Kingston
Born: August, 2009
“The Story of Your Birth… by Auntie Doula”
Nothing like laughter during labor
Salsa dancing that baby down
Gotta keep the strength up
Prayer and meditation
“I’m right here baby”
Gotta love the midwifes!
Tenderness
Love, Support and Surrender
We really did it? Kingston is here? Thank you God!
Yeah! We really did it! First family photo
Me and my dad
Snuggling with my mom… so comfy
Sweeeet
Me and Auntie Doula… we were having a heatwave when I was born..whew!
It’s so so so so hot! Got milk?
I’m a big boy now, even bigger then this!
Thanks for looking at my birth pics :-)
If you want, check out my story below
Beloved Child of God, Kingston,
Greetings little one and welcome to this world! Happy Birthday to you indeed! It was an absolute joy, honor and privilege for me to be at your birth. Thank you for choosing my presence to be with you and your mom and dad. I am so grateful.
I got a call from your dad on Sunday, August 30 at about 5:45 a.m. I thought to myself, yes, I think this is finally it! You see, for about a week, you did a little peak-a-boo dance. Your dad told me that the contractions were anywhere from 6-8 minutes apart. I got myself together and high-tailed it up the 405 fwy to meet you face to face. About 7:00am: I got to your home and your mom was lying across the birth ball on the floor. She gave me the biggest hug (as if to say, help is here). Sometime later, we decided to take a walk to help support your traveling south toward the light.
Approximately 9:30am, your papa (as I love to call him), began making breakfast for everyone. The labor day breakfast menu: oatmeal w/bananas and raisons, turkey bacon, hash browns and juice. Yum, yum! Go Papa! Mama happy! Doula happy! Kingston Happy! Your mama ate quite heartily, I told her to slow down as I didn’t want any of that food to come back up too quickly. Well, wouldn’t you know it, you were soooo happy that you got all comfy-like inside mama and took a nap. Didn’t hear another peep out of you for 20-30mins. Then you really got comfortable (and went into RAM sleep in the daytime!), because the contractions spaced out to about 40 minutes to an hour at one point. Your mama says you take after your papa here, and he didn’t deny it either.
Don’t remember the time now, but we all decided to walk again to support you on your journey through your mama. When we returned from our walk (85-90 degree heat), it was quietly, yet collectively decided that it was nap time. Later, I went to go check on your parents and they were curled up and napping hard. I do believe it was your mother I heard snoring, and if she was snoring that meant you were snoring right along with her.
Sometime later, your dad and your Grandma Janis went to the market to get a few things. I went back into the room to be with your mom to have a “little” soul chat with her. You see, Kingston, a big part of being a doula is listening to inner direction and guidance from the Higher Self (God). Well, I was sensing that a soulful, tell the truth conversation was imminent. I asked the Holy Spirit to help me with this conversation and It did. Your mom, went inside herself and deeply explored her mental, emotional and spiritual bodies and pulled stuff up, pulled it out, looked at it, felt it, cried it out, let it go, forgave it and released it, to eventually come to loving and embracing it all. Later your dad came back from the store and joined her and supported her in completing her process of releasing and letting go.. I left the room to leave your parents with each other and suggested they play a song called, “I Forgive Me” by Tim McAfee. Good music is one of the ways to the heart, and this is where your mom remained through the rest of her labor with you, directly and consciously, at the very center of her heart. Kingston, I believe it was during your parents’ alone time, that they moved to match your consciousness and vibration of oneness and completeness of your birthing experience.
After this deeply moving and beautiful experience, the contractions really began coming regularly, 11 mins apart, then 6-8, then they jumped to 3, then 2 minutes and sometimes 1 minute apart. It was time to get going. Your dad got us to UCLA safe and sound. The hospital experience could not have been more perfect, calm and serene. It was one of the best hospital deliveries I have experienced to date. The lights in the room were completely off and we got light from the outside window or a door cracked open just to reveal enough light to see. Your dad had his i-phone and was playing a beautiful Wahe Guru chant.
