Holding a small info stall is a wonderful grass-roots way to promote the concept of birth choices to the wider community and to inform them of the unfair nature of this proposed legislation.
As we know, petitions and emails hold little weight in the lobby movement. Posted letters addressed to politicians hold far more weight and if they pile up, demand that the person sit up and take notice.
Setting up your stall is easy:
*Choose a location that is public, but where you are unlikely to get hassled by council etc. Some good places are small arcades where there is no apparent 'management', outside shops that are vacant, on street corners where you're on a wall not opening onto a shop, etc.
Have a table with the following:
* Printed letters to your MP or the Health Minister
* The 'Dear fellow citizen' letter, which explains the issue simply and more succinctly than the letter to the MP
* Some pens
* Pre-paid envelopes. This is a clincher. You explain that you'll be paying the postage if they sign there and then. You can get packs of 50 prepaid envelopes for $30.
* Make a collage of birth pictures to stick on the wall (hopefully I will be able to email you the files once I have permission from everyone who donated)
* Include signs that say things like:
Protect Birth Choices for all Women
Sign a letter to our MP here
No $$ needed, just your signature!
Midwife = With Woman
Save Private Midwifery
Script and Tips
* We found quickly that just sitting there doesn't get you any signatures. You need to engage with people as they pass.
* We also discovered saying 'save homebirth' or mentioning homebirth in the first instance did not work well at all, even with all the pics in the collage on the wall. See the script for a fail-safe way to get people to stop.
* Keep it brief and use neutral language as much as possible
* Smile and be positive. Fake it till you make it!
* Impress upon people that it's signatures you want, you aren't asking for money.
* Make sure people print their name and address at the top of the MP letter
* Print up JB flyers and have them on the table in case you get interested parties!
Here is the script:
'Hi there! We need signatures to help protect birth choices for all women. (They will usually slow a down a bit here, if they do, you're in!) I can explain it to you in thirty seconds, is that OK?
Next year the Govt is introducing legislation which means all chiros, osteos, midwives, dentists etc need insurance to work. That's fine yeah, except private mws can't get this insurance, because there is such a small pool of mws that the insurance companies don't think it's worth it. This means that those midwives will be out of a job, and women won't be able to have a homebirth with trained careproviders, or even take an IM into hospital...(indicate pic of me in hospy with my IM) she'll be redundant (OK, this is a bit of a twist, but she will be useless, even though she already can't do anything in a hospy setting...a bit of *spin* darlink!).
(If they look immediately shocked or horrified you can add)If a midwife attends a birth, she could be fined or jailed.
We think that even if you wouldn't choose homebirth for yourself/your family that all women should have the right to choose where and how they birth. It's a matter of choice. So today we are asking people to sign these letters to the MP. All you have to do is sign here, print your name and address at the top and we'll pay the postage for you.
(They should be reaching for the pen by now..Indicate dear citizen letter) This letter explains briefly what you are signing in the longer letter to the MP, if you want to have a read (most won't they will just sign)
***********************************************
That's it! If you can get this spiel down, and stick to it fairly closely, I promise it works a treat. I honed this through trial and error, and the majority of people, if they stopped, then signed.
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Letter to MP:
Dear Michael,
I am writing to you to express my utter dismay and disappointment at the recent actions of Health Minister Nicola Roxon. As you know, Ms. Roxon recently presented draft legislation relating to the registration of health professionals in Australia, which will come into effect from July 2010. As part of this legislation, independent midwives will lose their registration and their right to work with women outside hospital settings, which will make homebirth illegal. On top of this, families who attempt to homebirth with a midwife can be fined $30,000 and the midwife could be jailed.1
I'm quite clear on the fact this issue relates to indemnity insurance, and the fact that, for all other practitioners this legislation affects (chiropractic, dental, optometry, etc), insurance is easy to aquire. The fact that independent midwives do not have access to professional indemnity insurance, despite the OVERWHELMING body of research that clearly shows the safety of homebirth and the benefits of one-to-one midwifery care, highlights the fact that both the insurance companies, and the Labour Government are ill-informed about modern midwifery, and completely disinterested in the fact that a whole group of professionals are going to be jobless, or forced back into the hospital system many spent years hoping to escape from.
This issue is about the right to choose how and where to birth, which is vital to the wellbeing of mothers and babies in this country. In recent weeks much of the rhetoric has centered around the fact homebirthing women are a small minority, therefore it's not an important issue. This is a discriminatory and worrying line of thinking for two reasons: first, there should be no basis to discriminate against a group purely because they are in a minority; second, if a woman is not free to choose how and where she births, she's living in a country that contravenes the UN charter on the right to reproductive and sexual health.
Women who desire an elective cesarean section are able to make this decision, women who wish to have particular pain relief are thankfully able to access this, but yet women who choose to birth with trained and expert caregivers in their own homes are going to be forced into hospitals, or to birth without any trained professionals to assist them.
This is despite the overwhelming evidence that points to the safety of homebirth. A recent Dutch study involving over 500,000 women showed that homebirth was at least as safe as birthing in a hospital.2 Other countries including the UK, Holland and most of Scandinavia offer wide access to community-based homebirth programs and offer subsidies to families who birth at home, as they free up hospital resources for the sick.
While those who choose to homebirth may be a small minority, those who understand and believe that preserving choices in childbirth are much greater, and this is particularly evident in your own electorate. Choosing how and where to birth our babies should be an absolute right in Australia and we want you to recognise and respond on this issue (preserving birth choices, not explaining the legislation!)
Yours sincerely,
(Sources: GUIDE TO THE EXPOSURE DRAFT OF THE HEALTH PRACTITIONER REGULATION NATIONAL LAW 2009
http://www.nhwt.gov.au/documents/Nat...20Bill%20B.pdf
Health Practitioner Regulation National Law
http://www.nhwt.gov.au/documents/Nat...(Bill%20B).pdf)
(Source: [de Jonge A, et al. Perinatal mortality and morbidity in a nationwide cohort of 529,688 low-risk planned home and hospital births. British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 2009; DOI: 10.1111/j.1471-0528.2009.02175.x]).
