Lily's Birth Story

“Birth is medicine,” had been my mantra for this pregnancy. While I wouldn’t classify Ellie’s birth as traumatic, there were moments when I felt disempowered by the people who were supposed to help me. I needed this baby’s birth to be redemptive and a form of healing, proving to myself I could bring a baby in to the world with no intervention. When I was about 3 months pregnant I started noticing a whisper in my soul that I wanted to have this baby at home. I didn’t love the midwife I was seeing, and when I visualized having this baby I couldn’t get a picture of myself having the baby in a hospital. I started asking around and within a week, three different people mentioned the same midwife (Fadwah). I went to see her, and felt the click deep inside. She was the person who’d help me bring this baby into the world. Michael took a bit more convincing, but he agreed, also conceding that he wasn’t the one doing the work of having a baby so he felt it was really my decision.

With the decision made, I hired a doula, Gina, who offered a course called “Blissborn.” I had done hypnobirthing with Ellie’s birth, and found it helpful, so Michael and I signed up for this class too. It was an interesting experience—I liked these tracks more than the Hypnobirthing tracks, but I also spent the past year learning how to be in touch with my intuitive self, and a huge part of that was through meditation. This time around, it was so much easier for me to access and relax into the hypnosis. It was a completely different feeling than when I was doing birthing meditations four years ago.

For those of you who followed along during this pregnancy, you may have noticed I was pretty ready to give birth starting at 37 weeks. I was ready to be not pregnant much earlier this time around and was doing everything I could to go into labor. My water broke with Ellie at 38 weeks and 3 days, and I was convinced this little girl would come early too. When I was 34 weeks pregnant, Ellie told me the baby was coming in four weeks, which would have made it December 7. On December 3, Ellie told me the baby was coming in four days—she predicted the same date twice! December 7 came and went with no signs of labor.

The next three weeks were a struggle. Some days I was fine, and other days I was in tears out of frustration.

I had an appointment with Fadwah on my due date, December 20. I was in total shock that I’d made it to 40 weeks and in even more shock when she told me I was only 1cm dilated. “But I can feel baby’s head so she’s almost ready. Are you taking the herbs?” she asked. “5 pellets of each? Eating your dates? Having sex?” “Yes,” I replied. Her face said it all—she also couldn’t believe that I was doing everything they recommended and with my second baby we were here. “What’s her name?” Fadwah asked. “Lily,” I said. “Talk to her. Ask her why she’s staying inside and remind her it’s safe out here.” “Yes,” I sighed.

I left the midwife’s office and headed to an induction massage. It was beautifully relaxing and I felt a bit more resigned to whatever date this baby chose. I decided we needed some lilies in our house—maybe they would make Lily feel more welcome. That night, I hung some lights and messages from friends in our birthing space. I prayed to the angel of birth, and created a ceremony for me and Lily. We sat outside with candles, crystals and flowers and I meditated once again. I burned some sage, and Lily flipped and kicked and moved around like crazy while I went to another plane.

I pulled some tarot cards, the last of which was the hanged man. A message about letting go. The Hanged Man is the card of ultimate surrender, of being suspended in time and of making sacrifices for the greater good. Loud and clear, angels, learning to surrender is part of the medicine I needed. I’m not in charge of when this baby would arrive and I had to accept that. The Hanged Man teaches us to pause and see the world from a new perspective. It is an invitation to welcome these ‘pauses’ and surrender to the ‘what is’ – even if it is different from what you expected. 

I readied myself for bed and fell into a deep sleep. In a dream, our doorbell rang. I went to answer the door, and a sweet little girl, about two years old, dressed all in pink with curly pigtails waited at the door for me. “I’m here,” she said. “Yes,” I said. “We’ve been waiting for you.” The dream melted away as dreams do, and half awake, I thought, “she’s coming tomorrow.” With a smile, I went back to sleep.

