You labor as you live. What do you think?

It is flabbergasting. It is so hard to figure out why women have such different types of labors. There is no predictive factor. I, as the midwife,  can never know how your labor will go. You can not control how it goes. In any way at all. It’s so odd.

A woman, S,  in our community has had three quick births. Two at the Birth Center and one at home. She, herself, would describe them as easy. She felt very little pain. Perhaps she would describe the births as uncomfortable – and that only towards the end. One happened so quickly that the midwives didn’t arrive in time. All was well. The others, I witnessed, and they did not appear painful. She baked, talked and walked around as easily as we, her midwives and students did. Her friend, without a child at that time, had an interesting thought. She reflected, “I feel like I have come far enough in my inner work to be able to surrender completely to the process of birth. I, too, feel that I will give birth like S.”

Oh my gosh. Every hair on my body stood on end. She truly thought, in that moment anyhow, that the level of pain experienced during  labor and pushing directly correlated to the level of one’s spiritual enlightenment. You can call it anything you would like. Her comment assumed that a woman’s emotional maturity guarantees or at least perhaps leads to less pain in labor.

Yikes! That would mean that mostly every woman I have attended was a newborn. Women do experience pain during childbirth. (I realize this can be a controversial word in the midwifery world.)  And yes! Bliss too. Ecstasy at times and hard, hard work. Some would call it unbearable, almost all would call it worth it.

No, I must respectfully disagree. Your spiritual, emotional or psychological maturity does not determine how you birth.

It will affect how you cope. It can also affect the choices you make. Where you birth plays a role in your experience of pain. You will probably be able to cope with contractions better if you birth in a place where you feel safe.

But personal growth does not guarantee a pain-free labor.

What do you think?

Being Alone

 

I was able to go away for almost an entire week. It was for a conference of the AABC (American Association of Birth Centers). I left near  sunset on my daughter’s  Birthday. We had already celebrated a bunch with a trip to Ojo, yummy homemade pudding pie, gifts on our sun-soaked patio, I was packed and ready to go.

The drive to Albuquerque was with the sun in my eyes through the canyon, but the trees were positively glowing in the fall light. Golds and yellows – you know that feeling and I have certainly written about it – beauty you want to consume! I listened to music in my quiet car, almost unable to believe that I was alone. No children. Nobody. Strange and even surreal. I’m not sure I have spent significant time alone in over 17 years. (I mean more than a few hours.) Imagine.

I enjoy it too.

It is always so interesting to leave our little town. Flying into a different culture – and Florida could certainly be a different culture. A different country. Tropical, humid. It smells a bit mildewy. Louder, maybe. I surely didn’t see very much. The inside of the resort hotel and snippets and some minutes and walks on the beach. Sunrise and Sunset.

Lots of workshops, meetings. Administrative and Clinical. New faces and some I knew. I love that sort of thing. I love the knowledge, the newness and my feeling of wanting to soak it all in. Again – that consume thing.

So I gathered it up to take home with me.

 

It is now in a glass beer stein given to Falko by his grandfather. He’s a bit worried that the shells may scratch it. I promised him they wouldn’t.  So I woke up early, drank coffee from thick white mugs, ate the resort’s breakfast, and took notes and more notes.

I worked up the courage to finally meet some new midwives on the last night. Ordered a beer and a burger and we sat outside near the sand trading stories in the very lukewarm and thick night air. Love the stories and the similarities among midwives. We all share the same trials. The same joys. The work.

 

We’re not so alone in this after all.

 

Apples and Dopplers

The phone rang at 3:30 am. I had been lying awake wondering if my phone was even working as I was hoping and waiting for a phone call from a favorite client that needed to be in active labor soon!  She was heading out-of-state to a doctor and a hospital that would do VBACs. (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean). We do VBACs at the Birth Center and at home, but this client had a risk factor that was out of our scope of practice.

She lives far out-of-town. Fall is arriving and the nights are getting cooler – crispier. My window was open and I could hear the coyotes. There were so many. They would yip alone and in groups. I was trying to fall asleep and to let be what would be. No more hoping and no more wishing. (And no more worrying.)

She wanted to let me know that labor hadn’t started and she was heading out-of-town.
“Would you mind listening to the baby before we go? We can stop by your house?”

