Birthday Eve

In six hours it will be five years ago that I became a mama.

In a home water birth with a doula and a midwife present I pushed Sammy into the world at 3:50 am.  (This makes him a Gemini, for those astrology buffs out there...) 

It was about this time of night that our midwife just happend to swing by after teaching a CPR class at a local community college.  I was walking around, fiesty and agitated, REALLY wanting to have this baby already.  I'd been taking an herbal Power Labor blend that our midwife (also a Master Herbalist) had concocted for me. I was squatting and doing yoga and eating spicy food and "labor salad."  Against my better judgement Richard had started filling the birthing tub in the afternoon. For sanitary purposes, the tub can only be filled once and the water must be used within a short window of time before needing to scrap the whole thing and start over, so this was putting the pressure on.  But there were no painful contractions and no baby.  I showed the midwife the tub and asked in my best antsy voice, "What next?  Any more herbs I can take?"  She said that while she was there she'd like to check my cervix and see what was happening. 

Well.

I was 6.5 centimeters dilated!  And no pain!  My agitation turned into absolute delight!  The midwife said, "I'm going to call my husband and tell him I'm not coming home tonight.  You're going to have this baby tonight!"

Wahoo!

And at 3:50 AM I did.

And while it was a wonderful experience, it wasn't quite that simple. Because I was having no pain I got really sleepy midway through the night. Labor slowed and stalled at 9.5 centimeters and my water needed to be broken. THEN the pain showed up. It was a couple more intense hours of Heavy Laboring.

Something I don't hear too many women talk about is what feelings and fears accompany them during labor.  When the pain was intense and sharp and I was tired and wanted to sleep, I started to get scared.  Not scared that I didn't have the strength for the labor. Not scared that this boy would never come out of me.  But scared to be a mama.  There. I said it. Somewhere in the wee hours of the morning in the midst of pushing and breathing a few minutes before my son was born I decided I didn't want to be a mama afterall.  I liked my life with my husband just fine.  I wanted to go back to life as it was somewhere around, say, September 15 at 7:00 AM -- moments before Sammy was conceived.  Somebody pass the condom...

I didn't think it was okay to say this outloud, however. I felt like the scum mother of the earth. Instead I said that I didn't think I could do this -- "this" being the labor.  I was surrounded then by the reassuring words of Midwife, Doula and Husband. It did nothing to dissuade my unease. I guess I decided that labor was too uncomfortable to lolly-gag around. So I pushed.  And pushed. And Sammy came out.

His sweet little body was placed on my belly, his head on my chest, his big, blue eyes WIDE open. What a precious little being he was.  He still is. His naked, slippery, wet body wiggling around on mine -- Richard sitting behind me reaching his arms around to hold us both in tender kindness.  That memory still takes my breath away.

I wonder what Sammy was thinking at the time. I wonder if any part of him knew about my moment of hesitation. Do other laboring mothers feel this way?  Can we honestly begin to talk about these "taboo" feelings? I think the world would be a gentler, kinder place if we could.

Tomorrow is Wonder Baby's birthday. He'll be five.

Since he was born at home we got to keep the placenta and umbillical cord.  Strange as it may sound I still have it in the freezer. (Nope, I've never mistaken it for beef steak...) My original intent was to plant it with a tree in honor of Sammy's life.  But we've moved so many times since his birth and no home or land ever felt quite right. How could I "give" this piece of flesh that attached my son to me to just any piece of land?

Tomorrow I will bury the placenta.

I guess this means I'm rooting myself here in my little rural farming town. Last week while digging up some fill dirt from under our century-plus-old lilac bushes, I made a little clearing. Here is where the placenta will return to the earth. I will have a ritual. I'm not even certain what this represents yet. The understanding isn't as important as the remembrance and the taking time to mark this passage.

There is some amount of sadness in letting this placenta go. Strange. Most days (or weeks or months or years, even) I never think about it. But the letting go feels so significant.  I don't think another child will come from my womb. That means no other placenta will either. It's possible that to me the burial represents the period (think punctuation) at the end of my childbearing. Tonight that's a sobering thought.

My Beloved just climbed the stairs to our bedroom. Sammy's still awake. I think the anticipation of the Birthday is exciting his neurons. I hear them chatting, Sammy's sweet little voice full of inflection and Life.

God, I'm a lucky woman.

Thank you, Sammy, for coming to us. Thank you.

Comments

[Jeanne Loehnis]

Trish,

My personal fear story came with baby #2. I wasn't thinking or feeling anything at the time of #1. Life was pretty crazy and scary because of the addiction issues we faced. I wasn't happy to be pregnant but never felt I had choice so #1 just came .... Now I loved that little boy!!!! Such joy and delight. A true light. Pregnancy #2 was also not wanted but again ... choice wasn't present in the religion of my youth.

At delivery time, I just remember thinking "Oh crap! I will go home with another person to care for! I'm not ready to share my love with yet another one! NOooo!!!"

But of course, that is now history and both boys brought much joy -- and, at 22 and 24 (almost) -- they still sometimes do. Wouldn't trade them for anything! But I do think, if we were told up front just what we were getting into, we might never do it!!!!

Jeanne