Freebirth, a Trauma Response?
If you still have the gift of walking upon the earth with your own mother, ask her to tell you about the first day she held you in her arms and listen closely.
On November 21st 1993, just a few months after my paternal grandfather Michael had died from stage 4 leukemia and my eldest brother was born 17 months prior, my mother birthed me at Cox Hospital in Springfield, Missouri. The day was as it should be for this time of year; strikingly crisp, harshly gray, all around dreary and depressing outside. My mother’s water slowly but steadily started to release at 30 weeks gestation, 42 days before her suggested due date of 40 weeks (New Years Day), and was immediately admitted to the hospital to be put on bed rest. (This was mainly to reduce the risk of infection or pre-term birth.) At 34 weeks pregnant, my mom got a fever while in the hospital; her OB believed she would go into labor quickly following this, but that was not the case, and action to perform a caesarean was quickly planned. This would be the day of one mother, amongst thousands across the world, who would gaze into the eyes of their auburn haired daughter for the first time—in complete love and tender adoration.
For as long as I can remember, I have had a remarkable distaste for fluorescent lighting, loud sounds, unnatural anything, being in a hurry, excess stimulation, and doctors offices. All of these, in one way or another, still to this day set off feelings of agitation, isolation, grief, disconnection. Beginning in my teens and into my early 20’s, friends and complete strangers would call me an introvert, empath, a highly sensitive person, the list goes on. It’s all spiritual soup rooted in the same source, and while the meanings are not entirely incorrect and have been helpful at times, these labels are no longer something I want to participate in. I’m much more interested in learning about a persons origin story, our personal birth experience into the world and how it is a crucial part in how we respond, move, recoil and flourish in in society.
Since the freebirth of my second daughter in November 2024, I have heard on numerous accounts that choosing freebirth is a trauma response.
When I first read those words I was immediately floored and felt nothing but dissonance towards this accusation, but as time went on I peeled back the layers of how this could be true, if not for me at least, maybe some women who go on to choose to freebirth their babies. After the homebirth of my first daughter in September 2022, I knew without a single doubt in my body that my next baby would be born at home with no person present except my husband.
My homebirth was an excruciating 24 hours of back to back, back labor (no pun intended), that ended with a traumatizing D&C at the hospital. The pain during Freya’s homebirth was relentless, it was as if there was no end point—I had been disillusioned completely. There was no orgasmic, blissful, peaceful anything—every ounce of me that believed I could somehow breeze right over the intensity and outright pain of birth is actually silly looking back on now. I fully expected to be the high priestess of the birth portal, nothing could touch me and nobody could tell me anything. I chose to birth at home after all, so what could go wrong?
As it turns out, much can go wrong at any point in time of giving birth.
The experience of birthing my first child catastrophically reminded me that there are no guarantees in the birth process, except the resplendent exchange of the hormonal blueprint and body mechanics. There are no promises, and birth in itself, is high risk in its most natural state. The only thing we can truly count on in birth is courageously allowing the unknown to reveal itself—we can only be as ready as we desire to be. Somehow in the midst of this wildly ominous truth, there is immense clarity that I know nothing at all. I’m not shy to admit that there was a lot I would do differently as I approached Freya’s birth, even years prior, but despite the darkness that ensued, her origin story had sensational impact on me as a daughter, woman, wife, and mother. I look back on her birth as the pivotal moment in time that all left and all returned as it should, as it was always meant to be.
My dream was always to birth my babies at home with no midwives. I naturally tend to dislike being watched, touched, or guided in any way when it comes to my body and soul in vulnerable experiences. Birth is the deepest spiritual initiation, and for me, involving any other person that is not my husband into the holy space of my womb, is totally out of alignment and disturbing.
A homebirth with midwives showed me just how much I had been outsourcing my ability to make decisions for myself, it was a clear indicator that I really didn’t trust my body or know how to make peace with even the most heart wrenching circumstances. What I was capable of with Lilah’s Freebirth was always within, but truthfully, I had no idea I had the depth of fortitude required to carry a baby to 44 weeks gestation and blissfully birth at home, undisturbed. But I did, and it was not the big Hollywood birth you may expect with such success. It was instead, quiet, profoundly attuned, and easily the most confident I had ever been with a choice made ultimately by me.
