I woke very very early in the morning on Mother’s Day with terrible heartburn. I got a stiff neck spending half the night in the recliner trying to get some sleep. A few times during the night I felt some tightening in a sort of belt under my belly and around my back. I sat through a wonderful uplifting meeting at church. I left early to come home to take a nap. After a long luxurious shower I got a message from Keith: the Saturn’s battery was dead, and he needed a jump. That was the first time I really thought that just maybe I was in labor--driving anywhere did not sound fun.
That evening some of our friends came over for a visit. Keith went to go get Evelyn from Nana’s house and Michael and Tia hung out with me. After a while I got uncomfortable knitting in my rocking chair and decided to move to the ball for my back’s sake. Waves had been a comfortable 6 to 7 minutes apart and not more than 40 seconds long. Until I made the move to the ball.
Suddenly I felt them much stronger, more frequently, and longer. Tia timed them for me while we continued to chat. They were usually nearly a minute and only three minutes apart. I called our midwife Richelle. She sounded happy for me and suggested I call our doula Katie. An hour later Katie was there providing a grounding, capable, comforting influence. Her birth ninja skills in counterpressure kept me calm and more comfortable.
By the time Keith returned with our daughter I was beginning to be in laborland. I remember saying goodbye to our friends and greeting my little daughter. Keith, Evelyn, and Sarah, our videographer arrived around the same time. When Keith came in with Evelyn, she came to doula me too. She rubbed my back and tried to crown me with various items. Keith put her to bed, and by the time she was asleep I was beginning to be in active labor although I didn’t realize that until hours later.
I labored there in the living room for several hours. They slipped by like hours you spend in the ocean. Life was measured not in minutes but only in waves. The songs my blessingway sisters gifted to me played in the background: everything from hymns to Happy. Katie put the sheepskin on the breast bar of my floor loom and from the ball I leaned and moaned into it, the texture soothing and the softness protecting my arms from the hard wood. From my hands and knees I remember asking if I was in active labor yet. I think Katie and Sarah were amused by the question. Not knowing how much harder it would get I was relieved to hear their resounding yes. I felt active about laboring and said so.
That night, the night of Mother’s Day, In my birth sanctuary, the sanctuary of my home I began my sacred work of labor. Each of the four elements were present. My blessingway prayer flags fluttered with the night breezes coming in the window. Candles glowed on the sill bringing fire. The birth tub, my water. And my salt bowl my earth.
Though I looked like an unkempt woman toiling in the blood, sweat, tears of the oldest work known to woman, inwardly in my laborland I felt like a priestess, a keeper of a divine heritage. I found my altar. I found my heart’s deepest song. I uttered my most heartfelt prayers. Those around me protected us through our ordeal. No one could do it for us, but they stood like angels all around me ready to lift me up.
It was exciting to me to feel the baby moving down. First, during surges, it felt wonderful for Keith and/or Katie to squeeze my hips together. Then, in one wave it didn’t. I needed counterpressure on my spine just above my sacrum. Then on my sacrum. Then below my sacrum. We set a code word for calling Richelle: Leaps
In what must have been the middle of active labor Katie suggested we move to the bed, that I try laboring on my side for a little while. I see now that this must have been a last chance for rest. But as soon as I got to the bed, labor leaped ahead again. I nearly forgot the code word in my waves.
A few waves later Richelle was there. At my request she checked me: I was at a 7. I wasn’t surprised, but I was so relieved. She asked me if I was planning to birth in the bedroom. I did my best to communicate an emphatic no. I really wanted to get in the water. The tub was filled. “Can I get in now?” I asked, afraid the answer would be no. “Anytime,” she replied, making me wish I’d asked fifteen minutes sooner.
My mind was a chaos of peace. Nothing existed outside of my skin. My left brain took a vacation. I begin to think in very short fragments. In the warm colors, peace, and night there was nothing but us and birth.
Bliss into the warm water. Surge and wave, the baby sounds great. Drink of Water. Surge and wave, rectal pressure. Water. Surge and wave. “We need to get that out.” She was talking about poop. An enema. Surge and wave. She’s right, dang it.
The longest walk to the bathroom. The most uncomfortable moment I’ve ever had on a toilet. I didn’t use an enema. Oxygen! I took it back, this is the longest walk. The one back to the tub. Getting in didn’t even feel that good. I could not get comfortable. Water water! Keith. Keith is in here with me. He’s at my back. My muscles can let go.
