The Birth Story of Ren Ruah
Small Audio, Written story & Photos
Hello friends!
I’m so happy to share this story with you all today.
Here’s a one minute audio of the best birthing advice I ever received. You can click play and listen before we get into the rest. This entire essay and story will be exclusive to my paid community here on substack, but I wanted to offer those of you here who are here as free supporters, something little too. To say thank you for being here. The first section of this will be free.
I’m listening to this song from my birth playlist as I’m writing today, and I thought it would be nice for you to listen to it while reading…
You can click the link here to Spotify and pop it on repeat to create some ambience.
Varkala maribou state (it’s a soft song and won’t wake sleeping babies xx)
*In some email browsers the entire email wont show, so you may need to read on the app x
Both of my births are so close to my heart, and both of them, had me going back and forward whether to share publicly or not.
There are many reasons not to share our birthing stories.
Sometimes they feel too sacred, sometimes they may feel triggering to someone else.
However,
My beliefs around storytelling, guide me towards sharing.
Like I always have, about most things.
Women need to hear stories of birth.
Stories of power,
Stories of pain, and how it was moved through.
Stories of leaning into discomfort rather than avoiding it.
Stories of doing hard things and being acknowledged for it.
Sharing stories so that we can each stack evidence in our own favours of what’s possible for birth.
Birth is one of the hidden mysteries, that as a young woman, I was obsessed with knowing about.
I wanted to learn. I wanted a peak into this wildness - that was birth. I read every birth story I could get my hands on. I Watched every birth video available on youtube by 2018. I entered the world of spirit babies. Birth. Motherhood. Binge listening to motherhood podcasts, while I was simply nannying other peoples children.
I was obsessed, perhaps because there was a deeper intuitive knowing that, motherhood would initiate me into everything I had ever wanted when it came to self fulfilment, creativity, family, lifestyle, and career….
Or perhaps it was deeper than that. Perhaps I was connected to the lineage of women.
How we all got here.
I wanted to make the unknown, known.
To understand the miracle.
But - It wasn’t something I could learn.
The embodiment only becomes available once you’re two feet in it.
No amount of information could prepare me, to hold the amount of unseen, unread, information that I process through my heart, mind and body every day, now that I’m a mother.
To be totally transparent, I’m not that dogmatic about birth.
I personally believe undisturbed, physiological birth is what is normal and natural,
However I also completely understand the diversity of bodies, babies, emotions, medical circumstances, access to resources etc and so I also believe that powerful births can absolutely happen
As Free births,
Early births,
As home births,
With or without midwives,
In hospitals,
Or if you have a belly birth rather than vaginal.
I have many thoughts about how the birthing system is pretty messed up as an entity, and that birth has become a business rather than a sacred rite of passage.
I think it’s wild that many hospital midwives have never witnessed a drug and intervention free birth in their entire careers.
However those thoughts, are about the bigger picture.
I do have some resources for those who want to explore more (book recs, documentaries etc)
What I want YOU to know, when reading this, is that I advocate for women to feel safe and loved and held and respected in birth. That’s it. However it looks.
If that wasn’t your experience, I am so sorry, and I hope that by witnessing birth stories that do feel safe and loving, that there can be an element of healing.
For context around my stories,
I had a peaceful, beautiful, and totally normal (apart from a 2nd degree tear that healed naturally) 7.5 hour home water birth for my first son Rafi in May 2020, In a little forest, in a little town, in the south west of Western Australia.
We were privileged with a community of families who understood birth, understood the power of the initiation, and were more than willing to show up and support us through that experience of our lives.
Even though 2020/2021 was about to happen globally, we felt protected and supported through that time due to the location of the world we lived in, our community, resources and our perspectives.
The best words of advice I was gifted before I birthed my first son,
Were not from a book I had read,
Not from a class,
Not from a video,
Even though all of those things gifted me so much in themselves.
The greatest words of advice were given to me by my mother,
Over the phone
While she lived on the islands.
I was asking her for tips or techniques.
Do I hypnobirth? Do I just breathe?
What position is best?
I thought my mum would be full of answers
After birthing 7 babies herself, with the longest labour being 45 minutes.
But no
All she said was
“I just did it. And you’ll just do it”
And, as I birthed, those words lingered around me,
and helped me out of my head and into my body
I’ll just do it.
It will happen, So let it happen.
Oh, I’m doing it.
It’s happening.
Women just do it.
And for me - just doing it looked like this,
And for some
It looks different.
But we do it
Don’t we?
In whatever way we do.
Women Birth.
So, After the birth of Rafi, I had no reason for myself to fear birth.
So you can imagine my surprise, towards the amount of fears, and discomforts I had to move through while pregnant with Ren.
Perhaps it was due to an early loss only two months before becoming pregnant with Ren.
Or perhaps, it was just this season and phase of life.
I moved through fears of death, the discomfort of disconnection (spiritually), Physical pain in this pregnancy, and had to walk the more mysterious path of the unknown.
I had relied so strongly on a clear connection to Rafi’s spirit in order to birth him. I had experienced close to no fear other than mild anticipation. I was innocent and confident.
So the opposite feelings arising had me fearing that I would then have the opposite experience of Rafi’s birth.
I wondered often, if I would have a difficult time, due to not being able to make enough time to “prepare” for birth. Emotionally, Spiritually, Mentally, Physically.
We had a very busy pregnant, with the first trimester & a toddler, packing cleaning and moving house, traveling for 2.5 months, moving house, trying to settle and furnish a home in time for a baby.
I felt like I had barely had time to kiss my husband properly, let alone prepare for my body to open up to the ethers, and a whole spirit and human being pass through my body, into this world.
I wondered how Rafi would handle both birth and the transition into big brother (hooly dooly that’s a whole other post… We were in the trenches, and can now just see the shimmer of light over the mountain haha).
I felt anticipation around relationship changes and family changes… Self changes…
And overall, admittedly, lacked excitement until the final weeks of the last trimester, where it all dropped in for me, I landed in my body and really, really enjoyed the last 6 weeks of my pregnancy and began to feel a deeper connection to my little mystery man in my womb.
If you’ve paid attention here on substack, I’ve documented most of those feelings and experiences in more depth over the last 6 months, and if you have the app you can scroll through my archive to read.
The day my beautiful little second sunshine came into our lives,
I was 40 weeks and 3 days pregnant. A whole 8 days earlier than when I went into labour with Rafi…
I remember in the lead up to birth, feeling strongly that this birthing experience would feel completely … normal.
yes, birth is absolutely sacred, magical, miraculous and all things.
But it’s also so normal. It’s a big deal AND not a big deal…
And I wanted it to feel that way. I wanted it to feel like “Just another day of our lives” to some extent. Calm. Gentle. Swift.
Those were words I had used. I don’t know if I’d still use the term “Gentle” now in hindsight haha but also, in many ways, it was.