Memoir: Suryananda Grace Rose's Birth

Suryananda Grace Rose’s Birth

I am living in Pondicherry, India and we have been building the house in Auroville where I will birth my first child. It has taken a long time and the day has come to finally be able to move in. The only glitch is that there is just enough keet (palm leaf) roofing finished to cover the part of the eneagram structure where our beds are. The rest of the roof is the cris-cross of the bamboo supports. I am about 37 weeks pregnant.

The kitchen is not yet set up in my house, so the day after I have moved in, I have had to walk over a mile to go to the community kitchen at Center to eat breakfast. It is a hot mid-July day and it takes me a long time to go there and back. Hugh, my husband has gone into Pondicherry by bicycle to get some supplies. I am tired and a German woman who lives nearby has brought over some tea. We are drinking it on my bed and I stand to get something. Suddenly, my waters broke and I start to go into labor. It is about 2 in the afternoon. I am a bit confused but my friend had had a baby and she reassures me that it is normal. I am not ready, having just moved in. I have wanted to hem some cloth to make sheets for the baby and that becomes all important to me. I sit down to sew as much as I can before I birth.

My friend runs to get someone to bicycle to alert my English midwife and see if they can find Hugh. Labor does not seem so hard and I know that I can handle it. He is found at the outskirts of Auroville and races home as fast as his legs can spin the pedals. Running into the house he asks if I am ready. I look up from my sewing and say that I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.

Labor starts to get stronger and one of my neighbors has been loaned a lyre. He is a concert musician and it is the most heavenly sound. People gather and the midwife comes. Now I am working hard. No one has ever told me about back labor. Wow, is that intense. I have only enough time to take a breath in between contractions. It is dark and I can see a couple of children holding lanterns. There are several people sitting on the floor across from my bed. I can just make them out in the shadows. I have read a Lamaze book but I am unsure what part of the labor I am in. Am I relaxed enough? Am I doing it right? Well, there is only the next breath. That I know I can do.

Then the midwife exclaims, “Oh, my God, it’s a breech! Push!” I push twice with all my strength and she is born. Her eyes are wide open looking at me. I recognize her. “Of course it’s you, it’s always been you”. She is the most luminous beautiful being I have ever seen.

Prema Rose