My wild pregnancy and freebirth with Nur
Disclaimer: The choices I make for myself and my family are in no way intended to place judgment on yours or to imply that you should or should have done the same. I recognize that every woman has varying levels of synchronicity with her intuition, of awareness of her body, health status, medical access, and knowledge about normal physiological pregnancy and birth. I trust that every woman is making an informed risk-benefit assessment based on her comfort level, values, and individual circumstances.
My Wild Pregnancy
Want to hear me tell my birth stories?
First, What is wild pregnancy?
A wild pregnancy is when a woman chooses to continue the natural flow of her life and body’s internal changes as she conceives and moves through pregnancy. She trusts in the wisdom of her body and her baby’s body and in her inner-knowing of when to get help if needed.
In a wild pregnancy, a woman doesn’t pathologize her pregnancy, expecting the default to be “something will go wrong” but she trusts that everything will go as it should, as long as her body is well-equipped for the task.
A wild pregnancy occurs outside of medical attention and prenatal care is self-led by the pregnant mother through optimal nourishment, movement, self-care, and community connection.
Why I chose a Wild Pregnancy
Going through this pregnancy without a medical provider was one of the best things I did to nurture the health, safety and my bond with my baby. Anytime a question, concern or fear came up, it was an opportunity for me to listen more closely; to tune in deeper with my inner knowing and at the same time, living in the mystery, trusting that my body knows exactly what it’s doing. In contrast to most modern pregnancies managed within the medical system, I didn’t rely on testing or other authorities to give me information about my body and my baby. If I wanted medical care, I wanted to choose to “opt in” rather than be on a standard track of care and have to “opt out”. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely believe there are times when engaging with the medical system may be necessary, but I believe it’s there for a purpose: if a normal physiological event (such as pregnancy or birth) crosses the threshold into a place where the risk of self-management and staying home outweighs the risk of being managed by a provider or being in the hospital.
The driving belief behind this decision to go unassisted in my pregnancy and birth is that:
My body is wise.
My body innately knows how to grow and birth my baby.
My body is always communicating with me.
I didn’t feel the need to have external validation for what I was experiencing, because everything I experienced was within the range of normal - or some variation of it. I don’t drive around with a mechanic in my passenger seat every time I get in the car for fear of my car breaking down. But of course, if my car were to break down or if I were in an accident, of course I would seek out appropriate care! In the same way, of course I would seek out medical help should the need arise.
Was I carrying twins?
Intermittently throughout my pregnancy and particularly in the third trimester, I became convinced I was having twins: my belly was “measuring large” (as large as 50cm at 40 weeks and fundal height should roughly correlate with weeks of gestation- though this is not an evidence based conclusion or practice), I “showed” very early (everyone who knew me could tell I was pregnant as early as 6 weeks), my joints were particularly more achy and ligaments more lax than my first pregnancy, I gained about 10lb more weight than my first, and I regularly found two heartbeats with a fetoscope (in hindsight, I wonder if the second that I found might have been a pulse heard elsewhere on my son’s body). I hadn’t shared this suspicion with anyone who was unsupportive of my birth choices, however I eventually became so large that many others also suspected I was carrying twins.
Would I still free birth twins?
Though there may be some increased potential risks that come with carrying twins, the possibility didn’t change how I would choose to birth. I knew that if I were to be working with a midwife, my care would be transferred because in the medical system twins are considered “high risk”. If I were to be in a hospital, the likelihood that something would be pathologized and I would be drugged up, forced into C-section, my babies would be separated from me, the cords would be cut prematurely, or something else completely undesirable and detrimental to the “golden hour” immediately after birth was very high- all interventions that hormonally interfere with successful breastfeeding and bonding. I was willing to accept the risk of staying home to birth my babies according to the normal hormonal cascade that determines the flow of birth while also knowing they would have the best possible start to life at home. Should a complication have arisen or should they have needed follow-up care in the NICU, of course I would seek out medical care! To me, that’s what the medical system is there for: rare, emergency situations that cannot be managed at home. I believe my body and maternal instincts would communicate this to me if the time came. And this was the same reason I chose not to do any ultrasounds or other testing to confirm my suspicion: because they wouldn’t have changed any of the decisions I would have made. Sometimes having more information isn’t always helpful. This may be a different choice than another woman would make, but it’s the choice I felt was the safest option for giving my babies the best start to their life and our relationship.