So I got up, brushed my teeth and decided not to meet them in my jammies (my new pink and orange yoga pants that Treska had given me for my birthday) and got dressed. It was a sweet time in my house. Quiet, dim lights. Apples.

I waited. I filled in all of her information on our EHR (Electronic Health Records) and listened for the car. I watched for the car headlights coming down my long driveway. Our dogs barked and barked as they arrived, the girls awoke, yet stayed sleepily in their beds.

She sat on my red couch, her partner on the arm and we listened to the baby’s heart galloping along. I secretly wished labor would overcome her and she would begin pushing – here at my house, squatting on my shiny saltillo floor. Instead we said good-bye and they pulled out of my driveway for their long drive.

I went back to sleep.

Homebirth 40 mins from town……

I waited for the phone call all morning, afternoon and evening. This was a seventh baby for this mama living on the outskirts of town. I knew she was in early labor and we always think those multip mamas are going to go quickly…they often don’t!  The girls all had plans for the day – ballet class, rehearsal for hours for the one, and a b-b-q with friends for the other. Falko and I were home alone….. oh luxury! It was wintry – surprisingly cold outside for the time of year and I didn’t work outside, didn’t plant or dig.  We made a fire. We read. We ate.

After a big dinner of salmon, boiled potatoes and asparagus I headed to bed early. I knew it would happen sometime…..

The call came at 1:30 am – I had gotten some sleep, but my bed was seriously cozy. Warm. It’s hard to leave a sleeping, cuddly husband behind. Really. I sleepily got ready.

Drove the long road to this little town.  Passed no cars. Saw about 10 deer on the side of the road this frosty night. It was dark, it was flurrying. But still there were some stars. Oh New Mexico!

It was an old single-wide trailer. Lots of cars parked out front. A pick-up truck jacked up HIGH off the ground. Tires as big as my small Subaru.

The wooden stairs leading up to the door were wobbly. I opened the door and was greeted by many smiling faces. A teenage daughter warming herself by the pellet stove. Smiling. A crocheting student a huge flat screen playing Friends.

The woman was in the back, slowly laboring. Quickly laboring, actually. I began to crochet. (I was second midwife this time….the midwife that comes in to assist and be present to stabilize. Come at the end and leave when everything is surely perfect.)

I began to crochet. The mama’s girlfriends were with her, the husband gave me a tour of his home…offered me a turkey sandwich. Offered me orange juice. So kind to be thinking of us.

Soon after she had to push. And two pushes later her baby boy in her big bathtub. With her friends, her daughter, her husband and the little birth team from the Birth Center.  She felt a bit shocked – and we were shocked at her grace, her beauty.

I went back out of the room to give this very modest woman her space and some privacy. I crocheted, drank some orange juice on the cozy couch. There was a scary series on the flat screen that I avoided at all costs. Hugs all around. Birth stories by her friends and then off to return to my cozy bed.

Still had the warm and sleeping husband, I crawled in, got spooned and went to sleep. A lovely homebirth. A lovely waterbirth.

Remember please! Details are changed to protect identities.  These birth stories are, also, not recent. They have happened within the last 12 years. 

Thank you for not bleeding……

So there was definitely a recent moment (maybe 10),  when I wondered why I midwife. I found myself, in between births, lying in the darkened “pink room” on the bed. I had planned on lying there and crying and feeling overwhelmed. You know – I wanted to embrace it all. But the phone rang and it was a “trying not to be frantic” postpartum mama. So I talked to her extensively instead. And by the end of the conversation, before I had any time to muster up any real tears, the door to the Birth Center opened (again) and a not so cheery hello was called!

Five hours later, the baby I caught redeemed my entire life choice. It made up for the missed evenings with the girls, the warm bed I have to leave in the middle of the night, often. It made up for the cold and dark car I drive to births in the middle of night with – shivering so intensely that I feel like I cannot even steer! It made up for the 3:00 am lull, the painful, bodily sensation of exhaustion. (The hard table on my forehead feels like the ultimate luxury.)

This work is an experience of superlatives. Each single birth.

The lack of bleeding that ensued in this birth freed me to love my calling again. My clothing was cleaned by hydrogen peroxide, my skin scrubbed with soap and water and my heart by this mama and baby.

