500 Babies!

I remember visiting Phoenix in 2000, my poppy was very ill and dying. I had just begun my apprenticeship and he was asking me about it.

I told him I had just attended my 50th birth. 

My 50th!
He was surprised and exclaimed, happy for me. He could see my excitement.

 I remember thinking and maybe even saying, “I can’t wait until my 500th!”
And here it is!

Baptized in the bathroom.

I was kneeling in front of this strong mama, impressed with her strength, awed by her power and her beauty. She was working so hard.
I was quiet, just sitting, averting my eyes as she began to push….
And SPLASH – her water broke all over me! Drenched, soaked.
I told her we were now sisters forever. A connection never to part.
I didn’t even know she was my 500th birth. Weeks later I was counting my births, adding them to my little blue hard-backed journal. I keep my statistics, the names, the weights, where was the baby born. Was it in the water?  And here was this little one…. 

Number 500! 

Now, I can’t wait for my 1000th! Maybe.

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I have been spending a lot of time driving. I always do as we live rurally. It takes about 7 minutes to drive “into reception” so the car is quiet until I get there. When I turn right and begin passing the irrigated fields, the turned over earth,  know I am there. These last two days there has been a man in the field on the right with a shovel and big rubber boots up to his knees. He is moving the cow patties – distributing them, luckily, around. Here is where I can hear the western meadowlark sing. It sits on the telephone wires strung and sagging. Consistently there. Gladly. Swinging back and forth in the wind and there is a lot of wind today.  The wind has thwarted my plans of gardening today, so I took a deep nap instead.

I awoke to a quiet house and a naughty puppy. His bed is strewn with shoes, a red cowboy boot, a motorcycle glove and a ballet slipper. He looks phenomenally innocent, his head only cocked to the side when I look at him.

Yesterday I drove to Albuquerque and back. An almost 3 hour trip one way….we had a New Mexico Birth Center Alliance meeting there and it is important to be present and collaborative. I like the meetings, don’t know how I feel about the driving. I know this route so well. Through the canyon with the Rio Grande on my right, the bright green of the new leaves of the cottonwoods near the water. The signs for the Bighorn Sheep are always there in the same placesand I strain to find one on the craggy and jutting rocks. I haven’t yet. The tree where the two bald eagles are supposed to rest – they weren’t there yesterday.

And out – into the dustiness and ugliness that is Espanola. An impoverished and ugly town with a backdrop of mesas and spotted landscape - pinons and sage. Down here, more cholla – but unblooming yesterday.

Through the Indian pueblos, the land, some casinos on the left, some small country stores – geared towards Santa Fe Art tourists heading towards Taos. Young woman with their children buying sodas at the gas station when I fill up. I head on towards Albuquerque.

I listen to music the whole way, and my mind can’t stop thinking. Snacking and drinking water until I desperately have to pull over and water the straggly landscape.

My goal is to reach home at peak sunset time. I made it and I get to go for a walk, the mountains from my driveway lit up – glowing. It feels good to stretch my legs, barefoot in my clogs. Decompressing with Falko. Walking our familiar arroyo, through

 

the gate and into the open area in the valley beneath our house. Sparse with houses – green with long grass and new sage. The dogs love the trail, they know the way. It’s a long and perfect walk.

One Sunday

A perfect day. Mother’s day. My family really made is beautiful for me and I deeply appreciate it.  Sunny morning, coffee, bagels, cream cheese, tomatoes, onions and lox for breakfast.  Eggs boiled on the side. Butter.  It couldn’t have been yummier. Presents!

A walk  with the dogs, a trip to gardening store and some plans made for the garden. Conversations that were illuminating and transitional. Clarifying. Fodder. Food. A return to baseline.

Falko grilled steaks outside for the meat eaters and we had some good family time, precious as the girls are so busy, Falko and I working bunches. Staying home is what totally grounds me. I love my home, love being here.

Breathe Breathe Breathe

My gray sweater with the white polka dots was super scratchy. I don’t know why I chose to wear it to yoga this morning. My youngest daughter and I argued in the car halfway to yoga – about nothing really.  Definitely dampened my yogi spirit. (Ha!) Then we went in, smiling, resolved…. I lay down on my green sticky mat. Aware of my long limbed daughter next to me, aware of her strong body and deep breathing, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. (I was reminded to open my eyes….)  Then my phone starts buzzing with panicked text messages. (I have to leave the phone on, because I am on call. My yoga teachers are always gracious about it.) 

Buzz, Buzz

Buzz, Buzz

Buzz, Buzz

It’s the older daughter freaking right the heck out! She missed (well, she thought I missed….) the matriculation deadline to Bard. And she’s right, but I’m sure it will be fine.

Buzz, Buzz

Buzz, Buzzzzzz

I leave yoga class quietly, gently trying to be SO graceful. “Hi Honey!….” All I hear is panic, panic, panic, panic ending in “I can’t believe I’m not going to college this year.”

I reassured endlessly and calmly (mostly.) And then went back to Yoga heart beating. I hoped she wasn’t right, I knew I was!

Spent my entire yoga class trying not to freak out and solving the problem in my mind!

Finally after 1000 Ashtanga Vinyasas I forgot about any panic and concentrated on steadying my super shaking (depleted in two vinyasas!) legs and arms…upside down again. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. (Sneaking peeks and cute Kaya upside down next to me!)

I tried not to think about the piece of chocolate in the glass jar at the front desk. Yummy milk chocolates tumbled together in shiny tinfoil. Sirens. Tried not to think of my cup of coffee sitting on the wooden bench next to my keys. I knew it was getting cold.

