Christina's Miracle Birth

Today, October 23, twenty-nine years ago today, I had one of the most incredible experiences of my life, I gave birth to my daughter, Christina Grace Turnwall. A little over two years before, I had given birth to my son, Calvin, in our local hospital. I vowed at the time that I would not have another child in the hospital, because they would not let me hold and feed him when I wanted to.

So, I was in excellent health, and we decided to have a home birth. All that night, I sat naked and every time I had a contraction, I became one with the light a candle flame. It was a method I discovered that night, and it worked incredibly well (even though I experienced intense contractions) I felt no pain. I let myself relax by breathing in to the candle light. The midwife who we had arranged to help us wasn’t able to make it. Another midwife, who hadn’t had much experience yet, came and assisted towards the end.

I tapped into my female essence, deep into my animal nature. It was as if I was a cat or dog that wanted to hide from the rest of the world. I was non-verbal, focusing on relaxing with my breath. I reached a point in which I was almost spinning with energy because of how quickly the contractions were piling on top of each other. My midwife came over and I guess that she was looking at how still I seemed on the outside and said that she thought that I was five centimeters dilated. Not agreeing with her, my inner voice told me that I was ten centimeters dilated, which is all the way opened up, but since I wasn’t talking I didn’t say anything.

A little while later, I felt like I had to pee. So, I walked outside the yurt and squatted down to pee on the ground (I didn’t want to walk all the way down to the outhouse). Nothing came out. Again, my inner voice told me that I had better be careful because the baby might fall out. That seemed reasonable to me, so I returned to the yurt and when I walked across the threshold I screamed because it felt like someone had stabbed me. Lynn (the midwife) told me to lay down, and Phyllis (her helper) and her washed her hands. Lynn told me to push hard on the next contraction, and out came Christina’s head. I pushed again on the next contraction and out came the rest of Christina!

That was how my sweet daugh, Christina was born.