The Gift of Presence - a Labor Love Story

I don’t know about you, but I hate labor stories. They’re so dramatic, and bloody, and traumatic, and bloody… But this isn’t that - I promise.

My daughter is 11, so I haven’t thought about my own labor story in a bit, but for some reason I felt compelled to write about it today. Maybe it’s the promise of a new year and all of its possibilities, maybe it’s because a friend is taking her own labor journey soon, who knows? Anyway, this is for all of you future labor journeyers or labor-adjacent journeyers out there.

Let me say right off that I don’t believe there is a right or a wrong here. However laborers want to labor and babies want to be born is okay by me.  There’s so much we don’t have control over. 

I didn’t have a labor plan. My only plan was to be present. I tend to be an over-thinker and get stuck in my own thoughts, so the first gift my daughter gave me was coming 3 weeks early. My water broke around 2 in the morning when I got up to go to the bathroom and I remember saying “Huh..?” I had a doula who suggested I could either go to the hospital to check it out, or rest, shower, and go to my doctor’s office when they opened. Waiting was the right thing for me. It felt good to not think about having a baby as an automatic medical emergency.

When my husband and I left for the doctor’s office the next morning, there was a builder working on our house. We were getting a porch put on the front. I remember saying, “Well, we may or may not be having a baby.” I hadn’t packed the ready bag that you hear so much about. My husband only had on a tee shirt under his coat. He probably would’ve brought a sweatshirt if he’d known this was the real deal. (Helpful hint to labor-supporters - delivery rooms are cold.)

My doc confirmed it was amniotic fluid and sent us straight to the hospital. I was kind of in denial, so I called my doula. She suggested I could go to the hospital, or I could get something to eat, because chances were (at that time, anyway) I wouldn’t be allowed food once I got there. So, we went to the grocery store and picked up a few things, stopped by my husband’s work to tell them he wouldn’t be in and then headed over to the hospital.

When we got to the hospital, the doc on call wanted to induce me right away. But, I wasn’t ready. I still couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that this was happening now. So my husband and I spent the day walking the corridors of the hospital wing, seeing what my body wanted to do on its own. Staying in tune with each other and what was happening.

It took until 6 that evening for my brain to catch up with my body. I was going to have a baby today. We gave the go ahead for the pitocin. 

I had a mantra from my Alexander Technique training that I said over and over

I wish my neck to be free

So that my whole back can lengthen and widen

So that my knees can free forward and away

And my heels can free down and back.

Now-a-days, I teach a slightly different version. It goes something like this

I allow my neck to be free

So that my head may release up

So that my whole back can lengthen and widen

So that my knees may free forward and away

And my heels can free down and behind me.

It’s interesting to me that, even though “head may release up” has always been a part of my Alexander Technique training, it didn’t occur to me to include it while I was laboring. Maybe my nervous system knew that my head had a tendency to be bossy and not listen to my body, so it just bypassed that direction. I don’t know, but I’m glad it did. It worked for me. 

I kept repeating my mantra, neck free, back lengthening and widening, knees forward and away, heels down and back throughout my labor. My husband was by my side grounding me to the earth, but my body was on its own plane of existence.  11 years on, I’m tempted to write, “it was blissful,” but I know that would be romanticising things. What it was, I’m sure, was an intense state of presence. 

Because of the pitocin, labor amped up quickly. It was quick and strong, with no rest time in between. I wasn’t able to stay on top of the “waves,” and I began to get scared. I asked my husband to “not let me go anywhere.” I’m sure the nurse thought I was crazy - where was I going to go? My husband understood and got down on the floor to ground my feet into the earth. I needed to make sure that I was staying in the moment and not let my mind slip into imaginary disaster mode.

When things became too intense to stay grounded, I asked for an epidural. It wasn’t my plan. It was simply the tool I needed to stay present in the labor process. Sometimes, I think I could have done without it if I didn’t have the speeded-up version of labor that inducing gives you. And I recognize the sneaky bias that comes in with thinking that laboring without medication would have been better - that it would have meant I was a stronger, more moral person somehow. But, it doesn’t matter. That was not my path. And my labor was right for me.

I got some rest, I said my mantra, I remained grounded and present, I labored, and out came baby. She was perfect. 

I credit my mantra and my Alexander Technique training with being able to birth without surgery. I don’t know. I’ve heard from a nurse-friend that there is a connection between releasing tension in your head/neck and being able to open the cervix. Like I said, I don’t know but it makes sense to me.

What I do know is that I am grateful to have lived this. Not just because of the amazing person that was born into this world, but also because it was the most profound sense of presence I’ve ever experienced.

Wishing you the gift of presence on your own, perfect labor journey.