Where the numbers in the letter are, these are footnotes. Drop the text into word and add the above footnotes
**********************************************
Dear fellow citizen letter
Dear fellow citizen,
My name is Kimba Griffith and I live in East St Kilda with my hubby and my two beautiful children. We're pretty regular people leading regular lives. We work our jobs and raise our kids, we're trying to tread more lightly on the planet and value our community, but we may differ from you in one small way; we chose to birth our babies at home.
You may not be aware, but at the moment there is a bill before parliament that will see homebirth become illegal next year, and not for any other reason than the Insurance companies won't insure independent midwives and the government is soon to make it illegal to work without this insurance.
We passionately believe that all families should be able to choose how and where to birth their children. Certainly homebirth might not be a choice you would make for yourself, but can you imagine a situation where you couldn't make basic choices that concerned your own body? Or imagine if you suddenly had no choice about where you sent your kids to get an education? You might not choose to send your kids to a particular school, but imagine if suddenly someone told you that you had NO choice…
This is the situation facing our family and facing all women of childbearing age. I see it as having a basic freedom removed; that of choosing what we do with our own body, and birthing in the way that we feel safest and most comfortable with.
The attached letter explains the current situation in more detail and includes some statistics on the safety of homebirth. I ask that you have a read and consider signing this letter and sending it off to Michael Danby (MP for our electorate) and even to our Health Minister Nicola Roxon.
This issue affects your sisters, daughters, friends. Please consider posting this letter and helping to preserve choice for women and families in Australia.
Warm Regards,
Kimba Griffith
95276303
gonanago@gmail.com
Michael Danby MP
Postal Address:
PO Box 2086
St Kilda West Vic 3182
Nicola Roxon
PO Box 6022
House of Representatives
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
**************************************************
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Sascha Angus -- A birthing journey to the deep
The birth of Sascha Angus – Journey to the deep
When I think of the passage of this pregnancy, I have an image of falling leaves. This was an autumnal adventure, so different from the bursting bright Summer of Dante’s pregnancy. From the earliest stages I felt that I had to shed my leaves, and not just my leaves but whole branches; not just the branches, I had to peel away at the bark and find what lay underneath. This pregnancy was a little like what my midwife described other pregnancies to be, ‘the work of worry’, but more than worry, I felt I had to let go of everything that I had held inside, all the dark things and the ancient hurts. In fact, I was like the autumn tree that could not hold onto its leaves; the very nature of things compelled me to go on a journey of release, as heavy and hard as it was.
Early on there were niggles and memories from childhood. They rose in the nauseous vapours that billowed up in those first twelve weeks. By the time I could detect the movements of this new little bean, I started seeing a wonderful somatic therapist. I talked my way through the worry and the rising hurts that were so old I’d never named them. While I felt many times like I was unravelling, the energy of the child growing within never wavered. It was soft, so soft, but the life of this child fairly hummed.
This time I had no languorous moments, none of the dreamy stretch of a first pregnancy, where you can lie down and caress that growing bump, dreaming of the child within you, having whispered one-sided conversations and soaking up the last moments of life as a duo. This time, I experienced pregnancy to the dizzy loud soundtrack of a blindingly bright and active toddler. The lethargy of the first trimester stretched out into the second and didn’t abate until I was well inside the third. At times I dragged myself around and very early on I felt a pang of anxiety about how I would handle life with two under two. At the same time I knew to savour these moments with my firstborn, knowing that very soon they’d be only precious memories.
Sometime around 22 weeks or so, I felt a tightness in the chest. It seemed to be a symptom that was purely physical. Aside from slightly low blood pressure, there was no other indication of ill-health. On further introspection I realised that this was a symptom of a building wave of anxiety. I’d never experienced this before, and any time I had been anxious in the past, I could simply breathe it away, change what needed changing, make amends and release myself. Not here, not now. It gripped me, for no apparent reason. A friend suggested I sit with it, a sentiment echoed by my wise and wonderful midwife. The thought was too terrifying, it was impossible to be with this feeling under a microscope. Dante was my barometer; he also became unsettled, slightly wild, a careening force. My naturopath made us a special essence, made it with a love that was palpable on the tongue, and this helped us both through this time. Examining this feeling in my therapy sessions I became aware of the weight of worry I had about how my firstborn would handle the immense change a sibling heralds. The thought of him feeling even remotely abandoned sent me in floods of tears. The heart of the hurt became apparent and I had to work so hard (and am still working ) at separating my story from that of my childs. My mantra, then and now is ‘his journey is not mine to own. My journey is not his to own’
.
My darling midwife, Fiona, assisted me in traversing these huge feelings with a quiet grace. She came close enough to hold my space, but never fed the drama, nor did she engage too much with my ‘birth gremlins’. Every woman has them, the fears that rise in a pregnancy about specific outcomes. Her mind settles on them and it is very hard to swat them away. For most of this pregnancy I feared a breech baby; it was the one thing I thought was prevent me having my home birth this time. As the weeks went on, another gremlin joined the wagon. I began to think over Dante’s birth and wondered if I could actually go into labour naturally, if this pregnancy would go beyond 43 weeks, what would happen (insert dizzying flight of anxious ideas here)...
Still the little bean inside grew quietly, steadily, without any interference. We had no scans, no tests, I didn’t wee on a stick or have my blood taken periodically. We rarely used the Doppler, as the babe’s kicks were strong and reassuring, and its tendency to lie transverse and kick my right side was agonising and amusing by turns. I ate well and ran after my boy. The leaves slowly turned, then stopped as an Indian summer kept the warmth dragging its heels into March.
Around this time I began to feel more grounded and centered. I felt safer in this pregnancy and in my own headspace. As soon as this happen a series of external events happened that were to completely shake me from the steady path I’d forged. A woman in my community had a babe who was born not breathing and was rushed to the hospital. Anxious days passed as we all waited to hear. Her babe survived but there were many challenges and much sadness. A couple of weeks later I lit a special candle for another woman, a mentor of sorts. For two days the candle burned until the news arrived that her wee one had been stillborn. I held my own warm kicking belly and my darling husband and we both wept and wept. As I climbed into bed, the birth candle extinguished and another lit in memory I got a message on my phone. My darling friend had just birthed her baby boy into my birth pool around the corner. The intermingling of joy and grief is a most disconcerting set of emotions. I lay down and collapsed into sleep.
