Intuitive Birth Story of Una and Puerh

Written by Una.

Enlightenment Tea, Puerh Tea Ceremony Facilitor, and mama to beautiful Puerh.

Just after birth, golden hour, in their beautiful birth space

Let my intuition play.

After this journey, I’m now convinced that women in pregnancy and at birth have some sort of ineffable power in knowing what we want and what’s best for our children.

I always wanted a home birth. I wanted my baby to land in the place where I feel safe and connected to. I wanted to be open to any emotion during birth with the least interruption. My home birth plan was unfortunately discouraged by the medical team since my child’s extra chromosome was detected when I was 22 weeks pregnant. Despite countless appointments of scans and checkups, there were always “problems” and “risks” (foetus being small, risks of premature babies, placenta not working and small/DS babies don’t like long birth etc.), as if they were finding every excuse to dissuade me from birthing at home. They always suggested to induce my baby earlier for the sake of “better safe than sorry”.

I remember vividly how surprised the antenatal and neonatal consultants were, at 31 weeks, When they heard I still wished to have a home birth. They sound like it was such a wild idea where a vaginal birth was already an extravagant hope for most DS expectant mums. However, I kept strong faith in this as I felt fully connected with my body and my baby, I trusted everything will be okay.

When we came to make the official birth plan, I reassured my husband and asked him to stand by me firmly. Finally, my antenatal doctor was happy with it, and a senior midwifery consultant promised that they will send 2 + 1 (backup) midwives. A few hours later after a call with my midwife, my labour starts, as I foresaw it.

It happened on the 21st of April 2022, the original estimated due date (according to my menstrual cycle, not ultrasound data) and perfectly in my natal moon, when my energy level reaches to the peak in the month.

Una's birth alter - honouring Tara and all of importance to Una her baby, husband and for holding their birth space

When my water broke at midnight, I started to chant Tara mantra- Om tare tu tare ture soha, a practice I had been doing throughout my pregnancy. I knew it was the time, it was doom to be my baby’s birthday. I then took a shower with excitement and woke my husband up. We decided to go back to sleep while we could and save up our energy for later. It wasn’t easy for me to fall asleep as the contraction kicked in. I laid in my bed and meditated, gentle and calming soundtracks and mantra playing. I called the triage and doula Eva early in the morning when I sensed the tightening starts.

Eva, our doula, arrived in 1 hour or so and began to rub the acupuncture points on my back. She also taught me how to breathe with the surges, and it turned out to be really helpful, like dancing with the music. I kept breathing and massaging for a long while, Eva reminded me that I might end up birthing in my bedroom if we didn’t move to my planned birth cabin (where we had to walk through 2 staircases and the garden to reach it) now. It took me quite long to get there as I needed to stop when the surges came. By the time we arrived at the cabin, the midwives showed up. They reckoned it was too late to wait for the birth pool to be filled up, so they pulled out the mattress with my husband for me to lay on and started to set up things. Within the last 30 minutes of my birth, there was like a screen filtering the sounds and movements around me, I was so concentrated on my breath and body rhythm. I felt like riding the waves in the ocean at one point, and walking and groaning like a lioness (my power animal) the next moment. It was ecstatic for me, even though one of the midwives was checking here and there, reporting my baby’s heart rates. In the last 15 minutes, I knew I was at the final stage of the game as I could feel my vagina stretch badly. I continued breathing with the sensation of the surges. I vaguely heard midwives discussing baby's heart beats becoming fast. Eva suggested we all chant tara mantra, and it was settling down! My vagina got more stretchy later on and I could feel what “the ring of fire” meant. It didn’t take long to push out my baby’s head. I understood every minute counts now as I was told babies don’t like hanging there, according to the obstetrical education. I told everyone to be quiet as I needed to focus on this, the final pushes. With only a few pushes, my baby was born, when the morning sun rose up.