 

Going back to High School…..

We walked in to the High School and the first thing we said was, “Well of course our teen mom, Emily, (all names changed) could do birth no problem, she does this every single day!”

What an opportunity we had today. The biology teacher, a beautiful local woman, gave birth to two of her children with us at the Birth Center. Joan caught one, I caught one. (Years apart, of course!)  She invited us to her anatomy class to talk  about pregnancy, gestation, birth, midwifery and our Birth Center.

My initial fear  nervousness gave way to excitement at all the things we could talk about to our captive audience. Here were approximately 25 teens who were forced to listen AND even take notes on my effusive and enthusiastic ramblings about natural birth, undisturbed birth, pregnancy, conception and gosh – anything I wanted to say! Amazing. Usually I only have two teens to talk to!

My apprentice and I sat down yesterday, in between appointments in a busy clinic day to brainstorm ideas and fun activities to  make the presentation interesting and engaging. I tried to admit that not everyone loves thinking about blastocysts, cervixes and mucous plugs!  We brought tons of props: placentas attached to umbilical cords, multiple pelvises, a baby with a snap for a belly button, old-school flip charts of uteri (I love that word), fallopian tubes and fimbria!  We talked about contraception, condoms and pre-ejaculatory fluid!

I said the word vagina multiple times!

It was so fun.

We showed an amazing animation of conception to birth.

We handed out folded up slips of paper with fun facts written on it. Each kid read a fact, then wrote it up on the board. We talked about the facts…. fun ones like:

Did you know that babies born to moms who ate chocolate every day in the third trimester were happier at 6 months old?

Did you know that an egg lives for 24 hours?

Did you know that 1/3 of all babies are born with the umbilical cord around their neck? 

And this is the best. One of our teen moms who had given birth 4 weeks ago with us, came with her boyfriend and baby and shared her birth story. My heart opened so wide to see this young girl, just barely 16, hold her, chubbiest ever, baby with its already long black hair and talk about her contractions. She talked of her birth and said, “It wasn’t that hard, I just let it happen.” 

What a message.

I, personally, learned everything from Dr. Ruth. (Anyone remember her?) Every night I would get in bed with my transistor radio muffled under the covers and listen to Dr. Ruth. (And you wondered, mom, why I didn’t mind going to bed so early!) It was an incredible education.

We were asked to come back to 8th period and then again tomorrow. So Rachel and I went to get a coffee on the plaza to evaluate the class and make improvements. I got a foamy chai in my green mug and we split an almond croissant at the sunny window.  We asked the women who worked there, a yoga studio owner and teacher and a hipster singer/musician, what they wished they had learned in high school. A fun conversation with input from the various coffee-ordering customers ensued….. (If only I were brave to talk about ALL the suggestions…)

Own it! We want to tell you to own it! Own your birth, your sexual health and life! Be proud, brave and strong. Do not be ashamed of your bodies! Love yourself – feel your power. Even and especially when our culture tries to suppress you!

I am so thankful to live and work in a community that invites its Midwives to come and talk to its teens.

To turn or not to turn

View on my way to clinic this morning.....

 

A couple of years ago we had a young first time mama come in. She was driving 2 hours for her appointments at the birth center. She had a sugary, sweet voice, almost like a little girl. And she was darling.  At 28 weeks her baby was breech. At 30 weeks her baby was breech. At 32 weeks her baby was still breech, and I gave her some easy tips on how to turn her baby. Pelvic tilts, moxibustion, and the such.

At 34 weeks her baby was still breech and I felt nervous. I emphasized the need to try these low-key, natural interventions to try to turn the baby. (We are unable to catch breech babies, and no hospital within 2 hours will “do” a breech birth.)  She hadn’t tried any yet. At 36 weeks she came in and her baby was still breech. I asked her how it was going with the tilts and wondered which was working best for her. She said that she hadn’t done anything yet, she believed her baby would turn on its own. I reassured her that her baby might, indeed, turn. But it might not. I encouraged her strongly to try these maneuvers to see if her baby would turn.  She nodded quietly.

Her next visit was not with me, and she was very, very upset with me for not trusting that her baby would be born the way it should be. Her baby wanted to be breech, she said. Why didn’t I accept that? I found that interesting and had to admit that I had not seen it that way at all.

