Freyja Lynn’s Birth Story

The story of my first pregnancy begins when I decided to step out of my comfort zone and take a class called “The Joy of embodiment”. It’s an 18-week course where you take a deep dive within yourself and dig through the layers and masks, stripping away everything that you have used to feel safe, to belong, and to remain in good standing with others. Whether that be the styles of speech you demonstrate, shapes you take, muscular holding patterns, limiting beliefs, etc. It was a really raw and difficult class, and half of the students ended up dropping out by the end of it. During it, I stepped into a relationship with my body that I hadn’t before, and surfaced things that it held deep within that I wasn’t even aware of before. I knew, however, that the results I was seeking lied within the work I was avoiding, and I had been avoiding shadow work for a long time.

In the class, each of us was asked to look within ourselves and feel what arose, a commitment, something that we would dedicate our lives to.

The word “responsibility” arose for me. Taking radical responsibility for my thoughts, words, and deeds and living in line with the highest good, so that I may tilt the world more towards goodness.

I actually knew the minute that I became pregnant. Something in my brain just sort of clicked, and I had this feeling that “it worked”. Although this pregnancy wasn’t planned, it very much was a conscious conception. Nonetheless, I waited to see if I was going to start my period or not, even though everything in my body was telling me that I was pregnant. I missed my period, as expected, so when I was a day or two late I took a pregnancy test and it was positive, of course.

This discovery came about the last week of my class, so I decided to share the big news with everyone. The teacher said “this is the perfect opportunity to really embody your life commitment to responsibility!” She was absolutely right.

I later told my family, they encouraged me to go to an obgyn, so I did. Everyone that I knew who had children had done that, so I thought it was the thing to do. The experience, however, didn’t really go well at all. The costs were absolutely abhorrent, I didn’t feel cared for or listened to, there were a lot of birth restrictions - I was told no water birth, that I was not able to keep my placenta, also not able to do a lotus birth.

I ended up making a list of things that I didn’t want to have at my birth, and I realized that basically everything hospital was offering, was everything I didn’t want. I also didn’t want to have to worry about fighting off all of the dangerous pharmaceuticals and procedures/protocols that they would inevitably push onto me. I didn’t want that to be my birth experience, but wasn’t sure what to do from here.

One of the men in my embodiment class reached out to me and told me that his wife knew a lot about birth, and that she actually gave birth on her own at home, and that’s how I met my dear friend, Ilona. She sent me a podcast episode from the Free Birth Society podcast, and it was actually the episode where she told her own birth story. She talked about how she bought a small pool, set it up at home, and gave birth to her baby at home with only her spouse and her family there.

I was in complete awe! I thought that was absolutely amazing and so incredibly badass. I wanted to hear more, and so I binge-listened to every single episode of the podcast to hear all of the different women tell their stories.

I educated myself on every aspect of birth, anything that could go wrong, the signs that would indicate a need for transfer, the subtle intricacies of birth and the spiritual sides as well. I read about the holistic stages of childbirth by Whapio, a traditional midwife, where she described an experience so completely wild, psychedelic, transformative and beautiful about what CAN take place when a birthing woman is left undisturbed, and I was blown away. I’ve always been intrigued by and acquainted with altered states of consciousness, and so when I discovered that birth allowed you to tap into that if you were left undisturbed, I was all in.

I continued to go to my appointments, but I didn’t enjoy them, I discussed with my family about wanting to have a homebirth with a midwife and much to my surprise, they were very disapproving. They heavily criticized me saying how dangerous of a choice it was with questions like “What if the baby dies?!” “What if YOU die?” “What if something goes wrong?” I felt super betrayed and hurt. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I prayed about it.

I kept having deeply vivid dreams about giving birth. In every dream I was at home, and I gave birth in my bed or on the floor, not in the water like I was planning to. I also had a dream I remember very distinctly, that I was sitting on the edge of my bed after giving birth and I went to breastfeed for the first time, and the baby latched right away and I said “perfect latch”.

I continued going to my appointments within the medical system, because I felt like I had to, to appease my family. Around 24 weeks I had another ultrasound scheduled. I already had two done at this point, one at 6 weeks at the hospital, and then one at 20 weeks at a local clinic to discover the sex because we decided for our first one we wanted to know. I was completely unaware of the dangers of ultrasound as they were never mentioned to me by anyone, or I wouldn’t have had any.

