Three years after Finn was born, when I was blessed to be pregnant again, it was a homebirth all the way. This had been in my mind when I was pregnant with Finn, but something held me back from making this a reality at the time. We had shifted back to Victoria, where we have a great and intimate network of friends and family and we knew we wanted our children growing up in this. Having no idea where to start looking into homebirth, I went to my GP, who is wonderful and she directed to me to another GP in the clinic who had birthed at home herself and this is how I came in contact with my independent midwife. I also have a strong belief in birth being a natural process of our lives, when nourished and given support women will birth were they please and do it well. Skul was not 100% convinced he felt homebirth to be a safe option, but I was not having it any other way, so he found his questions and his voice to ask those things which concerned him on this journey and then sat with it in complete support.
I think we met my midwife when I was around 5 or 6 months pregnant and she came for monthly visits bringing some of her children and freshly cooked Orange cake. We would chat about life, share stories, eat cake and I would make her good coffee. It was a very rich experience, incredibly full. I came to develop many other ideas in the support of women during pregnancy, labour and birth and how all women would benefit from this one to one continual care, where your carer is directly involved in your life. It overwhelmed me as to how vital this is and that everywoman deserves this experience under any choice of their birthing options. I was also exceptionally keen to be in labour and birth my baby. I remember at about 7 months wanting to go into labour there and then, I was ‘chomping at the bit’. Very impatient and once again only to be taught my biggest lessons.
I was also very ill with all day ‘morning sickness’ which proved to last the entire 9 months yet again and I swear felt much worse than when I was pregnant with Finn. I had a lot of trouble giving my gorgeous 3 year old Finn, much of my energy. Hip and back issues raised their ugly head big time during this pregnancy. Issues which I have always had, probably exacerbated from pregnancy and birth with Finn. I was also relatively unfit (and by no means have I ever been a super fit person) during this time and definitely not taking as great care of myself. Life is different when one already has a child. Previously I could completely indulge in myself being pregnant and currently I needed to be present to our 3 year old.
I did not go into the realm of connection during this pregnancy anywhere near as much as I did when I was pregnant with Finn. Sometimes this would play guiltily on my consciousness and my commitment to this child within me. Yet this little one inside of me was not going to be quiet and unnoticed, a real little mover. Every night when I would go to bed, this little one would ark up and move and dance around until the wee hours of the morning, hence not receiving much sleep (last year when Olegas was three, I asked him what he was doing inside of me and he told me “I was having a party”... oh how I laughed). In my dreams this little being came to me, smiling and content, pressing the impression of their face, tightly through the skin of my stomach. They were very reassuring dreams which showed me that I did have connection.
Not only did I have my wonderful midwife on this journey with me, I was also surrounded by gorgeous friends, who came to give me foot massages, cups of tea, sharing their lives and mine with them. I wanted to be surrounded by these women whilst birthing and went to great energies preparing invites, collecting elemental influences for ritual use during labour, on journeys which Finn, Skul, Timor (our dog) and I took together. My vision for this birth was that I would be in the lounge room birthing whilst women cooked food, created energy, the fire and candles would be burning, Skul would be present with me, Finn would be loved and nourished by these women whom he knows and loves, we would honour our Mother Earth, all extremely romantic and maybe a little bit anal again as I look back now. I had asked Skul’s mum, Ruth if she would like to be present and she had declined but did mention that she would like to come over to Victoria from Tasmania 2 weeks after the ‘due date’. During this time we also decided to do some renovations to our house, get the walls lime rendered, strip our bedroom from floor to roof and so on. I was doing wall washing, climbing ladders and painting rooves and walls. I was very determined that I could do it all, even with my continual vomiting and associated hip and back issues. It was like the harder my body wanted to make it on me the more pressure I would put it under.
As time became closer to birth, especially in the last month, my midwife came more regularly, fortnightly, then weekly, all the time still bringing freshly baked orange cake with her. Having subtle chats with me, ascertaining where I was at, emotionally, physically and so on, trying to understand my journey. We had talked about Finn’s birth and where I stood with what had occurred and again the idea of induction and having to enter the hospital rocked my world. And although I felt so ready to go there to labour, I so desperately wanted to go the distance and feel my body, honour my body and my child in this journey. But I was becoming increasingly more anxious as the ‘due date’ arrived and I still had not birthed. Fear, fear, fear just kept rising in me and I felt highly strung. Yet at the same time I so wanted to have trust in this journey, but the fear just kept rising in me. So I kept busy, busy, busy, doing odds and ends, completely in my head space, writing lists, fulfilling lists, still painting and climbing, trying to find the trust. During this period my midwife suggested things to me like reading the birth notices in the paper and for some reason I found this amusing, she also suggested that I get my baby clothes out and wash them, dry them and sort them, I too found this funny, I did it but these experiences were not making me connect.
