photo: @holalenita https://www.instagram.com/holalenita/
(He gets cuter by the moment.)
i have been in bliss and awe of how amazing it is to have had this experience thus far.
Baby 'A'alamanuokamaluhia Agustín was born September 29th, 2023 in San Jose Costa Rica.
When i got pregnant it wasn't planned at all- at least not in this dimension but in the other dimensions, yes this boy was planned. I had been calling it in. Granted, i had been calling in the whole set up: the husband, the baby, the homestead, the resources, the time/space/money, and in lieu of that i received perfection which is my sweet little human blessing that chose me exactly the way i am in this exact moment and time in my life.
photo: @holalenita https://www.instagram.com/holalenita/
Ever since i fell in love with the country of Costa Rica i knew i wanted to have a baby here; that is, if i ever were to have a baby.
So far the funnest thing besides actually watching this sweet thing grow has been the mental and spiritual freedom that i have gained- its almost as if it was so radical for a person like me to have a kid- like its normally the other way around: having a vagabond life is considered radical, however to settle down as a vagabond, now THAT is actually radical. And in all honesty i just want to keep vagabonding with my baby human as much as he'll let me; he's the boss now :)
photo: @bymonicagarvis https://www.instagram.com/bymonicaandrea/
My friend Lau and I knew he was going to be born on the full moon, the 29th of September. there was no other way; she knew because it was her birthday, and i knew because it was the 9th full moon of my pregnancy, and a partial eclipse- the energy was running high.
We had been staying on a historic ranch, and actually a prehistoric archaeological site as well- in Santa Ana in San Jose for maybe 5 weeks already in anticipation of baby, and so Despite being urban, it wasn't completely out of the ordinary that an entire herd of white brahmin cows showed up on the 28th thursday evening, right at dusk. They all rushed in like there was a party going on and then looked at us so confused when all they saw was us gawking at their moo's. It was a bit surprising and completely cute, and made sense after we told my doula the next day: She says that animals always show up seemingly out of the blue when the baby is about to arrive...
And sure enough, I had already been in labor that day but didn't really realize that i was even having contractions;
i actually remember when they started. i was sitting at the table drawing or writing or something and singing along to Queen. Kona, baby's daddy, got in a few days earlier and was reading on the couch. I felt things but i thought very mild. Then that night of the 28th i was up all night with what i thought were Braxton Hicks but were actually full on contractions, and they were getting closer together- but still not enough pain to have called anybody. My water also didn't break and i was just expecting so much more pain or discomfort than what i was feeling from these contractions.
At dawn i decided it was probably happening... I went and got Dee, my compañera who stayed with me throughout our whole time in San Jose, and I woke up Kona and then we called my Doula Ines.
Soon Ines came in laughing at me calmly eating breakfast while i was in labor. She checked me and i was at 9 cm, fully dilated, but she could barely feel baby's head. I gave a check too and couldn't really feel it either. So that was odd but no one really mentioned the oddness to me -
She called the midwives over.
When the midwives arrived i was still not aware of anything being amiss- the one midwife was doing all this fancy rebosso (fabric) twists and whips with my hips and then having me do these weird squats and at one point i noticed that she was looking up on Youtube on her phone different exercises for me to do which made me think either she doesn't know what she is doing or she doesn't know what she is doing.
... i didn't know what she was doing but later found out that what was going on was that baby hadn't dropped into my cervix; he was too high up still, floating in the womb and that's why i wasn't feeling so much pain, and why we were doing all these things. A couple hours into the exercises, with the whole gang kickin' it by the birthing pool; blown up, full of water, while me and my midwife we doing the rebosso dance. Finally she had me push down on the baby when i was having a contraction. That was so incredibly uncomfortable, it didn't feel right at all! This was when i started feeling actual pain. I think the pressure was starting to build in my pelvis, because baby still hadn't dropped yet, and there was a lot of water. Anyways it got to the point, the pool untouched and as we were walking around the property to try and get baby moving, that finally the midwives decided to take me to the doctors to get an ultrasound to see exactly what was going on.
They weren't confident.
and I was definitely feeling things now.
At the doctors, he said that the baby is too high and in so much water that he is just floating and not able to come down into my cervix, and that we must go to the hospital to pop the amniotic sack because i might need an emergency c-section if the umbilical chord comes out before the baby, cutting the baby off from his oxygen; an umbilical prolapse.
