Belly Dancing: My Intuitive Pregnancy

My body has been filled and emptied of three mega babies over the course of 9 years. They were mega in size and spirit and I could feel their power before I ever saw their faces. As I learn more about Spirit and change my perception of reality, I’m finding renewed gratitude for how intuitively I carried each of them despite lacking a degree of “wokeness”. None was more intuitive than my last pregnancy, in which the culmination of my spirituality and birth experience led me to choose an unassisted pregnancy.

I have actively chosen to have each of my children. Or more accurately, biology and G-d/Mother Goddess harangued me until I made each one of them happen. This is where things get pretty preternatural. I would have a beautiful bub and a year or so would go by in peace and breastfed, IUD tranquility. After that time, I’d start having a deep seated feeling that some new spirit needed to come through me, that our family was incomplete. Visions of the next child would come, or pieces of them rather – the shade of chocolate brown skin, a name or personality trait. I would resist the understanding for a month or two, scowling that things were going right for me at the moment with my new job/school or location… And then BAM one day, unbeknownst to my rational self, I’d be in the doctor’s office removing my contraception alongside the imprudent, yet virile match that was my babies’ father. Ten months and one natural birth later, another crystal child entered the world.

I was in one such cycle of creation with my third pregnancy when I was rudely awoken from my routine by domestic violence. It was a very painful and monumental catalyst in my life but I’ll not explore it in detail here. My routine crumbled along with my abusive marriage of eight years. My children were forcibly taken from me by their father and I was left alone and pregnant in an abuse shelter searching for sturdy ground. It was in this environment that the conscious decision to have an unassisted pregnancy solidified. Up until this point in my pregnancy, work schedule, an impromptu cross-country move with two children, lack of health coverage and general unhappy inertia had led to minimal prenatal care. I was taking vitamins and had scheduled the “Ok there’s something inside of you, we’ll see you in a month” appointment at an OB, but something held me back from concluding that I urgently needed a man with a stethoscope and needles to preside over my third pregnancy. Here, at what felt like the end of all things, I needed something deep, solid and intimate to hold onto, and I chose my intuition.

“It’s just you and me hunny, and we got this,” I said to my belly and I felt a resounding nod of support from the Unseen. For the purpose of embellishment we’ll say baby kicked an accompanying fist bump of approval too. It just felt right and easy especially with no solid outlook.

In the shelter I made sure I stayed active, well rested and eating yummy green things as well as my favorite raw prenatal vitamins. Every morning I would sit still for a moment and take stock of my baby. I would sing to it, ask it questions and once I felt my ten kicks and a warm fuzzy feeling of gratitude I would start my day. Every week or so I would stroll into a grocery store and check my blood pressure/weigh myself. I became very sensitive to my nutritional cravings and needs and understood them as indicative and important. I constantly educated myself on my nutritional needs and found support from other mothers who had done this many times before. As my knowledge grew, so did my confidence. I began to understand that alongside knowledge of my body's needs during pregnancy, my positive outlook was powerful as well,

There were many transitions between the shelter and finding home later in my pregnancy just in time to prepare for birth. Throughout the uncertainty I maintained my routine of “touching” and dancing with my baby intuitively all day every day, remaining aware of how “he” (because I knew deeply that my baby was a boy at this point) seemed to be feeling and moving. When it came to birthing this tiny blessing, it was a natural progression for me to choose to birth intuitively (unassisted) as well. This was to be my third birth, second as a trained birth aide (Doula) and I had assisted two unassisted births as well as many others. I felt comfortable with the rhythm and process of birth and was thoroughly versed with feeling out my body and my baby’s well-being. Again I sought the community support of other unassisted birthers and began to educate myself on how to manage many different possible birth outcomes. It was actually more of a comfort to know that I was going to birth on my terms in the safety of my familiar environment to allow for maximum relaxation and surrender to my birth process.

I feel it necessary to say something about fear. In choosing to trust my connection to my body, baby and the infinitely wise Divine, I had to battle my fears. I began my unassisted journey with many what ifs and unfavorable scenarios in my mind. How society and institutions would view my choices was a major factor as well. What I realized is that while my head created uncertainty and doubt, my heart remained unwavering and secure. I FELT our health and security. I'd seen enough birth miracle to surrender the mind in favor of the heart. I realized that in any scenario I could dream up, the outcome would be the same: my surrender. I understood that in any found realization about the health of my baby technology could find, I would choose the most natural solutions and outcomes anyway. Science is the study and aide of creation and not its source, it seeks to decipher existence but can never fully. I will always put my trust in the bigger entity of existence, with tangible science as a tool to use on my journey through it.

I did eventually give in to my mother’s fear when she arrived in town to attend my birth and went to “get checked out”. I was 38 weeks in my initial check-up. They HAD to run urgent tests for blood sugar and all kinds of things. Each checked out fine as I knew they would because I’d been deliberate and aware all along. I went into labor many days past my due date (42 weeks and 3 days) and silently contracted my way through a superfluous doctor’s visit the morning of the 24th of December. I left with my first and only ultrasound pic of my baby’s face and birthed my baby peacefully seven hours later. Or rather, he birthed himself… but I'll save that for another blog post.

Thank you for reading, Much Love Always!

Zuri Sabir, CD-B/P

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