The Birth of Finley Mae Soleil By Sean

Finley Mae Soleil Gillon has arrived!  She was born at home, in the water, on Friday, May 6th at 7:00am.   She weighed 8 lbs., 9 oz. and was 20.5 inches long. My wife's labor lasted 7.5 hours and she was inspiring throughout.  

My wife's water broke at 11:30 pm on Thursday night while we were laying in bed... she heard and felt a "pop".  We got up and she moved to the shower, where we looked at each other incredulously.  It's not happening, is it?  Within an hour the dull aches turned into intense contractions.  Her mom, a former midwife who had arrived earlier that evening from Iowa, and I put hot wash clothes on her back for a couple of hours as the rushes strengthened.  We hurried around getting ready in between... I ran around like a maniac trying to sort out the tub and everything else. It was happening so fast.  

By about 2:00 am, my wife laid down on the floor in the living room, moaning "open" through rushes and falling asleep in between.   I laid next to her and, along with friends, comforted her as we fell in and out of sleep.  When she stood up near 5:30, happy to see the first signs of sunlight, she was nearly fully dilated.  Realizing she was farther along in labor than anticipated, we called our midwife, Maria Iorillo, who was incredible.  She arrived shortly after to find us in the birth tub.  Several intense, thrilling, overwhelming pushes later, a posterior head emerged... that was a surprise.  The shoulders and body quickly followed.  I pulled our baby up to my wife's chest and we snuggled.  What an amazing feeling.  We soon found that she was a she and I cut the cord.     

Finley and my wife are both healthy and we're deeply enjoying our first days together.   

Look for next blog post that will tell you all about the placenta!!

Number 993 - Welcome Na'Imah Iman

As I sit here staring at this little human that was in my belly just seven days ago, it is hard to believe this all really happened. I am blown away by my homebirth experience and am so proud to have had a successful birth in my own home surrounded by the people I love most.

Our birth story, for me, starts earlier than most I think because somehow I just knew it was coming. Tuesday April 19^th I was 38.5 weeks into my pregnancy, I started seeing a little bloody discharge and having period like cramps that had started days prior to that all of which excited me but I knew that it could still take weeks before I met my little one. The following day I had my appointment with Maria, I arrived early and so I decided to take a walk around the neighborhood, something I hadn’t been doing due to all of my pubic bone pain throughout the pregnancy but I was determined to meet my baby as soon as possible. Maria and I discussed the discharge with no alarm except Maria did say that she wasn’t sure if the baby is going to wait until my Mom got here on the 25^th, so that also excited me. I then got my chiropractic adjustment from Kristine and was on my merry way. When I got home the discharge and cramps continued to increase but no rhythm to the cramps just noticeable and annoying. At around 9pm when I was about to lay down for bed I got up to pee and noticed a brighter and larger amount of blood when I wiped which alarmed me so I called Maria. She let me know that it still sounded like mucous plug to her and I should try to sleep because I might be woken up in the middle of the night with contractions. So now I am really excited and falling asleep felt like it would be impossible, it was like the first day of school all over again. At 10pm I felt a noticeable change in the cramps they were not tightening across the top of my belly but down low and slightly more intense. I eventually fell asleep around 11pm only to wake up at 1am with more of the same cramps. I laid in bed until 3:30am trying to fall back to sleep but I started to become hungry.  I got up to eat which shifted something because then I felt them a little stronger and more frequent, every 3-5 minutes lasting about 30 seconds in length. I decided around 4am to text my doula Stacy Vogan and give her the update. She recommended I take a bath and try to relax. I decided the bathtub was too filthy so I scrubbed it clean then decided I was too hot to take a bath so I went and tried to lay down some more. Around 5am my still sleeping husband, Walid, woke up to his alarm and I told him to call in to work because my labor had definitely begun. My surprised and half asleep husband said “babe! Why didn’t tell me last night” I explained I wanted him to sleep as long as he could. We continued to lie in bed and relax, I got another hour of sleep from 7am-8am and woke up starving, I had the most insane craving for McDonalds breakfast so I sent my husband out. After he returned and my best friend Bianca came over I left the bed and tried to watch a funny movie to distract myself. That lasted about a half hour before I decided all the chatter of the movie was annoying me so I had them shut it off. At some point during this time I managed to shower and shave my legs but I cannot recall the time. My friend Susanne had also arrived, she was my photographer and as much as I was feeling like I didn’t want an audience I knew I wanted documentation.  We also set up Skype so that my Mom can feel present.

At around 10am we started timing contractions they were coming every 4-5 minutes and lasting 45 seconds. I would let them know it was coming then my husband would rush over and squeeze my hips and I would try to breath. At that point I really thought I needed my doula, I was feeling slightly inadequate and was needing more support. My doula arrived to the house around 1pm and as soon as I saw her I burst into tears, partly so relieved to see her and partly just from the pain and exhaustion. 

 

She was wonderful, reminding me of all that we have practiced and what I already knew I could do. Taking deep breaths and as Stacy would say “going deep” with my moaning. I was also feeling hungry and having zero desire to eat anything that I had to chew. Bianca made me a protein smoothie and we continued to labor. Shortly after that I decided to get into the birthing tub. 

 

The tub was amazing, I felt lighter and calmer. My husband got in with me and pushed on my hips with every contraction, he was so wonderful, reliable and completely supportive. Maria arrived around 2pm we think. My contractions at that point were feeling very intense, I would feel it coming, it would last about one minute to a minute and a half, then as it subsided another one would come up right behind it without a break but only lasting about 20-30 seconds and then I would get my much needed break. My moans were surprisingly louder than I had expected them to be. 

 

I am typically a very quiet person and expected a lovely silent homebirth as I had seen in so many homebirth videos, not so in my case and I was later told I sounded sort of like a lamb. I also remember clearly saying the words “no” and “ouchy” and I only cursed a few times (also surprising). What’s even more interesting about that is that I once read somewhere that research had shown newborns have the same intonation as their mothers when they cry and I swear some of the sounds she makes were the exact sounds I made while I birthed her. 

We were still waiting on my antibiotics to come via courier, since I had tested positive for GBS, once they arrived around 4pm we then needed to warm them up a bit. Around 5pm they were ready to go I had to leave my warm and cozy tub, which felt impossible. I could hardly walk at that point and made it about 10 steps before I felt another contraction coming. It was then that I saw a slight gush of water coming down my legs with a little bit of blood. I remember being confused if my water had broke or if I was still just wet from the tub but it continued to come and then I could care less as the contraction came on stronger. I bent over a table and called for the hip squeeze again and so we decided to do the antibiotics right there. I would sit on the exercise ball in between contractions to rest but I had to remain on that antibiotic and at that table for an hour.

