What I Learned From An 85 Hour Labor
85 hours of childbirth. 85 hours of contractions. 85 hours of the kind of energy that opens a body, brings a baby through a place that has never experienced the likes of this transformation before, and then out and into the world comes a baby, healthy as can be.
Women. Women’s bodies. And our spirits. They/WE are incredible. How else can you explain the idea that half of the population goes through something like this all day every day, all over the world? In order to continue humanity and bring us all into the future.
Sulema came to one of my prenatal women’s circles when she was 35 weeks pregnant. She and her partner had been planning a free birth for the previous weeks of pregnancy and then decided at that point to explore the option of having a traditional midwife at their birth ... lucky me, they chose me!
When Sulema called me around 10pm to tell me she’d been having regular contractions every 10 minutes, I had no idea that her baby would wait three and a half more days before deciding to make her entrance into this world.
But over the next three and a half days, I witnessed a true goddess unfolding right before my eyes. Sulema was strong, she was intentional about every aspect of her experience, and she was also breaking apart and reforming.
She broke and reformed over and over again over the course of those 85 hours of labor, making way for her little star-being of a daughter to enter this Now in her own way. And throughout it all, I kept thinking, “this woman is stronger than any other woman I’ve ever witnessed.” It is true.
Ultimately, she decided to go to the hospital to get some much needed rest on the morning her baby was born. So many nights of no sleep wore on her and nothing we tried helped shift things either in the direction of sleep or direction of baby coming more quickly.
Surprise surprise though, baby had other plans :) Sulema received IV fluids at the hospital and less than three hours after they pulled up to the hospital, baby was born vaginally and without any medications for pain or rest !
This woman is a true powerhouse and I will have this birth experience etched into my mind for the rest of my days.
What an honor to witness women in all of their glory, bringing life into this world. I don’t have an ego attachment to needing to witness the actual births (though I truly do love that part) but I do have an attachment to holding space for things to unfold exactly as they should. I do love seeing this process of unfolding, this process of destruction that happens as mothers birth themselves in the midst of birthing their babies. It hurts but I know at the same time, it is this breaking apart that makes us all rise collectively.
Women find their strength, their voices, they run a marathon for longer than any human could or should otherwise, and Sulema in particular did it all with more grace than I believed was humanly possible.
Welcome to the world to their beautiful baby girl, and welcome to the world Sulema-the-Mother. Your power is breathtaking. Thank you for allowing me into your sacred space and for showing me what strength really looks like. I am humbled by you and in awe, and I will be for all the rest of my days.
