Our first born daughter came three weeks early.
I was determined to have a solar clothes dryer. I had visions of tee-nine-see-wee baby clothes blowing in the breeze and smelling oh, so sweet. My Grandmother never had a dryer. My mom bought one when I was about ten and I mourned the loss of that comforting line-dried laundry smell. I found a wonderful Sunshine Retractable Clothesline to attach up under the eaves of the roof overhanging the patio of our new home. We’d moved in a week before and already put the business end of the clothes line in place. It needed a support pole to hook onto out in the terraced garden. I went to the hardware store and bought a sixty pound bag of concrete, some sand and the steel pole.
At the hardware store, a very nice gentleman put the bags of concrete and sand in the car for me. Funny how when men see a pregnant woman coming they either give her wide berth (perhaps superstitious behavior in case ‘being with child’ is contagious), or move in close to assist her in any way they can. Every woman who sees you wants to share her birth story nightmare. It’s as if you’ve got a sandwich board sign that reads: “Tell me about your Great Aunt Agatha’s triple hemorrhage, please.” You DO NOT have to listen to the story gore! You DO have the right to say, “Thanks for wanting to share. It makes me feel nervous to hear that right now.” I was a slow learner and listened to a few too many gory stories before I got the hang of changing the subject. “How ‘bout those Dodgers, eh?”
Once home with the concrete, I was eager to start on the clothesline project right away. My husband wasn’t due home from work this Friday afternoon for another four hours. The October sun was slanting and daylight leaving the sky earlier every day. So, I carried the sixty pound bag from the Volkswagen bus in the driveway around the side of the house to the back yard. Ditto the twenty pound bag of sand. No problem. I found the right place in the garden and dug a hole for the pole. No problem. I screwed the clothesline receiving hook onto the pole. No problem. In lifting the bag of cement to pour it into the wheel barrow to mix with sand and water I had a problem. The bag slipped and I made a grab to catch it. I caught it. No problem… but, I just want to acknowledge, I was an idiot and that I nearly fell down the steps leading to the terrace and probably should have waited for my honey to help. I really wanted to complete this project right NOW! I had baby clothes to wash. Nesting instinct is real and it comes with a lot of adrenaline! Thankfully, I didn’t hurt myself, but gave myself a good scare.
Two days later, during a surprise baby-shower in North Hollywood Park, my shape really changed. The baby dropped so low I suddenly had room to breathe at the top end of my belly which felt wonderful and made more room for yummy cake… but I had to pee every five minutes. Trade-offs. When you’re sharing space with another in such close quarters you’re grateful for every half-inch you can get.
Monday after the baby shower we had a doctor’s appointment out in Pasadena. On examining me, Dr. Schoeber said, “My, my, my! You’re nearly fully effaced and four centimeters dilated already. You have what we call ‘silent labor’ and could go into ‘real’ labor at any time.”
Thursday night we went to our birth education class and told our teacher what Dr. Schoeber had said and that we might not make it to the last class so was there anything we should know if the baby did come early? Ms. Campbell’s drama background came to the fore and she said, “You get down on your bended knees and thank the Lord your baby came so swiftly!”
“Yes, but is there anything else we should… know…?”
Nothing. She told us nothing.
When labor started at midnight on October 17 I chanted a little mantra to compensate for any missing info. “I have faith in my body, I have faith in my body, I have faith in my body.”
We very nearly came to call the baby “Faith.”
Perhaps the clothesline project hastened my labor. Perhaps our first born saw a post-it note left in the womb-space by a former tenant. October 19, 1967, when I was nineteen, I enlisted the help of a compassionate MD in terminating an unplanned pregnancy. Perhaps the post-it note read: “Beware the nineteenth of October; Evictions happen.” I’ve been curious about this coincidental timing ever since.
Having faith in my body served me well, but I wish that the homebirth movement, in the mid-seventies, had had more providers from which to choose. We felt tremendously buoyed by the support of friends and utterly let down by the paid professionals who were supposed to be attending us during this pivotal time.
First Birth: Part Three
By day three after the birth, I am sorely depressed and feeling the full brunt of how many little things beyond our control went kaflooey. I am ruminating and driving myself crazy.