After we were done with the antibiotics I felt very aware of the audience in my home and had an intense need to be alone with my husband so we went and begun laboring in our bedroom with the door closed. Every now and then Maria would pop in to check the baby’s heart rate, my blood pressure or my dilation; baby was always strong and steady. I sort of dreaded when Maria came in the room only because it meant a check of some sort or more antibiotics and my contractions felt so insane that I thought I couldn’t bare anything else. After laboring on the bed for awhile Maria checked my dilation again and I was only at 7 and feeling like there was no way that could be possible after all this work. She suggested we try sitting on the toilet as a different position to help things along and so we did. The contractions got worse on the toilet, stronger and longer. They also made me feel like I needed to push, push what I am not sure, what it really felt like was that I badly needed to poop. I would bare down on my husband’s hips and hold on until they passed, I was not liking the toilet at all so we moved back to the bed. Eventually I wanted to try the tub again in hopes that I would be getting close to pushing and we could birth there. At some point someone said I might be ready to push in a couple hours….I remember feeling very aware of time and knowing that these contractions were coming every 30-45 seconds apart from each other it seemed just daunting that I will be doing this for a couple more hours at the least. After we were in the tub for awhile Maria checked the baby’s heart rate again and she said that the heart beat was decelerating so I may need to leave the tub. She suggested I shift to my side and see if baby likes that better and thankfully she did, heart rate regulated and all was well. Eventually, we needed to do antibiotics again so we needed to leave the tub. Walking was near impossible and it took my husband and my doula to get me back to the bedroom contracting along the way. We labored there for what we think was about 45 minutes to an hour then Maria gave me a check again and said that I was at about 9 ½  and there was just a little bit left, then she said “I think you can start pushing and the pushing will clear that space”, she also said that she was calling her second midwife and she left the room. My doula Stacy said “did you hear what she said”, and I said “yeah, she’s leaving me” and she said “no she gave you the green light to start pushing”, for some reason I thought that the second midwife was coming to replace Maria. Maria then came and asked me if I wanted to make my way back to the tub for birthing. I had always wanted to birth in the tub but I just could not imagine making my way back across the house. So the pushing began right there in my bedroom. It felt amazing to try to get rid of that rectal pressure, although it was as if I got it out half way and it would be sucked back in..…highly dissatisfying. At one point I felt that my husband, who I was leaning on, had fallen asleep (which in retrospect I cannot imagine how because my moaning had definitely increased). I tried pushing on my back, pushing on all fours then Maria said “I have the birthing stool if you want to try that”. Again, feeling like I didn’t want to move anymore I also was willing to do anything to meet my baby. I decided to go for it, with my husband behind me supportive as ever and after just a couple pushes Maria checked the baby’s heart rate again and said “so Krissi, it’s probably best he baby come out as soon as possible” and I remember feeling an animalistic instinct to push and keep pushing like never before and then I heard “ok, there’s the head” which surprised me because I didn’t feel that happen but with the next push I felt an incredible burn and on Friday April 22^nd at 3:10am there she was on my belly. 

 

 I looked at her in complete amazement. She was so alert and just fantastic, she needed a little oxygen but throughout the whole process I never worried about her and had complete faith in Maria and my baby.

I can’t describe how happy I was to meet her and in complete denial that I actually pulled it off. I felt alarmingly refreshed and energetic and I was home in my bed with someone so perfect. We stayed up for the next 3-4 hours before falling asleep for about 3 hours and awake again with excitement. I am still in disbelief and as any one of my friends would tell you, I have a very low tolerance for pain but my determination and a little bit of stubborn (or as Maria wouId call it tenacity), I did it, without a single thought of an epidural, we did together, a perfect rhythm between baby and mama and an incredible birthing team. I am so thankful for Maria and Stacy and my amazing homebirth experience; I loved every moment of it and wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. 

Maia's Blessed Birth Or: How I had a Homebirth at Kaiser

 

by G.B.

My family is together in our bedroom on the second daybreak of our daughter’s life.  Daddy is holding Maia in bed, and Cindy Lou is looking on at the strange scene from her doggie bed in the corner.  And I am in awe of the many blessings we have received as we brought Maia into this world.  I don’t want to forget a thing about her birth.

After the birth, our midwife Maria said eloquently, “In a hospital, they are focused on a healthy baby and a healthy mama.  And we midwives are focused on that, too, but we add healthy process.  Because most of the time, without a healthy process, you don’t have a healthy baby or a healthy mama.” 

          Our process began on Sunday, April 17.  Brian and I spent the day quietly together.  Things had been feeling hectic and separate and impatient for me.  I felt like the baby might be coming soon, but I needed to connect.  We went on an urban hike, letting the location of bakeries determine our route.  We walked a hilly course of about 6 miles around the city, stopping at bakeries along the way.  Sesame tofu salad at Mission Pie, vanilla wafers at Dianda’s, a strawberry tartlet at Destination Bakery in Glen Park, a chocolate chip cookie at Noe Valley bakery, and then back home to Sharon Street.  I was totally exhausted, but not feeling any closer to labor.  I went to bed with the same feeling I’d had for a couple of weeks: ”Maybe tonight…?” 

          That night, at 3am, I woke up from what felt like regular surges, but I let Brian sleep.  A note about “contractions.”  I wasn’t sure what I was feeling, since the sensation was similar to the menstrual cramp achiness that I’d been having for weeks.  And really, the contractions I experienced during labor, whether light or profoundly deep, were more like surges of energy.  I know the biological explanation of contractions, but to me it was a life force surge.  I wish I could say that this helped to ground me or center me during my labor.  It did not.  It’s more in retrospect that I understand my experience of surges.

Around 4am I decided to do some timing, and sure enough these surges were about 10 minutes apart and lasted 30 seconds each.  Brian’s alarm rang at 6am, and I let him know that we were going to have our baby soon.  I was incredibly excited and curious.

          We decided to keep our 8am appointment with our midwife Maria rather than call her.  I must explain about Maria.  The more we have learned and experienced about pregnancy, birth, and babies, the more in awe I become at Maria’s incredible depth of knowledge and skill in caring for mamas and babies in a deeply caring, spiritual, and individualized way.  She took incredibly good care of my family, but more to come on that subject.

To get to Maria’s office, we took the J-Church muni train.  I had a couple of surges on the train, but was able to breathe through them and sway my hips in the seat.  When we arrived I excitedly announced that I was in labor.  She checked my vitals and sent us home, advising us to go about our business and have a regular day, though I couldn’t imagine how to do that.  I was really excited about being in labor, and I was so curious to find out what would come next.  We went to a café, stopped by a market for some supplies, and instead of waiting for the train home, we walked the quick mile through a foggy Dolores Park.  Things felt perfect.

          My mom came over to our house at around 10:00, and we decided that she and Brian were going to take Cindy Lou out for a walk while I rested.  Just before they left, I had a surge, so I stood up and leaned over on the table, and, Pop!, my water broke.  The sound and sensation of the pop were so surprising that I yelped and cracked up.  I could not stop laughing, which of course pushed out more liquid, which made me laugh harder.  Brian and Mom decided to skip the walk.  I was having a great time!  I called a dear friend in Virginia, and was still able to talk reasonably through my contractions.  I sent a few text messages about my water breaking, and got some encouraging responses back.  This was really happening.  My baby would be born on Monday April 18^th—full moon, foggy San Francisco, Passover—perfect. 

