Full Story Transcript:

Amoura Jean's Birth Story

February 17, 2023

It’s taken me some time to sit down and write Amoura’s birth story. 12 months to be exact. It’s interesting to me because I love to use writing as a tool to process and gather insights into my thoughts, feelings, and experiences in life. I had every intention of waking up the next day, baby girl peacefully asleep on my chest, and myself journaling vigorously about the transcendent experience that is childbirth. That didn’t happen. I filled my time with baby cuddles, healing, and recalibrating instead, and quite honestly; everything but writing down Amoura’s birth story.

Maybe I should have done more journaling during those early months. Maybe I should have recorded some voice memos or made more time for introspection. I will next time around. But this time around, I just wanted to fully be with my newborn baby, knowing those moments were so fleeting and sometimes, despite culture’s belief otherwise, we don’t have to capture it all. We can let it arrive and let it leave untouched.

Although, I realized over those months that when I resisted picking up the pen and inking Amoura’s birth story onto paper I was in no way resisting sharing her birth story. I ecstatically and gladly told it to my family the next morning as we FaceTimed from across the country, my face beaming with pride as, still in somewhat disbelief and awe of it all, I held my tiny little newborn in my arms. I told it over and over again to each wide-eyed relative, each giddy friend, and to other freshly initiated mothers who also had their own birth stories to share. I think that’s important. Telling your birth story. Outloud. With little surveillance or filtering, just the full expression of how it felt for you, from your perspective. Not your midwife, your doctor, or spouse, but through your own body, mind, and soul. Whether that story changes over time as you process and evolve into motherhood, is totally ok. It’s all fluid. It always was.

Amoura’s birth story was nothing short of miraculous.

I believe it went so beautifully because I invested in creating a healthy holistic pregnancy (strong in mind, body, and spirit) the moment Isaiah and I saw that double line appear and accepted the honor of becoming parents.

I trained for birth like an Olympic athlete and studied like a Ph.D. candidate. I knew the experience had a lot of healing available to me (and generations to come) and I also knew I wanted the best possible entrance to the world I could create for my beautiful daughter. I wanted to give her that gift. Mostly, because I believe that a traumatic birth can imprint on a new little soul for the entirety of their lifetime, and though based on the work I do I also understand that may be something they are here to experience and learn, I wanted her to have the best chance of feeling the safety, gentleness, and holiness that’s available in a birth that happens with mother and baby at the center. 

That peaceful arrival is something I did not experience in my own birth. 

37 years ago, I came into the world less than a minute before my twin brother after being pulled backward out of the birth canal and through the opening of my mother’s stomach in an ever-so-fated twin c-section. My mother was told after laboring for 13 hours that my twin brother was transverse, while I was steadily making my way out, and that even though I could be born vaginally within the hour, he would have to enter via C-section. She decided since the rooftop would already need to be opened, we’d both come out that way. Upon arrival, my cord was cut immediately, I was taken to a cold metal table away from the warmth of the only body I had ever known and suctioned, poked, prodded, and swiftly diapered before I could even catch my breath. My tiny womb mate and I were separated, placed in siloed plastic bins, and quickly whisked away to a nursery for my mother to recover until she was ready to see us. I received no juicy cocktail of beneficial probiotics from my mother's birth canal (which can still happen in a process called Vaginal Seeding even if a baby is born via c-section) and no breast milk from her chest. Ever. It’s very possible what I did receive was a cocktail of other medications including fentanyl, pitocin, and anything else we deem necessary to numb the body (and mind) of a birthing mother enough for a soul to make its entrance into the world.

I know this is a familiar story, and possibly similar to your own birth story or that of your baby, but I believe there is a better way. There are certainly circumstances where the medications and the procedures are truly necessary. Modern medicine has saved the lives of thousands of women and children for hundreds of years. I am grateful for that technology and those support services. Yet, there are many circumstances where women who had been given the proper education, preparation, and authority in their labor would have created entirely different birthing experiences than those left to the all-knowing gloved hands of the medical world.

