Processing Birth

I think I'm finally done processing Peace's birth.This sounds weird because I had an amazingly wonderful birth with Peace, yet I needed to process it. I talked about it with anybody who would listen. I talked about it a lot. I thought I had done everything I could to prepare for the birth, and it was harder than I expected. It made me feel kind of like a failure, you know? Blah. Blah. Blah.

But then, during Birth Video Night this past Sunday where I screened Peace's birth for the first time, I realized that I am finally done processing it. For good. I don't need to talk about it anymore. I can't remember how hard it was anymore. I can't remember the difficult time I had in dealing with it afterward. I can't remember anything but how lovely it was and how awesome and wonderful birth is altogether.

And as I was watching my birth video of Peace with my peeps, I realized that I made birth look kind of easy and wonderful. It wasn't like how I had lived it in my head. My friend said something like, "I was expecting something totally different by the way you described it. That was amazing."

Yeah.

I guess that's how birth is.



(This is my blog version of my birth. Despite all that I expose here, you all don't need to see me naked.)

Anyway, all this talk of processing birth got me to wondering how other women process their births. I mean, by all accounts, I did have a perfectly wonderful, natural waterbirth in the comfort of my own home. What about women who don't have an uncomplicated birth?

What about women who equate their births with being raped?

What if you had a doctor who performed vaginal exams without your permission? Or a doctor who genitally mutilated your body in the form of an episiotomy? In any other circumstance in the history of the world, these would be criteria for rape. But in a hospital? What the hell do we consider that? (And by "we", I mean everybody else, because I know what I still consider it.)

There is a loss of control, a loss of power, and a loss of a good birth experience. And that all needs to be addressed. That needs to be processed.

Unfortunately, I don't think that most women are able to talk about the events of birth like I am able to with my friends. I mean, my peeps and I get together to watch birth videos like most people watch sporting events. We clap. We cheer. We share in the experience. We process things together.

I wish every woman had that. Every woman deserves that.

My Baby's Perineum

I was looking at Baby Peace's vagina the other day, and looking at that precious area between her vagina and "that other hole", and I thought, "Oh, what can I do to make sure the maternity care system in this country is better by the time Peace is old enough to have babies of her own so she won't be subjected to any unwanted / unnecessary episiotomies." (I had just read about somebody's unwanted episiotomy, which is why I was thinking about this in the first place.)

But then the thought came to my mind that there is a maternity care system in this country that is better right now... they're called HOMEBIRTH MIDWIVES. There is probably less than a 1% chance that any daughter of mine will give birth in a hospital, so I can rest assured that my little baby's perineum will be treated with care and respect.

What About Vernon?

I was thinking some more today about the birth of Peace (she is five months old today). I really wish I would have had Vernon more involved in the birth. I want to be the type of birther who likes to be touched, caressed, talked to, and in connection with her husband during labor. But, since I knew that I wasn't, I set myself up to be alone and unwatched, like a mother cat hiding behind the couch to have her kittens.

That's what I wanted... I didn't want to have anyone (my husband, as well as any other birth attendant, which is why I chose to do it unassisted) there looking at me / talking to me / touching me. That is just the type of birther that I am.

So, during my labor with Peace, Vernon remained in the other room while I labored in our bedroom. I had him come check on me periodically (once to watch me poop to make sure it wasn't the baby, and once to watch me throw up), but that was about it. I liked my privacy. But looking back on it now, I would really like to remember the birth more as something that we did together (instead of being separated by, you know, a hallway). I want there to be memories of us holding each other during the labor, supporting one another... loving one another. I'm sad that we don't have that.

But it was a good birth, and there are plenty of good memories to be had. I loved that it was just us (and our other two kids) there for it. I loved that Vernon got to catch Peace when she was born (the first of our kids that he was in a good position to do so). I loved all the candles, the music, the space, the tub.

I don't know if it is weird or not that I am still processing the birth after all these months. I've spent a lot of time processing the birth... and it was a wonderful, completely natural, non-traumatic birth.

It makes me wonder how woman are able to process births that are any less than that.

I Finally Love My Baby!

