Our curtains are gauze, drawn shut, infusing the living room with a soft sort of light that plays against the blue of the birth tub, the dark honey of the wood-paneled walls. Not quite warm, not quite cool, we shape the light to what we need it to be.
Lavender for relaxation and pain relief, clary sage to strengthen contractions, jasmine to instill confidence. Kirtan plays in the background – Sanskrit mantras, songs of devotion, love, celebration. We sing to Ganesh, remover of obstacles; Hanuman, the monkey god; Krishna and Shiva and Rama.
Five and a half years ago, in St. Paul, I gave birth to my daughter. She was born almost 2 weeks late, my body unwilling to give birth, my child unwilling to be born. The induction began on a Wednesday, she was born on a Friday. I was trapped by monitors, IVs, paralyzed from the waist down by an epidural. But oh, oh, when I held my daughter in my arms, those dark helpless hours melted away.
This time I choose a home birth. The labor begins slowly, the night before – at 8pm, I feel a contraction, and this one, I tell JB, is different. An hour later, it comes again. Then again.
I sleep until 230am, then rise and take a hot shower. The contractions are coming closer together now. I doze fitfully til 4am on the couch, and watch the day slowly break outside, light filtering in through the gauze covered windows of my cocoon.
Here I am safe. Here I can breathe.
At 8am I get into the tub. Birth is something your conscious mind makes you forget. Not completely – but it softens the edges, distorts sound, and rearranges time. If left alone, if allowed to do what it knows in its very bones and blood how to do, your body will give birth.
My memory of my son’s birth is already rendered in watercolour – glowing with delicacy of line and the warm wetness of love; depth of animal knowledge and feeling.
I remember screaming because I had to, letting my own voice circle and follow the sensation that unfolded those closed places inside of me. I am not contracting, I whisper to myself, I am expanding. I am opening.
My partner in the tub with me, sweat on my face, I braced against him as I pushed, and always he was there to hold me. Each push it grows, I feel it: descent. Ring of fire. And then – relief. Utter, glorious relief.
My son was born at 1132am, last sounds of the Gayatri mantra fading into stillness. He was born in the caul – the water sac never ruptured, so he was born into the water with the membrane over his face like a veil. The midwife peeled it off, put him to my chest, and the caul floated like a jellyfish beside us in the water – mother, father, son, and daughter leaning over the water to touch her brother’s hand.
And this is our family. And this is our home. So sacred, so secret, so open in love.
Practical Redemption 
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