I feel my work today is to communicate a positive and empowering birth story that demonstrates the full range of what we as feminine beings are truly capable of experiencing. All of us must birth the way we choose, in the environments that create the highest sense of safety and comfort for us. My position is that the power to choose only comes after the power to be educated on our options. Then, and only then, can we choose what’s right for our bodies and our babies.

Birth Story:

At 39 weeks largely pregnant, I walked out of the acupuncturist’s office at 4:00 pm on February 15th feeling rejuvenated and full of energy. I had started acupuncture about 6 weeks prior since I knew it was such a supportive modality for me in the past and something that my body was extremely responsive to in times of healing and rebuilding. Pregnancy was no different, my body was telling me it needed some good blood-building support and extra energy as it had given so much to create new life in those 39 weeks prior.

Around 7:00 pm I sat at the small round marble table in our kitchen with my twin brother and husband, Isaiah. As I leaned back in satisfaction after a big meal, I felt an achingly low period-like cramp in my abdomen. My brother noticed my discomfort and I took a deep breath before half-jokingly replying, “Woo, that felt like a contraction,” I smiled and thought not much else of it.

At almost 10:00 pm I had this overwhelming urge to eat a grapefruit. I had experienced almost zero pregnancy cravings my entire pregnancy.  I truly feel cravings are really just signposts pointing to where we life-generating women are nutrient deficient and as a result, I had proactively filled myself with as many nutrient-dense foods as possible. All of that being said I followed the urge and announced to Isaiah that I’d be taking the car to the grocery store for a late-night run. A little perplexed but too tired to oppose, he agreed. I waddled over to the citrus table and grabbed two of the juiciest roundest pink grapefruit I’d laid my eyes on in a very long time. As I was checking out, the female cashier immediately proclaimed, “Ah a boy! You’re carrying so low!” This was the first time I’d ever heard that…and I knew it meant Amoura was making her way closer to the door. 

As I sat back down at that marble table and sliced through the thick yellow skin to reveal the pinky flesh inside, I was transported immediately back to sunlit mornings sitting with my feet dangling off the thick plastic hunter-green lawn chairs on my grandmother’s screen porch in Florida. Blonde streaks flowed through my hair, juvenile freckles spattered my face, and my skin glowed with a warm olive hue from the sun. I was 11 or so. My grandmother would wake before us to walk across the thick Floridian grass to her grapefruit trees and pluck the heaviest roundest ones from the long limbs. She’d have them ready for us in a big glass bowl on the faux marbled countertops of her double-wide and slice them open, right down the center, to reveal the perfect sunrise inside. I’d dig right in with my sharp spoon and slurp the juicy fleshy chunks down with a wide grin on my face. She sent me boxes and boxes of huge grapefruit for years from Florida to Upstate New York where I grew up because she knew how much I loved them. She passed away at 93, just over 2 years before that night I sat at my table eating the juiciest Florida grapefruit I could find in Southern California, knowing that she’d be right there with me and Amoura as we ushered her through to the other side.

Fast forward to a long night spent alone on the couch curled up in the fetal position with my pregnancy pillow, unknowingly my last night as a woman in the world without another human to care for. I experienced heavy period-like cramping all night and was transported back to those middle school days when I left school early to hide away from the world in my dark room. I decided not to wake Isaiah that night in case it was indeed go time and I needed his strength the next day. It turned out to be a great decision.

Our midwife was already coincidently scheduled for an appointment at 10:00 am that day. I texted our doula, Trisha, and let her know that things felt like they were progressing and that I’d let her know what the midwife said.

At 11:30 am our midwife showed up, late, as she’d done many times more recently than not.  I was annoyed, as tardiness was something I grew up around and it made me feel like I wasn’t important on this very important day. She finally arrived and spent most of the conversation convincing herself, and perplexing us, that I was most likely not in labor. Mostly because she had another client who was two weeks overdue at that point and needed some support moving things into action so she was headed that way after our appointment. She danced around the idea of skipping my vaginal exam but my intuition insisted she followed through. She pulled her hand out abruptly, “You are very soft. Fully effaced,” already starting to take her gloves off. “Can you tell how dilated I am?” I asked. She shrugged, “Maybe a couple of centimeters, not sure.” I asked if she could head back in there and tell me for sure but she didn’t think it was necessary. She had her answer and I had mine.

