The Sacred Dance of Birth
Birth invites us to surrender. It is a rite of passage that changes us in many intangible ways. Birth will ask you to dig deep, be flexible with your plan, and adapt in ways you never thought your body/mind could endure, and this is how we are born anew, every time. Britta Bushnell likens the journey of birth and parenthood to a labyrinth:
“designed for contemplation, prayer ritual, and meditation.” I had prodromal labor six times in the three weeks leading up to my daughter’s birth, and I was ready for the labyrinth. After experiencing preeclampsia with my first pregnancy and a traumatic hospital birth, I had planned a home birth this time and built the physical, emotional, and spiritual birth skills. As the Papua New Guinea Asaro proverb goes, “Knowledge is only rumor until it is in the muscle.”
On February 26, 2018, at 41 weeks and six days, my midwife scheduled an ultrasound to check my amniotic fluid level. Baby was estimated to be 8lbs and lying oblique, with her head jammed in my right pelvis and her shoulder blocking my cervix. We were stuck. The technician calmly wrote a transfer of care requisition to an unknown OBGYN for a C-section while I cried silent tears. I was devastated, and I wasn’t ready to release my dream birth, so I made a plan. I called my colleague from the car, explained the situation, and requested privacy and an adjustment with the Webster Technique. I was adjusted at 12:45 p.m., and as I got up from the table, I felt the baby shift into the head-down position. It was an intensely alien sensation; I felt both nauseous and elated.