I hope this doesn't come across as disturbing or make me seem like an uncaring mother, but I think that, after almost five months, I'm finally starting to really fall in love with my baby Peace.

It's not like I didn't LOVE her right away. Of course I did. But, and for whatever reason, there was always some sort of subtle disconnect there. Where this disconnect came from, I have no idea, because I certainly did everything in my power to prevent it: natural birth, continuous contact, the babymoon of all babymoons, co-sleeping, breastfeeding... you get the idea. But yet, there it was, some sort of small disconnect that I couldn't explain.

Maybe it was because I was infinitely distracted by the other goings-ons in my life. Seriously, I could hardly even hold two neurons together to form a thought without feeling overwhelmed (or however it is that one forms thoughts). Having a baby again was just so... hard.

Or maybe it was because I felt like I could never figure her out.

Or maybe it was because I went slightly crazy around month three and couldn't remember how to smile for awhile.

I don't know. Maybe it's none of these things.

Peace has always cried more than my other kids did. Ocean and Ezra actually set the bar pretty high in terms of NOT crying... they only cried for a total of, maybe, 2 minutes a day. All it took was a boob in their mouth to make them feel better, and all was right with the world once again. With Peace, she cried, and I would go right for the boob, but that would not work. I was a one-trick pony who needed to figure out a new trick. So I swaddled. I bounced. I did whatever else. She ended up crying for, maybe, 10-15 minutes total throughout the day. (That's not counting car rides though, because that's another story altogether.) So, she took a lot more effort, and she required me not to be lazy (which was yet another thing that I wasn't used to).

I had to get used to the fact that, hey, this baby needs to sleep during the day and I need to be the one making sure that she gets naps instead of traipsing about to wherever it is that I need to go. I had to get used to the fact that she didn't like to be in the car, especially at night, and that I would have to forgo any nighttime excursions for while. I had to get used to a lot of things again... a lot of the normal, taking-care-of-a-baby type things that my brain had forgotten about in the 3-1/2 plus years since I had Ezra.

And I did.

So, now it's kind of hard for me to even remember those feelings because, for the past week or two, I have felt so utterly and completely IN LOVE with her... it's wonderful. When she nurses, she holds her head perfectly still and scans my face with her eyes, back and forth, back and forth, like she's looking for something in me that she's never seen before. When I take her to bed with me, I snuggle her in the crook of my arm and hold her like a teddy bear, with my chin on top of her head. And, oh, the way I am able to lift her, and hold her, and carry her... it is an effortless flow now, and it is like she is an extension of myself. I love it.

Time is standing still now, whereas, before, it was just passing me by. I feel slightly guilty for the fact that the past five months went by in such a blur. I wish I could remember them more. I wish I had taken more pictures. I wish I had been less neurotic. I wish I had savored the moments more. I miss them already.

Losing Myself

Every time after I have a kid, I lose a little bit of myself. I wonder who I am and who it is that I'm supposed to become.

After having baby Peace five months ago, I felt like I was smacked in the face with a loss of freedom / loss of self. I have had TWO KIDS BEFORE, so I really should have remembered this. Yet, somehow, in the infinite span of time that was fours years since my last was born, I had forgotten all about that part of the equation.

See, having a baby makes me a different person than who I was before. It's confusing, especially in the beginning, and I'm often left wondering where my life as a mother ends and my life as a person begins. But, it's also good, because, after a year or so, I begin to figure things out and I become a version of myself that's probably slightly better than who I was before. After having Ocean, I went on to become a conscientious parent and a photographer. After having Ezra, I went on to become a childbirth educator and health nut. Who am I going to be this time? A blogger? (That does seems incredibly more lame than any of the things that I've been before, but I kind of like it.)

So, that leaves me with where I am now... starting this blog. (Granted, I've started a blog before, but I never really updated it regularly.) I'm going to do this, hopefully daily, in an effort to connect with myself because I don't want to lose sight of who I am again.

Wish me luck.

