Children Raise The Village
When people asked me the big question of “do you one day want children?” I always answered, “only if I have a village to help me raise the child.” While it’s common to say, “it takes a village to raise a child,” it also takes a child to raise a village.
Under a full blood moon eclipse, my beloved and I chose to walk through an invitation knowing it would alter our lives from that moment on. In this conscious conception, we already knew the name of this child; it made itself known to us separately in our dreams. It seemed that something was already written in the sky, and we simply had to listen and gesture toward what wanted to come earth-side. And we did. We simply listened to the call .
As the pregnancy ripened, we both wanted to invoke this notion of birthing by many hands. Yet we found ourselves in a situation as fairly new migrants without any family nearby, with close friends and community oceans away, and a baby soon to arrive. We invoked our prayer of Collective Midwifing: a cultural gesture of collective care in devotion to birth. Allowing our prayer to reveal to us what this actually feels like as we expand and widen in the womb over ten moons.
As we approached the threshold of birth, we had a small-yet-intentional online and in-person community that held us through loving lullabies, donations, messages, and gestures of encouragement and love. Many people, especially Mothers, reached out sharing: ah, this way is possible. We don’t have to do it alone.
Collective Midwifing can look like our neighbour lending us her pressure cooker when ours broke, extra portions of home-made meals, our doula-friends organising a beloved birth blessing, parts of our pregnancy and postpartum journey being resourced by community, and so much more.
Journey to the Land of Spirits
Early morning on June 1st at 4am, my mucus plug released. We spent the day gently at home, eating potato and spinach curry with roti, resting amidst early labour, sensing that something immense was beginning. By night, surges escalated quickly, and at 3:30am we made our way to birthing center Bumi Sehat.
What followed was a long, powerful, and excruciating journey into what they call the “land of spirits.”
For 52 hours straight—yes, 52 hours—we journeyed through labour together. There was barely any rest, no sleep, and minimal food. The contractions felt like a tsunami moving through the body, each crash widening the hip bones and bringing baby down toward the birth canal—slowly, over time, again and again. For a first child, it is excruciatingly painful. With the undying support of my beloved and our doula, together we were like the fortitude of trees amidst a strong storm, steady together, following the waves, redirecting the pain, and staying in it. We continued opening over those three days of trance, and eventually full dilation came through. We continued beyond what we knew a human being could endure.
And still, our baby remained suspended between worlds.
Extreme exhaustion began overtaking us all, especially the birthing body.
As the spirit can go on, the body has its limits.
Deep in the hours, the midwives came into our room to intervene, as the labour was going on for too long. They suggested I walk around, yet I barely had the strength to take a few steps while the contractions were one after the other. What followed were another few hours of pushing—with oxygen support for both myself and baby, and later an IV drip as I was losing strength.
We were supported by the midwives, our doula, our baby, and all the visible and invisible hands surrounding us. Everything that could be given was given. Again and again, we found ourselves humbled by the depth of care surrounding us. We found ourselves standing at the very edge of birth, with our baby already crowning and yet not arriving. We were literally at the final tipping point of birth. Weakness overtook my body, every breath and every step was an immense effort. Our baby’s heart rate climbed and dropped. We were at the edges.
The situation shifted from challenging to critical.
The birth that had begun in one world was asking us to enter another.
Intimacy With Death
At sunrise on June 3rd, after three days of labour, an emergency ambulance transfer was called by Ibu Robin and the midwives.
This was never a considered option for us. In fact, we had consciously refused it as a backup plan prior to birth. Yet birth has a way of humbling us. It brings us into intimacy with death. It asks us to surrender our plans and meet reality as it is. By this point, Mother and baby were incredibly fragile, while labour was still moving through us with immense force.
Once we reached the hospital, Chévanni, my beloved, was separated and had to complete registration. A pivotal moment was that he had to sign a document stating that Mother and baby may die during the procedure. They handed him my ring, necklace, and clothes while, in the background, I was screaming amidst contractions, waiting for the go signal.
Documents signed. Doors closed.
We disappeared into surgery while Ché found himself waiting—exhausted, frightened, praying, and surrendering to forces much larger than himself. The hours that followed felt suspended outside of time, the longest hours, standing at the gates between life and death.
At 8:03am on June 3rd, 2026, Luaña Ka’ala entered the world through a belly birth, more commonly known as an emergency caesarean section.
We emerged alive. Mother is alive. Baby is alive. There are no words large enough for the relief that followed.
We are in immense gratitude to Hermina Hospital, whose name fittingly means “Warrior.” We later learned that Luaña is the first baby born in this new hospital. We were held with graceful support. Ibu Robin visited us and helped tend to our rights within the hospital setting. We were able to keep our placenta and resist pressure toward formula milk. We remained grounded in exclusive breastfeeding. Truly, everyone treated us with care and gentle healing during a profoundly vulnerable time.
Today, with tears in our eyes and gratitude overflowing from every corner of our bodies, we can share that we are together, safe, and recovering.
More than anything, we are grateful to be alive.
Our hearts are full of gratitude for the midwives who walked with us so faithfully, for the medical team who stepped in when we found ourselves between the edges of life and death, and for all of you who have held us in prayer, love, thought, and spirit.
Every candle lit matters.
We are slowly coming to realise that the birth we want is not necessarily the birth we need.
We are in humble surrender and trust to the lessons our little guru has come to teach us.
Landing in a Circle of Care
While we would make this choice again in a heartbeat, the reality is that this unexpected belly birth required us to drain a significant portion of the resources we had gathered toward emergency medical costs that were intended to support our postpartum season; helping us create a nest of rest, healing, and recovery for the weeks ahead.
With humility, we opened an invitation for support to cover the costs of the emergency birth and intensive care from our collective midwifing community. Within 24 hours, we were able to fully recover our costs with the deepest gratitude and thanks to our loving community that we slowly invited over the course of the pregnancy. We truly feel so touched and held. Overall, our collective midwifing fund has reached 70% of its goal.
I truly bow in honour to everyone, the meals brought in, the oils made, the dream catchers woven, the dollars sent, the prayers at the altar, every single candle lit mattered.
This birth belongs to so many, not only to this birthing body.
