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Jinjee's Raw Vegan Garden Diet Blog
blogdate 5/18/07 - Yarrow's Birth Story
Oops!... we did it again
Jinjee with 10-day old Yarrow
I had been having mild contractions – or shall I call them expansions – for a couple of days. It was the full moon, eight days before my due date. Storm and I decided to use the old semen on the cervix trick to induce labor. Sure enough that night my expansions became regular, every ten minutes or so. Put the kids to bed, set up the shower curtain on a blanket on the floor beside the bed, Storm came in and lay down, and I did my dance. The expansions started to come every few minutes. They were quite pleasurable, gaining in intensity, and I kept visualizing an easy quick birth. I found that moaning ecstatically during the expansions really helped make them feel great! I was really interested in the feelings I was experiencing as the cervix opened and the baby transitioned down into the birth canal. Julie started filming. The next two contractions were intense but blissful.
Then my water broke and the baby came down into the canal fast. And the expansions were painful. It felt as though the baby’s head was pushing on my rear instead of my perineum. I was grunting and groaning, bearing down. Storm kissed me and that made it feel good for a moment. Julie held me from behind. I went from that position to all fours, to squatting, and then she came out, - Storm and I guiding her out together. Storm’s face was disbelief as he announced it was a girl. The boys in the family had all bet on it being a boy. The girls won! But the cord was wrapped around the baby’s neck twice. About a week later Storm had an insight that the spiraling-hips dance that I was doing during expansions this time caused the cord to wrap around the baby’s neck during labor. Anyway, Storm calmly unwrapped it. My placenta came out a few minutes later, much quicker than usual. It was 3:30 AM. I had been in labor since about midnight, and the hard labor, or second stage labor, was only about 10 or 20 minutes. I was so grateful she looked so perfect! Storm cut the cord and put goldenseal on the stub of the umbilicus.
Why was my labor harder than the last one?
I think Storm went back to his checking my dilations etc... which was probably good due to the complication of the cord. But the interference, and not having him as present sexually, made me more tense.
I learned so much this time in my reading about how being in a totally sexual dance with your husband during childbirth makes it a totally ecstatic experience, and I didn’t share these new findings with Storm clearly enough for him to get it. For instance they found that being in the total dark and caressing together made childbirth easier. And that there is a direct connection between the lips and the vagina. So kissing totally relaxes the vagina, acting as a painkiller during the birthing.
Maybe her size. 8 lbs. instead of 7 lbs. as the others had been. Why was she so big when I wasn’t eating as much overall? Maybe eating less helped her absorb more/better.
I’m trying to decide whether to release my birthing footage or not. Being naked and expressing myself sensuously/sexually during childbirth feels a bit too exposed. Maybe I could edit it though, to a point where I could be comfortable with it. But then it would be a production – not really showing the real deal.
I'm amazed that at 40 years old, my body is still recovering quickly from pregnancy and labor, returning to its normal shape in about a week. I'm up and about cleaning the house and doing errands within a few days. I know I have the raw vegan diet and daily exercise during pregnancy to thank. I'll be editing my pregnancy workout video downloads soon - one is aerobics and one is yoga - and I'll be putting them up on The Natural Paradigms Channel. This time was even easier than ever as I had absolutely no tearing, stinging, or pain after the birth. And very little bleeding. Just the uterus contracting back up, a pain which I was very grateful for. It felt very final, like this is the last one. I thanked my womb for doing an amazing job five times over!
Oh, and not doing an enema was probably not such a great idea. There was not as much room in my nether regions.
Oh, and having the camera there/on with the bright light might have had an impact.
Also, inducing it as we did, through natural sexual methods, maybe we rushed it. Maybe the baby wasn’t totally ready in the right position to comfortably come out. Although we induced Adagio, (see my previous birth stories in my eBook Raw Pregnancy) he was a couple of weeks past his due date, whereas this one was a week early.
Maybe every birth/baby is just different.
Maybe I needed the lessons of this birthing. For instance, let’s see, what could I have learned. How to handle pain. Knowing that the pain is for a good purpose and isn’t a warning of trouble, there is no fear. And without fear, even intense pain is not that hard to handle. I think the worst thing about pain is often the fear that it brings about. If your body is in pain but your spirit is unafraid, you can get through the pain with a good attitude. That could be a good thing to know to be able to transition through death more easily, when it is time to go through that final portal. Also, being in pain helps you to give your control up to God. Which may be necessary for the birth and death transitions.
