When I walked into the Bumi Sehat Birth Center in Ubud, Bali a few years ago, I was instantly struck by its calmness and peace. Back then, birthing to me was a messy, loud and stressful affair. Hospital nurseries were where babies screamed and cried to no end, while new moms were often frazzled and nervous.
During my visit, I asked for a tour; the volunteers willingly opened their doors to the birthing rooms and the nursery where new mothers were resting with their babies. Though there were no births in progress then, I saw for the first time mothers resting with their newborns. Some were breastfeeding and some others, quietly admiring their sleeping baby. No crying babies, no frazzled moms. I wish I could capture that moment in a photo. It was just peaceful. The mothers and their babies were just being in the present. That was when I decided, when the time comes to bless me with a baby, this is how I would wanted it to be. I left the center with two books by Ibu Robin Lim – Placenta: The Forgotten Chakra and After The Baby’s Birth. They held such heartful information and advice that had convincing reasons for a peaceful birthing process.
When I was planning for the birth of my daughter, it was clear to me that this was the kind of birth I would strive and prepare for. With a wonderfully supportive husband, I kept a positive mindset throughout the pregnancy. I chose to trust my body’s capability to labour naturally. I rested on the strength of all the women before me, like my mother, my grandmother and beyond. If they hadn’t birthed naturally, I wouldn’t be here today and this was the strength I wished to bestow on my daughter as she may one day too be a mother herself.
I found a wonderful doctor – a mother herself – who believed in the woman’s capacity to give birth naturally and believed that it was also the best beginning for the baby. It was a delightful moment when she reviewed my birthplan and said “Yes” to all the requests! Together with my husband, we felt that it was important for us to have a drug-free birth. That meant no painkillers, injections, gas or epidurals. Having read so much about the ecstasy of birth from the oxytocin rush, I curious about the experience. The other things we requested for were to have a water birth, delayed cord clamping, to safekeep her placenta and to place our baby on me immediately after birth.
The ecstasy of birth. Wow. It was indescribable, and unattainable unless I give birth again! Of course it was painful. Giving birth was the most painful thing I’ve afflicted on myself but our female bodies were designed so perfectly that with the pain comes the reward. The empowerment that came with this amazing sensation – now I can do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to love, nurture and care for this sweet child of mine (and conquer the world too!). I will be always grateful to her for the gift of this experience.
To feel and move with the rush of this dance between me and my unborn daughter as she made her journey out of me and into this world, and to experience such an out-of-this-world yet fleeting ecstasy, I pray I will have the opportunity to birth this way again.
I will never know how she would be if she was birthed a different way, but all I know is that – for my husband and I – our daughter is at peace with herself and with the world. And we can rest with that peacefully.
Whenever I am with her, I am at peace.
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Amy Tan is a movement therapist and educator who is the director of Zentrum, a movement-based healing center in Kuala Lumpur. She lives a free-range life on a farm and that’s where she’s raising her daughter.
