The birth that wasn’t…..yet.

I have begun a post about my last home school class and a trip to Chaco Canyon. But I won’t get to either of those today.

I really, really want to write about my night in the barn last night with a groaning, moaning mama goat, a heat lamp, green tea and five hundred layers and size 15 shoes. 

But another mama (this one a “real” one) is in early labor so I am trying to snooze early this evening in the bright and windy day. There is no keeping the sun out of my bedroom. Just barely can I quiet my texting teens. Turn off that cell phone. Eat the chocolate covered raisins for dinner that Falko brought me as a treat.

A night scrunched up in a barn makes a very tired midwife. A stinky one? No – I showered and bathed. Did clinic today even…. luckily without the farm clothes on. 

So G’night…. more soon!

 

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!

Good Morning Baby

It’s early morning. The sun is just beginning to come up over the mountains. The Birth Center window is huge, it frames the outside and here we all are in the kitchen.  I am sitting on a heating pad, because it always feels extra cold to me when I haven’t slept all night.  A mama is laboring in the bathroom, sitting on the floor, on a pillow. Resting in between contractions and eating oatmeal too. We feed her spoonfuls when she doesn’t notice.

Her contractions are steady, her groans soft and reassuring to me. She is well supported by her husband and our apprentice. Sips offered gently, spoonfuls of honey soaked oats. And she vomits. Over and over again, but she willingly continues to eat. She takes sips of water and juice when offered. Her eyes remain closed. She is in her own world. We call it “laborland.”

The heartbeat gallops along. It is a boy. She already knows this and has brought  “boy” stuff in from her car. My coffee is slowly percolating, I can smell it and it is much more appetizing than my chamomile tea that I have been drinking. My own oatmeal bowl is empty. I am grateful for the small mason jar of half and half I brought with me. After the phone call,  I stumbled into the kitchen, dressed quickly, a little cold. Brushed my teeth – and my mind on coffee, I quietly dug through the box of lids. An accomplishment for sure.

Joan calls at 5:45, she’s an early riser and she is already making lists of things to do today.  I’m grateful for her motivation as I still feel a bit sleepy.

My own family doesn’t even know I am gone yet. My bed is warm, cozy and half empty now. I am lucky to be cuddled often and think about returning to that bed tonight. I’ll have the birth story to reflect on as I lay down.

Good Morning!

A year and some more….

I never really take the time to reread any of my posts. My dream is to compile this entire blog into my own personal journal/book one day. One for each of my daughters. A documentation of much of their life. When I do sit down and read posts from years gone by, I am overwhelmingly grateful. There are so many forgotten moments written about and described. I experience them again. 

So today, I will make a hot chocolate and sit down and read about our last year. And remember. Thank YOU sweet readers for commenting, “liking” and being there with warm comments. They are special to me.

Simplicity

Out of My Control

Letting go of THINGS

Simplicity in Action

Homeschooling

Sassy Kaya and our Homeschooling Adventures

Math – it can only get better

The Quilt

How I know Homeschooling is working…

Sweetly Painful or Smile and Sigh

Catching Babies

Homebirth 40 mins from town

This is what we do

Thank you for Not bleeding!

Born Eight Years ago

Another Superlative

Unassisted

Enjoy!

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?

Unassisted

The phone woke me in the middle of the night. I answered it groggily, but unsurprised. Babies like to be born in the middle of the night. A voice greeted me, it sounded far away and it sounded tired.

“You don’t know me or my wife, but my wife has been in labor for three days here  and the baby hasn’t come out and we think we need some help.”

Immediately I was wide awake. These weren’t our clients. I didn’t know them and they were attempting an unassisted homebirth. I was glad they called yet felt immense trepidation. What was I walking into? They refused help from the hospital, they said they wouldn’t go in.  Ethically I knew I had to go. Legally, it put me in a bind. My midwife partner came with me. I brought one student and headed into the dark and icy night.

It was about a 45 minute drive from my house. My car was loaded with the homebirth supplies. Finally we found their home – way out of the way. Down a few dirt roads, empty Mesa expanding for miles. The mountains seemed far away. Sagebrush. A few big and friendly dogs greeted us. They barked a deep baritone.

We walked into a very peaceful scene. A serene faced woman sat in a tub surrounded by two friends. Both male. Candles were glowing and her eyes were closed. Her dark brown, spiky hair was wet with perspiration. I  introduced myself and calmly gathered details. I asked her to get out of the tub so I could check her cervix, listen to the baby, palpate the baby’s position and do all of her vitals. I had no information whatsoever. No history. No labwork.

