Sascha Angus -- A birthing journey to the deep

The birth of Sascha Angus – Journey to the deep

When I think of the passage of this pregnancy, I have an image of falling leaves. This was an autumnal adventure, so different from the bursting bright Summer of Dante’s pregnancy. From the earliest stages I felt that I had to shed my leaves, and not just my leaves but whole branches; not just the branches, I had to peel away at the bark and find what lay underneath. This pregnancy was a little like what my midwife described other pregnancies to be, ‘the work of worry’, but more than worry, I felt I had to let go of everything that I had held inside, all the dark things and the ancient hurts. In fact, I was like the autumn tree that could not hold onto its leaves; the very nature of things compelled me to go on a journey of release, as heavy and hard as it was.

Early on there were niggles and memories from childhood. They rose in the nauseous vapours that billowed up in those first twelve weeks. By the time I could detect the movements of this new little bean, I started seeing a wonderful somatic therapist. I talked my way through the worry and the rising hurts that were so old I’d never named them. While I felt many times like I was unravelling, the energy of the child growing within never wavered. It was soft, so soft, but the life of this child fairly hummed.

This time I had no languorous moments, none of the dreamy stretch of a first pregnancy, where you can lie down and caress that growing bump, dreaming of the child within you, having whispered one-sided conversations and soaking up the last moments of life as a duo. This time, I experienced pregnancy to the dizzy loud soundtrack of a blindingly bright and active toddler. The lethargy of the first trimester stretched out into the second and didn’t abate until I was well inside the third. At times I dragged myself around and very early on I felt a pang of anxiety about how I would handle life with two under two. At the same time I knew to savour these moments with my firstborn, knowing that very soon they’d be only precious memories.

Sometime around 22 weeks or so, I felt a tightness in the chest. It seemed to be a symptom that was purely physical. Aside from slightly low blood pressure, there was no other indication of ill-health. On further introspection I realised that this was a symptom of a building wave of anxiety. I’d never experienced this before, and any time I had been anxious in the past, I could simply breathe it away, change what needed changing, make amends and release myself. Not here, not now. It gripped me, for no apparent reason. A friend suggested I sit with it, a sentiment echoed by my wise and wonderful midwife. The thought was too terrifying, it was impossible to be with this feeling under a microscope. Dante was my barometer; he also became unsettled, slightly wild, a careening force. My naturopath made us a special essence, made it with a love that was palpable on the tongue, and this helped us both through this time. Examining this feeling in my therapy sessions I became aware of the weight of worry I had about how my firstborn would handle the immense change a sibling heralds. The thought of him feeling even remotely abandoned sent me in floods of tears. The heart of the hurt became apparent and I had to work so hard (and am still working ) at separating my story from that of my childs. My mantra, then and now is ‘his journey is not mine to own. My journey is not his to own’
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My darling midwife, Fiona, assisted me in traversing these huge feelings with a quiet grace. She came close enough to hold my space, but never fed the drama, nor did she engage too much with my ‘birth gremlins’. Every woman has them, the fears that rise in a pregnancy about specific outcomes. Her mind settles on them and it is very hard to swat them away. For most of this pregnancy I feared a breech baby; it was the one thing I thought was prevent me having my home birth this time. As the weeks went on, another gremlin joined the wagon. I began to think over Dante’s birth and wondered if I could actually go into labour naturally, if this pregnancy would go beyond 43 weeks, what would happen (insert dizzying flight of anxious ideas here)...

Still the little bean inside grew quietly, steadily, without any interference. We had no scans, no tests, I didn’t wee on a stick or have my blood taken periodically. We rarely used the Doppler, as the babe’s kicks were strong and reassuring, and its tendency to lie transverse and kick my right side was agonising and amusing by turns. I ate well and ran after my boy. The leaves slowly turned, then stopped as an Indian summer kept the warmth dragging its heels into March.

