Birth is an inherently female, feminine process.

Through the ages woman alone has given birth. It is only in the modern age, with the gaze of science turned upon her that Birth has been taken into the masculine realm of measurement, logic and engineering. It has been reduced to “Stages of Labor, ” “Progress or Lack of Progress”, and “Labor Management.” Reduced to “Home Like” labor rooms and Pain relief. It has been usurped as "Artificial Reproductive Technologies."

Birth is a transformation—what is created within is revealed to the world. The woman moves from physiological inner mothering in pregnancy to outer, more deliberate mothering postpartum. The separation begins that leads on to an independent adult. The stamp of culture is imprinted on this adult, beginning with Pregnancy, but most emphatically with Birth.

It’s time to deliberately recreate the Birth Matrix – reweave the rich fabric of the creative process that is birth into the mantle of womanhood, replacing the thin uniform of the hospital gown.

Through my work as a midwife and mystic the threads of this reweaving have been revealed to me by birthing women, the community of midwives and the inspiration of the Feminine in Her many guises. I wish to share them with you so that we can knit together that which has been unraveled by generations of lost woman-knowledge.

10 & 11 June 1980 - Julien's Birthday

On this bright summer day my baby belly was full and ripe for labor. My due date was about 10 days away but just a couple days ago an unexplained rash appeared all over my skin and the nurse told me, ”Hormones changing will sometimes do that before labor will begin.”

prenatal countdown
precious parasite-
once a fish, you swam & grew on the waters of my ocean.
now you are a creature more akin to astronaut,
weightless in my space,
tethered to me, the Mothership
not yet having walked on Earth or Moon
(what do you dream?)

soon you will be forced
to mold your head
to escape a tight situation
& we both will be forced
to mold our minds
to form a new RelationShip
(what do I dream?)

That evening Gilles came home early from work. He’d been fired again. My heart sank all the way down to my womb as he told me his story. As usual he felt it wasn’t his fault. Sometimes his dark Mediterranean skin and thick French accent triggered a racist response in bosses. But he also had a hot temper, which, when mixed with the hot, tense atmosphere of a restaurant kitchen, could make for a volatile recipe.

He called up friends from his current punk rock band named “F*ck the World”. They came over to drink beer, smoke pot and complain. I quietly sat in the corner, wondering how we would survive. I wasn’t working and was about to have a baby. Now we had no income again. The only savings we had was a modest gift from my parents in case we had to go to the hospital with a problem during the birth.

Finally his buddies left. Gilles had the munchies, so we walked a few blocks to the 7-11 to buy chocolate chips for cookies. As we strolled home, the warm summer night was outlined in rainbows. “Gilles! I think I might be going into labor! In Spiritual Midwifery they said that sometimes the beginning of labor can be like tripping on acid.!”

“No- eet can’t be. Eeet eesn’t your due date yet.” Apparently he hadn’t paid attention to that part of our childbirth classes. I knew that labor wasn’t like an appointment you set up on your due date.

By the time we’d gotten home and put the first batch of cookies in the oven I was feeling menstrual-like cramps. I took a warm bath – that helps menstrual cramps go away often times. Maybe it was false labor and would stop and let me sleep. We went to bed and Gilles passed out quickly but the cramps were obviously coming and going more strongly now.

I quietly tried to relax. Is this it? There’s another one. More baths. I let Gilles sleep until about 4 am and we called our five member midwife team to come over about six. Our friends Jay and Stephanie came too. Jay brought his camera and rolls of film.

Our small 10 x 12 bedroom was lined with faces. The mattress was in the middle of the room and everywhere I looked someone was breathing with me; massaging me; sending me love and support. The Fort Collins midwifery study group, who were also my friends and caregivers, were there to midwife me. At one point everyone chanted “AUM” together. It was very peaceful, though crowded. We were focused.

The baby was positioned posterior, with back to my belly, so I changed positions frequently to help the labor progress. I squatted. I was on my side; on hands and knees; on the toilet. I took more baths. At one point a foreign tabby cat wandered into our apartment, blessed us as it scanned the tableau, and then wandered back out.

Contractions were stretching me open. I surrendered as best I could, like when doing a yoga stretch- by breathing and relaxing to let go. It felt like I was outside of myself, watching.