          Around noon, the surges intensified and I had to move and moan through them.  The work was starting.  Brian stood by me and helped me through each one as we moved through the house.  We worked on the exercise ball next to the bed, on the toilet, over the couch.  Brian timed the contractions, and while it was clear they were building, I knew we weren’t anywhere near the 4-1-1 mark: contractions 4 minutes apart, one minute duration, for at least an hour.  My mom and Brian were really eager to contact Maria, so at 1pm Brian called to give her an update and let her know that my water broke.  She was excited and encouraged us to keep going and call her back when we reached the 4-1-1 mark. 

My surges built to about 3 minutes apart, but were a bit inconsistent, as occasionally I’d have a 5 or 6-minute interval.  They were also short at 35-45 seconds.  They were, however, consistently strong: I had to moan and move through them.  I got impatient around 5 or 6, and at 6:30pm (still Monday) Brian called Maria to report our progress.  Even though we hadn’t gotten to 4-1-1, she decided to come over. 

I was relieved when Maria arrived at about 7pm, because I felt like I’d been working hard to get labor moving by trying all sorts of positions, movements and moaning.  I was getting tired and I was curious to know how dilated I was, and how close I was to having our baby!  She checked me, and we learned that I was 3 ½ centimeters dilated.  This was pretty discouraging to me, and was definitely a low moment.  I’d felt so prepared for many things, but I didn’t know anything about bringing labor on.  I’d just assumed it would happen naturally.  I was tired and out of ideas.  We all needed a break.  Brian’s parents brought food over, and my mom and Brian ate while Maria set up.  I was not at all interested in eating, although I was hungry.  I managed to eat a banana. 

The night is a bit of a blur.  It was a long night, but we continued to try everything: positions, walking, bouncing, swaying, atmosphere (music, candles), herbal drinks, and homeopathic remedies.  I called on my many mantras to help me: My body and my baby know what to do; My body is opening like a flower; KNOW; TRUST; and meditation techniques and yogic breathing and positions (juicy hips) to open, open, open.  I talked to my baby, and told him or her that it was time, it was ok to come.  I asked him or her what I needed to do. 

At about 3am, the 24 hour mark, Maria suggested I get in the tub for a change of pace.  My surges were very intense at this point, but the timing continued to be variable.  I was getting really tired, so the tub idea sounded great to me.  Being in the tub gave immediate relief to my tired, sore body.  Brian sat by and timed my contractions.  I was surprised by the power of the surges I had while in the tub.  They gripped my body, and I floated around to find positions and moans that would help move the energy through my body, and most importantly help the baby move down.  Some of these surges were long: about a minute and a half or longer.  The energy gripping my body was unbearable to me, but I stayed in the tub because I thought that maybe these contractions would take me to the next level of labor.  Still, it was hard work, and I told Brian I didn’t know if I could do it.  I felt despair: fear, hunger, exhaustion, and no baby in sight.  When would this end?  Brian was encouraging and loving and he is the reason why I was able to keep going.

In the morning, 12 hours after my first internal exam, Maria wanted to check my dilation.  So, at about 7am on Tuesday, I was eager to see how much I progressed.  I was 5 cm dilated.  What???  All that work, all night long, and I had only opened 1 1/2cm?  What was happening here?  We talked a lot about what could be holding me back, and what I could do to progress in my labor.  But first, Maria suggested this would be a good time to take a break so that I could build my strength up to keep going.  This sounded great to me.  We found a place for me to rest in a rocking chair, because when I lay down in bed, the contractions were too intense for resting.  In the rocking chair, I was able to rest for about 3 hours.  My contractions were coming every 6-10 minutes, and they were between 30-40 seconds, and they felt strong.  I had to moan and move through them.  I also had to train myself to stay in the chair when they were done.  I had the urge to walk around, and especially to go to the bathroom, but I knew I didn’t actually need to go, and that giving in to the urge to move around would not give me rest.

The resting was extremely helpful, and I was ready to ramp things up.  Come on active labor, let’s move this baby!  We had exhausted all homeopathic and herbal remedies; they just didn’t seem to be working.  We had a new plan: castor oil!  I would use the laxative to contract my intestines in the hope that it would encourage my uterus.  Yes, this would work.  I took the castor oil, continued to rest, and waited for the oil to work its magic.

At some point close to lunchtime, Maria noticed that the baby’s heart rate was decelerating during contractions, which is normal during active labor.  But I was no where near active labor.  Baby heart rate decelerations during early labor are reason for concern.  The castor oil needed to work.

I’ve lost track of time, but maybe around 1pm the castor oil kicked in.  I was re-energized: I had rested and I felt like this would do the trick.  I got back into positions and tried new ones, but still no progress.  It was clear after all the castor oil moved through me that it did not do the trick.  I still felt it was possible for these contractions to build to active labor, so when Maria suggested acupuncture, I was very excited because I knew my body responds well to acupuncture treatments.  We quickly found an acupuncturist, Linda, who was able to see me in 45 minutes, at 3:15.  At 36 hours of labor, we piled into Maria’s car and drove a mile down Church Street to see Linda.  Before we got there, Maria asked, “What do you think?”  I replied, “I think I’m going to get this treatment, it’s going to put me into active labor, and we’re going to have a baby by the end of the day.”  I was still smiling.

The drive was bizarre: I felt like I was watching a movie, or watching someone else’s dream.  The block and a half walk from the car to the office felt long, and I had a contraction along the way.  Linda treated me as I sat on a stool and was face-down on a large pile of pillows.  The treatment had an immediate effect, and it was not only due to the cupping and needles.  Linda encouraged me to call on my guides, to talk to my baby, and she asked what was blocking me.  I thought for a long while, and I said that I thought that the baby needed my permission.  When she asked me what I meant, I said I didn’t know.  Brian was in the room and he said, Yes, the baby needs my permission too!  It was deeply emotional, and I literally felt the baby move down as some of this emotional energy was cleared.  Linda and Maria left me and Brian alone together in the room.  I was still being treated, but Brian and I talked to each other and our baby, and made a plan for when we got back to the house.

I haven’t written many details about Brian’s involvement, but he was right next to me every second of this process.  He waited for my cues, he rubbed, pushed, pressed, and supported my body, or when I decided I did NOT want that, he stopped.  He whispered encouraging, loving words, and he timed my contractions while supporting me through them.  When we returned from the acupuncturist, with me deeper in contractions, we went into the “labor cave” (our bedroom), and sat together.  There were new rules: I did not want to hear any chatting in the house, and Brian and I would not chat.  We would sit in meditation, and I would do everything I could think of to progress labor.  The acupuncture moved the baby and deepened the surges, and I believed that focusing more on the labor would get us to the active labor part.

