The Birth Story of Oakley Rose, Intrahepatic Cholestasis of Pregnancy and Virgo South Node/ Pisces North Node Energy

Its Wednesday, I’m 38 weeks pregnant, on my way to get my oil changed, then off to a midwife appointment, and afterwards if I have the energy, go south to my storage unit to gather a few miscellaneous things that I’ve wanted for the past month and then to head home. Then comes some of my early moments of surrender in motherhood. The phone rings and its the midwife on the other line, telling me that this might be hard for me to hear (especially since I have definitely had tears in the office and on the phone with them before) but my liver lab numbers came back and instead of doing my plans for the day I need to call the hospital and go in for more labs and a “non-stress test” to make sure the baby is doing okay.

Okay, deep breath- the hospital?? A non stress test?? I feel like my baby is totally healthy- she always has a strong heartbeat, I’m a health coach, I eat healthier than a lot of people I know and I’m planning to have my baby at the birthing center. Sheesh, okay I can change my plans and do that, the hospital has really great tools and everything is going to be okay.

So, a long Wednesday, short- lots of stress tears, high blood pressure from stress (which if you know about high blood pressure and pregnancy it is a warning sign for preeclampsia which can be quite dangerous) and tests. The baby’s NST came back healthy, my liver labs came back elevated, but not crazy high and the main marker of “intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy”, the bile acids test takes about 5 days to come back. The concern with cholestasis is that there is a possibility of stillbirth, so if it is diagnosed the doctor wants to induce labor quickly. All in all, the doctor (who I really liked and who was understanding of my vision for my birth) didn’t think my labs were enough to diagnose cholestasis, but offered me a cervical sweep, which is just using two gloved fingers in the yoni to gently stimulate the cervix and encourage labor to begin naturally. So thats what we did and I left and stopped at the midwife center for a hug and some moments of being seen, and then home.

Fast forward to Friday late morning, the mucus plug that seals the uterus off from the outside world came out. Keep in mind through all of this- its my first time! Is this the mucus plug? Is this my water breaking?? I went through out the day as normal, but I definitely noticed myself feeling present in this liminal space. Into the evening I was cooking dinner and also prepping meatballs for the next couple of days. We sat down to eat a little late that evening, and just before my last bite of food I felt a little pop. I can’t say that it hurt but it was definitely a little uncomfortable. I ran to the bathroom, and sure enough it was my water breaking. I am so thankful the midwife was there all along the way for me to call and ask/confirm with. As soon as we realized it was my water breaking, my partner went about 500 mph to get a bunch of things around the homestead taken care of, as well as packed up food and supplies for the weekend. I contracted and puked all night long in bed- I didn’t really get any sleep at all, just rest in between contractions and around 6 AM we left for the birthing center. Its an hour drive on a curvy mountain road to the birthing center- and it was a challenging one to say the least. Nina, my partner’s 3.5 year old at the time was a trooper through my moaning on the drive. During the labor she had a close friend of mine come to hang out with her, we were so thankful for it.

Upon arrival at the birthing center, our midwife, Sunshine was there to welcome us and get ready for baby to come. I was about 7 cm dilated when she checked my uterus for the first time  so it wasn’t long until it was time to start pushing. I was in and out of the birthing tub a couple of times, pushing was getting hard and I wasn’t making any progress on baby coming out. I had an IV because I basically puked every contraction until there was no fluid left in my stomach to come out. I also tried two puffs of the nitris oxide that they have available for pain relief and all it did was make me want to lay there. It ended up that homeopathic arnica and pulsatilla were what helped me the most. There came a moment when I asked “when do we start talking about a transfer to the hospital?”- I was thinking for an epidural because pushing was really really hurting.

That was when the midwives decided to check my cervix again- and sure enough the cervical lip was there blocking any progress of baby coming out and it was why pushing was so painful. One of the midwives helped push the cervical lip aside during each push and it was immediately less painful. As the pushing progressed I switched to be on all fours on the bed. It was super embarrassing, especially since with my elevated liver enzymes my digestion had definitely been off for a couple of weeks, but before the baby really started coming I pooped. They said that it is very common to do so while giving birth- lets be honest giving birth is about as real and raw as it gets. After that baby started to make her debut. There was lots of deep yelling from me and lots of encouragement from all 3 midwives and my partner- because I didn’t feel like I could’ve done it if they weren’t telling me I was making progress. Then there she was, head first, she came into the world into her Dada’s hands with the song “Eyes of the World” playing. He passed her up to me from underneath, and it was like all of the pain I was going through was gone and the biggest miracle in the world just got passed into my arms. She was so perfect and blue, with white vernix all over her.  The name we picked but weren’t going to decided for sure until we met her suited her perfectly, Oakley Rose- strong and steady like an oak and beautiful heart bursting open like a rose. She basically immediately latched onto the breast for feeding and we got to have some epic rest and cuddles as the placenta was delivered and beyond. Overall from water breaking to baby in my arms labor was about 15 hours.

