REBIRTH WITH THE BIRTH OF ZIA

The day I discovered I was pregnant was the day my life eternally shifted.
It was September 2007 and I had been married for only four months. Being pregnant was not a possibility for me having been told that my eggs in my ovaries were disintergrating from two gynaecologists. So obviously the pregnancy was not planned. So this was a miracle. A gift. A soul who chose me to be her mother. Shew what a huge honour but incomprehensible at the time.

But since that day - the thought - process and experience of being pregnant and ultimately giving birth to my daughter Zia, has been about one journey and one lesson only: SELF LOVE.
Shew what a tough one that is - because you truly know at a deep core of you, beyond your conscious effort that unless you LOVE YOURSELF enough - you cannot have this baby. You cannot bring up a child who is whole and LOVED unless you love yourself enough to say: I AM WORTHY OF THIS BABY.
It was a ride. Filled with lots of anxiousness, fear, exhiliration, self doubt and excitement. But finally giving birth was like dying to myself. I had to allow all my fear to die. I had to make sure all my self worth issues and my failures and insecurities was killed. The birthing process is not like anything a woman will ever experience in her life. It is more than just pushing out a baby.
It is being humbled by the amazing Creator we have to allow us to grow another human being inside of us. To feel her grow and turn and move. To know from the day of conception that she relies exclusively on me as the mother - for her survival.
So if you dont love yourself enough to look after yourself - then you dont look after that baby inside of you.
Never before did I experience being so alienated from my body. It had a will of its own. It wants and needs was beyond my efforts to deny it.
But the fear that enveloped me when I thought of giving birth - physically - crippled me.
Days before the day - i was on tenterhooks not knowing what to expect. And having no option of an epidural I knew this was probably the worst pain i would feel.
Would I beable to bear it. Would I beable to keep my dignity. Would I let myself and the baby down. It was all chasing through my head.
When i finally went into labour at 6pm on 22 April 2008 my worst fears came true. The pain was unbearable. I had developed a bladder infection that made the dialation of 2cm feel like 10 cm. I was in agony from the word go and this lasted until 7h30am the following morning.
It was a pain that came and went. The pain of LIFE itself. Giving me brief glimpses of hope. I walked, sat in a bath, laid down, turned, twisted, hung on, spoke, was silent, breathed, prayed, meditated, breathed, twisted, walked, stood up, sat down, back in the bath, out, worried, begged for drugs, waited for drugs, cried but never screamt.
The dignity was in not letting go. In my mind being a primal woman was losing my dignity and i refused to give into the urge of letting go. Screaming like a banshee....worried what my loved one would think. That I would be embarrassing generations of women before me who gave birth under the trees nogal.
So i kept it in.
While my husband slept on the bed supplied for my convenience in the birthing room. Ok he woke up half hour later.
Until finally at 7am I was told its time. I was 10cm dilated and i could finally push.
BUT NO ONE EVER TELLS YOU THAT PUSHING IS HARD.
That unless you push through - the baby in the canal is like a suction. You push and if you dont push hard enough - it gets sucked back up. So there I was squatting and being told to push - NO LADIES - NOT DIGNIFIED. Dont push with your neck with your torsoe. Which at the time is a distorted, gynormous orb between you and the floor. Errhh so I missed lamaze class. But still its not natural phenomenon with the baby miraculously popping out. No its hard.
Its primal and then its when the screams come. Loud and intense. It rips through you like a contraction of a jaggered knife ripping through your pelvis.
Its like nothing on earth you can ever experience unless you going to be killed and you happen to be eaten by a great white shark.
Its insane. Its exhiliration, Its adrenalin, Its LIFE. Raw, hard, intense and passionate. Its what the word means: BIRTH: the act or process of bearing or bringing forth a human being. ITS THE ACT OF LIFE.
I had no idea I finally pushed Zia out of me - accept for seeing my husband's face. White with shock and awe. In that moment I released. All the pain, suffering, negative emotions of my life in one fell swoop.
Letting it go. Screaming but happy that my baby has been born screaming and fighting for that breath that would give her LIFE.

Seeing Zia for the first time was the most natural, and deep connection I have ever felt with another human. I knew her. From before time from another time. From Life itself. She was with me again as promised. She was here.
This is LIFE, my LIFE, my child, my Zia, my WORLD, my reflection, My journey. SHE IS WORTH the pain. A small price for the eternal gift she is.
I would never go back and take the epidural. Because the birth was my workshop. It was my process of LIFE. It allowed me to face LIFE and BE ALIVE.

MY REBIRTH!!!