I called to cancel the 3rd ultrasound and they didn’t approve of that, so I requested they instead write me a referral to go somewhere else that was cheaper because they charged 700$ per ultrasound. They said “no” to that request, telling me it was “imperative” that I have it done through them, I said “then never-mind I’d like to cancel.” They cancelled my appointment and told me to call back to schedule my next one. I waited a few days and tried calling, and maybe it was the time I was calling at that wasn’t a good time, but I kid you not, no one answered, it just rang endlessly until it prompted me to leave a voicemail. I tried texting the number for the nurse they had given me to utilize if I had any questions, I left voicemails, and sent an email, but heard nothing back.

I was honestly relieved, but also horrified, I felt completely abandoned by the medical system, and was in absolute disbelief that they treated me, a pregnant woman, this way simply because I refused a service.

I really didn’t want to go back, and when I told Evan, my husband, my feelings about everything, his response was “don’t go”. Thankfully, he was very supportive of me and whatever route I wanted to take with birth. At this point, I had it in my head and was pretty certain I was going to freebirth no matter what anyone else said. This was my birth, my baby, and I was going to do it my way.

From 24 weeks on, I was on my own. I took all matters into my own hands and really came into my life’s commitment to responsibility by taking full responsibility for my health, my pregnancy, educating myself on the ins and outs of birth, navigating conversations with family, and doing the inner work necessary for me to let go of fear and live in complete trust of my body and my baby. I learned very quickly to surrender to the unknown, as I no longer had any external validation that things were fine. I simply had to trust that they were.

I spoke to Ilona, who I had become very close to during this time, the woman who introduced me to freebirth, and we had decided that she would be my birth attendant. She was excited and honored that I asked. I knew in the back of my mind that I didn’t want anyone other than my husband there, but my husband wasn’t 100% on board with being the only one there, and wanted someone else who was experienced with birth to be there as well.

I was definitely very understanding of that, and wanted him to have peace of mind as well, so I told him that we would call her when we felt we needed her when I was in labor and he agreed to this.

We met up several times during my pregnancy to discuss my vision for my birth, do prenatal yoga, meditate, and talk. She was everything that I needed during this time and was the best prenatal care that I could have asked for.

Then the very next month, March of 2020 the world shut down because of a “pandemic”. I decided at this point that there was no way in hell I was going to step foot in a hospital, especially now, so my plan needed to work. Before, I had considered the hospital a backup plan, and if anything happened it was a tool that was there for me to utilize, but this fueled my desire to birth on my own at my own home no matter what.

It fell as a blessing in disguise, thankfully, because quarantine hit at the end of March, I was due at the end of April so I nested hard, and prepared the entire house for our baby. It was super nice, and we were so blessed because Evan and I worked together at the time and our company did a paid leave for quarantine, so we basically got paid to stay at home together and prepare for birth and it was super nice. I ended up purchasing the free birth society’s “complete guide to freebirth” course, and had plenty of time to watch all of the modules and to finish my reading. I found a book called “Sacred Birthing, Birthing a New Humanity” by Sunni Karl, which I highly recommend. I also purchased “Emergency Childbirth: A Manual” by Dr. Gregory White. It really simplified birth, the physical side of it anyways, and made me feel super confident and knowledgeable about giving birth on my own at home. I watched the documentary “The Business of Being Born”, and made Evan watch it with me, and afterwards he was like “yep, I’m happy we’re doing a homebirth.”

We were able to really mentally, physically, environmentally, emotionally, and spiritually prepare for our baby in every single way.

My “due date” came, I remember the last week or two felt incredibly long because I was so unbelievably uncomfortable. I just kept telling myself that the more uncomfortable I got, the greater the relief that giving birth would be. I was due April 22nd, Earth Day, the perfect due date for our sweet Freyja, goddess of springtime and beauty. That was the name that Evan and I chose for her, since we knew we were having a little girl.

My “due date” was a Wednesday and that night around 2 am, the contractions began. They varied in time apart and didn’t increase in intensity. I began timing them but there wasn’t anything closer than about ten minutes apart and they felt very sporadic.

This lasted until about 7 am, so Evan and I called off work thinking today was going to be the day, only to have all contractions seize around 7:30 and never return, false alarm. I wondered if I would possibly be pregnant another week, or maybe two, or four... Praying that my body and baby were ready to begin the journey sooner than later.

Around 3am the next night, so technically Friday morning, I woke up to more contractions. The same kind as the night before, very sporadic, very mild and all over the place. This lasted through the night again so Evan and I took off Friday also thinking, hey maybe today is the day, and this time they didn’t stop! We sensed that it was really happening, so we got up early and began to prepare. We went to the grocery store and got tons of fruit and nourishing food to eat. I would have contractions in the store and when they’d come we’d just breathe through them, no big deal. Going about our day as relatively normal was helpful, and this made the contractions super manageable. We came home and made a huge fruit salad and prepped food for us to eat after I gave birth. We cleaned our whole apartment and got the birth space set up. Which was essentially just a yoga mat and bunch of pillows in a large closet in our apartment. We were worried about nosey neighbors possibly hearing and calling an ambulance or something, so we tried to set up an area that no one would be able to hear me in.