Brian timed my contractions in the cave.  Over an hour or so, there was no change.  Maria continued to check the baby’s heart rate during these contractions.  The deceleration was still there.  No change in either baby or mama.  Maria did an internal exam around 5:30.  I had been laboring for about 38 hours, and she told me that I was 5 ½ cm dilated.  I knew what was coming.  It was time to consider transport to the hospital.

Oh, the deepness of the disappointment I felt at this moment.  How could this be happening?  What was wrong with me?  What was wrong with my body, with my baby?  What else could I do?  I did not want to transport, but I know that if I stayed at home, there was the real possibility that my labor would not progress quickly enough and we would put the baby in danger, not to mention the fact that I was so exhausted that if I labored for another whole night, I might not have the energy to push at the end.

I turned to Brian.  He was so strong.  We talked about the cards exercise from our childbirth class.  We’d had 6 cards, and on each card we wrote a wish for our birth.  On the back of each card, we wrote the opposite of that wish, for example: short, productive labor on one side had long, slow labor written on the back.   Our instructor Jane had us lay them out, and one by one, we chose a card to turn over.  It was a very useful exercise in which we had to ask ourselves which aspects of our birth were we willing to give up, and what might happen if we had to give them up?  It was clear that it was time to turn over the have birth at home card so that we wouldn’t have to compromise the others, especially healthy mama, healthy baby. 

Tears came, certainly, but I felt that this decision was just the next step on our journey together.  The three of us, and my mom as silent backup, had worked together to consider each step of my labor.  I felt very confident with the plan: we were going to Kaiser to get, as Maria put it, “a whiff of pitocin” (labor-inducing drug), have the baby, and then get out of there AMA (against medical advice).  It was just the next step in my homebirth.

Upon arrival at Kaiser’s labor & delivery floor, Maria found a nurse who is her client!  She was going off duty at that time, but she set up with a nurse, Juliana, who was very respectful of my priorities and preferences.  Juliana was on our team, and was incredibly patient, kind and encouraging.  Perhaps most important, she communicated with the rest of the staff my preferences, and reminded them often how I wanted it done.

As I was getting set up, I looked at Maria and laughed.  What else could I do but give in and laugh?  I just couldn’t believe that after all we had done, all the months of thoughtful preparation and the hours and hours of labor, here I was in a beeping hospital room, surrounded by blue caps and masks, and hooked up to monitors and IVs.  But for some reason, I wasn’t sad, I wasn’t disappointed.  I guess I knew this was what it was going to take for me to meet my baby, and I was so ready.

Maria was right: all I need was a whiff of pitocin, administered at about 9pm, and I felt like I was pushing the baby out from the first contraction.  The OB had checked me upon arrival, and I was 6cm, but I felt like this baby was coming soon.  The surges were gripping, but it was a great feeling: finally, progress!  This baby was coming.  I didn’t have time to get used to this new level of contractions, and I felt a little confused by the rush.  My body was shocked and holding against the surges, but Maria reminded me to moan deep and low, and to relax my legs and bottom, which I kept gripping.  I knelt facing the back of the hospital bed, and as each contraction came, first I threw my hips against Brian, and then I figured out how to hold on to the back of the hospital bed and squat.  I felt like I was pushing at the end of my surges.  I heard Juliana say, that sounds like pushing!  I didn’t know if I should do that yet, but Maria told me to just go with whatever was happening, and Juliana was very encouraging and told me to “do my thing.” 

I know that I was in active labor for 3 hours, but it seemed about 40 minutes.  Towards the end the OB came in and shouted, “wait, wait you’re having a baby!”  I was too deep in labor to actually laugh at this, but I knew it was totally absurd.  She insisted that I labor on my back: what a vision!  I was confused at this point, not having my wits about me to protest.  Maria helped get me into a position, and I started pushing.  WOW, the incredible power that I felt.  It was amazing.  This baby was coming.  But still, that laughter in the back of my head: was I really lying down on my back with a bunch of OBs in scrubs yelling “Push, PUSH!?”  Yes, that is how the last few minutes of my homebirth went.  And suddenly, I looked down, and there was my baby’s beautiful, perfect head, screaming.  What an incredible sight.  I continued to push, and just a few minutes later my husband placed our baby on my chest, and let me know that we had a girl. 

I am unable to describe the bliss, gratitude, and wonder that filled those moments.  I was aware of some activity around me, but mostly it was just me and my baby, my husband Brian elated by my side.  In the next moment, I looked at Maria, and her face had the same look of excitement that I felt.  It was like were we silently saying to each other, what an awesome birth!

And so, Maia Ambry Cavagnolo was born at a Kaiser homebirth at 12:14am on Wednesday, April 20, 2011. 

Healthy mama, healthy baby, and I would add: very healthy process.

Maia Ambry is here - A Perfect Birth

Here's Brian's story:

Perhaps word has already reached you that I am now a daddy.  But I thought you might want to see a photo and some stats for the record.  Maia Ambry Cavagnolo was born on 20 April 2011 at 12:14am.  She weighed in at 5lbs 8oz and was 19" long.  G's contractions started at around 3am on 18 April and ramped up throughout the day.

Plan A was to have the baby at home.  So after some breakfast and a walk we got comfortable and the contractions started setting in. G's mom came over to help out, and our awesome midwife Maria joined the party at about 7pm that evening.  G labored through the night like a rock star (or perhaps a miner?), but contractions weren't coming as close as we needed them.  Over the course of the next day we tried all of the midwife tricks for stepping the labor up a notch, but we just continued to cruise.  Finally, we decided to head to the hospital for some pitocin, everybody's favorite labor-inducing hormone, in order to finish the job before complete exhaustion set in.  Also, the baby's heart rate was dipping with each contraction.  While this is not completely abnormal in the late stages of labor, it's an unsettling sign in the early stages.  So off we went to Kaiser for Plan B.

At Kaiser, a client of Maria's was one of the nurses on duty!  She was just about to get off work to go on maternity leave.  But she hooked us up with Juliana, a friend of hers who was completely down with the home birth track and who has earned a special thank-you note for her awesomeness.  After getting the pitocin dripping, G's contractions got pretty strong pretty quick.  She did a fantastic job! It was not long before it came time to push.  With a bit of coaching from Maria, and some experiments with position, the zeroth birthday was imminent.  I glanced at the clock between each contraction, waiting with anticipation to see if my baby would be born on boring-old April 19th, or famous 4/20.  G, was not watching the clock.  She was digging deep during contractions, and then fending off the pesky interventions of the young and impatient resident OB.  After about 3 or 4 solid pushes, out popped the baby!  One of my important ceremonial duties was to announce the sex of the baby.  "It's a girl, right?", I said.  Needing some assurance because everybody was convinced she would be a boy for some reason.  Hooray!  We all celebrated.

We spent the night at the hospital, SUPER exhausted.  After my parents came by to meet the baby, I crashed so hard that I can't even report on what happened until the next day.  I don't even remember whether I slept on the bed or on the floor.  I can only imagine how exhausted G was.  The next day at around 5pm, after a bunch of tests, we managed to escape from the hospital to come home for Maia's first family dinner.  We've spent the last few days learning all sorts of stuff about feeding, pooping, cleaning, and sleeping.  I'll spare you those details:)

Birth of the Bean

Here is the amazing story of the one who is/was known as "The Bean." As told by her father Isaac. Click here.