Water, water, water. honey stick. Surge and wave. A little version of my voice sorrowfully says, “I can’t do this.” Then, raging up from my deepest places my powerful conscious voice says firmly, emphatically, “Yes, I Can. Yes I Can!” Surge and wave. Water water water. “Is this what birth looks like?” I ask. “You’re great, beautiful, amazing” they assure me. “Did I do transition?” Another exchange of glances. “Oh yes.”
Surge and...more surge. No waves. This is it. My baby is coming down! Keith’s steady hand on my perineum. If he moves it I’ll explode! He is so patient, I love him so much. This is happening. I’m having this baby right now. Not at noon tomorrow. Right now. Trying for little pushes, but my body has other ideas. Reaching up in a breathing space I touch something smooth. That can’t be my baby’s head...baby’s not bald. “It’s the bag of waters” Richelle assures me. “If you want you can break it on the next surge.” Curious, I did. Relief was quickly replaced with a call upon God. There is my baby’s head. I don’t have to reach up to feel it. There it is. “Crowning!” I gasp. “Slowly…” they say. “Burning!” I cry. “Ring of fire” they say. There it is. a perfect head. right there in my left hand. Isn’t Richelle going to do something? No, I’m doing this. We’re doing this. Head is out. I remembered Evelyn’s body slithering out so easily after her head and shoulder were out. The relief. I could use some of that. I grunt. Out. Baby’s out!
My face, I feel it explode with a thousand nameless emotions. I’m holding my perfect baby. He’s perfect right? Wait, it is a he right? Yes. Yes. Yes! Breathing is harder now than it ever was in labor. The ecstasy has ignited my chest. Frederick (I knew it was you) making tiny perfect cries just enough to let us know he’s okay. I did it! We did it! I was safe. We were safe.
Keith went to Evelyn’s room. She was ready to meet him. Their greeting was beautiful. They had been waiting and preparing for this moment.
A blur of blood in the water. Hemmorage. Placenta. Moving to the living room futon. A beautiful cord burning. The Sun coming up. I will rise like the break of dawn. May 12. My Willow Moon baby. My Frederick. The smell of burning cord, beeswax. The glow of dawn and candlelight. My baby snuggled to my breast.
As the sun came up and I held my baby in my arms both peace and euphoria swept through me in waves as great as my labor. Though I had torn again, I had healed. Though I had labored through the night, I had rested. It was done. It was possible. That changed everything.
***
I didn’t think I had torn. for two blissful hours I believed I was done. I tried to get up to go to the bathroom. The burning pressure in my shoulders and the suddenly muffled sound warned me and I didn’t faint. Finally we used a bedpan and a peri bottle and I managed to go. My uterus was slowly going down.
Then Richelle explained the extent of the tearing and damage. A long and difficult decision lay ahead of us. Much of the tearing though not beyond second degree was complicated. Much lay deep inside the vagina. General anesthesia was sounding wonderful after the painful lidocaine injections and the initial stitching on the labia.
Keith and I prayed. I called my dear friend Catherine. She had offered to do an energy work session with me, I needed it now. She came, swiftly. The answer slowly became obvious. “You want to go to the hospital?” Keith asked. Want. want. I tasted the word. “No, I don’t want to go,” I said, “but I think it’s the best choice.” I couldn’t stand without fainting. The closest I had come to swearing was getting stitched. My cries were terrifying me and my little ones. “But I think it’s the best choice.”
Keith and I were wrenched at the thought of leaving little Frederick, but that choice felt right too. The hospital was no place for that healthy angelic baby. Who could we call? I dialed two numbers of people I thought might help until the answer hit me like sweet lightning: Catherine. She was already in our room, cuddling Frederick. She had milk, she was able...not only that I knew she had been called there for that reason. When I communicated to her what we hoped she would do for us all tears filled our eyes. She had felt needed. She was able. She had thought of offering. I was relieved.
The firm decision to go filled me with relief. The paramedics were so prompt that I was still naked when they arrived. Richelle convinced them that it was not an emergency and for decency’s sake to let me dress first. They were all capable business. They were kind. They made me feel safe--as long as Keith was right there.
Keith quickly packed a hospital bag and chose me some clothing--comfortablt pants and one of the shirts I had tie-dyed. The friendly homemade purple made me feel confident. Wearing something I made, I felt more like myself.
I was on a super birth-hormone high still, and I talked all the way to the hospital about how I rocked that birth. Keith was in the front seat they assured me.
My perfect health was everyone’s goal. Their every move, every purpose was to take care of me. One of the paramedics, the leader of the team, had made a one-in-a-thousand shot with my non-existent vein in the moving ambulance to place my IV. He had done such a great job and my vein was at such an angle that I still had full use of my arm.
