Visionary art of Lobsang Melendez Ahuanari
By Emily Anne Utia
I am a woman of faith and of prayer.
I believe in manifestation and the power of the word. I am committed to integrity and an ever-evolving spiritual practice. So why, then, when it came time to birth my first child, did it not all unfold according to plan? Along the spiritual path, there is always room for improvement, for fine-tuning. There are always deeper lessons to be learned. The way my birth story unraveled certainly brought to light a huge lesson for me in regards to trusting my intuition that I feel many women possibly are also working with and for that reason, it feels potent to share.
The details leading up to the day my water broke 4 weeks earlier than anticipated, as tempting as it is to share each one, are not actually important. What is important are the lessons learned and the undeniable fact that there were several significant events that were clearly guiding me one way that I pretended I did not see because I did not want anything to get in the way of what I was wanting to create. There was what I wanted and what the universe was wanting for me.
At the same time, there are no mistakes and even when we feel like we fell off the path, we are ALWAYS on it, learning and growing stronger from the bumps and unexpected detours. I never imagined I would be where I was when I gave birth or even still am today in postpartum and I have had to hugely grieve the loss of my dreams, letting go and releasing so much guilt and grief so that I can be present in the best possible way for myself and my son.
As my son rounds the corner to 6 months, I’m aware that the twinge of despair that was once so strong in my heart is slowly starting to weaken, though it is still very much present any time I turn my mind around to reflect on what we have been though over the course of his short life.
Emily & Emanuel in their jungle home
William is my first born and, like many women, I had a very clear vision of how I wanted to bring him into this world and how I would care for him and myself during the postpartum time. I’ve lived on Maui for many years where I have studied sacred birth and been a part of the natural and home-birthing community of women, which gave me a pretty clear idea of how I would birth my children. Surely it would be there on beautiful Maui, surrounded by the loving and nurturing support of many other women who shard my beliefs and ideas, honoring me and celebrating my rites of passage from maiden to motherhood, as I had done for so many before me.
However, due to a hugely challenging immigration process, my husband and I were in the high mountains of the Andes when my water began it’s slow leak on October 2nd, when I was 35 weeks pregnant. We had decided to move up to the sacred valley from our Amazonian home for the birth so we would have a home with more modern amenities, have more community around us, and be able to work with a home birth midwife with whom spoke both English and Spanish.
The freezing cold mountains were nothing like the tropics I had always thought I would birth in, but it felt much more important to birth with my husband present than birth in the States without him. This was obstacle number one that actually put a good deal of stress on us both, as neither of us were very familiar with this new area we were living, we really didn’t know anyone, it was such a different climate, and everything just felt new and unfamiliar. Nonetheless, when I was 30 weeks pregnant, we made the move and had done our absolute best to create a cozy home and workspace that could support us through the birth and until we would be able to travel together as a family to the states.
On the surface, everything seemed to be coming along perfectly but one didn’t have to dig very far to see that there was no root or foundation and I was actually stuffing a great deal of stress and uncertainty inside. I wasn’t really jiving at all with our midwife, but felt stuck as it was so close to the birth and plus we had basically moved to this area to work with her and I really didn’t even know where to start to search for another. She was also from the States though she had been living in Cusco for 8 years, so she seemed the perfect match for our bicultural family, especially since she spoke both Spanish and English. It was important for me to feel I would be able to express in English if needed during my labor.
There are many reasons why over the next few weeks I began to feel very disheartened by the birth team I was seeking to cultivate. The more clinical approach of our young midwife was nowhere near the nurturing support I was so craving. Emanuel never really liked her, which made things difficult for me, as I was always sticking up for or defending her, even though inside I also felt so let down. I felt so alone in my process and inside I was definitely dancing with a good amount of anxiety even though I would not let anyone, including myself, truly know this.
On top of the lack of birth support I felt, we were also dealing with other stressors including the whole money story and not sure if we would be able to build the client base we were hoping to and be able to sustain ourselves. On top of this, the altitude alone was having quite an impact on my largely pregnant body, as I was constantly out of breath and feeling dehydrated regardless of the amplitude of water I drank. Plus, there was definitely building tension between Emanuel and I based on a constant clash of cultural beliefs, language barriers, and my constantly pushing him to go along with my decisions regardless of his own intuitive feelings.
So there we were, trying our best to make the pieces fit together enough and to feel like we were doing the right things in the right place regardless of the many obstacles we were navigating and on that morning of October 2, I awoke to warm amniotic fluid dripping down my inner thigh. We notified our midwife, who basically put me on bed rest, assuring us that most likely the leak would seal. It did not and on Saturday afternoon just shy of 36 weeks, my water completely broke and I prepared for labor.