She said, as I was feeling her belly….”Is there only one?”  It was at that moment that I realized the enormity of the situation. This could be multiples, breech, a demise, an unknown VBAC….anything. Everything. I was thorough. We gathered all the info we could get. One baby, head down. Heart tones normal. Dilation 7. Clinical exhaustion. Absolute exhaustion. Ketones through the roof, dehydrated beyond belief. She had been ruptured for 48 hours.  How could her body work? How could she find the energy to dilate and push out her baby? She couldn’t.

We offered her an IV for fluid replacement and energy. She declined. Her husband said, “We don’t need any intervention.” I wondered why they called me. Soon after she whispered to me, away from her husband, “I’d like an IV.” We started one and 20 minutes later her baby was born. In the tub and into her own hands. We stayed as safely in the background as possible. It was clear she wanted to do this alone. And she did. Her placenta was born without much ado. It took a while, a bit longer than was comfortable. But it came.  Relief, joy. Happiness.

She crawled into bed, her husband holding the other children and we did the newborn exam on the bottom of the bed. It was then that she began to bleed. Lots and lots of blood. Clots, thick ones. I expelled more clots, started an IV (She had removed the other one.), massaged her uterus, gave her pitocin and then methergine. But she kept bleeding. I told her I was going to call 911. She consented and her husband said, “No! We know that bleeding after birth is normal.” I explained gently that this was not normal bleeding. In fact this was the worst hemorrhage I had ever witnessed. It was obvious why it was happening. Atonic and exhausted uterus. Her body didn’t have the strength to contract the uterus after such a prolonged labor.

He angrily declined the call. I called anyhow. “I can live with you hating me forever for calling 911, but I cannot live with her death.”

We transferred and she cried. She said, “This wasn’t the story I was planning to write. I wanted to write a piece on unassisted birth for Mothering magazine.”

I held her uterus between my hands and smiled at her. “But this is the story you should write. “

Please note and remember: All identifying characteristics and details have been changed to protect the persons involved. Always. 

Unsupported

I recently received a letter from a client expressing to me in the most gentle of terms that she didn’t feel supported during her longish labor. 

Oh my gosh. It was such a hard letter to get. This is one of those phenomenally adorable moms with bangs that I want to emulate. Her baby boy is the cutest and reminds me of my own long ago scrumptious toddlers. I love her and enjoy seeing her around town.

I was shocked. But then I felt it. Immediately. Yes. There was a bit of hesitation when she saw me. It wasn’t a two way love affair. Now I recognize it. She felt abandoned during her labor. This makes me feel absolutely sick to my stomach.  I remember the night. My apprentice was in there with her and I consciously didn’t go in there. I try hard to get my ego out of the way. (This can be hard.) I want to be the one, I want to be in there suggesting and supporting. Smiling and soothing. I do. I want to be that person. That is the person they will remember forever.

Yet we allow and encourage our apprentices to be in there. She may have been too new. 

But also – I don’t believe in “managing” a labor. I believe in allowing couples to be alone. To get as primal as they need to. I want them to move in those ways you move and sound only when unobserved. To groan and strain and not be covered if they don’t want to be. Our bodies work best when unwatched. We need privacy. We really do. 

Then there is less temptation to interfere, to manage. To change. I know a woman can do it. She doesn’t need me.

But YIKES – this woman misinterpreted all of this. And I just feel so sad about it. I explained and apologized. And she totally got it. But it doesn’t change the fact that she felt alone for her labor. Unsupported. And that just breaks my heart. 

This is what we do.

 

Treska and I drove into a birth one late night this weekend. We were meeting Joan. We had already had a birth in the morning that day and were looking forward to another one. My SUV was quiet, the moon was the largest I had ever seen it. Rising above the mountains. I took photos from our driveway – but  they didn’t quite turn out….so I will spare you.

Treska put on the music and we drove in through our sleepy town. Dark with sparkly lights in the plaza.  The galleries were lit up to showcase our town full of art. Full of artists. Life artists too!

She looked at me, her eyes still sleepy, her scarf making her look warm and cozy. She said, “Mom, Can you believe this is what we do? We get up in the middle of the night and we drive to a birth? A birth? We’re so lucky. We really are. Can you believe we are driving in to a birth together?”

We are. So lucky.

 

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.

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.