By this point it was evening, and I was about 17-18 hours into labor, so we decided we should try to get some rest, because we didn’t know how long it could last. I mentally prepared for a 3-day labor, so sleep was a necessity right now. We laid in bed together for a couple of hours and hardly slept at all through our excitement. Around 10:45pm I remember laying on my side in bed and feeling a “pop”, it felt like the popping of a water balloon followed by a gush of waters, “my water broke!” I said in excitement. Things were picking up.

Evan was feeling nervous, but he hid it very well and remained calm. When my water broke he asked if we should call Ilona yet. I remember saying something along the lines of “I told her not to come, we’ve got this”.

This made him extremely uneasy, and he was definitely not totally on board with that response. I had kept pushing back the time we’d ask her to come. She was a mother also and had a breastfed baby at home so I used that as the excuse that we’d wait until the last minute. My plan was to “accidentally” freebirth and then to have her come after. In hindsight I definitely should have told Evan that sooner, so he could have mentally prepared a little, but I knew we would be fine and didn’t want him to worry or feel pressured.

I wanted to do this on my own, and I was determined.

At this point, however, especially after me dropping that news on him, he was a little scared. He was texting with her in between contractions, thankfully, and she had been giving him great reassurance that everything was fine, and that I was doing this.

We filled up the bathtub, knowing that birth was near, because I really wanted a water birth. I got undressed and climbed in and realized immediately that I didn’t have much room to move in the ways that I needed to and Evan wasn’t able to get in behind me because there wasn’t enough room, and it was tricky with him trying to put pressure on my hips with each contraction like I needed. So I stood up and said “never mind, I hate this” and wrapped up in a towel and sat on my knees on the rug on the bathroom floor for probably another 45-60 minutes as contractions flowed. Evan sat behind me, holding me lovingly and talking me through each one. I had purple lights strung up in the bathroom and they looked so beautiful, perfectly dimly lit. It was such an intimate time for us, so full of deep, deep love. I remember reading “what gets the baby in, gets the baby out, and that’s love.”

Despite any fear, we were in perfect harmony, him and I. He was my rock, my protector, everything I needed him to be, just as I knew he would be. It seemed to me that birth was as instinctual for him and it was for me. I felt truly witnessed and held in my transformation. As every contraction began, I would let him know, and he would come and hold me, whisper to me in my ear that I was doing great and that he loved me, reminding me to surrender, and applying pressure to my hips. I began to sink deep into the psychedelic realm of birth, no longer tethered to reality as we know it. Oxytocin flowing strong. Time was no longer real, the string lights around my apartment showed tracers as I looked at them, lights dancing around the room, my eyes dilated.

I moved around our apartment from the bathtub, to the bathroom floor, to our bed, to our birth den, unable to find a comfortable place as things started to really intensify.

Contractions became closer and closer, Evan was unable to leave my side any longer because transition was upon us. I remember I sat on our bed on my knees on a chux pad with each contraction coming back to back to back. I clenched my fists and jaw at the onset of each contraction, Evan reminding me to surrender. As soon as I would let go, the pain would completely dissolve, but surrendering was much easier said than done. This went on for about 20 minutes, and then I was given a moment of rest.

I sat on the bed and remember looking at the string lights that bordered the window in our room and feeling like I was holding hands with God.

It was so beautiful.

I had climbed the mountain to retrieve the soul of my baby and was overlooking all that there was to see in it’s majesty.

But our journey was not over yet. I climbed down from the bed and knelt on the floor, breathing and focusing my attention on what was to come.

I was thinking that I would feel the urge to push, and then a wave came over me and similar to the heave that your body does when you’re about to throw up, my body began pushing on it’s own! It was amazing, and I really just had to hold on for the ride.

I had pushed for about an hour, I started to feel really tired and expressed this to Evan, that I wished I could pause birth and take a break. I became scared that I was in over my head and that I couldn’t go on, and told him to call Ilona.

I then came to the realization that I was unconsciously holding her back from her entrance into the world because I was deeply afraid.

What if she was a stillborn?

Why did she have to come now? When the world was going mad.

She was held so safely inside of my body, this perfect little being. I didn’t want to bring her into a world in desperate need of repair.

When I became aware that I was the force that was holding her back from her emergence, I was able to surrender the reigns that I gripped tightly to and trust her, trust myself, and trust God.