The beauty of radical responsibility and bodily autonomy (which is actually a legal right- most medical providers don’t tell you this) is that I get to weigh the pros and cons of every choice that I make and truly give informed consent.
How did others react to this choice?
The closer I came to full-term, the more people in my life felt the need to unload their fears and preconceived ideas of safety and risk- particularly regarding the potential for twins or *gasp* a breech baby. In most of these cases, the offenders were not interested in hearing the nuances regarding modern birth outcomes and statistics or what environments truly facilitate a healthy, normal physiological birth to unfold, so we often had to end the conversations abruptly and firmly. The closer a woman gets to giving birth, the more vulnerable and sensitive she can become to thoughts, feelings, and energies in her sphere because in the end, a truly physiological birth only unfolds when the birthing woman feels safe. In order to protect my mental fortitude and maintain confidence and trust in my body’s wisdom, I avoided confrontational conversations as much as possible and minimized opportunities for unwelcome worries to burden my thoughts.
Though my husband was initially not on the same page as me when I first told him that I planned to free birth, after some time, doing the Complete Guide to Free Birth Course with me and really just observing how intentionally I was preparing my mind, body and spirit to healthfully welcome this child earthside, he came around. If there was anything good that came out of the confrontational encounters that we had prior to the birth, it was that my husband stepped up for me when I was an emotional wreck and unable to respond to peoples’ comments implying I was being irresponsible and careless. He was able to voice exactly why I was choosing this birthing option and how it was really the exact opposite of what they thought.
As he said after the birth “I was stressed about it, but I trusted you.”
BUt what about all the prenatal testing?
To be honest, in my first prenatal care experience with a midwife, I opted out of most tests anyway and with each one I asked myself the questions:
“Is this test really necessary?
What would I do differently if the test were to come back “abnormal”?
What would I do with the information gained from the test?
What are the risks should this test come back out of the range of normal?
What can I do to be preventative should I be positive for any of the tests (without actually truly knowing that I am)?”
For example, in my first pregnancy, I opted out of the glucose tolerance test and instead chose to track my blood sugar fluctuations daily. Particularly working with women’s nutrition in pregnancy and with gestational diabetes (GD) in my profession, I’m very aware of what type of diet and lifestyle is used to control blood sugar and minimize complications of GD. So instead of spending time and energy to track my glucose, I chose instead to eat and live in a way that I know balances my blood sugar. I’m aware of the risks of poorly regulated blood sugar in pregnancy, so instead of testing for GD, I just lived my life as I would if I had GD- in a way that balances blood sugar and minimizes drastic fluctuations.
Regarding ultrasounds, I chose to do one ultrasound in my previous pregnancy (in my ignorance, I thought it was just to learn the sex of the baby- I wasn’t informed that I would be there for an hour and they would be measuring every part of my baby’s body to ensure it’s growing appropriately). In that experience, my baby was constantly moving away from the ultrasound device, clearly disturbed by it (which aggravated the technician, though she said it happened all the time). The technician also told me that I might need to come back another time because she wasn’t able to get a good measurement of his heart. This confused me because I could literally see his heart valves on the screen pumping just fine. This made me ask myself the question: “If most babies try to move away from the ultrasound device when receiving it, could it possibly be harmful/disturbing to them in any way? If the technician were to find something abnormal, what would I do?”
Personally, I would let my body choose whether this baby would be carried to term or not. I believe to my bones that my body (through the power of the Creator) is wise enough to determine if a pregnancy is viable and if a child should be born alive and able. So this time around, since an ultrasound wouldn’t provide me any information that I would choose to act on, I found it to be an unnecessary intervention that may carry some potential harm.
Side note: My husband and I did test nutrient and (my) hormone levels about 6 months prior to conceiving just to make sure I was all set to conceive when we were ready.