So then i was confronted with a decision:
I hadn't done any research about hospitals in San Jose, because i fully trusted that my midwives would have it all under control, but they were erring on the side of caution.
Chaca, our friend we were renting from said DO NOT GO TO THE PUBLIC HOSPITAL- she had her own very abrupt and intense birthing experience and she could not be more appalled by the system- however i also didn't have funds on hand to go to a private hospital, so i would've had to borrow... it was an annoying thing to be presented with when in active and now painful labor...and the pressure was on because it was about to be rush hour traffic which is hellashish in San Jose, and would make getting to the hospital a very long ordeal if we didn't act fast.
Against Chaca's warning, I chose to go public.
Only one person could come with me into the public hospital so i jumped in the car with one of the midwives. Dee last minute jumped in the car too, like the intuitive angel that she is.
Kona left with Adri, an amiga that lives in San Jose that was going to take photos of the home birth, and the other midwife and Ines went back to the house and packed things up.
That was a painful ride, but we made it pre-traffic.
Things went very fast from that point on.
My midwife and I cruised in to get checked in and i got wheeled into the labor ward and they were about to start poking me with needles and all of a sudden Dee waltz's in- my midwife was incredulous because, apparently, never ever do they ever allow more than one person into the hospital to accompany a woman in labor, but i guess because Dee was trying to explain to the front desk people that her sister was having a baby, and they couldn't quite understand her spainish, that they actually thought that she was saying that she was having a baby?, and they just let her through! pretty hilarious to see the look on Dee's face when she came in, like obviously she got in-- and she was just so on point and ready to be there, holding space for me.
They gave her some scrubs to wear.
Then they hooked me up to an IV of pitocin which is so lame and maybe i didn't even need it, but it was protocol to get things rollings, and at first they were jabbing me so rough and unnecessarily bad with the needle that they had to redo it on the other arm, i seriously could not believe how bad they were at getting that needle in- and then once the IV was dripping my contractions got even more painful and my midwife wanted me to turn around and get on all fours and i just totally could not. I think it was the pressure of the water that was really making things unbearable, plus the added artificial hormone.
Then after about 10 minutes the doctor came and he finally popped the sack. Water finally came rushing out, it was warm and flooded my seat, completely soaking the hospital bed - i stood up for them to change the sheets and then when i had another contraction i would squat hanging on to the bed rail.
My midwife was telling me to "push your baby out!" and i hadn't gone #2 yet that day and was worried about shitting on the floor, and well, i did, and pushed out the grossest little turd right there on the floor and wasn't necessarily embarrassed, but was sorry for whomever had to clean it up.
Everything was such a ruckus in that room!
There was young mother right next to me that was also in labor with her young partner at her side and around then i started hearing her in the bathroom also in crazy labor. The hospital was nuts- it was that full moon in Aries and partial lunar eclipse.
After my bed was remade I laid back down and the pain was feeling so intense i almost was ready to call in the cesarean - then even more water came out and completely soaked the bed again. i got up for them to change the bed sheets again however from that point on i just stayed squatting on the ground, it was happening faster than i could think, and i wasn't thinking at all, i was just listening to my midwife. She was telling me to "push your baby out!" and i almost couldn't feel anything in my sacral area, was it numb or was it atrophied ??-- again some poop- sorry hospital...
Dee now is holding me up from behind and i'm squatting and yelling with each contraction and my midwife had this bedsheet for me to hold on to in front of me and i was feeling rushed and that there was an urgency to get the baby out, i even yelled "OUT" really loud, not out of annoyance or pain even but just so baby would know to come out, lest he thought it was better to stay in the womb than to be squeezed out into this chaotic world; it was a very intense little time there.
I was pushing so hard and not even knowing what i was pushing, i felt like i was pushing my spirit out of my winced eyes and contorted face and then as i groaned a deep guttural growl of a percussive primal punch. I,
all of a sudden,
felt him come out-
i wish i had my hands free to catch him myself, i wish i had a moment to breath and not have the rushed feeling, i wish i contended with my soul and had more say in the way things went down, but i didn't think of any of this for days or even weeks, my brain was turned off and my heart was on:
The first thing i saw was his eyes! looking at me ! what an unbelievable sight, i still cant really believe it happened. He was beautiful ! a little alien-esque but such fine specimen of a new born! Then I saw his hands! they're huge! long fingers and i thought to myself he's going to play piano! and be musician! then i saw his testies, and i said " i knew it was him all along" : 'A'alamanu, my baby boy, and then they did the air puffer up the nose to get him to breath and then they handed him to me!
