The Birth

From Pema-

Prayers of the Ancient King of Mystery
On june 20th 6:43 am in Bali I gave birth to our perfect baby boy.

As the solstice sunrise awoke, the midwifes chanted the gayatri mantra and Narayani played the crystal bowl, a perfect moment for Mala to pass through the gateway into the birthing waters. My mother there by my side and Ben embracing me as my anchor, we wept as he took his first breath.
It was the most intense night of my life, and now I truly know what it is to give life, and what it is to be a woman. Now I am learning what it is to be a mother, that the love I feel guides me to infinite levels of devotion and service. Its effortless and a true pleasure. I am so grateful for this initiation. I want to thank everyone for all their prayers and candles lit during the labour, that they were felt in the depths and assisted me in my journey. I can't wait for all of you to meet Mala and become a closer part of our lives.

Mala, in sanskrit and many cultures is the beaded necklace which act as the vessel for us to infuse our prayers and send them out to the universe. Mala for us will be this vessel for us as parents, a way to worship the divine through him. Not projecting our expectations but infusing him with our highest prayers so that he may discover his own destiny.
Kian means 'ancient' in gaelic and 'king' in persian
Ashara is sanskrit for the unknown or mystery, and Ben and I will also take this as our last name to unite our new family.


From Ben-

So as the full moon had just past and the solstice coming on, I started to really feel for the first time this hinging urgency that the baby was about to come. We did a last acupuncture treatment to encourage the birth and also visited the midwife for a last checkup. The baby's head was fully engaged and she was at about 2cm dilated but no real contractions. Even though we hadn't done any ultrasounds throughout the whole pregnancy, we decided to do a last minute one to make triple sure that everything was perfect, but we kept the sex a secret still. Turns out everything was as is should be so we went home to get a good sleep. That night, Pema's water broke at about 12:50am in our sleep, and then full contractions started to come on and they were straight away 5 minutes apart and intense. We called Budi and Bobbi and they packed up to come our way and arrived 2 hours later. By that time, the contractopns were about 3 minutes apart and Pema was getting a real good flow with them. She was in the zone, and 4cm dilated when they first arrived. Then two hours later the urge to push finally came on and we quickly started filling the bathtub. She got checked and was fully dilated at 10 cm and ready to push with contractions 1 minute apart. We got her in the tub, and within about 30 minutes of pushing, the baby crowned and the body followed. Budi and Bobbi were chanting the Gayatri Mantra while Narayani was playing the crystal bowl. The whole experience was a tear jerker, unexplainable. It was really special to be sitting behind Pema and supporting her and watching the whole thing in a pool full of flowers in the sunrise. He was born on June 20, 6:43 which is GMT+8 hrs for anyone who wants to offer their astrological assessments. It was truly ideal, very intense but short and sweet. We really feel any of our friends who had a long labour, can't imagine how strong they were to endure for so long. Good work mamas!!! Pema definitely said that it was the most intense experience she has ever had, no comparison to anything. Full Initiation.