Juny’s birth story, 06/07/2025
My contractions started in the early hours of Friday 04/07. That night I could barely sleep more than 1 or 2h… In the morning, Quique from the Mudra team came to visit us at home. I was already 42+1 weeks.
I had read books by Michel Odent, Casilda Rodrigáñez and Ibone Olza, and I knew about obstetric violence in hospitals, and how the way you’re born affects the baby’s development, and for all these reasons we knew the best option was to give birth at home. We are mammals and to give birth we need intimacy, warmth, safety… the same as when you make love. That’s why we contacted the Mudra team.
After week 40 I was calm; my last contact with the public health service had been the scan at week 36, since we were doing our monitoring with Mudra and didn’t need to keep going to the health centre, and besides we knew that from week 41 they would want to induce labour, and we wanted to respect the moment of birth our son would choose, without pressure. Even so, from week 41, the Mudra team, who are very professional, recommended a Doppler scan every 3 days. I, however, connected with my baby and knew everything was fine, but we agreed to have a Doppler scan at week 41+5. We did it and everything was perfect.
Continuing with the birth, the contractions were quite spaced out, about every 9 min. They were very painful, I couldn’t lie down, and not having been able to sleep I was very tired. We carried on like this all day. I told my partner I wasn’t surprised some women asked for an epidural, but I kept moving through it; it wasn’t my wish to have one, since I knew it wasn’t harmless for the baby. We understood birth as a natural process, and the more natural and uninterrupted, the better.
The day went on and the next early morning arrived. I spent the whole night the same. I moved through the waves with my breathing, the movement of my hips (circles or figure-of-eight) and vocalising (the A to open the canal). It was now Saturday morning, and at midday Marga came. I’d been having contractions for about 33h. She suggested an examination to find out how many cm I was, but I didn’t want it. She then looked at the purple line that shows behind the buttocks and told us I must be about 3cm… it’s not that it demoralised me, but it was a bit of a cold shower, because I was tired, the contractions radiated strongly into my lower back, like a strong electric shock, and I’d already been at it for many hours… but inside I thought it must make some sense, and that I couldn’t stay like that forever… that sooner or later the birth had to progress… and it was, in its own way, but slowly… later I understood it was the process I needed. It reassured us to know it was “normal”, and that there were even women who took longer to give birth. Up to 3 days! So I decided to start setting up the birthing pool to fill it with warm water, and get in to ease the sensations and move through what remained of the process in the best way possible. And if labour stalled, then let it stall, that way I’d take the chance to rest.
My partner filled the pool, Marga left, and I got in. My partner also got in for a while and, between contractions, I took little micro-naps, leaning towards him as he held me in his arms. I don’t know if it let me rest much, but the feeling in there was more bearable than outside. The afternoon went by, I carried on with my uterine waves, which came and went every 6 to 9 minutes… and by late afternoon/evening I’d already had a few with the urge to push. Could it mean the dilation was progressing? It’s curious how that long process let me gradually switch off my mind and connect with my body more and more. Meanwhile, through my head pass…
Meanwhile, through my head passed phrases like “my body knows how to give birth…”, “the uterine waves are not stronger than me because they are part of me”, etc…
At dusk Quique came, it was now a quarter past ten at night. I’d been in labour for about 43 hours. He suggested an examination, and this time I agreed. I wanted to know whether things were progressing or not. To everyone’s surprise, he told us I was 7cm. He called Marga to bring the birth kit, since he hadn’t brought it. This meant active labour was beginning! It gave me a huge boost of energy! He suggested we go out for a little walk to break the “context” a bit and renew our strength, and so we did.
When we got back, I ate a little tomato, cucumber and apple. I had no appetite those days but I’d eaten some dates and fresh things. And I drank lots of water… After that, I got back into the pool, and shortly after, the pushing stage began. Holding my partner’s hands, as he knelt in front of me outside the birthing pool, a series of wild roars and guttural sounds began to pour out of my body, like a birthing mammal, between contractions, which were now closer together, every 3-4 minutes. Marga, meanwhile, arrived on the scene, silently. I stayed like that for about 2 or 3 hours, more or less
I could feel my son descending through my canal. I felt him closer; even so, I put my fingers inside my vagina and wasn’t sure what I was touching… it seemed like his little head, but I was in another state of consciousness, and everything seems confused, blurred, hazy… “I think I can feel the head”, I said.
Every now and then, Marga listened to my son’s heartbeat, while inside I connected with him and knew that “everything was fine”.
That night a fresh breeze was blowing, welcome after so much heat… That wind in that moment of birth was very magical to me. It connected me with the most spiritual, the moment my son was incarnating on this planet! We women are pure magic!
The contractions continued, and I felt Juny getting closer and closer to crowning… and the moment came, the Ring of fire. With my consciousness altered by the whole hormonal cocktail I felt him about to crown, so I said “I think he’s about to bring his head out!” and Marga told me “you have to push hard!” and I was pushing but without doing it too intensely because I didn’t want to tear. But when she said that, I pushed harder and felt my hip crack at the pubic symphysis. I thought I was breaking, I felt a lot of pressure, but inside I said to myself “I surrender to death” and I imagined my hip on a cross-section like the shape of a skull… And out came the head! And I said “I think the head’s out now!”… for me it was all like a dream, I was literally in a “trance”…. it was 03:51 in the morning, and 4 minutes later the whole body had come out, so I said “I think he’s out!”, and Marga told me “pick him up!” and I searched for him in the cloudy water, picked him up and lifted him out of the water. He came out like a Venus from the water, beautiful, hair slicked back, clean (he no longer had vernix because he’d absorbed it). I was still in “shock”, but I put him to my chest and sat down in the pool. The 4 of us gazed at him… how beautiful! He didn’t cry, he seemed to smile slightly, we looked at each other… He was the most beautiful thing in the world! I sang him the welcome song I’d composed for him (a tradition from African tribal societies), and we decided to receive the placenta outside on the birthing chair. They helped me out of the water because my legs had no strength left, after all the effort on my knees in the water…
The placenta didn’t take long to come out, and I began to bleed, so, advised by Marga and Quique, we decided that they give me an oxytocin injection; and so I stopped bleeding right away. We kept the placenta to make capsules and placental medicine for my son. They checked me and I had no tears and everything was fine. They made me a fruit smoothie with a piece of placenta that tasted like heaven after those 49h of labour with all that effort, without having slept or barely eaten…
In the end, my son had been born at 42+3 weeks. He was healthy and perfect, and we were so happy to have him in our arms at last.
I would give birth again with the Mudra team and I would repeat my birth, since it was perfect. A 49h process, perfect, I wouldn’t change a thing. Birth is a rite of passage, it doesn’t have to be easy. If it is, all the better. I lived it just as I needed to, to move into new motherhood. The body is wise, nature is wise. We only have to accompany it.
Thank you Quique, Marga and Carla for your support, professionalism, warmth, wisdom and love. We will be eternally grateful 🙏🏻❤️