So. The very next month.  We had a client who came in at 30 weeks. Her baby was breech. I didn’t mention anything about turning the baby yet. At 32 weeks her baby was still breech. I mentioned that there were some tricks to turn the baby, but she should trust her baby. It knew how it needed to be born. At 34 weeks her baby was still breech. I told her about pelvic tilts, moxibustion, the Webster technique……  At 36 weeks we talked some more about turning the baby, but emphasized my trust in her body to do the right thing.

At 37 weeks she had an appointment with someone else and was just devastated that I hadn’t made it clear to her how important it was to turn the baby. Why had I been so laissez-faire?  Now her baby was definitely breech and she hadn’t  known how important it was to be doing all the tricks to turn the baby. Her baby was not in a position where a safe vaginal birth would have been possible. She was absolutely crushed that she had to have a c-section. I was too.

Sigh.

So now I know. I will do what I believe in. My clients won’t always love all of my recommendations. They may need an ultrasound that they didn’t want. They may have an extra blood test to rule something out. But I have to practice in the best way I can. And that feels good.

And so it is in life. We will do our best. And sometimes it will be just right, and enough for everyone. And sometimes it won’t be.

As long as I know that, I am clear inside myself that this is the right way. For me. Then there is peace. That is what I am working on.

 

 

Amish Country and a Birth too, of course!

Unexpectedly, visiting my friend and former midwifery partner, Bobbie, at her new home in Ohio was one of the most awe-inspiring experiences this trip. It was short. A mere 24 hours, but impressive in its novelty and beauty. This was Amish country. I was fully unprepared, not realizing how much I missed Bobbie and also feeling like I had entered a brand-new country, perhaps one 200 years ago.

We arrived at Bobbie’s house, she lives in the Birth Center, in the morning. We left Erie at 6 am in order to maximize our time with Bobbie and family!  We drove back roads after we passed Cleveland, I was truly stunned by the beauty – not what I was expecting in Ohio. I expected strip malls and true Americana. We found rolling hills, huge farmhouses, narrow roads, fields and very well taken care of land.  (We even took a dirt road. My GPS led us that way…..) The girls kept saying that it looked like the countryside in the Czech Republic.  Everything was so neat, it was obvious that the people loved their land, loved their homes and felt it worthy to keep it beautiful. Gosh it is so different here in New Mexico.

I explained to Clara, the Amish midwife, that the wild beauty is the good and the bad in New Mexico. In town it feels impossible to cultivate the wild nature of the land here, it ends up looking a bit messy, scraggly, dirty. It is the same untameable wild that is captivating and rawly stunning that makes New Mexico so enchanting.  Amish country looks different. It’s neat around the edges. It looks like Europe. Of course it does.

We walked into Bobbie’s home to be greeted by 9 or more Amish women and their children. The neighbor women were welcoming Bobbie to the neighborhood. It was a potluck and an abundance of food was available. Cookies, salads, coffee, bread and orange juice on the counters. We sat and talked, drinking coffee. It was a lot to take in. I felt embarrassedly curious. Shyly fascinated. It was such a treat to have the tiniest glimpse into another world. Teensy as it was, I loved it. The Amish women have thick accents and speak to each other in Pennsylvania Dutch (an old german dialect). They left soon after we arrived, but two women stayed. After meeting Bobbie’s newest baby, Hazel – my gosh she is scrumptious, one woman told me the story of her stillborn child. She has been trying for a few years to get pregnant again. She hasn’t had any luck. Her little, thin, bonneted daughter listened to her story as she played with Bobbie’s curly-headed son.(I wanted to eat Henry up, from crown to toe! God we miss him!) My heart broke open for the woman, her puzzled face told the story matter-of-factly, and quite openly. She was waiting for the joy of a newborn, only to experience the deepest of grief. It’s so hard.

 

It was so fun to talk with Clara. She has only been a practicing midwife for 5 years. She explained that Amish women don’t work outside of the home and she had been in the process of raising her 12 children and only recently could she begin learning midwifery.  She was upstairs at the Birth Center, and downstairs with us drinking coffee. Her birth stories were different from the ones I am familiar with. The Amish women are often quite quiet and come pretty late to the Birth Center. (The woman laboring that day had come early, however. Her buggy ride was an hour-long and she didn’t want to return home.)