I'll never forget that moment of feeling his weight in my arms, the little smooth skinned 3.32 kilo baby chunk, that came out of my body!
i was in awe.
I got on the hospital bed with my little boy, just all smiles, and then they told me i had some tears in my flesh so then they wheeled me into another room- and the whole time i was getting stitched up i was holding his hand, like squeezing tightly on accident because the local anesthesia didn't hit for a few seconds, and he was just right there on my chest, and i was just beaming up towards the ceiling, having no idea of what actually just happened to me, to us, and how i was there and he was with me. he IS with me, its incredible. Dee by my side we were just blown away at what just happened. My midwife was there just chatting away with the lady doing my stitches, they knew each other because my midwife studied at that hospital.
Then my midwife left and we found out that Kona was there at the hospital, so he came up and said that Adri got him an Uber and he was just waiting- he knew someone would get him, but since he doesn't speak a lick of Spanish he just sat patiently in the lobby.
This began a 3-day stint of being in the hospital- the only time baby was out of my arms at first was when they gave him some vaccinations which of course i am not a fan of, but there is no other option when giving birth in the hospital in CR-
Kona stayed with me every night and was just soaking up the sweet googoogoodness-
We had a few complications, number one, baby and me are Rh incompatible which means i need to have an antibodies shot and he needed to be monitored in case his bilirubin got too high in his little system- he was a bit jaundice but it ended up being ok (after we got out of the hospital we just had some sun time in the morning) the other thing was that he was pretty little and my nipples are huge so he was having a hard time with his latch- so in the hospital we had to give him some formula, and even some of my colostrum with a syringe until he gained enough weight for us to be released.
I could not believe how giant my vagina was! that was just about the most amazing thing about body changes - it was just huge and swollen, i could barely walk, and same with my hemorrhoids- such a gnarly side effect- i feel as though they were very avoidable honestly- the tears also avoidable, hence my wishing of a gentler approach, maybe its because i watched a few pain-free vidioes online, but I really don't think i would have torn if i didn't take the pitocin and if i stayed with my breath instead of pushing. Everything was so amped up when i was in the hospital.
When we got home to our Santa Ana house i was just so happy to just be naked, and to have ice on my yoni. it took a few weeks to feel normal at all- in fact those first few days i could hardly breathe and i had no idea why but then i realized that i literally was feeling breath-taking pain with my stitches. The hospital had us go back a couple times in those first couple days for appointments- hospital discharge things that were necessary- which complicated my healing process because by the end of the first week i was almost infected in one of my stitch areas- something i couldn't determine because i couldn't see down there and Dee couldn't determine because we didn't know i had stitches further inside... so it was a little disconcerting, but when my one midwife showed up at the end of the first week she was able to determine this and gave us some instructions on what to do - things that would've been nice to know from the beginning- but c'est la vie, i was "home" with my baby and he is so special and he healthy!
The whole time being pregnant i had to really trust that everything was and is exactly how it is supposed to be - like even getting the vaccinations, everything is perfect. And that is how i continue to interject in my own worries- just trust. Trusting that everything is going to be totally ok, exactly how it is supposed to be, that baby chose us, chose me, chose this process, and chose my instincts and intuition; he came here to thrive and be alive and he is a blessing to all whom he encounters.
photo: @bymonicagarvis https://www.instagram.com/bymonicaandrea/
My friend Christie came to help and then my sister Shila came too and it was a wonderful hootenanny- there were other friends in town too that came to visit- Kona had to leave, only to return again soon for sure, and we stayed in San Jose for 3 weeks before packing up and heading back down south-
One other little thing happened just before we were about to leave town was that it seemed as though babies latch wasn't getting much better, Ines, our fairy goddess angel doula mother, set us up with an appointment with a tongue and speech specialist, and come to find out, baby was tongue tied- to the point where he needed to have his tongue cut- Ines making fun of me the whole time because a normal person would've been in pain nursing a tongue tied baby, but I hadn't really felt much pain at all this whole time! So we got his little tongue laser cut and it healed in right away, leaving a tiny scab that fell off a week later- we left with some exercises to do, which were more like massaging his mouth and he did them like a champ! such a good boy.
Everything has been special about our boy, from the very beginning. Even before conception:
I had a vision, Kona had dreams and visions- we both knew something very special was happening-
The day i found out i was pregnant, in my mind's eye, i saw an owl and a jaguar come together and into one giant yellow eye that felt like it came into my head from above.
