A star in our family

When I phoned Debra in the US to be with me here in Austria in her thoughts, I had just come back from a walk with my daughters and my best friend, who had come from Germany that day.  My daughters wanted to show me a stream I didn't know of near our house.  So I spent the early labour time there at the stream in the sun with the birds singing and my daughters and my friend around me.  I felt so connected to the earth and the universe and the power of women.

When we came home my daughters wanted to go for an ice-cream and for a walk in the woods with my friend.  So I stayed at home and asked my husband to prepare everything because I thought it might start.  I phoned my midwife and she asked me to inform her when I needed her.  So I went to have a bath.  Then she phoned me and said that she wanted to come - she had the feeling that it would start.  At that time I didn't feel any urges.  At the time she rang the door bell - at 7:15 - I suddenly felt the birth power rushing intensively through my body - and at 7:50 Amira was born - exactly at the time when my daughters opened the door with flowers from the woods.  My daughters were with me the very first seconds.

In the morning I had met my physician.  He said he had dreamt of a home birth the night before, and wondered if it might be my birth.

This time I woke up at one o’clock in the morning feeling some movements in my uterus.  So I called my midwife and she told me to wait a little bit until the waves would come without a break in between.  So I sat down in the dark living room standing up from while to while and walking like an ice-skater in circles round the room and then sitting on the sofa enjoying the warm August-night.  One hour later I called my midwife again telling her that the waves were very strong but there were still breaks of ten to fifteen minutes in between.  So she came.  I already had started to fill water into the birth pool in our bedroom.  I woke up three of my four daughters and after 25 minutes Shima was born into the water in the circle of her sisters.  I caught her by myself, one of my daughters cut the cord and the eldest held her first.  My midwife, my daughters and me then chatted in the bed until the sun rose.

Shima was born exactly one year after I called a “star” to come into our family in the desert of Morocco.

Amira's and Shima's births

Graz, Austria