She directed me to take some Tylenol, knock myself out with Benadryl, close the curtains, and sleep the rest of the day. That didn’t sit right with me at all. Drug myself and go to sleep? I was about to have a baby! All of her recommendations had been in alignment with my all-natural approach until this point. She also prescribed no sex and no more walks (Isaiah and I had already gone for a walk that morning which we did not mention to her). “Nothing to progress things further,” she reiterated. She offered to bring over some supplies for us to do a belly cast to take our minds off things. I said it wasn’t necessary. She insisted that she’d drop them off after her next appointment either way. She said she’d probably be back Monday on my due date to deliver this baby. It was Thursday. I wasn’t so sure even she believed that. I called to check in with Trisha. She laughed lightly. “Go take a walk in the sunshine with your husband and keep me updated.”

I sat down and had a big bowl of shrimp curry after she left, not sure shrimp was my best choice but I figured I’d have whatever was leftover in the fridge and it’d better be hearty. Isaiah went back into the office to work and I went to lay down for a few. The sensations were intensifying but at this point, my mind was working hard to “figure out” if this was labor or not while my body was making steady progress.

I called Isaiah from the other bedroom in our compact two-bedroom apartment to interrupt his meeting. “Hi, um, can you come in here? Things are getting intense and I just need you to cuddle with me for a while.” He agreed he’d be there in a bit but didn’t take it too seriously. That moment, while I was alone in my labor and most likely transitioning from early to active labor, was one of the hardest moments of the entire birth experience for me. It was nowhere near as intense or exhilarating as the other moments, but as I lay there laboring alone I felt a tidal wave of emotion come over me. I felt so much gratitude for what was about to unravel but I also felt so much sadness. I’d always had a difficult and tumultuous relationship with my mother and in that moment, I felt sad. Sad she wouldn't be there to see this beautiful little girl after she entered the world and sad she wouldn't be there to mother me the way postpartum mothers needed to be mothered, with tenderness. I also felt angry. Angry I had picked a midwife who I thought would be a great motherly energy in my birth circle but instead I had begun to mistrust her and her motives. I felt like she was not making me a priority (in the same way I felt with my mother all those years). I knew she was brilliant at her craft but tragically narcissistic, like my mother.  Her repeated tardiness stung my subconscious and prodded memories of myself as a young girl in my sweaty soccer shin guards and mud-stained jerseys waiting hours past the rest of my teammates in empty bleachers after practice for my mother to arrive. Anxious and simultaneously pissed off, shifting, waiting for her to arrive but never knowing when. Those memories crashed over and over again like waves, seeing her, my younger self, standing alone outside the mall in an empty parking lot, outside the dark baseball stadium late at night where I used to work, outside school…wondering if maybe this would be the time she doesn’t show up at all. I vowed to never make my daughter wonder and wait like that. She could trust I’d be there, waiting with open arms, beaming to see her in the same way I was ready to receive her for the first time today.

I cried. I hadn't cried much during my pregnancy in the way women talk about crying and emotions flying. But in that moment, I cried hard.

Isaiah came in shortly after and held me tightly in bed as tears streamed down my face.

He started timing my contractions on his Apple watch. “They are moving closer together, Nicole. Less than 3 and a half minutes since the last one already.” He decided to call our midwife back but couldn't get a hold of her. He texted multiple times and called. Nothing. He didn’t think to check my email for the pager number she had directed us to call if I was in labor. All I could think was, “Nice work, Nicole. You couldn’t have your mother here with you so you found someone else, just like her, who’s not showing up.”

