My Birth Story...
The journey to birth is one that I had thought would be powerful.
Going into my birth the word that I held was just to have an empowered birth.
I wanted to share the journey of my birth story and I want to offer that for anyone that is sensitive around their birth or hearing stories of birth that don't perhaps go as planned, to be mindful of the share around my story.
I had a vision of how I wanted my birth to go and I also had this knowing that it would be what it would be and I was accepting of that.
The most important thing for me was that myself and my baby would be safe and supported and held during the process and I would go with how it would unfold.
I am someone that believes deeply in intention and affirmation, and all of that practice and so in the months leading up to the birth I held that space of empowerment around my birth.
What I have also learned over the years, especially since buying this ranch, was that we can’t always control the way life unfolds. No matter how spiritual or how much effort we put into the practice of holding intentional thoughts or visualization, we cannot always influence how life is going to offer the pathway before us.
What we are in control of is how we meet life in its contrast and how we hold and journey through what it offers us.
Since I was younger I had the vision and also knowing that I wanted to have a water birth, as water has always been a grounding energy for me.
My “birth plan” was to do a home water birth at an Air BnB rental close to the hospital, as we live far away from the hospital. Doing a homebirth at our house didn’t feel like a peaceful space for me to be in.
We rented a home, to give us the comfort of having a held birth at home, but close enough that if complications arose we would easily get to the hospital.
We also chose the route of having midwives and a doula. To be held in the nurturing space of birth with women that know how to hold this space that is supportive for the Mother was important and we were fortunate enough to get midwifery care that held that space for us.
As I neared the time of my birth, I didn’t fear it, but rather looked forward to the mystery and initiation of it, knowing that this was a powerful time for me, and that I would walk the path of many women before me.
I didn’t fear the intensity, which is the word I used over fear. I knew that I had the fortitude to be with the journey of birth and labour and looked forward to it.
I also had a trusted acceptance that it would be what it would be and I would welcome the full experience of it. I had a vision of what I wanted but I was also open to how it would go. That openness created a positive and receptive experience for me.
As someone who walks the line of embracing the spiritual and intentional spaces of life along with the practical, I held that dance between knowing how I could influence my experience for myself and my child, of thinking positively, of being mindful of how my energy around birth would translate to my daughter and also knowing how it would be out of my control. I had to surrender to it.
My due date was December 24th. My “intuition” or felt sense was that baby would come around her due date or a bit later.
On the evening of December 19th, my water broke and my labour journey began. We were lucky to have a friend in town to go and spend the night with as we waited for our check-in date of our Air BnB on the 20th.
My contraction labour began in intensity on the afternoon of the 20th. I had a dear friend, a doula and my midwife team and husband there to support me.
I was prepared for the intensity of labour and trusting of the support I had and so began my 36-hour journey of unmedicated labour and homebirth attempt.
My labour experience was intense, and it was long and it was also one of the most empowering experiences I have had.
There was a surrender to the primal experience of my body and also trust in the care I had to guide me. It was amazing to witness my body knowing what it wanted to do and also my ability to navigate the intensity of contractions.
I felt hopeful that I would have my birth at home and also I trusted it would be what it would be.
At some point in the night, it became obvious that there was some concern that the baby was not descending or moving the way she was meant to through the birth canal.
We tried everything, changing positions and moving to help support Baby coming. I did have a moment of pure exhaustion, of not knowing if I had the energy to continue, and when the midwives made the call that we had to transition to the hospital, I was ready and knew this is what needed to happen.
We ended up at the hospital getting an epidural in hopes to help my pelvis to relax and help push Baby out. I was honestly relieved to have to be done with the intensity of contractions and grateful for the medical care.
There was a fear I had about being in a hospital about not getting the care I would need to support the birth and what I will offer is that I felt so taken care of by everyone including the hospital staff that I only felt nurtured and supported through the entirety of my process.
Something I have learned in life is to not have judgment around what is available to us and the different forms that it takes.
I went to school to be a horse breeder and was a “midwife” for horses during their birth. I myself have helped birth horses into the world and had to assist for 2 of them, so I know that sometimes intervention is necessary.
I think in our world today we are so quick to judge different forms of support because it doesn’t fit the form that we believe that it did.
What I am taking away from this experience is not so much where my birth happened or how, but more of how the experience felt. I felt empowered, supported and nurtured the entire time. I was given options and consent, the nurses and the midwife care and doctors were amazing, and I feel grateful that I was able to receive the support needed.
In the hospital, after trying to push Baby out it again became clear that something was not “right” and Baby was starting to get a bit distressed. The conversation of having a c-section was presented to me along with an option of trying oxytocin to have a big push.
My choice as to what to do and I chose a c-section at that moment having a birth that was not under duress and chosen from a state of at least some kind of calm, was important to me.
I did not want to put greater duress or stress on myself or my baby and so in we went for a c-section.
I surrendered again to, ‘This is my birth experience and I am ok with this as long as myself and my baby are ok’.
The midwife also felt the c-section was the best choice, and it was my choice as to when it happened.
I was hoping to have a vaginal birth and I will say that post-delivery my only thought was how proud I was of myself for navigating my birth experience and how happy I was to have a healthy baby and that I was ok.
I have zero regrets of how my birth went. I have no “Trauma” or disappointment that I ended up with a c-section in the hospital.
Truly my biggest takeaway was I was able to go through having a “natural” birth and experience that, and that I stayed with the intensity of labour for as long as I did. I felt like a badass.
And that I got to have the full range of experience of labour and, most importantly, felt held through all of it.
