Matriarchal Audacity
A Homebirth Story of Reclamation and Breaking Cycles
Written By Dominique Drakeford
What does it mean to have matriarchal audacity?
And more poignantly, what is the definition when it’s steeped in honesty and the complex of lived experiences through pregnancy, birthing humans, and the metamorphosis into motherhood?
I didn’t become a matriarch because I had children, I was actually pushed into matriarch-hood when I had to substantiate boundaries for myself from my parents who thankfully gave me an incredible upbringing. I took on the responsibility of becoming a matriarch when my parents, with my mother as the ringleader, no longer had the capacity nor the tools to respect me and my life decisions.
I was prematurely thrust into the vortex of molding an idea of matriarch-hood when I came to terms with the fact that I had to mourn parents who are alive and “well” but behind closed 15 foot doors are mentally unfit adult-children who have their own minds, passions, and worldviews. After many years of failed attempts at reconciliation and over-saturated rationalization - I realized that I was becoming the female head of my family, but not the family that I once knew. I was taking my DNA, and the torn pieces of my lineage, and creating a new cultural ecosystem to become the keeper of ancestry, healing, memory, and audacity.
For several years, that awareness sat idle on spirit ... and the foundation of becoming a matriarch was cemented when my fiance and I became pregnant with our first baby in September of 2020.
I HAD THE AUDACITY TO INTENTIONALLY GET PREGNANT
Although executed quicker than anticipated, my first pregnancy was 100% planned, beautiful, mildly challenging, but a lot of fun. Aside from the aversion to scented garbage bags, the annoying taste of battery acid in my mouth, and my frustrating body odor that needed to be masked with heaps of deodorant and perfume ...
Thanks to my tribe - my beautiful hubby - Timothy, my dope virgo sister - Jazmyne, and extended family and friends - I was privileged to have a luminous pregnancy. I was able to move around, travel, create campaigns, global speaking engagements, and rest when needed.
I faked entertaining the idea of having a hospital birth although my womb already knew we were going to attempt home birth ever since watching Ricky Lake’s documentary, “The Business of Being Born” while I was in college.
After a few train rides from Brooklyn to Manhattan and experiencing the typical OBGYN Medicaid symphony of sterile lifeless rooms, lackluster attention to detail, and the get in line and grab a ticket energy (though fairly pleasant) - I would rather pay out of pocket, with the privilege that we worked hard to acquire, and have a homebirth experience instead of a birthing procedure.
So after conducting homebirth interviews and selecting a doula and midwife that we both felt comfortable with, the more specialized adventure of homebirthing started!
I HAD THE AUDACITY TO HAVE A BROOKLYN HOMEBIRTH
After inundating my mental and spiritual self with as much information as possible on homebirths, my first birthing marathon was not this whimsical, orgasmic experience where I spent one little evening of laboring with dim lights and Solange playing while my cedarwood incense burned through laboring intervals with mild breaths of anticipation.
It was nothing I could have imagined or ever conjured up. Once early labor hit - I had a house full of cousins, food, chess matches, and ass shaking in between drinking disgusting castor oil concoctions, vomiting, and letting my breast pump go to work to help ignite labor contractions.
With contractions ceasing to ascend into a consistent rhythm - the energy was so high and intense in our Bushwick oasis that we would wake up every morning and say we have to get ready for “contraction bootcamp”. We were 2 weeks past the due date, meaning 2 weeks of painfully annoying on-and-off uterine contractions that no form of oxytocin was helping to intensify to create steady momentum. (And my poor sister in law and cousin had to eventually leave before the baby arrived because the birthing timeline had its own agenda) I can’t emphasize enough how physically and mentally draining it was to labor for 2 whole weeks but it was beautiful to still be able to calm the nervous system down by doing things like journaling in a relaxing tub and going to the beach - yes I was in labor at the beach lol. But the hurdle was that we needed to rev up contractions but also my human body needed to sleep, rest, and relax which mitigated progress when we had it.
And with a much needed dose of pitocin and still the collective decision not to go to the hospital, which my tribe knew up front was not an option unless me or Sage’s life was in danger, we were able to ignite active labor.
Now when I say that my active labor was no joke - it was no joke! I didn’t know that there was a pain more insufferable and agonizing than labor contractions. There is! During active labor I had sciatica - a sharp shooting pain up and down my legs that accompanied every single contraction. The whole team - midwife, midwife assistants, doula, hubby and my sister were going to work in our home hospital to provide me comfort. If I could do a campaign for how much my massage gun helped settle the pain I would - but then I would turn around and sue them for short battery lifespan because once the massage gun died in the middle of the chaos and I went back to every ounce of my lower body being in so much pain that I just knew I was going to turn into an evil person after this was all said and done (LOL). Also I’m glad my sister has [dark] melanin because she definitely endured some battle wounds.
Once it was time to fill that birthing pool situated in our sienna-colored bedroom - I was so elated to almost be at the finish line with Tim right in the water behind me. And once I was in the birthing pool, I distinctly remember having the thought that I was really becoming a mother without the voluntary support of my own mother - something I would have never fathomed. And if I’m being honest - I needed to release that truth in order to labor. was so stagnant and not progressing.One could say that this labor was so long and inconsistent (also known as “prodromal labor” which can have the same painful contractions without dilation) simply due to excitement, anxiety and inexperience. But spiritually I think I was holding on to my mother and not allowing myself to release what was and welcome in the truths of what is.
