We laughed together

I had all of my four children at home with midwives in attendance. Each birth became a more joyous and easy experience as I learned over the years to allow the energy of birth to take over, and to surrender to it. I also learned to limit "observers", and to take time alone to get into a transcendent place inside myself.

When my fourth child was born, I was awakened early in the morning by dreams, sex dreams! I was having orgasms in my sleep and eventually they woke me up. I lay in bed, half awake, and realized that the orgasms were contractions, and there was no real demarcation between the two. I dialed my husband and quietly told him to come home (he had gone to work very early) and just stayed in bed for a while enjoying the sensations. When he arrived home I told him how I had gone into labor and about my dreams. We laughed together and thought it was a good beginning.

Eventually I had to get out of bed and tell my mother and other kids that baby was on the way, but I spent most of the time in labor alone in my room, rocking and moaning, just letting things go. Once I felt close to the end, my husband and I got in our birth tub, and while my mother and three other children watched, I birthed Torin, my third boy, nearly ten pounds, with no problems, no stress and no pushing - and it didn't take long either. I just held on and he came. He lay on my chest right after birth, looked up at me and went for the breast, where he stayed for a good 4 hours.

Jennifer Aguilar