Rae’s Freebirth in Sunshine Valleyfeatured

In May of 2022 I gave birth for the first time at my home in Sunshine Valley with the trust of my body, my lover, our baby and some warm water. 

I feel that my path to Freebirth began actually about 6 years before giving birth. It was when I began to acknowledge and trust the sacred power of my womb. She spoke to me loudly through consistent bleeding, I’m talking like a week long period every other week…for almost six months. Meanwhile, I went to gynecologists and doctors and all they could offer were various forms of birth control. I knew I had to tune in and figure out how to bring myself and my body into balance. I began to save my blood and use it for painting. Through this and much more research, I discovered the magical properties of menstrual blood. 

I began to see it not as an icky burden or waste product of the body, but rather all of the nutrients required to grow a new life, being shed for lack of fertilization. I read how it was acknowledged in ancient cultures as a sacred healing substance, and how we now know this is for the stem cells it harbors. It was used as medicine and in spiritual rituals and women held the knowledge and power behind it.

I learned that it also has hormones and properties that help the thyroid and can bring women’s cycles into balance. I thought it sounded really disgusting to ingest it upon first consideration. Soon I came to realize that I had ingested bodily fluids from male apparatuses and not thought twice about it. So, I had to ask the question: why does my own body disgust me? I was also pretty desperate and willing to try anything by that point. So, I drank my blood and my cycle immediately began to regulate. I really think this changed my life. It lead me to walk down this path of trusting and embodying the divine feminine.

Fast forward a few years, I was living in Florida with a couple of girlfriends and one of them mentioned a friend of hers that was pregnant but people were worried about her. Confused, I asked if there was something wrong with her or the baby. She explained that nothing was wrong but that she just wanted to have her child at home without a midwife. This was the first time I ever heard mention of freebirth. Absolutely amazed, I said “Wow, that’s a thing? That’s totally how I want to do it!”

Fast-forward to 2020, I had been staying in New Mexico on and off for a couple of years and at that time was living at an art residency for women in Sunshine Valley. My partner and I really liked the area and were even pretty interested in a piece of land for sale. Then I was bitten by a rattlesnake. That is a whole other story and journey of spiritual attunement, but it pertains to my birth story because while I was in recovery I was staying with my partner and thought the bite and antivenin had got my cycle a little out of whack because I was bleeding during what should have been ovulating. Well, I was wrong thinking I wasn’t ovulating and we conceived. I realized pretty much the next day and at that time we hadn’t bought our land yet, I could barely walk in recovery from a snake bite so, I began drinking a tea of abortive herbs (blue cohosh, parsley leaf, and queen Anne’s lace). I drank this tea every day for a week and finally I decided to sit down and actually be intentional about it. I held my womb and spoke to my baby explaining how much I wanted that child to come into our lives, but we didn’t have a home for him or her yet. I kindly asked the baby to wait and the next day I started bleeding.

Fast forward one year later. My partner and I had bought the land we were interested in. I decided that the rattlesnake bite was an initiation rather than an omen, and I think that is definitely true. We weren’t living on our land yet, but things were coming together and we hoped to move in a couple of months. Things weren’t going super smoothly but they were happening very magically, and then I realized I was pregnant. This time very unexpected, as we thought we were being “safe.” I was so caught up in all the things that I hardly noticed my cycle being a week late. It struck me fairly suddenly one night when I looked up at the moon and I was pretty terrified. But, my lover and I decided to trust in divine timing and though we didn’t really feel ready, we could acknowledge that we were much more prepared than the year before. I also knew that I wanted a wild pregnancy and a freebirth.

Though I trusted my body to know what to do, I was still pretty uneasy at first about transitioning to motherhood. I felt I was just starting to establish my career as an artist and worried I would have to put my passion on hold and didn’t know how I would support a new family member financially. I became determined to dive more deeply into my creative practice and it truly helped me to connect to myself and my baby on a deeper level than the thinking mind. 