And so Sage was born (with a master midwife who swiftly unwound the umbilical cord from around his neck)- a powerful low intervention home water birth. But this birthing story doesn’t end there. My placenta cord somehow detached so I couldn’t birth that 1 pound life line organ, thus my midwife had to grab it out of the womb for me. And to put the coconut shavings on the cake - I fainted twice coming from the bathroom - simply from pure exhaustion.
But once my equilibrium was in tack I laid in bed with my almost beautiful almost 9 pound hella tall baby in utter bliss, so grateful for my tribe and feeling like a badass boss.
This was the hardest collaboration of my life.
THEN LESS THAN 2 YEARS LATER, I HAD THE AUDACITY TO HAPPILY DO THAT SH*T AGAIN
Round 2 is what we call a beautiful surprise but what was not a surprise was that I absolutely wanted to do a home birth again. Of course the first time wasn’t perfect and there were some very stress inducing moments - but I will take having a professional team (who have proven to handle challenging situations), the comfort of my home, bodily autonomy, familial agency and the ancestral power of birthing in water, over being a Black woman and risking birthing in a hospital if I don’t have to. Also figuring out the loopholes to be able to get the 2nd birth 80% covered by insurance sealed the deal.
Overall, this pregnancy was a bit more challenging. I was in and out of nausea most of the pregnancy but still moved around, had fun and embraced this period all while mothering a 2 year old. I think the only time I deeply reflected on the abandonment of my parents during this experience was the disbelief that growing up as a daddy’s girl - I was going to raise a daughter who wasn’t going to receive love from the human who once was my favorite person on the planet.
However, labor and delivery was more fluid. When labor started in the late rainy evening, we called my sister an Uber to come over to help out with Sage. I labored most of the night by myself so Jazmyne and Tim could rest. I timed out my contractions while texting my doula - deeply breathing through each of the powerful uterine shock waves. By morning the doula arrived and once active labor hit we called the midwife to bring Sequoia Earthside. The main focus of this pregnancy was managing Sage and eventually he dove in the birthing tub with me and we all harmoniously watched as Sequoia entered en caul - with her amniotic sac still on at 2:22 in the afternoon. Everything felt so divine.
And of course I clearly can’t give birth without a placenta moment ... As soon as I stood up from the birthing pool and walked over to get in the bed my placenta just fell out of my body and blood splattered everywhere. It looked like a True Crime scene but after being affirmed that everything was okay - it was somehow a refreshing and humorous change of pace from it previously getting stuck. Of course still birthing pain woven into moments of chaos but it was such a calm and expeditious experience.
I HAD THE AUDACITY TO FULLY STEP INTO AND EMBRACE BEING A MATRIARCH.
My birthing story is where nuanced beauty and ancestral trauma collided to build a new standard, what I call Matriarchal Audacity.
Both experiences were radically beautiful and deeply transformative. With Sage’s birth I found a definition of STRENGTH that was rooted in releasing trauma as a pathway for bringing life and Sequoia’s birth symbolized RECLAMATION - owning my power by letting intentionality manifest over control.
I’m the first person in at least 3 generations to have a homebirth - something I know my parents would not have approved of and made the decision difficult had we had a healthy parent-child relationship. The decisions and willingness to bring life in the world and do it on my own terms knowing that I would be in water pushing out a human while my parents were simultaneously nestled in their 5,899 sq ft home in the Oakland Hills - would only be the beginning of the long journey of what it means to mother through estrangement and to build a legacy through rupture.
The audacity of becoming a matriarch means that I have to master both the art of both “breaking” and “building” simultaneously. Birth taught me that breaking traumas and building new legacies are not linear nor do they happen in isolation. I was chosen to become this - to choose self determined pathways with my incredible finance, because Sage and Sequoia chose me to set a new standard.
I had the privilege of growing up in Oakland with incredible parents, a vast and eclectic Black community woven into village mentality that’s a rare relic of cultural normalcy. The parents my siblings and I grew up with aren’t the parents we have now. And somewhere down the line, I subconsciously internalized that motherhood and becoming a matriarch simply meant that you did hard things, reminded your children of your sacrifices and relationships would be automatically manifest because of a cultural code of respect.
Through this process I’ve had to unlearn that birth is simply delivering a human from your body. The entire birthing process channeled a divine femininity past the point of euphoria and into the realm of sovereignty.
Being a matriarch as transfer of title is easy and simple - but choosing to be a matriarch with audacity typically means you have to create new codes of respect, substantiate ecosystems of safety and affirm your right to wholistically exist on your terms in order to crystalize a healthier existence for the next generation.
This doesn’t happen enough in Black families and we get stuck in traditions where matriarchal toxicity metastasizes because we refuse to speak up, change course and re-define in order to re-imagine.
This is for igniting the care and courage of Material Audacity in Black womanhood, in Black culture and throughout our villages as the real ass backbones of community and society.