In the next few weeks I really struggled to find a sense of equanimity. At times I felt so strong and vibrant. I felt so full of the life within me and glowed. Other moments there was so much darkness. This was compounded by another woman in my community losing her babe at full-term. I had followed every day of her pregnancy, we’d shared so many tiny moments and intense events...although she lived on the other side of the country I felt as if we’d been on either side of a backyard fence. The loss of her little girl seriously threw me into a pond of sadness and I hadn’t nearly climbed out when I learnt of yet another acquaintance who had lost her babe also at full-term.
I spent long hours examining the pain of these events and the inevitable questions that rose up. Could I really trust birth like I extolled others to do? I was making a film about joyous unhindered birth, but was birth really like this? Why did these babies leave too soon? What became apparent was the beautiful mystery of pregnancy and birth, a mystery that has led us to try and control the largely uncontrollable. All the medicalisation and the machines and the tests, what they do is give people a sense of security that is largely false, because at the end of the day birth and death are inextricably linked, a hair’s breadth apart, but that separation is so complete. At the same time I realised that birth is as safe as life gets and that this event is extreme in its perfection and fragility.
My blessingway day was a microcosm of my pregnancy and an extraordinary experience for me, of feeling loved unconditionally and completely by a circle of women. The day started with some intense emotions and I was crying in the bathroom when the first guests arrived. Soon the room filled with women and everyone was completely accepting of my frenetic emotional demeanour. Soon they sent me outside to prepare the ceremonial part, and I sat in the backyard among the beautiful green and warm sun, feeling like I was made of eggshells. My darling friend Rowena came out and spoke to me. She told me she saw my sadness and that it was completely fine to be in that space if I needed to be. The tears flowed and when I entered my birthing space (the living room) the women were all gazing at me, singing ‘Bless this forehead, bless these feet, bless these arms with which we greet you.’ They sang it over and over as I sat with my feet in a bowl of warm water and oils, each woman coming forward to bless and kiss me and whisper wisdom to me. I cried and cried with bliss and with grief, that disconcerting sensation now more familiar to me, having sat with it in the weeks past.
Then the women read out their blessings and threaded beads on my birthing necklace. One wise woman had whispered to me that she had seen my birth and to connect with my husband, and that the midwives would sit back and I would birth with Ryan by my side. That was very timely, the reminder of our divine connection. Rowena also spoke to the group and said that she honoured my sadness and that space I was in. It was like a burden had been removed to hear it said that I was allowed to be in this space. My darling friend Jenny provided a counterpoint, reading a piece about the importance of revelling in beautiful happy memories. That night, my darling wife went home from the blessingway, and filled with the energy of all that birthing power (and compelled by the need to beat the hospital’s clocks and limits) went into labour and birthed her son Atlas the very next morning.
Something that came from the blessingway, which many women had said to me, was that I needed to go within, and to focus on myself at this point. This baby. This birth. This journey. That spoke very strongly to me. I dropped everything. I stayed close to home. I focused on my darling firstborn and I spent more time connecting to the child within. It was exactly what was required. Again I found firm ground, and space, and balance. These were the last weeks as a trio, to be savoured, and the last weeks of pregnancy, which is such a blessed state of intensity.
As I passed the 40 week mark and ploughed onto 41 weeks, I found that the residual anxiety I had about going really late subsided. Fiona and I both felt great about how I was travelling, and although the thought of going to 44 weeks did occasionally rise up, I did a lot of work at this point on trusting (and asking for reassurance) that I would go into labour myself. On Saturday night at 42 + 1 I had a darling friend over to visit…She's growing twin babies and we sat and talked about the journey of pregnancy and also about music and performance and all manner of beautiful things. I started feeling tightenings, like I'd been having, but different too. I didn't pay much attention, but later in the evening I noticed they were feeling regular. I started looking at the clock and saw they were bang on every 5 mins, but not painful at all. We just plodded along and had gorgeous snuggles in bed, feeling a little excited. I remember looking at my two sleeping boys, feeding and cuddling Dante and having a feeling that I should remember this time, as it was about to change and we'd never be here again.
I tried to sleep but the tightenings were starting to bite. I just rested and rested, and every so often Ry would ask me how it was going; he couldn't sleep either! At 4.30am I got up and jumped online for a while, then tried to sleep again. Just before 6 I realised today was the day. I said to Ry 'I'm going to have a baby today' and he fairly leapt out of bed and started getting the living room ready, pumping up the pool and laying tarps.
I took a shower and the contractions died off, so before the sun rose we three were out the door for a morning wallk. The air was strangely balmy and gorgeous and we wandered the streets, the contractions very mild and 8 mins or so apart. When we got home we both felt tired, so we arranged for our friends to come and get Dante and go for an adventure while we tried to sleep. I think I managed an hour and more cuddles before Dante's support person Pieta arrived to lend a hand. We all went for another walk around 12pm and as soon as we got going the contractions ramped up and were coming every 3-5 mins. We left D and P at the park and walked on, I had to stop during contractions and found it hard to talk. Soon I felt it was time to get home and was glad to see my front door!
When D got home I put him down for a nap, it was challenging lying down during the contractions, but I managed it. Ry and Pieta were filling the pool and soon I was starting to vocalise a bit and realising it was actually happening! Managed to facebook and ask for candles to be lit, then I turned on my birth music and got into the vibe. At around 1.30 my midwives Fi and Mandy and our fimmaker arrived. I barely noticed as I was singing my birth song and rocking and swaying with each contraction. D woke soon after and was incredibly distressed, I could hear him crying crying for me and it was hard to focus. I called for them to bring him in, and this was an important point in the labour, a reflection of my focus and fears during the pregnancy. I needed to go within, but I was compelled to go to my baby boy and soothe him. I fed him through a few contractions and was carrying him around the room trying to soothe him, all very intense! Finally I suggested he go and find his little friend next door and he instantly calmed and ran down to the front door! Phew, it felt like a big relief.
After that I was in good solid labour, but it seemed to Fi and Ryan that I was in my head too much, comparing to the last birth. They encouraged me to get in the pool but I wanted to wait till I was really desperate…in the end I agreed to give it a go and it was beautiful bliss to climb in. However, I was still too much in my head, I felt the contractions were quite far apart and that I'd be here forever, I didn't want to be, so I kept moving into a deep squat to bring them on. Fi came and whispered to me 'Your body is showing you kindness and giving you what you need. Accept the wisdom and grace of your body.' I couldn't even see that I was trying to control things by making them more intense!