It was about two weeks after the ‘due date’, my midwife did a stretch and sweep in me. Taking me back to the many vaginal examinations I had had during the induction of Finn and thankfully till that moment avoided any such experience. My midwife, had much more care and concern than many of my previous experiences, but I still found it uncomfortable and I felt vulnerable. On this visit she started to talk to me about my own family story about the women in my family, how had they birthed? My mum had died when I was sixteen so I could not ask about her story and as I had much more to do with my dad’s family, I associated their stories much closer to mine. And their stories told to me were “Pollock women do not go into labour without induction”. My midwife extracted this from me and after she left I howled and howled and howled emotion that felt generational. It reached so deeply inside of me.
The following day Skul and Finn went to pick up Ruth and bring her to Geelong. We love having Ruth with us, but this time her arrival represented to me, my failure not having birthed my baby and that night I had a bath and cried and cried and cried again. During the next two days Ruth did loads of baking with Finn, fruit cakes, gingerbread men and held a beautiful space (just like her son, Skul) in our home for me to go inside of myself and start to explore birth. On the 15th of December, now two and half weeks past my ‘due date’, Ruth, Finn and myself went on a tadpole hunt and found ourselves in a nursery near Barwon Heads. It was there whilst I was lifting Finn into the car that I noticed grabbing pains in my abdomen and had to bend my knees, stop and take big breaths and off I would go again. This occurred on and off all day and not once did I think I was in labour. I was out and about, the three of us having a lovely day. We came home, Cathy and her family arrived and made dinner us. Fresh brushcetta topped with a delicious parmesan. The evening was quite warm, I sat crossed legged on the deck making a cover to go over the small paddle pool, sewing green mesh with a darning needle, chatting to Cambo (Cathy’s husband and our dear friend). Many times during this conversation, I would ask Cambo to wait for a moment and find myself going deep inside myself, with this strong solid gripping around my abdomen, where I would have to breathe very deeply. Cambo would ask me if I was okay and I would continue on with what I was doing and return to the conversation. This mob left at some stage and we continued on getting Finn ready for bed, he had been so well nourished and played with by our beautiful Ruby and Sage and you could tell he felt centred. Ruth was to leave in two days time, so it was truly wonderful, to have entered this relaxed space whilst she was here and enjoy her presence. We were all feeling very settled and tottered off to bed, Skul and I were sleeping in the lounge room, as we were still renovating our bedroom.
I was struggling to get comfortable in bed and had a little sleep. At about 2:00am, I decided to get up, have cup of tea, eat an apple and read an article on Bob Brown, still not connecting that I was in labour. I managed to finish my tea and apple and then things really started to make me realise my baby was coming. By this stage when a contraction would come, I was leaning over the table head down and trying to go with my breath, as the grip throughout my abdomen would embrace me. Skul was still asleep, and as I was contracting I was watching him and decided that if this is on for me he needs to rise out of bed and be present. I was a little cautious about ringing my midwife in the wee hours of the morning. So we waited a little longer and I think the first call we made was around 3:00am. I remember her asking me how many minutes were the contractions apart and I had no idea, so I stayed on the phone for a few, to give her a gist of where I was at. I was up and about walking around, leaning on walls and around 4:00am we rang one of our birth support team, Sandra, she had a two hour drive to get here. I think we rang my midwife again and Skul instinctively ran me a bath. Oh that blessed bath. He lit all the candles on my free standing candelabra and I got myself into the bathroom and into the bath. Ahhhhhhhhhhh.
