When the Little Dude was born, I had such big plans. I was going to document (beautifully) every aspect of his little life. I was going to have a beautiful baby book. I was going to make art about the birth experience. I was going to take a photograph of him in the same position every day to document his growth and development. I was going to write the story of his birth in exquisite detail. It would be beautiful.
Guess how many of those things I did. If you answered none, you are correct.
Now, of course, we have a ton of photos of him. We live in the digital/facebook age after all, so his generation is being documented more intensely than any other before it. But I never actually got around to any of the formal, art related documentation that I wanted to do of him. No baby book yet. No elaborate series of staged photographs. No large scale textile art about birth. Sigh. And I was going through an old note book the other day, and I found my attempt at writing his birth story. Its is two paragraphs long. Another sigh. As you may or may not know, parenting is kind of time intensive, and I guess all the laundry and baths and government forms got in the way.
But this time. Well, this time I have TWO kids, so really, who am I kidding. There will probably be no art making for awhile. But I have learned and I have much more modest goals. All I'm aiming for this time is to write out our birth story. And after all, I have this blog as my motivation (accountability really helps) and so I have no more excuses.
But you know me, so you should know by now that there is some more preamble and qualifying before I start. And so I bring you a note about boundaries.
I've tried to think fairly carefully, as far back as before I started blogging at all, about how much I was willing to/should put out here on the internet about my private life. I've got a few rules about what I share (no names, no addresses) and have though about what I should and should not say. I try to keep things positive (like I'll tell you all about how my husband is awesome, but I don't think its good for my marriage to go into details when we have a fight) and not talk about things that I would not want a stranger to know about me. Because while I feel like I know all of you who are reading this, of course that isn't really true. So I say to myself, as I start to write, "Would I tell this story to a stranger I was sitting next to on the bus." and then I go from there. I'm a pretty open, friendly, little extrovert, so it turns out I will tell a stranger on the bus quite a lot (and strangers seem to want to tell me stuff too, by the way, I think I have one of those faces) so I generally don't have a problem.
But Birth. Birth is... personal. Intense. Messy. Would I tell a stranger on the bus about my birth. Yes, I probably would. I might leave a few little bits out, but I'd probably tell them quite a lot. Because I think that its important that birth is demystified. There is so much that isn't talked about, that could stand from being normalized through everyday conversation. It would make the whole thing so much less scary for the first-timers. Also, I kind of hate the Hollywood perception/cliche of birth and that is really the only representation you ever see. Always very dramatic and intense and fast, or comic and full of screaming and 'you did this to me' inept husbands as the butt of the joke. So not my favourite. We are quite removed from the birth experience, especially as young women and men, which is too bad. I was very lucky to have a sister who invited me to attend the births of two of her children, so I wasn't as sheltered from it as many people are. And it was such a good experience for me to witness my sister's births. Instead of frightening me, it made me less scared. Sure I saw here in pain, and was surprised by how much blood there was, but ultimately, I saw he come out on the other side, whole and unharmed and with a beautiful new baby. It made me think "I can do that too".
All right, one more disclaimer, and then I'll start with the actual story. I'm going to try to be honest without being graphic, but I will be as explicit as I feel my 'stranger on the bus' boundaries will allow me to be. So that being said, if the words 'crowning', 'fluid sac' or 'warm gush' gross you out, you should probably just skip this post, and come back in a day or so for some more baby pictures. Just sayin'.
Birth:
As you know from a couple of posts ago, after a big day of quilt finishing, a walk in the woods, some all you can eat sushi and a bit of nostalgia, my water broke. I was sitting at the computer, watching an old video of the Little Dude when he was just a little baby, and I called Hubs in to watch it with me, as it was so darned cute. It was about 10:25. And all of a sudden there was a warm gush, and I was sitting in a puddle. "I think my water just broke." I said, kind of redundantly, as there was no 'thinking' about it at all, it was definitely happening. I felt giddy, and kind of giggled a bit, and grinned up at Hubs who said, "Seriously? I'll go get some towels." He came back with towels, and I made myself a little cushion with them, and said "Well, its really going to happen now. We're having a baby." Hubs suggested I lie down, and I said, no, first I had some calls to make, and then I needed to finish blogging. I called my mom and dad first, to give them the heads up, as that is where L.D. would be going to stay at some point before the baby was born. And then, of course, I called my midwives.