When it comes to medical treatment and modalities I always say, that when you want it, you probably need it. I wanted that IV. It sounded great. Rolling through the halls of the hospital I breathed deeply. It smelled good. That registered. “Keith, it smells good to me here.” I saw the paramedics exchange glances. I grinned. They didn’t understand. No triggering smell of surgical soap. No triggers at all. Just a sense of cleanliness and order. Homebirth might be great, but recovery should have no sink of dishes. It should smell like this.
Bless Richelle and her businesslike phone calls. We had direct admin to Labor and Delivery. No muss, no fuss.
I saw my beautiful hospital room. The view of the valley was incredible. It was spacious and friendly. I was so grateful to be there. I was so grateful I had not been there twelve hours before. I would have hated to birth here, I thought, but oh, I’m glad to be here now. My nurses were beautiful, friendly, and kind. Giving my history was a pleasure. Richelle arrived, and she helped supply details. Keith was right there. I missed my baby.
The doctor, an osteopath, came in to look over the damaged areas. He was gentle, non-creepy, and exuded skill. He treated us all with respect, including Richelle. I told him about the dreadful tearing, stitching job, and consequent long journey of return to normal that had afflicted me so much after Evelyn’s birth. I made him chuckle when I said, “I don’t want to look like a virgin. I want to feel like I’ve had two children vaginally.”
A short while later I was taken down to prep. After they administered the lovely, relaxing anesthesia, the last thing I remember were the strange-looking lights of the operating room. The next thing I knew I was lying somewhere comfortable, completely deliciously relaxed. After all, this had been my first “sleep” in forty hours ten of which had been dang hard work.
Lying there trying to clear my throat (breathing tube stuff) I gobbled whatever ice chips the nurse would spoonfeed me. Even with a growing awareness of discomfort I was not in pain. I half expected it to bowl me over with a sudden arrival. After all I had just had reconstructive surgery on the tenderest most used part of my body. None came. I was amused to hear them on the phones trying to figure out where I was supposed to go. Apparently no one had written my room number on my chart. No one thought to ask me. It was like watching a play.
Back to our room, Keith rejoined me. Having him there was like a breath of fresh air. My sweet husband. He said he had spent pretty much the entire time on his phone or mine texting away. He showed me some of the messages:
There were some from Catherine. Pictures of our beautiful tiny boy. Reports that he was eating and pooping and being cuddled. I missed him horribly in the midst of my calm gratitude for how he was being cared for.
The surgeon came back to talk with us. As he talked the more and more glad I became that we had chosen to come. Retained placenta, necrotic tissue. It was all in the best shape it could be now. Time and healing would define the rest.
I gradually was able to drink, then to nibble, then to eat. Keith had bought a tiny dog in the gift shop. I kept it by me. A little placeholder of cuteness. With an automated blood pressure cuff, and calf massagers we were left to ourselves quite a bit. My mind, back from the anesthesia began to process. The bitterness of my last hospital experience: gone. Sweetness was coming back to my memories. My nurses restored my faith in the profession. I was humbled to see the love and sacrifice inherent in what they did. I was learning. I was healing.
I had hoped, prayed for a healing birth experience. I had planned ahead for full postpartum support. What I didn’t expect was a healing hospital experience on top of the amazing home birth. It seemed that Divinity was providing a range of healing experience beyond what I had hoped or imagined possible. How like Them.
Night fell. Catherine assured us that she and Frederick were fine until morning. I was still so faint. The twenty feet to the bathroom seemed impossibly far. I realized that my feet hadn’t touched the floor since I walked with help to the futon ten minutes after Frederick’s birth.
It was looking like an all night stay in the hospital. It still seemed impossible that I could walk much less get in a car anytime soon. It was already nine. The new Dr on the floor took matters in hand. He said the monitors were showing me get more and more exhausted. I needed to go home and rest. The goal was for me to eat, walk, urinate, and then I could go home.
We started with oxygen levels. Then I worked on sitting up. Eventually, slowly I stood and made it to the bathroom. Once there, I didn’t go back to the bed. It was a wheelchair and signing papers. By midnight Keith and I were driving home.
Home. It was so quiet. Starting a whole new day, Frederick’s birthday behind us, we fell into bed, fairly literally fell in my case. Eight hours of sleep and a breakfast later, Catherine brought our darling Frederick home, and a few minutes later Shannon showed up bringing Evelyn. We were home. We were together. We were love. We were gratitude.
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