I Saw Dandelions Through Every Surge

This is the birth story of our second son, Daniel. The second postpartum time goes so much faster than the first it seems.

His birth was a dream.

Not easy, as I don’t believe bringing a life from womb to earth ever could be, but real evidence that I had done some mental work to birth more peacefully than before. 

We walked to the park half a mile from the house the evening before Daniel was born. I watched Finn blowing dandelions with Jacob. The walk back home was a challenge for me to say the least.

A few hours later, around bedtime, I had the first surge that I knew was moving him down. I slept as best I could that night, though it wasn’t much.

But it’s wild- through every surge, the picture that came to my mind was Finn blowing dandelions.

And I held on to that visual into the better part of the next morning while my family slept peacefully.

Everyone was up the next morning and I told them I lost my mucus plug and texted my midwife in the night just to say we were progressing, but I was managing fine.

By 9am, I could not longer speak through the waves. Finn wanted to nurse (yes, I nursed him until just before he was 3) and it made surges even more intense.

Mom and dad decided they should go ahead and take him to a family friend’s house. 

I had fear sweep over me when they left.

I had my last long labor in my mind and I didn’t want to call the birth team in too early. I could feel tightness and pain trying to make an entrance. Jacob put on some hypnobirthing tracks and my next surge I was over the birth ball seeing Finn’s face again blowing the dandelions.

I sunk back into my rhythm that got me through the night. As I was experiencing the most intense surge yet I heard the voice on the track say:

“The surges cannot overcome you because they ARE you.”

What’s crazy is that I had listened to these tracks before labor and I had never heard that phrase. I held onto it like my life depended on it for the remainder of my labor. 

We decided to go ahead and call my doula and midwife as intensity was pretty consistent. My doula arrived, and then midwife around noon.

Again, I experienced being awestruck at the women around me and how they knew exactly what I needed before I knew I needed it.

I got in the birth pool when surges were really close and powerful. For the second time just like they had with Finn, the strong sensations just stopped all together.

Fear came over me because I pictured Finn’s birth- getting in and out of the pool- thinking it was time when it wasn’t. My doula, Jackie, read my mind and said , "this is not your previous birth."

I decided to get out of the pool (I’m two for two now on trying to have a water birth but my babies not wanting to). In hindsight I feel this is a huge blessing for reasons I may never fully know.

When I got out of the water, I dropped to my knees and leaned over the bed when the most intense, seemingly never ending surge hit.

And there it was: the wall.

I thought, I can’t do this anymore.

And in the next breath I knew I was in transition and was about to meet my baby.

The only way out is through. 

It was all such a different experience than my first birth in the sense that I fully pressed into my intuition this time. Despite reading everything I could before Finn was born, it was so clear to me that my mind was untrained and I let that dictate what my body experienced.

How could I know?

We grow up in a society that fears birth and only shows women on screen writhing in pain. Generations of women stopped telling their birth stories because we have disconnected from the wisdom that God, the creator of everything, placed inside us. I hope to get back to that. Not just for birth, but for everything in life.

It took a birth filled with pain and fear for me to understand a piece of it. 

For this birth I knew it had to be different. My body started to push. 

20 minutes later Daniel made his entrance.

He was in an incredibly difficult position (which I didn’t fully know beforehand), but managed to make his way through fairly quickly and I am fully convinced this was because I learned how to let go of fear.

What a difference. Jacob handed me Daniel Asa who was born at 4:50pm, weighing 9.2 lbs and instead of being in a state of shock this time, I was just overwhelmed with gratefulness while I held him.

My husband and birth team got me up in our bed. Finn came home with my parents around 7 that night and met his baby brother which was literally the sweetest thing I have ever experienced and we slept all together for the first time as a family of 4. 

Mama: @elizabethpruitt723