How did I know my baby was alive and well without any outside confirmation?
As I mentioned above, experiencing a wild pregnancy is a wonderful practice in trusting the body. Instead of seeking external validation, any question of “Am I still pregnant?” or “Is my baby okay?” led me to connect deeper with my body and my baby; to slow down and listen. On occasion I would use a fetoscope to listen and connect with my baby. These were the confirmations for me that everything was just fine:
I feel healthy.
I’m experiencing normal symptoms of pregnancy.
I’m not bleeding.
My baby is moving.
My baby’s heart is beating normally.
The first trimester was the most difficult in honoring that trust because my baby wasn’t moving yet and it was still too soon to find a heartbeat with a fetoscope. So I mostly resorted to the first three affirmations I mentioned above. I never took a pregnancy test to confirm, but I did confirm through taking my basal body temperature (BBT) for at least 17 days into my luteal phase.
Do you wish you had this same level of trust and confidence in the wisdom of your body leading up to pregnancy and birth?
How did I eat through this pregnancy?
First Trimester
Side note: I became extremely nauseous as soon as I conceived, much more than I had in my first pregnancy. It took me about a month to figure out the correlation but I would only get nauseous during my face-to-face patient visits when I was required to wear a mask at work due to COVID-19 regulations and the nausea would go away in my telemedicine appointments when I didn’t have to wear a mask. During that first month, I began overeating because having food in my stomach was helpful to some extent but it never made the nausea go away like it would in my first pregnancy. All my go-to options for managing nausea just didn’t seem the work this time. The only thing that worked was breathing fresh air- meaning not wearing a mask. It’s like my baby was communicating to me that an excess of CO2 (despite normal O2 saturation) was not ideal for his development. I trusted this and honored this need, though government regulations and societal pressures did not make this easy.
Because of the increased nausea, protein-rich foods (particularly cooked fish and cooked eggs) became very difficult to consume and I found myself drawn to dairy to make up the lack of protein and calories. I would drink about a half gallon of raw milk and eat a large tub of Nancy’s plain whole milk yogurt a week. I began making custards as a way to hide eggs from myself and to have a snack in the early morning when I’d wake around 4 am starving. I made honey lavender custards for the early morning and coffee-bean infused custards for the afternoon. I would generally eat as much protein as I could in a meal (which tended to be about 3 oz of meat or chicken), a moderate amount of vegetables, some healthy fats like avocado or olives/olive oil and butter (lots of Cherry Valley Dairy butter), and a starch (about twice a day). I continued to have organ meats though I would hide them from myself in foods like chili or shepherd’s pie.
Second Trimester
Since I was still breastfeeding my almost 3-year-old at the time, I was still lactating. By this point in my pregnancy, my milk supply had been gradually decreasing and it abruptly stopped around 14 weeks (I wasn’t really tracking weeks at the time so that’s my guess). Weaning so suddenly and the hormonal fluctuations associated with it led to a pretty significant drop in my mood which I decided to support with the mood-stabilizing effects of saffron (which I share about here). So every morning I would start my day with my saffron-cardamom coffee (which I shared the recipe for in the link above), always with collagen.
Generally my meals would stay the same but my protein intake would gradually increase (to about 5-6oz a meal) as my aversions wore off and my carb intake naturally decreased, finding I wasn’t interested in starches with meals anymore and preferred a serving or two of seasonal fruit a day (like pomegranate, apples or pears- since it was Fall). I began making more slow-cooked stews, braises and soups since the weather was cooling off but also because I knew my body needed these collagen-building foods as well. I continued having about 1 glass of raw milk daily but no longer needed the custards as I wasn’t waking up hungry anymore. I also didn’t need to snack much but on occasion I’d have some yogurt if I needed one.
Third Trimester
Interestingly, my morning appetite decreased significantly as I approached my third trimester. This makes sense because insulin resistance naturally goes up during this time (which is why it’s the time when the GD test is done in standard prenatal care). I found that I would make breakfast but not eat it until around 10 or 11am. Some days I would go all the way until lunch without touching my breakfast- not planned, just eating intuitively. It was my body’s way of ensuring stable blood sugar.
