One year ago I gave birth to two babies and became a mother. I spent most of my pregnancy deeply reconnecting to my intuition and decolonizing from the medicalization of birth. Halfway through pregnancy, I found a truly amazing and radical team of midwives who believed in the wisdom of the body and the journey of birth.
They believed that twins and breech births were just variations of normal. They believed that I should listen to my intuition and they supported my vision of having an unmedicated, vaginal home birth. And it was under their care that I was able to carry my twins to full term (39w6d to be precise!) and birth them in my bedroom at home. Despite facing constant fear-mongering and racism from the medical industrial complex (a story for another time).
I prepped for birth and for parenthood by connecting with my ancestors and with the babies inside me. I felt keenly spiritually attuned to my place in the universe. I practiced the art of surrender, aware that I needed to become a portal from one dimension to another. My labor started with a slow trickle of my waters breaking. There were no other signs of labor until 24 hours later when I started experiencing contractions 9-10min apart. After my labor stalled for several hours, we used the natural induction methods of herbs, nipple stimulation, and castor oil to encourage labor to restart. This combo worked and I was in active labor soon after, experiencing contractions 3-5min apart.
I remember inviting each contraction in and welcoming the intense and painful sensations of labor. I labored lying in bed, kneeling on the floor, and standing in the shower. Once I was in transition, I remember dozing in between contractions and gathering my strength for pushing. Pushing was the hardest part physical sense emotionally. I pushed in a variety of positions but eventually settle on a birthing stool that my midwives had brought. I remember feeling exhausted and as time went on my resolve began to waver. At one point, one of the midwives told me that it was time to open my eyes and gather my energy. The midwives fed me tiny bites of honey and dates in between contractions. I felt I didn't have any energy left to gather.
I reached for Phillip. And it was through him that I channeled enough energy to continue pushing and birthing. With each contraction, I would gaze into his eyes and remember that it was our family I was birthing. Looking at him, I felt anchored enough to push through my exhaustion and the pain to give birth to our babies. After around 2.5 hours of pushing, K was born breech at 7Ibs15oz. Once his hips came out, the rest of his body just slid out very quickly. I held him in my arms, feeling absolute awe, and looked over at Philip who was beaming and crying.
And then I realised I had to push another baby out. | handed K to Phillip and moved to the bed so the midwives could assess my bleeding, since I had a few 2nd degree tears, and check out A's position. Once on the bed, I had a few "holy shit I don't know if I can do that again" moments. Luckily for me, once I got into side lying position, A was born just 14 min after her brother, rushing out into the world in 3 pushes, vertex and en caul at 7lbs 7oz. And so our family of four was born and I became a mother.