birth of a mother

squat birth journal has accepted my birth story for publication. when i offered it i didn't realize what a deep introspective journey it would become. i have revisited my birth experience and 9 months after the fact come to see it differently. when i first wrote this story i was so relieved to be 'uninjured' and 'drug free'. but was i true to myself? yes and no. i was flexible in a way that i needed to be, by accepting the presence of midwives. each of these four people in my home brought something with them, whether it was support or assumptions or a certain type of energy. grace had explained that an injection of oxytocin right after giving birth could prevent potentially lethal hemmorage. why did i accept this distrust of my own body? lindsay brought a speedy approach akin to 'getting this baby out!', focus on the exclamation point. she made comments like, 'this baby could have been born hours ago', and 'lets avoid a trip to the hospital, i know you want a home birth'. so she suggested i start pushing before i had the sensations to do that, which was tiring and demoralizing. i felt scared and anxious to finish the birth process that seemed to be exhausting everyone else but me. then when ivy was born, Lindsay pulled out my placenta with the umbilical chord, something that I've now learned can be very dangerous. So that explains their adamence about the oxytocin shot. What were the side effects of the dose of oxytocin? Did it suppress my own bodies secretion of this hormone? How would have bonding and breast feeding been better? In the day that followed the birth I had pain with breastfeeding, I got scabs on my nipples which took weeks to fully heal and lots of pumping/sheilds/fingerfeeding etc. Could this stress have been avoided if I only told those midwives not to give me a shot of hormones as a preventative measure? How long would it have taken to have a placenta birth on my own, half an hour? I have lots of questions and a new birth story. Check the edits!

birth story...

I asked the baby in utero to please stay put a few more days. I wanted to attend my friends birthday dinner. I had lots of kicking, braxton hicks contractions and cervical mucous. I didn't know that by the day of the party Adam and I both would be unravelling. We had an intense argument. But we had a celebration to attend, so with eyes tired from tears we drove to the restaurant. Surrounded by friends I sobered up emotionally. Looking back I can see that's when labour really started, that emotional unravelling was us opening up. The fight was just a fearful reaction.

The next day I woke up hungover from the emotional rollercoaster. I kissed sleeping Adam adieu, sniffed some eucalyptus oil to clear my head and walked my heavy feeling body to the massage clinic. Breathing through the more painful deep tissue massage made me feel closer to the baby. No more fear.

I met up with Adam where he was dripping with sweat skateboarding. The day was sunny and beautiful and we were being friends again. We walked to a diner where I could straddle my stool for comfort through the strongest braxton hicks yet. We weren't alarmed, just calmly excited.

Sensations woke me up early the next morning. I laid in bed next to Adam as he slept, the tension in my belly intensifying and relaxing again and again. I was so happy I just stayed put for a couple of hours enjoying the feelings in quiet solitude.

I got out of bed and laid on our couch with our laptop. Each time the tension in my belly increased I breathed deeply and moaned, eyes closed. Adam heard me and from bed called to me, asking if I was okay. I was, and told him it was go time.

We talked about what we needed to do. The priority was to go back to bed to kiss. We had heard that the hormone relaxin in semen was helpful for labour. We would have made love anyway, but relaxin was punch-line of that days cute, sexy joke.

Morning passed, contractions became more regular. As a long time menstrual cycle charter my instinct was to write down my experience to make sense of it. We wrote down the times of about twenty sensations a minute long, then turned attention to the uninflated birth pool. While Adam got it ready I shut myself into our stand up shower letting hot water fall on my low back. I noticed my sounds, the beginning of hours of 'ooohwahhh'.

I went to the pool in our super tiny living room, the shallow warm water enough to decend my thighs into. Adam asked to take a photo, that is the one you see. Looking back at it I remember the tension in my belly as my body pushed and flexed. Ideas of orgasmic birth aside, I surely felt pain and my marianismo embraced it. But i remember struggling too. I told myself that each contraction was one closer to birth, one step further in life. And in that plastic pool I felt proud. Adam told me I looked like I knew what I was doing. I did and didn't.

Five hours into our adventure I leaned over the bed in my fluffy orange house coat and told Adam to call the midwives, something we hadn't committed ourselves to doing. I wanted labour to be like sex, only us. But more importantly we had no birth plan. My instincts told me that the midwives would help with logistics, letting Adam and I do the emotional work.

Grace arrived with a student midwife Jasmine. They asked a few questions and got acquainted with our tiny home. Our three cats were busy as usual going in and out, the midwives were their personal door openers while filling the pool with big pots of water. They watered down orange juice for me to sip, offered to check heart rate regularly (with a Doppler because they struggled to use a fetoscope), even occasional cervical checks. I suprized myself at being open to these options.