Just after 2pm, Fi decided to give me a homeopathic, Ignatia, and as soon as I had it, everything shifted to a level of incredible intensity. The pain was suddenly under a magnifying glass, it was everything and everywhere. I told the filmmaker to turn the camera off. The pain was a single point of focus and I had to stay a little in my head to process how to cope. I felt like screaming, but I imagined it and felt it would be worse, worse than staying silent, that if I screamed I might die. I noticed the escape fantasies starting, the bargaining…I imagined running through the back fence, straight through it and just dying. I couldn't make a sound at the height of these contractions, I only focused on not tensing my cervix or bottom at all, just praying that would speed me through.
Ryan said that at this time I looked like I was a young girl, he saw me as a child of seven or so. He asked later if I was working through things then, I couldn't say where or what I was doing at this time…merely getting through somehow. I whispered once that I wanted to die….Fi just held my hand. Through each contraction I would merely hear her slowly exhaling, to remind me to do the same…Ry would join in and I would feel my breath slowly escaping, carrying gently the silent shriek, turning it into air. Fi whispered such beautiful things. At one point she said 'Can you feel the love from all the women who are holding the space for you all over the country?' What a comfort…Another time when I was silently struggling she told me that I was being so generous to my babe, to keep calm and keep working with this the way I was.
This went on for what felt like an eternity, but was about 2 hours or so. At some point there was some movement, I think Pieta called Ryan to ask what to do with D. Fiona in her wisdom told him that he could not come back here until the placenta was birthed; it wasn't safe for me or the babe. The other midwife Mandy stepped in to support me. I could barely speak to tell her that my back was starting to radiate pain as well. I managed to whisper and ask her to press on my back with the contraction. She was smooth and steady and she held my space beautifully.
I remember wishing so much that my waters would break, that something would change, anything, anything but this intense pain…I wished it again and then bang! My waters broke with extreme force. The water of the pool didn't change colour one bit, so Fiona, seeing the reaction in my body had to confirm with me that that's what had happened. As soon as this happened the feeling changed immensely, but I can't say I liked it any better at all…As soon as my waters broke the babe came shooting down my birth canal, without any effort. So my pelvis and all my bones shifted in an instant and the sensation was overwhelming. At the same time my body came into its own power and process and these enormous pushing ejection sensations overtook me. I think I was rather scared, Mandy must have seen it because she grasped my hands and said 'It's alright, you're alright, you're great. Go with it, don't be afraid.' I gripped her hands as each of these contractions happened. At some point around this time she also had the good presence of mind to go tell the filmmaker to come and turn the camera back on!
At this point Ryan thought we had a good hour or so to go, and I think I thought the same. I immediately felt a burning sensation and told Fiona…I don't know what I thought it was, but she knew that the babe was basically here already. She asked Ryan if he was ready to catch his baby and Ryan couldn't believe it! She put her hand down to feel but I think I yelped or growled it away, and I put my own hands down to support myself. I could feel the babe's head right there, wrinkled up and soft. She said to me 'You birth your baby Kimba, no green gloves this time, you'll know what to do.' Another enormous pushing contraction came and I was almost completely overwhelmed with it, but Fi thankfully told me to go easy, so I battled to breathe breathe breathe and then the babe was crowning, and the head was out so soon. I remember feeling the head and thinking it was so much smaller than Dante's (actually it was as big!). A short rest and I was stroking the face, feeling that the babe was between worlds. Then at the next contraction I was so surprised to feel how much work the babe was doing, madly wriggling its little shoulders which popped out and whoosh, babe came out and through to the front of my body, where I scooped baby up and into my arms.
As soon as I held this little one I think I knew it was a boy. I heard Ry's happy tears and I don't think I said very much. I think I just said 'It's ok, Mama's here, mama's here' as my babe let us know it had arrived. At some time someone asked if I wanted to find out the sex and I peeked and saw it was a boy. We cuddled in the pool and Ry joined us in and we cuddled.
The afterpains were strong immediately but I couldn't really push. Fi was sure the placenta was sitting just inside me, so I ended up getting out of the pool and onto the couch, putting babe to the breast (he latched on straight away with ease) and Fi had a little look and the placenta was right there, so I had a good push and out it came. It was beautiful how the midwives marvelled over the placenta and showed us all the wonderful features of it. It turns out that Sascha was a lucky boy, because he had a rare occurance called Velamentous Insertion, where the umbilical cord doesn't insert into the placental mass, but traverses the placental membrane before joining the placenta. In his case it was totally fine, but if the membranes had happened to rupture at that point, then he may have had a severe hemorrhage and that might have been the end of the story. The midwives didn't make a big deal of it, but they did exchange glances like 'phew! Glad those membranes ruptured elsewhere!'
An hour or so after the birth I gave Sascha to Daddybear and had a shower, then sat down to some soup with my midwives. They then tucked me up into bed and then Dante arrived home and had a tandem feeding session as a way of introducing the boys…
A beautifully normal homebirth, surrounded by loving arms and my space held by the many dear friends I've been blessed with.
When I think of the passage of this pregnancy, I have an image of falling leaves. This was an autumnal adventure, so different from the bursting bright Summer of Dante’s pregnancy. From the earliest stages I felt that I had to shed my leaves, and not just my leaves but whole branches; not just the branches, I had to peel away at the bark and find what lay underneath. This pregnancy was a little like what my midwife described other pregnancies to be, ‘the work of worry’, but more than worry, I felt I had to let go of everything that I had held inside, all the dark things and the ancient hurts. In fact, I was like the autumn tree that could not hold onto its leaves; the very nature of things compelled me to go on a journey of release, as heavy and hard as it was.
Early on there were niggles and memories from childhood. They rose in the nauseous vapours that billowed up in those first twelve weeks. By the time I could detect the movements of this new little bean, I started seeing a wonderful somatic therapist. I talked my way through the worry and the rising hurts that were so old I’d never named them. While I felt many times like I was unravelling, the energy of the child growing within never wavered. It was soft, so soft, but the life of this child fairly hummed.
