By Karina

It’s all in the perspective. Our homebirth was a beautiful, gentle experience for myself and my partner but not so for our daughter Sophie.

While admittedly she experienced no intrusive medical interventions or interferences with the biological imperatives of birth, her progress through the birth canal with the umbilical cord looped twice around her neck and ever tightening as she neared the unknown could not have been without real fear and distress.

The presence of meconium at her birth would attest to this. From birth whether it was temperament or deeply instinctive response, Sophie was an intense, easily startled baby who seemed to struggle the worst at night.

During the day she was an active and hardy soul who seemed to take everything in her stride but come the night this resilient baby would fight sleep with a passion, tearing at my breasts and would then battle up through the sleep drenched reaches to howl her despair often and long into the night.

Initially I put it down to her enthusiasm for life and a desire not to miss out, then perhaps to my own fractured sleep patterns that may have been inherited.

When we had a car accident when she was 6 weeks old, I took her to an osteopath not just to check on any injuries but also to check if any residual issues remained with her skull or neck as a result of the birth. Adjustments were done and we moved on. Unfortunately her sleep patterns did not.

With ringing assurances of the effectiveness of controlled crying and Panadol meeting me at every turn, I kept turning a blind ear but was growing increasingly concerned about how we could continue to keep coping.

By 10 months Sophie was still waking constantly at night and I was a pretzel from averaging 2 -3 hours of sleep a night. I worried that she was being sleep deprived and understood this pattern needed compassionate attention. Once more we went to a different osteopath who confirmed some cranial overlap but nothing dramatic.

My naturopath viewed the revelations of Sophie’s blood and hair as well as her eyes for clues. We encountered some genuine issues with a sluggish gut, from my side, that could be addressed and there seemed to be some improvement in night time waking. Finally I night weaned my daughter, while still day feeding and again this seemed to help but still she struggled to go to sleep.

My friend Jodi suggested it might be of help to both Sophie and me to try Rose of Raphael healing vibrational essences. Where no harm can be done, my mind is always open.

We received Healing Birth and Nurturing Protection drops and the difference the first night was immediately recognizable – for the first time, Sophie did not ravage around my breasts, frantic in her activity – instead there was a peaceful feed followed by her easing into sleep without the fretful crying jags that used to accompany every night.

My ability to go to sleep and stay asleep, so crippled by months of chaos has been refreshed and now we are all sane again. The negative energy signatures we had grown to recognize and answer to had been erased and replaced with positive messages.

After a few days’ doses, each time accompanied by a sense of gentle unraveling of the tensions and knotted trepidations that bound my thinking and body to this situation; I felt that we had reached our point of healing. I passed the remaining drops onto a friend and her baby who had experienced a traumatic birthing experience.

Sophie is still very much a baby redolent with all of her mystery, an active one, and while teeth and illness still play tango with her sleep at times her ability to fall asleep and to enjoy its restorative powers without fear and distress has been a gift I cherish