I also began to notice my heart rate would elevate in the mornings (to about 110 bpm); I would find myself needing to stop and catch my breath when working in the kitchen. After about a week of this, I realized it was due to my cup of morning coffee and this was when I swapped out the coffee for an herbal coffee substitute (roasted dandelion and chicory root-based) or the Host Defense Brain Energy as a morning beverage (which has Lion’s mane mushroom, Eleuthro, and yerba mate). Since saffron wouldn’t be a good fit in these beverages, I switched to putting saffron in a warm fresh-squeezed lemon water, which was also a delicious pairing.
Besides these changes, my daily meals remained about the same as 2nd trimester in portions, primarily meat (now lots of eggs and fish), veggies, and fats. I also enjoyed mostly apples and citrus, like grapefruit or navel oranges (now Winter), as my daily fruit of choice. A few times I craved sushi and at this point restaurants had reopened to limited seating (due to COVID restrictions) so we went in and I enjoyed some quality sushi- raw and with lots of pickled ginger, as is my preference. If you’re curious about why I feel comfortable eating raw milk and raw sushi during pregnancy, I highly recommend exploring the food safety section of Lily Nichols’s book Real Food For Pregnancy (and give a listen to our podcast with Lily while you’re at it).
Early Labor
I had spent a soul-nourishing afternoon with the ladies in our local wombyn’s circle/village prenatal group- a community of like-minded radical, critical-thinking, health-conscious, sustainable-living, wild-mothering, freedom-upholding mamas - created out of necessity during the COVID crisis. On my 45-min drive home, I noticed that I had experienced about 6 sets of contractions that were slightly more intense than the ones I had been experiencing up until that point. On the bumpy gravel drive up to our home, I actually had to slow down as I was driving over the potholes because the intensity of that last contraction in the car was enough to be exacerbated by the bounce of the car. But as I got out, they fizzled out a little bit, noticing a contraction about every 20-30 minutes or so. Knowing this was the night, I got into our sauna and did a light stretch session then went and laid down for a bit to get some rest. We had been planning to go to one of my favorite restaurants for dinner (as I was trying to check them all off my list before giving birth since I knew I wouldn’t be going out for a while), but I kept thinking to myself if I wanted to sit in the car for 30 min while having intermittent contractions. Not knowing how quickly labor would progress and if I’d really want to be sitting in a restaurant during labor, I finally decided against it and we ordered dinner to-go from an Indian restaurant a little closer to home.
After dinner we went for a family walk under the stars and every once in a while a wave of contractions would come and I’d squat down on the side of the road or bend over resting my hands on my knees and breathe through them, then keep walking. By this point in my pregnancy my joints were extremely achy and I felt so heavy so I walked slow and more side-to-side than forward. Regardless, it felt good to move. We came home and started my son’s bedtime routine, much later than usual as he had napped in the car that day. As my husband was reading books with him, I was in our bedroom resting in child’s pose, harnessing the energy I would need to make it through the night.
It was my turn to read books and I told my son “just one book tonight, the baby is coming and mommy needs to rest”. I laid down with him for the last time with him as my only earthside child and we read. A wave would come and I’d quickly but smoothly put the book down, get on hands and knees, rock back and forth, and breath through it; these waves were intense enough to not be able to lay down but not so intense that I couldn’t be with him. With each one, my son would tell me “get your wiggles out mommy, it will feel better”- a reminder of why I love him so much. As soon as a wave died down, it was like it never happened and I’d lay back down and we’d cuddle until he’d go to sleep. When another wave would come as he was falling asleep, as long as I stayed there, it didn’t bother him that I had to get up to breathe and move through them. Around 11 pm he was sleeping soundly and I looked forward to having time to rest and labor all on my own.
