I’ve dreamt of a home birth since before having children was even a reality for me. Because of who I am and what ideals I hold dear, home birth is the most appealing option. Other women divine their own preferences and home birth could never properly fit in their world. I’m glad that, at least, we all have a choice.
After the birth of my first child, Maeli, I wanted so badly to write a birth story, but it was too painful. The story I had to tell was not one that I wanted anyone to read, let alone remind myself that it happened to me.
Five years later, I faced my second pregnancy and provided a way to have my dream home birth. Against some nay saying, which wasn’t as bad as I had initially envisioned, I finally saw a way to heal from my first birth, an emergency cesarean section hospital birth.
I did a lot of prep work for this home birth. Aside from the obvious gathering of supplies and setting the stage, I poured through books to find ways to emotionally deal with a home birth while recovering from the ordeal of my first delivery. Through the past five years, I had sought out a few natural healers to help me work through some of my feelings but I knew that I had unresolved issues. It’s hard to know how to heal from something that so profoundly affects you, that breaks you. I trusted that having a home birth was my last step to becoming whole again and completing my healing process so I could finally move on.
On the eve of the fourth worst storm in Pittsburgh history, my water broke. I suppose when you’re rocking out to “You Shook Me” by Led Zeppelin, something is bound to move and shake. Contractions and pain picked up pretty quickly. My midwife, Ellen, arrived when there were a few inches of snow on the ground and no plows in sight. My attendants had also arrived, including my husband, mother, sister and massage therapist. Finally, around the house and behind the scenes were my father, Aaron’s mother, and of course, our daughter, Maeli. Everyone gathered early due to the impending snow storm.
I labored with painful contractions for an hour when my midwife first checked my progress – only two centimeters. Not to worry. I labored with increasingly heavy contractions for another five hours. I threw up three times, my body’s reaction to the intense pain. Eventually, I was ready to be checked for progress. I was stunned. All Ellen could do was hold up two fingers. No progress. I took a shower and Ellen figured that I was having “false labor” which can sometimes precede “active labor”. A woman isn’t considered to be actively laboring until she reaches four centimeters in dilation. My contractions had been strong and sharp and localized for over six hours. I just couldn’t understand why my body wouldn’t let me progress.
Ellen and I sat down to have a heart to heart. She explained that real labor contractions weren’t like what I was experiencing. My contractions were piercing and localized. Real labor contractions are intense and enveloping, not sharp and pointed in one area. She asked me several times where exactly the pain was coming from. All I knew is that they were low in my abdomen, shooting through my pelvis.
Ellen finally asked, “Is the pain on your scar?”
Bingo. They were exactly on my scar from my cesarean section.
“Adhesions,” said Ellen.
I remembered earlier in my pregnancy dealing with these same adhesions. It was sharp and painful to feel the scar tissue break away then and now that contractions were encompassing the area, the remaining adhesions inflicted agony.
Ellen asked me to recount my entire experience in the hospital that caused the cesarean section. Over ten minutes I recalled each detail from start to finish, relaying all of my emotions. I told her about all my attempts to move on and heal from the trauma.
She asked, “But have you forgiven anyone?”
Tear filled my eyes, and I shook my head no.
My body was not going to let me open properly to deliver a child until I broke loose the adhesions – the scars above my uterus and those in my heart as well. With the next contraction, Ellen instructed me to say the words needed to get past this:
“I forgive you”
“Release”
“Let it go”
“I’m sorry I’m so angry.”
“I’m not angry anymore.”
“I forgive myself.”
“Release.”
“Relax.”
“Release.”
Ellen left me alone with Aaron for a half hour. We worked through each contraction with more words, more intention to let go of my anger, pain, and past trauma. I was learning the biggest lesson on forgiveness that I had ever experienced.
When Ellen returned, she checked me: THREE CENTIMETERS!! And deep red blood flowed out. The scar tissue had broken away and I was one step closer to freeing myself from the past, letting go, and becoming whole again.
Ellen instructed, “Now we have to get to ten.”
Wow. I had been having painful, piercing contractions for eight solid hours. I didn’t know how I was going to make it through active labor and transition.
What I didn’t know at the time was that we were snowed in. The likelihood of getting to a hospital or an ambulance coming to our house was next to impossible. By this point, there was a foot and a half of snow on the ground and still no plows on the road.
I was exhausted. My body was shaking. But there was hope. I buckled down.
With each new contraction I made it last as long as I could. I challenged myself to let them flow through me.
I used an image that my sister reminded me of that morning. When I used to live in Washington State, I was an avid tree climber. The most difficult climbs were often Douglas Firs, simply because their branches were so precarious. What looks like a healthy branch can easily break on a Douglas Fir. Some of the trees I sought out were hundreds of feet tall. If carefully approached, I could reach to the apex and hold on with two legs and one arm. The other arm I would reach up to the sky, letting the wind flow through me. Looking above the other tree tops, out into the Cascade range, or towards Mount Rainier, I would root myself in the strength of the tree.
My sister reminded me of this image, and I used it to gain strength during active labor and transition.
Before 2 o’clock I was ten centimeters and ready to push. It took me only two hours and 15 minutes to progress from three to ten centimeters.
I then pushed for 45 minutes. Once my baby had splashed out into our world, all I could breathe was, “I did it, I did it, I did it.”
I looked at Ellen and said, “We did it!”
Joseph Aaron Farr was born on February 6th at 2:34 in the morning. He weighed seven and a half pounds and measured 20 and a half inches long. Two feet of freshly fallen snow accompanied him. His name descends from many great men in my life including my grandfather, Joseph Vincent Shutak; my father, Damon Joseph Shutak; my uncle, Joseph Francis Shutak; my brother, Joseph Vincent Shutak; and my husband, Jeffrey Aaron Farr.
I have a most vivid memory of holding my little Joey for the first time, something that I cannot remember during my c-section delivery with Maeli, however hard I try. I can still recall the tears in Aaron’s eyes as I was pushing our son out. There was no need for me to cry this time. It was my glory, and my heart was crusading through new territory. I am a new woman. More whole. Stronger. It was the most wonderful birth.
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