The Birth of Moses

On Tuesday morning I decided to go to Centering Prayer at the St. Jane House. I hadn’t been since before I was pregnant, and something about entering into a space where I could experience God’s presence within me in the last days of carrying my firstborn sounded really special. I sat in prayer, hands on my round belly, and was present to the God within and the baby within. It was beautiful. After prayer I headed to the grocery store, wondering if this was my last chance to stock up. I got what I needed, went home and took a nice long nap. Waking feeling refreshed, I made a cup of coffee and walked to my midwife’s house for what would be my last prenatal appointment. I was measuring right where I needed be for 39 and half weeks pregnant, and I left my midwives wondering if this truly was my last visit or if I had more time. As the afternoon progressed, I started to feel a bit crampy. I had a few braxton hicks contractions, but it was nothing alarming since I had been having them for over a month. I decided to go for a run to help with the cramps, and the early evening was cool and quiet. I enjoyed the solitude and the steady clipping of my feet, and even though I was enjoying myself I felt the need to cut back a little sooner than my normal route. I was feeling tired. Thinking this could be my last run, I sprinted in the final few blocks and felt empowered and strong and thankful I could keep running this long. I felt more crampy when I stopped, and did some yoga poses to let my belly hang and stretch out a bit. I felt different than usual, but didn’t want to get my hopes up. The final event of the night was last minute dinner reservations at the Butcher and the Boar with some friends. I felt crampy and uncomfortable throughout dinner, but again, didn’t really know what labor would be so I just let it be and tried not to think much of it. We got back home around 11:30pm, and I had to finish up the laundry….just in case. I had a couple contractions that were stronger than before, and Patrick declared in his goofy way that I was certainly in early labor right before we went to bed at midnight.

I fell asleep immediately and was soon awoken by what felt like a horrible period cramp. It wasn’t what I was expecting for labor contractions, so I just breathed through and went back to sleep. Well after a few more rounds of that, I thought to myself “this must be it!” and I texted my midwives an update. This continued for a couple of hours, and I knew I needed to sleep in between and try to rest, considering it could go on for hours and even days. The localized pain at my lower abdomen increased, and I no longer could just breathe through it. I heard my breath change to some low moans, as I threw off my covers from the rush of heat that came over me. I thought about how strange it was to have an intense pain come over me, and there was truly nothing I could do about it except surrender. What a strange realization that was. I also decided in those hours that this was way more intense than I imagined, and I didn’t want anyone around or talking to me. I imagined if I had a doula I would have kicked her out.

I moved to the bathroom and as soon as I had a few contractions on the toilet I knew I wasn’t going to move. The cold porcelain felt good on my legs, and I like how I could rotate my hips around in a circle and feel open and ready for whatever happened. My eyes stayed close and everything felt intense and powerful. I lost my mucus plug, and by that time Patrick had awoken and had pulled up a chair in the doorway. It was around 4 or 5am. He was texting my midwives, and timing my contractions. I had no awareness of how close or far apart they were, all I could hear was the sound of my own voice moaning out in way I recognized as getting close to delivery. I wanted the midwives to come, yet I didn’t want to get my hopes up in case I still had hours to go. Had I been on the outside looking in I would have known that my time was close, yet I just couldn’t bring myself to believe how fast everything was going. I was really in my own zone, eyes closed, and powering through. I had a thought pass through my head of how I wanted candles and music and dim lights….and then realized that this was not that kind of birth. This birth was strong and fast and needed lights and the sound of my own voice to encourage me onward.

All of the sudden my midwives arrived and it was game on. They listened to his heartbeat and assured me he was in my birth canal-which I made sure they were serious and not joking. I needed my brain to catch up with my body and really believe he was close. I reached down and felt for some sort of assurance and to my surprise I felt his bag of waters bulging out of me! I heard Patrick say he could see hair, and that was what I needed to hear to know for sure without a doubt that he was coming at any moment.

All of a sudden I felt an overwhelming flood of pressure fill my entire body, like a firey bowling ball trying to escape. My breath caught and the intensity took me by surprise. I heard myself sharply inhale and try to keep my voice low, despite the extreme force surging through my body. I exclaimed “wow” at the end of the surge, and had to coach myself to surrender to this feeling. This was it, this was my baby coming, and I needed to finish strong. It was suggested that I could push, and perhaps I should stand up. I stood up and surrendered into the burning, into the fervent force rushing through me. I looked down and saw his head emerge, and all of the sudden my dream of delivering my own baby came to be. I reached for his head with Patrick’s hands right along with me, and we brought our child into the world. His water bag was completely intact around his head, to my surprise, and I gently removed it from his little face. I heard my own voice continue the echo of “oh oh oh oh” that I labored out when pushing him and turn into an exclamation of the birth of our baby-”oh” was the only word I could say in such a profound and holy moment that no words on earth could do justice to. I kept exclaiming in awe, exclaiming in wonder, exclaiming in the beauty of that moment. It was 6:42am. He had come.

Moses means “out of water” and with him being born in his bag of waters, that was confirmation enough for us that Moses was the perfect name for him. Patrick held him on his chest right away while I settled into our bed right beside him. I was in awe of this little person we had brought into the world, in awe that my birth story was filled with much more strength and power than I could have imagined-and at how fast it was-and in awe that we had the gift of doing it together in our home. What joy, what a gift, what an honor...what a holy and sacred day.