My artistic practice, my pregnancy tea, and changing my diet from being vegetarian to eating all the nourishing meats and bone broths really made me feel strong in gestation.

A couple of months into my pregnancy, I was sitting in meditation with my womb and some tarot cards, during which I had a flashback to the moment a year earlier when I spoke to my baby asking for more time. My body became covered in chills when it hit me that this new conception happened in the same ovulatory cycle exactly one year later! What a patient little lad or lassie; this baby really wants to be a Gemini I thought. I also had a strong feeling that it was a boy. But, then I started to have many dreams of twins. I was a little nervous and also excited by the potential of twins, but wasn’t sure if they were coming from Gemini vibes or actual twins. My sister talked me into one super quick ultrasound (by a sonogram photographer) in the third trimester that confirmed just one baby. So, I was able to accredit the dreams to Gemini vibes.

This was helpful for me because I had been making a lot of artwork and paintings during my pregnancy to be present in my transition from maiden to mother and was given the opportunity to have a solo exhibition. I sat down with the calendar to intuit the right date. I wanted to have plenty of time to finish the work, but didn’t want to try and have a show in my postpartum period. Feeling pretty confident that this baby was a Gemini, I decided to make the show date the last day of Taurus season. When it came time for the exhibition, I was very large! 

It was such a magical show and felt to me more like a ceremony. I had sewn the skin for a giant red tent tipi that was installed in the center of the exhibit. Friends and family came and we circled in and round that sacred womb all night. I remember Jennifer saying that night that I looked ready and asking me if I felt swollen. I told her that I could barely zip up my boots over my newly developed cankles! I learned later that there are acupressure and acupuncture points in the ankles for induction.

Perhaps that had something to do with my baby’s arrival because, on our drive home I began to have contractions!! I had been having practice contractions for about a week, so I wasn’t positive, but they felt different. I wanted to think that labor would wait until after I had some rest, but that wasn’t what my body and baby were thinking.

When we got home, I felt a contraction and the time was midnight. Another came 20 minutes later and I told my lover we needed to go to bed and try to get some rest especially if this was indeed labor. He conked immediately while I laid in a state of half sleep waking every twenty minutes or so with another contraction. By 430am I decided to take a hot shower. I got out of bed and the warm water was so nice. Then I felt so tired that I hoped to get at least an hour of rest if I laid down again. But, as soon as I hit the bed I had a pretty strong contraction and woke my partner with my moan.

He sprang up and quickly asked how I was doing. I told him I was pretty certain about being in labor and contractions were about 10 minutes apart at that point. He asked if he should set up the birthing pool. At first I thought who knows, this could go on for days. But then, amidst our conversation, I had another contraction that was quite strong. After that, I told him it would feel good to be in the water no matter how much longer the labor could last. So, he got to work.

It took about an hour to get the pool set up and filled. I got in when it was about half full and it felt like I entered a time warp. Two hours passed somehow and then I realized my contractions weren’t getting closer and my body was telling me to get out of the pool. I went to sit on the toilet. I still hadn’t had sleep, so I was really feeling exhausted. I kept thinking I should lay down, I’d go to the bed and then immediately want to get back up and go to the toilet. They were on complete opposite ends of the house and I paced back and fourth like this for probably an hour. Then I just stayed on the toilet for another hour kind of going unconscious or blacking out to rest between contractions, which were about 5 minutes apart at this point. I had been gently feeling inside to see if my dilating was progressing throughout this whole time, and I could tell it was. Didn’t need to know how far.

Each contraction came with a rising and falling and they were steep! I would breathe the deepest inhales I could with long exhales as the contractions came and went; and I counted my breaths. A contraction would start, somewhat dull, and then ramp up to peak pain by breath 7 and then over by breath 13 or 14. I was able to breathe through them the whole first stage of labor. Then, as I was sitting on the toilet, I felt a push come with my contraction like I was gonna poo. So, I decided I was ready to get back in the water.