Clara does not have a phone, so the clients go and gather her from her home in their horse-drawn buggy. When Bobbie receives phone calls from the husbands of the women in labor, they are often hard to decipher. The phones that the husbands use are often quite far from the house. They often do not have the information that Bobbie would like to have. I know I often ask to speak to the women themselves, I can often hear “how far along” they are in their labor. Not always, but it sure can help to judge whether or not it is time to come in to the Birth Center.

Treska asked if she could assist her at the Birth she was doing. Clara laughed her warm smile and said, “Well, of course!” Treska’s excitement was unrivaled. She couldn’t believe her luck, and hoped desperately that it would happen when she could be there. We were leaving for our plane the next morning.

Later that day after visiting with Bobbie, catching up and talking non-stop, we visited Clara (Bobbie’s midwifery partner) at her home. She had a huge homestead with a dairy farm (A small operation she said, but they do sell to Organic Valley.) and a sawmill. She showed us her garden, only the greens were still alive. Her home was plain, and spotless. The linoleum floor shone, the surfaces were clear, the decorations sparse. It felt good, and simple. Treska went with Clara’s husband when it was time for the evening milking. She silently observed.

In my heart, it all felt magical.

We had dinner at a super yummy Amish restaurant with Bobbie, Dave, Henry and Hazel.  A huge thank-you for that treat.

After arriving back to Bobbie’s home, we all went right to bed. It was an early night, the kids were tired, I was exhausted and Treska was anticipating a birth. She went upstairs and had an experience of a lifetime. Such beauty. Such grace. Soon, I will upload Treska’s birth story.

I woke up to the sound of the birth cart rolling across the floor. I heard the soft moans of the mama and knew a baby was arriving. It was unusual to know a baby was coming and to not be there or ready to jump up. I thought it would be hard, but it was lovely. I cuddled up, rolled over and fell back asleep.

We left the next morning after steaming oatmeal, brown sugar and a sweet flavored coffee. As we sat in the driveway, orienting ourselves, the young mama stood in the upstairs window holding her pink blanketed baby and waving goodbye. It was a rainy and foggy drive to the airport. We left wistfully.  Thank you Bobbie for sharing your life with us, if only for a day.  (Click here for more pics!)

Midwives are Born

I am realizing more and more why I write this blog. I forget everything that I don’t write down. Seriously.

This is one heck of a glorious fall, I suspect it may be the most beautiful in years. Perhaps a combination of the cold snap, the excessive rain and the warm days have made for brilliant oranges, yellows and even reds here in New Mexico. I feel a craving to be outdoors, in the trees. I love the smell of the dead leaves, it brings me right back to my childhood on the east coast. And I feel frustrated to not be able to capture these glowing trees on my camera. I would like to share the insane light that is captured in these leaves. I mean, it is illuminated and breathtaking. I look around and I have stop my car every few minutes to try and take it all in. I just want to BITE it.

We’ve had a sweet fall. My aunt and uncle from Phoenix came to visit and we hiked, soaked in two different hot springs, ate yummy roasted chicken and veggies slathered in fresh herbs (sage, rosemary and thyme) from the garden. Kaya made orange blossom panna cotta! We also ate the coconut, corn, curry dish. I love when company comes, I find the energy to really cook the meals I would like to prepare every night!

We had a birth later in the week and it worked out that Treska and I were primaries together. At each birth there is one midwife and one student for the labor. They work together making decisions, supporting and loving up the laboring woman. We spent the night with a laboring mom and I watched as Treska encouraged, swayed, rocked, massaged and whispered to this mama who was working so hard. It’s amazing to see the students as they grow from observers to midwives. We birth midwives here.

I loved writing that last post, “What I Wish I Could Tell You!” and it made me realize how much I’d like to write so many of the birth stories. I would like to try to give more of that part of this life. I can change dates, identifying features, names and perhaps divulge a bit more. I have been saving birth stories, writing them down in order to remember them. It is easy to forget them over the years.

I wish I could bring some more brutal honesty to the birth stories, show you what really goes on in these birth rooms. The rawness, the vulnerability, the power,  the fear, the intensity. The funniness. Is that a word? The giggling.