About your parents
Your mom was laboring on her knees leaning forward over a table with pillows underneath her arms and head, with your dad holding steady before her. Kingston, let me take this time to remind you of what I saw in your parents that day. I saw two people who truly wanted and loved their baby, you. Your father is made of the stuff and dreams that every pregnant and laboring woman wants to have by her side. A man who is steady, strong and does not waiver when the tough gets going. Your dad loved and nurtured your mom through every stage of her “laboring in love” for you. Your dad would stand in quiet repose, in yoga we call it “tree pose.” He was anchored to this earth, feet planted firmly, completely surrendering his body, mind, spirit to you and your mom, he gave every ounce of himself to hold her up, to be her strength, her confidant. He was showing you, Kingston, what a man is, what a father is, what support looks like, what love looks like in this dimension. I know, Kingston, that you already know what Love is. You chose your mother, Kuwana and your father, Cory to usher you in and to help you be the fulfiller of your destiny. You chose oh so well little one. Now remember when I told you earlier how your mother did that inner work to get the labor moving more freely. Your mother had committed to birthing you naturally into this world, meaning, no pain medications were to be given to her as she labored with you. A woman who commits in this way to birth her child is saying yes to her child’s journey in complete surrender. Kingston, know that you are supported on this earth. Your mother trusted you, the Divine Knower within you, to completely use her body to fulfill your first goal and dream on this planet, which was to get through the birth canal. Your mom showed such power, grace, love, passion, surrender in the midst of such intensity. She leaned into your dad for his strength, when she had no physical strength to stand, and turned to her God-Self for everything else. Your mom breathed deeply, moaned, swayed, spiraled her hips, “lost her mind” to move you down that birth canal. When I say “lost her mind,” I mean that every woman has to “lose her mind” in labor if she is birthing naturally. When the mind is lost (surrendered), a woman is fully in the experience of the body, yet not attached to it. There came a point in your mom’s labor where she no longer made big movements to get comfortable when the contractions came, as she knew, no position at this point would help. Your mom sat with her legs under her and slightly to the side. She verbally sounded out the intensity of what she was experiencing within, and this is the ultimate place of where each woman must go, of where your mother went, to finally be able to hold you in her arms…. Surrender.
To back track a bit, when we got to the hospital (about 7pm or so), your mom was already 4 centimeters dilated. We were moved to the actual birthing room (a much bigger room) and we got your mom in the shower. Your dad’s holding your mom up, she has her arms around his waist, bent over so that the shower jets were aimed on her lower back, and I’m standing to the side of your mom rubbing her back. Yes, all three of us were standing in the shower, your mom was naked and your dad and me had our clothes on getting wet. When a woman labors, you have to do what you have to do. After the shower the midwife checked your mom and she was about 6-7 centimeters dilated. Around this time, your mom began pleading and begging us for drugs, that she didn’t think she could do it, that she would be okay with drugs, she needed strength to get through this, “I can’t do it, Lord Jesus, somebody help me, I need to sleep, I just want to rest, I need some help. I want the epidural” What your mom didn’t know was that these words were music to my ears, for I knew that she was going through the “transition” part of labor, the final stage before birthing you forth. I “told” your mom that I would go find the midwife so that she could get some meds to rest a bit. I came back and told your mom what the midwife said, that she would be in to check on her and us to go back to the shower until she was done with the other patient. You see Kingston, I knew that the likelihood of your mom getting meds at this point were, “nil” but I didn’t tell this to her. What I told your mom was, let’s get you into the shower and get through these next few contractions until the midwife comes to check you again. That pacified your mom for a moment. Needless to say, a very short time after that, it was time for your mom to begin pushing you out. Jumping ahead a bit, after you were born, your mom and I were talking I said something about her wanting the medications and I told her then that it wasn’t going to happen, as she was so close to delivering. She looked at me and said, “So, you lied to me.” I told her with a smile, “Desperate times calls for desperate measures.” I didn’t actually lie to her, I just didn’t tell her the “whole” truth. You see, Kingston, I knew your mom had the power and strength within her to birth you forth. Many women in labor doubt during that transition phase of labor, it’s so part of being human and the birth experience.