By 4am the following morning, light waves of contractions were well underway and by 7 we called our midwife to come. Everything felt like it was advancing quickly, with the contractions growing stronger and closer together. We had the tub set up, though because my water had already broke, I was discouraged from really going in there, which was hugely disappointing to me, as I had planned on laboring in there as much as possible.
As the hours went by, I sank deeper and deeper into my own world, having no idea of the time or progress, if any I was making. Exam after exam by the midwife continued to show no signs of dilation. Emanuel was growing more anxious as well and there was a huge clashing of energy between him and our midwife, which made things even more difficult for me. Even for me in the depth of my own world, I was beginning to grow frustrated with her and her seemingly novice approach to assisting a birth. I began to connect fully with this little being trying to come out and made a pact with him that it was just him and I anyway and I didn’t need anyone else anymore.
Then the meconium started coming. First time was late afternoon and then a second time in the evening. This was hugely alarming to me, though my midwife seemed to shrug it off. Emanuel was beside himself, having had a very clear vision that the baby was suffering greatly and needed to be taken out via a surgical birth. I was around 17 hours of labor at this point and the thought of not completing the home birth that was “supposed to happen,” just seemed out of the question. So I pushed on.
Looking back, the entire labor was such a strange energy. I felt alone for most of it, laboring in the cave I had created in our bedroom. Emanuel was outside praying with his mapacho and our midwife seemed to be resting or sleeping. I had a beautiful, young and very sweet doula with us who was my guardian angel, always hovering nearby, watching, offering gentle words of encouragement and massage when I wanted. I am so grateful she was there and it was a very last minute synchronicity that she was. The clashing energies of my husband and my midwife created such tension and it felt like there was all this drama going on around me never mind the fact that I was in labor!
By late Sunday afternoon, I was vomiting anything I tried to take down, including water. So by Sunday night, I was exhausted, weak, dehydrated, and just floating in this altered space. The contractions were one after the other, often without space to rest or breathe in-between. As the night broke into the next day, Emanuel was growing more and more anxious and it was time for another exam. This time, our midwife announced to me that I was finally almost completely dilated and she could just about feel the head. Hallelujah! This gave both Emanuel and I the boost of energy we needed to keep going a few more hours, working together now, him supporting my weight as I squatted into the contractions.
Then, around 9am is when it all fell apart. Since nothing had seemed to progress anymore, I had yet another exam from the midwife who reported that she had made a huge mistake. I still wasn’t dilated at all. There was no baby coming through anytime soon. My heart sank deep and I could feel a true sense of fear rise inside of me. It was clear to me in that moment that I had to make the call. Something was not right and this baby needed to get out of me. It was time to let go of the home birth and do what I never thought I would do, get to the clinic and prepare for a C-section.
There wasn’t much time to stew on it. Lights came on and somehow between the crashing waves of the contractions I directed Emanuel on packing bags and getting us out of the house. It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do and the walk from my cave to the taxi waiting outside felt like a walk of shame. My head was spinning with questions and yet the unstoppable pain piercing through my womb forced to me stay only present, breath, and manage the contractions. I labored in the back of the taxi for an hour, over the mountain pass and to the front doors of the clinic that I never thought I would see again.
It is so much of a blur in some ways and in others I can see it all so clearly it’s as if it’s happening now. Wheelchair, exam table, more hands inside of me, yes she is dilated, no she is not, wheelchair to the doctors office, exam table, speculum, no there is no dilation. I roll off his table to squat while the next contraction rolls through and this time leave yet another puddle of meconium on the floor. This time, finally, there is a sense of alarm and everything escalated even more. Wheelchair to stretcher, to operating room, needle in my back and then the numbness that starts at my feet and climbs through my body, iv in my arm and I am freezing, convulsing on the table. I feel them trying to yank the baby out as my body bounces up and down on the table.
Then, the release. The silence. The cry.
To be continued, next full moon…
Emily Anne Utia
In addition to being a new mama, Emily Anne Utia is a natural wellness practitioner dedicated to holistic healing arts which span different cultures. For the past ten years, she has been studying native healing practices from North America including Hawaii, as well as the Peruvian Amazon and high mountains of Columbia. Emily works alongside her husband, Emanuel, native to the Amazon jungle, and together they study, educate, and offer traditional treatments utilizing the vegetalista tradition of plant medicine. Together, they created Machimpuro, Centro para Plantas Naturales, a small and rustic center located in the depths of the Peruvian Jungle. In addition, Emily has her own U.S. based healing practice called Wahine de La Selva. Before dedicating her life to natural wellness, Emily worked as a professional child and family therapist in the field of speech and language pathology. Her own story of how she overcame depression, anxiety, and addiction is shared through her book, Awaken, a 21st Century Manifesto, which can be found on amazon.com.