The contractions had crescendoed in frequency and intensity. My waters broke as the dilation of the cervix approached its fullness. There was small amount of meconium, which can be sign of distress, although the baby’s heart beat was strong and regular. Finally I was completely dilated! Soon I began to feel an urge to push. I was so tired. I slept between contractions. This didn’t work well. Suddenly I’d be jarred awake when it came. Gilles was sitting behind me, supporting me.

The plan had been for Gilles to help catch the baby. But when the time came, it felt like my yoni was miles away from my head and heart. I needed him nearby me, behind me, supporting me. So he stayed there.

Finally, with effort, they told me that the head was showing. When the head came out I remember the unusual sensation of having a head at each end of my body. In the timeless space between contractions I inwardly joked to myself, “Two heads are better than one.” There was a cord around the neck and Bailey, who was catching, looped it over the head. She suctioned his nose in case there was sticky meconium there which could impede his nose or lungs. With that next contraction the babois exploded onto the scene.

It was a boy! As they laid him on my belly, he was a little floppy and bluish. His cord was the longest one ever—it was over a yard long, very thick and vital looking. They suctioned the mucus and any stray meconium from his nose and mouth right away and he breathed easily. It took a few minutes to get over the blueness, but his signs were all good. The cord had transformed by this time into a limp filament which we cut.


Julien, our sweet seed--
you sprouted & grew in my womb.
now you’ve come out,
kaleidescoping colors
ripening by air
blossoming lungs.
we cut you free
from your stem to me,
but you are not far,
a flower on my breast
my heart on my sleeve
fruit of love
& seed of yourself.

Gilles held him while I squatted to deliver the placenta. After that I laid back, feeling very powerful and satisfied. “If I can do that, I can do anything.” I’m a Birth Goddess.

Gilles handed him to me and Julien nursed well right from the start. I remember how everyone cleaned up and left the three of us lying there on that mattress in our little bedroom. What do we do now? I asked myself. Suddenly, a little human being depends on us for everything, all of the time.

--Terra Rafael

A Moment I Can't Forget

What I can’t forget is the feeling that I had the minutes between when my son’s head was born and his body came out. Even after hours of labor I thought—now I know why two heads are better than one. I felt our intertwined bodies wordlessly bridge the gap between our souls. Inside my tiredness, all I could do was laugh.

-by Terra rafael

Patience with the Process - Excerpt from Giving Birth to Ourselves, contemplations for midwives

Babies do not usually pop out at once. Expulsion is a gradual process of descending and retreating which allows all involved to mold and stretch for minimum trauma. We let parents know that this is part of the normal flow of labor, not a problem.

Our selves do the same as we are born and reborn in so many ways. We may show our new found qualities to the world, only for them to disappear again for a while. We may despair of ever making it out all the way - and yet the baby will always be born. We need to remind ourselves that relapses are a normal part of personal growth. Each retreat is a chance to relax, reassess, renew and find our way out with more appreciation for the process.

Contemplations--

• How do I react to relapses into old behavior patterns?
• Can I distinguish between choosing to do something in a new context and doing the same thing out of unconscious habit?
• Do relapses into old behavior patterns bring on fear of being trapped in the past?
• Am I willing to see my growth as a process rather than an all or nothing situation?
• Am I willing to promptly admit when I relapse and work with it?

Activities--

* When a relapse occurs affirmations can be a helpful reminder to break the old behavior pattern. Examples
“I can fulfill my needs by conscious choice rather than by habit."
“I’m willing to change."
"I'm beginning to change."
"Relapses are part of the process."
"Life is a spiral - I'm in the same place & a different place at the same time. Now I can choose."

* Pay attention to your thoughts during a relapse & how they may feed self punishment. Write them down. Say them out loud (in privacy or with someone who will not be brutalized by hearing them). Examine them carefully for their truths and untruths.


