The Fourth Birth: Part 1
‘Aren’t you in labor?’, my husband said with a sense of urgency. I looked up to him with confusion spread across my face. It was 2:30 a.m. I was sitting on our toilet bowl trying to see if the mucus had a tinge of red. It had been 10 minutes since I was awakened by a gush of water trickling between my legs. I was hesitant to give the go signal because even if it looked like labor, I wasn’t feeling any contractions. I decided to call my doula and recount the past half hour. She calmly said, ‘Your water just broke. If you aren’t feeling anything, lie down and rest first.’
I laid down; my husband paced the floor. I remember being in an emotional state of limbo, unsure of what I wanted to happen next. Five minutes later, a familiar sensation coursed through my body. Welcome back, old friend, I thought as my toes curled up in response to the feeling. I grabbed my phone and timed it. It was one minute of pain wrapping around my uterine muscles every 5 minutes. I clung onto my pillow for dear support, closed my eyes to will endurance, breathed in, breathed out. After 30 minutes of consistent contractions, I told my husband, ‘It’s time!’ and alerted the rest of the birthing team.
It was 3:20 a.m. when I stepped into a time warp. Everything moved to the beat of slow. While my husband and helper were setting up the pool, I was arranging the birth affirmation space. I laid out the birth affirmation cards, the Guadalupe tilma, a photo of Our Lady and her Babe, the two white orchids; my husband set up the speakers to play the Rosary. When it was done, I stood in the middle of the space to absorb the light and fortitude it seemed to emanate.
At this point, the pain was intensifying every five minutes; each surge made me feel like I was being wrapped in thorns over and over. I did what I could to cope with the dragon: ask my husband to hold me, lean on a medicine ball for support, breathe through the surge. Labor is a mind game so I turned to the cards to cheer me on: ‘My baby and I are a team… This pain is normal and natural… I was born to do this… This is true love: to give until it hurts…’ I also held on to my rosary and prayed one Hail Mary after another, each prayer carrying me through each wave.
Each surge made me
feel like I was being wrapped in thorns over and over.
“This is the meaning of true love: to give until it hurts...”
Then the birthing team started to arrive. I sighed with relief when my doula entered the door. She immediately got down on her knees to be with me during the contractions. I smiled when my best friend arrived; our photographer, too. I looked around my home and I was filled with so much joy. Set against the darkness of the early morning, we were all bathed in dim lights, solemn prayers reverberating through the air. Beautiful things were strewn across the space, I was surrounded by the most loving and supportive people a woman can have during her birth. It was the stuff of my dreams only it wasn’t a dream anymore. I was right smack in the middle of living it. God’s love was so palpable during those hours that the sacred and the holy filled our home. It was everything I needed to endure the most intense part of labor.
It was a little past 4 a.m. I was resting from a surge when I grunted while leaning on the medicine ball. I felt like expelling poop so I told everyone I was just going to use the guest bathroom. I was sitting on the toilet for a few minutes, waiting for my body to clear my system so that I could transfer to the birthing pool. My husband knocked on the door and said, ‘The midwife is here,’ signaling the complete attendance of my birthing team.
The birthing team waiting outside while I was in the bathroom
The doula and midwife running to the bathroom after I screamed, ‘The baby’s coming!’
Then, in a split second, I began to break open. I grunted as I felt my whole body bearing down. It felt like the whole world was inside of me and I needed to push it all out – all the dreams, the heartbreaks, the bliss. I recognized this burning sensation so I opened the door and screamed, ‘The baby’s coming!’ Everyone ran to the bathroom. The doula held me up, the midwife got down on her knees. I let out one deep, loud, primal groan – the single groan that bore yet another human, another world into our own. His head came out first then his whole vernix-covered body slipped out. He let out his first sweet cry; our fourth baby has arrived. It was in that exact moment my body was made broken but also my body was made new.
Then the beautiful cacophony of afterbirth sounds filled the air: the cries of my newborn, the shouts of disbelief from my husband, the instructions from the midwife, the words of praise and support from the doula. It was a swirl of sensations surrounding me but I never encountered a cacophony as melodious as that. It was the best background music for holding my baby for the first time and placing him against my skin. I cradled him in my arms and never let him go. But my work of labor was not yet done.
it was in this exact moment
my body was made broken but also my body was made new.
my body was transformed
into an altar of service and love, working to sustain new life.
They transferred me to the living room couch where I had to endure contractions more painful than the first round. One hand held my baby; the other held on to my husband for support. My body was transformed into an altar of service and love, working to sustain new life. My skin became the balm for my child, soothing him as he lay on me. My breast was his source of nourishment as he crawled to it instinctively and sucked. My insides bled as the placenta was delivered and the umbilical cord continued to pump blood into the babe. All this was happening as the darkness turned into the soft glow of the dawn, as the people around me cared for mother and child. After laying in agony and bliss for an hour, a new bright morning began for our family, too. My three children were awakened from their slumber to meet their new baby brother. In that moment, my heart as a mother grew tenfold when I thought it couldn’t anymore.
“A home birth is an experience of the divine on earth.”
I relive those hours of labor often, goosebumps always rising on my skin. When I woke that morning, I knew that we all had entered into a special experience. The air was supercharged with sanctity and the soft glow cast on our home seemed to be otherworldly. A home birth is an experience of the divine on earth. It is both God descending into our world and the mother ascending into higher powers; the meeting of two natures to create something eternal.
It is a majestic showcase of God’s plan for birth without the cascade of medical intervention – birth as it should be. The contractions, the mucus discharge, the placenta, umbilical cord, the baby’s vernix, the breast crawl – they’re all so intuitively designed to support the mother and the child. It allowed me to witness God’s supreme intelligence and creativity up close. Granted the pain was real and intense but because it was embraced, the pain was transformed into a conduit of overwhelming grace and love. I was so honored to be given the courage to experience God’s plan for natural birth… and His plan for women.
Women, God truly favors us! How beautiful our bodies are, how strong our spirits, how blessed to have this superpower of bearing life! I don’t often feel like a warrior but in birth, I do. Birth gives us the chance to walk into battle and fight for life, to use our bodies as a vessel for goodness. We are wounded and bruised but for the greater purpose of creating a family; we get to live in the words of ‘This is my body given up for you.’ Is there anything more feminine than that? If God wills another child for me, I would choose home birth again and again. It is the closest thing to meeting God face to face. It is where the sacred comes to life. It is when pain transforms into the greatest kind of love. O holy night, indeed.
My husband cutting the umbilical cord 2 hours after birth
Me drinking the placenta smoothie
The incredible birthing team: my husband, my son, my best friend, Irina the doula, and Aileen the midwife
BORN TO DO THIS
I don’t often feel like a warrior but in birth, I do.
Beautiful photos by Iya Forbes