As the birth pool filled I leaned back, eyes closed and spoke in a voice almost not my own through each contraction, telling myself that all people came into being through labour, that it must be possible, that I could continue, that I wouldn't die from the pain. I'd say out loud when I felt the contraction releasing, ending, triumphant. This pattern continued while the pool filled, pot by pot. I drank more and more watered down juice.

Then - the glorious puking. I would vomit from the pressure and force in my body but I didn't feel sick. That mild juice actually tasted great coming up and i felt cleansed each time. My body amazed me, when vomited I opened more using total raw, hidden power. Literally, I dilated each time I puked.

I moved, labouring on the toilet looking at Adam, telling him how much it hurt. I remember feeling like he was my mirror reflection though the calm one. He didnt feel all my pain but felt some, we cried a little but mostly talked through each contraction. I'd never let him in the bathroom when I crapped before, so it was a milestone for our relationship.

Back in the water I remember adam slung over the side of the pool cradling my floating body as I focused. Grace sat for hours by that pool in our rocking chair, knitting, answering 'yes' whenever I suprized myself in asking if what was happening was normal.

I got out of the hot pool feverish. I took a tylenol and rested in bed with Adam. We napped, two minutes of rest for every minute of pain. Our siamese cat laid on the foot of the bed, refusing to move for anyone... once even stretching to touch the student midwife on the rear end while she checked my cervix. Thanks Fluff.

Hours of 9cm dilation were passing and contractions were slowing down. The sun was rising on a new day. Everyone was exhausted and my hydration became an issue to the midwives. When freshly-graduated midwife Lindsay came, I said farewell to the others and accepted an intravenous drip of water from Lindsay. It was cold coursing into my hand.

To 'get oxytocin flowing' and a new energy, Lindsay closed the door on the bedroom for Adam and I to reconnect through his exhaustion. For the first time in so many hours we talked, kissed and touched my breasts. Then we walked together around our cluttered birth cave. It must have been tricky for her to give us real privacy such close quarters but as I leaned on the edge of the pool in my housecoat, hips held from behind by Adam, Lindsay disappeared in my mind and the contractions got very strong again. It felt like an insane, low, butt pain.

She checked my cervix, 9 1/2 cms, so close and the head was coming down. I couldnt tell if I had 'the urge' to push but I definitely wanted to do something about the pain in my butt. She suggested I start pushing and held the lip of my cervix aside as I beared down squatting by the bed. These painful, short intense pushes where draining. When I held sounds inside and sent the energy downward, I felt movement. Lindsay told me i could reach inside to feel the head, it wasnt smooth like i expected but a bunch of skin folds. Soon squatting felt too intense so I laid on my side on our bed.

With the morning light shining in and for less than an hour i'm told, I pushed during contractions to bring that head out. It was a physical feeling I never could have predicted and can't put into words. The baby's head slipped in and out, irrationally I feared it would slip way back. Adam and the midwives assured me and I even remember screaming at them that birth is impossible, 'I cant do it!'. But with one leg in the air supported by a second midwife Corrina and a warm cloth on my perineum, the baby crowned. With my hands I felt the head, a wrinkly little bulge passing over my tissues, pulling them to their limit. I remember Adam crying happy tears which reassured me, then with one final gentle push my clitoris felt stretched, a crazy pain as the shoulders passed. I heard a little cry then felt the baby on my belly. I said 'its so big!' and felt shock that an actual baby was what all this work was for.

Baby was pink and soft, quiet and warm. Adam told me, 'we did it, we had a gentle birth'. I was so intensely stoked, pleased and proud. Without thinking I brought the baby to my breast and was shocked that the little mouth opened and sucked. We layed there skin to skin while Lindsay and midwife Corrina did chord traction to remove the placenta, belly rubbing, an oxytocin shot in the leg, and pressure on tissues to examine for tearing. This whirlwind of activity was distracting and now I believe to be unnecessary. At the time, a new-born mom I had faith that their treatment was helpful somehow. But in retrospect I can see my relief when they promptly left.

A bag of laundry, placenta in the fridge and me 'a mother'? I am still trying to believe this amazing family is all mine. 'My birth', as I call it, had twenty nine hours of active labour, no drugs for pain or antibiotics, no injury, a feeling of respect and control throughout but I am left with questions. What impact did the regular heart-rate and cervical checks have on me? Was the later part of my labour rushed? Were the multiple after-birth interventions necessary?

After half an hour, I put my hand under the recieving blanket and touched a little vulva. I became mother to a daughter, to whom I will always say: "Ivy, ask questions and seek brave answers".

XO