Once again, this environment of water provided such safety and comfort for me and it was a place I really found pleasure in my labours. Yet I also knew that I would not birth in water, I needed to be on earth to birth. Looking back I also think entering the bath gave me space in the labour, as things were picking up in closeness and intensity. I was starting to panic a little before entering the water. The water allowed me to enter deeply into my body and rise and fall with the contractions. Skul came to shut the door and I got an overriding sensation of being closed in, I think at some stage I even asked him to open the back door, so the air could flow freely to me. I remember thinking I am so glad that it just me and Skul at this point as I would feel hemmed in if other people were to be present, I remember hearing the tinkling of Skul eating breakfast as the spoon made contact with the bowl. Finn was sound asleep, Ruth was awake but kept a low profile and then, bang! Vomiting the apple, over the side of the bath, very acidic (I do not recommend this as a food prior to labour) and the pain in my pelvis was like someone was trying to open my pelvis up from the inside. Unbelievable! All of this was going on while I was by myself, Skul just kept coming in and checking on me, making sure I was hydrated with ice and just touching base. In my head I had this talk to myself, because instincts were going “what am I doing at home, this is an extraordinary raw and deep experience, I should be where there are drugs to take this away. Can I make it to a hospital in an ambulance?” my response to myself, “Stephanie you have chosen this journey and this is the exact reason why you are not in a hospital to avoid the temptations, you wanted to do this”. Once that little talk was over with I went within and felt my body, I could feel this little being making their way through the birth canal. I could feel it. I was so happy.
Whilst I was in the bath I think Skul must have called in some of the other birth support team who lived closer and checked in with our midwife again. It may have been around 5:00am and I had to get out of the bath. The feeling of the water on my skin became extremely irritating and that earlier claustrophobic feeling was exacerbated. So I had to climb out, in the midst of heavy contractions, it was very awkward, uncomfortable, challenging. But I was driven to get out. Skul had made me a nest of mattress, cushions and comfy things, next to the day bed, so I could look outside. It looked so inviting, but I had to make it across the room, one contraction at a time. I have no idea how long it took, but it felt very lengthy. I came to all fours and went even deeper within myself, I am not sure where I went, but I do remember not feeling my outer body, just these rhythms of energy. Skul tells me I sang like an opera singer when the contractions would overtake me. I remember my dog watching me through the window, sitting on the deck at the window, like she was holding guard for me. And then the urge to push began to happen and although I felt this within my body, it was like I entered two different realms, one physical and another not. The other feeling, very weightless and space like. The feeling and the knowing of this other place was like I went out to space and the stars to bring my baby to earth.
At this point I was suggesting that Skul get hold of our midwife again, as I feel our baby very close. Skul suggesting that I try to breathe through the urge to push with my baby, in attempt to avoid a tear, just like the midwife had shown us when Finn was born. But the power within me was very strong and I knew there to be no resisting. I reached down between my legs and could feel our baby’s head. I mentioned this to Skul, his response, “I think it is poo”. Mind you at this stage I think he was starting to panic a little as our midwife had not arrived. Then all at once there was our midwife, two of our support women Cathy and Adrienne, I think Ruth may have entered then as well, all walked into a room completely full of birthing energy, to a full view of baby full in vagina, and suddenly this head was born with great power from within and with another very quick contraction, the shoulders emerged, followed by this long body.
This little one cried out instantly. Here was our second baby present in my arms and feeding from my breast. It was now a little past 6:00am. I felt very disconnected from all the activity going on around me and wanted to be present with just my little one. It was like watching a movie, the activity was going on behind the screen and I felt like I should have been part of it but was sitting on the other side. I remember Finn came out of his bedroom at that point and Cathy went to him, which gave me a great sense of security. Not long after this little ones birth, I began to birth his placenta. It was intense and raw, and bought me back to my lounge room and this physical plane once with a bang. I felt quite disturbed. Skul held our little boy whilst I squatted and struggled with the placental contractions. Amongst these feelings I felt this hand on my lower back and an amazing sensation went through me, I knew instantly that this was my dear friend Sandra, who had driven for 2 hours to be with us. She brought such grounding and reassurance for me and was there at the perfect time. I birthed the placenta and could sit with my legs wide open for all, but I was in complete comfort and safety. During this time our little boy was named by Skul, as Olegas, I wanted to protest, not his name, just the decision without me, but it was all too difficult whilst birthing his placenta. I think I may have turned a little pale and started to feel a little shaky, so my midwife and another friend Kate, who arrived after the birth, helped me to the shower. I could not understand at the time why they were doing this as I felt absolutely exhausted and did not wished to be removed from my baby, but I was in shock and they were making sure that I had not lost too much blood.
For the remainder of the day, which was a hot one 16th of December 2003, we lay on our fold out futon in the lounge room with our family. Ruth present and in awe of the first birth she had ever witnessed. My dad came to visit not long after Olegas was born. I have a beautiful serene photo of him with his second grandson on that morning. This image fills my heart.
And we are very blessed people for these two boys to have chosen us as their guides in this lifetime.
