Oh Elsa, that’s so interesting….about the energy in the room. With my six year old it was emotion pouring out…crying, joy, excitement.
With my second, it was kind of a silent, calm energy….we didn’t even cry, which is soooooo unlike us. It wasn’t that I wasn’t happy, I was, it was just non-overflow-of emotion like it typically is with me. Can you give me some insight on what you think about this energy from both of them. And what is your experience with this from your own children…if you’d like to share that with us.

it’s a beautiful thing.
they are who they are. we can’t change that.
i remember feeling blissfully happy. and exhausted. and oddly calm, like the whole world had gone into extrasharp focus.
don’t know how much of that was the kid and how much was the process- i only have one so i have nothing to compare it to, really. when my sibs were born we were asked to leave the room when my mom went into transition.

I had a client once who was to be scheduled for a c-section because the baby was breech and could not be turned. We spent hours pouring over potential scheduling times to try to get the baby a “great chart!”

Eventually the c-section was scheduled and the weekend prior to the big date, the little bugger decided that he was ready to be born and she went into labor in the middle of the night, and had a c-section during the weekend–at a time when it would’ve been impossible to schedule a c-section.

That was certainly a kid who seemed determined to pick his own time.

Someone on the LJ astrology community tried to tweak her birth time…the kid came EXACTLY during the 5-10 minute “bad birth time” window she wanted to avoid.

“Damned well please”–LOL! That describes my son’s birth perfectly. He was in a big hurry to get here. The whole labor totaled 5 hours, no drugs, and I had him within an hour of getting to the hospital. (Aries Jupiter square his Sun/Mercury in Capricorn, and an Aries Moon!)

My second baby’s birth was difficult. The labor pains stalled and I was induced. She just didn’t want to come out. She’s a Sagittarius, with Pluto exactly conjunct her Sun, and Saturn opposite. Her Moon is in Leo, opposite a Mars/Uranus conjunction. I call her my “diva princess”.

My third one is a little ball of energy–lots of Mars aspects. She was a typical 12 hour birth, with the water breaking at home–and she was flipping around so much, she was breech! (I had a version to flip her back! )She is a Scorpio, with a Cancer Moon conjunct Saturn (I was worried about that, but since it’s part of a Grand Trine, it seems to clam her down. She really is a force of nature.)

These kids’ personalities match their birth stories and their charts uncannily. So yes, I think they chose to be born these ways!

I don’t believe we can or should choose our children’s charts, the same way I don’t think we should direct their destinies. But then again I am powerfully Uranian and have a deep attachment to the rights of the individual.

My son’s chart is dynamic but more full of difficult aspects than the chart I would have chosen for him. Still it is what it is, and he is who he is, and he is my deeply beloved kid who is uniquely himself and completely different to all my musings and imaginings of whom I’d like him to be.

My attempts to prepare for birth were mostly exercises in seeing how calm I could make the atmosphere and myself, so when he was born everyone was really chilled out still.

Up until the last couple of minutes the birth had been very gentle and slow, but I remember precisely when I felt the shift into ‘No, ready to come NOW, let’s step it up a gear.’

The dominant emotion after he was born was shock at this massive thing that had just happened, and when I held him then for the first time I was thinking the thing I feel when I pick him up now:

“For better or for worse, you are mine and I am yours as long as we both shall live.” Ultimately when he is being a difficult baby he is still my difficult baby and I know the tie and the huge sense of responsibility I feel goes both ways.

He is not always the easiest of kids, and I am not always the easiest of parents - but ultimately we are what we have and we are bonded more deeply than I thought possible. I love my husband with my whole heart, but my son IS my heart all naked and anxious and vulnerable kicking and flailing through the world.