Your Baby Hears Every Thought You Think

The issues surrounding birthing in the US today are many and confounding. I want to begin peacefully. I want to be kind. I just want everyone in the world to hear of these stories. These real life stories that I have either gained firsthand through my interactions with the community or from stories passed to me from others.

In order to demonstrate the fact that your unborn baby hears and understands your every thought is to begin by telling a story about myself and the birth of my second baby; Avi Raphael.

I don’t know if I mentioned that I am the mother of 2 grown sons. My youngest son is rounding the corner to his 20th birthday. I was 21 when he was born. I was also involved in a mentally abusive relationship. I cannot post the affectionate name my son’s biological father had for me but it started with:”You Stupid F—- B—” I met him the day after I turned eighteen on a greyhound bus to California from the East Coast.

I didn’t realize until I had been the single working mother of 2 for several years that I was actually considered a runaway. My father in retrospect says now that he should have broken both of my legs before letting me get on that bus. As if he had a choice.

Back to my thoughts; it was 1986, the end of the year. I had a 22 month old son whom I adored, a partner who was meaner than a rabid dog with a thorn in it’s eye, and I bet you can guess, NO MONEY. I was on welfare, I had no vehicle, I managed to eat fairly well and gained alot of weight with my pregnancy. I was tired. We had moved so many times, sometimes in order to evade landlords and rent,often looking for cheaper housing in the times of no money and the partners drug and alcohol binges.

I escaped into my life with my first son; I did not drink, smoke, or even drink a soda pop. I believe in healthy babies. My birth with son 1 was fairly simple, I was 19. He was born in less than 2 hours, drug free. I remained upright, pacing throughout the labor and refused to let anyone take my baby out of my view in the hospital. I went everywhere he did as they weighed him and measured him.

There I was, a few months less than 2 years after the birth of my first son, getting ready to give birth to the second. I really went into a tailspin. I was lonely, depressed and poor (those things usually go together). This was my inner mantra:How would I ever love another baby as much as I love this one? Is there enough room in my heart to love another child? How am I ever going to get out of this vicious relationship with this man who I really have to say, I hate. Scream and yell and fight, scream and yell and fight. Never the make- up dance, never. I would visit my midwives weekly. I had low blood pressure, it was 72/40, I also had a history of precipitous (fast) births and I was obviously depressed. I was set up to hemorrhage, which I seemed to know at the time and my midwife was concerned, but I didn’t think there was anything to worry about. I had a very numbed out attitude about almost everything due to the mental stress I was living with at the time.

What I didn’t realize at first, was the fact that my unborn baby was experiencing some heavy thoughts of his own in relation to my thoughts and feelings. My due date passed, no baby. Another week passed; now I was really beginning to worry the midwives. At 42 weeks (normal gestation is 40 weeks/ 280 days or 10 lunar months), the midwives started asking me all kinds of questions, if maybe my dates were wrong, was I sure I hadn't forgotten my last cycle, etc.

I need to backtrack a bit here from going post dates.

Because I was living such a stressful life full of moving, homelessness and nursing my baby during my second pregnancy, when I was 5 months pregnant I started having some pretty strong contractions.
I feared a miscarriage. I was counseled by a different set of midwives(moving and changing) to get more rest, increase my calcium intake in order to relax my nervous system and basically settle down so that I may keep the baby to full term.
I also had to wean Wiley, my firstborn son from my breast. I did all of those things and in my fifth month I gained alot of weight. I hardly gained any weight prior to that. Now, the baby that was threatening to come too soon-
was three weeks late!

Every night I would go to bed and the contractions would begin. I would think this was it, this was the night. I would wake up the next morning still pregnant and even more depressed. It’s hard to be pregnant in the last month, I remember that.

Midwives began threatening me with a sonogram, which I don’t believe in. They gave me papers on a Friday morning and told me that if I was still pregnant by the following Wednesday, I would have to have the sono. or they wouldn’t assist me in the birth. I wasn’t happy about those words either. Friday night: contractions then sleep. Saturday morning sad and tired. Saturday night: contractions and sleep. Sunday morning, sad. Somewhere in this week I had drank a few bottles of castor oil, contractions, no labor. So I went to bed on Sunday night. I listened to my little son sleeping, sweetly beside me.

I closed my eyes and I allowed myself to imagine the image of a new born baby in it’s little sleeper. To me, that is the sweetest image on Earth. I allowed myself to feel how strongly I loved the baby sleeping next to me AND the baby living inside of me. I said to him, “I love you little baby, I am ready to love you.” I didn’t have to say these words out loud, he heard me.

I stood up to go to the bathroom, it was almost midnight. As soon as I stood up, I collapsed onto the floor with an Earth shattering contraction. I told the man person to go call Carol, my midwife. He ran to a pay phone (we didn’t have a phone and this was in the days before the cell phone, really there was a time before the cell phone). He told her he would call me a cab. She told him to DRIVE ME TO THE HOSPITAL, NOW! He dropped me off at the door (so supportive) of the labor room. It was a few minutes after midnight in a very rural hospital. There was only one night nurse on duty, the space was very quiet and all mine. I began to chant OM, OM, OM, loud enough to vibrate the walls. There was a wall hanging in the room of a tree over lain with several concentric circles. I focused on this image and allowed my cervix to dilate what felt like 1 centimeter per contraction. I couldn’t hold this one back if I tried.

The night nurse would enter the room, “Can I check you ? ” she would say. I would continue with the OM and hold up a finger to indicate, “after this contraction.” But they were coming back to back, only a quick breath in between. She never got a chance to check me. She would go back out of the room and as the door swung shut, it allowed a small amount of my OM to roll out into the nurses station. I could hear a little laughter, I didn’t really care how weird they thought I was. This baby had waited long enough and now that he finally heard me tell him I was ready to love him, he was ready to let me.
He was going to be born. He would not give up either. After nearly a half an hour of this standing, OM-ing, and dance with the nurse who never got to touch me, my midwife, Carol Cunninham, walked in. Carol was an older woman, older than say, 50 something. She had her gray hair in a bun, she was cool and I loved having a mellow granny midwife attend me. This stuff is ancient.
Carol was putting on her gloves, her back was to me as she set up her birthing kit.

I was OM-ING. . . !!! I remember leaning back on the edge of the little hospital bed, placing one foot on a step stool. I saw the classic dive (that’s what I always call it). It’s when you see the baby rotate and make the final decent into the birth canal. It’s amazing to see that. “He’s coming out!” I said in a groan to Carol whose back was still turned towards me.

“That’s what they’re supposed to do” She said.(isn't she hilarious!)

“I mean NOW!” And he was. I didn’t ever push, not once. Carol turned around just in time to catch his head as he slid from my body. She put him in my hands and I finally laid back and held him to me. He was born in 50 minutes. His face was bruised from the force and strength he exuded in order to be born. He was perfect and I figured out how to love another baby and still love the first one as well.

There is no way I will ever doubt the power of those three little words, I LOVE YOU.

If my baby didn’t hear them I believe he would have chosen not to live. After 20+ years with my second son, I know this, I wouldn’t want to live without him.