JOHANNA’S BIRTH

I was pregnant. and had a 6 month old baby. That was the reality that had just dawned on me.

The prophetic dream of a few nights back where my first born, Amrito, was already walking and talking and we were casually chatting about the fact that he was to have a sibling came back to me in a flash. I hardly needed to do a test. It was already written.

To say this was a shock is to grossly understate it! I had been in Berlin for a total of 18 months, without family, just beginning to learn the language and form friendships and find out what being a mother was and now I was pregnant with my second child. The first birth had been revelatory in a humbling way. Traumatic, in fact. And it was not far behind me.

It was one of those radical moments where there seemed to me to be two available paths: drown in overwhelm or rise to the occasion like never before. Sink or learn to swim, quick smart. There didn’t in reality seem to be a choice.

So, I began to learn to swim. This was 2002 - before the era of online communities and teachings. You knew what you knew and you met who you met and it was all an individual, one at a time, face to face kind of experience, not the exponential explosion of information and collective learning that we currently see. For this, in retrospect, I am grateful as it meant, initially at least, I had only myself to refer to. I explored my experience. I asked myself questions about Amrito’s birth, still so fresh in my mind. What happened? What did I miss? What could I do differently? What was I afraid of? What have I learnt? What is the role of relationships and support people in birth? How did I maybe get in my own way? And, maybe most critically, what do I NEED?

I learnt to begin to listen to my own feelings, instincts and intuition. I learnt to express my needs to others. I found a place to birth that I had actually felt drawn to the first time, and I made a connection with a midwife who was heaven sent. I asked her all my questions.

I meditated and did Kundalini yoga for pregnancy almost every day and learnt to trust myself. I looked into my mind and what it was up to.

I revelled in Amrito and prayed that he would learn to walk before the next baby came.

I informed myself about all the options and addressed all my worries and fears as they arose.

I made it well known to my doctor who would be present for the final stages of the birth only that I had my own opinions on things and I tested him by asking tricky questions. He didn’t agree with me on some issues, but still I felt respected and we came to some compromises on certain things where I was willing to make concessions. By the time the birth came, I respected him and he me. I felt him as an ally.

Finally, the day came to meet my baby. I was ready, inside and out. Prepared in all the ways I felt I could be and ready to let go and let it unfold. The prescribed day for being “allowed” to be “overdue” arrived. My team wanted to induce me, and I knew I wanted to avoid that. Especially I wanted to avoid have sintocinon, as I’d experienced a kind of hyper reaction to it and wasn’t keen to again. I wanted to not start out in that way. I agreed to a prostaglandin gel on the cervix. Nowadays I would question even that, but at the time it felt ok to me and I trusted that feeling.

We drove to the birth house (on the grounds of a hospital). I got the gel and something started happening, but also not really. I went home at the end of the day and felt fed up. Tired. Over it. Don’t want to have a baby after all, kind of mood. I went to bed. My husband, bless him. sat with me and gave me a Sat Nam Rasayan (meditative healing) session, in which inner resistances can be met and resolved. I gently enquired, as I’d practised doing: what is happening in me right now? Is there an emotion, idea, thought, belief of some kind stopping things from moving right now? Something that needs to be met, seen, felt so it can move on?

As I lay there I remember suddenly being filled with the thought that had gone with me into my first birth: for me, birth has to be long and complicated. I saw that thought in me clear as day and I just looked at it. “Really?” I asked myself. “Is that true? Based on what?”

Just asking that question was all it took. The thin veil of untruth dissolved. I had been period cramp-like contractions up to that point. But now a new feeling came. A surge. A large, effective-feeling surge rose up in me out of what felt like nowhere (or out of the inner ocean) and whoosh! The waters broke. The strong but ultimately thin, made-to-break amniotic sac broke. Eagerly I looked at the bed to see the colour of the water. Clear! Not brown! Yes!!!

We drove back to the birth-house. Somehow I have a memory (dreamlike now, as I had already left the world of the ordinary at that stage, the journey to the stars to collect my baby’s spirit had begun) of sitting on a bench at the side of a traffic roundabout. Maybe my husband was parking the car, I don’t know. It seems weird, but also a perfect metaphor for my state. The world was turning, the people and cars were going round, doing what they were doing, oblivious to me, while I sat in a suspended state of peace, just with myself, my baby and my breath, in a time outside of time.

We got to the birthing room, which I was already familiar with. The space was beautiful, the lighting soft, the atmosphere calm and unrushed. I had music playing. The playlist of mantras I had assembled resolved into one singular track as time went on - a kind of rhythmic, heart-beat like pulsing music that I wanted on repeat. A warm bath was in the centre of the room, not the bed. There was a rope suspended from the ceiling that I could pull and hang on if I wanted, to take weight off my legs and pelvis. My husband was there and my midwife, who I loved and trusted. I'd asked all my questions, prepared everything I could and now it was time to just do it. I had done everything possible in my power to do. Now, time to let go.

And it was all systems go. A flow from beginning to end. My midwife later said it was a picture-book birth. I let myself move however I wanted. I conserved my energy. I used the gravity, I swayed and moaned and sighed.

I loved it. Well, maybe not every single moment. Transition came. I was over it again. Another crisis of confidence. I dropped my bundle and felt I just wanted to collapse in a heap, wailing pathetically “It's not fair, it's not fair!!” .. which for me as a huge stoic by habit and upbringing is truly remarkable and I consciously allowed myself to be "pathetic" at the time. That allowance was of immense benefit to me right then. Because, having allowed it, soon after came the biggest ecstasy. 

Manja my midwife took me by the hand at this point and took me to the bed, suggesting I lie down and rest a little. I did. Then she said, Go to the toilet. So I wandered out into the corridor but was so out of it that I didn't remember where the toilet was and had headed off in the wrong direction. Whilst wandering, I felt just amazing suddenly. Something was very different. There were no strong sensations. No pain. Nothing. I wondered if I was going to have a baby at all. I just felt super clear. Super happy and radiant. I just felt outstanding. And then, out of that silence and stillness, they came: the pushing surges. Whoah!! I grabbed a chair nearby, rounded my back instinctively, and pushed. Turned out I did need to pee, and did so. On the floor (parquet, phew). WHATEVER! was my thought. It just felt too good to care. 

That first surge having passed, I headed off again to the loo (wrong direction still) but half way down the corridor I felt the next one starting to come so went to my chair and had another surge in standing, lower back curved, peeing some more on the floor. Awesome!

This cycle continued for some time, as it was really working for me. I did have the presence of mind and the conscience to think, I'll just pee over and over in this same place rather than all over the place. Just that wildness and focus and pure, effective power made any other thought meaningless. 

Then it became just plain old hard work. I went back to the room and sat on the bed. Baby was coming but it was TOUGH work. The doctor was there then and began to suggest it was not going fast enough. I found out later my midwife disagreed and wanted to give me more time, as the surges were more spaced out (which I now know often happens and is perfectly natural). I was deliberately only partially aware of them and just kept concentrating my strength. 

I did end up having an episiotomy, which likely would not have been necessary had I been given more time. In the end, a certain sense of time pressure did intrude. Yet I was beyond all that. I was just so in it and felt so victorious already, so that the episiotomy didn't bother me at all. I was just ready to see my baby. And then, THERE SHE WAS! 

A girl!!! I was ecstatic. I felt so strong and womanly. So victorious. Her birth was a total blessing. A healing. So much joy and celebration in the room. So much oxytocin and so much love.

The doctor stitched me up as I held her and I remember cracking jokes and just being so high and happy.

My Johanna Deva. What a gift.