The Birth Portal…

Harmony graced this earth

I head out for my morning walk, barefoot on the 10 acres we lived on,
rubbing my belly, letting the sun kiss us.

As I move, sensations start to bloom in my womb —
deep, familiar, unmistakable.
Like intense period cramps.
Like the beginning of a miscarriage.

They come steadily,
every few minutes.

I laugh now at the idea of timing contractions.
Birth does not live in minutes.
It lives in liminal space.

A lesson I am about to learn.

I am nervous.
Curious.
Excited.

As I turn back toward home, a kookaburra feather lies in my path.

I have never had one in my path before.
I stop.

I know.

The birth journey has just begun.

______________________________

Inside, I call out to my love,
“Daddios — it’s happening.”

I look up the meaning of a kookaburra feather
and laugh out loud.

Of course.

We are both booked for massages and a day at the beach.
We look at each other — the waves continue, steady, but not yet stealing my breath.

Maybe this is labour, I think.
Ecstatic birth… maybe this is it. Orginally I had wanted to do a ‘Dolphin Assisted Birth’ so maybe I will give birth with the dolphins in the Ocean.

I head to the beach first while her Dad has his massage
The waves keep coming — consistent in rhythm, consistent in feel.

I enter Ye Yemanja - Queen of the Sea

I feel the waves against my womb.
I pray to the waters.
I commune with Harmony.

I chant softly:
Ease.
Harmony.
Grace.

Again and again.

I ask my ancestors for a safe, gentle, guided entry into Earth.

It is soft.
Beautiful.
Divine.

____________________

Back at the studio, Sarah (massage therapist)is radiant.
We have worked together during pregnancy — she is invested.

She tells me she knows it is Harmony, and that this birth is already healing something in her —
a softening of her own birth trauma.

She works deep into my pelvis, my pelvic floor.
I keep riding the waves.

“Ease.
Harmony.
Grace.

Softening.
Softening.
Softening.

Open.
Open.
Open.”

When she finishes, Sarah looks at me and says quietly,
“Harmony is coming.”

She tells me the massage took her into my pelvis —
that she had her own profound journey there.

I smile like a proud mumma.
My daughter is already creating harmony in the lives she touches.

____________________

In the car, her Dad says we need to stop in Eumundi on the way home.

I smile, then say,
“Baby, you better hurry. I really think it’s happening.”

By the time we arrive, the waves are deeper.
I sit outside the coffee shop —
nostalgic, as this is where we met.

Another wave rolls through me.

I look at him and say firmly,
“I don’t care what you need to do here. We need to go. Now.”

At home, I demand a big dinner.
Bangers and mash.

He has been on a twenty-one-day fast.
As he cooks for me, he breaks it —
as if his spirit knows he will need grounding for what is to come.

As we eat, I can no longer sit through the waves.
I stand.
Lean into him.
Need his hands on my hips.

Little do we know it will still be over twenty-six hours
until she arrives.

We both need the energy.

_______________________

Throughout pregnancy, whenever I tried to read,
the noise returned.

Get educated.
What’s your backup plan?
What if something goes wrong?

The projections were relentless.

Every time I picked up a book,
Harmony would commune with me.

Mumma. Stop.
Don’t you remember?

This may sound delusional to some —
but it was utterly real.

I didn’t need an ultrasound.
Our communication was alive.
I was guided by her and by the Earth.

From what little I had read:
Early labour — move around.
Stretch.
Position the baby.

But my body wanted rest.
Sleep.

The waves had been steady since 7:30 that morning.

So if you are reading this —
listen to your body.
It knows.

Trust yourself.

_______________________

That night, a lightning storm dances across the sky.

We cuddle together, riding the waves all night long.

In the early hours of morning , I enter the birth pool.

Harmony had told me I would birth outside —
under the stars, on the earth.

So the pool waits beneath the open sky,
just outside her bedroom.

I ride the waves, watching lightning flicker in the distance.

Still, my mind hovers.
Curious about time.
Trying to measure.
Trying to control.

Medical language creeps in —
“failure to progress”.

I reject it.

I know this is the threshold.

My mind, my fear —
they are what hold her back.

She whispers to me:
You have to leave your body to do this.
You must let go.
You must trust.

Rosie — are you ready?

_______________________

Was I really ready? 

I still wasn’t sure yet 

_______________________

I lay down on the floor.
I wanted to be as close to the earth as possible.

The dog comes and lies beside me. It amazes me how animals know how to transmute energy without effort — how they simply arrive and anchor the moment.

Her dad sits in the rocking chair.
With every wave, he massages my feet. When it crests and breaks, we both drift back into sleep. He feels the next one coming before I do and begins again, steady and devoted.

It’s strange how time bends here.
When you’re exercising, a sixty-second interval feels endless. In this space, it feels like ten seconds. Or maybe no seconds at all.

This is when I enter the liminal.

I lose any sense of time — whether it is light or dark. Sound from the outside world disappears. I go inward, deep into my soul. It echoes there.
It’s vast.
It’s beautiful.

_______________________

Eventually, I rise and move into the bathtub.

My body begins to empty itself — not like an ordinary release, but something deeper, purging.

It reminds me of plant medicine journeys, of clearing beyond the physical.

It feels as though my daughter is helping me shed the last remnants of fear — collective birth trauma being washed out of my body.

Her Dad holds the showerhead against my lower back. I

curl into the bath like a cat, instinctual and primal. He looks at me and says softly,
“This is the most beautiful I’ve ever seen you.”

My eyes roll back.

I can’t think, just bear witness to this space of divinity. 

Swaying. Allowing.

Later I realize we are both naked.
It feels utterly natural.
Primal.
Unedited.