A few hours later, I had a contraction. It briefly woke me, but because I had been having contractions on and off for weeks, I thought nothing of it and went back to sleep. Within thirty minutes came another, and another. After the third one, I realized that this was it. Lily was finally coming. I put on my birthing meditation and rested in bed until the morning. I showered and dried my hair—timing contractions and breathing through them. I couldn’t stop smiling. After what felt like the longest pregnancy, our baby would be born on the shortest day of the year. Of course, of course this little girl would pick December 21.

I texted my mom and our doula telling them I didn’t have a regular contraction pattern yet, but I was confident that we were going to have a solstice baby.  My mom arrived around 8 in the morning, and we all went on a walk around our neighborhood. I was walking (slowly) through my contractions, even stopping to chat with a friend who later admitted she had no idea I was in labor. It started to drizzle and it seemed like the perfect reason to head home and climb back in bed. Michael fed me soup and lots of water, and Ellie stayed with me in bed reading stories and rubbing my back, while telling everyone “my mommy’s in labor. That means the baby is coming.”

I felt so good during each contraction. It feels so strange to say it now, but truly, there was no pain. Each tightening felt so useful as I could feel the baby moving down with each one. As I rested, Michael and my mom readied the pool and the bed. When I stood up from the bed to let them change the sheets, something shifted. I sat on my birth ball and suddenly, the contractions were 2-3 minutes apart. We called our doula, and she hopped in the car. She called the midwife for us and they both arrived shortly. Joanna, the midwife on call, asked if I wanted a cervical check and I said yes. I felt so good, but wanted a read on how much longer we had to go. I remember the room smelling amazing and smiling again feeling like Lily and I were working together perfectly as I lay down on my bed. This was the peaceful, calm, loving birth I had been imagining for 9 months. I couldn’t believe it was happening so perfectly.

As she was checking, Joanna got a bit of a funny look on her face. “Oh no,” I thought, “she’s going to tell me I’m only 2cm dilated. No wonder I feel so good.” She realized how quiet she was being and said “oh don’t worry, you’re 9 or 10. You can push or get in the pool whenever you want.” I pumped my fist in the air and shouted “fuck yes.” I had done it. I pushed past the point that I felt defeated with Ellie, all by myself, with my own tools. “One thing,” Joanna added, “I’m just not sure baby’s head down. It’s either a really squishy head, or a very firm butt.” My face faltered, my smile dropped, and I took a deep breath. “yes,” I said, “okay.”

Breech birth was not something I had prepared for, but I was confident in myself, and confident in the team around me, and Joanna wasn’t 100% sure. I decided to get in the tub, and wait for the urge to push to overcome. Ellie kept asking if she could come in the pool with me, but I didn’t want her in there until the baby was out. I love how much she wanted to be a part of her sister’s birth and how not scared she was. I still get tears in my eyes thinking about that. I heard Joanna calling Fadwah in the background. Fadwah is much more experienced in breech birth, so everyone wanted her present just in case Lily was actually breech.

Fadwah arrived shortly after as I was beginning to explore the idea of pushing. My body wasn’t bearing down just yet, but I was doing some gently exploratory pushes that felt good at that point. I remember Fadwah looking at Joanna and asking “is this a contraction? She’s so calm.” Yes, I thought, I am. The pushing began to pick up shortly after Fadwah arrived, and my water broke during one giant push. I was on all fours in the tub, and opened my eyes once the wave subsided and saw lots of brownish-black debris in the water. “Is that my poop or hers?” I asked. “Hers,” Fadwah laughed, “it’s meconium, we can confirm she’s breech.” My first pang of fear set in at that moment. I faltered—I wasn’t sure if I could do this. I hadn’t even ever watched a video of a breech birth and I didn’t understand logistically in what order the baby was going to come out.

“I’m scared,” I said to Michael. “You can do this,” he responded. Gina asked Fadwah to pull up a video of a breech birth so that I could watch it. Between contractions I watched an amazing woman patiently, and powerfully push her baby out, bottom first. Then one leg came out, followed by the other. Over about 10 minutes she really patiently waited as her body and her baby worked together. As the video played, we paused it during contractions. I closed my eyes and tried to put that imagery in to my body—I was doing my best to visualize my body doing what that woman was doing. What scared me was that every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was a C-section scar. Drs do a good job these days of making most incisions very low, so I’ve never even seen one in real life before, but for some reason that was the only image that was coming in to my mind. I fought it for a while and then asked Fadwah to check if the baby had moved down at all.