A Father's Perspective - The Birth of Julius

Hi everybody, Janis here (Shaniqua's husband).

The nutshell story is that our son, Julius John Stipins, was born a week ago today. He is very healthy, Shaniqua is recovering well, and we're getting settled into a decent rhythm at home. It's perfectly fine to stop reading now.  :-)

We have hesitated until now to send you all a birth story. For casual acquaintances and distant relatives, it's fine to send out a "Hey,  it's a boy!" email, omitting the difficult and frightening parts. For our fellow travelers from the birth class, though, we didn't feel right giving you a sanitized version of the story. At the same time, we haven't been in a good enough place to feel like sharing the truth with anybody until now. So here it is, and hopefully it will be helpful in some way to some of you.

First of all: Shaniqua never went into labor naturally. We had considered and planned for many different eventualities, but this was not among them. I don't even remember it being mentioned in our class as a thing that happens, although possibly I wasn't paying attention.  Our midwife, Maria Iorillo, says that she sees about two cases a year of a woman going until week 42 without going into labor. Shaniqua had plenty of Braxton-Hicks contractions, but still had not gone into labor by Dec 29, which was two weeks past our "due date". (A phrase worthy of irony-quotes, to be sure.)

Here is some information that we probably knew at some point, but did not have at the top of our heads when it became relevant:

- At least with our midwife, once the pregnancy extends to 41 weeks, it is recommended to get two non-invasive tests done at a hospital. The first is a non-stress test, which makes sure that the baby's heart rate is not crashing, and that he is moving often enough to indicate good health. The second is an amniotic fluid index, which makes sure that the baby has enough fluid around him in the uterus. These tests need to be repeated every few days starting with week 41. The idea is that the pregnancy can continue safely if the tests look good; otherwise induction is recommended. Our tests looked excellent on Dec 22, 24, and 27.

- We had established care at St Luke's and at UCSF. St Luke's is closer to us, and so we went there for the first two test dates. However, St Luke's will not induce labor past 41 weeks 4 days, so our test on Dec 27 was performed at UCSF, which is better equipped for neonatal intensive care.

Nobody likes a pregnancy to extend past 42 weeks, regardless of how good the test results look. If it is fair to call 40 weeks the "due date", it's probably fair to call 42 weeks the "induction date". This is a perfectly reasonable thing; it's just not something we were really conscious of until we zipped past week 41 with no labor.

Here is one of my opinions that I mentioned in class, but which bears repeating:

- If you accompany someone you care about into a hospital, prepare to be an advocate for that person. Question everything until you are satisfied that you understand what is happening, and do not feel obliged to accept someone's recommendations. Everyone who comes into your room has an agenda --- not a malicious one, but one which may not be aligned with your own goals. For a simple example, after each of the three testing sessions, we had to fend of a different well-meaning hospital employee hellbent on performing a cervical sweep. They each had to be turned down multiple times before finally accepting Shaniqua's decision. (Our midwife is not a fan of sweeps in most situations, including the situation we were in.)

Anyway, back to the birth story. With our midwife's guidance, we made the decision to check into UCSF for an induction on Dec 29. The appointment was made for 8pm, with the understanding that the first step of labor induction would be a drug called Cervidil, which is designed to ripen the cervix gradually, over a period of 12 hours or so. The idea was that Shaniqua would check into the hospital, they would give her this medication, she would get a good night's rest, and then on the morning of Dec 30 they could begin further induction if necessary (read: Pitocin).

That's not how it happened.

By the time Shaniqua had been checked in to the admittedly nice Labor Room 3, and her cervix had been roughly examined twice (and likely swept, in her estimation), and the Cervidil was inserted... it was 2am. OK, fine; she and I would get some sleep there, and we'd see what the morning would bring.

Forty-five minutes later, Shaniqua started having real, painful contractions. She had one real, painful contraction every 60 seconds from 3am until 11am, when the force of the contractions caused her body to eject the Cervidil. This is during the time that she had planned to be resting, based on what we had been told by the doctors. The doctors were surprised at how effective the Cervidil was, which was little comfort to Shaniqua.

Even though this is the non-sanitized version of our birth story, I am going to fast forward through the labor now, if for no other reason than that I lack the ability to communicate the profundity of what transpired in Labor Room 3 that night and day and night. Some day I will try to write it into a worthy story. For now, this is the email I sent to friends and relatives on 12/31/2010:

------------------------------

Hi everybody,

This is Janis writing from Shaniqua's email account, announcing that our son, Julius John Stipins, was born today at 7:42am at UCSF hospital. For those keeping records, he is 9lbs 8oz and 23" long. He's also very cute, due to looking a lot like his mom.  :-)

We were planning a home birth, but Shaniqua still hadn't gone into labor two weeks after the due date. So we went in to the hospital on the evening of Dec 29, so that they could give Shaniqua something to induce labor. It worked surprisingly well, and by 3am Dec 30 Shaniqua was in labor. She labored for 28 hours, making incredible progress, and astonishing the doctors, the nurses, our midwife, her mom, and me.

Let me interject here that I am not claiming that any one way of giving birth is right, or wrong, or better than another. But I will tell you Shaniqua's way, which will surprise none of you who know her: she labored for 28 hours, on her own, refusing assistance from any doctors or nurses, and keeping her own counsel about every step she took with her baby. She made astonishing progress, the likes of which our doctors, nurses, and midwife had never seen, to say nothing of her awed husband. She breathed; she walked; she bounced on the fitness ball; she spent time in the tub. She did not take so much as a Tylenol for 23 hours, and then she only took something because she felt she needed to sleep for a bit. Still, as time went on, her vital signs got a little worse, and it became clear that it would be medically necessary to deliver by C-section, and she accepted that (probably because she knew she had done 120% of what any normal person could expect to do). Even so, 27 hours in, she still refused assistance in getting in or out of bed. In a nutshell, Shaniqua was able to bring Julius into the world exactly how she wanted to, if not how we originally planned. Having that kind of say was what we wanted out of a home birth in the first place, so it was a big success after all.

Anyway, the procedure went perfectly, and right now baby and mama are recovering together nicely in the hospital. I'm home, sending a few announcement emails before taking a shower, sleeping a bit, and heading back in.

If any of you feel compelled to offer congratulations, please give at least 99% of them just to Shaniqua. I'm looking forward to being one of two great parents that Julius has, but the successes up until today belong to her.

-Janis

------------------------------

For this more specialized audience, I will give some of the technical details that I omitted from the included email:

- Shaniqua was 0cm dilated at 2am.

- She was 5cm dilated when her water broke at 1:30pm.

- She was 7cm dilated at 9pm, and did not dilate further than that, despite the addition of Pitocin from 1am-5am on 12/31.