The Birth Story of Peace

It all started around 10:30 am on Thursday, July 16, 2009. I wet my underpants, just a wee little bit. Looking back on it now (and the fact that my water burst out of me only about 5 minutes before the baby was born), I’m pretty sure it was just urine leaking. But, at the time, I thought, “Hmmm… I wonder if something is happening here.” This was five days before I would be at 40 weeks, so it seemed a little early, but still, I wondered.

Hours past, then I started experiencing some mild, mild surges. I wasn’t sure if they were just more Braxton-Hicks or the start of something more. Vern left at 1:45 pm to go screen from some chiropractor at an event over an hour’s drive away.

From around 2:30 pm, they seemed to get stronger and more regular. They were really short little things though (no more than 20-30 seconds, which is how it starts with all my labors), but they did seem to be coming closer together.

I was planning on making sloppy joes for supper since we had a bunch of torn up bread in the fridge (courtesy of my son) and I wanted some way to use that up. But then I started thinking that if I was indeed in labor, I didn’t want to be smelling that in the house later and I especially didn’t want to be throwing that up later as well.

So I took the kids to the local co-op and we bought some packaged cereal for supper. The two mile drive to the co-op was uncomfortable, as was the walk through the co-op because by this time I needed to somewhat stop and concentrate on each of the mini-surges.

After we ate, I elected to call Vernon and tell him to come home so he could help get the kids to bed. But by the time he got home, everything had pretty much stopped and I felt bad for dragging him away from his thing early (although he was perfectly fine with it).

So, then, Vernon got the kids to bed while I tinkered around on the internet. I went to www.contractionmaster.com (a site that times contractions for you) and entered in a couple of my pittering little things and they were around 15 seconds long now and 15 minutes apart.

After Vern got the kids to sleep, we downloaded the movie BRUNO off the internet. It was a very weird, raunchy movie, and it is unfortunate that it has gone on to become a footnote in the history of what we did on the night that our third child was born. I should just cross this part out and say we were watching CITIZEN KANE instead. Yes, that’s it. We were watching CITIZEN KANE.

By the end of the movie (10:30 pm), nothing much had been happening for well over four hours. I was having some very mucous-y vaginal discharge and some of it was tinged the very faintest shade of pink.
We went to bed, but then I never fell asleep and was up around 11:30 pm and started timing some fairly regular surges once again – averaging around 30 seconds long and 10 minutes apart.

Tried to go to sleep again at 12:15 am, but got up at 1:15 am and started timing some more surges (apparently I get a real hard-on from the act of timing surges). They were now between 30-40 seconds long and about 7 minutes apart. Vern stayed in bed, fast asleep and I started filling up the birth tub at around 1:30 am. At this point, I was hungry, so I ate some more cereal. I figured I must not have been too far along if I still wanted to eat, but I wanted to start filling the tub up anyway because I thought that it might take a long time to fill. I also made some Shepard’s Purse tea to have on hand for after the birth.

At 2:00 am, I woke Vernon up so we could start setting up our birth place. By this time, surges were coming 2-3 minutes apart and lasting for 20-30 seconds. We lit candles, keyed up our birth song on repeat (Look At Me, a surprisingly soft and meaningful hidden track off of Sum 41’s 2007 album Underclass Hero), lit incense, blessed the room with a sage stick… and continued filling the tub.

At one point, I kind of felt like I needed to poop. A voice in the back of my head was saying, “If it feels like you have to poop, it is probably your baby.” (Because having a baby feels like having to poop.) So, I had Vern come to the bathroom with me and check to make sure that it was actually poop because I didn’t want to accidentally poop my baby into the toilet. I didn’t really think I felt that far along yet, but then I thought of all those women who have given birth on their toilets because of just such an occasion, and I hoped, “Oh, maybe this will be just that easy.” (Not the case).

Vernon watches for a moment and says, “Hmm… so that’s what poop looks like when it’s coming out. That’s weird.”

Ah, yes, the intimacies of birth. It gets better every time.

So, anyway, it turns out that sometimes when it feels like poop, it really is just poop.