This time I had no languorous moments, none of the dreamy stretch of a first pregnancy, where you can lie down and caress that growing bump, dreaming of the child within you, having whispered one-sided conversations and soaking up the last moments of life as a duo. This time, I experienced pregnancy to the dizzy loud soundtrack of a blindingly bright and active toddler. The lethargy of the first trimester stretched out into the second and didn’t abate until I was well inside the third. At times I dragged myself around and very early on I felt a pang of anxiety about how I would handle life with two under two. At the same time I knew to savour these moments with my firstborn, knowing that very soon they’d be only precious memories.
Sometime around 22 weeks or so, I felt a tightness in the chest. It seemed to be a symptom that was purely physical. Aside from slightly low blood pressure, there was no other indication of ill-health. On further introspection I realised that this was a symptom of a building wave of anxiety. I’d never experienced this before, and any time I had been anxious in the past, I could simply breathe it away, change what needed changing, make amends and release myself. Not here, not now. It gripped me, for no apparent reason. A friend suggested I sit with it, a sentiment echoed by my wise and wonderful midwife. The thought was too terrifying, it was impossible to be with this feeling under a microscope. Dante was my barometer; he also became unsettled, slightly wild, a careening force. My naturopath made us a special essence, made it with a love that was palpable on the tongue, and this helped us both through this time. Examining this feeling in my therapy sessions I became aware of the weight of worry I had about how my firstborn would handle the immense change a sibling heralds. The thought of him feeling even remotely abandoned sent me in floods of tears. The heart of the hurt became apparent and I had to work so hard (and am still working ) at separating my story from that of my childs. My mantra, then and now is ‘his journey is not mine to own. My journey is not his to own’
.
My darling midwife, Fiona, assisted me in traversing these huge feelings with a quiet grace. She came close enough to hold my space, but never fed the drama, nor did she engage too much with my ‘birth gremlins’. Every woman has them, the fears that rise in a pregnancy about specific outcomes. Her mind settles on them and it is very hard to swat them away. For most of this pregnancy I feared a breech baby; it was the one thing I thought was prevent me having my home birth this time. As the weeks went on, another gremlin joined the wagon. I began to think over Dante’s birth and wondered if I could actually go into labour naturally, if this pregnancy would go beyond 43 weeks, what would happen (insert dizzying flight of anxious ideas here)...
Still the little bean inside grew quietly, steadily, without any interference. We had no scans, no tests, I didn’t wee on a stick or have my blood taken periodically. We rarely used the Doppler, as the babe’s kicks were strong and reassuring, and its tendency to lie transverse and kick my right side was agonising and amusing by turns. I ate well and ran after my boy. The leaves slowly turned, then stopped as an Indian summer kept the warmth dragging its heels into March.
Around this time I began to feel more grounded and centered. I felt safer in this pregnancy and in my own headspace. As soon as this happen a series of external events happened that were to completely shake me from the steady path I’d forged. A woman in my community had a babe who was born not breathing and was rushed to the hospital. Anxious days passed as we all waited to hear. Her babe survived but there were many challenges and much sadness. A couple of weeks later I lit a special candle for another woman, a mentor of sorts. For two days the candle burned until the news arrived that her wee one had been stillborn. I held my own warm kicking belly and my darling husband and we both wept and wept. As I climbed into bed, the birth candle extinguished and another lit in memory I got a message on my phone. My darling friend had just birthed her baby boy into my birth pool around the corner. The intermingling of joy and grief is a most disconcerting set of emotions. I lay down and collapsed into sleep.
In the next few weeks I really struggled to find a sense of equanimity. At times I felt so strong and vibrant. I felt so full of the life within me and glowed. Other moments there was so much darkness. This was compounded by another woman in my community losing her babe at full-term. I had followed every day of her pregnancy, we’d shared so many tiny moments and intense events...although she lived on the other side of the country I felt as if we’d been on either side of a backyard fence. The loss of her little girl seriously threw me into a pond of sadness and I hadn’t nearly climbed out when I learnt of yet another acquaintance who had lost her babe also at full-term.
I spent long hours examining the pain of these events and the inevitable questions that rose up. Could I really trust birth like I extolled others to do? I was making a film about joyous unhindered birth, but was birth really like this? Why did these babies leave too soon? What became apparent was the beautiful mystery of pregnancy and birth, a mystery that has led us to try and control the largely uncontrollable. All the medicalisation and the machines and the tests, what they do is give people a sense of security that is largely false, because at the end of the day birth and death are inextricably linked, a hair’s breadth apart, but that separation is so complete. At the same time I realised that birth is as safe as life gets and that this event is extreme in its perfection and fragility.
My blessingway day was a microcosm of my pregnancy and an extraordinary experience for me, of feeling loved unconditionally and completely by a circle of women. The day started with some intense emotions and I was crying in the bathroom when the first guests arrived. Soon the room filled with women and everyone was completely accepting of my frenetic emotional demeanour. Soon they sent me outside to prepare the ceremonial part, and I sat in the backyard among the beautiful green and warm sun, feeling like I was made of eggshells. My darling friend Rowena came out and spoke to me. She told me she saw my sadness and that it was completely fine to be in that space if I needed to be. The tears flowed and when I entered my birthing space (the living room) the women were all gazing at me, singing ‘Bless this forehead, bless these feet, bless these arms with which we greet you.’ They sang it over and over as I sat with my feet in a bowl of warm water and oils, each woman coming forward to bless and kiss me and whisper wisdom to me. I cried and cried with bliss and with grief, that disconcerting sensation now more familiar to me, having sat with it in the weeks past.
Then the women read out their blessings and threaded beads on my birthing necklace. One wise woman had whispered to me that she had seen my birth and to connect with my husband, and that the midwives would sit back and I would birth with Ryan by my side. That was very timely, the reminder of our divine connection. Rowena also spoke to the group and said that she honoured my sadness and that space I was in. It was like a burden had been removed to hear it said that I was allowed to be in this space. My darling friend Jenny provided a counterpoint, reading a piece about the importance of revelling in beautiful happy memories. That night, my darling wife went home from the blessingway, and filled with the energy of all that birthing power (and compelled by the need to beat the hospital’s clocks and limits) went into labour and birthed her son Atlas the very next morning.
