MANUELA'S STORY 

Maya was born on Sunday 6th November, the day after my due date and also the day after our last email chains, where you said you were thinking of me…well, I got your love, and thoughts!

I started my contractions at 3 am in the night btw Saturday and Sunday. I woke up Paco, my partner, and…. I will never forget his beautiful smile.

We went through the night together, without telling anything to anyone, with massages, cuddle, soft lights, kundalini music from Pandora radio…. our house was full of oxytocin!

Around 8am we sent a text to Leah, our doula, who came here at home with 2 fresh coconuts, straws, electrolytes, and such a great mood! I did my labour at home, in the living room, in the shower, in the garden….trying to find good positions, surrounded by love, care and sometimes laughs! We were all so quiet, I was feeling safe, secure, free and I felt that everything was going perfectly!

Around 12 pm I went to the Family Birth Centre, as my contractions were constant, strong and very painful, I felt I was in established labour but the contractions slowed down in the car. When I got to the birth centre I didn't want antibiotics, or an internal examination, and I also declined the morphine. I was clear that it was my birth, my body, that I just needed time. 

My doula was very good, supporting me and my birth plan.

Soon the contractions went back to regular! We spent the first 3 hours in the bedroom, I didn’t want any pain relief. I went on the toilet, in the shower, on the floor…Paco and Leah never left me alone and I was constantly looking at them saying thank you!

It was very painful, but I was very prepare and I was embracing the pain, breathing into it (and screaming sometime as well, saying few times “guys, I can’t do it!).

Around 3.30pm I went in the water, with Paco.

By that time the midwife was there telling me great things and helping us a lot. Leah was always ready with some water for me, Paco was hugging me and giving me cuddle, I was in the most terrible pain I could imagine, I couldn’t talk, but I remembered we had few laughs anyway :)

Around 6.15pm Maya’s head started to come out, I was exhausted but I could feel her coming and I found a strength that now, I don’t know where it came from, f not from nature and instinct and life….

I went out of the pool for the last 2 or 3 pushes, and as soon as I heard the word “episiotomy” I pushed as strong as I could and Maya came out, screaming as crazy! She was born at 6.36pm, while I was "flying”, as I wasn’t touching the ground, with my hands on the pool, my left leg on Paco’s leg and my right one on Leah’s leg….with no tear nor episiotomy!

I held her straight away and she started screaming as crazy!

I walked back to the bedroom, Paco and I went on the bed with her and she went at the breast straight away… I couldn’t believe the amount of love I felt, looking at my baby for the first time….

We kept the umbilical cord until it was pulsing, after that Paco cut it. After few minutes I entered in the third stage naturally, and I kept the placenta for encapsulation.

We stayed in bed for few hours, watching that beautiful little miracle, and feeling so blessed….and at midnight we have bee discharged and we were on our way home.

Everything was soft, precious, slow and so pure… Maya slept on Paco’s chest for the night and the following morning we couldn’t believe that she was there with us…. it has been the most amazing day of my life, after a week I was crying because it was gone so quickly and I wanted to repeat it and do it again and feel all the emotions another time….

Every night I sing Maya “May the longtime sun shine upon you”, and when she was unsettled I was putting on a long version of “Adi shakti” and for some reason, that was the only thing that could put her asleep!

Thanks, thanks thanks and again thanks.

You gave me the tools to go though my birth in such a great and happy and prepared way, and I will never forget that.