I love the Christmas season for so many reasons, including the fact that freebirth happens to be at the very heart of Christmas and Christianity itself.
Despite all the fear-mongering when it comes to birth, one of the most significant cultural and spiritual stories is that of the woman chosen by God to bear a child, and who, while heading into Bethlehem, realizes she is about to give birth, and so she does, in a stable, without any fuss or fanfare or drama, absent of abusive doctors or meddling midwives.
Except for the fact that her baby happened to be one of the most charismatic and successful spiritual leaders of all time, or the saviour of humankind, or both (as I see it), there was nothing out of the ordinary about the simplicity of Jesus’ arrival…except that in this day and age, what I and a small minority of incredibly lucky women know to be “normal” birth happens to be the extreme exception.
It’s fascinating to me that (outside of what seems to mostly be a stubborn little cadre of disgruntled and defensive midwives, apparently) it is universally accepted that Mary’s birth of Jesus was unattended (ie: a “freebirth”), despite birth on the whole having become one of the most glaring blind spots on this planet.
It is tragic to me that so few women know the open secret that birth is actually designed not only to be easy, and straightforward, but blissful, orgasmic, and totally delightful, as I delineate in my book, PORTAL: The Art of Choosing Orgasmic, Pain-Free, Blissful Birth.
It’s especially precious to me, to be here, now, alive, and so very pregnant with my 10th baby.
I assumed (ridiculously, especially after so many of my previous babies were born after relatively long gestations—seven out of my eight older children were born at almost 44 weeks) that our baby would have been here by mid-month, surely, but it seems fairly clear now that this little one will come on or around Christmastime.
It’s always a mystery, but I am, for the most part, at peace with whenever our child decides to come, and I am so looking forward to not only meeting them and seeing their precious face, but to experiencing the euphoria and power of birth once again, as the apex of holiness, love, and the culmination of our divinely gifted sexuality and creativity that it is.
Jungle Diary, Nicaragua, December 23rd, 2023:
Treva and I finally did our border run to Costa Rica and back two days ago.
Our residency application is still pending, but I had travelled so much this past year that I hadn’t needed to cross the border on foot in months, and I was dreading the trip, not only because I’ve been on the verge of having a baby for weeks (and the more I don’t give birth, the more likely it is that I will, soon) but mostly because I have such a bullheaded resistance to bureaucracy and false authority that I create the very misery that inevitably awaits me when I finally submit to it.
It had been recommended to me that we attempt to cross in the early afternoon, after the buses and tourists moved through, and sure enough, when we arrived at Peñas Blancas, the atmosphere was pretty chill—yes, chaos, like every border town, with cops and military personnel laconically patrolling amid the starving dogs trawling for scraps and the drifters and grifters, money-changers, and fruit-sellers, the smoke from the open grills permeating the air.
Lee was with us, thank goodness. He didn’t have to cross seeing as he had taken the younger kids a few weeks ago, but he insisted on gallantly waiting for us at the car, on standby with his phone at the ready in case I started to give birth in no man’s land between the two countries, though we had established on the drive over that if I did begin the birth process while crossing the wide concrete expanse that bridges the two nations, I would discretely duck off into the scrub bushes on the perimeter, quiet as can be—not out of modesty or embarrassment of course, but because the biggest risk of course, would be that well-meaning bystanders might haul me off to a hospital.
I was a bit nervous about the trip, honestly, because at this point I was experiencing constant sensations. I considered reconsidering, but when I asked a community group for advice on crossing in my “condition” the suggestion of an acquaintance that I ask for a wheelchair was the inspiration I needed to steele myself to go through with it, determined to walk the entire bloody gauntlet on my own two feet, thank you very much.
Afternoon was, in fact, the perfect time of day to go—no lines at any of the various offices we had to pass through, and no problems with any of our documents, including the proof of onward travel which is always a topic of conversation amongst the gringos and extranjeros. Treva was sullen the entire time, but quiet at least. We mostly kept out of each other’s way, though I elbowed her pointedly when she glowered at a border official.
I did begin to have heavier sensations on the way back, and at one point, while trudging across the tarmac for that final stretch, an opulent blob of mucous started to slide down my inner thigh, but I was wearing a long linen dress and we were almost there, and in the end, the entire rigamarole only took an hour, in and out, and, mucous aside, unrolled with very little turmoil. Thankfully too, it’s comparatively cold these days in Nicaragua—wintry now, even, at the beginning of windy season, with temps ranging between only 25 and 31 degrees Celsius, which feels positively balmy, if not chilly.