The Birth That Taught Me Sovereignty

Fourteen years ago today, I gave birth to my youngest son at home, in a pool of warm water, to the sound of my own roars. It was an unmedicated birth after a cesarean section, something the medical system told me was too risky, too dangerous, impossible.

But I had worked so hard for it. And unknowingly, I had been walking through one of the deepest descents of my life.

The First Birth: Where I Lost My Power

My first birth happened almost three years earlier. A twin birth via cesarean at 31 weeks that exposed all my insecurities and wounds. It was life's first attempt at showing me what happens when women turn over their sovereignty.

I grew up around holistic approaches and ideas. Midwifery care, doulas, home birth, all of it just made sense to me. But at 22, in a new country, with a new health care system, and no family around, I had little idea what I'd be up against in terms of the system and all the internalized fears I had already absorbed.

At my first appointment at 12 weeks, the midwife immediately turned me away, considered too risky. With zero experience or idea of what it would take to fight this, I succumbed.

I went through that first pregnancy turning over any power I had to others who were the "experts," who "knew better." When this landed me in the hospital at 31 weeks with my 31-week preemies, I fell into deep shame and guilt.

At first it seemed to be attached to the idea of vaginal birth. But with time I've seen that while it's true vaginal birth carries initiatory medicine for motherhood, what devastated me was the lack of choice. The lack of sovereignty. The handing over of my power into the hands of a system that could never care about me as an individual mother.

They couldn't care for Raisa, the one who had dreamed of being a mother forever. Raisa, who didn't yet know the power her body carried. Raisa, who was struggling in a new country with no elders nearby to guide her becoming. Raisa, who had been carrying more than her fair share of responsibility for everyone around her—her mom, her dad, her sister—for her whole life. Raisa, who hadn't yet found a way to feel what others expected from her and still stay in contact with her own desires.

They couldn't know. And they didn't have to live with the disorientation and pain of feeling responsible for these lives without having exercised my own power.

The Descent

Those three years between births became my initiation. I descended into the places I'd been told to avoid. My anger at being reduced to a statistic, my grief over what was stolen, my desire to trust the power of my body, and life.

The Second Birth: Where I Reclaimed My Roar

Three years later, for the birth of my youngest, I couldn't have explained it in this way, but I knew what I needed. And I followed that.

I researched. And researched. And researched.

I stayed with my desire. I stayed with my vision. I valued the experience I felt I wanted, I fought for it, asked for help, and I prepared for it.

Against doctors who once again asked me to turn over my knowing for theirs. Against a system that made it more convenient and cheaper to orient to their information, to their ways. Against it all, I resisted.

Matteo was born at home. In a pool of warm water. To the sound of my roars reclaiming the boundaries of my dreams.

The recognition that my dreams and heart's desires are life-giving. Not something to turn over, to question as dangerous to life, but something that when I protect, I protect life itself.

What This Teaches Us

There's been more on my descent path within motherhood that I'll share in a different post. But for now, I invite you to scan your own life.

Scan for your dreams. Where is new life trying to be born?

Where are you being told to orient to someone else's will instead of your own?

Do you have choice?

Where do you need to roar the boundaries of your visions into existence?

Your visions and dreams aren't frivolous or selfish, they're life-giving!

When you protect them, you protect life itself.

Let's be the living proof.

What dreams are you protecting? What vision is asking you to roar it into life? I'd love to hear in the comments.