1. Our baby came three weeks early, before we could finish our birth education course and we missed key information about panting, not pushing during crowning.
2. The doctor was drunk and didn’t show up.
3. Because our friend Michael is a doctor, and Lynn was Dr. Schoeber’s assistant but not a trained midwife, she got spooked and they were playing, “After you.” “No! After YOU,” and no one was taking charge of the birth and guarding the perineum. No one said, “Don’t push!” I ended up with a fourth degree tear and had to be driven forty miles to get stitched up.
4. Because of a clerical error Lynn cut the cord immediately so our baby was forced to take her first breath on Lynn’s schedule, rather than waiting until the cord stopped pulsing and taking her first breath when her body was ready. It turns out there was a typo on Mark’s blood donor card listing his blood type as Rh Positive. I’m Rh Negative. If an Rh negative mother has a partner who is Rh positive, in order to prevent complications in future pregnancies, cutting the cord immediately mitigates any back-flow of baby’s positive blood to the mother’s circulatory system which would trigger mom’s immune system to attack and slough off any future Rh positive baby. We are actually all three Rh negative. There was no need to cut the cord prematurely.
So… this third afternoon after the birth, Mark collects the mail and goes into the living room to read it. He falls asleep on the couch so doesn’t hear me when I call him softly. I don’t want to wake the baby who is lying in the bed next to me. We have taken one side off of a crib Jill loaned us and bungee corded the crib securely to our double bed – like a little annex.
I’m so blue. I want Mark with me. I’m feeling like an abject failure at this mothering thing and I feel so sorry for my sweet baby girl child. I wish she could have had a “perfect” mother, a “perfect” entrance into the world and a “perfect” beginning. I don’t know exactly what “perfect” means, but I know it’s something far different from this list of failed wishes. I thought I’d nailed down all the moving parts. I thought we’d thought of everything. I was wrong. I feel awful. I’ve got Classic Post-Partum Blues!
I tell Fairfax the dog to “go get Markie.” He looks at me from the foot of the bed where he’s lying. He gets up, shakes his wiry beige fur and a cloud of dust into the air. He stretches and keeps looking at me. “Go get Markie,” I say again and motion with my hand. He goes to the edge of the bed and looks back at me. “Yes! That’s it… Go get Markie,” I whisper. He jumps down, stretches again and yawns. “Fairfax, go get Markie.” He trip-trip-traps his nails down the hall and disappears. A few minutes later he comes back with Mark right behind him. This terrific terrier has earned T-Bone steak for dinner.
Mark does cheer me up - reminding me of the absolute miracle of this new life we three have together. Our dinner is one of the casseroles brought by neighbors who heard about this crazy couple having a home birth. They wanted to welcome and support us in some way. We only moved into this house less than three weeks ago. The whole neighborhood seems to know a baby was born here on Benedict Canyon Drive in Sherman Oaks. Perhaps the ol’ guy the next street over with the same house number as ours told his neighbors who told their neighbors about Lynn banging on his door October 18 before five a.m. insisting there was a baby being born there. How else could the whole neighborhood find out and want to be part of this historic (for this day and age) event?
Crying helps me to shed the blues of this first week. I also laugh a lot. Just watching this amazing tiny being master her surroundings is a terrific high. She’s a champion nurse-er and a champion pee-er and poo-er. She’s got a set of lungs on her too. And she’s got us wrapped around her little finger. We are SO in love with her and with one another.
Conclusion
What I learned from this birth is that I cannot be in control of the world. There are way too many things beyond my control. I can only be in charge of my response to whatever life brings. Of course, I can educate myself; make the plan that best matches my sensibilities, knowledge and resources. But I cannot control life’s flow. Life is what it is: Unpredictable.
Our first daughter’s birth turned out to be the perfect impetus to help me heal events from my childhood which were buried so deep as to be completely forgotten. This birth was a watershed moment that spurred me to seek my path. Why am I here? What is my job? How can I turn disappointment into opportunity? Dross into gold? How does healing happen? How can I derive meaning from events and share experience and wisdom with others so they need not reinvent the wheel?
Hopefully, this blog is, in part, an answer to some of my questions.
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice-
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
---Jelaluddin Rumi
Translated by Coleman Barks
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