Aum Lotus just Bloomed

You may have already heard by now, but our Aum Lotus family unit just got a little bigger!! We are overjoyed to announce the birth of our little daughter Maite Arya Kay, who joined us on this earth in her physical form on the afternoon of Thursday, May 11th, 2017. It’s hard to know where to begin and how to share such a powerful and personal experience, but we will try our best with the hopes that our story may inspire and support all the beautiful couples and families that are growing around the world. Starting from learning about the pregnancy, all the way to the the labour and the birth, we went through so many ups and downs and faced so many challenges, but also received such beautiful support and love from so many people around us and learned a few things ourselves about this incredible and magical process.

Check out this video we put together with love for all women in the world to help empower them with strength and love on the great path of pregnancy & motherhood. Then read below for our thoughts and experiences on the labour and birth. We will also be coming out with a few more blog entries in the near future regarding the different things we learned throughout the pregnancy and some things that we tried that seemed to work for us well.

I had a dream … giving birth was easy, I was talking with my beautiful baby all the time during the labor and the pain was alternated with moments of light and bliss…a process to embrace to born again together with the soul that  I carried and protected for nine months in my womb. There was no fear but only the intention to say YES to Life … This dream become true the 11th of May when Maite Arya arrived again on the earth in a sunny afternoon.

Giving Birth is not scary… it’s powerful!

It sounds rhetorical to even say it, but it seems like people have forgotten what birth is really about.

Birth is not about demostrating that you are strong, or it is not about trying to survive something that is natural.

It’s about having a baby. It’s about two lives becoming one. It’s about the start of a brand new life.

Frankly, I didn’t like all the stories that I heard during the pregnancy about how scary giving birth is; all the details and hours and hours of labour that you have to survive. I feel that during the pregnancy we should work more on the power of the women, telling them about the extraordinary capacity of their bodies, their minds, and their hearts.

For sure if a woman is in good shape, healthy, and she practices the breathing and deep relaxation; these are the first steps for a more peaceful labor, but I found that another element is very important. It is to create a relationship with the baby all throughout the pregnancy, talk with them, connect with them and be aware that you are together from the beginning until the end.

This is powerful! This connection is the rhythm of giving birth.

I don’t want to say that be prepared and aware is not important but, especially if it is the first time, you really have no idea of how it will be because everybody is unique and every story is unique.

So why we don’t focus on the power of our body and our intention.

A mother and her little one are intrinsically connected on many planes of existence, so if the future mother cultivates peace in herself, she could be in the same way, the seed of peace in the being that is about to be welcomed into this world.

My baby taught me that she could feel in the same way as me, she explained to me that during the labor she could also feel the pain but if I was able to create a bridge with her and maintain the connection, talking with her, instead of being focused only on myself, I suffered less. When you feel fear, you try to protect yourself, and so it is not possible to give anymore…but I discovered that the gift is the source of relaxation.

So if you know someone who is pregnant, remember to encourage her to believe in herself and create a real and deep connection with her baby, well before they take their first breath of air and we get to hold them in our arms.

The story of our labour and the birth of Maite

We woke up that thursday morning and things weren’t so different than usual but we had a feeling that we should consult our midwife about a little bit of fluid. It wasn’t exactly ‘her water breaking’ like we were told. So we grabbed our ‘baby bag’, well packed and ready to go as everybody is taught, and headed to The Riverdale midwife clinic. After confirming that Violante’s ‘water had broken’, we learned that she was in just 10% of women who’s water breaks before the contractions start.  Our midwives informed us that this most likely meant that Violante would most likely or should go into labour sometime in the next 24 hours. Guess it was time to truly prepare for our labour, even though we were more than 10 days before our due date!

At that point Violante was already having mild contractions and anticipating that we had a long and intense day and night ahead of us, as well as being terribly hungry, we headed to Mother’s Dumplings in Chinatown for some dim sum upon Violante’s specific demand. Basically all the way through lunch Violante was having rushes (contractions) at about 1 minute long, 4-5 minutes apart, and she described them as mild to medium. They seemed intense, but for sure she was doing a great job of staying calm and taking them as they came. I was noting down all the timings and was questioning exactly how close and strong they needed to be in order to call the midwife, but after our meeting and all the things we heard, we both figured that there was still a long way to go. As we were leaving the restaurant around 3pm, we took a selfie and a woman said to Violante, “Wow! It’s looks like you have a bowling ball in there!” LOL…I told her that she was in labour and that we were leaving… 😉

On the way home on the subway we decided to get off one stop before home to get some fresh fruit… the rushes were increasing in intensity but still about 1 minute long and every 4 minutes, but we made it home at about 4pm, just in time for our friend Patricia to come by to do some shiatsu massage to help along and encourage the labour. I don’t think she needed much coaxing….she wasn’t even there for 30 minutes before we were called our midwife to come, as for sure Violante was in active labour and the rushes started to be pretty intense. Our midwives came just before 5pm, and after an incredibly powerful and connected final stage of pushing our little girl Maite had arrived!

I don’t really think anyone could believe it…for sure space and time seemed to stop…and it still feels that way in these first few weeks with our little bundle of love. She is stunningly beautiful and a total angel, sleeping and feeding, exploring and learning, peeing and pooping, and just a joy to have in our arms. Every time we meet our midwives, they said she is doing perfectly and whatever it is that we are doing is working great!!

I can only start to try and describe the incredibly beautiful and pervasive feeling it is to be a father, to know that I was apart of creating such a tiny little human that will forever be connected and apart of me and our family. I still feel inside each and every moment as they come, but I’m sure with more time in meditation, I will better be able to describe and share my feelings on this new empowering stage of my life.

Lots of Love,

Andrew, Violante & Maite