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Sacred This Time, Too

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Welcome to the June 2012 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Embracing Your Birth Experience

This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama. This month our participants have written about at least one part of their birth experience that they can hold up and cherish.

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June 6, 2009.  My doctor had estimated that my baby girl would have been born four days earlier.  My sister, Krystle’s high-school graduation was that morning and she was graduating from a prestigious private school which she’d attended for the last 7 years.  I’d wanted to go.  Instead I was on the phone with the hospital describing my contractions (which I knew were Braxton-Hicks but wanted to be sure) and preparing to go in.  My eldest daughter Ryleigh, who was 5 at the time, had gone with my family to the graduation.  Just as well.  I was in no mood to talk about how Dora The Explorer probably takes her grilled cheese.  I would go into labor the following day and welcome Logan after only 7 hours, ‘only’ for me because I was in labor with Ry for 26 hours.

I was 19 when I’d had Ryleigh (18 when I conceived) and very unprepared for the process of birth.  I didn’t even know to consider birth a process.  With Logan I knew.  I’d been a mother for five years now and in that time I’d also been growing up, myself.  I’d started to consider that there were options to the mainstream notions I’d been following since birthing Ry.  I’d begun to seek alternatives for what I was doing as a mother that just didn’t feel right to me, at least for my family.  I knew before I had Logan that I wanted a drug-free, natural, home birth – in the water would be super nice.  I envisioned myself with my midwife and my husband, my braids falling down my back, sweat in my eyes, breathing calmly, the top of my copper-brown belly breaking the clear water.  I’d been watching lots of home births and water births and they all just looked so intimate and utterly…sacred.  I wanted that.

I also knew that unfortunately, I was not going to get that this time around.  Logan’s father would not even be present at her birth.  That hurt, a lot.  The days leading up to her birthday I resolved to perk myself up and to not think of the ‘if only’.  I wanted to focus on what was real and prepare myself to welcome this child, who would have no idea of what had been happening before her arrival, and who deserved all of the fanfare and celebration I could muster after my hard work.

I labored at home for a long time, much longer than I’d done with Ry.  Here is where I began to get excited, and to realize that this birth and this baby (and my first birth and baby) were extraordinary.  I wasn’t the same petrified girl I’d been almost 6 years before.  I’d been educating myself.  I understood what was happening to my body.  I was prepared to ask, “Why?” about anything my doctor suggested that I didn’t understand or that made me uncomfortable.  And, most importantly to me – I had a plan for the type of mother I’d be when she was born.  The first item on my list: I was going to exclusively breastfeed this baby until the end of eternity.  Okay not the end of eternity but at least for six months.  I’d weaned Ryleigh very early after about a month of trying, and as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, it devastated me.

I appreciated now that the pain I was feeling, which I knew would only heighten as the minutes passed, wasn’t my enemy.  I closed my eyes and rocked back and forth on my knees, imagining Logan in my mind, wondering if she was in pain, seeing her little face grimace with each contraction.  I walked around my neighborhood.  I lay on my side in fetal position, and then stretched.  I bent over the counter and breathed.  I think maybe deep down I was trying to birth at home in my little city apartment across the street from the train yard.  My mother was in the back room moaning because she claimed she could feel my labor pains.  I’d told her she better not dare come out.  One of my younger sisters was there as well.  Ry, who had promised throughout my pregnancy to be my labor coach, had burst into tears at my first big contraction and declared, “I wanna go downstairs (to my neighbor’s house to be fed and coddled by old, Southern, black women who were frying chicken at the time)!”  Just as well.  I had no time to hear her ask again if I thought I’d die during labor.

Finally I was at the hospital.  I could feel that my Logan was coming soon.  The midwife I’d been seeing at my Health Plan wasn’t present for my birth, instead there was an MD whom I’d grown to really like.  He was very quiet and personable, smiled a lot, and sort of looked like Anderson Cooper.  The nurse was excellent as well.  My mom sat to my left, holding her stomach and trying to breathe through her sympathy contractions.  My sister Isha, who was 15 at the time, stood by my side.  My youngest sister Jewell and Ryleigh were in the hospital waiting room.  This was my birth party, at least for now.  As I sat up against the hospital bed, breathing slowly and methodically (something I was so proud of myself for because I’d given the docs a really hard time with my crazy breathing with Ry), I thought to myself, “Hey, you are really doing this.  You are so calm.  I know, this isn’t the way you want to be birthing, but it’s the way you are right now.  I’m really proud of you.”

I was proud of myself.  I was calm.  I was in control.  I don’t know why but even though I was given an epidural with Ryleigh I could feel much more of what was happening with Logan.  I stated to Dr. Ross that I needed to push and he repeatedly said, “No, you don’t.”  That was pissing me off.  Finally I said, “Dr. Ross I seriously need to push, now!”  He assumed position and asked me to breathe and give him a big push.  First one and her head started to emerge.  “You really did need to push, huh?”  He asked.  Ha-ha-freakin-ha, I thought.  I pushed two more times and Logan was born.  Screaming at the top of her lungs; demanding to know who’d expelled her from her warm, wet sanctuary; eight pounds, three ounces of caramel-colored chub.  Carnation-pink lips, a mass of shiny black curls atop her head, and staring at me like I was all she needed to know.  This is the voice, her eyes said.

My sister Isha cut the umbilical cord because I didn’t know about delayed cord clamping at the time.  She was very proud and I was happy to have her do it.  Dr. Ross showed us the placenta, how it had functioned for Logan, and said it looked great.  They cleaned her off and gave her back and I did what I’d been waiting so long to do: I put my baby to my full breasts.  She had a perfect latch.  She closed her nickel-sized eyes and moved her gigantic cheeks softly, in rhythm.  I heard the faint, “Gmm, gmm” of her sucking and a tear fell from my cheek.  This wasn’t my ideal birth but I’d still received the finest outcome.  I was holding a new human being in my hand.  I was a mother for the second time.  I was going to get a chance to change all of the things I’d wanted to improve on with Ryleigh.  I’d given Ryleigh a sister.  I’d given my mother another grandchild.

When I remarry and have more children, there are numerous things I will do completely differently than I’ve done with my first two children.  Having a home birth is certainly the first change I’ll make.  But when I reflect on Logan’s birth I am not disappointed.  Maybe it’s because I was educated about what I wanted but knew that I just couldn’t do it at the time…but that I will someday.  And as I think back on the way I felt and the way I continue to feel, I know I didn’t miss out on anything.  Logan will be three years old in two days and we are still breastfeeding.  She never had formula or cereal.  She’s a worn baby.  I cloth-diapered her.  I’ve changed a lot about the way I parent and I will continue to share what I know with my children I am currently mothering; and learn as much as I can before the next ones are here.  I’m happy with my birth experiences, they are part of the reason I realized I needed to learn.  My home births will be astonishing and breathtaking and everything I want them to be, but I look at my children, at my Logan, and I know that it was sacred this time, too.

How was your birth special for you?  Please share in the comments!

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Carnival of Natural Parenting -- Hobo Mama and Code Name: MamaVisit Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting!

Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:

(This list will be live and updated by afternoon June 12 with all the carnival links.)



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