Our daughter was born on December 21st at 7:26 am, coming on Winter Solstice which, of course, she would.
Her name is Lailah, which is a Jewish name meaning both ‘night’ and is an Angel that is spoken about in the Talmud.
We think it very synchronistic that her name meaning ‘night’ is reflected in being born on the longest night of the year.
We trust that her journey and her birth was also something that was part of what she chose. We already witness her fortitude and wisdom in her demeanour of how aware and awake and calm she has been in her new days.
What I really wanted to share in this piece was my experience but also how I held and navigated a space of the unknown and embraced it.
Birth and the unknown can be a journey that we have expectations towards and that feels intense and intimidating.
I will share that the 7 years of buying and owning my ranch gave me the ability to embrace all ways that life shows up for us, even in contrast and how to gracefully embrace it.
As I began this, I am not sitting here thinking to myself that I somehow failed because I couldn’t “manifest” my “perfect” vision of birth.
I did not have my delivery in a birthing pool at “home” and that is not a failure of myself, that I didn’t try hard enough or that my powers of manifestation are broken.
It can be easy for us, when we hold a vision of how we want things to go and then it doesn’t happen for us, to feel like we have failed and then go into a space where our powers were not enough, we didn’t do enough or that we were abandoned in projecting our thoughts into form.
For me, what I have learned is that life is always in many ways going to be unpredictable, and we are not always going to get the ideal or the vision of how that we have been holding onto and that doesn’t mean it was for lack of trying or that we somehow made it so.
Sometimes we are given an experience because that is what we are offered and our invitation is, ‘How do we embrace it and find the gift in it and also the vision of success in it?’
For me my birth didn’t unfold the way I had “wanted” but the experience of it, the feeling of empowerment, of nourishment, and of support was there, and that is my takeaway, that I got and my daughter got the full range of what birth could be and if anyone knows me they are likely not surprised about that.
I can “check the boxes” of home birth, water birth, unmedicated labour, and also the other extreme of epidural and c-section all in one experience that, although intense, I think speaks to the range of capacity and experience we can have in life and that is something I have always embraced.
It also opened my eyes again that no matter what the outside looks like we can still find a way to create the feeling and experience of what we want.
It reminds me in many ways of navigating wildfires in 2021 and having to evacuate our herd from our ranch.
That was in many ways an intense experience for us. One of the hardest and the biggest takeaway I have from that was not how traumatic it was, but how supported we felt by our community during one of the hardest things we have had to navigate and endure.
This is what I am walking away with… My birth story was perfect, it was what I had hoped, I had a wonderful team of women that walked through this with me and held me through all stages of it and that empowered me and reminded me of my strength.
My fear or judgment of the hospital never came to fruition. Instead I found that same feeling of support and care in that space as well, and although I know that is not always the experience for others, I still find myself feeling gratitude for being able to feel that support.
As someone who walks the line and believes is a bridge of both spiritual and practical, I found my balance in this birth and perhaps that was something my daughter wanted as well.
Every woman is going to have her birth story, this is mine and my offering around the wisdom and invitation that I held from it that I appreciate although maybe my experience is not the same for someone else.
It is another reminder for me personally that we all have our individual journey’s to go through, we don’t always know why it is what it is and we can’t always find a logical reason for it. For me, in life and also in birth my perspective was held on how things felt and how I could align myself to what I was offered and embrace that.
In the journey of my life so far, I have learned not to attach myself to how things unfold, or what things look like and to look beyond the surface and accept what I am being offered and look instead of what is the invitation here and how this feels.
What I will end on is this:
When I bought my ranch in 2015 I had an idea and a fantasy of what it would look like. I was not prepared for how hard my first year was, how challenged I felt and I resented it, because I felt like it was meant to be magical and easy and because it wasn’t I felt like I had failed and the universe had failed me and my spiritual powers were broken.
The truth was, my dream although still a dream, had a journey with it and when I let go of my fantasy of how it was meant to be and embraced the journey and invitation of it, I thrived.
I had to learn that the surface appearance or my attachment to how things are meant to go is something I have to surrender and instead appreciate that if life is giving me contrast it is a journey that I need to walk through.
Being 7 years at the ranch, I can look back at the struggle of my first year and be grateful for what it strengthened in me. I didn’t always have the grace of how I walked through life. I wasn’t always able to embrace how hard things felt when I felt it shouldn't be that way, but this life has taught me otherwise.
It isn't always easy for us to hold the acceptance of our journey in whatever form it takes, and we need to give space for us to navigate our full range of emotions around it. I know sitting here post-birth, the only thing I am holding is the gratitude of having a child and stepping into motherhood and the strength I was able to hold to birth her.
How it happened in truth doesn’t matter or what it looked like is not something I am focusing on, and it has helped me to be able to find a perspective to land in.
So that is our birth journey, we look forward to sharing some pieces around our step into motherhood, and a glimpse of Lailah. It is truly a crazy thing to create and birth life into the world and we are truly in awe of this little being that has chosen us.
Our deep appreciation goes to the team and community of people that supported us, the ranch and held us through our birth. It truly does take a village. Community was something we felt we needed to really lean into in 2022 and to be in a space to receive and witness the care of community through this has been a gift that we are grateful for. If we can end on this…
Allow the ones that are wanting to hold you to hold you through whatever you are journeying through. We are not meant to navigate hard passages on our own and we have to allow ourselves to be supported through that journey. I have felt that support deeply from so many and that is something I continue to lean into receiving and also allowing.
Let yourself be held, lean into who is there for you, and whatever passage you find yourself in we hope perhaps something in this piece to support that journey.