Something that came from the blessingway, which many women had said to me, was that I needed to go within, and to focus on myself at this point. This baby. This birth. This journey. That spoke very strongly to me. I dropped everything. I stayed close to home. I focused on my darling firstborn and I spent more time connecting to the child within. It was exactly what was required. Again I found firm ground, and space, and balance. These were the last weeks as a trio, to be savoured, and the last weeks of pregnancy, which is such a blessed state of intensity.
As I passed the 40 week mark and ploughed onto 41 weeks, I found that the residual anxiety I had about going really late subsided. Fiona and I both felt great about how I was travelling, and although the thought of going to 44 weeks did occasionally rise up, I did a lot of work at this point on trusting (and asking for reassurance) that I would go into labour myself. On Saturday night at 42 + 1 I had a darling friend over to visit…She's growing twin babies and we sat and talked about the journey of pregnancy and also about music and performance and all manner of beautiful things. I started feeling tightenings, like I'd been having, but different too. I didn't pay much attention, but later in the evening I noticed they were feeling regular. I started looking at the clock and saw they were bang on every 5 mins, but not painful at all. We just plodded along and had gorgeous snuggles in bed, feeling a little excited. I remember looking at my two sleeping boys, feeding and cuddling Dante and having a feeling that I should remember this time, as it was about to change and we'd never be here again.
I tried to sleep but the tightenings were starting to bite. I just rested and rested, and every so often Ry would ask me how it was going; he couldn't sleep either! At 4.30am I got up and jumped online for a while, then tried to sleep again. Just before 6 I realised today was the day. I said to Ry 'I'm going to have a baby today' and he fairly leapt out of bed and started getting the living room ready, pumping up the pool and laying tarps.
I took a shower and the contractions died off, so before the sun rose we three were out the door for a morning wallk. The air was strangely balmy and gorgeous and we wandered the streets, the contractions very mild and 8 mins or so apart. When we got home we both felt tired, so we arranged for our friends to come and get Dante and go for an adventure while we tried to sleep. I think I managed an hour and more cuddles before Dante's support person Pieta arrived to lend a hand. We all went for another walk around 12pm and as soon as we got going the contractions ramped up and were coming every 3-5 mins. We left D and P at the park and walked on, I had to stop during contractions and found it hard to talk. Soon I felt it was time to get home and was glad to see my front door!
When D got home I put him down for a nap, it was challenging lying down during the contractions, but I managed it. Ry and Pieta were filling the pool and soon I was starting to vocalise a bit and realising it was actually happening! Managed to facebook and ask for candles to be lit, then I turned on my birth music and got into the vibe. At around 1.30 my midwives Fi and Mandy and our fimmaker arrived. I barely noticed as I was singing my birth song and rocking and swaying with each contraction. D woke soon after and was incredibly distressed, I could hear him crying crying for me and it was hard to focus. I called for them to bring him in, and this was an important point in the labour, a reflection of my focus and fears during the pregnancy. I needed to go within, but I was compelled to go to my baby boy and soothe him. I fed him through a few contractions and was carrying him around the room trying to soothe him, all very intense! Finally I suggested he go and find his little friend next door and he instantly calmed and ran down to the front door! Phew, it felt like a big relief.
After that I was in good solid labour, but it seemed to Fi and Ryan that I was in my head too much, comparing to the last birth. They encouraged me to get in the pool but I wanted to wait till I was really desperate…in the end I agreed to give it a go and it was beautiful bliss to climb in. However, I was still too much in my head, I felt the contractions were quite far apart and that I'd be here forever, I didn't want to be, so I kept moving into a deep squat to bring them on. Fi came and whispered to me 'Your body is showing you kindness and giving you what you need. Accept the wisdom and grace of your body.' I couldn't even see that I was trying to control things by making them more intense!
Just after 2pm, Fi decided to give me a homeopathic, Ignatia, and as soon as I had it, everything shifted to a level of incredible intensity. The pain was suddenly under a magnifying glass, it was everything and everywhere. I told the filmmaker to turn the camera off. The pain was a single point of focus and I had to stay a little in my head to process how to cope. I felt like screaming, but I imagined it and felt it would be worse, worse than staying silent, that if I screamed I might die. I noticed the escape fantasies starting, the bargaining…I imagined running through the back fence, straight through it and just dying. I couldn't make a sound at the height of these contractions, I only focused on not tensing my cervix or bottom at all, just praying that would speed me through.
Ryan said that at this time I looked like I was a young girl, he saw me as a child of seven or so. He asked later if I was working through things then, I couldn't say where or what I was doing at this time…merely getting through somehow. I whispered once that I wanted to die….Fi just held my hand. Through each contraction I would merely hear her slowly exhaling, to remind me to do the same…Ry would join in and I would feel my breath slowly escaping, carrying gently the silent shriek, turning it into air. Fi whispered such beautiful things. At one point she said 'Can you feel the love from all the women who are holding the space for you all over the country?' What a comfort…Another time when I was silently struggling she told me that I was being so generous to my babe, to keep calm and keep working with this the way I was.
This went on for what felt like an eternity, but was about 2 hours or so. At some point there was some movement, I think Pieta called Ryan to ask what to do with D. Fiona in her wisdom told him that he could not come back here until the placenta was birthed; it wasn't safe for me or the babe. The other midwife Mandy stepped in to support me. I could barely speak to tell her that my back was starting to radiate pain as well. I managed to whisper and ask her to press on my back with the contraction. She was smooth and steady and she held my space beautifully.
I remember wishing so much that my waters would break, that something would change, anything, anything but this intense pain…I wished it again and then bang! My waters broke with extreme force. The water of the pool didn't change colour one bit, so Fiona, seeing the reaction in my body had to confirm with me that that's what had happened. As soon as this happened the feeling changed immensely, but I can't say I liked it any better at all…As soon as my waters broke the babe came shooting down my birth canal, without any effort. So my pelvis and all my bones shifted in an instant and the sensation was overwhelming. At the same time my body came into its own power and process and these enormous pushing ejection sensations overtook me. I think I was rather scared, Mandy must have seen it because she grasped my hands and said 'It's alright, you're alright, you're great. Go with it, don't be afraid.' I gripped her hands as each of these contractions happened. At some point around this time she also had the good presence of mind to go tell the filmmaker to come and turn the camera back on!
