The Naked and Brave Quest for the Winter Solstice Baby
The full Winter solstice moon shined through the large cape cod nursery window. The smell of simmering chicken noodle soup wafted through the vents. I squirmed around the perfect 72-degree birthing pool like a rabid whale.
“What do I have to prove!?” I moaned in a low, almost inhumane voice. In less than 24 hours my uterus had turned into a road roller construction truck.
The next contraction hit. Rahul began to count as he sat on the opposite side of the pool. I began to squirm but had nowhere to move to. This must have been how whales felt in captivity.
“You’re hogging all of the room. Please get out of the pool.” I groaned.
“I’m not hogging all of the room.” He responded back sharply.
Really? He was going to argue with me while my insides felt like the hot fires of Mordor?
“Get the fuck out of the pool!” I screeched. I was naked, afraid, and all my social conditioning was thrown out of the window.
“Rahul, here’s a towel. Go downstairs and get some soup.” I was saved by one of the three fairy godmothers who were assigned as my midwives that evening. She took a spoon of semi-crystalized, warm honey and put it in my mouth. Her rosy cheeks on pearl skin, peaceful whispered tone, and nurturing energy felt angelic. I took a deep breath and steadied myself for another round of contractions.
The pain was torturous. It felt literally impossible to exist with this kind of breakdown in the body. This was the day my human brain really showed me just how powerful it could be. If there was a God, maybe this was his way of showing us the capabilities of our mind when our body is presented with an unbearable situation. I leaned against the air filled, royal blue rim of the pool and felt my body contract. I closed my eyes as tight as I could as if to run away from the pain, but there was nowhere to go. Then like an air bubble escaping in the form of a burp, my conscious brain did the same with my body. I detached from the pain by stepping outside of my experience and observed it from afar. The pain was still there, but I was disconnected from it. My brain managed to form a sentence, “Whoa, this must be a form of meditation.”
It didn’t get easier from there. My body was exhausted. My mind was exhausted. I wasn’t sure if the rosy cheeked fairy godmother even left the room, but she appeared with a tall glass of grape juice in ice.
“Sip this, you need to keep your energy up.” She whispered.
“I need to go to the hospital. I need drugs. I can’t do this anymore. It’s too hard.” I said desperately.
This was supposed to be an empowering experience for me. I felt like another number when I started my check-ups through the OBGYN at the University of Virginia’s Northridge Medical Center. I wanted to have my birth experience feel like the sacred ritual that I knew it was. After doing vast research on the large amount of midwifery led homebirths in Europe, I decided to follow my heart and met Doctor Sarita and her midwives at Winding River Birth Center. They helped me find balance in a stressful, imbalanced pregnancy. They told me I would most likely find myself in a point during the birth where I begged to go to the hospital. Here I was.
“We can take you to the hospital,” She replied in such an agreeable way, “but we are thirty minutes away. I feel like you might have your baby before we even get there.”
“I’m that close?!”
Before that point I had no idea how near I was. I thought this was going to stretch till the sun came up. It was like running a marathon. You realize how close you are suddenly you get a burst of energy to finish it all the way. Except unlike a marathon, there is no choice but to finish till the end.
That was when I went from human to animal. I followed my instincts and listened to my body. I made my way out of the pool and onto my bed. When you watch movies of people giving birth they are always on their back. When you watch a mammal giving birth they are usually working with gravity. I got on my hands and knees. The head fairy godmother, the tough one, the elder, the badass from the Bronx, Liz was by my side.
“It’s time to push!” She said with tough love.
I was afraid. I knew it would hurt on a different level. I hesitated with my first push.
“You need to push one more time like you mean it. This baby needs to come out!” She was exactly who I needed by my side in that moment.
I took a deep breath and pushed. It was like the universe exploded. I made the most animalistic growl from the diaphragm and suddenly he was there. The first thing I saw was a dimpled cheek. “Oh my god he’s so cute,” I exclaimed so relieved as I held his warm body close on my sweat misted chest. I felt empowered. There was nothing to prove. Love was all that mattered.