Mark, knowing what was to come, went to bed early so when I came out, everyone in the house was asleep but me. This is what I wanted. I was excited to finally get to be 100% present with my body and my baby, not having to tend to anyone else’s needs but ours. I heated a heat pack to put on my low back, went to our living room, turned off the lights and set up my resting space like I did every night before. I put two knee cushions on the floor, kneeled down and rested my chest and head on a small physioball. I turned on the Flow State album by Above & Beyond (on repeat) and drifted off into a trance. I slept between waves but would return halfway to consciousness as the waves began to surge. It’s like I was so fully present in my body but also sleeping at the same time. I was at the portal of birth coming in and out of this world, just as my baby was at his portal, preparing to make his entrance. This was one of the most peaceful parts of the birth. The darkness, the ethereal music- just me and my baby dancing through the night fully in a trance and completely, naturally high.
Around 2 am, Idin woke up, bringing me back to this world and I went and laid him back down to sleep in his bed (normally he would join us). I suddenly noticed all my needs: my heat pad had cooled, I was extremely thirsty, very hungry and just uncomfortable enough that I didn’t want to retrieve those things for myself so I decided to wake Mark up.
Active Labor
As Mark was making a snack and completing all of my requests, I labored on our bed, resting my chest on a stack of pillows and burying my head in the blankets with each surge. At this point the intensity was quite high, but I always felt that with breath and movement, it was all very tolerable. I told him to blow up the birth pool so that it would be ready when I wanted to get in. Concerned that my labor might progress quickly, I also had him call my friend Brigette (the photographer) and Karlin (our birth support person). Both of them had arrived as I continued to labor on the bed. I could feel my cervix had fully dilated and the surges were increasing in intensity so I decided I was ready to get in the pool to use hot water to provide relief.
Besides having people retrieving beverages for me to drink, refilling the pool with hot water or changing the music, it was as if I was birthing alone. Everyone was just resting the whole time as I moved through each contraction in the pool. I was so present in the moment through the whole birth that, in hindsight, I think I shared maybe 5 short conversations through the entirety of the birth- it was all very silent, with the exception of my animalistic groans. Exactly that way I envisioned.
A Note on Birth Mindset and “tolerating the pain” of birth:
Pain is all about perception. And tolerance is all about patience and trust. In every single moment of my birth, I was in complete trust of my body; there was never a moment of doubt. I was made for this and knew my body and baby knew exactly what to do, I was just along for the ride. Trusting the process made it so much easier to allow each wave to flow through me with no resistance.
I trust my body.
I was made for this.
My body and my baby know exactly what to do.
A visit from my 3-year old
Around 6 am, my son woke up and came out to see what was going on. I remember looking up and seeing him in Mark’s arms and hearing my son say, “I wanna come in mama, I promise I won’t pee!” (when we would take baths together during my pregnancy and he would pee in the bathtub, I’d jokingly tell him I wouldn’t let him in the birth pool if he was going to pee in it). So he came in and we briefly cuddled in the pool until another wave began to surge. I quickly got on hands and knees and began to roar. Though we had read a book (My mother is the strongest) that talked about mommy making animal sounds in birth, he was still not ready to handle the intensity of that moment, particularly having just woken up.
He cried, “I wanna get out!” so Mark got him out and dried him off. I remember him standing outside the pool in his pooh-like hooded-ear bath robe crying “I wanna get back in!”. Conflicted, wanting to hold me as he always did upon waking but fearing the intensity of the experience, he cried. Experiencing the first moment of being pulled to hold space for one child while clearly needing to hold space for the other, a small part of my heart broke having to choose one over the other as I told Mark, “Please take him away, I can’t do this with him crying here.”
One of the beautiful parts of this birth was that I could feel everything.
Though I didn’t have any pain medication suppressing my sensations in my previous home birth, there had been too many people present and too many people directly involved in what I was doing that I didn’t experience any of my baby’s movements in the birth- there was too much noise keeping me from listening to my body. Usually “feeling everything” is exactly what people don’t want in birth, as if they don’t think they could handle it. But to me, “feeling everything” meant I knew exactly how my birth was progressing without any objective measures such as timing between contractions, cervical dilation, etc.
I could feel my cervix opening and when it was fully dilated.
I could feel my baby move, then feel my body respond with a contraction immediately after, just like a dance.
I could feel when my baby was trying to move through my pelvis into the birth canal.