Some more details:

- Shaniqua had severe preeclampsia and HELP syndrome.

- Her blood tests showed rapidly declining liver and kidney function, and her platelet count had dropped by 50% between checking in to the hospital and 9pm the next day.

- At 7:30pm her blood pressure was 190/105.

- At 7:35pm, her husband cleared all medical personnel out of the room so that she could work in peace with Maria and Nova.

- At 9pm, her blood pressure was 120/80.

For this more specialized audience, I will give some of the spiritual details that I omitted from the included email:

- Shaniqua told me, afterward, that she knew in her gut weeks ago that this baby would come via C-section. She feared for the child's loss of the oxytocin rush he was supposed to get as he passed through the birth canal, and she decided that she would labor naturally as long as humanly possible, so that her child would have the benefit of as much oxytocin as she could generate. I do not have sufficient words to comment further on this point.

- I personally had never witnessed nor imagined anything as powerful and profound as Shaniqua's labor. I worked with her through much of it, and advocated fiercely for her as well as I could so that the doctors would leave her to labor the way that she needed to; but the part that transformed me was between 10pm and 1am:

Shaniqua lay in the hospital bed, nonverbal, deep in her labor. She was having powerful contractions, strong enough to alter radically the shape of her belly, every few minutes. Shaniqua experienced these contractions as perfectly as any woman could hope to: she was fully present in each second of time, falling immediately into rest as each one passed, meeting the next one head on and riding it as it surged, moaning, breathing, shaping, visualizing, but never wasting one moment looking forward or backward, never stopping to reflect on the magnitude of the previous surge, never fearing the start of the next.

Meanwhile, Maria sat by the bed in a glider chair, her hands folded over her belly, sleeping between surges, and waking to coach Shaniqua through each. I can see the scene still, with Maria's face lit by the glow of the computer monitors in the dark room, an expression of perfect calm and understanding as she watched over Shaniqua, guiding her through the creation of our family.

I watched from a few feet away, attempting to rest on a couch, but unable to let my consciousness slip from the scene before me. Here were two archetypes of womanhood, walking the boundary between life and death, night and day, one life and two. One of the women had never made this journey before, but went on fearless and confident and undaunted, trusting herself never to misstep; the other had guided many along similar paths, knew exactly what guidance to offer and when, and knew also that success or failure, life or death, was ultimately beyond her control. Together they worked, while I watched; and I like to think that I learned something about life and death and womanhood from being there.

- Our birth story definitely has a touch of bad-to-worse, at least when you consider that our original goal was to have a vaginal birth at home. Had Shaniqua broken down and cried; had she bemoaned her fate; had she indulged even once in the slightest form of self-pity or fear or frustration, I would not have thought one iota less of her as a person. But she did none of those things. She spent every bit of her energy on laboring with her child, letting nothing distract her, nothing dissuade her from reaching the finish line on her own. Her determination and focus inspired me through the whole experience, and saved me from falling into negativity and fear of my own. I was in awe of her, and I remain so.

OK, end birth story.

I'm running out of energy here --- my fault for writing so much --- so let me just give a brief outline of what happened from the birth until today.

- C-section babies don't get the amniotic fluid squeezed out of them by passing through the birth canal. This means that when Julius was measured at 9 lbs 8 oz, he was weighted down by at least three bellyfuls of fluid that he vomited up the first night. This was not "spitting up", he covered Shaniqua's chest with fluid each time. He also blew out four diapers with meconium in the first 24 hours. Together with the fact that Shaniqua and Julius were plumped up with three boluses of saline from the labor, the kid dropped 9.8% of his weight by the next morning.

- Despite the fact that this weight loss was entirely understandable, the hospital has a policy of watching closely any baby that loses 10% of his birth weight. We got watched carefully. Whee.

- Breast milk comes in later after a C-section than it does after a vaginal delivery.

- Kid was "underweight". Mom was waiting for breast milk. Not a good situation.

- We met some very kind people in the hospital, but also some very clueless and frustrating ones. Shaniqua was in the middle of processing a tiny fraction of what she had gone through during the labor, when a 26-year-old OB doc fresh out of med school comes in to do rounds. She'd never met Shaniqua before, but when Shaniqua made the mistake of crying in front of this doc, next thing we know... social worker knocking on the door! Whee.

- Think very carefully about whether having her mom around for the labor is what you want to do. I spent a nontrivial fraction of my energy during the labor in a battle of wills with my mother in law, who was convinced I was killing her daughter by preventing unwanted medical interventions. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn't an important conflict; but some moms don't really want to see their daughters go through this kind of experience.

- We finally got out of the hospital on the night of Tuesday, Jan 4. We only managed this by feeding the kid some formula to boost his weight enough for the hospital to let us go. Feeding formula to the kid was an extremely emotionally charged decision.

- Sleep is very, very important. Not just a little important. Postpartum stress/exhaustion/emotions can look a lot like postpartum depression or psychosis after severe sleep deprivation. Moms: please eat and sleep as well as you can, for everybody's sake. Dads: same advice.

- After meeting with Maria on Wednesday, we got on a schedule intended to help Shaniqua's milk come in, while getting the kid's weight back up a bit. It worked on both counts: Julius gained back 15 oz in less than 48 hours (!), and as of today Shaniqua is starting on-demand breastfeeding, which was her original intent.

Anyway, I'm gonna go ahead and stop now.  :-)  Please forgive my meandering attempt to capture some of our birth experience to share with you all.

-Janis

Midwifery: A Smart Investment in Haiti

This post from the Huffington Post talks about the need and reward for training midwives in Haiti.

Anna's Birth of Alexa

On the morning of July 17th at around 6am, I started feeling what I thought were contractions. They were mild, like the cramps I get during my period.  I was so happy to feel them as I knew that we were going to meet our baby soon!!! My husband, Tuyen, was very excited but also a little worried as Maria had told us that he would be the main person during my labor.   I had no fear, however, and believed in my partner wholeheartedly.  The birth was the most amazing and memorable experience of my life.  The biggest role in my amazing delivery was played by my husband.  He was always by my side as I went through my tough labor and provided inspiration when I didn’t have the strength to go on.

After sharing the news that my labor had started with Tuyen, I went back to sleep because I wanted to conserve my energy. My sister-in-law had given birth three months prior and she told us that her biggest mistake was that she spent so much of her energy counting her contractions during the early parts of her labor that she was exhausted by the end. We took that advice to heart and I rested as much as I could early on, which ended up helping tremendously. I awoke from my nap at 10am. My contractions were getting a little stronger, but still very manageable like heavy period cramps.  My husband called Maria to let her know that my labor had begun.   He had set up the birth tub a couple of days before and cracked some coconuts for me so we were ready for our delivery.  I wanted to go and get some food at a restaurant but my husband suggested that he go get some takeout instead. J

By 6pm my contractions had started getting a little stronger and we started our dance. When the contractions started, I would run to my husband and put my arms around his neck. He would embrace me and we would sway slowly back and forth while breathing deeply and vocalizing loudly together as we exhaled. We did this until the contraction passed and the pain subsided. He used his iPhone to time the length and frequency of my contractions.  We were supposed to call Maria again when my contractions were less than four minutes apart, lasted at least a minute, and repeated for at least an hour. My contractions were never very consistent as it progressed however: sometimes they would be last for a minute-and-a-half but they would be five minutes apart and other times they would be 3 ½ minutes apart but last less than a minute. By 11pm, my contractions were long enough and getting close enough together that Tuyen decided to call Maria and let her know.  Maria asked our doula, Nova, to come join us.