Kingston, the position your parents birthed you in was, I believe one of the best positions for couples to be in. Your mom was on the bed squatting (as the bottom part of the bed drops lower than the upper part). Your mom was squatting on this lower part with a bar in front of her to grip and hang onto in order to go deeper into the squat. Your dad was sitting behind her, with his legs straddling on either side of her. He gave her back support when she would come up out of the squat to rest after each push. It was a beautiful sight to behold. It was a great moment in our world when you came out! The energy in the room was transcendent, high and filled with unseen beings of love and light. Your head crowned out and your body was still inside your mom, that was when your parents first got a glimpse of you. Then, the rest of you came out, very quickly, and all I heard and saw were sounds of joy, tears flowing, your mom had you on her chest in less than 2 seconds. She was crying and saying, “oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, he’s so beautiful.” Your dad was saying something similar to this and crying his eyes out in utter joy at your final arrival. He was crying so deeply that I had to put the video camera down to go and give him a big hug. Your parents’ hearts BURST wide open with love for you. So much love that it was impossible not to shout, to cry, yell out in joy! It was a profound moment. These words I write don’t even scratch the surface of the depth of the emotion experienced on your birthday.
Your Grandmothers!
Which grandmother was more excited about your birth? I could not tell you. They both tie for first place. After you were born, I went down to talk with them about how your mom and dad were doing. They were too excited! They even went into another room where they thought your mother was birthing you…. Oops! When they finally got to see you, as you can tell from the pictures, they came in with cameras ready and smiles as big as the Grand Canyon! They ooohed and awed over you. Couldn’t believe you were so alert, eyes open, lifting your head, paying close attention, following voices. I tell you! You will lack for nothing with those two by your side. It was time for us to leave the hospital, your grandmother Elaine was taking me and your grandmother Janis back to your home to sleep. Now it’s about 2:30 in the morning and we are walking around UCLA trying to find where to pay the valet who parked the car. They are walking at the speed of light and I am shuffling very slowly behind them. I didn’t know grandmothers could move so fast. I had been up for almost 24 hours and had been with your mom for 18 of those hours. Your mom labored about 21 hours or so, and I think 6-7 of those hours were very intense. I finally get to sleep at about 3:30am, only to be awaken (6:30am) by a noise that I could not quite make out, when I did make out the sound, I realized it was your Grandma Janis squealing in high delight talking to relatives back east about your arrival. “My baby’s here, my baby’s here!”
Kingston, you come from grand, soulful and spiritually grounded parents and grandparents. You are the Light that they have come to demonstrate on the planet. You have healed so many in nine months of great anticipation of your presence. You are first and foremost Pure Spirit, consciously aware and anchored to the Divine Father and anchored and grounded in Mother Earth. Your life here will be so blessed and filled with your expression of creativity, the dancer that you are, the engineer that you are and anything else you choose to do. Your name is strong, a man of Kings you are! The Spirit and Love of God flows through your veins the very soul of you. When you question yourself later in life, know that all answers you seek come from within you. You will remember Kingston. You are a seer of the unseen and will continue to see. There are profound and incredible adventures ahead of you on this earth journey. I know you will make the most of each and every moment! Have a glorious, happy, intelligent, fun-filled, laugh-filled and love-filled life little one. You deserve all the gifts of the Kingdom…. and you have them right here inside you!
Thank you for choosing me to be your doula and for healing my heart! I Love you Kingston! Love Your Auntie Doula
P.S. Thanks for coming before school started… I appreciate that!
