Pregnancy with Fern taught me to look inward. To seek healing in places that Forrest’s birth brought to light. I sought out literature, social media accounts, films, podcasts, people of interest in the birthing world, enrolled in classes, and discovered places of inspiration I had not explored prior. I visualized and meditated and most of all let go, because birth is the unknown. The dream with Fern had always been to birth her in our home. While I had a beautiful unmedicated vaginal birth with Forrest in a hospital environment with minimal intervention, I knew in my very being, the core of who I am and my belief system that birth is best left undisturbed, left to the woman and her baby in an environment she feels safe in, which to me is my home.
Now I have had two births, each transformative in their own right, each there to teach me something new, and each humbling me on a whole new level. This is Fern’s birth story.
A few days before Fern was born I was reading Mind Change by Heather McKean. She discusses writing out your visualizations and the power it has to come true. I did just that. I wrote it out and read it to Jeff.
I was past my 41 week mark. I had known I likely would go overdue. My Mother, sisters, and Jeff’s Mom had histories of being overdue with their babies. Not to mention Forrest was 10 days overdue. I had a feeling Fern would join the legacy of overdue babies as well, but she had been measuring ahead my whole pregnancy, so I wasn’t sure if my dates were off. I was a meticulous tracker of my ovulation and was pretty sure of the date of conception but knew you cannot always be 100 percent accurate with things of divine nature. I had seen a chiropractor and acupuncturist during pregnancy to ensure baby was in the correct position and the start of labor encouraged toward my due date. My acupuncturist kept telling me my pulse was strong and labor was near.
I knew a full moon was coming on March 18th and had read about the lunar effect on babies being born. March 18th came and at 11 p.m. on the night of the full moon I felt surges (contractions).
I had Braxton Hick’s and episodes of prodromal labor for weeks prior so I didn’t give it any weight of thought. At 11:30 p.m. I passed a portion of my mucus plug. At 2:45 a.m. on March 19th I awoke to waves of pressure and sensation radiating from my back to my front. I was unable to sleep through it. Jeff and I went downstairs and made breakfast and I bounced on a birth ball and watched an episode of the Office. At 3:42 a.m. we texted my Midwife to let her know what was occurring. My surges were close, 3-4 minutes apart, lasting 60-90 seconds. She advised getting in the bath to establish the true pattern of labor so that we may judge consistency and timing between surges better. I got in the bath and by 4:30 a.m. my labor had stopped. I transitioned into the shower to see if gravity and the effect of standing and pacing would re-start it, but the surges had completely fizzled out. I got back into bed to try and get more sleep. By 6:30 a.m. I awoke again to sensations radiating from my back to my belly. I got up to go to the bathroom and had bloody show. There was a greater intensity now to the surges. We called my MIL and she came to take Forrest. I remember saying goodbye to Forrest, knowing upon his return our dynamic would be changed and his childlike unawareness of it. I wept as he left. I grieved the loss of my Mothering to one child and the change of making space for two.It was cathartic, restorative, and necessary. A moment of marked transformation and transition in my existence as a woman and Mother. I felt I could now focus all mental and physical energy on bringing Fern forth. Around 8:30/9 a.m. we went for a walk to try and stimulate a consistent pattern to the surges as they were maintaining irregularity. I felt tired and as if I couldn’t move my body well in a walking pace. I felt sluggish and slow as if I were treading through molasses with my legs. We took a nap and at 10:45 a.m. I woke up and knew I needed to move my body to get this process going. At 11 a.m. l started coming down the stairs and I felt GREAT intensity in a surge as I stepped down from a stair. I looked at Jeff and said, “Shit’s getting real.”
My vocalizing changed. I started making deep, low moaning sounds. I leaned into it. Jeff proceeded to text our midwives and birth photographer and they said they were on their way. I started moaning and swaying and was blasting my birth music play list (a combination of gospel music, hypnobirthing affirmations, and ocean sounds). Shortly after, my Midwife arrived around 11:30 a.m. I wanted to venture outside. I wanted to be barefoot and ground and labor under the trees in our backyard. I will never forget feeling the wind on my face, the grass and dirt on my feet, squishing my toes into the earth, and going to a space in my head where I told myself: “You have to go through this to get on the other side of meeting your baby, the only way is through Grace.” I labored outside for what felt like 15 minutes but was really an hour. Labor has no linear time. I squatted. I rocked. I held onto a comb in each hand hitting an acupuncture point I had learned can provide natural pain relief in labor. Those combs never left me. Jeff was a constant with applying sacral pressure to me. We had decided not to hire a Doula for this birth. I knew and trusted Jeff and had seen his wonders of patience, calm, and steadfast faithfulness in my birth with Forrest and knew he and I would team together in my labor with Fern. My Photographer arrived and blended into the background of our backyard seamlessly. By 12:45 p.m. when my second Midwife arrived, I was leaning on Forrest’s playground set working through a surge when I felt nauseous and started to dry heave. I didn’t realize it at the time but I was in transition, in our backyard. My Midwife came out and asked if I was feeling pushy. I didn’t know, I guess so? She had noticed I was starting to make that guttural pushing sound at the end of my surges. She suggested if we wanted a baby born outside we were getting closer to that point. She noted she was fine to catch a baby outside, but if we wanted to come inside and try the birthing pool upstairs that now might be a good time. We started to come inside and my Midwife who had arrived later and had been watching me labor outside said: “I’m a big fan of your work out there.”