As soon as I got in the pool my phone rang and it was my sister calling, that’s how I know it was 1030am. Once the pushing was a part of the contractions I was NOT just breathing through them. There were deep roars and ugly moans. A doula friend of mine had previously given me the advice not to let my voice go high pitch in labor because high is an upward motion and bringing the voice low is downward. So I had some real whaleish sounds going on, let me tell ya. 

My partner was by my side and tending to the pool keeping it warm with water he was heating on the stove. When I felt my water break I wasn’t sure what it was since I was in water…then I saw a little bit of mucus and said I think I just lost my mucus plug. My partner questioned what’s that?! haha, I said it didn’t matter but I felt a release. A few contractions later he asked “oh, is that your mucus plug?!” I looked over and explained “no, that’s a turd!” haha! He fished the poo out of the water and I kept having consistent contractions.

I felt between my legs and there was a bulge that was so big it made me panic a little bit. I was quite nervous about tearing and when I felt that bulge I thought for sure my yoni couldn’t stretch that much. But, at that point I knew there was no turning back and I just wanted to get that baby out no matter how. then the ring of fire came with the next contraction. I felt his head ease down and then back up. I knew this would help with the stretching so I was trying to be patient but after three times of that happening I was so ready for him to come out.

My lover was in the other room at that point and so I called to him “it’s happening!” and he rushed right in. I gave a little extra push with the next contraction and my baby shot out of me so fast I saw his head and shoulders and torso and my love reached in to grab him. His legs were still inside so my partner asked if he should help. I nodded and eeked out another little push while my love coaxed the baby on out. we watched him under the water for a few seconds and my partner realized his cord was wrapped around his neck a couple of times. It wasn’t too tight and I just unwrapped it gently before bringing the baby out of the water. once he came out he was so cute and pink and didn’t cry but was making little grunting sounds. I thought maybe he had some mucus in his throat or something so I sucked on his face, when nothing came out I realized he was just fine because after my sucking he was a bit shocked and let out a little cry. 

We were absolutely amazed and it took minutes of staring at him before we even checked to confirm the sex. We had suspected he was a boy for a while, but I finally looked and told my partner and he was in tears. Then he jumped up and said he forgot to note the time! It was a little after 11 at that point so we just stuck with 11am as his birth time.

I was feeling pretty strong contractions for the placenta right away. I had my love hold the baby while I tried to focus on birthing the placenta. it only took about 20 minutes post birth and when it came, I was so surprised. I wasn’t expecting it to look the way it did, so bulbous like a balloon, and then it just sat between my legs and when I gave it a tug it seemed to be partially stuck inside. That was a bit unnerving because a retired midwife friend had advised me to check out the placenta after birthing it to make sure it’s in tact because there could be issues if any of it were to stay stuck inside she said. I was worried if I tugged I could rip it, so I just waited a few minutes. Nothing happened, so I decided to just feel in my yoni and as soon as I put a finger in there it released a bit of the outer fleshy layer of the placenta from where it was caught just within my cervix. Such a relief!

We rested in bed so infatuated with our baby for a couple of hours and then my parents came over. My dad helped my partner clean up the pool and such while my mom and I admired this new little life form. About 5 or 6 hours after his birth we did a cord burning and it was beautiful. At that point he hadn’t latched or nursed yet, so once he wasn’t attached to his placenta I felt an urgency to give him nourishment. it took a few minutes for him to catch on but once it clicked he didn’t have any troubles. I for some reason felt so worried that I didn’t have any colostrum and he wasn’t being nourished, then he spit a little up and I was shocked as well as relieved to know my body was providing.

I felt such relief to have birthed our child and with only spirit and intuition as my guide. Trusting that my body and baby knew what to do helped me to let go of any fear and doubt that came into the thinking mind. I am so grateful at how everything unfolded and the magic of this life!