Around this time I began to feel more grounded and centered. I felt safer in this pregnancy and in my own headspace. As soon as this happen a series of external events happened that were to completely shake me from the steady path I’d forged. A woman in my community had a babe who was born not breathing and was rushed to the hospital. Anxious days passed as we all waited to hear. Her babe survived but there were many challenges and much sadness. A couple of weeks later I lit a special candle for another woman, a mentor of sorts. For two days the candle burned until the news arrived that her wee one had been stillborn. I held my own warm kicking belly and my darling husband and we both wept and wept. As I climbed into bed, the birth candle extinguished and another lit in memory I got a message on my phone. My darling friend had just birthed her baby boy into my birth pool around the corner. The intermingling of joy and grief is a most disconcerting set of emotions. I lay down and collapsed into sleep.

In the next few weeks I really struggled to find a sense of equanimity. At times I felt so strong and vibrant. I felt so full of the life within me and glowed. Other moments there was so much darkness. This was compounded by another woman in my community losing her babe at full-term. I had followed every day of her pregnancy, we’d shared so many tiny moments and intense events...although she lived on the other side of the country I felt as if we’d been on either side of a backyard fence. The loss of her little girl seriously threw me into a pond of sadness and I hadn’t nearly climbed out when I learnt of yet another acquaintance who had lost her babe also at full-term.

I spent long hours examining the pain of these events and the inevitable questions that rose up. Could I really trust birth like I extolled others to do? I was making a film about joyous unhindered birth, but was birth really like this? Why did these babies leave too soon? What became apparent was the beautiful mystery of pregnancy and birth, a mystery that has led us to try and control the largely uncontrollable. All the medicalisation and the machines and the tests, what they do is give people a sense of security that is largely false, because at the end of the day birth and death are inextricably linked, a hair’s breadth apart, but that separation is so complete. At the same time I realised that birth is as safe as life gets and that this event is extreme in its perfection and fragility.

My blessingway day was a microcosm of my pregnancy and an extraordinary experience for me, of feeling loved unconditionally and completely by a circle of women. The day started with some intense emotions and I was crying in the bathroom when the first guests arrived. Soon the room filled with women and everyone was completely accepting of my frenetic emotional demeanour. Soon they sent me outside to prepare the ceremonial part, and I sat in the backyard among the beautiful green and warm sun, feeling like I was made of eggshells. My darling friend Rowena came out and spoke to me. She told me she saw my sadness and that it was completely fine to be in that space if I needed to be. The tears flowed and when I entered my birthing space (the living room) the women were all gazing at me, singing ‘Bless this forehead, bless these feet, bless these arms with which we greet you.’ They sang it over and over as I sat with my feet in a bowl of warm water and oils, each woman coming forward to bless and kiss me and whisper wisdom to me. I cried and cried with bliss and with grief, that disconcerting sensation now more familiar to me, having sat with it in the weeks past.
Then the women read out their blessings and threaded beads on my birthing necklace. One wise woman had whispered to me that she had seen my birth and to connect with my husband, and that the midwives would sit back and I would birth with Ryan by my side. That was very timely, the reminder of our divine connection. Rowena also spoke to the group and said that she honoured my sadness and that space I was in. It was like a burden had been removed to hear it said that I was allowed to be in this space. My darling friend Jenny provided a counterpoint, reading a piece about the importance of revelling in beautiful happy memories. That night, my darling wife went home from the blessingway, and filled with the energy of all that birthing power (and compelled by the need to beat the hospital’s clocks and limits) went into labour and birthed her son Atlas the very next morning.

Something that came from the blessingway, which many women had said to me, was that I needed to go within, and to focus on myself at this point. This baby. This birth. This journey. That spoke very strongly to me. I dropped everything. I stayed close to home. I focused on my darling firstborn and I spent more time connecting to the child within. It was exactly what was required. Again I found firm ground, and space, and balance. These were the last weeks as a trio, to be savoured, and the last weeks of pregnancy, which is such a blessed state of intensity.