A few hours after birthing, getting a couple of stitches, cleaned up and a belly full of local hamburger we left the birthing center and were offered the most amazing place to stay that I am so grateful for- as the hotels and Airbnbs were basically totally booked up. We stayed “on the coast” - which is about an hour away from our home, for a couple of days for recovery and headed home on Tuesday. What I can say about the few days after giving birth is that it is this sacred time of being enamored with and caring for new life that still feels so close to Spirit paired with doing something (or lots of things) you’ve never done before (for first time moms) paired with recovering from one of the most insane physical experiences there is paired with needing lots of rest and sleep paired with insane hormonal fluctuations.

On Tuesday it was really nice to get home, moving slow and thankful to have lots of support a long the way. Circling back to the Wednesday before giving birth, my bile acids test came back and I got a message from the doctor congratulating me on a healthy birth, but that the test results do qualify me for a diagnosis of intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy and that its helpful to know about this for future pregnancies because 40%- 90% of women who had ICP will have it reoccur. They say that the symptoms (which include severe itching, digestive distress, poor digestion fats, and more) of ICP generally dissipate within a couple of days to a week or so after giving birth, but mine seemed to go away and then seemed to return. Having this diagnosis and then having some symptoms linger was frustrating to me, because I truly feel that I am a healthy person! They were also a little bit anxiety inducing, because I am now responsible for feeding this precious baby from my body and she has jaundice, which many newborns do, but is my imbalance in my blood contributing to her jaundice?? There were truly so many anxieties that were coming up for me, and I was really not able to move my body for quite sometime- so that got me more in my head.

Thankfully I was able to use and study astrology for fun and to make some sense about what was going on for me. During basically the whole time of Oakley’s gestation in my womb and during birth and beyond the South Node of the moon was (is) in Virgo and the North Node is in Pisces. Virgo is the 6th sign of the zodiac and relates to the 6th house of health. Virgo has to do with the sacred work, purity, organization, service, control, anxiety, criticism, etc. and Virgo rules the liver! Pisces is all about the spiritual, mystical, intuitive, visionary and creative. In a healthy expression it trusts and surrenders. Pisces rules the feet, toes and the lymphatic system- it can struggle with ungroundedness and poor boundaries. Furthermore, the nodes were 1° away from exactly squaring my personal nodes at the time of Oakley’s birth. (I know that this is a foreign language to a lot of people… so…)

What this means is that first of all- we as a collective are being challenged to step out of patterns of control, anxiety and criticism and to step into the vibration of trust, surrender, intuition and creativity. And what this means even more deeply for me is that there is some deep karmic letting go playing out during this period (the nodes are karma/destiny) and I am being fully challenged to let go of my anxiety and control and deeply TRUST life. And it is hard, but it will be deeply rewarding if I do. Its so interesting to me also that this is all going on with my liver (the intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy) and Oakley’s liver and her digestive system as a whole (regarding the jaundice) and Virgo is the ruler of the liver! This is one reason that I really love to study medical astrology in particular. Because I truly do see the patterns play out on an energetic level making their way through all of the mental, emotional, spiritual and physical bodies. Again, here I am being challenged to trust life, trust my health, and trust that its all going to work out. When I looked more deeply into why I felt like the cholestasis was playing out for me it has to do with my deeply empathic nature and feeling responsible for processing things that even aren’t mine. I talked with my energetic healer and friend about it and she told me the solution is to send it down into the heart of the earth, or into the center of something and not try to process it myself. (Here pisces playing out boundaries!)— part of it also had to do with the increase in volume of physical things, hormones and energy from other people that I started to process through my journey of pregnancy, which began with a move to a new home. This parallels with Virgo and the liver, which are associated with processing and organizing.

Something else astrological worth sharing here in the birth story is that Jupiter- the planet of expansion- is in Cancer this year- which is the sign of home and family and rules the the female hormones in the body. This is also in the 7th house of my natal chart which is the house of relationships. This Jupiter truly lit up all of these aspects for me this year and to the point of a little bit more than my liver was able to handle during pregnancy.

Ending Oakley Rose’s birth story here- she is now 3 months and twoish weeks old and her jaundice is totally gone and she is thriving! I am still recovering postpartum and coming back into hormonal balance. I have an upcoming liver enzyme test, but I am feeling much much better regarding the symptoms that cholestais was bringing up for me. I am so grateful for this sweet baby in my life, the experience of growing and birthing her and for herbs, the midwives and astrology for supporting me through the journey and beyond.

Please check out my other blog posts and those to come if you are interested in how astrology and herbs can support you in living a healthy life aligned with the rhythms of nature.