At this point Ryan thought we had a good hour or so to go, and I think I thought the same. I immediately felt a burning sensation and told Fiona…I don't know what I thought it was, but she knew that the babe was basically here already. She asked Ryan if he was ready to catch his baby and Ryan couldn't believe it! She put her hand down to feel but I think I yelped or growled it away, and I put my own hands down to support myself. I could feel the babe's head right there, wrinkled up and soft. She said to me 'You birth your baby Kimba, no green gloves this time, you'll know what to do.' Another enormous pushing contraction came and I was almost completely overwhelmed with it, but Fi thankfully told me to go easy, so I battled to breathe breathe breathe and then the babe was crowning, and the head was out so soon. I remember feeling the head and thinking it was so much smaller than Dante's (actually it was as big!). A short rest and I was stroking the face, feeling that the babe was between worlds. Then at the next contraction I was so surprised to feel how much work the babe was doing, madly wriggling its little shoulders which popped out and whoosh, babe came out and through to the front of my body, where I scooped baby up and into my arms.
As soon as I held this little one I think I knew it was a boy. I heard Ry's happy tears and I don't think I said very much. I think I just said 'It's ok, Mama's here, mama's here' as my babe let us know it had arrived. At some time someone asked if I wanted to find out the sex and I peeked and saw it was a boy. We cuddled in the pool and Ry joined us in and we cuddled.
The afterpains were strong immediately but I couldn't really push. Fi was sure the placenta was sitting just inside me, so I ended up getting out of the pool and onto the couch, putting babe to the breast (he latched on straight away with ease) and Fi had a little look and the placenta was right there, so I had a good push and out it came. It was beautiful how the midwives marvelled over the placenta and showed us all the wonderful features of it. It turns out that Sascha was a lucky boy, because he had a rare occurance called Velamentous Insertion, where the umbilical cord doesn't insert into the placental mass, but traverses the placental membrane before joining the placenta. In his case it was totally fine, but if the membranes had happened to rupture at that point, then he may have had a severe hemorrhage and that might have been the end of the story. The midwives didn't make a big deal of it, but they did exchange glances like 'phew! Glad those membranes ruptured elsewhere!'
An hour or so after the birth I gave Sascha to Daddybear and had a shower, then sat down to some soup with my midwives. They then tucked me up into bed and then Dante arrived home and had a tandem feeding session as a way of introducing the boys…
A beautifully normal homebirth, surrounded by loving arms and my space held by the many dear friends I've been blessed with.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
The Birth of Dante Douglas Griffith
The last three weeks that Dante lived within me, they were some hard weeks. Everyone was waiting, everything was moving so slowly. I knew I was to learn about surrender and patience, but had no idea that the learning of these things would be so full and take so long.
I wished I’d never told anyone that due date, as the days passed I realised how arbitrary such a concept was, how futile. How can we bind nature to a precise and human time-frame? When I turned inward, I felt Dante in his perfection. His slow, methodical process, his reluctance. I realised it wasn’t so much reluctance – he simply wasn’t ready yet.
It was difficult welcoming parents waiting to be grandparents, and then having to bid them farewell again, my belly still huge and round with life. I felt their ache, though they hid it well, and I felt my own ache too. My lover waited with such easy patience, such trust. Though he too ached, with the longing to hold his child, he was unfailingly open to the process, to the mystery of it all.
Visiting the hospital for the scans and CTGS was a big lesson for me in giving up expectations. Walking in I had checked myself and noticed I expected to be treated with contempt or suspicion or something like that. I stopped and let that one go, imagining that everyone I came across would do their best to help me with compassion. That is exactly how it was. The women in the Pregnancy day-care unit were simply lovely, and when they heard I was 42 weeks pregnant they’d say ‘Oh! Someone normal coming in, good on you love.’ I was to visit there 4 times in the next week, and each time I felt their support, their hope that I would have the birth I had worked and planned so carefully for.
The questions, the doubts. Instinct and intuition, caution and the feeling of not knowing. Weighing up these things put a weight on my heart, but I had many sure hands that kept me focused, balanced. Jan our darling midwife calling twice daily to chart my progress. Rowena, our wonderful birth attendant who travelled many times to spend afternoons with me, calming and preparing my body and mind. My mum attending to all the little tasks that I was beyond, who offered us the nourishment of great food and a wealth of experience. Bibby, our student midwife who came with us to each doctor’s visit, who gave me the space to air my feelings and who responded with compassion and practicality. Our doctor Peter, a gentle rock, instilling confidence and dispensing just enough advice, always in the form of options and choices.
I tried everything to help Dante along. Spicy food, sex, the ingestion of all array of natural prostaglandins, bumpy car rides, hobbles down the street, nipple stimulation, visualisation, cumin seed tea, multiple sessions of acupuncture, gentle words to the child within, homeopathics and two big doses of castor oil.
Eventually we decided that at 43 weeks, it would be time to try something more formal. The choice wasn’t arrived at with ease, but once it was made, it was made peacefully. Two days before the induction date, we headed down to the beach to watch the lunar eclipse, a last date as lovers before we became a family. We gazed up at the clearing clouds and the strange reddish globe in the sky, and felt ready. Ready to begin, ready to birth.
We headed to the hospital around 6.30am. I felt no trepidation. My mind was focused on thoughts of birth, of all the women in all the ages who had birthed before me. They called for us to head down to the day care center. Four other women and their partners headed down in a group, Ry and I hung back. There was plenty of time. Soon after we arrived Jan met us and then it began.
The midwife decided to give me the maximum dose of gel. All the monitoring confirmed what my body knew already – our little baby was strong and sure in the womb. After the gel we sat out in the waiting area and Jan stimulated my poor little nipples to within an inch of their young tender lives. Bibby helped to pass the time. Soon a deep dull period-type pain started, what they call ‘prostin-pain’, a pain that would frame the rest of the birth journey. The gel or the pain left me feeling edgy, as if on some cheap stimulant. Ry and I headed out into the brilliant day and sat in a park taking pictures and recording little videos for our child.
I wasn’t able to sit still and yet the walking intensified the ache. We hopped along Lygon st, a café here, a book shop there, me always pushing to the next location, very uncomfortable in my skin. Eventually we headed back to the day center an hour before the next dose. The other women I saw from the morning looked equally as uncomfortable. I thought about speaking with them, but I sensed a big fear emanating and wanted to hold my space.