Isaiah got creative and remembered her student midwife followed us on Instagram. He video-called her on Instagram instead. She answered and asked him to go into the bedroom and hold the phone out so she could watch a contraction. I had no idea this was going on. Isaiah did as he was told and after witnessing me moan and breathe through a contraction she promptly said, “I’ll be over immediately.”

She, our doula, and the midwife swiftly showed up after that. It had just fallen dark, around 6 pm. Isaiah already had the birth pool blown up, the plastic coverings laid on the bed and floors, and anything else he could do to support. I was on the floor kneeling, facing our bed. I had just stripped my clothes off in an effort to feel more fluid and free. I remember mostly keeping my eyes closed as the women poured into our dark candle-lit bedroom. I spoke very few words, just a few niceties and requests to keep the bedroom door shut to guard our birth space from the blaring lights of the kitchen.

In that deep cave Isaiah and I had created, the whole room pulsed in the way a room pulses with the oura of a birthing woman. It glowed a deep amber. Music piped from two small Sonos, filling the atmosphere. And our plants swayed in the humidity with us. Little did I know I would enter that room at 2:00 pm on the 16th and not emerge again until the next morning.

Our midwife immediately moved in to give me an exam as I remained in position on my knees at the end of the bed. “Oh my,” she pulled her hand out as quickly as she had earlier that day, “You’re already 8 cm dilated.”

She directed Isaiah and the team to fill up the birth pool and get things laid out. Things could happen quicker than they had thought. Our midwife’s by-Monday prediction quickly closed into a few laboring hours after their arrival.

The room seemed to buzz after their entrance with hushed voices, the crinkling of plastic, the clicking of laptop keys, and the beeping of devices to check my blood pressure and Amoura’s heartbeat. I thanked the lord I wasn’t in a hospital room at that moment. The buzz would have been a blare. I wanted to labor in peace.

Things did slow for a bit after their arrival. I listened to my intuition and kindly asked the women to leave the room several times throughout my labor. Sometimes all of them, other times one stayed in the corner or fetched something for me like a honey stick or water.

Mostly, I wanted to labor with only Isaiah and me. We danced and swayed. We moved fluidly through each contraction as I breathed deeply, moaned, and let the waves roll over me with each round. I knew each contraction brought me closer to meeting my baby and instead of resisting it, I welcomed it. I praised it. I said thank you for coming with such intensity and creating such a storm within me to bring this soul forth into the world. When I caught myself thinking I wanted to fast forward the process and move out of the discomfort, I reminded myself this was the only time I would be here, in this space, with Isaiah, Amoura, and I dancing together to bring her into this new world. I reminded myself that this moment in time was so fleeting. So fragile.

Our doula later remarked that our birth was like watching a sensual tango, Isaiah and I beautifully moving together. As birth should be to keep that beautiful love hormone, Oxytocin, coursing through your veins. Sensual and intimate. A profession of love.

I also remembered I was birthing with women all over the world, we were moving and dancing and swaying together as we served as powerful portals for our newborn babies. I birthed with my ancestors. Women who have been bringing babies into this world for thousands of years, unmedicated, undisturbed, and uninhibited. I birthed with them, for them, that day.

I committed to omitting the word pain during my labor and it was not a hard promise to keep. I felt pressure. I felt powerful sensations. And I felt the intensity that is bringing a new life into the world through the walls of my body, but I didn't feel a lot of pain. The pain I did feel felt purposeful, useful, and necessary.

I had read that the positioning of the baby has a lot to do with the progression and ease of birth. I wanted to give Amoura the best chance at being LAO, Left Occupit Anterior, otherwise known as head down, with her back supported by the curve of my belly, and starting her descent from the left side of my womb to give her the widest possible entrance through my pelvis. Because of this another acronym I had learned, UFO, Upright, Forward and Open led my choice for many positions. I found myself laboring most of the time on either my hands and knees, kneeling before the end of the bed, in the warm birth tub leaned up against the side of it, on the toilet (yes this actually felt really good), or alternating standing and squatting holding onto Isaiah’s shoulders. Needless to say, I moved around A LOT and I still don’t know how laboring women are expected to stay in one place as waves of energy crash over them again and again. The body needs to move intuitively the way it moves with water - in full surrender.