He feeds me honey between waves, sweet and grounding. 

_______________________

I start to stand in the bath, swaying my hips, the water cascading over my belly. I hold myself and rock.

I do this for HOURS.

And then — I leave myself even more. 

In this space, everything is peaceful. The contractions are barely sensations anymore — 

I am inside the beauty of boundlessness.

Gosh it’s beautiful 

_______________________

Eventually, I say,
“I need to rest for a while.”

As I step out of the bath, I lean over the toilet, moving my body in slow, fluid circles.

Her Dad comes behind me.

_______________________

“Baby,” he asks gently, “what are you scared of, what are you holding back?”

And suddenly I know.
It is my mind.

He reaches inside of me from behind, intuitive, present — and he feels her head. Still in the sac.
For a moment I wonder if I will have a veil birth.

I touch myself and I can feel her — right there. Waiting.
The emotion of it is overwhelming. Sacred. Uncontainable.

This is when I decide. 

This is when I realise there’s no turning back. 

_______________________

I whisper to her,
“Harmony… Mumma is really ready now.”

Everything shifts.

My waters break.

The energy amplifies. The waves grow stronger, undeniable. I no longer need rest.

I yell at her Dad. 

“In the birth pool. NOW.”

_______________________

I step into the birth pool outside.

The water holds me —
warm, steady, familiar —
a womb within a womb.

The sun is setting.
A soft pastel sky.
The first small stars begin to appear.

I lean over the edge of the pool,
my legs wide,
instinctively finding a frog position.

Her father is behind me.

The sounds intensify

Not just moaning.

These are primal sounds —
sounds I have never heard myself make,
sounds I could never recreate.

The intensity of birth arrives fully.

This is it.
This is where we are reborn.

I think to myself:
this is where women opt out.
This is where the rite of passage takes you to your absolute edge.

Just like motherhood does, every single day.

_______________________

For a moment, the mind reaches:
I could call an ambulance.
But I cannot even move from where I am.

I begin to roar,
“I can’t—”

The sentence never finishes.

Something ancient takes over.

I roar

“I CAN.” 

And the waves intensify.

It was in that moment the sweet little maiden was gone. Protective, wild Mumma Rosa is here.

The intensity is profound.
Nothing can prepare you for it.

This is birth. This is untamed. This is wild.

I am not pushing.
I am allowing.

The body does it for you.

It takes over.

The sensation is otherworldly.

I begin to pray —
to every woman before me who birthed naturally.
I call on their strength.

I pray to my father,
to my grandfather,
to give me strength.

I pray to the land —
ancient Indigenous birthing land.

I pray.

I am being stretched —
not only physically,
but emotionally,
spiritually.

A friend’s words echo:
inch by inch.

Thought disappears.

I feel myself breaking apart —
every belief,
every identity,
fracturing into a thousand pieces. 

Everything I thought I was
is dissolving. I am being obliterated into a million fractal pieces.

I go even further inward.

I hear the sound of creation. 

It echos-  almost deafening
A sea of infinite “OMs.”

This is creation.
The sound of creation.

I look up at the sky.

I see my father.
My grandfather.
My ancestors.

They are holding her spirit —
right there.

I see the “Iris” —
the rainbow bridge
from heaven to earth.

I am no longer on earth.

I am between worlds.

I am being undone before my very eyes
so my daughter can arrive.

I reach down.

I feel her head.

There is hair.

So much hair.

I feel like I might break —
not physically,
but spiritually.

I am being broken open.

This is the making of me. 

This is BIRTH.

Her father places his fingers inside me
between the waves,
softening the last tension in my pelvic floor.

How does he know to do this ?

This is the mystery of birth —
it goes beyond thought.

He says,
“She’s almost here.”

I roar,
“I’m ready for you, Harmony.”

Her head begins to emerge even more. 

It feels enormous.

Her crowning was not a ring of fire, but the most incredible, spiritual, earth-shattering experience of my life.
To feel her head gently emerging and retreating within me—so my body would not tear—was profound. Our babies know our pelvis. They know our bodies.
We were literally designed for this. 

I trusted her completely.

I trusted my body.

There’s a beautiful African saying Mamatoto—when mother and baby are one -  working as a team, moving together in perfect instinct and trust.
Birth is truly that.

_______________________

Her head is fully out.
I squeal. I squeal even louder when I feel my booty - it’s like a blooming rose.

The next wave rises and fear flickers. My mind intrudes and I do my first push, worried she is underwater. (Silly me) For a brief moment, her shoulder catches inside of me — 

Her Dad reaches in, steady and sure, his hands around her, and she slips free — arms extended in a tiny superwoman pose, and she shot out and that feeling was a mix between eurphoia, relief and awe

_______________________

I am folded over the edge of the birth pool, stunned, suspended between worlds.
I haven’t even turned around when I say softly

“Baby… is it Harmony Grace?”

I hear her first — the softest, sweetest sounds, fragile and ancient all at once.

“Of course it’s her, my love.”

When I turn around, time stops.

There is a stillness so complete it feels holy. The room disappears. The water, the walls, the hours behind us — all gone. There is only her. The weight of her presence.

It is beyond magnificent.
Unbelievably beautiful.

I am still in awe of this timeless moment 

It really is Harmony Grace

I really gave birth just where she said

I really did it just me and her Dad

I really did that

Her Dad kisses me and we sit in the pool for moments that feel like forever just staring into our beautiful daughter 

Blessed that we are

No tearing, just a little graze from when I pushed and my mind came in (lesson learnt)

Thank you my darling daughter Harmony for choosing me as Mother and thank you for guiding me to remember my power, my strength

I love birth and most of all

I love you x