Leta
Hamilton is Seattle-based blogger of The Way of the Toddler: Spiritual Lessons
from Our Zen Masters in Diapers. She is a former radio show host, speaker and
workshop facilitator teaching inner peace strategies for moms. Currently on
maternity leave with her fourth son, she is the author of “The Way of the
Toddler” (published by HALO Publishing). Here she shares the birth stories for
her four children.

Birth Story 1:

Giving birth in a teaching hospital
is a strange experience. Not only are there nurses and doctors, but also a
parade of interns coming through your room every couple of hours to observe
“woman in labor.” My first child was born under these conditions. We were
living in London (my husband is British) and the nearest hospital was a short 5
minute walk away. Having our baby any place else was never a question. Life,
however, is a learning process and we learn through experience. Being in labor
for 18 hours with what felt like zero privacy definitely gave me strong
opinions about what constituted the optimal birth experience. This was not it.
Adding to my disillusionment was the constant pressure to be laboring “by the
book.” Are you dilating one centimeter every hour? No? Then it’s time for the
Pitocen. Now that we are injecting Pitocen through the IV, it’s time for you to
have an epidural because the pain will be too unbearable without it. Unable to
feel anything from the waist down and pushing randomly, the next thing I did
was poop all over the bed in front of about 15 hospital staff. Still not delivering
my baby, but with his head so nearly out of the birth canal I could feel it
when the nurse guided my hand to my vagina, the doctor decided to use the
Ventouse and make an incision in my vagina to create room for the baby to come
through. Finally, my baby was out and I was covered in blood and poop and
surrounded by more than a dozen people I had never met before. Never again, I
thought. Never again like this.

Birth Story 2:

Having a friend with a positive
home birth experience helps a lot to answer one’s questions about what it is
like to have a midwife in attendance instead of a medical doctor. Knowing that
I wanted a different birth experience the second time around and with such a
friend, my resolve became to do the same. We were still living in London and I
signed up with the home birth midwifery team my friend had used. The prenatal
experience was much the same as with my first baby – regular visits, blood
tests and ultrasound appointments. There were also evening group sessions where
you could ask questions and learn from both experienced midwives and parents
who had already been through a home birth. With the towels and other equipment
gathered for a home birth, I approached my due date with an open mind.  The hospital was only 5 minutes away if
something were to go wrong. About a week before my due date and unable to fall
asleep, I rested in the living room kneeling over a big purple yoga ball and
listening to a CD of soothing music in the dark. After nearly 3 hours of this
calm drifting in and out of sleep, I went into our bedroom to tell my husband
that I was in labor. Within a few minutes I went from preparing for birth to
having full on contractions. My body took over. I quickly stripped off my
clothes and jumped onto the bed on all fours. My husband frantically called the
midwife and then, when it was obvious that this baby was coming, called 911.
The dispatcher tried to talk him through delivery, but it was impossible to
have his ear to the phone and deliver the baby simultaneously. He ended up
dropping the phone and leaving the dispatcher hanging while he attended to me.
Now we had the midwife and an ambulance on the way. None of this really
registered with me. It was like I was on automatic pilot. During every
contraction I squeezed my husband’s hand and then rested between them. I asked
my husband to go collect the towels we had set aside. While he was out of the
room I had a contraction that sent fluid in a huge explosion all over the bed.
I remember feeling such gratitude that I was alone for that one. He returned to
the next contraction and to the baby’s head making its way out. It was at that
point that the doorbell rang. My husband ran like the wind to answer the door
for the midwife (with the paramedics right behind her) and then raced back to
the room in time to catch my baby as he launched out. My husband was then able
to immediately pass the baby to the midwife who then handed him to me after
making sure all was well (the paramedics sat in the kitchen and then left when
it was clear they weren’t required). This birth experience, while nerve
wracking for my husband, was the most empowering thing that has ever happened
to me. Without drugs, I was able to feel the baby travelling down my birth
canal, which is an indescribable feeling that has to be experienced to be
believed. My body, my instincts and my soul knew what to do. Even though we
delivered him in such an unconventional way, it remains to this day the best
birth experience of any of my 4 children. On his birth certificate it says,
“Delivered by unqualified person: husband.” This may be so, but who is more
qualified than a woman to know her own body? How could I ever go back to a
hospital birth when this one had made me know with such certainty that I was
truly capable of anything!

