Rip After Dark

This piece is an honest reflection on surrender — on what happens when our expectations meet God’s plan and how grief can exist right alongside gratitude. Through my birth story, I explore the quiet lessons that unfold when things don’t go the way we hoped but turn out exactly how they were meant to.

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My relationship with God (on an intentional level) is sort of new. So I’m still in the process of learning how to release control and simply have faith. With that being said, I still set pretty unrealistic expectations on myself and then crumble under reality when these expectations can’t be met. It’s a cycle I haven’t learned from, but being conscious of it is always a start.

The idea for this entry came to me one night after I spent much time doing what all girls do but shouldn’t be doing — comparing myself to people online. I watched countless videos on my midwife’s page of these beautiful births — women looking so in control of their bodies as they breathe and usher their babies earthside.

Now, “looking” is the keyword in that sentence, because I realized that looks don’t equate to what is actually happening. Although, in that moment, I thought to myself, Wow… I don’t think I’m happy with how my birth turned out.

What I expected out of delivering my baby was so far opposite from what really happened, and in that small space of conclusion, I found a little hint of grief.

I thought I did everything perfectly. I took months rearranging and painting my birth space, hired my midwife (whom I watched since before I had my first baby), perfected my birth plan, and wrote it down many times. I just knew, as my contractions started, my daughter and I were going to bake her brother a cake for his birthday.

Once that was done, we’d set it on the altar we set up — lit with candles and filled with fruits and water and all the goodies for the ancestors helping bring him in. I’d have my sitz bath ready to go with all my herbs. And, most importantly, I’d have two of the giant bottles of Harmless Harvest coconut water to get me through it.

Oh yeah — and all of this was going to happen in less than three hours.

Though, imagine how I felt when none of that happened.

Instead, my contractions started late at night after an exhausting, long day walking the local trails trying to prepare for labor. And these contractions were slow and inconsistent, so it carried into the early morning of the next day. I waited on my contractions that kept stalling for hours.

My water birth went out the window after each time I got in the water, my body just stopped contracting. After hours of doing anything to keep my contractions consistent, I stopped for a moment and cried, as I knew things were starting to look far beyond my expectations.

I then walked into the room where my midwife was and said, I’m ready to get him out.

That was against my whole “breathe the baby out” narrative I strived for. So instead of that three-hour water birth, I was on my bed pushing for hours.

This, to me, is how God communicates. I’ve never been a simple bitch, to put it plainly. All my lessons are pretty hardcore, because I’m stubborn. God showed me then that I really was never in control — and I won’t be.

As I lay exhausted, waiting for each contraction, I heard nothing but the chaos of the world outside of me. But after my midwife played my birth back for me to see, that battle was strictly in my own mind. The room was virtually quiet on the video.

I was truly the only one drowning in the loudness of my head — and it’s crazy to see how just a change in perspective made me realize my reality wasn’t the only one experienced.

So while I was flooding my midwife with questions and facing severe panic and overwhelming challenges in my head the entire time, God filled the room with silence.

I pushed for hours, slowly and painfully pushing him down and forcing him out. He was so comfortable and wasn’t leaving without a fight. So we fought.

I fought my body, my mind, my doubt, my certainty, and the will of my stubborn baby.

This wasn’t what I wanted. I did not want to be in that position, I didn’t want to be in that room, I didn’t want to be in my bed — and I can go on all day about the things I didn’t want.

But through all of this reasonable and practical grief, I was elated to have pushed my baby out that way.

I couldn’t have asked for a better midwife, as she truly supported any option I chose. I birthed my baby in the exact same place he was created.

So although the grief is still there, and my expectations were unmet, and I am experiencing a sort of loss in a sense, I can still maneuver around and be grateful — because, like I said before, two realities can be true at once.

So while everyone in the room reveled in the silence of my delivery, I was engulfed in the flames of my racing brain.

As well as the fact I didn’t want my birth to go the way it did, I’m still happy I was able to push my baby out at home like I wanted.

These realities can coexist peacefully. And although my birth didn’t look like the perfect painted portrait in my head, it was still insanely beautiful.

Once again, I was able to master the alchemy of building and birthing a baby.

I’m happy to have to grieve a reality in which the desired outcome was not met — but the actual outcome was just as great.

This applies to a lot in our lives.

Thank you for reading!

See you next time.