Birth can be ceremony.
It can be a fire-walk, a rite of passage, a deep initiation into motherhood.
It has the potential to be the most ecstatic, empowering experience in a woman’s life.
I’m 39 weeks pregnant and I feel the birth portal looming closer. It’s a gentle, slow, dreamy space.
I long to birth at home, filled and surrounded with love. I dream of being in a space of reverence, beauty, quiet, laughter, and joy.
I’m excited to open my body to the sensations of birth and use them as a vehicle to travel through realms. I’m excited to experience the full spectrum of pain and ecstasy as my body and soul get blasted apart.
I am holding the intention that all will proceed with grace and ease, and that I and my baby will be healthy and well.
In calling together my birth team, I have trusted my intuition and inner guidance, and a deep sense that my baby is calling who he or she most needs to be present. I feel a deep sense of love, trust, respect, and reverence for, in, and with the beautiful souls who will be present.
I am taking full responsibility for the outcome of my birth. This is an edge that I’ve been working with in these months of pregnancy, and of course I’ve had a lot of fears and what-if’s to work through. This has been a big part of my work during pregnancy, and I find this space of radical responsibility to be enlivening.
I am choosing a sovereign experience because I want to birth in my own power. I want to let my body and my intuition be the primary, overarching guide for the whole process. I am creating a space of trusting my innate womanhood to simply know how to birth, as our ancestors and so many women before us did as well.
Birth works best when the birthing woman feels safe, when she is in a familiar space, when the space is dark and quiet, and when she is unobserved. This is a recipe for an undisturbed birth. It is ideal to have as much calm and sense of wellbeing as possible. Having a calm space especially during the beginning stages of labor helps to set the stage for the free flow of oxytocin throughout the birth process, as well as the release of catecholamines during the final stages of birth, which can help the baby to emerge. Having a calm space in the immediate postpartum period can help the mother to settle and can help prevent excessive bleeding or hemorrhage.
My intention for my birth is to forgo the need for interventions. I believe in my body to be able to birth with what it already has. Interventions can create a cascade that calls for more and more interventions. My hope and prayer is that all will unfold smoothly enough to allow my body and my baby to simply go through the process.
Birth is one of the most important rites of passage for both mother and baby. It is my prayer that in setting the stage for an ecstatic, reverent, undisturbed birth, I will be setting my child up for a life of joy, ease, and health.
May it be so!