Birth Story 3:

When our second son was 6 months
old we moved to the United States to be nearer my family. Becoming pregnant a
third time was not exactly part of the plan, but we were unscientific with our
birth control methods. Before returning to the pill I decided it was wise to
take a pregnancy test “just in case.” Indeed, it was positive and number three
was on his way. With a quick Google search I found a midwife team near me that
performed home births. This time, however, I was going to take a hypno-birth
class and deliver in the kind of hypnotic trance I had seen on Regis and Kathy
Lee. For this one we would also have the birthing pool set up in the dining
room and I would deliver in the water. One person’s birth experience is not
like another’s and, even with all the self-hypnosis training, I was not feeling
“trance-like” during labor, nor was I feeling drawn to the pool. Every time I
sat in it everything seemed to slow down and all I wanted to do was get out. My
big epiphany with this birth was embracing the sentiment, “It’s MY birth and I
can do what I want to.” The first birth had been taken out of my hands by the
hospital staff, the second had in a weird way been taken over by unseen forces
that led me to act entirely out of instinct and not normal awareness, and I had
different plans for this birth. I envisioned an ideal scenario that included a
midwife delivering my baby with my husband and best friend acting as doula by
my side, in the water and in some kind of blissful hypnotic trance. None of it
turned out that way. Yes, we called the midwife in time and my husband was
there, but my best friend had further to travel and did not make it for the
delivery. The thundering “ah-ha” moment came on the couch when it dawned on me
that if I vocalized during the contraction it would feel really good. After
that, I did and he came within a few minutes. All of my calmness had been about
someone else’s birth experience and my belief that their way should be my way.
However, my way was my way and that was ok, it was perfect in fact. This was
incredibly liberating. Now I felt empowered to do anything and I had the confidence to create my own birthing ideas. Even with
two children on the boob (yes, I breastfed all through my second pregnancy and
continued to tandem feed for another year) and one more in preschool, I was ready
to live life to the fullest. Watch out, world, Leta is here!

Birth Story 4:

After our third child, my husband
had a vasectomy almost immediately. I was a newly published author establishing
myself as a business and starting to market myself as a speaker. It was time to
focus on my professional endeavors. It came as an incredible shock when two
years later I discovered I was pregnant a fourth time (fifth if you include the
miscarriage between sons #1 and #2). Apparently, around 1 in 2,000 vasectomies
can naturally reverse when the vans deferens comes together again with the
buildup of scar tissue. It only takes one sperm and one egg to make a baby and
somehow, despite our efforts, that is what happened to us. Already four and a
half months pregnant by the time I put all the clues together, the next stage
of this journey was to transcend my resentful feelings and arrive at some sort
of peace with this new development. Again, I turned to home birth and the same
midwife team that delivered my third baby. With their help, my husband’s
support and a lot of soul searching, I began to embrace the new life coming
into our lives. It was this baby that helped me own my previously repressed
non-enjoyment of pregnancy. Just because I champion natural child birth does
not mean I must love everything about the birthing process, which includes the
9 months of pregnancy in the run-up to birth. I finally allowed myself to admit
that being pregnant was not my favorite thing to be. This self-honesty led to
an expanded feeling of personal freedom that had its foundation in my last
pregnancy and birth. Then, when the time of active labor came, I was able to
continue in that vein of self-honesty, bringing this baby willingly into the
world, but also knowing with a certainty beyond certainty that this was not
something I could or would go through again. I had been brought full circle.
From a hospital birth, where all control belonged to hospital staff, to this
birth, where I surrendered my life to an ultimate power who clearly understood
something about my life’s purpose that I had yet discovered. Owning my part in
the overall web of our existence, I have learned more than I bargained for
through my four birth experiences. I have learned that: 1) You give away your
power to those you believe know better than you do; 2) no one knows better than
you when it comes to your body and your body’s capabilities; 3) you can choose
to experience any situation in a way that is concordant with your desires and
only you know what is right for you; and 4) when you are completely honest with
yourself it isn’t always pretty, but it does lead to better understanding of
how your character is prepared for what you have been dealt in life. I am
greater than I once thought myself to be. I have my four birth experiences and
my five pregnancies to thank for opening my eyes to an appreciation for all
that is powerful and strong about me. I’ve had my tubes tied now. I’m powerful
enough without any more birth experiences. Please. Please, no more. It would
send me to another dimension of parenting and I am not prepared to go there.
The lessons from that story are for someone else to write. Power from within.
This is the lesson I learned and hope to convey through these birth stories.