Breathe, Breathe, Breathe.

 

Begin Again

Finally moving forward in the garden. Last Monday I planted the hill outside full of flower seeds. More to come. Began watering. Today Falko got a truck of mixed mushroom compost and top soil to refurbish our raised beds. One will be greens and one will be zucchini. The Rainbow Swiss chard and the Russian Kale is now planted, tucked in and watered.

In New Mexico we have a short growing season. Way up here in the mountains they say not to plant until the snow has melted from the peaks. They aren’t melted. Or they say May 15th. But we just had a deep frost and lost many fruit trees on our road. Apricots find it hard to survive here.

Feel productive on my day off. Dreaming of sweet greens. Falko of zucchini.

And I weeded for hours. I can feel it in my arms and my legs. Squatting. That middle knuckle on the pointer finger rubbed raw. But I drank my jar of tea to compensate for the wind and the sun.

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It is a two coffee  type of day. It was a two baby kinda week. One after the other and both perfect. These births renewed my love.

Popcorn for breakfast, nobody wanted eggs. And maybe some more coffee. I’ve been a bit silent on my blog, although I pretend I am writing it everyday. I tell the story in my mind, describe a scene, show a picture. But it’s the details I don’t share.

This Fall/Winter/Spring has been my most challenging time ever. In my whole life. Oh, I find the beauty and yes, I’m still gulping. I see it every single day, often too. Even now – and not just in my coffee mug! (Or in the lavender chocolate my daughter made…) But holy cow! Holy GOD! It has been SO rough. In almost all my different worlds. And yet…..

Everyone is healthy, and strong. My family is beautiful. Feels sacred to me  - the comfort and love I find at home around my counter. (Or cozy in my bed….) We sit on our red stools, eat dinner together as often as we can and my worries fall away. A glass of wine in the evenings I am off-call, tea on the others. Music, sweet, sweet music. Friends! Feel supported. Truly supported. Thank you.

Summer is coming, I finally have planted my seeds. Falko reminds me of my garden every morning when it feels hard. Steers my mind right towards our raised bed boxes, watering the new flower seeds. The native blue grass that is poking up. Oh it is sunny in New Mexico.

So the piano music plays in the background right now. The hummingbirds are nuttily vibrating around the many bird feeders. The basil is struggling to survive in the pots next to me on the windowsill. (Thank God Falko waters them often….) Kaya is reading and the dogs are both sleeping.

My counter is strewn with coffee mugs – a friend stopped over in the morning. The half and half is almost gone. I have to remember to buy more brown sugar for her.

So here is to love and to beauty …… !

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Couldn’t help it…..

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Every sense is heightened when I am away from home. The colors are brighter – it’s different. I notice the smells more acutely. It’s new here.

Just walking city blocks to get a coffee in the morning, the people are all new. I pass them on the street and I stare, I’m used to looking at people, but no one looks back.

When the cars honk, it’s not to wave to me!

The Starbucks lady isn’t super sweet, because I caught her baby – she is just paid to smile at me!

There is a scent in this fancy hotel that I cannot place – sweet like flowers, subtle. Alluring. Well done. Oranges, sunny. Reds and pillows on the couches. So pretty and simple. I have to admit, I like flowing around a fancy hotel! It makes me want to wear heels. Well – ha! not really. But it’s a different life here for sure.

I like standing at the elevator waiting with others. Blending in. I’m part of a bigger group here, a meeting. Holding folders – almost pretending I am in a different life. I could be in business, for all anyone knows. It’s after the elevator door closes or the Board room closes that the Midwives and Docs let loose – and then! Well you know! We all know what we talk about…. super fun.

I’m anonymous here. I can laugh aloud in my hotel room and no one cares. Good Night.

 

 

Spread the Word!

  It’s crazy leaving New Mexico. It truly is a different world out here. It feels different and smells thicker. Sweeter almost. Like flowers, perhaps? More people for sure, and they look fresh. New to me. I can’t stop staring. Airports are fun places. Entertaining.

And now I am here, in DC. Where the cherry blossoms bloomed two days ago. My cab driver told me. He was from Ethiopia. His wife had three babies. She had to fight her doctors, he said, to not have a c/s for her last breech birth.

“He was so little, I refused. Oh….they were angry, I could see that. But then they turned it. We watched it on the TV while they turned – he was so small, lots of room.  They just wanted to cut him out.”

He asked so many questions. He couldn’t believe babies came out in the water. He asked the normal questions about water birth, but his eyes lit up! He said he would look for a Birth Center for his next birth. They are Greek Orthodox and will have many babies he said. Lots of children in his family – his mom had 10. All natural, he said. It is different here in America, he said. The women all have c- sections. Why?

And the New Yorker who sat behind me on my first plane today. Straight red hair, bangs. Thick accent – sounded like home. As the plane taxied into the gate, she stood up. “I overheard you say you were a midwife! I just had to tell you, my great-grandmother was a midwife in the Village. She used to tell me stooooories. You wouldn’t believe them. When the babies came out small, they would put them in a little cardboard box and put them in the oven.” My seat mate shook his head in disbelief. No. They couldn’t have. She enthusiastically nodded.

“Amazing – the stories,”  she said.

And so here I am in a foreign country that is the capital of my own. Here to talk about supporting Birth Centers across the nation. Meetings, strategic planning and I am such a baby at it all. Just pulling my head out of the water myself. Oh – there is more work to be done – outside the birth room? I am just getting the hang of that! Here we go…. spread the word!