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| So pregnant. Two days before she was born; since I work from home I wanted to send some proof to my colleagues that I was, in fact, still gestating. |
The upside was that the heat wave that lasted all summer was finally on hiatus, and since I had pretty much transitioned my projects at work and stopped taking on new projects I had a lot of time for slowly walking to the coffee shop, afternoon naps, and acupuncture appointments.
After barely making it to the hospital with Oscar we had planned for a homebirth this time around; 42 weeks is the upper limit for when homebirth is still safe/legal, so the midwives scheduled me for an induction at the hospital on Friday morning at 8am. On Thursday morning I tried one round of an "herbal induction protocol" which involves swallowing yucky things at 15 minute intervals for 4 hours. No contractions resulted, and I decided not to go for round two. By Thursday evening I was frustrated but resigned; I was bummed that once again birth was not going anything like we had planned, but looking forward to laboring in a tub at the hospital and finally getting this baby born.
I had collected some inspiration throughout the pregnancy and written down parts of poems or paragraphs that I thought might help during the birth; I packed those in the hospital bag along with my robe and headphones.
I set my alarm for 6:30am on Friday and made plans for my parents to pick up the kids; at 4am I woke up with a strong contraction. I waited for about thirty minutes, timing contractions that were already only 5 minutes apart, then woke up Shaggy and called the midwives and my mom.
The midwives came and set up their things; my mom came and got the kids; I rocked on an exercise ball; I got in the shower; I got on the bed and worked on letting go.
Your child is a boat on the ocean. There are storms and rain and fog. You cannot control the course. Every time you exhale, the boat is carried safely toward the horizon, its distant harbor and home.
You are the breeze.^
-Karen Maezan Miller
It came time to push but nothing was happening; I was at a loss as this was the part I had been really good at before. The midwives thought maybe the baby had turned face up; we found out later that she had just decoded to come out with her elbow wrapped around her face. Coaching through several different labor positions and extreme effort followed (my biceps of all things were sore for days afterward); the midwives kept checking the baby's heartbeat and telling me it sounded great, but that just made me feel like the baby wasn't trying nearly as hard as I was.
Finally her head was out, and with the next set of pushes her shoulders followed. I could hear her crying, but we weren't quite done with each other: the midwife said I'm sorry, but you're going to have to keep pushing--she's not all the way out yet. My giant baby required three sets of final pushes to get her whole body out.
And then she was born.
How could we be replete
with the flesh of ripe tomatoes, the unique
scent of their crushed leaves. It would take many
births to be done with the thatness of that.
Oh blame life. That we just want more.
-Enough, by Ellen Bass