This was all meant to be.

She chose me, she chose this time to come, and it was exactly as it should be.

During this time as I’m working through this mental hurdle, I knelt, gripping tightly to the comforter at the foot of our bed, one knee on the floor, one leg up in a squat, Evan behind me with a flash light looking to see if he could see her head emerging.

As soon as I worked through the blockage that I had, I remember him calling out “I see her head!” Her emergence was close. I felt a rush of adrenaline and the energy to continue. It came exactly at the right time because I was exhausted and Evan and I were staring to worry. I felt a hot, burning sensation: the ring of fire, as her head began emerging. At this point, I didn’t care if I tore, I just wanted to meet my baby, so I beared down and pushed with all of my might, feeling myself tearing as her head was coming out. Ilona called to say she was there, and Evan answered “I can’t talk now, she’s crowning!”

Because since we live in an apartment building, Evan was going to have to leave to go and let her in, and that time wasn’t now. He threw the phone down with her still on the line and came behind me to help me catch her. I gripped onto the bed and roared the rest of her perfect body out into his hands. He passed her through my legs into my arms and I sat down on the ground and we both began sobbing the most joyous, love-soaked cry we had ever had.

At 3:34am, Saturday April 25th 2020, in our one bedroom seventh floor downtown apartment, in the middle of a pandemic, Freyja Lynn was born.

Our family had just been born.

She emerged pink and crying and perfect. We sat in bliss for a moment looking at our beautiful baby and I said “Ilona!” And he ran down to let her in. I tried to pull her up and place her on my chest but my cord was too short. So I kept her on my lap where she proceeded to have her first poop on me, which was hilarious to me because shit happens, especially in birth.

Evan and Ilona entered, her presence not a disturbance at all, but a beautiful, gentle addition. She mentioned that she choose to walk to our place, even this late so that she could take her time and intentionally meditate and prepared herself to enter my birth space, which was so beautiful and considerate and I loved that because it was very tangible.

I sat on the floor on my knees when she walked into the bedroom and I asked about my placenta. She told me when it was ready, it would come, and so funny enough right then I felt the urge to kind of get up, so I got up onto my knees and it plopped right out onto the chux pad I was sitting on, perfect timing.

We got a bowl and put the placenta in there, her cord still attached. Covered in my own poop and blood from the endeavor, I asked if Evan could hold her so that I could shower. He held her as I went and rinsed off real fast, nothing crazy, just enough to get everything off so that I could quickly return to lay in bed with our new baby. I came out and Ilona had everything cleaned up, Freyja was wrapped up and being held by Evan and where I joined him sitting on the edge of our bed. I gently took her from him so that he could go and shower. Ilona mentioned that I should try nursing her if, it felt right. I lifted her to my breast and she latched right away “perfect latch” I said, and immediately remembered my dream wherein this exact scenario was prefaced. I began laughing and also crying in disbelief.

I did it.

I did it despite what anyone said.

WE did it.

Ilona helped us get situated and then left, to allow us to enjoy our new baby in comfort and privacy, and to return to her own little one. She mentioned before leaving that she was happy that she missed the birth because she wanted me to do it on my own, and not to feel like I needed her or anyone else. That was super beautiful, and considerate as well. She was the perfect traditional midwife, and I owe the woman who I am today to her.

Our new family of 3 laid in bed together, staring at our precious baby in awe. We sat in silence for a long time, taking it all in, and every now and again we would look at each other in complete love and say “we did it” and “she’s so perfect”.

We ate the food we prepared, and when our adrenaline calmed down around 6:00am, we finally went to sleep. We felt high, both of us did, it was so wild because of the oxytocin.

The greatest high we’ve ever had, it was so incredible, and it lasted days. It was the most beautiful transition from maiden to mother that I could have ever asked for, and I will cherish it always.

Another interesting thing that I want to mention is that my dad said at 3:34 he woke up and looked at the time. That his bedroom was completely silent, still, and he said everything felt different, and he knew that she had been born. Evan’s sister said she was also woken up at that time and felt it too. Then shortly after, Evan texted everyone the good news and they had confirmation.

It’s incredible, the power that birth has to transcend time and space. It truly is a supernatural experience that I wish for all mothers to be able to have.

We left her cord attached for about 12 hours and then we decided to cut it, because her placenta bowl was very appealing to our cat, and we didn’t want her messing with it.

I put dried herbs and flowers on the placenta to dry it out. We honored it by placing it in a cardboard box, saying a prayer of gratitude for it’s hard work caring for our baby in my womb, and planted a tree over it in my dad’s back yard, so that the placenta can nourish the tree as it grows.