Then the day baby was born my friend sent me this excerpt about what this day was in the mayan calendar:
And i am just on awe of all the magic that surrounds this boy.
The second part of the text she sent me, about baby's name (with a little typo) came up recently as well:
Baby's name 'A'alamanu, came to Kona in a dream.
One evening very early on in my pregnancy i was in the outdoor shower that was located in a little stand of banana stalks on the property i was living on in Maui. I asked the stars up above and the multiplying cells inside of my body "Is that you inside of me, 'A'alamanu?" and in response that very moment, my washcloth floated off of its hanging place and landed right in front of me. I took that as an undeniable yes.
A few months later, in Florida after i told my dad i was pregnant, i told him baby's name. He was vehemently against it for a plethora of silly reasons, so for most of my pregnancy I was tossing around other names. However, before i left Maui, at 3 months pregnant, I had talked to my LomiLomi teacher Kumu Jeana and i mentioned to her that i wanted to add Maluhia, which means "peace" in Olelo (Hawaiian language), to baby's name.
Peace, my favorite concept and how better to perpetuate peace by putting that intention into the next generation's name. And on top of that, I also felt it to be important to honor our male counterpart Kumu who transitioned the day before his own birthday just a few days after i saw him last, which happened a few weeks into my year long apprenticeship on Maui.
A native Hawaiian knowledge keeper himself, he had never been given a Hawaiian name, and he had once asked Kumu Jeana to give him one. It wasn't until after he passed that she gave him the name Kamaluhia; Peaceful. I felt like Kumu Chucky Kamaluhia had something to do with this baby's coming to Earth. Spiritually i felt him so strongly in those first days and weeks of being pregnant. Kona had a strong connection with Kumu Chucky, too, and unbeknownst to me. Together in the first days of Kona and I ever hanging out, we went surfing right in Kumu Chucky's neighborhood, spending the night at Kona's best friends house, literally across the street from Chucky's, and i was more or less shocked to find out that Kumu Chucky was one of Kona's mentors and teacher as well.
'A'alamanuokamaluhia,
Sweet smelling Royal Peaceful Bird.
Towards the last little bit of bit of baby being inside i decided to go with 'A'alamanuokamaluhia, and it wasn't until i picked up writing this blog 6 months after giving birth that i wanted to use this text from Jenni and saw it again that i googled his name myself and it does come up that aalamanu in google translate is "Knowledge."
Knowledge of Peace.
And so just to bring it home literally and figuratively, my Dad, who if you know him at all, talks incessantly about his Guru and his Guru's style of meditation which he calls "Knowledge". And to go even further into it the Guru, Prem Rawat, is all about Peace, like the whole point of practicing knowledge is for creating Peace. So that was a really sweet surprise and a really fun to tell dad who originally was so not in to baby's name.
The many meanings of his name keeps us on our toes, as any bright young shaman should.
Back on Maui Kona told me story of his cousins' house that he spent time at. The house was near a sacred area of kupuna iwi; ancestral burials. He said that he and his cousins would get visitations from many different entities. One in particular told Kona he was his son, and called himself "the boy in the bubble" - fast forward to one evening in the hospital and Kona had been with Ines chatting about that experience when he was a kid and as he was recalling the conversation he had with Ines to me he said "Remember the story of my cousins' house? " and i replied, "yeah, the boy in the bubb----" and with an open jaw realized the correlation. My boy is the boy in the bubble, the amniotic sack that didn't pop on it's own! I was in tears!
Now, baby is almost 6 months old and i am finally finishing writing this blog post and it just so happens to be on the evening of the opposite Lunar eclipse to the one that 'A'alamanu was born under. Tonight is the partial lunar eclipse in Libra. It all feels so appropriate. I'm in Florida and for the first time brought baby to my homeland to meet my Dad and his Tia Audri and my aunts and uncles and cousins and baby cousins here in the states.
Before i left, on the first day after the spring equinox, I had along awaited closing of the bones ceremony with Ines and my midwife just the day before leaving in my hotel room in San Jose.
This is the actual new year, the new life, the new chapter. The Lei of my ohana is complete, this little angel that has blessed our lives has brought so many corners of love together.
i'm deeeep in the SONshining abyss! so deep i;m not worried about my appearance nor do i care that i have food in my teeth! he's cute!
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