My midwifery practice has four midwives and one student midwife. Ontario law says that two midwives have to be present at every birth, but since there are four at my practice, you don't know who you will get until the day of your birth. Mojgan was the midwife who answered my page. She was at the hospital finishing up a birth there (they attend women in labour either at their homes or at the hospital, whichever you prefer) and told me that she was sending two other midwives (Marcia and Julie, the student) to assess me at home. I finished up my blog post, and then did a few last minute prep things. Hubs put sheets on the bed and cleaned the bathroom sink for me, and arranged the bedroom a bit. The midwives arrived at about 11:30. They took my vitals and checked the baby's position (Still head down, Yay!) but my contractions had not started yet, so they told me to go to bed, try and get some sleep, and call them back when my contractions were noticeable.
So they left at about 12:30 and Hubs and I went to bed at about 1:00 am.
Of course I could not sleep. I was waaaaay to excited. And also a little bit scared. And also was thinking of the stuff I hadn't got around to doing (but not too much) and vexing about the fact that we still had not chosen a name, and also, there was a parenting book I hadn't gotten around to reading yet.... And after I'd lain there for about a half an hour, my contractions started. And then I definitely wasn't going to be able to sleep because then I was monitoring my contractions and timing how far apart they were, and thinking "is this one stronger than the last one? Is it? Or about the same?" Anyhow, by 2:00 they were too uncomfortable for me to just lay there feeling them, and I got up and walked around the kitchen so I could breathe through them, and lean over the table when I felt them coming. Which made me think, "Ok, I should call the midwives back." So I did. And I woke up Hubs and we puttered around a little more and did some more preparing, both emotional and otherwise. I ate a big bowl of cereal and yogurt and fruit and drank a whole bunch of juice and took an iron tonic, so that I'd have lots of energy for the work ahead.
The midwives arrived about a half an hour later, around 2:30. There were three of them, Marcia, Julie and Mojgan, which felt like luxury. So nice to have three people whose job is you. We joked about how I like a big party. I was still feeling good and making jokes at that point. They went about getting things set up in the bedroom, plugging in equipment, laying out supplies. They really come with everything you'd need. They have things like rubber gloves and stethoscopes and blood pressure cuffs, and then more specific things like a doppler monitor for checking the baby's heart rate, and then some other more scary things like oxygen and drugs and pumps for infant or maternal resuscitation. They checked the baby's heartbeat both during and outside of contractions, and he was doing great. My contractions started to get a little harder, in the sense that I could no longer talk through them, and needed Hubs there holding my hands and smiling at me to get through them. So we decided to call my parents over to come and get the Little Dude, because at that point I was sure that the baby would be born before he usually got up in the morning, or at least close to that point, and I did not want Hubs to have to leave my side when L.D. called us to take him for his morning potty break.
So my Dad arrived at about 3:00 am to get the Little Dude. I went into his bedroom to wake him up. That was my first emotional moment of the night. I'd just been giddy and jokey up until them, but when I went into L.D's room, and he was lying there so peaceful and perfect, all heavy and warm under the covers with his hands flung up by his head and his curls like a nimbus, I suddenly was hit with the gravity of the situation. I was going to give birth. To a baby. This was my last moment as the mother of one child. And he did not even know it yet. It all seemed very real then, and sort of sad and poignant. So I picked him up and kissed him and told him, as he blinked blearily at me, that he was going to have a sleepover at GranGran and Grandpapa's and that mama was going to have the baby tonight, and that tomorrow, when he came home he'd get to meet his new little brother. He smiled at me, and burrowed into Hubs neck as we put his coat and shoes on, and very happily got into the car with Grandpapa, clutching Hopkins and his Dolly.
I stood in the garage door and cried a little bit to myself, and waved goodbye to him as I had another contraction.
(side note, on their way home over the dark country roads, they had the bad luck to run over a skunk. Can you believe it? We've had to park our car outside for the past two days. So gross. But it could have been worse. It could have been a deer.)
Then I went back inside and prepared for my life to change. All distraction was gone at that point, and I knew I was going to have to focus and work and hold on and let go all at the same time.
Part 2 tomorrow. Sorry for the suspense, but c'mon, you know how it ends.