After I reached 10 centimeters dilated things stalled a bit. I felt a lot of pressure and intensity at the front of my pelvis and I could tell I was running out of energy from being up the night before with early labor and all the activity that had come before that moment. I became a bit frustrated. Why are things not progressing? I got in my head a bit. I wondered if things were taking too long (there’s no timeline for birth except for the one we create), and started to question whether I would have the energy to push this baby out. 

I may or may not have irrationally asked our doula while she briefly entered if I could take a short nap at this point. To which she chuckled and before she could answer Isaiah, smiling himself, said, “The fact that you just asked her that in between contractions was your nap, Nicole.”

I asked the midwife to come into the room, as it had still been mostly Isaiah and I until this point. I asked her if we should break my water. My water still hadn’t broken and I knew that after a woman’s water breaks the baby's head presses much harder against the cervix progressing labor quicker. The midwife didn’t hesitate and simply said, “I don’t think it’s necessary. You’re doing just fine without it broken and I don’t see a reason to.” My thinking brain shouted inside, “To progress this labor along, clearly!” But I followed her lead. She reassured me that it just meant the sac was very healthy and strong and she didn’t want to interfere with the natural process. She checked me again, the only other vaginal exam I had since the first one after her arrival. She confirmed I was fully dilated with the sac bulging at the cervix. “Carry on, you’re doing great!” she said and left the room.

When Isaiah took a brief break for some dinner she told him that my subtle signs of frustration and distress for the first time during this labor were a positive indicator that things were about to shift. “Mothers always start telling me they don’t think they can do it right before they start pushing that baby out. It’s a telltale sign that she’s right where she needs to be; in transition.”

She was right. 

What they didn’t know while they both sat at that table over a warm bowl of chicken stirfry was that I was in the bedroom with our doula, lying curled up on my side in the bed, shaking violently. So hard that she stood at the edge of the bed holding me down with both loving but firm hands. I welcomed the shakes in the same way I welcomed the surges. I knew it was progress and in a way, it felt electrifying.

I was back in the birth pool with Isaiah when my surges started to transition to pushes. I would have a big surge, breathe deeply and moan and release through it as I’d done with all the other contractions that came before it, then at the end feel myself bearing down into a push. This was a bit confusing to me because I had pictured a clean transition from surges to pushing instead of a combination of both. Still, the pushes felt unproductive and Isaiah, who was nothing but love, reassurance, and pure presence throughout the whole labor, nicely asked me if I wanted the midwives to come in and bring me a shot of vodka.

Yes, vodka.

The midwife had told me stories prior of home-birthing women who had used strong liquors to soften their bodies and the brunt of pain through their births, and though I found it perplexing and again off-brand to the prior conversations and care we’d had centered around holistic health, I decided I’d have some on hand just in case. Isaiah picked up a bottle that morning while I was in early labor and rolled it to the back of our fridge to keep cold. 

I chuckled a bit and agreed. I hadn’t had a sip of alcohol in over 9 years since I left the alcohol-soaked New York City clubbing days for sunnier days and greener juices in California. The midwife assistant danced into the dark room with that brand-new bottle of vodka and lightly joked, “Bottle service!” as she poured a shot into one of Isaiah’s tiny espresso mugs. Leaning over the side of the birthtub, the dying maiden in me threw it back.

I didn’t need it for pain but I thought maybe there was some lingering resistance I needed to let go of that I just consciously couldn't access in my body. I thought maybe the alcohol would help let that last bit of tension leave. 

I got out of the birth tub after that, labored a bit longer, and then found myself in the bathroom with Isaiah laboring on the toilet. There was another half shot or so poured into the espresso cup that sat beckoning on the sink counter so I drank it down too. 

The maiden left the room after that and things heated up.

