Rava’s link to the ocean Freediver and artist Rava Ray finds solace in the sea
AFTER moving around from the US to the south of France growing up, she returned to the home of her mother and ancestors — Mo’orea in Tahiti — at the age of eight.
Rava Ray swims with stingrays and humpback whales in the ocean depths of her Island home, so when it came to giving birth, Rava had envisioned how she wanted to bring her baby into the world.
“Ha’apiti in Mo’orea on the beach, right in front of my family’s land,” she told Stories from the Pacific.
“My grandmother inherited land from the mountain … all the way down to the ocean. My entire family lives on their different plots of land. But I grew up in this neighbourhood, you know, running around from aunty and uncle, eating breakfast here and then dinner (there), and surrounded by my cousins.
“So I really wanted my baby to be born in a special place that meant something to me, meant something to my family, and that I would hope one day would mean something to him.
“Although … he knows how he was born, but I don’t think ... it’s not significant to him just yet.” Constantly being talked down to’ Rava features in the documentary, Pacific Mother, which tells the stories of women who opt for natural home or water births while also shedding light on traditional birth practices.
Rava said finding support for her birthing journey was challenging.
“Instead of running away from something that didn’t feel right, I was really trying to go towards something that felt good to me,” she said.
When she met her midwife, Rava said she knew she was in safe hands, but it wasn’t always the case throughout the process.
“I was being talked down to as though my opinion wasn’t valid because I had never gone through birth, especially because I would be facing women who had children in hospitals, who oftentimes had negative experiences in the hospitals, and a lot of their experiences were projected onto me as a new mother,” she said.
“And it was just very difficult to find somebody I could speak to openly about these things.
“I was making a decision that was kind of going against the current and having to take care of myself through it all.
“I felt pretty safe with my midwife and then I slowly realised she was maybe just as crazy as I was, and she thought it was possible.”
Rava had envisioned what she had wanted for her outdoor birth.
“In the beginning, I was jokingly saying to my midwife … that I just wanted to be giving birth in a valley, and I wanted my screams to echo against the valley walls, and we joked and we laughed, but I was a little bit serious,” she said.
“But I was scared to say these things because I just automatically was assuming that people were going to say I was crazy, or that would be a great fairy tale, but that’s never going to happen.
“It’s funny how sometimes you’re just really scared to say things to people because you’re so afraid of judgement.”
Becoming a mother
Rava’s partner Lolo, her mother and her midwife were on the beach for the birth of her first child, at home on their family land.
“I started labouring in the middle of the night, at 3am,” she said.
“I didn’t wake anybody up at first ... I was sitting on the rocks on the beach ... and I just kept asking myself, ‘Is this it? I don’t want to alarm anybody. I’m not going to wake anybody up until I’m sure.’”
Rava’s boyfriend and midwife woke, built a fire on the beach and bought Rava a blanket.
Rava’s mother arrived just before her baby was born and “was the first one to announce he was a boy”.
When Rava gave birth to her daughter, it was again outdoors and in water — down at the river — with Lolo and her midwife by her side.
“The second time around, people were like, all right, she’s done this before,” she said.
“We already know she’s crazy, so we’ll just let her do it.”