The frustrating part was that with all this trust and patience, I was waiting for the fetal ejection reflex (FER) to take over… for 4 hours. Some people describe this reflex as “vomiting from your vagina”. As unpleasant as it might sound, you get the idea that it’s a reflex you have no control over. I was truly looking forward to not having to push my baby out as I had heard in so many stories, however, I grow very large-headed babies (like over-the-100th percentile-large). It felt like I was just accepting and riding each wave, but my baby wasn’t moving through into the birth canal, despite his effort. I finally decided that perhaps the FER wouldn’t kick in until I pushed him past my pubic bone so I began to actually try pushing, despite not feeling the urge. Anytime I would push, only stool would come out. It felt gross to be sitting in that so I stood up to get out of the birth pool.
As soon as gravity kicked in when I stood up from the water, I felt my baby’s weight shift down and suddenly experienced a very strong urge to push. You could liken it to trying to push out stool without a bowel movement compared to having a bowel movement to move it through. I collapsed into a squat and said to Mark, “I can’t get out of this position!”. Using the chairs he had placed there to hold onto for support and his assistance, I remained in a squat until he could turn the chairs around to support under my thighs.
Meanwhile our photographer had taken my son outside to eat breakfast and play, little did she know I would give birth while she was outside
Transition
Excited to finally feel like his emergence was impending, I sat with each sensation attempting to push but it felt out of sync. It was as if I was surfing and trying to jump into a wave to surf but the wave was beyond my capabilities so I’d duck my head beneath the current before the wave crashed. I wasn’t riding these waves; I was floating in the water and watching them as they passed by, studying them and waiting for the perfect one to ride. I found that if I pushed when a wave was at it’s peak, it was far too intense and I’d back out. As soon as I began to push when a wave was just starting to emerge, I could ride the momentum of the wave and feel my baby drop down as I pushed with each sensation. Riding these waves back to back, my baby quickly progressed through the birth canal and began to crown. Thrilled to be progressing so quickly as I was so in sync with each sensation, I continued to ride and push with each wave instead of sitting back and letting them pass by.
Using all the mental and physical strength I had, I roared. A large bulge began to emerge, what I thought was the head, but my baby was still en caul- in his amniotic sac. It suddenly burst and sprayed all over my husband’s leg and on the floor. Shocked and disappointed that it wasn’t the head, I continued to push. All the while as he was emerging I was thinking “Am I still pushing?! His body is SO big!” I felt myself tear as he was emerging and logically knew that I could minimize tearing if I “pushed slowly” but I think that was where the FER kicked in, there was no slowing this down. In a state of complete surrender, I felt his bumps and lumps pass through me, cracking my body as open as it will every be and tearing through. As he emerged, Mark caught him. Baby began crying immediately and Mark brought him up to me and I pulled him to my chest and gave his bloody head kisses. In that moment I felt every feeling at once: pure bliss, the ultimate joy, complete relief, overwhelmed and fully cracked open. I died and was reborn a mother of one more beautiful boy. He was born at 10lb and 22 inches, as large as it felt.
I can only imagine what my older son was thinking when he walked in and saw me bloody and crying yet at the same time saying “I’m okay! I’m okay!” when trying to console him. I also wonder how it made him feel to suddenly see his mother holding and kissing a new baby. He must be wondering “Where do I fit in now?”
Afterbirth
Baby Nur found my breast and latched on right away and it wasn’t even painful, with the exception of the afterbirth contractions which would happen each time he breastfed. Here in this photo you can really see the sunrise light that was shining through our window as I was birthing. This was why we named him Nur, as Nur means “light” in Farsi (and he also brought the light with him as he as born on the new moon). I laid down on the floor to get more comfortable but it very difficult to move as his cord was quite short (maybe 1.5 to 2 feet long?). Even for him to reach my breast, I could feel traction on the cord. After a while of breastfeeding on the floor and recovering from the overwhelming intensity of the moment, the placenta remained inside so I wanted to get in a more comfortable position and to get warm. So my birth team helped me make my way to the couch to rest and covered me with a blanket. I took some angelica tincture to help release the placenta but it hadn’t kicked in.
