Catharina

"Bud", Painting by Pat Mallinson, email maropatmal@aol.com

My Adventure with Pregnancy, Hina’s Birth and Coming into Binnie’s Training

By Catharina Enke,

Life manager and Breathwork Therapist, German training 1991-94

Excerpt from book, BIRTH OF A REBIRTHER, edited by Archie Duncanson

In August 1989 I ended up with a nervous breakdown or a kind of burnout situation, where I couldn’t sleep and ran around blaming everyone and everything. I had a painful “signal” in my high chest and I was in total paranoia about life, especially the office and the music business where I worked. I saw a naturopath and an acupuncturist who lived in the neighborhood. He helped me to “come down” with a lot of homeopathic remedies and acupuncture. When he saw the big scar on my forehead, he asked me if I had ever healed the trauma that lay behind it. “No, how?”, I asked. He suggested hypnosis or rebirthing as ideas for ways to approach it.

What I knew from my mother is this: I had a big red birthmark over my right eye when I was born. They believed at the hospital that it was going to grow. My parents worried about my future looks and so they decided to have me operated on when I was 7 weeks old and again when I was 7 months old. They tied me down to the bed so I wouldn’t move. After the operation, I stopped eating – a hunger strike was my protest to what they were doing. My mom was able to get me out of the hospital, thank God. In those days I was ready to die.

The situation, which I call my ‘nervous breakdown’, was familiar to me. I had experienced one four years before in a very similar way. So I thought that “something must be terribly wrong with me” and that I needed therapy. With a friend I went to the first rebirthing congress in Osnabrück, Germany in October 1989. Very soon I felt right at home in the workshops and lectures, in the whole atmosphere there. One was called “Waterbirth in Thailand”, or something like that, where they showed a video film about rebirthing in Thailand and about a homebirth (not in water) in Berlin. A woman in the audience shared that she had had an underwater homebirth with her last baby. The therapist asked how she managed that – whether it was in her bathtub. She said she had borrowed a special wooden tub for the birth. Then when she said where she came from – Düren, the larger town next door to my home village – I almost fell on the floor. I couldn’t believe that there was someone from so close by who was at this congress, and who had similar ideas and wishes to mine! Today I realize that this astonishment was another expression of the belief: “There is no one here for me (or with me)”.

After the workshop I ran to that woman to speak with her. I told her that, perhaps, in a couple of years, I would like to become pregnant, and asked her about a doctor in our area who says “Yes” to this kind of birth. I wrote down her telephone number and promised to visit her sometime. Well, at that moment, at the Rebirthing congress, I was already pregnant! When I came home and found out, I had a total crisis. “No, not now!”, I thought. I had just made a decision that I would like to do therapy first and finally learn to take good care of myself. I couldn’t imagine myself with a baby. I wasn’t sure about my partner as a father, since I saw him as another “baby” that I took care of. He had completely freaked out when I had gotten pregnant exactly one year earlier. At that time I decided that I wanted the baby and would have it anyway, even without him. However, when I went to the doctor who insisted on an ultrasonic, it turned out that there was no fetus. So before I could even think or react I had ended up in a hospital, and wasn’t pregnant anymore. It was very interesting that this new baby came to us exactly one year later. This time my partner was cool, but calm. This time it was I who completely freaked out – “I can’t become a mother like I am now, with all these heavy psychological problems, can I?”

A few days later my partner was away on business in New York. I went into the nearby forest and lay down on some rock outcroppings there. That night I wanted to die rather than live on and have a baby. I guess my guardian angel, as well as some quite spiritual friends whom I phoned, held me back from jumping off the cliffs that night. They ordered me to jump in my car and come visit them immediately, a three hour drive, which I did. We went together to some very powerful and holy places, including a spring that was known to work with women, fertility and female energy. I thought immediately, “Yes, this feels right, this is my way of approaching things.”

My friends left me on a very powerful spot between some old oak trees near a chapel, and said that I should be there with myself and meditate for a while. I just prayed that I could say, “Yes”– to the baby, to the pregnancy, to myself. I noticed that I started bleeding in my pants, and my friend Anja said later to me that I should see my doctor as soon as possible. So I drove straight back to the doctor, who just ordered me to lie in bed for the next few weeks. Luckily I could manage to “crawl” to my partner’s mother, who was happy to take care of me in her beautiful home. Here I got the time I needed to make my decision, to think about all aspects of having the baby and, at last, to calm down from my nervous breakdown after 3 months of “just staying alive”. I was only in bed for about two weeks, but I thought I would die if I didn’t do anything for so long. I had nothing visibly wrong with me like a broken arm or a headache or so. So lying in bed and being taken care of felt more than uncomfortable, it made me feel completely guilty! The bleeding stopped fairly soon, and I knew that I had to be very cautious. For the first three and one-half months of pregnancy I felt nauseous all the time. During this time I received a flyer for a workshop in Berlin, 600 km away, About Birth –waterbirth- given by Binnie A. Dansby. I was very interested. First I contacted the woman I had met at the rebirthing congress. She asked me if I wanted to have a waterbirth and I answered that I didn’t know, especially for the first baby. I certainly wanted a homebirth – no way would I ever enter a hospital again, unless I was unconscious, after my terrible experiences in early childhood! She said something very important to me: “Well, you could offer your baby to be born under water – have the tub available, you don’t have to go into it, if you don’t feel like it. ” What a great idea!