We repeated our dance during each contraction for the next few hours. I also got in the shower for several minutes to help with the pain.  Nova came around 2am and started observing our progress.  We continued our dance as my contractions got more painful and lengthy.  By 3am, my contractions were getting really strong and I was vocalizing very loudly. Nova timed the contractions and told Tuyen that she had called Maria and that Maria was on her way. Maria got to our place at around 4am. We went to our spare bedroom and Maria examined me. She told me I was doing great and that I was already 5cm dilated. Oh, this news was even more painful than my contractions!  At that point I could not believe that I went through 22 hours of labor and was only 5cm dilated!  I thought I was getting close to being able to push.  I went back to my dance with my husband, but mentally I was crushed.  I couldn’t believe that I was only halfway through the dilation process and that the harder half was still left to come!

Maria suggested that I take a break from pain by getting in the birth tub as hot water slows down the contractions and lessens the pain.  I did so and my pain eased a bit but I didn’t feel comfortable in the tub as I wanted to embrace my husband during the contractions.  I got out of the tub after about ten minutes and walked around the apartment naked and in pain like a wild animal.  The pain was getting so strong that it forced me to get on all fours. I lost my husband at that point and continued to labor on my own on the bathroom floor.  I screamed that I couldn’t do this anymore.  My contractions started overlapping with each other and there was no break from the pain.  In my head I was ready for anything that would kill the pain, even if it was a bullet to the head.  I started saying that I couldn’t do it. My husband and Nova kept telling me that I could do it and that I was doing it.

I was in the bathroom at this point and I decided I needed to get back into the birth tub to try to ease my pain. On the way to the tub, we passed through the kitchen. I stopped at the sink and threw up from the pain. This caused my water to break. When it rains, it pours…J.  My thought turned back to the birth tub.  I tried walking to it, but since my water broke it was slippery and I did not make it very far.  I finally got to within a couple of feet of the birth tub but I was in too much pain to actually get into it.  Nova told me to talk to my baby as it would take my mind off of the pain.  I started crying… “Baaaaabbby! Please come out! Why won’t you come out?!?” I kneeled on the ground and help myself just trying to get through the pain.

Soon after, at around 6am, Maria decided to check me again.  She needed to get me back into the spare bedroom for the examination but the room was all the way on the opposite side of our apartment.  My husband picked me up from behind and dragged me to the bed as I was unable to walk anymore. Maria checked me and said that I was fully dilated! She said I could start pushing when my contractions came.  Maria and Nova prepared hot compresses for me and guided me through the pushing process.  When I was pushing, I bit my pillow very hard and pulled the sheets off my bed. I was so ready to see my baby that I pushed her out in about 15 minutes. Maria placed Alexa on me and I felt her gentle and warm body on my belly.  Our love was born!!!

Maria said it was amazing because, for first time moms, the pushing usually takes a couple of hours. It happened so quickly that our second midwife didn’t get to our place until after Alexa was born. Maria and Nova were amazing and super-supportive during the whole birth process. Although it was extremely painful, I couldn’t be happier with how the whole labor turned out.

Mother of Many

This great little animated piece is in honor of the hospital-based midwife and natural childbirth. Enjoy it here: Mother of Many

Emmy's Amazing Birth

I read so many birth stories while I was pregnant. I selected only the ones that were beneficial to my projection of what it would be like. A lot of them came from Ina may gaskin's 'spiritual midwifery' where they would describe each contractions as a “rush” and would describe how psychedelic it was and how tuned in everybody present at the birth was to the energy of the birth. I’m happy to say that my experience of the birth met the expectations that I created for myself through reading birth stories that vibe with that.

I had a feeling the baby would come earlier than the due date. I thought it was possibly wishful thinking, but I was ready, and the baby felt ready. I didn't want him to come too early, though, because I had a huge desire to go swimming with my mom and my big belly, before becoming 3 generations. My mom flew in, we went swimming, and the contractions began as I was drying off. I was surprised at how much it felt like constipation. At first I wasn't exactly sure. Part of me couldn't really believe it, especially because it was the day before my own birthday and I never imagined we'd share a birthday!

I went to the studio where the tub had been set up next to a mattress, and spent time experiencing waves of stomach discomfort. My mom helped for a while by rubbing my back, but soon i had to stand up because my back was feeling stiff. Walking around relieved the pressure. I thought about all the women who i was sharing this experience with, women i'd seen in videos, women in ancient tribes, my ancestors, and all the women around the world in the process of birthing at that very moment.

Maria, my midwife, told me to call her when the contractions were 4 minutes apart and lasting for one minute for an hour. Time seemed to fly by during contractions. I would tell my mom that it felt like 20 seconds, but it would turn out to be over a minute long. Every contraction, my mantra was 'yes, thank you.' I'm grateful that contractions start off small and build gradually. It gives plenty of time to integrate, and to feel that my body would do all the work and I just had to get out of the way.

Maria came. I was having rushes outside of the tub, because I had heard that if you get in before you're at 5cm, you might go back to being smaller. I was holding onto the tub, looking at the water, and really, really looking forward to getting in. After Maria checked how far I'd been dilated, at 4.5cm, i asked if i could go in and Maria said, 'of course.' Getting in the tub was followed by an immediate 'ahh~' and i was so grateful for the tub. The pressure on my back was pretty much eliminated. Later on it would return when it got more intense, but i found then that stretching my thigh muscles and butt muscles helped, and stretching was so much easier in the water than it would have been on land.

The baby's dad started composing soundscapes around 6pm. The way the yoga studio is set up is that the floors have transducers in them so you can feel the low frequency sound vibration through the floor. he was playing a lower volume than usual so that he could hear me and stay tuned in to the birth. It was good that he was playing music because not only did it keep him occupied with something important to do, but it assisted me on a level which i wasn't consciously aware of. Later when i would watch the video, I noticed that the sounds I made were in tune with the music he was playing. The lights were low and the people present (My mom, Maria, and Summer, the doula/apprentice midwife) were napping and hanging around. I found out later that they were taking detailed notes and were actually doing stuff, but at the time i was happy being in the zone and not having any interventions and distractions. I focused on meditating on and expressing gratitude, to my body, to my baby, to the earth, to the universe, to everyone who made the birth as it was possible. Although it was intense, I wasn’t experiencing the sensations as pain. I was committed to not experiencing the sensation of Pain from before the birthing process began. I remember thinking that it felt exactly as it should, and considering that my DNA contains a memory of the birthing experience from all the generations before me. I was thinking, 'even though i haven't experienced birthing in this lifetime, all of this is very familiar."