I loved doing a birth, once, in which two young teens attended, desperately curious, yet embarrassed to look. They sat together in a chair, their skinny  little bodies scrunched up, knees up, hands on their faces, covering their eyes. Both wore high ponytails. Peeking and giggling. Their bodies trembled with laughter, quiet and sometimes louder. Adorable. I talked with them a bunch and told them that they really should watch, if they felt like they could handle it. Gave them permission – each one was just dying to look, but embarrassed at what the other would think if they did, indeed look. So, with big smiles and big eyes, they watched the baby be born.

Babies are born, Midwives are born, Mamas are born, Families……..

Over and Over again.

What I wish I could Tell you!

I’m alone in the house. Again. Treska went to yoga, she drives herself. (A story in itself!) Kaya is at a friend’s home in Arroyo Seco. Falko is fixing my car with the mechanic – Manny.

I started a fire in our Kiva fireplace. It’s not a wood stove, so it doesn’t give as much heat, but it works, its beautiful and serves many purposes. It’s chilly here. Snow is covering the mountain, the zucchini has “frosted.” The leaves are black, wilted. The chard looks great though! Perky and sturdy.

I heated up the coffee from the cooled-down coffee pot in a little pot on the stove. It simmered and it tastes the way heated-up coffee tastes. A bit blacker than normal – but lovely. Cozy. It’s a lovely liquid breakfast. Green tea, coffee and soup. Kaya made a most delicious soup yesterday – read about it here! Reheated coffee, reheated soup. Yum.

My dog, Miso, keeps jumping up on the couch to cozy up – I feel guilty shooshing him down again.

I am wondering a few things. A friend pointed out to me recently, that, due to my love of “writing it down,” documenting and my privilege of being at births and experiencing an intensity in life that isn’t often revealed, that I should be telling more stories. He said, “The potential is great.”

I don’t know how to do this. It is a struggle. I would LOVE to tell you about these births I attend. I’d like to write about the dynamics between the students, the preceptors. To relate the deep bond we feel with our clients often. I’d love to relate a bit of what happens in our prenatal room  - what stories we hear.

I’d like to tell you about a recent hemorrhage that ended in a bloody transport to the hospital. A HCT super low and a mom who hid under the covers.

I’d like to tell you about the little girl who woke me up (I wasn’t the primary midwife) dancing around and singing, “Her water broke, her water broke!”

I’d like to tell you about how hard our students work and how  intense all of this can be on so many different levels.

I’d like to tell you about going to do a prenatal visit 10 miles out-of-town to find a horse on the porch and a mama, flamboyantly dressed in pantaloons!

I’d love to tell you about how, now, every time I smell Cinnamon, I think of blood.

I’d like to tell you about the young, tattooed, gangster girl, tough, who said, over and over again that she was scared. Then pushed her baby out in one push – with so much joy that I thought I would explode from happiness. So did everyone. We all practically burst.

How about the woman who talked to me non-stop as I sutured her? She told me a long and rambling story, always bringing my focus back when she could tell that I had strayed.

I’d love to talk about CB ed classes – how they bolster my spirits when I feel a bit hopeless at the concept of gentle birth. How much I love to get to know these women who trust us to catch their babies.

I’d love to talk about how HARD it can be sometimes. Really. The joy and the bliss keeps us coming back again and again, but sometimes, it can be so deeply challenging that I question it all.

How about the woman whose husband was too drunk to drive to the birth? How he had gotten out of jail and was “celebrating” – he couldn’t drive and almost missed the birth. I’d love to tell you how she looked ecstatic when he walked in and then immediately began to push! Laughing and crying.

And how about the tears, the wails, the deep breathing, the glowing and unbearable beauty these women in labor have? I wish I could take pictures of them all, as they work so hard, and show you – show everyone what natural birth looks like.

I want to write, again and again, what it feels like to drive these dirt roads, these super bumpy roads to a home, in the mountains, in the town, in the desert and what it feels like to be invited in with so much gratitude to homes.

How about the time we had, literally, two murderers in the Birth Center at the same time! One was the husband of a client, one was the mother. I liked them both! (A lot)

How it feels to be in the rain, the snow, the hail, the blistering sun, while women labor, men support, children sleep and all the weather happens outside, just like normal. Like every day.

 

I wish I could tell you about all of this.