As I passed the 40 week mark and ploughed onto 41 weeks, I found that the residual anxiety I had about going really late subsided. Fiona and I both felt great about how I was travelling, and although the thought of going to 44 weeks did occasionally rise up, I did a lot of work at this point on trusting (and asking for reassurance) that I would go into labour myself. On Saturday night at 42 + 1 I had a darling friend over to visit…She's growing twin babies and we sat and talked about the journey of pregnancy and also about music and performance and all manner of beautiful things. I started feeling tightenings, like I'd been having, but different too. I didn't pay much attention, but later in the evening I noticed they were feeling regular. I started looking at the clock and saw they were bang on every 5 mins, but not painful at all. We just plodded along and had gorgeous snuggles in bed, feeling a little excited. I remember looking at my two sleeping boys, feeding and cuddling Dante and having a feeling that I should remember this time, as it was about to change and we'd never be here again.

I tried to sleep but the tightenings were starting to bite. I just rested and rested, and every so often Ry would ask me how it was going; he couldn't sleep either! At 4.30am I got up and jumped online for a while, then tried to sleep again. Just before 6 I realised today was the day. I said to Ry 'I'm going to have a baby today' and he fairly leapt out of bed and started getting the living room ready, pumping up the pool and laying tarps.

I took a shower and the contractions died off, so before the sun rose we three were out the door for a morning wallk. The air was strangely balmy and gorgeous and we wandered the streets, the contractions very mild and 8 mins or so apart. When we got home we both felt tired, so we arranged for our friends to come and get Dante and go for an adventure while we tried to sleep. I think I managed an hour and more cuddles before Dante's support person Pieta arrived to lend a hand. We all went for another walk around 12pm and as soon as we got going the contractions ramped up and were coming every 3-5 mins. We left D and P at the park and walked on, I had to stop during contractions and found it hard to talk. Soon I felt it was time to get home and was glad to see my front door!

When D got home I put him down for a nap, it was challenging lying down during the contractions, but I managed it. Ry and Pieta were filling the pool and soon I was starting to vocalise a bit and realising it was actually happening! Managed to facebook and ask for candles to be lit, then I turned on my birth music and got into the vibe. At around 1.30 my midwives Fi and Mandy and our fimmaker arrived. I barely noticed as I was singing my birth song and rocking and swaying with each contraction. D woke soon after and was incredibly distressed, I could hear him crying crying for me and it was hard to focus. I called for them to bring him in, and this was an important point in the labour, a reflection of my focus and fears during the pregnancy. I needed to go within, but I was compelled to go to my baby boy and soothe him. I fed him through a few contractions and was carrying him around the room trying to soothe him, all very intense! Finally I suggested he go and find his little friend next door and he instantly calmed and ran down to the front door! Phew, it felt like a big relief.

After that I was in good solid labour, but it seemed to Fi and Ryan that I was in my head too much, comparing to the last birth. They encouraged me to get in the pool but I wanted to wait till I was really desperate…in the end I agreed to give it a go and it was beautiful bliss to climb in. However, I was still too much in my head, I felt the contractions were quite far apart and that I'd be here forever, I didn't want to be, so I kept moving into a deep squat to bring them on. Fi came and whispered to me 'Your body is showing you kindness and giving you what you need. Accept the wisdom and grace of your body.' I couldn't even see that I was trying to control things by making them more intense!

Just after 2pm, Fi decided to give me a homeopathic, Ignatia, and as soon as I had it, everything shifted to a level of incredible intensity. The pain was suddenly under a magnifying glass, it was everything and everywhere. I told the filmmaker to turn the camera off. The pain was a single point of focus and I had to stay a little in my head to process how to cope. I felt like screaming, but I imagined it and felt it would be worse, worse than staying silent, that if I screamed I might die. I noticed the escape fantasies starting, the bargaining…I imagined running through the back fence, straight through it and just dying. I couldn't make a sound at the height of these contractions, I only focused on not tensing my cervix or bottom at all, just praying that would speed me through.

Ryan said that at this time I looked like I was a young girl, he saw me as a child of seven or so. He asked later if I was working through things then, I couldn't say where or what I was doing at this time…merely getting through somehow. I whispered once that I wanted to die….Fi just held my hand. Through each contraction I would merely hear her slowly exhaling, to remind me to do the same…Ry would join in and I would feel my breath slowly escaping, carrying gently the silent shriek, turning it into air. Fi whispered such beautiful things. At one point she said 'Can you feel the love from all the women who are holding the space for you all over the country?' What a comfort…Another time when I was silently struggling she told me that I was being so generous to my babe, to keep calm and keep working with this the way I was.