As each afterbirth contraction occurred, I tried to push out the placenta but wasn’t able to get in a position where it was able to release. I couldn’t even urinate, it felt blocked. Squatting was impossible considering how lax my joints still were and I couldn’t physically walk to the bathroom (with a baby between my legs) without holding onto support with both hands. I had intended to do a lotus birth - leaving the cord intact until it falls off- or to do a cord burning later on, but each afterbirth contraction was getting more intense, I had to pee so badly and I felt that I physically could not get in a position to release it while my baby was still attached.
After about 3.5 hours I decided it was time to clamp and cut the cord (I had a clamp just in case) so I could try to release the placenta on the toilet. After I cut the cord, I handed baby Nur over to Mark and walked to the bathroom with support. I remembered that a piece of the cord in the cheek could be used to release the placenta (because of the natural oxytocin in it) so I had Karlin run back and cut a piece off for me. I put a small piece of the cord in my cheek and got in the shower to wash all the blood off as I allowed my body to absorb the hormones. Karlin laid a towel underneath the toilet seat and I sat down to release. The placenta immediately slipped out (it felt like I had lost 10 pounds!) and was followed by 2 minutes of urinating. Disappointed that I decided I needed to cut the cord, it felt like the right decision in the moment and I don’t regret it. We saved the placenta to inspect later to check for any retained tissue.
The Circle of Life
One lunar cycle later on the following new moon, as a family we dug holes in our garden space to plant some potted fig trees that I had been waiting to plant. Having reserved my first son’s dried placenta and my second son’s frozen placenta, we planted each of them with their own fig tree; returning to the land to nourish mother Earth and to hopefully one day enjoy their fruits together as a family.
Words of wisdom for birthing mamas:
The state of bliss I experienced as I was giving birth is the ultimate high my baby and I will ever experience, and we experienced it together. No drug can give us that. How often in our culture do we suppress the pain or sadness with medication? And how often are we also seeking stimulation from external sources, be it drugs, alcohol, superficial sex, technology, etc.? Life needs duality: without darkness, there is no light; without sadness, there is no joy; without pain there is no bliss. There are two sides to every coin and when we fear the pain, the sadness, the darkness of life, we too deprive ourselves of the bliss, the joy and the light available to us.
It is not only a preference to experience this spectrum of emotions and states, I personally believe it is my responsibility as a mother to provide this experience to my children. If birth is the one moment where my baby experiences the ultimate oxytocin rush- the highest level of love and connection, this sets the baseline for what he perceives as love and connection for the rest of his life! If a woman receives synthetic oxytocin (Pitocin) at birth (if she didn’t before emergence, it’s typically standard procedure to receive a shot of it, often unknowingly, immediately after birth to stimulate the birth of the placenta), this blocks the oxytocin receptors from being able to respond to your body’s natural oxytocin. This is why many women don’t feel that immediate bond and connection with their babies even though they logically choose to love them. How many people suffer from depression because they were deprived of ultimate connection at birth? How many people are constantly seeking connection but fail to know what that feels like?
If you desire to break the generational chain of birth trauma as a result of suppressing women’s power through sabotaging the birth process, I encourage every woman to truly envision what they want of their birth. Not only what their provider will “let” them do. Unfortunately as the medical system exists today, birth either requires so much advocacy if you truly seek a physiological birth, often resulting in compromising your birth plan, or simply opting out of the medical system. If you desire a medicated birth where you don’t experience any of the pain (or joy) of birth, then a hospital birth is likely a great option for you. This is not a judgement on anyone’s choices, everyone has their own preferences and views their responsibility as a mother differently.
Whatever your birth decisions may be, I hope they are truly chosen by you and that you are not coerced into doing anything you are not comfortable with. Trust in the wisdom of your body and take every step you need to feel confident in your choices. As birthing mothers, it is up to us to set up our journey into motherhood and manifest the experience we envision as prepared as possible. This is not a “sit back and let your provider deliver your baby” scenario. It requires preparation of mind, body and spirit. And this is why I love to support women in their preconception period; to guide them in becoming the mother they want to be before their child is even conceived.
