Throughout my pregnancy, we all guessed when Coyote would choose his perfect birthday. I kept sensing he would arrive on his due date, April 11. As the weeks drew closer, my intuitive sense changed. I kept "hearing" that he was going to be early. Turns out, that was right.. March 31st was a full moon in Libra and full moons tend to be a time of "baby rain", meaning that lots of women go into labor and babies are born due to the increased gravitational pull from the moon on the bodies of water on Earth. I knew that I wasn't going to get past this moon without some sort of sign of labor, maybe Braxton Hicks would start since I hadn't felt any noticeable ones by this point. I was 38 weeks and 3 days on Saturday, March 31st which also happened to be the date of my blessing way. Starting that Friday night, I began consistently having contractions all night long, not Braxton Hicks, these were low, deep cramps, not unlike period cramps that would stop come morning. Saturday comes and my blessingway was beautiful. 13 women gathered in my home to honor my pregnancy and welcome our little Coyote into the world. These women were powerful ones, there were healers, psychics, channelers, astrologers, reiki masters, yogis, visionaries, tarot readers and energy workers. The energy we created collectively was so warm and loving, you could see auras and orbs sparkle and dance throughout the room. One woman, a new friend, placed her hands on my belly and Coyote and I received a blessing in light language directly from our angels. I truly feel like that blessing was the last piece Coyote and I needed to prepare us both spiritually and physically for birth. That night around 9pm while sitting in the back yard with my husband, my contractions started but something was different. They suddenly were much stronger. We looked at each other both of us a little afraid, a little excited... All night my contractions started and stopped but never stopped longer then 20 minutes. Brown blood appeared on the tissue when I use the restroom, typical sign of early labor, the beginnings of the mucus plug being released. The next morning, Sunday my contractions kept going still starting and stopping. I ignored them and spent the day going about my business. I was in denial that this was actual early labor, I convinced myself that it was just pedromal labor, even though it was consistent and had been increasing in intensity, they were painful, but not more than mild menstrual cramps. Deep down I knew Coyote and my body were getting ready. I went to bed that night, still contracting, and around 2am on Monday morning, the cramping shifted again. The intensity picked up noticeably, and the length of time between breaks in contractions shortened. Some contractions were back to back, intuitively telling me that Coyote's position needed adjustment. I do the Spinning Babies forward leaning inversion using my couch and my contractions space out just a little. Im still in denial that this is labor since my contraction pattern is still irregular. Lying to myself would actually help me cope and stay calm as labor progressed.. By 6am I text my midwife Tiffanie, contractions are between 7-20 minutes apart lasting 45 seconds to a minute. She tells me to get some rest and I try to. By 7am my contractions seem to have more of a consistent pattern, 10 minutes apart still close to a minute long. Some of my contractions were back to back, a few were really long painful ones. I still feel like his posisition needs a little help so I do some Spinning Babies side lying. By 9am, I look at my husband and tell him that I think Im in labor. Reality sets in that labor is progressing rapidly. Im outwardly calm, Im inwardly freaking out that there isn't more frozen prepared food in the freezer, I have no birth tub, no padcicles made, and no birth kit. The anxiety is real, Im a little unprepared with stuff I "need." Around noon, I text Tiffanie an update, 4 minutes apart lasting 1 minute for the last 30 minutes, with some contractions on top of each other. The intensity had picked up and things took a turn to show it was the real thing. I asked her to come over as I put on my labor necklace, made for me at my blessing way. An hour later she arrived with her daughter Aarika, whom is also a family friend and her student Camila was right behind.