--by Terra Rafael
excerpt from Giving Birth to Ourselves, contemplations for midwives, 2009
available from lulu.com

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/giving-birth-to-ourselves-2nd-edition/7233381

A Birth Poem

The quick red fox crossed my path on the way to your birth.
He held his dinner in his mouth -the leg of a deer –
no doubt stolen from the mountain lion's kill.
Your parents hungered for you. They had to stop running
to let you catch up to them.
When you came to grow in your mother, she shared all she ate with you.
She learned to eat & eat & eat.
You birthed slowly at first, slyly finding a way down the trail your mother blazed for you with her strength & courage.
Then - you were suddenly here - long & lean & learning to breathe.
We sang your eyes open.
--by Terra Rafael
You seemed captive by so many of us surrounding you,
so we left you to rest in the arms of your mother & father.
Then you were peaceful.
They welcomed you to your mountain home & their hearts.
And the sunrise blazed red across the sky to bring you newborn light.

Poem - Power of Animal

At night
I open my window to the moonlight,
to hear the coyotes calling
across the divides of suburbia
from their open space.
Then I open more and can hear Birth sounds calling,
familiar echoes that our grandmothers heard too.
That indigenous power
strains against the edges of civilization,
against the measured landscape of a misogynist culture.
Some fear that wild animal
who walks in the dark
to the song of Her own breath and moans-
who freely gives life to Her child, body and soul,
by the strength of Her in-born hormonal nectar,
well-fed uterine muscles, and
untamed woman's instinct.
--by Terra Rafael

Poem - What The Midwife Does

The midwife comes to worship at the birth, be it day or night,
leaving behind the world of her family and her own existence.
Her patient adoration has grown over the months of prenatal teachings, prayers, and caresses
that some call “exams.”
She enters the birth room,
cleansed and hushed by songs she sings on her way there.
She wonders at the power of the Mother as Her moans & movements make way
to reveal the coming soul.
She watches how the Mother is guided,
sometimes even by midwife hands or words that point to make clear Nature’s way.
She lays out her sterile scissors, clamps, & herbs for just in case,
yet her hands rest calmly,
knit baby booties,
or soothe the laboring Woman.
She listens to the rhythms of the process-
the distant bouncing of the Baby’s heart,
the Mother’s labor song of earthy sounds, prayer or curse,
the rhythmic dancing of the womb.
She smells the amniotic fluid and it whets her appetite for that common miracle to come.
When necessary her hands can have halos and her breath is divine.
Usually she needs only kneel down to catch and lift up the newborn to the breast of Life,
and attend to the placenta’s safe delivery while Mother and Child are
falling further in love.
After that climax, she dotes still, like the woman she is, coming & going for weeks,
learning the Baby’s name,
seeing that milk aplenty drips from the Mother,
and that their rhythms have synchronized into the gentle waltz of everyday
nurturance.

The Midwife's Mirror

It’s a hand mirror—clear plastic encircling the double-sided reflecting glass and then joining into a simple handle. The plastic is chipped in a couple of places and scratched on the surface. The mirror itself has aged as well. It is almost 30 years old.

The mirror has shown women their first surprising glimpse of their cervix—so like the head of a penis-- rounded, pinkish and soft with a small hole in the middle. It’s so empowering to actually see the opening lips of the mysterious womb, which plays such a large role in every woman’s life—source of her cycles and her cramps, her fertility and childbearing capacity, sounding board of her orgasms. Women can watch their cervix throughout their cycles see how it rises and falls, opens and closes, has fluids from clear to white to clear to red.

Hundreds of times women have peered down into this mirror to see their baby’s wrinkled, birthing head. First it’s just a bulge in the lips of the vulva. Then the lips open up, closing again between labor contractions, until the crucial distance has been traversed and the crown of the baby’s head begins to show.

Later this mirror has let them survey the aftermath of that birthing, to see how their once virgin vagina is now womanly with birthing blood and small wounds of childbirth. It’s so different from an episiotomy, where the doctor decides ahead of time where the scar will be. Most women stretch and, with controlled birthing of the head, can have only surface cuts that can heal without stitches.

I pick up the mirror now and look at my face. Like the mirror, it has aged these 30 years and witnessed so many women transform in their relationship with their own bodies, growing in understanding and wisdom regarding how to respect their woman ways.

--by Terra Rafael

On Birth - When Does Labor Begin?

