If you’re just arriving here, you’re welcome to explore the Maiden to Mother series from the beginning.
The teacher of my birth class often described birth using the metaphor of a labyrinth.
Labyrinths have long been used to center the mind and symbolize spiritual pilgrimage. Unlike a maze, there is only one path in and one path out. When we enter a labyrinth, we enter a journey of twists and turns, eventually finding our way to the center.
But walking the path of a labyrinth doesn’t always feel like moving closer to where we want to go. It can feel disorienting. Sometimes the path turns away from the center just when we think we are getting close, or back towards it just as we think we are about to walk out.
But the beauty of the labyrinth is that like birth, we don’t have to know exactly where it’s going. We just have to keep walking.
One step at a time. Present in the moment. Trusting it will carry us where we are meant to go.
The morning of the day my daughter was born I woke up with a little bit of wetness in my underwear. I went to the bathroom, and afterward noticed more water on the floor. “This was it!” I thought, my water had broken.
I was planning to practice yoga with my community down the street that morning, and knowing labor could take a very long time, I continued on with my plan.
I remember standing in the doorway, just having opened the door to go outside, yoga mat in hand, when my water really broke. There was a huge gush of water and my pants were soaked.
“Maybe I’ll practice yoga at home today,” I said, shocked, covered in amniotic fluid, laughing at the spectacle.
This was around 8 am, and then I remember nothing happening for hours, no contractions, nothing. I did yoga, I did laundry, I even spent some time writing about carving my own path to motherhood (which later became this article).
I ate my leftover steak from the dinner we went to the night before, adding eggs with kale and salsa. I knew it would be wise to eat a protein-rich meal while I still could.
Then around 1 pm the contractions started, and at first they were inconsistent, about 15 minutes apart, occasionally five minutes apart, but by 2 pm they were regular, every three to five minutes. My husband made sure the midwife was on her way.
At some point the contractions became strong enough that the rest of the world started falling away. I don’t remember exactly when the midwife arrived, only how deeply I needed her when she did.
There I was pants off, leaning over the bed, blood dripping on a puppy pad on the floor, wailing when she walked in.
She gently sat down right next to me, looked at me in the eyes and whispered, “You’re doing so great.”
And at that point, wow, I really needed another woman to just be there.
I had complete understanding and compassion for why people go to the hospital and get an epidural. At a certain point, it can all begin to feel so out of control.
If I didn’t have that wisdom keeper there, someone just confidently saying, “No, this is normal. You’ve got this. I’m here for you. I’ll hold your hand,” I don’t know what I would have done.
And that was about the time when time started being really nonexistent and different.
It feels like from that moment — leaning over the bed when the midwife entered — to the moment my daughter was actually born felt like almost no time at all when I think back on it. (It was about eight hours in real time). I had no concept of time.
So that went on for a while, leaning over the mattress.
And then at some point the tub was ready and I got into the water.
The contractions were still really hard, but it was very helpful to feel the water. I loved having a cold washcloth and pressure on my back.
So it would be either my husband Michael or our midwife with the washcloth, and someone holding my hands.
There were a few things I didn’t expect about labor: I thought I would want to be totally alone, in a dark room. But no, I wanted someone right next to me the entire time. I wanted someone’s hands I could hold, with no breaks.
I had dreams of candles lit, music playing. The candles were never lit.
I managed to connect my phone to the speaker and start my birth playlist, but then quickly lost track of my phone so the music wasn’t able to be curated when the playlist finished.
And then there were the sounds, my sounds. Involuntarily, I was making so many sounds. Loud sounds: screams, and roars. If you know me, I am a pretty quiet person, so that was unexpected.
I tried to remember my breathing techniques. I had practiced ujjayi breath and box breathing throughout pregnancy — inhale, hold, exhale, hold — but labor became too strong for me to consciously control any of it.
Birth was introducing me to parts of myself I hadn’t quite expected:
A part that needed people.
A part that was feral.
A part that was messy, unconfined and uncontrollable. I was introduced to a force that could not be tamed, contained or curated.
