Spirit of the Sun: Birthing Again at Home
Pregnancy with my second daughter inspired me to deepen my understanding of our family’s ancestry. Connecting with the soulful past, both with stories of struggle and resilience, would fortify her lineage and lift her forward with wisdom and grace. Her strength was evident as she grew in my belly. Her movement was bold and direct. I felt her burgeoning with new life. We affectionately called her “Albaloo” (Persian for sour cherry) while growing in utero, as it is a strong, beloved Persian flavor. Her physical strength was matched by an emotional vigor, an intensity of feeling, and the mantras that I recited through pregnancy and birth centered around the power of vulnerability, receiving sensations of every kind: soften around pain; send breath to Albaloo; calm, slow release; let it burn; surrender; heal. I wrote these phrases, these blessings, on a tall white candle given to me by our midwife Kelly.
Working with a midwife for my second pregnancy was world-expanding. The reassurance of a hospital and its medical paradigm was anchoring the first time around, but the second time it felt stifling. This was in part because my doctor retired just as we began trying to conceive. I was assigned to someone new who was well regarded, but whose authoritative sarcasm I found unsettling. She told me I would do great the second time around; that I would probably neglect this pregnancy because of my toddler; but, birth would be a breeze because I was an A+ student. This did not at all align with my desire to mother both of my children with equal love and attention. Midwifery, I learned, offers a completely different approach to tending a woman’s mind, body, and spirit through the regenerative work of growing a child and bringing them into the world.
To journey with a midwife is to venture into a contemplative space of knowing beyond biology; the process is unhurried. It is in this space that I was able to explore my relationship to generations of women––my sister, my mother, her sister, their mother, her mother, my husband’s mother, and her maternal line––generations of women in patriarchal cultures struggling with unattainable ideals, thinking themselves at fault for sadness or rage. It was deeply meditative to work with Kelly, my midwife, to recognize and heal this pain, to feel rather than fear it, and to emerge with greater confidence to create what I desire.
The flame of Kelly’s candle focused my gaze and grounded my intentions the morning of birth. I wished to give my daughter a beginning without struggle, to welcome her in her vigor, her passion, with forward momentum, and yet also with a sense of inner peace. And the morning of birth, sitting on the edge of my bed, looking at the sliver of light between the blackout shade and the windowsill, I did feel calm, overwhelmingly so. She readied her descent as night turned to day, twisting through and out with ease, gasping her first breath with the rising sun.

She arrived at 7:50 AM on Thursday, November 12th at home. Labor was swift, beginning just two hours earlier around 6:00 AM. My twice pregnant body yielded to her efforts long before Kasra could fill the birth pool with water. I had imagined her emerging into the buoyancy of a waterbirth, but it was the upright grounding of my feet to earth that brought her down. She surprised us with the speed of her descent. I barely had time to phone our midwife. Just as I asked Kelly to come and join us, I felt the heaving sensation of her head passing through my cervix. Kneeling on the floor beside my bed, beneath the window where I had seen that sliver of morning light, I leaned forward, gripping the covers. Our beloved doula Jessalyn had been with me for about a half hour, observing and reassuring me through what we thought was the beginning of labor. She was honored to catch my daughter midair and guide her to the ground. “Pick up your baby,” she cooed, as I caught my breath.
My daughter’s due date was Wednesday, November 11th. I wondered if she would come early given her sister had arrived at 39 weeks. The last days of October felt especially spirited with her imminent arrival. Jessalyn sent me a horoscope by astrologer and activist Chani Nicholas detailing the energetic weavings of the full moon in Taurus on October 31st.
We are made of blood, earth, and stardust. The ancient sources of life that built our bones and pulse through our veins proclaim that we are because someone, many ones, gave us life. We do not get here on our own. Lighting up the festivals that honor the dead, our ancestry, and the many lineages we hail from, this Full Moon magnifies the importance of acknowledging our lifelines. We are relegated to living life on the surface when we have too few places and spaces dedicated to mourning, witnessing loss, and recognizing the impacts of the past. Without acknowledging death, we forget how to embrace the depths. Without acknowledging grief that exists, we can’t expand into joy’s great spaces. Without being reminded of how fragile our physical selves are, we can’t ever know how strong a tie our bonds can be. These days, and the holidays that fill them, are a reminder to refocus on what is eternal: the love, the care, and the offerings that have created, sustained, and fortified us.
Kelly and Jessalyn came for a house visit on Monday, October 26th. We had prepared the birth pool a few days prior and the presidential election of Biden vs Trump was one week away. We all felt a tingling in our nerves, the suspense of the outcome. I was hopeful my daughter would come before the breaking news, in the stillness before victory and loss divided the electorate in celebration and grief––or worse, violence. Sitting in the garden with the birthing team, I explained my vision of a peaceful home birth with contingencies of support. My daughter and I existed together at the center of this orbit, as two tethered bodies harmonizing in those final weeks. Kasra and her older sister comprised the first circle, Papa and Grandma next, their house just one block away, and lastly Kelly and Jessalyn awaiting my call.

