Always hard to know what your very first post should be for your blog, especially when you're not sure what your blog will be about. This seemed perfect though, the story behind the birth of my second child. I modeled the structure from a birth story I saw on www.designmom.com from a mother named Sommer Renaldo. N-joy!
Act I
Just before sunrise I awoke to a squirt. Not the typical gush that is so famous, but noticeable all the same. It woke me up and I went straight to the bathroom to confirm – my water broke, or rather, leaked. I smiled to myself and then whispered to my husband what happened. He woke up and we called the midwife. She asked if I had experienced any contractions. I had none. She told me that she would visit me early in the afternoon but that I should call her once contractions start. After the phone call my husband and I began to talk about what we need to get ready. We had all the supplies, some of which we got just two or three days before, but the last and most important item was a birth pool that had yet to be delivered.
This was Tuesday December 21st and we had planned an un-medicated, home water birth. However, what we hadn’t planned was our baby to come this early. The due date was January 9th, 2011 and she had just become full term, 37 weeks, 2 days ago. The birth pool was supposed to be delivered by our midwife and we completely forgot to ask her about it while on the phone. We were about to call her back to ask about the pool when I felt my first contraction. It was mild. Then another one came, also mild. After the third mild one we called our midwife. Though mild, they were amazingly only one minute apart, which for some reason didn’t sink in until too late.
ACT II
By the third contraction my husband did one of several amazing things that morning, run me a warm bath. I didn’t have to tell him at the time or at any other time, he instinctively knew, and something so simple became our saving grace.
I got into the bathtub and the contractions continued - slightly more intense but manageable because the warm water was so relaxing. I was motionless through and between contractions, but my husband was quite the opposite. He was running around the house like a mad man. See, unbeknownst to me, my husband had called to tell the midwife about my contractions and how frequently they were coming. This changed everything - she was now on her way to us and, most importantly, she didn’t think there would be time for them to bring and set up the birth pool. My husband knew how important this pool was to me. So after getting off the phone with her he ran to the basement, remembering that we bought a family pool we hadn’t opened yet. He found it and then began to wonder how he would blow it up and fill it with water. As my husband was becoming more frantic about the pool, my contractions got more intense. I began to have that out of body feeling, as if the deep moaning coming from me was coming from some large watery being.
ACT III
Then it happened. I had a contraction that felt like an earthquake not only due to the intensity but the nature in which it came. The first part of the contraction was so intense that at the peak I could do nothing but push. Yes push! How many MINUTES had gone by and I already felt the need to push? And then came the aftershock. Immediately following that contraction another came right behind it with no break, only I didn’t need to push on that one. I couldn’t believe what was happening. The outer me was frantic, running through all the scenarios I learned in birth class and from the hypnobirthing book and realized none of it seemed applicable to my current situation. The inner me, the one fully experiencing this, was chanting just one thing: stay still and in the present. One of two things got me through the next 10 minutes, the first was a simple fact said in Bradley class; do not think about the last contraction or the next, just concern yourself with how you’ll get through this one. The second was complete denial about what was actually happening to me presently. I suppose that’s the irony of an out of body experience.
After I experienced about 3 of these earthquake contractions I heard my husband upstairs for the first time. Coming down from the third contraction I pleaded for him to come in and hold my hand. During that very short minute break between contractions I told him under my breath that I didn’t know what was happening, but the contractions were very intense. I wanted to tell him that I also felt the need to push but the 4th contraction came and he saw it for himself. My husband tells me later that up until that point he was actually holding my hand with one hand and holding the instructions for the family pool in the other, but after that contraction, everything changed. He called the midwife. I can hear everything he’s saying to the midwife but it’s not registering in my brain until he says “I see the head” followed by “the head is the hardest part. The first was directed to my midwife, the latter he was telling me, and in that moment I really didn’t know why he felt the need to share this bit of information with me, I was simply trying to keep calm as the aftershock passed. On the next contraction combo that seemed to come some 5 seconds later, I feel this pressure followed by complete relaxation. The contractions were gone and while I’m relishing this my baby is handed to me. My husband, on the other hand, was frantic because that pressure was the baby shooting out like a torpedo, he says, and he was struggling to catch the baby while not drop the phone in the bathtub.
FINAL ACT
Now our baby was on my chest - silent except for a high-pitched grunt and an ethereal snore. My husband put some blankets on us and was still talking on the phone with the midwife. It was only minutes later that he asked if I had checked to see what we had. I had, actually twice because I was in disbelief. We decided to keep the gender unknown to us for 9 months but everyone was so convinced that it would be a boy. So when I saw evidence of the contrary, I had to check again. And when I did, I just smiled to myself. Everything was already going so NOT according to plan, why should this be any different. And when I saw her there was only one thought in my mind: heavenly.
EPILOGUE
I had planned for an un-medicated home water birth, and that’s exactly what I got, but at the same time not at all. My entire labor was under 2 hours. The midwives said there were probably 2 reasons why she came early and quickly. She came early due to the lunar eclipse, yes, something I would have thought would never have anything to do with my birth. But apparently during full moons, women tend to give birth primarily because their water breaks. As we all know the moon affects all water, even in the womb. December 21st , 2010 was not just a full moon, but a lunar eclipse as well as the day of winter solstice, two major events that have not fallen on the same day in over 400 years, and may not happen again for another 400. So as a result we had to name her Ndaajiya Luna. The first meaning “eclipse” in my husband’s language of Mwaghavul and the second meaning “moon.” The midwives determined that she came quickly because as soon as my water broke, she must have been in the perfect position to come out.
So just to be clear, I labored for an hour and a half, in a bathtub, no medication, delivered by my husband at home. And honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
