Out of My Depth

Out of My Depth...

Zip Lining... not so much. I soared and loved the exhilaration in Costa Rica.

Rock Climbing at The Painted Turtle... not out of my depth either, except to feel strongly my honey's  stomach clenching,  while I was up there and he was imagining trying to catch me in middle space. Terribly ungrounded with worry.

Fifty feet up on the climbing structure at Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times, again... only out of his depth, not mine. I trust belay persons.

Home Birth... yes, a little out of my depth, but only because of circumstances beyond my control...

When he caught our first born, it was after a gigantic push on my part which sent her half way along the massage table which had been set up in our bedroom by the representative of the doctor we'd hired to attend our home birth. Immediately after the gal cut the cord, Mark sat on the edge of the bed cradling this miracle. He looked so pale. I thought he would faint until he placed the perfection of our union in my arms and we both sobbed with joy, elation, and adrenaline.

While it was out of his depth, he was so supportive of me when I chose home birth as opposed to hospital birth for myself. It was an act of cowardice on my part. Deathly afraid of hospitals! My honey and my mother were so kind and considerate to huddle together in corners - not letting me overhear their worries, concerns, and fears about their lunatic wife and daughter for choosing to be out of the confines of a hospital. They needed support. Each supported the other to be supportive of me. They didn't bombard me with their nightmare scenarios. Lucky me!

OK, so the doctor never did show up. She was on a binge; alcoholic just like my Dad. 

OK, so the "midwife" was not trained except for assisting Dr. Schoeber a few times. 

OK, she cut the cord before it completed pulsing and our daughter had to take her first breath under duress. There was a typo on my husband's Red Cross Blood Donor Card which said he was  B Positive which could have complicated things in subsequent pregnancies because the RH factor of my blood was O Negative. 

OK, so no one ever said, "STOP PUSHING," so I gave it my all and shot the baby out all at once, sending her flying (almost) and giving myself a fourth degree tear. We had to go forty miles to be stitched up by Dr. Abdul in Glendora. We'd stopped at Dr. Schoeber's office in Pasadena only to find out she was still too inebriated to be of help.

What being out of my depth did for me was put me on my spiritual path.

As much as I'd planned, researched, plotted and choreographed, the Universe had other ideas for this birth to teach me some Life Lessons: 

     1.  I cannot be in control of what happens to me in life

     2.  I can be in charge of my responses to what happens

     3.  I'd better clean up my issues about being raised in an alcoholic household and     the abuse endured therein.

I wouldn't trade any of what happened, except for the Xray Dr. Schoeber insisted I be subjected to or she wouldn't come to our home birth. Well, she didn't come anyway. True, our birth happened three weeks earlier than the "due date." Still, our daughter was born healthy, seven pounds, four ounces, twenty-one inches long/tall, and I regret having subjected my pre-born babe to those rays at such a tender age. Perhaps that's part of her out-of-depth experience to ponder? 

This birth recollection piece is a replica of other pieces written, but newly done today, this eighteenth day of March, 2019, when Mosa is forty-two years and five months old! October 18, 1976 was a very good day to be born at 8:01 in the morning. We had friends Michael Albertson and his then wife Cathy there, and Jill Gordon our dear neighbor. Her partner Michael McGinnis came into the birthing room in our home JUST as the placenta was skooshing out into a plastic bowl the "midwife" slipped under me. A bloody mess! After reviving Michael, we froze the placenta , and buried it under a fig tree in the back yard when we were up to planting it a month or so after the birth. 

One eerie part of Mosa's birth date was that she was due November 7. I'd had an illegal abortion in 1967 on October 19, just after my 19th birthday October 6, nine years earlier. Perhaps the previous occupant had posted a warning note: 

Beware the 19th of October. Evictions happen. 

And Mosa, having read the sign, determined she'd arrive a day before what would have been an unpleasant surprise, just three weeks before her "due date." She was fully cooked except for an immature digestive system. We three were so lucky, the way it all turned out and now, I'm about as healed as I'll ever be from those traumatic imprints of my early life.