When someone tells me that I’m brave for birthing at home and free-birthing my babies, I always feel a sense of gratitude, but I also can’t help to nearly word vomit “no, I think you’re the brave one to birth in the hospital”. What someone can’t possibly fathom doing at home, makes me squirm at the mere thought of doing in a place where people do not know me or love me. A room where formula and protocol overrides intuition, patience, a mothers wisdom. Where calm and serenity is dismissed over brightness, loudness, fear, mockery. Where the allowing of births physiological design to proceed free from cutting open, vacuuming, slicing, numbing and tugging is mostly glared at.
More often than not women choose to give birth where they will be the most comfortable, and for some, this means scheduling a c-section ahead of time, opting for an epidural, or choosing a male OBGYN. And while these choices would not once ever cross my mind to do, I respect women for where they are at on the path, and for making the conscious choice to birth where they feel it will best support them, their birth, and their baby.
Sometimes there are true emergencies, sometimes women are told a lie that if they do not seek help they or their baby will die. The truth undulates somewhere in the middle; that yes, sometimes birthing in the hospital is the right choice, and sometimes going to the hospital will be the final—missing—traumatizing puzzle piece. There is no wrong way, only the way that we choose and the natural consequences that arise from the direction we choose to go or must walk through.
Free-birthing my daughter Lilah carried its own weight; being it was just my husband and myself, we were the midwives.
There was no other person to witness, to look me over and make sure I was doing ok; we cleaned up the blood off the floor, bed and dresser. We had to know what to do in case there was something to do—I did not find this scary at all, it was liberating, comforting, and completely eye opening to be the torch holders in this passing moment of power and illumination. I’m not kidding when I say that Freebirth became me for the 10 months I was pregnant. I knew that I needed to walk the walk for this to unfold peacefully, confidently, easefully, and it did. There was not a single moment during Lilah’s 22 hour freebirth that I felt scared, confused, fearful, doubtful or like I couldn’t handle whatever came my way. It was intense, it was painful, it rocked me into a newer version of myself. I still had to drudge up strength I didn’t know dwelled within me. This birth was the ultimate testament to faith, trust, and embodiment for the moment I was born from my own mother, to me crawling into our warm bed with dried blood on my legs; smiling, ecstatic, overcome with joy through every cell of my body as I held my precious baby.
To say freebirth is a trauma response is not totally out of the question, and one could say that I responded instead of reacting to my own birth and my daughters births by choosing to birth at home unassisted. I do not agree that all conscious freebirths are a response to trauma, but if they are, and the mother does everything in her God given power to be the one, then I bow to her. And while I do desire to be witnessed by a woman in the holy right of passage that birth is, my standards are high. If I have more children in the future, I will only have a woman present who can hold space with unwavering love, stillness, and fosters the knowledge of what physiological birth is; a woman who sings, breathes, and walks the path of remembering the Motherbaby dyad.
Many women approach birth with little to no understanding of why they are choosing to birth in the hospital, a birthing center, or at home. They are either following the trend, do not know they have options, or are carrying on with the pattern most familiar.
What has brought me the most clarity over my choices of where to give birth has undoubtedly been listening to my mother share the birth of me. Because here I have two paths that I can take, either to trace her footsteps of the cards she was dealt or dance into the unknown shadows of reconciliation, faith, and healing, beyond what I’ve been led to believe by modern illustrations of birth. If you still have the gift of walking upon the earth with your own mother, ask her to tell you about the first day she held you in her arms and listen closely. Being open to this exchange of love, of hearing your mother speak out loud the birth of you, in my experience, is one of the greatest treasures we can tuck away for safe keeping in our life-time.
As my mother openly shared her birth story with me, she remained calm and focused as the story poured from her lips. Remembering a day such as this that was 31 years ago is a triumph in itself and she did beautifully. I held my mothers words warmly in the unveiling play by play. As she spoke clearly to me, some of her words trembled, some were spoken in laughter, some began with “I’m sorry to tell you this”. Yet edged between every layer that bloomed like a rose, small and significant points in our relationship that once felt at a loss, strung together new chords of appreciation, forgiveness, and compassion. Perhaps the only thing equally grand as the day our children are born, is listening to our own mother talk about the moment she greeted us for the first time; whether it was a dimly lit or bright room, in her bedroom at home or in the hospital, there was a fleeting moment where time stood still and the noise of the world became quiet.
Nestled into the cozy crook of her arm, was you, the infinite love between a mother and her darling daughter.
You both had arrived.
Chloe