Failing to progress and rising above
I was 6cm dilated. Things were going well. I was managing each contraction and the associated pain with dancing and breath. We got to the birthing unit in one piece, bags packed, batteries charged and playlists in order. I had been standing in the shower for hours on end, sipping on cold water and a series of iced juice boxes. The hot water was soothing on my back. Swirling my hips at the start of each contraction, breathing in and out steadily.
My visualizations, which I had worked on for months with my doula, were working. I could see my body opening up like a blossom. I could envision my baby slipping down the canal and out towards the world. I saw us working together and I kept muttering words of encouragement, “Mama sees you…You’re doing all the right things…I am here when you’re ready.”
Then as seamlessly as it had been going, it stopped.
It took me some time to leave the world of birth where my head was purposefully disassociated from my body. I was in a haze that felt drug-induced but came from the acuteness of being fully in body and from breath. After some time, I came to and realized that my vagina had closed up. I could not let go of my vagina muscles, as if I was holding in a pee. I was no longer a blossom opening. My baby was stuck and could not get out, as there was no room. The canal was closed. I silently worked through issues, breathing
Failure to progress. That’s what it’s called when you reach a level of dilation and go no further. This is a common birth story. A hitting of a wall. A cul de sac. A dead end. Whose failure is it, though? At the time, I thought it was mine so I buckled down. I continued to breath. I swirled my hips as if Beyoncé depended on it. I closed my eyes to block out the looks from my doula and partner. I worked to get closer to opening. Nothing happened. It was as though my vagina has sneakily stitched itself shut all the while muttering, “No thanks, not today.”
After yet another internal examination and still no further dilation, I retreated into the bathroom. I stood inside the shower and put my head down on my arms and cried. My partner came in and stood beside me. I knew I had to say something. I couldn’t believe the very thing that I had worked so hard to avoid landed smack bang in the middle of my birth. “How can I be ready to be a mom?” I asked him. “What about the others? I chose not to have them. What’s changed?”
I was talking about my previous abortions. Two of these took place at eighteen and the last at twenty-one. In one of my early consultations with my midwife, she asked if I had ever experienced any sexual assault or had a TOP (Termination of Pregnancy). These were said in the same breath. I said that I had three TOPs. She stopped writing and looked up at me with a small sigh.
“Have you received therapy to help with processing them?”
“Yes. I have been in and out of therapy and feel quite fine.”
She then explained that TOPs often come up as unresolved in birth, as do sexual assault. I went home and made an appointment with my doula to do some clearing around my TOPs. I was resolved that they would not come up in my birth. I was resolved that I had healed. Sure, I had scars but my gaping wounds around my abortions had closed.
Now here they were. Three decisions haunting me again, clasped around my ankles and crying to be fed. They were as alive as this moment of birth itself. I was confronted, yet again. I suppose that’s what loss looks like – a constant readjusting of your aspect to that thing. In that moment, I was confronted with a new level of readjustment. An even deeper understanding of the ramifications of those choices. I was at sea, lost from the shore and trying to work out how to come back. My partner stood beside me and placed a hand on my arm, bringing me back to him. He spoke gently and told me all the things that I desperately needed to hear, “Everything that had happened to me, prior led me to this moment. Every decision had led me to this room and this birth. This baby stuck in the canal had chosen me as we had chosen him. He had chosen me because of everything that I am and the choices that I have made.” He kept talking, bringing me back and over the threshold. In that moment he not only performed as a partner, but as a friend. He comforted me and allowed me the space to once more meet an old all-too-familiar acquaintance and have a difficult interaction.
I had to see these choices again and acknowledge them. I had to hold that moment and in turn was held by my partner. I was able to move forward. The birth progressed. I reached the 10cm and managed to work with my baby to have a beautiful, healing and restorative birth.
In every birth, death and loss are as prominent and challenge for space. I had to rise as much to the birth as I did to the loss. And in rising, I created a new narrative to one I had held on to for too long. In birthing you go to a scary place and it’s not because of the pain of contractions. You are forced to confront your life in the most primal and inarticulate ways. My son’s birth was also my own.