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| Get Into It! Spring - Summer 2008 |
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By Jacqueline Roebuck Sakho
My first pregnancy was twin sons and I have two sons after that. When I became pregnant with this pregnancy, I decided that I could use my instincts. I could go back to the old way. I feel that if you are in tune with yourself, if you have experienced life and you’re ready to be empowered, then you can birth your child. I definitely don’t believe it’s for everyone. Some women need to be rocked and cradled themselves. Even as they are giving birth to a new life, they still need to be birthed. I think that’s important.
Me, I knew that I could do this. But I didn’t know that it was twins. Had I known, I probably would have been nervous and believed that I needed help. But I didn’t know so that’s the way it happened.
What I did was, I went online and I started looking at the phenomenon of unassisted birth because that is really brewing in this country. I went to a couple of websites and I was looking at the things that they were saying. I said, Well I already know these things because I’ve already been hanging around midwives. I’ve had and attended home births. I’ve heard midwives speak and I’ve taken notes. These things I was familiar with.
When it came down to the ultrasound, I also researched that. I don’t feel that it’s necessary. What did we do before technology? How did we all get into this world? The mothers before us, how did they get here?
I knew that I could do it. I had training in herbs and I already did nutritional couselling with pregnant women. I did herbs all through my pregnancy. I felt that I could handle this.
I would check every once in a while with measuring the uterus. I was bigger than I had been in my past two pregnancies. I didn’t count my first pregnancy because I didn’t have a lot of knowledge then. It didn’t go full term so I never count that one really. My first pregnancy was 24 weeks. That is the cut off point for survival.
So I was bigger and my ankles began to swell. But I just thought maybe because I had all boys, maybe this pregnancy was a girl – different hormones, different things. And I just kept to myself. I kept the information of my pregnancy to my immediate family.
I did all of my own assessing. I checked my own urine. I did a wholefood prenatal vitamin by New Chapter for the beginning. Then at six months, I start taking SuperNutrition because it has more green foods in it. I got them from the health food store.
I thought it was one baby. So I didn’t have any doubt. My legs, my ankles, my feet started to swell. I’ve never had that before but I just dealt with that accordingly with herbs. I kept my feet up. I ate a lot of watermelon – it was the summer months – just to keep circulation going and keep the fluid flowing through the body.
When it was time, I had been having contractions for about a week and a half. They would start and then they would just go away. So you know your body’s getting ready but it’s not the real deal.
On September 27th, that night, I started having them again and I knew that they weren’t going away. The contractions were consistent and they started to pick up as the night went on. My husband was home with me and my children. My twins, the older boys, were eight years old. The other two were four and two years old. They were sleeping.
I knew this was it; it was going down. I just rested and rode out the contractions. Then, about six AM, I started to go into transition. You know when it’s transition because you’re just getting hit hard and steady. That’s when I woke my husband up – I had let him sleep until that time. I woke him up and kind of used him to lean on as I was rolling through those contractions.
My husband was very supportive. He felt that I could do it myself years before I had the courage to do it myself. So he was supporting me through the transition. Then it was time for my children to get up to get ready for school. He had to then leave the room to help the children.
At that point, it was time to push. I knew I was fully dilated and I checked myself also. I was fully dilated and fully effaced. The cervix, when it’s fully dilated, it is super soft and you can take your index finger and your thumb and put it right there like an open hole. It’s soft, mushy and pliable. When the cervix is closed, like when you’re seven months, six months, and everything is fine, then the cervix is going to be like a button, like the tip of your nose, and it’s going to be hard. There won’t be an opening for you to push a finger through.
Your body tells you when it’s time to push. My body was pushing. So then I began to push during my contractions. I didn’t push that long before I felt the baby coming through the canal.
I like to labour on my knees. That’s what’s most comfortable for me. I was on my knees; I had already put down cushions and tarp. I already knew where I wanted to do it. When I began my transitional contractions, I moved to where I had everything set up.
When that baby’s head was born, I reached down. I made sure that the head was clear and rotated the head a little to let the shoulders be born properly. When the shoulders were born, the next push the baby was out.
I held the baby low, underneath me because I believe in the chi or the energy of the placenta coming through the umbilical cord. If you hold the baby low then all of the blood and the nutrient that is left will pass to the baby. I also believe in not cutting the umbilical cord until it has stopped pulsating.
I usually don’t check but this time I checked immediately to see if it was a boy or a girl. I saw that I had a girl. I checked her mouth and everything. I held her low and I was getting myself ready to turn around, sit down and hold her. I believed I was still having contractions to push out the placenta. But the strange thing is, whenever I deliver a placenta, I don’t even feel anything. My placenta usually just drops out.
By this time my husband had come into the room. The first girl was born. He said he heard her cry and he noted the time. So then I told him, These contractions are very very strong. I looked down to see if I was bleeding heavily. To make sure that everything was okay because these contractions were strong! And then I pushed and I said “There’s another baby coming!”
I pushed a second time, then three more times and the baby’s head was born. I was still on my knees. I went to feel for the second head and I saw that the baby was still in the sack. The membranes were still intact. I said okay, this is the old wise one with a veil over its eyes.
I did another push. I adjusted the head and this baby flew right out. So I didn’t really get a chance to adjust the shoulders but I had already massaged my perineum with oils so I wasn’t afraid of tears or anything. I used oils that I mixed: olive and lavender oils.
The sack popped as she was born and the water went everywhere. The first twin, I elevated her up a little higher so I could have to whole area between my knees free for the second baby. ‘Cause I had to get the membranes from around her face and check her. She didn’t cry right away, you know that happens a lot. Midwives just rub the baby and stroke the baby. As I rubbed her, she started to cry and I held her low.
My husband came back – he had left again because he had to put the children on the bus. He helped me get myself propped up, turned around and sitting on the chair. I had them on the ottoman. And I waited for the cord to stop pulsating. Then I burned the cord to separate, again holding in that energy and that chi. I burn it with a candle and I just cut what’s left. No pain.
The girls were fraternal. My first twins were identical. It was awesome. It kind of closed a chapter for me in more ways than one. It helped me see that I can have a perfect pregnancy that’s a twin pregnancy. It just made everything complete. I felt like a moth turning into a butterfly.
Jacqueline Roebuck Sakho is the proud mother of six. She and her husband live in Memphis, Tennessee with their four boys and two girls. Naomi and Naima celebrate their first birthday on September 28, 2005.
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