The question of when labor begins is not easy to answer, even though it may sound simple. In observing labor as a phenomenon in itself, I see labor as being a non-discrete occurrence that actually begins with conception & gradually leads to the birth of the baby.
What most people call labor is actually just a special part of the process. It would be as if one said that making love consisted of only the moments of orgasm, when the actual process of making love may have begun even months before with a flirtatious glance, and gradually built up on physical, emotional, & spiritual levels over the whole time, culminating in the physical embraces & orgasm itself. What happens before the orgasm is not necessarily not making love & the orgasm is not necessarily the end or the goal or product of the process. If one makes love & no orgasm occurs it does not mean it was not making love.
Likewise, labor is building up throughout pregnancy. In the latter part of pregnancy there are often several flirtatious episodes of what could lead up to the orgasm of birthing, yet often they subside. Those "signs of impending labor" may come & go several times in the weeks before birthing.
So does the labor start when the impending signs start? In this case many of the women I assist have been in labor for weeks. Before I became more spacious in my definition of the beginning of labor I believed & treated these women as though they were in labor - and often ended up pushing their labors by various means including transporting them to the hospital for exhaustion & "lack of progress".
I believe even the classic definition of labor - there is a progressive change in the effacement, dilation of the cervix & the baby moves lower - is not a sign that the woman is ready to give birth soon. Most midwives who do vaginal exams near term notice that some women become quite dilated in the weeks before they have the baby all the way out - up to 4 centimeters. A woman who is having impending signs, having some mild contractions, goes to the doctor or midwife to get checked will be told that she is in labor. Then the labor of labor begins because when everyone believes she is in labor & she believes she is in labor, that is when it actually begins. And if she was actually still in a flirtatious stage rather than the culminating stage she may be pushed & dragged through labor by breaking her amniotic bag, drugs, & mechanical assistance or c-section.
So I see the definition of the beginning of labor as being very important to how we educate women about labor & how we assist women in the process of giving birth. Currently I teach women to ignore contractions as long as possible, warning them that they may start & stop many times in the last weeks of pregnancy & that's just fine - preparation. This works well for them. We also do not treat women as though they are in labor until they are well established in a strong labor pattern, encouraging them to ignore it until they can't and then spending time alone with their mate in a pleasant environment until they both decide it's time for us to come. We educate them about delivering the baby themselves, discussing it a lot to allow them to feel as comfortable as possible being alone for as much of the labor as possible. This allows for the least interference possible with the natural laboring process and fewer transports for lack of progress.

Let's Recreate the Birth Matrix

Birth is an inherently female, feminine process. Through the ages woman alone has given birth. It is only in the modern age, with the gaze of science turned upon her that Birth has been taken into the masculine realm of measurement, logic and engineering. It has been reduced to “Stages of Labor, ” “Progress or Lack of Progress”, and “Labor Management.” Reduced to “Home Like” labor rooms and Pain Relief.

Birth is a transformation—what has been created within is revealed to the world. The woman moves from physiological inner mothering in pregnancy to outer, more deliberate mothering postpartum. The separation begins that leads on to an independent adult. The stamp of culture is imprinted on this adult, beginning with Pregnancy, but most emphatically with Birth.

It’s time to deliberately recreate the Birth Matrix – reweave the rich fabric of the creative process that is birth, into the mantle of womanhood, replacing the thin uniform of the hospital gown.

Through my work as a midwife and mystic the threads of this reweaving have been revealed to me by birthing women, the community of midwives and the inspiration of the Feminine in Her many guises. I wish to share them with you so that we can knit together that which has been unraveled by generations of lost woman-knowledge.

Poetry - Twin Souls

Now it does not matter that our births were a decade apart.
We are twins, born together into each other’s arms.
We have grown from one egg & even when we divide & differentiate into our separate lives
Each of our cells remembers the unity of floating together in the Great Ocean of Motherness.
We cannot help but desire that oneness again in the midst of this disjointed world.
So we meet again-
First our eyes, which have looked upon the wide wide world, return to each other.
Then our laughter & stories meet until they are the moan of our merging.
Our hands clasp & then speak silently while all of our skin becomes ears to hear their poetry.
Our lips & mouths conjoin – form a wet bower for our baring bodies.
The whole of our flesh finds entrance into what we were before each of us was,
as we dive again into each other, & the waters part in waves around us,
And we are floating forever
And all to briefly
Before being forced through the tunnel of love
Back to where we are both separate & seeking.