At 37 weeks my body began noticeably down-regulating. Each time I felt a Braxton Hicks contraction, I centered my breath and held my belly with gentle hands. If persistent, I retreated to Kasra and my bedroom with the shades drawn and my focus inward, either lying quietly on the bed or leaning forward on a birthing ball sweeping my hips side to side in figure eights while resting my head on our maplewood dresser. Time passed. I embraced the nonlinear and gradual rhythms of labor. Home birth allowed me to engage in softness, rather than metrics. I was unburdened from knowing my dilation in centimeters, from hearing the length and spacing of my contractions in minutes, from thinking at all about the so-called progress of labor.
One afternoon I walked with Kasra and my firstborn to the playground at Ray Park to offer movement and encourage dropping into my pelvis. I will always remember how it felt to be seated cross-legged on a playground bench holding my belly and watching the two of them as the warm October sun descended in the sky. I was awash with love for our family and the joyful anticipation of a new arrival.
We dressed in Winnie the Pooh costumes for Halloween, honored the full moon in Taurus, paid tribute to loved ones on Dia de los Muertos, and then voted in the presidential election on Tuesday, November 3rd. But results were inconclusive that night given the unprecedented number of mail-in ballots. Election day became election week as swing states rolled out the bureaucratic process of counting them.
2020 was a wild year of mourning and loss. In March, the World Health Organization had declared the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, which rapidly grew into a global pandemic. I was six weeks pregnant when suddenly every aspect of life stalled, schedules and playdates dissolving into a thick fog of fear and isolation. People were dying, the elderly especially. Hospitals became overwhelmed with in-patients and the need to implement new safety protocols. The government ordered all but essential workers to shelter at home. Spring, summer, and fall brought even greater challenges. The brutality of George Floyd’s death and the uproar of Black Lives Matter marked a turning point in the nation’s still unfinished civil rights movement. The need for America to address police violence and the grip of white supremacy was undeniable. Every individual and institution began to identify their place on the spectrum of anti-racism and then a record-setting season of wildfire began burning across California. The day of Kasra and my wedding anniversary, September 9th, was aglow with orange, the sun filtered through a mix of smoke and fog. There was a palpable sense of relief, at least in our progressive communities, when the Associated Press called the election for Joe Biden on Saturday, November 7th.
At dawn on Thursday, November 12th, I sat up and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. There was a serene feeling in the house. All was quiet. I asked Albaloo if she could see that sliver of light at the edge of the window, a horizon line beckoning her forward. “You can come now,” I said with my inner voice. We sat together like that for a while and when I finally rose and walked a few steps, my water broke, as if she’d heard me and sensed the calm. My water breaking was a new sensation because her older sister was nearly born en caul.

After clearing the water from the bedroom floor, Kasra phoned Jessalyn. He asked her to come and join us at home, but held off on the call to Kelly because my contractions still felt mild and manageable. I did, however, light the tall white candle she had given to me at one of our final prenatal appointments. Kelly’s midwifery appealed to me because it is so rooted in ritual, feminine rites in particular, and because she is so eloquent in expressing it.
It is a most intimate invitation to midwife. To hear soul stories. To witness. To revel in gritty mystery. To honor pain as sacred and Birth as truth. To hold: women in their becoming, babies as they pull their first breaths, families as they are born. To celebrate Life. The work that I am most compelled by, is the Birth of the woman, the pieces of her that get woke and remembered, her own unrelenting truths, how she integrates them, how she is turned on to her Self, and to her Life. This is what interests me. And this to me is the highest service of midwifery care.
At every meeting with Kelly, she listened and witnessed my daughter and I growing together. She received my words and delighted in finding her pitter-patter heartbeat, easing every anxiety and collaborating with the forces we cannot see, prove, or command. Working with Kelly was wonderfully intimate and empowering, especially through the pandemic when our social lives contracted inward as a shield from the chaos.
I placed the flickering candle on our maplewood dresser, sat on the birthing ball, and rhythmically swept my hips from side to side, softening, opening. The next hour was a haze of happenings. At some point, Kasra began filling the birth pool with water. Sheltered at home all summer long, I often dreamt of swimming. There is nothing like the buoyancy of water to ease the pains of pregnancy, but attaching the hose to the showerhead proved challenging. When my firstborn woke at 7 AM, Kasra was pulled in two directions, trying to secure the hose attachment while also preparing her breakfast. I brought the candle to the bathroom, closed the door, and stood in front of the sink. Leaning forward and grounding my feet like a pyramid, I stretched long and continued to sway my hips through the contractions, which were rumbling with greater intensity. The sink was a solid anchor. I felt strong, soft, and aligned.
When Jessalyn arrived at 7:20 AM, she joined me in the bathroom. She offered calm energy and a light touch. She had agreed to stand in for Kasra as my birth partner if he needed to be on dad duty and he was still busy making breakfast. We imagined labor would continue for several hours at least. Kasra would take our firstborn to Papa and Grandma’s house, then return to be with us. I was hopeful he would finish filling the birth pool at some point. But Albaloo had other plans.
Around 7:40 AM I moved back to the bedroom to reposition and recompose. Had the birth pool been full, perhaps I would have submerged in water. I thought, there is still time, maybe in an hour. Instead, I knelt on the floor by the bed, in front of that same window, but facing the other way, leaning with my arms stretched long, gripping the covers. Again, I was grounded, the bed as my anchor. At that point, I asked Jessalyn to call Kelly and ask her to come. She told Kelly I was rhythmic and centered. But when Kelly asked to speak with me directly over speaker phone, she quickly recognized I was feeling the urge to push. The feeling came suddenly. I was completely surprised. She was coming. Jessalyn was surprised too. Those last moments of labor came and went in the blink of an eye. Our little girl was born into her arms at 7:50 AM.
She arrived hungry and latched quickly to my breast. Kasra and her sister came into the room either just as she was born or very soon after. “She’s here?” Kasra said with disbelief. Kelly was en route and eventually, we were all together in a Covid-safe bubble. Time stretched like ribbons of honey. We lingered in the sweetness of new life. She, our Scorpio baby, born at home, not in water, but with the spirit of the sun. She grew in my belly as many discordant realities came to light. When the present was cleaved open, I was reminded the past is abundant with wisdom and the future abundant with possibility.