What is transition?
Transition by definition is the stage in labor where you are about 7/8 to 10cm dilated and contractions are strongest - coming about every 3-4 minutes and lasting 60-90 seconds in length. It’s the last stage of active labor and is often the most intense part. The good news is that it’s often the quickest stage.
Regardless, many clients joke that this is when they either wanted pain relief, to leave, to stop the labor process, or to just plain quit. This is a place of irrationality for some, and often a place where a birthing person enters the deep subconscious.
To understand more about the internal process of transition, you can look toward the Holistic Stages of Birth by Whapio. Here, transition is known as the Summoning. It is the stage where a birthing person is deep within themselves and connected only to their body. It is also the place of their deepest wisdom and their deepest courage. Here, you will never have been so strong or so brave.
Onlookers may see a birthing person in transition and label them as irrational. But here, they are not irrational but primal, wild. For others, this stage can show up as complete calm, pleasurable, or something in-between it all. All birthing people are unique, but they all experience transition as a time within themselves that only they can move through.
In transition, you must be able to trust that your birthing team is supportive and taking care of the outside - as your body, mind, and heart turn toward birth.
The Summoning is also a point of labor where fear or frustration can disrupt the call to power. The right birthing team knows this and can recognize this, responding by standing in unity and commitment to the birthing person in order for them to sense and witness their support. Anything less can alter this person’s experience or allow fear to take the lead.
If I can say anything to you, it’s that transition is beautiful because it is raw and powerful. It’s also where you can see the light at the end of the tunnel because over the ridge is your baby. Transition is the almost there.
You’ve got this!