For the next few hours I labored on all fours, the only position that felt comfortable, on our living room floor. I wanted so badly for my birth team to carry on conversations with each other even while I was having a contraction, I needed to feel in touch with normal life. In between contractions I was my witty self and we all shared laughter together, helping me to stay in touch with reality so I could relax. I pressed my face into my husbands chest and whispered to him asking him to make me laugh. I needed to laugh, I needed coyote laughter medicine.. In that moment I ached to see my Dad again, I just wanted my Daddy to make me laugh, to lighten the mood and to tell me how proud he was of me and I cried. I wasn't in transition yet I suppose this moment of grief was a hill I needed to climb over to carry on. A few hours had passed, I alternated all fours with standing and swaying while leaning on my husband, bless his heart I think I clung to him for 7 hours straight. My contractions were low in the front and radiated down my thighs with excruciating sciatic pain, worse then the contractions themselves. I kept waiting for some magical sciatic release fearing that if the sciatic pain remained the same or got worse that I would be too tense to remain in the zone. Thankfully as labor progressed, I was distracted enough from the sciatic pain to stay focused. I felt in my body still, waiting for the pain of contractions to get worse, but in birth terms I was coping well. I knew I had to remain in control of my breath if I couldn't control anything else. Tiffanie suggested laboring on the toilet to which I said "Ooo you're tricky tricky.." We both know the toilet to be "dilation station" a sometimes hard but effective position to labor baby down. We both laughed and I went and sat on the toilet. I was playing it safe in labor up until that point, her gentle nudge reminded me that the purpose was to get baby out, not to labor for the rest of my life, a woeful conclusion that I had silently convinced myself, that yes endless labor was my life now. The pressure in my pelvic floor increased, the contractions hurt more and I became quite a bit more vocal at this point. I spent a few contractions on the toilet, as many as I could handle, mildly afraid my son would fall out and plop in the toilet I returned to the safety of my living room floor. Camila used her rebozo to help with the sciatic pain and everyone took turns with hip squeezes and massaging me with long strokes. At one point my face was buried in a pillow with my bottom in the air and three sets of hands were on different parts of my body reminding me of their steady support. I still don't know who's hands were who's. At 5pm I asked Tiffanie to check dilation, 7 centimeters. Fuck I thought. I was really hoping for a 9. Little did I know. At Tiffanies suggestion, we moved to our bath tub to labor on my side. I labored in the tub for a little less than an hour even though the water felt really good our bath tub felt too small to be in, back to the living room floor I return, contractions feeling so much more intense now, I want to climb out of my body. I wanted to be anywhere else but where I was in that moment. With eyes closed, I hear Camila's voice through the darkness behind my eyes, " You're tough as nails" of all the mantras she picked from my birth banner to repeat to me, she picked the one that my father told me my whole life. " Nat, you're tough as nails." Silently Im reminding myself to surrender as I feverishly invoke every Goddess I can think of to inhabit my body and take over. My mantra was "I can do this", the idea of imminent pushing was becoming reality now. Im in transition, still expecting to leave my body, "to go to the stars to get my baby" to be magically transported to outer space by way of hallucinatory yogic breath work that I don't consciously know how to do but would somehow be channeled in the moment. It never comes, Im still feeling in my body, on Earth, completely conscious of every contraction, conscious of the fact that I'm so lucid I have no choice but to stay with every sensation. Still alternating between all fours and standing swaying while leaning on Ivan. At a quarter to 7pm I ask to be checked, 8cm 100% effaced almost at zero station. Tiffanie suggests laboring on my back with Ivan behind me to support me and to help Coyote rotate. I spend a few contractions on my back, I roar through them letting her know that and he rotated exactly he needed to. I go back between hands and knees and standing/sqatting since I'm starting to feel pushy. My water breaks and Tiffanie tells me there's meconium. I silently panic for a split second, return my focus and accept whatever was to happen next. Tiffanie suggests I return to laying on my back, I start pushing just a little past 8pm. Im finally no longer in denial that labor is really happening. They inform that they see his head turtling and I'm encouraged to touch his head, I decline because Im too scared to move my arms or legs fearing Id loose leverage. I push more and feel the release of more of his head come out, it felt like pushing was never going to end, the more it burned, the more progress I made, the further I felt I still had to go. I waited to feel like my whole body was going to rip in half, when I just felt like my clitoris was going to rip to which I had to surrender to the possibility because I decided I wasn't going to push forever. I screamed with every cell of my body and pushed his head out completely, I wanted to keep going but Tiffanie told me to wait so I didn't tear. Little pushes, little breathes. She gives me the green light moments later and with my next two pushes he was born, at 8:22pm on Monday April, 2nd. I did it. I birthed our son on our living room floor. Coyote was perfect and the placenta followed shortly after. He cried and in between his cries his whimpers sounded like a baby coyote. I couldn't believe it was over. All of the unknown aspects of birth were all known now, a reality, although everything went relatively smooth, it would take me weeks to integrate back into my body. What I didn't get in having a birth tub filled with rose petals like I had wanted, was made up for with a entire series of photographs documenting the entire birth that Aarika captured beautifully. Everyone present played such an important part at our birth, each woman with her own natural grace, for that I am eternally grateful. The few times I lost focus, everyone was right there to bring me back, especially Tiffanie, like my big sister gently guiding me home.