Also, deciding not to have more babies after this. Was this an affront to Mother Nature? Was it my subconscious admission of fear of the birthing process? Perhaps, or perhaps that decision stemmed from wanting to have all my attention free for the kids I do have already.
I thought that Adagio’s labor had been completely pain-free but reading back in my pregnancy eBook I was surprised to read about the pain I felt during hard labor. So maybe this labor wasn’t any harder. It was the magic of forgetting! Yes, I know, that’s the only way women would ever decide to have more children. I joked with Julie after this birth about the miracle of childbirth! The miracle is that anyone survives it!
Storm got this baby through, saying and doing all the right things at the right time. I am so grateful to him, to Julie, to my guardian angels, to God, to the raw vegan diet, and to Rhianna who was staying with us and helped us so much during this month – a blessing from the Universe.
The photos below were taken during a hike last week in Ojai California, at 8 months pregnant. I am 40 years old and pregnant with my fifth child. We birthed all of our children unnassisted at home. This is my 3rd raw-vegan pregnancy.
Ok, where am I at with this raw life thing. I have this beautiful body at 8 months pregnant, at 40 years old, pregnant with my 5th child! A beautiful belly, strong muscles, lean, I can still run – I don’t, except when I need to catch a wayward child or run for a phone call, that kind of thing. I am hiking and swimming and doing yoga and my own version of third trimester pregnancy aerobics which I’m working on putting on DVD.
I am wearing belly shirts, showing my big round belly off everywhere I go, and I get so many compliments on it. It is a bit shocking I know. Women don’t often walk around with bare pregnant midriffs! This is the first pregnancy I’ve done it. But I see people light up when they see it. It is a celebration of life. It think it makes both men and women want to go and have babies. People ask if they can touch it. I’m seeing a lot of smiling faces everywhere I go. Women tell me I’m beautiful. Young men react to me in ways that shock themselves, feeling emotions they have never felt before! - such as wanting to have a baby! It is a strange type of attraction. I’m attractive and yet of course I’m already fertilized, and so the attraction is very innocent.
Another wonderful thing that has kicked in this month is the hormone called “Relaxin” that causes the muscles to relax in order to ease the delivery of the baby. It also makes one very relaxed! And so I’m basically in a state of bliss most of the time. If I believed in pharmaceuticals I would bottle this hormone and patent it and I’d have the cure for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or stress in general, as well as depression. Too bad I don’t believe in pharmaceuticals. I could just prescribe ongoing pregnancy as a natural alternative! Actually, what I’m really going to do is try to memorize this feeling and see if I can learn to recreate it. Wish me luck!!!
Another thing I’m feeling is tremendous love whenever I touch my belly. I’ve never felt this in my four previous pregnancies. I always loved the babies as soon as I saw them, but this type of connection with my baby before birth is new for me. I wonder if it is because this unborn baby gets so much admiration and attention already via my bare belly?!
We are thinking of filming the birth. If my labor is as blissful as the last one with Adagio I may include some of the footage on my pregnancy DVD. I was 100% raw with Adagio after the first trimester, but with this one I’ve cheated more often, so we’ll see. I've let go of worrying about it. I totally trust my body when raw. This month I’m going to do green juice every day and I’m working out a lot. I am feeling positive and visualizing another blissful, ecstatic, pain free birth.
I think the keys to painless birthing are to relax, stay out of your head, think of the contractions as pleasurable and ecstatic rather than painful, let your husband’s hands be your painkillers, visualize yourself opening up like a flower, focus on a candle flame, focus on the breath, go with the body’s waves, dance to remain comfortable during contractions, remember that compared to being nailed to a cross this is not pain but only mild discomfort, and no matter what happens stay in that ecstatic open state, do not tense up with fear. Be grateful and appreciative and joyous for the tremendous power coursing through your body during labor. These contractions are enormous orgasms. Enjoy it totally! Love it! You are co-creating with the Universe, bringing a new being into the world!
I will have to re-read my “Raw Pregnancy, Ecstatic Birth” eBook. I received an email from a woman who just had a baby. Her husband read to her from my eBook between contractions for inspiration and it helped her through her labor! That was about the most gratifying thing to hear since the British couple who birthed their baby with our music playing in the background.
I dream of opening a birthing center to educate young couples on natural pleasurable husband-wife childbirth and raw-vegan fitness during pregnancy. I’d also love to do some more work to help spread the word about ending circumcision. I will be putting as much of this on my pregnancy video as I can. We should have it ready by end of summer.
With love and gratitude for all the support and great energy from this group!
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