At 2:30 am, I stopped timing contractions and got in the tub. I wanted to labor by myself, so Vernon took a baby monitor into the other room so he could hear me if I needed anything. I went back and forth from being in the tub to being out of the tub because I was doing surprisingly well at managing the surges in both locations (plus, I would get too hot from being in the tub after awhile anyway, and would feel like getting out).

At around 3:30 am, things got tough. I was not enjoying myself so much anymore. It was at this point that I abandoned the idea of wearing my hair down and looking like a beautiful birth goddess and instead said, “Screw it,” and tied it back in a ponytail.

At 4:40 am, I threw up. I’m glad it wasn’t sloppy joes. I called Vernon into the room, not so much so he could do anything, but just so he could stand witness to the fact that I was throwing up. After I was done, I said, “You can go now.”

After that, it got really, really tough. I remember sitting there in the midst of an excruciating contraction thinking about how I’m never going to do this again. Three kids are enough. And I started thinking about all the births I have witnessed (in person as a birth photographer, or at Birth Video Nights with friends) and every single one of the women seem to handle birth with more grace and dignity that I will ever have. This is a shame because birth is something that I want to be good at more than anything. It’s weird that I’m such a natural childbirth nut when natural childbirth has kicked my butt time and time again.

This birth was not turning out to be the beautiful, spiritual experience that I had envisioned, and that I tried so hard to achieve (with affirmations, good nutrition, visualizations, relaxation, exercise, meditation). I really thought that it was going to be different this time around. But I never reached that ethereal state of labor existence that I so desired – that oneness with the universe, creation and the miracle of life. Instead, I was stuck in the harsh reality of normal existence, which happened to be very, very sucky at the moment.

I was anxious to see if the baby was anywhere close to being out yet, so I did something I never thought I would do in a million years: I stuck my fingers in my vagina to feel for a head. Anyone who knows me really well knows that I get the heebie-jeebies at the idea of having anything put inside my vagina (like tampons, gloved hands… and anything featured in the movie BRUNO). The only thing I do like put into my vagina, is, well, how I got in this position in the first place.

But desperate times called for desperate measures. There was no head and it turns out that the inside of me feels soft, weird, and kind of like what I’d imagine the inside of a pink octopus to feel like.
My legs were starting to get tired so I just kind of writhed around in the tub holding onto the edge and kicking my legs out behind me.

Then, I had the hugest contraction in the history of the world and I called for Vernon. Again, there was nothing I wanted him to do except lie witness to the fact that this contraction was indeed going to tear my body in two, and I thought he should be here to see it. Then, I started calling out to my mommy, to God, and to the souls of all women everywhere… to help me.

The plan had originally been to wake our kids up when the baby was about to be born and to turn the video camera on. But as Vern was standing there, I said, “DO NOT MOVE. DO NOT GO GET THE KIDS. DO NOT TURN ON THE CAMERA. JUST STAY WHERE YOU ARE.” I no longer wanted the kids to be there or to have it recorded because I didn’t want anyone else to see me in this agony. Only Vernon.

But it turned out that my gigantic roar through that previous monster contraction woke the kids up anyway. So they came into the room literally within seconds after I told Vern not to go get them. They settled on the bed to watch, just as we had talked about earlier. It was at this point that I finally started to get pushy. I quickly abandoned my plans to “breathe the baby down” because I just wanted to get it out of me. I felt like there was nothing else I could do to handle this internal force that was pummeling through me like an 80 ton truck then to go right along and push with it.

One push, and my aforementioned bags of waters gushed out with a burst. At first I thought (and hoped) that it was the baby flying out of me, but I quickly realized that I still had more work to do. Another push, and it felt like she slid right down my tailbone and rammed her head hard into my bottom. It felt like she was right on top of my butthole and I was thinking, “Find the right hole, baby! Find the right hole!”

I am squatting while leaning back on my hands. It feels like I’m playing a weird game of water Twister or something. I’m not in a position to catch my baby, so I tell Vern that he is going to have to do it (which is something he undoubtedly figured out on his own anyway, given how I was positioned).
Next contraction and the head is out. I feel it and tell Vernon to get ready. My eyes are closed throughout all this, and apparently Vern quickly switches the video camera on and then comes back and cups his hands around the baby’s head. He also had a flashlight, which I didn’t realize, which he gave to our daughter to hold.