This went on for what felt like an eternity, but was about 2 hours or so. At some point there was some movement, I think Pieta called Ryan to ask what to do with D. Fiona in her wisdom told him that he could not come back here until the placenta was birthed; it wasn't safe for me or the babe. The other midwife Mandy stepped in to support me. I could barely speak to tell her that my back was starting to radiate pain as well. I managed to whisper and ask her to press on my back with the contraction. She was smooth and steady and she held my space beautifully.

I remember wishing so much that my waters would break, that something would change, anything, anything but this intense pain…I wished it again and then bang! My waters broke with extreme force. The water of the pool didn't change colour one bit, so Fiona, seeing the reaction in my body had to confirm with me that that's what had happened. As soon as this happened the feeling changed immensely, but I can't say I liked it any better at all…As soon as my waters broke the babe came shooting down my birth canal, without any effort. So my pelvis and all my bones shifted in an instant and the sensation was overwhelming. At the same time my body came into its own power and process and these enormous pushing ejection sensations overtook me. I think I was rather scared, Mandy must have seen it because she grasped my hands and said 'It's alright, you're alright, you're great. Go with it, don't be afraid.' I gripped her hands as each of these contractions happened. At some point around this time she also had the good presence of mind to go tell the filmmaker to come and turn the camera back on!

At this point Ryan thought we had a good hour or so to go, and I think I thought the same. I immediately felt a burning sensation and told Fiona…I don't know what I thought it was, but she knew that the babe was basically here already. She asked Ryan if he was ready to catch his baby and Ryan couldn't believe it! She put her hand down to feel but I think I yelped or growled it away, and I put my own hands down to support myself. I could feel the babe's head right there, wrinkled up and soft. She said to me 'You birth your baby Kimba, no green gloves this time, you'll know what to do.' Another enormous pushing contraction came and I was almost completely overwhelmed with it, but Fi thankfully told me to go easy, so I battled to breathe breathe breathe and then the babe was crowning, and the head was out so soon. I remember feeling the head and thinking it was so much smaller than Dante's (actually it was as big!). A short rest and I was stroking the face, feeling that the babe was between worlds. Then at the next contraction I was so surprised to feel how much work the babe was doing, madly wriggling its little shoulders which popped out and whoosh, babe came out and through to the front of my body, where I scooped baby up and into my arms.

As soon as I held this little one I think I knew it was a boy. I heard Ry's happy tears and I don't think I said very much. I think I just said 'It's ok, Mama's here, mama's here' as my babe let us know it had arrived. At some time someone asked if I wanted to find out the sex and I peeked and saw it was a boy. We cuddled in the pool and Ry joined us in and we cuddled.

The afterpains were strong immediately but I couldn't really push. Fi was sure the placenta was sitting just inside me, so I ended up getting out of the pool and onto the couch, putting babe to the breast (he latched on straight away with ease) and Fi had a little look and the placenta was right there, so I had a good push and out it came. It was beautiful how the midwives marvelled over the placenta and showed us all the wonderful features of it. It turns out that Sascha was a lucky boy, because he had a rare occurance called Velamentous Insertion, where the umbilical cord doesn't insert into the placental mass, but traverses the placental membrane before joining the placenta. In his case it was totally fine, but if the membranes had happened to rupture at that point, then he may have had a severe hemorrhage and that might have been the end of the story. The midwives didn't make a big deal of it, but they did exchange glances like 'phew! Glad those membranes ruptured elsewhere!'

An hour or so after the birth I gave Sascha to Daddybear and had a shower, then sat down to some soup with my midwives. They then tucked me up into bed and then Dante arrived home and had a tandem feeding session as a way of introducing the boys…

A beautifully normal homebirth, surrounded by loving arms and my space held by the many dear friends I've been blessed with.