When I came out of the bathroom our doula was waiting for us with a rebozo. She wrapped it around Isaiah’s shoulders. I wrapped the cloth ends in my hands, squatted in front of him, and began to push. It felt progressive but I still felt so much pressure on my front pelvis. I also felt a ton of pressure on my rectum. Yes, my asshole. I kept saying I think “I’m going to poop!” and the midwives kept saying, “Let it out! Do what you need to do!” But I never pooped. I had cleaned out my bowels naturally with a bout of diarrhea during early labor, which was pretty common. There was nothing left in there but baby.

Once I got past the “I’m going to poop” phase I moved to, “I think I’m going to birth this baby out of my ass!” I really wondered if there was a way to do that and started picturing my anatomy again to confirm there was indeed no exit route that way. 

At that moment, I remember pushing up from the deep squat that I was in, looking around the room briefly to see the midwives and doula swirling around getting things ready for the grand finale, and taking a long deep breath as I closed my eyes.

What does she need right now?

She was getting hung up on the front of my pelvis, as I’d worked so hard to stay Upright Forward and Open. But she needed gravity to work for her, with her, in the other direction. My mind spoke up a few more times. “But you’re so tired. How will you have the strength to push her out? How will you do this?” I silenced it and handed the reigns back to my body, back to my baby, and back to my birth team for guidance. 

I surrendered.

This point in labor was the first time I had asked for some real assistance and guidance. The birth team suggested I lay down on the bed and labor on my back. My conscious mind kicked back in for a moment. On my back? Everything I had read about how women are unjustifiably required to lay on their backs during a hospital birth came flooding in. Laying on your back during labor narrows the pelvis, impedes the tailbone from getting out of the way for baby’s descent (often why forceps or vacuum extraction are needed), and quite frankly, from my perspective, was conjured up by a bunch of white men who decided it was more convenient, safer, and proper for them to deliver a women’s baby on her back. 

I checked in with my body again. I checked in with Amoura. How could I support her in this dance together between two worlds?

It was a full body, and baby, yes. She needed more space. And I needed the energy to give her that.

Isaiah got into the bed first, sat up against the headboard and opened his arms and legs to me as if to invite us in. I crawled up between his legs and faced out with my back pressed up against his chest as he held me in a big warm embrace.

The midwives gathered around the bed and the midwife assistant began to gently wrap her hand around one leg while Isaiah wrapped his hand around the other. As each urge to bear down crashed over me they would pull back on my legs, creating an even bigger opening for her entrance.

I felt the true force of my body now. I became the storm. I waited and breathed, silently and peacefully, then roared like thunder with each push. I was much louder now. Screaming really (apologies to the neighbors surrounding our tiny two-bedroom apartment in Encinitas). But I didn’t care. I just wanted her earthside with me and I knew I could do it now. 

My rebel yells were high-pitched and elevated. The midwife chimed in. Lower. You need to take that energy that’s going out of your mouth and push it down. You need to move it lower. My mind went to the lower chakras in my body. I needed root chakra energy to push this baby out. I needed to ground down and return home to Mama Earth (said like a true hippie). No longer reaching up to the heavens for strength but receiving it from the solid foundation below that held me. She was here and she wanted to touch the ground.

I pushed with what I felt was full force, but my progress was still minimal. “When you feel the urge don’t let up. Keep the energy down and continue pushing for as long and as hard as you can before your next breath.” I realized I had been pushing like I had allowed the earlier surges to move through me, letting it crash over me like a wave as I relaxed into it. Now I needed to capture that energy and multiply it. 

I needed to push the energy down through my body as the channel and keep it down for as long as possible for her to ride her own wave. 

And ride the wave she did. I pushed hard, Isaiah and the midwife assistant pulled up my legs in choragraphy and simultaneously there was a burst of water gushing over the bed. Like a heavy water balloon hitting the ground. Her sac was now open and her head pressed up against the opening.

