Greek pillars, wombs and lavender

It's amazing how smells can take you places!

This afternoon feeling under the weather with cramps I snuggled up in bed with some pillows and burned some clary sage and lavender essential oils.

With the warm oil diffusing I shut my eyes and within moments expected to open them and see a labouring woman standing in the room.

Lavender and clary sage were used extensively in my last placement and my brain must have formed a connection to the smell.

With eyes closed my ears waited, expecting to hear the sound of a contraction rise and die away like ocean swell, but there was simply silence. No labouring moaning, no noise. Quiet waiting filled the space and in the stillness a wave emerged, a deep ache running over my lower back and across the front of my pelvis. Then calm. The aching pain welled up again to a peak only to sink back into stillness. I wonder if this feeling is similar to early labour?

Being a student midwife the fact I have never carried or birthed a child always rests with me. At times it rests peacefully, at times it doesn't. I know my own experience will never match any other birth I attend but I long to know what it is like. Initiate myself in a sense.

There's a triangle shaped space, over my womb that simply waits. I feel this space very vividly. The feelings I have related to childbirth and children and motherhood come from this place. Other feelings and emotions come from my gut or higher in my chest, but not feelings related to birth.... they all come from a deep place.

At times I try and picture how it will unfold, what the sensations will feel like, my response, and each time it is different. Each time I am in a different space, with a different focus. Some times I reach down to touch the baby as it's head crowns, other times I'm holding too tightly to a pair of hands to do so. Sometimes I walk, sometimes I rest. At times I push people away, other times I cling closely to someone's neck. Sometimes I cry loudly, other times I am still, grounded and focused.... but I always reach down, pick up my child and hold them against my skin, it's the only thing that stays the same.

It will unfold in it's own way.

I've only ever once dreamed about being in labour.... and then I was was holding a huge Grecian pillar to support myself with every tightening. I recall wearing a white flowing robe that didn't get blood on it more than I remember anything else. Strange!

The space remains happy waiting as long as I acknowledge its presence.