At around 6cm, i started to get the urge to push. I'm not sure why my body wanted to push if I wasn't supposed to push! I can't figure that out. It contradicts my belief that my body inherently knows what to do! Nevertheless, I trusted Maria and Summer's advice not to push, and they explained to me my cervix would get inflamed and swollen if I did. The energy would build up from my stomach and, similar to the reflex you get when you're dry heaving, where it comes from your stomach and into your head and out from your mouth, i was overcome with a slight urge to push, that built from the stomach and into my head and out from... my mouth if i breathed through it or in the form of pushing if i didn't. Summer stayed close by and would remind me, anytime it seemed like i was pushing. I found that using acu-points on my face and scalp helped release the energy as well. As it got to the intensity of being almost-there, i found that moving myself around the tub with my arms helped distract me from the urge to push as well. I toning to the point that I was losing my voice, but it really helped transmute the sensation. Sometimes I would hear myself and it would sound like a baby crying. I was doing deep grunts and high pitched squeels and lots and lots of Oming. Om, Yes, Thank you. Ohmmmm. Whenever I noticed my thoughts wanting to go negative, I would say “Babyyy~ I’m looking forward to meeting youuu!!” and I would usually find myself laughing or crying tears of joy. I began to get pretty tired at around 7cm, and in between contractions I would go into such an intense state of relaxation that I was drooling. Luckily I wasn't worried about what I looked like.

Opening up took pretty much an hour per centimeter, and at 9.5cm dilation my cervix wasn’t completely open but the baby was descending and Maria got in there to try to lift my cervix around the babe's head while i pushed and the baby tried to descend. The baby's heartrate dipped during a contraction, and so Maria said that she'd like me to leave the tub just in case she had to resuscitate him. I was slightly bummed that the baby wouldn't be born into the water, but eager to get the baby out and wrap it up, as this was all very exhausting and i was ready to rest for more than the time between contractions would allow me! leading up to the birth i processed the possibility that the birth may not proceed as planned. I didn't want to be disappointed in any way, so i had to accept that i may have to go to the hospital, i may end up having to get a c-section, i may ask for an epidural if i'm in the hospital, et cetera. So getting out of the tub and birthing the baby did not seem like such a deviation that warranted disappointment.

I pushed once on the mattress lying sideways but wasn't really into that. Maria invited me onto the birthing stool. Somebody said something along the lines of "he should be out in 20 minutes." and i thought, whaaat? 20 minutes? then i remembered how quickly time had been flying, and how i'd been in active labor for about 10 hours now, and so the initial feeling that 20 minutes was too much became excitement that 20 minutes was a breeze. So i pushed and worked on pushing, and then i more or less pooped him out! Maria kept reminding me to 'push down here' which, though it seems obvious, wasn't, since i don't practice pushng on a regular basis like I practice breathing.

The sensation of the head coming down did not feel like I thought it would. I thought it would be more vaginal, but the sensation was incredibly rectal. I also thought the shoulders and body would be easier after the head opened me up and that it would just slide out, but I had to push the body out too. After the baby came out, he was put in my hands and was a floppy, wet creature. Maria was rubbing him with a towel, stimulating him, and he cried. The crying overwhelmed me because I didn't want him to cry. I wanted the birth to be so peaceful that he would come out breathing peacefully. While I held the baby, i was told to push out the placenta. I was of the mindset that the placenta would eventually come whether i pushed or not and so I wanted to chill. I was on the stool, holding a wet, floppy crying baby, trying to adjust, but i was eventually convinced to give a few pushes to get the placenta out. Baby was left intact until later in the morning. He was born at 4:16am on my birthday, July 22nd... our birthday!

I lay in bed the rest of the day. the cord had been cut. I had been thinking i would do a “lotus birth” and leave the placenta attached until it fell off naturally, but lying there with the placenta, and the cord no longer transferring anything, lifeless, placid, white, with blood clots lining the cord, I asked the baby if it was okay to cut it. He didn’t react to my handling the cord, so I told Maria kind of sheepishly that i changed my mind about the lotus birth. She clamped it, and ceremoniously offered sephen and i the scissors to cut it. I had just birthed the baby so ceremony seemed silly, but i noticed that for stephen it felt significant.

I wasn’t able to sleep that day. I was physically tired but my mind was awake and alert. I wasn’t overcome and flooded with love like i expected, but I didn't beat myself up about it because i was tired and i was pretty certain of my ability to love the baby. I experienced strong feelings of love during the labor, but after the baby was out, i was tired. Awake, and alert, but spiritually, emotionally drained from all that work. I looked at this baby that the universe had placed into my care, and thought about how cute he was. My heart didn't melt into breastmilk like i imagined it would feel like. The sucking felt like nipple clamps were being pulled by a sadist, and i was the masochist who was enjoying it thanks to the lovely hormones of oxytocin guaranteeing the survival of the babe. But oxytocin doesn't feel like the heart-melting love that i think of when i think of love.

I'm writing this now 4 hours before he turns 5 days old, and I'm happy to say that I'm falling in love. Yesterday I separated from him for 15 minutes while I took a shower, and I missed him incredibly and couldn't wait to see him again. Later he stared transfixed at the shadows of my hands on the wall as I made shadow puppets of angels, birds, hearts, circles, and mudras. Today I saw the beginnings of a smile in the form of a series of quick grins, some of them lopsided and some of them fully delighted. His emotionally expressive dreamlife is the source of my neck pain, and my arms are sore from carrying him all the time when I could probably put him down. My body feels great, and i'm lying on my stomach, beginning to strengthen my stomach and back again, and enjoying my body's flexibility. I imitate my baby's dramatic back bends and neck curls and arm movements and find my bones and joints cracking much more than they did before. I can't wait to see my chiropractor again for the best adjustment ever. I am in total awe of my body and have never felt so good about myself, my body, and my body's abilities. I watched my body change, and now there is this helpless, basic little creature whose entire days consist of sleeping, resting, feeding, and processing body functions. And i am completely in awe of life-force that will grow this child into a laughing, smiling, thinking, running, jumping boy... and then a climbing, dancing, kayaking, swimming, diving, creative man.

I've embraced polyphasic sleeping and find myself having so much time, and awaiting for the baby to wake up so I can breastfeed him again and interact with him more than just watching his dream-expressions. He is so incredibly cute. He has the same mouth that my sister had as a baby. When his eyes are closed he looks like a little asian baby, but when he opens his eyes, he has big, dark blue eyes that retain the cat-like, almond-shaped quality of asian eyes and the size of alien eyes. Every day is going to be different, and time is going to fly even faster now. Pretty soon he'll be taller than me and he'll teach me things I didn't know. For now I'm letting him know that he's here, he's safe, and good things are coming his way.

To see more incredible photos from this birth, click here.