From that moment on I wanted to know everything about waterbirth. So, of course, I flew to Berlin and did the workshop with Binnie. Again I felt like “coming home”, in the loving atmosphere that she creates. By the end of the workshop Binnie and another woman, Heidemarie Weiand, invited everyone to the “open” weekends (where guests are allowed) of the regular Rebirther training led by Binnie. I almost fainted when she said where the training was held – in the village next to mine, five kilometers from home! By then it was more than clear to me that I would follow Binnie wherever she went to teach, no matter how far or how long I had to travel, and this was right next door! I couldn’t believe it.

In April 1990, I went to Binnie’s open weekend and then again in June to the final “Celebration” week of the training. Shortly before I had had a dream that I should take care of the water tub ahead of time. So I had it installed, in my partner’s mother’s home, even though the due date was still 3 weeks off. Then at the celebration week Binnie invited me to stay even longer than the other guests and just be with the people of the training. She gave me a picture of the Green Tara, and later a miniature statue, saying this was someone who makes your wildest dreams and wishes come true. I prayed for a wonderful waterbirth.

My baby had been jumping around like crazy whenever it heard Binnie in the room! One time Binnie held her hand on my belly and it kicked her, directly into her hand. Binnie said laughing, “Oh, it’s an old lover of mine!”

I went home full of energy and happy and confident. The next day labor started, ten days ahead of time. This clever being wanted to be born with all the incredible power that I had in myself from the week at Binnie’s training! I didn’t have time to organize a meeting of the people whom I wanted to be at the birth. The midwife, who was 69 years old, came to our place, and I showed her and my partner a film of a waterbirth so they would be calmer with my plans. Then I called Lothar, the organizer of Binnie’s training, and he started a telephone chain so that everybody from the training could send energy to us. Heidemarie Weiand came and we drove to Kurt’s mother’s house. Heidemarie was wonderful support to me. I felt so great and powerful, breathing and walking through the night, saying, “YES” all the time. What a miracle of change had already occurred, compared to the beginning of the pregnancy!

At about two-thirty a.m. the midwife suggested that I lay down and sleep. “What, sleep? No way”, I thought – I wanted to give birth and get on with things! (She was looking at me from another point of view: as a woman giving birth for the first time, where labor may take a very long time). A while later I began to bleed a little bit and she went straight into fear and thoughts of the worst, asking me which hospital we should go to in case something went wrong. I’d never even considered that at all, and didn’t want to think about it then. Heidemarie helped me in being positive and suggested that I try getting into water in the regular bathtub. The bleeding stopped and the midwife was amazed. I understood later that she was into a “movie” in her mind, from a few weeks before, when she had attended a woman giving birth at home, in which the placenta came loose too early and they had had to rush to the hospital. I suppose I had been breathing so well that I opened very fast and a little blood vessel broke. A little after this I went into the “birth” tub and it was so easy and great. My partner was in the tub, more or less sleeping. He had had a few crazy weeks of intense work behind him. And for me it didn’t matter. I simply gave him a little kick when I noticed that the baby would soon be coming out. It was so beautiful to see Hina coming into the water and stretching her whole body. When I held her in my arms, on my breast, and my partner was sitting behind me, I felt blessed. “I’ve got something I have been praying for”, I thought, and it was as though something beyond my wildest dreams had come true.

This was the most powerful and beautiful experience in my whole life and I am so grateful for it. I wish to express gratitude to everyone who helped me in that process, with special thanks to Binnie Dansby, Heidemarie Weiand, Kurt and his mother, Doris, and to the midwife, Mrs. Klameth. For the first four weeks as a mother I stayed with my mother-in-law in her gorgeous house and really got pampered – about the luckiest time in my life. Later it got quite difficult for me at times with the baby and it was clear to me that I would go and do Binnie’s training as soon as I could. That turned out to be in October 1991, when I stopped breast-feeding and could give Hina to my mother. Now that I look back at 3 years of the training I see how much has changed in me and with me. I was able to solve many layers of guilt and self-destruction, as well as understanding so much more of myself, my way, and of others. Rebirthing on a foundation of love, support and safety is a very powerful way to make big changes in consciousness – to turn away from being the victim to being the creator – the real transformation. I AM SO GRATEFUL!