“No,” she replied. “You’ve been doing great pushes, but she hasn’t really moved.” I want to be clear: Lily wasn’t in distress. Her heart rate and mine were both very normal every time we checked. I’m incredibly thankful for that because that would have really scared me. Another contraction came, and when it passed, I felt myself falling asleep. “Open big,” Gina was saying in the background…”open huge.” I was repeating that mantra in my mind over and over again. After my next contraction, I looked at Fadwah and Joanna and asked, “am I going to be holding this baby within an hour?”

“No,” she said. “We’ve probably got a few more hours. We can keep going. But it’s your choice.”

“Okay,” I said. “Call the ambulance. This isn’t going to happen here today.” An enormous wave of relief flooded through my body. Again, I was receiving confirmation that I had listened to my intuition. That level of full body only happens when you make the right choice at the right time.

Within minutes, a fire truck arrived. We had no hospital bags packed so Michael was running around grabbing what clothing he could gather and other necessities like insurance cards and IDs. Shortly after, an ambulance arrived and EMTs entered our bedroom. Fadwah and Joanna walked me to the ambulance, and even though we were boarding an emergency vehicle, it didn’t feel like an emergency. I wasn’t scared—I felt really confident that this was right. (The EMTs faces, however, were hilarious. They were all men, and all very young, and I’m not confident that any of them had ever seen a woman in labor before). One tried to put an IV in my wrist mid-contraction, but luckily Fadwah asked him to wait until it passed. I got such a kick out of that even in the moment.

We drove to the closest hospital which is about 10 minutes away from our house. I was wrapped in a beach towel and a bathrobe I think, and continued pushing on the entire drive to the hospital. We left so quickly that the ambulance left without Michael, so my mom had to drive him to meet us there. We arrived and they wheeled me in to a triage room, and Fadwah was with me the whole time answering questions from the nurses.

When Michael and my mom arrived, they were both allowed to come in to the room. I still had my whole support team while the hospital nurses prepped me for surgery. Because it wasn’t technically an emergency, they took their time getting bloodwork and prepping. It was nearly an hour from arrival at the hospital until they wheeled me into the OR.

Once it was time to go to the OR, Michael had to step out. They don’t let partners in the room while you’re getting spinal anesthesia, so he had to wait outside for about 15 minutes. The most painful part of the process was trying to get my body from the wheeled bed to the operating table. Moving sideways at that point was incredibly strenuous. Once the anesthesia was administered, but before Michael was allowed to come in, I felt a need to keep talking. So I kept asking the Dr about the process and what was going to happen. I told her that I was talking because I knew if I was talking I was still breathing. She laughed and asked, “is it a boy or a girl?”

“Girl,” I smiled.

“Wonderful! Do you have a name?” she asked.

“Lily,” I said.

She grinned from ear to ear. “That’s my name.”

Once again, God was telling me, “you’re in the right place. The whole universe has conspired at this moment for you to learn this lesson of surrender. I know this wasn’t how you wanted it to go, but your lesson is that you’re not in charge. Free fall and I will catch you.”

Michael was allowed to come in. “Our Dr’s name is Lily!” I shouted. He laughed through his tears while the Drs got started. Michael talked to me through the whole surgery—I have no recollection of what we were talking about, but I know we didn’t stop talking.

“Take pictures, Dad,” the anesthesiologist whispered behind Michael.

He held his phone over the curtain and snapped some pictures. Suddenly, we heard the most amazing, loud suction cup noise followed by a cry. Our sweet Lily was born at 7:21 pm in the most unanticipated way, on December 21, the Winter Solstice. Out of the season of darkness, and into the season of light we got the medicine we needed.