I wanted to go upstairs to get into a birthing pool we had set up in our room so I started to head toward the stairs. I put one foot up on the stairs and said, “I feel a lot of pressure.” My Midwife joked, “We are going to have a stair baby”. I needed to get up these stairs. I have never felt like we had so many stairs in our house as I did at that moment. I came up the stairs and asked my Midwife to check me. It was 1:30 p.m. I was 8 cm. I WAS OVERJOYED. I knew I was almost there and any minute now I would be meeting Fern. I got into the birth pool and felt the ease and release of my body as the warm water settled over me. I surged. I rested. I went into a state of almost sleeping in between each surge to garner strength. I looked at my affirmation cards on the wall in front of me. I worked through a few more surges and did an internal examination on myself. I felt something hard. Her head. She was almost here. I remembered the magic of oxytocin and asked my birth team to step out of the room so that Jeff and I could be intimate. My Midwife as she left the room said, “She remembered what got the baby in.” Jeff and I had a time of intimacy and I started rushing hard. The surges had such a power to them. I remember saying to my Midwife something didn’t feel right. My Midwife asked me, “What are you feeling down there?” To which I responded, “I am feeling lots of things!” I felt Fern should have made progress in descending down. I asked how long transition lasted and if I was in it (which I know no one knows the answer to but I felt I had to ask) to which she responded, “You’re in it, transition is not a place on a map”. In transition with Forrest I felt fear and loss of control, a spiral type of feeling. Transition with Forrest was an invitation to heal something within myself that no longer served me. This transition I felt more grace, gratitude, and strength. I had never felt more present and focused. I felt with the power of my surges and now my body was pushing the baby on it’s own, without my effort. Each end of my surge I had a guttural sound erupt and my body would bear down.
I stood out of the birthing pool and walked to the bathroom where I sat on the toilet and labored there. It was 2:40 p.m. I felt the power overwhelm me but when I felt for her head, it appeared unmoved. I went back into the birthing pool and labored standing and sitting, trying various positions in the birthing pool. All along my body pushing and giving resistance downward.
I was checked again at 2:55 p.m. I was 9.5 cm. At 3:20 p.m. I got into bed on my left side with a peanut ball in between my knees. It felt so uncomfortable. At 3:25 p.m. my Midwife checked me again and said, “Grace, you have a cervical lip and I need you to get onto your hands with your knees in your chest position.” I knew a cervical lip meant it was preventing the baby from descending properly. I knew if I couldn’t push Fern past it, then the midwife needed to hold my cervix open as I surged to help Fern get past the lip. I assumed the position immediately and was given Arnica and Pulsatilla homeopathic herbs under my tongue to dissolve and help with decreasing cervical swelling. I was given Arnica gel in my vagina. I had heard podcasts of women describing a cervical lip in their birth stories and how it complicated and prolonged their labor, not to mention how uncomfortable physically it was. I tried to let my thoughts not spiral but maintain that God was in control of this birth,let my mind navigate the course,and visualize the outcomes I wanted. I remember the Midwives telling me not to push. Don’t push?! My body was pushing, it was impossible to control what my body had overtaken. In the hands and knees position I heard a pop and felt the gush of waters. It was 3:31 p.m. My waters had broken, thank God. I labored in the on hands knees to chest position for a few minutes when my Midwife let me know they would need to manually push back the cervical lip so that Fern’s head could get past it and descend down. My Midwife spoke calmy, “This will not be comfortable.” I will never forget the intensity of pressure from a manual insertion of holding back a cervical lip. It was 3:41 p.m.
If my body could have gone to the ceiling it would have. I was having an out of body experience. Every fiber in my being wanted to run as far from myself as possible. I went to a space of intense focus and I was unaware of anything occurring in the room at that point.
I gathered myself. I went toward the place I didn’t want to go, where it felt the most intense, and I tried to relax in that position. I relaxed my jaw, deepened my breath into my belly, with all of my might, with all the strength inside of me found in the deepest parts of my soul. I softened, I opened. I felt the ring of fire, I knew she had crowned. It was 3:54 p.m. I went inward and roared her out. I heard my Midwife say reach down and touch her head. I did and Fern’s head was out. It was 3:54 p.m. I felt my other Midwife insert her hand and felt so much pressure and knew Fern’s shoulder’s were stuck. It was 3:56 p.m. I felt her body follow as my body pushed her out. I felt my body empty.
I reached down and put my hands underneath Ferns arms and gathered her to my chest. I saw my daughter for the first time. Oh what sweet joy, relief, and pure ecstasy of my baby being here and holding her to my chest. The feelings consumed me. The euphoric high I felt with Forrest, I felt with Fern. She came out so calm and did not make a sound. She gifted us with her overwhelmingly beautiful presence. It was 3:57 p.m. I looked at her. I looked at Jeff. She’s here.
At 4:07 p.m. I pushed the placenta out and her birth journey was complete.
I wanted to have an unmedicated birth in my home. Without intervention. I wanted labor to begin spontaneously. I wanted to birth my baby in a quiet room surrounded by a female birth team and my Husband. I wanted to experience the sensation of my body bearing down and giving life. I wanted to give myself over to instinct. To feel the process entirely. And I did. I did it! What a wild and surreal experience. How deeply grateful I am to the women and friends who flooded me with encouragement. For my birth team who were sent from heaven that day to support and assist me in the challenges and victory that arose. For my Husband whom I can’t even generate words without crying. For my baby Fern, my daughter, for being my partner through it all. And for my myself because I did it and I’m allowed to be really proud.
I embraced the wisdom and innate knowledge of my body.
My body was divinely created for this and knew exactly what to do.
*Photos by Heather Hepler