The midwife then placed two fingers inside me a few times and directed me to find those and push against them. That helped a bit, the first few times, but then I intuitively felt I didn’t want or need her fingers in there and asked her to stop, so she did, and I continued working with the force of my body and Amoura’s instincts.

Trisha came in with a popsicle during all of this and began to place it in my mouth between pushes. I would push with all my might, moan low and deep, move all that energy down, then release, breathe, and tip my head to the side to take a lick of that deliciously sweet and cold popsicle. I was just the extra fuel that I needed. 

A few more pushes and I started to distinctively feel her move through my pelvis. My whole body rippled in excitement. She’s coming!!

The midwives started to smile and cheer, you can see her head! They grabbed the handheld mirror and placed it between my legs to show me. I took a glance between urges but honestly, I didn’t care about that mirror. I knew I needed to focus now. I almost had this. We almost had this. I’d see her in full form when she was here and there was no time to stop now.

Then I felt the most intense sensation I had felt during the entire labor. The ring of fire. It felt as though my entire vagina was splitting in half while simultaneously a blaze in flames. I howled through that push, “Owwwwwwww” and a few gasping “Oh my gods” but kept going. 

Slow and steady now, to allow my beautiful tissues to stretch and expand. They did just that with no tearing except for a small labial “skid mark”.

Moments later I felt her whole body move and her head emerged. The whole room seemed to fall silent while the speakers pulsed a meditative 7.83Hz Schumann Resonance, spontaneously selected by Isaiah. The midwives asked if I wanted to reach down and touch it. Touch her for the first time. I breathed. Reached down slowly and cupped the top of her tiny head with my bare hand. I said in the same voice I use when I’m speaking to her today, “Hi, Amoura. Hi, baby.”

As we patiently waited for my next surge I could hear the midwife whisper, “She’s very tight.” I thought she was talking about me. What did she mean I’m very tight? Would Amoura’s shoulders not fit out? Before I had half a second to think about it the next wave came over me and with one big push her shoulders cleared the opening and she flew out of me like the door had been swung wide open.

The midwife scooped her up quickly, slipped two fingers under the tight umbilical cord wrapped around her neck without missing a beat, and handed her to me through my legs.

I embraced her for the first time. The midwife assistant gently rubbed her while I held her on my chest until she let out the most beautiful cry. I said, “Oh hello, baby. Welcome to the world.” Isaiah said, “That's your baby.” I replied, “That's our baby.” I held her close and breathed such a sigh of relief, victory, gratitude, love, beauty, joy, ecstasy…all of it. That moment was unquestionably everything. It was heaven and earth, beginnings and endings, all gorgeously twirling together.

Isaiah held me, I held her, and we melted into one. One family and one unit.

The midwife reminded me that the placenta was still on its way (I know you thought this birth story was over but birth isn’t complete until the life-giving placenta is delivered). She asked me to feel into it, wait to feel the urge and a slight burning sensation, and push it out. It came out smoothly and swiftly within moments of Amoura’s arrival.

We left the umbilical cord and her beautiful pulsing placenta attached for that next hour, the Golden Hour, while we met Amoura for the first time

Isaiah asked me if I wanted to know what time it was. “It’s 12:36 AM on February 17th.” I smiled so big. 17 had always been my favorite number. It was my soccer number growing up turned angel number.

I held her skin to skin on my chest in disbelief. My angel was here.

She pooped a black sticky tar, meconium, all over me and I didn't care. We laughed about it and gently cleaned her and my belly up. The first of many, many poops we’d be cleaning in those months to come.

Isaiah cut the cord with a Japanese pairing knife my father had given him, breaking the placenta free that his genes as the father had created, and releasing Amoura fully into the world as her own entity.

The midwives cleaned up and left about 2 hours later, around 2:00 AM. They departed with a list of instructions and do’s and don’ts but I didn’t hear a lick of it. I just held my baby and blindly nodded. “Sure, yes, will do…” I just stayed in ecstasy, nothing else mattered.

After they left, Isaiah and I looked at each other. It was just us, and her. The world spun differently now. Amoura Jean had arrived.