Giving Birth to Alana

The morning before I gave birth to my second child, I met my 8-month pregnant friend Delta to go shopping at the used clothing store for baby clothes. We sighed and laughed at the tiny baby T shirts. So cute. Would our babies really be this size, like little dollies? It had been 9 years since my son was born and I felt almost like a first time mom again. I couldn’t resist the T shirts and bought way more than needed. As we wrestled our way through the rest of the clothes, guessing what might fit, might be right for our own precious and unique offspring, I began to feel some rumblings of the cervix presaging labor.

We decided to go to the L.A.Diner for a naughty treat of French fries and chocolate milk shakes. We watched the server glide by on her roller skates as we settled into the classic red vinyl booth to discuss the ups and downs of our pregnant bodies and minds.

After the outing, I went home and napped a bit, feeling labor might be coming, yet adhering to my technique of shortening labor by ignoring it as much and as long as possible, rather than getting everyone too excited too soon. After the nap I felt refreshed and went on a walk through south Boulder to circumambulate the closest body of water—Viele Lake-- a pond which in dry Colorado passes for a lake.

Gravity and walking were moving my sweet baby’s head downward onto my cervix, stimulating early labor contractions. They were still easy to move through but when I got home again I checked inside “just in case”. It’s not easy to reach your own cervix especially with a big baby belly, but I did it well enough to know that it was still early labor. Still menstrual cramp contractions.

I decided to take to the water again, this time in the bath tub. The late afternoon sun streamed down on me through the skylight as I refreshed myself after the summer sweaty walk. Julien, then 9 years old, came in to ask me about supper. I told him, ”Your baby brother/sister might be born tonight.” He was the first one I told. After awhile I got out of the tub, dripping bathwater on the warm linoleum, lightly drying myself off and throwing on a cool summer dress. Then I went for another long walk. I wasn’t into eating dinner.

As evening progressed, Julien went to bed and Charlie patiently attended me as I paced around the house. I shed my clothes, feeling so hot. I began to moan with the contractions, crescendoing into loud cries of “MY BONES ARE BREAKING” or “MA-MAAA”. Although my vocalizations sounded like cries of suffering, inside I felt safe and sure. It was as though the sound waves carried away the suffering, leaving me to peacefully coexist in the present moment with each contraction pain and the stretching open of my pelvic bones.

After an hour of these more intense contractions Charlie called the midwives, Willy & Ursula, to help with the birth. A part of me wanted to do it alone and if Charlie hadn’t have been there I probably would have. I felt sufficient unto myself. By the time they got there it was so intense that I agreed to lie down only for the brief minute between contractions for an exam. I was 8 centimeters- heavy into process. I jumped back up as the next contraction began to do my walking meditation and moaning. Willy tied a turquoise and black scarf around my middle as I continued my naked pacing. “This will keep your kidneys warm,” she said. As if I could care less.

About half an hour later I settled in the living room, next to the couch, kneeling and leaning against it in a body prayer of surrender. Charlie massaged my back for awhile before going into the kitchen to get a quick snack. Shortly after that my waters broke open and my body started pushing with my natural urges. Leaning forward like I had been made it feel like my clitoris was being pinched, so I knelt upright instead, with good effect. After just a few pushes Willy caught my baby before he/she fell out onto the floor. As the baby came out I thought I caught a glimpse of a penis between the cute little baby legs. I sat back to hold my newborn—the cord was so short I could barely bring the baby to my chest. We didn’t yet look to see if it was a boy or girl yet. Julien was going to do the honors but couldn’t be awakened from his deep sleep to be at the birth. That was my only disappointment. So Charlie checked in the receiving blanket to see the sex and he said “She’s a girl!” I knew this was his first time checking for this so I encouraged him to look again—“Are you sure? I thought I saw a penis.” “I’m sure,” he said, pointing towards her obviously feminine anatomy. I had wanted a girl so badly that I’d told myself that I didn’t care so I wouldn’t be disappointed. It must have been the umbilical cord that I saw between her legs.

When I looked around the living room I noticed the small crowd there—all people I’d invited to be at the birth- Willy’s husband Larry, their girls Sela & Robin, Delta, and our housemate, Linda. Charlie’s brother Thomas arrived shortly after the birth. It was a festive & friendly feeling having these friends around us. We were so happy to have our beautiful bald baby girl in our arms.