He was born at home on Friday the 13th of October 

The story of Luke's Birth by Stefanie Iodoce

My birth blessing was on Thursday morning. More women than I expected turned up to share this beautiful ceremony with me. I was excited, feeling overwhelmed but much held in the circle of all these experienced women. One of them was my mum, who came over from Germany to be with us during this special time. 

Later in the evening my beloved husband Adrian took me for a drive without telling me more than "It's a surprise for you". We arrived at a friends place and the surprise turned out to be a sculpture of myself being pregnant, carved out of a beautiful big tree trunk that Adrian had cut down in preparation for this. I was very touched and I felt very honoured by my husband. On the way home in the car I felt our baby sitting very low in my belly. Back home we placed the sculpture next to our little birth altar, where we gathered all sorts of items to support us spiritually in giving birth. 

As soon as the sculpture had its place, I started going into labour. It was 11 pm and Adrian went outside to ask Spirit for a healthy, short labour, not longer than six or seven hours and also asked our baby to come at sunrise. As soon as he said that, there was a shooting star shooting across the sky. We had everything organized and ready to go except the food for us and our support team. 

While Adrian went to go shopping, I lay on the bed and watched the clock to see how far apart my contractions were. Five minutes...  After an hour I tried to ring Kate, our midwife, just to check in with her. The five minutes got me a bit worried and the pain was quite strong from the beginning. I didn't want to complain, given that this was just the beginning of maybe endless hours of painful labour. 

At 1.30 am Kate rang back to let us know that she was still at another birth. She asked us to relax and try to get some sleep. Apparently it looked like she would be leaving soon to go home and get some sleep herself before she would come to our place. Again, it looked like this would be going on forever and we were just at the start of it. So we tried to sleep. What kept me awake was the fact that I had to get on all fours with each contraction - every five minutes. 

After a while I needed a change and some relief. I asked Adrian to fill up the bathtub in the bathroom to have a relaxing bath. I did relax for a while but again the best position for me was on all fours which wasn't working too well in the bathtub. Back in the bedroom all the prenatal Yoga lessons I had before became very handy and I started to lean on a big ball. Moving from one side to the other, feeling very expanded and in my own 'zone'. I was simply body and asking my cervix to open and open and open. Telling myself to open, to relax and to say 'yes' to the pain. Knowing that the more painful the contractions, the closer I am to give birth. 

I had lost my sense of time when I went back into the bathtub. Adrian tried to put my arms around his neck to support me. But surprisingly I couldn't handle any touch. I felt like vomiting and pushing at the same time. "Get somebody to help me" I said, when Adrian rang Anna, our doula and dear friend, to check with her what to do. She was one and a half hours away, gone for the weekend. She heard me screaming in the background and figured that I was in transition. Anna got in her car and told Adrian to ring Kate again. He did, but not before he rang Bodhi, another friend of ours and our birth attendant, who lives around the corner. At four o'clock in the morning Bodhi had to organize somebody to look after her children. 

In the meantime I had to go to the toilet. It was in the toilet, where my water broke. Kate was on her way, speeding in the car, and talking to Adrian on the phone at the same time. She asks him, if my water broke. Adrian didn''t know about it and said "no". 

At this point my whole consciousness was just body. My body knew what to do but Adrian kept telling me not to push. Kate had told him to get me off the toilet and to breathe through the contractions, trying not to push. It must have been around that time when Adrian started to fill up the birthing pool. He had already rearranged furniture, lit candles and put music on. At the same time he was very present and supportive to me, not freaking out or getting too nervous. 

My mum, who was staying at our place, was trying to help and to stay calm, waiting for the midwife to arrive. She wiped my face and offered her help several times. There was just not much she could do. Both of them helped me walk to the living room, where I had to wait a little while before I could get into the pool. The water level was still too low. 

This second stage, contractions were further apart and somehow easier to deal with. They felt like a strong force moving through my body. All I could do was go with the intensity of this force, letting my body do what it needed to do. I got into the pool and totally surrendered to my body. Bodhi arrived and she, Adrian and my mum were there when the babies head started to crown. Adrian was just about to call Kate again, when the head came out. It felt like my yoni would tear and was stretched to its limit. Adrian quickly came back to the pool and with the next contraction our baby was born into the water. I was squatting with one leg stretched to the side, and Adrian was afraid I could sit on the baby. My mum was looking over Adrian's shoulder, being afraid our baby could drown. For some reason we didn't manage to talk about water birth with her beforehand. 

It was 4.45 am on Friday the 13th of October 2006. The sun was just rising when our baby decided to come into this world. I wanted to hold our baby immediately and see if everything was alright. Adrian picked our little one up and gave it to me. I was holding our baby when Kate arrived. The umbilical cord was around the back of the neck and pretty tight around the shoulders. After a long cuddle I could see that we had a boy. A very healthy, beautiful little boy. 

Kate helped me birth the placenta. It was born with the next contraction, at 5 am. After some time in the pool I got some helping hands to move to the sofa. At that time Anna had arrived as well and I found myself surrounded by four beautiful women, holding the space for me. Adrian was overwhelmed by his first experience as a midwife. It all felt very unreal to me. I was so happy but very exhausted at the same time. I was holding our son for the next two hours. 

As we decided to have a Lotus birth (the placenta stays attached to the baby until it naturally falls off), Kate started to prepare the placenta. I fainted twice while my mum was holding our Baby. 

For the next few weeks we were very well looked after by my mum and our birth attendants. And also by the women in our local community. That helped us to recover quite quickly. 

It took us two weeks to name our son Luke Benedetto, which to us means "blessed by light". We had a very blessed birth and received everything we asked for.

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