One more contractions and the baby is out. Vernon swoops her into my arms, easily and effortlessly, like he has done this a million times before (which he hasn’t… this is the first of our babies that he has caught).

It is 5:22 am on Friday, July 17, 2009.

My first thought upon giving birth to this wonderful new human being is not, “Oh, you’re so beautiful.” It’s not, “Welcome to the world, baby.” No, none of that crap. Instead, my very first thought is, “I am so freaking glad that is over.”

After watching the video footage of it later (actually, I should call it the “audio” footage, given the fact that the lighting in our birth space was so low, that the camera didn’t pick up anything except random spots where the flashlight hit), I must have recovered pretty quickly because I was soon proclaiming all sorts of niceties: “I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.” “Look at this beautiful baby, you guys. Look at this beautiful baby.” And “We did it.”

Apparently I’ve forgotten everything I’ve known about how to hold a baby, because she was all slippery and wiggly and baby-like and hard to hold onto and stuff. I would try to keep her somewhat under the water so she didn’t get cold, but then I’d forget what I was doing and would bring her up, and then I’d remember, and put her body back under again.

I was saying to Vernon afterward about how I thought she looked like my dad. “You say that about all our kids. They don’t,” he says.

“Maybe it’s the fact he has such a round, baby-like head for a grown man that confuses me.”

We eventually get out of the tub and call our mini-support team. The second best thing I did with this birth (the first being giving birth at home with only my immediate family around me)… the second best thing I did was to have two of my friends come over afterward. My chiropractor friend Carrie was there to give my baby her first adjustment. And my vagina/placenta friend Sarah was there to look at my vagina and placenta.

When they first got here it was about 6:30 am and the placenta still hadn’t come out yet, so we all kind of sat around twiddling our thumbs waiting for it. Finally, after another hour (which was now a full 2 hours after the birth), it made its arrival.

Then, Sarah checked my va-jay-jay for tears. She said she would need a flashlight and a mirror. And I’m thinking, “Please don’t make me look at my vagina. Please don’t make me look at my vagina.” And meanwhile, Carrie is standing back there too, looking at my vagina, and she’s shaking her head, like, “Nah, you don’t want to see this.” So I said, “I think we can probably skip the mirror, Sarah.”

I end up having another freaking second-degree tear and lots of swelling.

After that, baby and I get adjusted, the placenta is checked, and they are on their way. I can’t even begin to describe how important it was to have them there afterward. It was so nice to have them there to ask how I was doing, to reassure me that the amount of blood that I lost was completely normal (and maybe even less than average), to clean me up afterwards, to wipe the blood off my legs, etc. Everybody needs their own personal vagina girl and chiropractor around for after their births, if you ask me.

A couple hours after the birth, Vern was standing around looking at the mess, and he says, “So this is what people have midwives for.”

The afterbirth contractions have been horrendous. For the most part, during labor, I was only having those 20-40 second contractions, but these afterbirth ones went on for, like, 4-5 minutes while she was nursing. Not wanting to succumb to the likes of ibuprofen, I had bought some crampbark for tea ahead of time. That was a lifesaver. It really succeeded in taking the edge off.

I was talking to Vern about the birth afterward, commenting on how hard it was and how I didn’t know if I would ever want to put myself through that again. He says, “I didn’t think it was that bad. I think you did amazing.” Which is a really nice thing for him to say and everything, but I’m thinking, “Man, he just doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand how hard it was.” And how can he?

And so, maybe all these other women who I’ve seen giving birth, maybe I’m not able to fully understand the depths that they’ve gone through as well.

Maybe childbirth is not supposed to be everything we expect it to be. Maybe we all have the kind of birth that we need. Maybe we need the struggle, the intensity… and the freedom to handle that in any way we can (whether it be quietly and in control like a lot of the births I’ve seen, or begging for mercy from all the gods in the universe, like I was). There is something to be said for each and every woman’s journey into the depths of her soul that somehow succeeds in making her a better and stronger mother because of it.

And maybe that’s the point of it all.