A birth I Can’t Stop Thinking About…

Let me share about this birth of someone I worked with recently who shares my faith.

I can’t get this birth out of my head.

I actually hadn’t met them before her labor had even started. It’s not the first time I’d met a client in the hospital when they were already in labor. There’s something really unique about going in to being someone’s doula “blind” so to speak. It requires a totally different set of skills to read the room, gather information quickly and gain insights on their personality and needs through non-verbal communication.

This couple had a powerful and beautiful bond. When that’s obvious in labor, it totally changes my role. I love it. I know my whole job is to teach him, and step back and let them do it together. When they get locked in together, my job becomes one of supporting him, so he can support her. My touch will never bring her the comfort his could. This dad was so on it. Every contraction, every moment, he resisted the breaks and rest. He couldn’t be pulled away from her. His hands were hungry for the ability to relieve any of the discomfort he could.

I became aware that we had a shared faith fairly early on in the labor. When uncertainty poked up at various points, I’d ask if they wanted to be prayed over, they always happily received it. Worship music streamed constantly, and when night descended, the galaxy light they brought from home felt like we were experiencing something outside of the natural world. And I know we were.

As labor progressed, this mom went inside herself. She’d make eye contract from time to time, needing a kind smile or reassurance. And we learned what she needed when she’d shake her head, gesture or chant phrases. Certain words were needed at the beginning of the contraction, and others were needed as it came to an end. She guided us down the path of knowing who she was in labor, and we followed her lead, giving her the support she needed, and wisely came to ask for. And we learned her. “This isn’t pain for the sake of pain. This is pain for a purpose. You can do this” we reminded her.

Early labor moved to active labor and all the while the overwhelming surges were addressed one at a time. She never got ahead of herself, not looking too far forward, or being discouraged by how long she had already been doing it. She tackled her contraction, and rested, and then girded up for the next. She was built to birth her baby. I could see it, and she fighting for her right to feel every second of it. She fought to be bigger and stronger than the contractions and to silence the voices of those who were coming in and undercutting her confidence. The doctors words would hang about in the room after she left.

“Don’t be a hero.”

“You know you’re probably going to have a big baby.”

“Did your doctor talk to you about shoulder dystocia?”

After she left the room, I looked at this powerful woman, thrashed by the waves of contractions, hanging on with all the strength she had, and I asked,

“Do you think you can birth this baby? Because I absolutely think you can.”

Her husband thundered in with more affirmations, “Babe, you GOT this. I KNOW you got this.”

There was this moment I keep coming back to. She was rounding the corner into transition where the contractions were just so long, and there was hardly any break between them. Hip squeezes were really getting her through them. While she was on hands and knees up on the bed, working her way through one after the next, her husband and I stood on either side of the bed, listening for her body to tell us when it was time to brace our legs and with both hands and push against her hips. A song called “The Blessing” came on while we did this.

The words are “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace” from Numbers 6:24-26.

Her husband and I both started singing this blessing over her while she roared her baby down.

“He is with you, he is for you” we sang over her.

“May His favor be upon you
And a thousand generations
And your family and your children
And their children, and their children.”

And she kept going. Defeating unbelievable trial after trial. To not push at 8 cm when at the end of every contraction you feel the fetal ejection reflex coming in hot requires strength that we don’t get from this world. This strength she gained from God, through her husband’s confidence and encouragement, through the words He put in my mouth, through the stamina and empowerment from the spiritual world.

And when the doctor FINALLY said “you’re complete. You can push now!” We all 3 burst into tears. Such hard earned victory. In 30 minutes she was holding her almost 10 pound baby, with the MOST hair I’ve ever seen on a newborn.

I didn’t want to leave. The energy from a hard earned unmedicated birth was electrifying.

They were drenched in love.