I want to tell you all about the incredible birth of my daughter, Leah, who is now five days old. I hope my experience will help expectant mothers understand what birth can be like, how to prepare for birth, and what sort of birth to choose.

Me and my partner, Amnon, had decided to have a natural birth at Misgav Ledach hospital, and chose Ilana Shemesh to be the midwife, after hearing excellent recommendations about her, and being impressed by her approach from messages she had posted to this discussion list.

However, we heard on my due date that the hospital was being closed down, so that we would have to make other plans for the birth. As it was my first pregnancy, I had really wanted a natural birth with the medical back-up of a hospital. As the closure of Misgav Ledach made this impossible, we decided to have the baby in Ilana’s birthing suite, at her home.

It was the most incredible, profound and spiritual experience that I have ever had, and the most significant day of my whole life. When we arrived at Ilana’s, I was already nearly 5 cm dilated. After checking me and the baby’s heartbeat, Ilana left me to labour by myself, with Amnon, and to call her if I needed her. I laboured for three hours, and the contractions grew more frequent and intense. Eventually, I got into the jacuzzi, which really helped with the pain. The pain became really excruciating, beyond anything I thought I could ever bare. The pain made me descend into a primordial state of consciousness, howling and screaming, in order to cope. I was 8 or 9 cm dilated, with no rest between contractions, for about 2 or 3 hours. I really didn’t know how I could go on . Eventually, the urge to push came. Ilana filled up the jacuzzi again, and I got in. The second, pushing phase of the birth only took half an hour, and the contractions were not as painful as the previous ones had been. With each powerful contraction, I roared from the depths of my being, like a wild animal, hailing to the universe the entrance of a new life into the world. As I felt Leah’s head and body descend through the birth canal, I roared with pain, astonishment and joy. Seeing her body pushed out below me in the water, and float to the surface, was the pinnacle of my life.

Although the birth was incredibly painful, and I was in labour for a total of 17 hours (8 hours at home, 9 hours at Ilana’s), the pain was an inseparable part of the whole experience. It was the pain that made me enter an altered state of consciousness, to descend into the essence of my being, and make the whole experience so profound and spiritual.

In retrospect, I am really happy that things worked out the way they did – that I gave birth at Ilana’s, and not in a hospital. The environment for birth is so vital. Moving from place to place, the wrong kind of lighting or music, or a stranger suddenly entering the room can really slow down the process, and lead to complications. Having experienced birth myself, I am sure that many of the incidents you hear of where a woman is induced, or ends up having a caesarian section because the labour is not ‘progressing,’ is because of the bureaucracy, bright lights and intrusiveness of a hospital environment. The standard hospital procedure of strapping a woman to a hospital monitor for 20 minutes per hour is cruel and tortuous, as it is essential to be able to have constant freedom of movement in order to cope with the pain.

I am sure my own labour would have been far longer if I had just gone to hospital, without hiring an experienced, natural midwife, and I think it likely that I would have ended up being induced, or having a vacuum.

Giving birth is a natural function of women’s bodies , and a natural, conducive environment for birth is essential. Ilana’s birthing centre is a warm, reassuring place, and Ilana herself provides the necessary support for a labouring woman – the encouragement, suggestions and natural aids to relieve the pain, at just the right time, without being intrusive in any way. The confidence she projects in a woman’s ability to birth her own child, and her calm, cool approach meant that I never had any anxiety about the well-being of my baby, or myself. She performs the necessary checks to see that the birth is progressing safely for both mother and child so gently and unintrusively, that they did not disturb my labour in any way.

I have the following advice for other women. I strongly recommend a natural birth in a conducive environment (i.e. at home), if you want to avoid the traumatic medical interventions that occur so often in hospital. A natural birth also means a speedy recovery for you, and a smooth and healthy entrance into the world for your child. It also means experiencing the best moment of your life in the fullest, most spiritual way possible.

I found yoga and breathing exercises, especially squatting, really good preparation for birth. My labour proceeded most rapidly when I was squatting – at the very beginning, and in the second, pushing stage. Next time I give birth, I’ll spend as much of the labour as possible squatting. If I hadn’t done squatting exercises throughout my pregnancy, I wouldn’t have been able to squat for as long as I did.

I also strongly recommend using the Epi-No to stretch the perineum. It is a balloon-shaped device, that you place in your vagina, and expand gradually over three weeks, until it reaches a diameter of 10 centimetres – the diameter of a baby’s head. It prevents tearing of the perineum, and painful stitches afterwards. I think it is much better than the perineal massage, because, as it expands inside you, as well as the perineum, it probably allows for an easier passage of the baby’s head through the birth canal. I think the reason that my pushing stage only took half an hour was because I was squatting, and because I had used Epi-No. Leah emerged from the birth canal perfectly round – not at all squashed, and, of course, I didn’t tear at all. Another important advantage of Epi-No is the psychological reassurance of knowing in advance that your vagina can stretch to a head shape of 10 cm, and push it out, which takes away the fear and apprehension of that aspect of birth.

I hope my own experience is useful to other women making decisions about where and how to give birth, and I wish you all the perfect birth experience that I myself had.