bad news and more questions.
For a while it was sort of normal baby time but her focus was jammed into the corner of her eyes, she felt like she had had a seizure. It was confirmed early on, Aurora had no vision, but that this was a brain problem, not an eyeball problem. She was very floppy, no muscle tone. She didn’t fit any category. Possible Neuronal Migration Disorder – this means her neurons went to the wrong places, this is different for everybody so there is no indication of potential or what the future might hold.
Looking back now I think that I stopped trusting when we took her to the hospital, and that we should have let her go. That would have been a simpler grieving process. But we didn’t do that, and I suppose I have to trust that. She is in our lives and so she must be meant to be.
After writing this thought, I realise that both our lives were saved and that I must be grateful for that. That it was a triumphant birth, but not a happy birth – not the great example of how wonderful home birth is – people strangely associate Aurora’s challenges with the birth which is also terribly painful. But it wasn’t the nightmare homebirth gone wrong with mother and baby dieing leaving husband and two boys left behind. Writing this has made me reassess the whole thing.
Writing this now, I just want to stop there and cry. I wanted to talk about how the journey of trust of a Doula had impacted my life, and really Aurora is such an amazing example of that. When she was about 6 months old I went to the Centre for Human Transformation, to do a 5 day retreat and just cry, and we ended up moving there.
As a result of that, my husband and I have gotten off the tread mill of work just to pay Sydney rent, we have cleaned up the mess of our relationship. Truths have been revealed, and we are working on creating a whole different relationship of trust and gentleness.
I turned 40 this year which feels like a milestone, I am now working at the International College of Spiritual Midwifery and am teaching childbirth preparation and fulfilling my first vision that hit me so hard 5 years ago when I met Denise.
Aurora goes to a Special Development school two days a week one with Roman one with me. Her vision has improved, she is happy and is making friends.
I still have to work hard to trust, I have to work hard to be at births and feal my grief and sense of being so bitterly ripped off when I see these perfect babies being born.
I still have to work hard to trust, when I am teaching birth preparation, when there is so much to say, and so many obstacles out there, and can I trust that my passion can make a difference?
I still have to work hard to trust when I am with Aurora, and she can’t sit, she can’t eat by herself, she can’t talk, but she can love like nobody else I have every met. She is love.
I still have to trust when I am yelling at my boys and not being the mother I want to be that I am still a good mother.
I still have to trust and stand here today and let my story be worth telling, and let me be worth telling it.
I feel that becoming a Doula has been the most instrumental thing in putting my life on track, of becoming the woman I want to be, I had hoped to be, and it continues to do that.
I have three beautiful children, a sometimes shaky, but ultimately strong marriage, and I am a Doula and a childbirth educator, work that is a privilege to do. I am eternally grateful.
Luckily, this is what happened. I had an amazing male midwife, Russel, and I knew I could trust him straight away. To cut a long story short, I birthed my twins vaginally, including a footling breach, I told the bitchy registrar to get out, and I was triumphant!!!! Hooray.
Due to our financial situation, and Roman being around heaps, I started back at work part time when they were about 5 months. And a few months after that I was shocked to find I still had a need to find what I was meant to do! I thought the full, amazing, overwhelming role of mother would annihilate the desire for finding my life’s purpose. But I was thinking about what I was going to do, I just couldn’t do the corporate thing any more.
I expected the baby to come early, I carried the twins to term, and just thought this one would be early, but she wasn’t. My beloved Perth friend Sono had booked to visit me after the birth but ended up being there when I was about two weeks over. She is the most amazing acupuncturist and we had a lovely three days, relaxing in the summer warmth, rearranging the birthing space, swimming, she giving me treatments, and me sleeping.
It was an absolute nightmare in the special care unit. She was on that horrible pedestal unit, poked and prodded tubes everywhere, buzzes and beeps and alarms sounding all the time, tubes in and out of everywhere. What a hellish place to try to get well. So scary. I would watch terrified fathers come in with their newborns, maybe for just half an hour, jump out of their skins at every beep of the machine – grey faces, lost and bewildered.
They kept taking blood to try to find this infection. They usually get you to leave when any procedure is done, but I thought if she has to go through it, the least I can do is be with her. They had to hold her down and bend her wrist to try to find a vein. The blood takers only seemed to care about getting their blood. She screamed and screamed. We thought if she had been an animal the RSPCA would have the perpetrators prosecuted. I stopped further tests after that.
After a week in the special care unit, needing help to breathe Aurora came home. I hoped that all would be all right then, but I knew it wouldn’t be. We didn’t get into much testing, but anytime we went to get answers from the medical system, Aurora got tortured and we only got bad news and more questions.
Looking back now I think that I stopped trusting when we took her to the hospital, and that we should have let her go. That would have been a simpler grieving process. But we didn’t do that, and I suppose I have to trust that. She is in our lives and so she must be meant to be.
Aurora goes to a Special Development school two days a week one with Roman one with me. Her vision has improved, she is happy and is making friends.
I still have to work hard to trust when I am with Aurora, and she can’t sit, she can’t eat by herself, she can’t talk, but she can love like nobody else I have every met. She is love.