Very soon after the next dose of gel things started happening. The prostin pains were stronger and more insistent. I couldn’t say whether they were contractions, seeing as I had never had a single practice contraction to use as a measure. The pain didn’t seem to come and go, it was just there. I worked at smiling and paced the floor. I felt very frowny indeed. When Jan and Bibby returned they looked at me with broad grins. ‘That’s more like it’ said Jan. I couldn’t place this as labour, but their looks made me feel as if I was on the way, so I resolved to start opening to it all.
While all this was unfolding, all around Australia women were holding me in their thoughts, lighting candles, writing about me on various forums. I was being held by the compassion of almost perfect strangers, and the way events happened was so positive and lucky as to be almost magical.
The first lucky thing was that the second dose of gel set me on my way. The second was that all the labour wards were full, so they sent us to the antenatal ward. Jan in all her wisdom saw the opportunity in that and told me we had to try and stay there as long as possible, as we’d have far more freedom to labour in the way we’d planned. She told me to tell the nurses that the pains were just prostin pain and not contractions. She asked if I could do that. ‘Well, I’ll actually get a chance to use my theatre degree’ I replied, with the weakest of smiles…
They wanted to give me a wheelchair up to the antenatal ward. I strongly declined and Jan laughed as she helped me up. It was on the way I entered the birthing space. Things got very far away and my body spoke very loudly. Things are hazy from this point. The ward was full and we had a tiny cubicle. It was dim and a woman in another bed was speaking loudly on the phone. Bibby was so attentive, making sure I had everything I needed. Ryan offered me his arms and his soft words. I still couldn’t feel the pains as contractions…I remembered that when I used to have period pains, sitting on the loo was total bliss. I kept trying this again and it was no relief at all, in fact it intensified it! I remember sitting there going ‘ok, this is how it is. You’re not gonna get comfy and you’re not gonna get a break, so that’s that.’ It was a simple realisation and I quickly integrated it. It didn’t stop me moving into a myriad of different positions just in case though!
Jan gave me the TENS machine to use – it was an excellent distraction, something else to focus on. I wouldn’t say it relieved the pain at all, but it was a good strong sensation I could redirect excess energy towards. Eventually the contractions settled into being about three minutes apart, with that prostin pain singing loudly in every gap. I felt so nauseous and threw up a lot…I knew that was going to happen so it didn’t worry me too much, however the nausea was another challenge to contend with.
Getting in the shower was magic. I started blowing horse lips the way Ina May talks about in her books. It was magic, I could feel how much that helped as well as keeping my moans low and deep. I chanted 'oooopen, open, OOOOPPPEN' quite a lot. I became monosyllabic. I remember thinking ‘how will I get out of the shower’ and then when I wanted to go back in I would think ‘how on earth will I get back in?’ But I managed somehow with lots of help.
Jan wanted me to walk, and I did so. It was tough going. Visiting hours were on and there were kids running around. I remember being stared at by three small kids and one saying to another ‘what’s wrong with that lady?’ The little girl answered ‘She’s having a baby!’ Both Bibby and Jan walked me around the halls, guiding me through the rushes.
There were also visitors back in the ward I was in – a large Italian family. I can only imagine what it must have been like to hear my horse lip deep moans, my monosyllabic grunts. They probably wondered why on earth I hadn’t been fixed up yet. I barely registered them at all.
By this time the nurse had figured out I was really in labour, but she’d also discovered my doctor attended the birth of her son 18 years ago, and she was on the wavelength. She kept the other nurses away and let me do my thing. Eventually the registrar came along to check me out. Another lovely flash of wonderful luck, she was Dutch and totally supportive and delighted by the approach we were taking. She asked to check my dilation and I somehow managed to get on the bed. Jan said ‘Tell us she’s 3cm and I’ll call you a honey’ and the woman said ‘Call me a honey, she’s 7cm!’ Everyone was really chuffed about that. I remember hearing that but I was too far in the zone to respond. Jan asked if I could crack a smile, but I don’t think I really managed it.
Soon after that my membranes ruptured, as I was squatting on the floor wrapped in a piece of material I’d bought in the town where we made this baby, and we had to head up to the labour ward. The liquid was clear and that was another marvellous and positive thing. They tried to put me in a wheelchair, but again I refused, and Jan said ‘great we’ll load all the bags on it, thanks’. The nurses were horrified, but off I went. It’s hazy but I remember a bunch of shocked looking labour ward staff staring as I dragged myself in.
It’s hard to recall the order of things from here. They wanted me hooked up to the monitors straight away, and Jan had to step in to get me on the portable waterproof monitors. It didn’t bother me as much as I thought, I was just not in any position to even think about that, I was just totally in birth mode. Somehow Jan got them to let me in the shower, again it was amazing to connect with water. The pain started to feel different, and I was saying to Ry ‘I don’t like this pain, this kind of pain isn’t nice.’ A little while later I said ‘I think this is transition, but I can do it, I can do this.’ He was just there for me, completely and utterly. I felt completely supported by my team.
Rowena had been waiting all day to come in. At first it seemed kind of pointless as I was just wandering the streets, and by the time things started happening we were in the tiny cubicle and it would have been near impossible to fit another person in. I was thinking of Rowena a lot during the labour, I could feel her sending energy and it felt really psychic. Jan was mindful hat Rowena was meant to be present, but when she asked me about calling her, once we arrived in the labour ward, all I could say was ‘I don’t know.’ I think what I meant was I couldn’t think of anything at all. My spirit felt her so close so I was fine with that. Now I really wish I had managed to say ‘call her’ and I hope she doesn’t feel disappointed, because she was instrumental in getting me to the point of this birth. More than once in those three weeks she swooped down and gathered my pieces up, spent long hours completely focused on my balance and well-being. The most important thing Rowena did was to show me how to hold my birthing space within, that it wasn’t an exterior place but an interior position. That was so integral to how I was able to birth at a hospital.
Back to the labour ward and somehow Jan got me in the bath. They basically don’t let people use the tub at all, especially not women 43 weeks’ pregnant! But amazing Jan managed to work her magic and soon I was relaxing in a gorgeous warm tub.
I was able to get a little rest, and dilated to 10cm in the glorious water. I felt all my dreams were unfolding, and the bath was just perfection! A young doctor came in and checked my dilation and I helped her to push the cervical lip out of the way.
The contractions had changed by now, they were very deep but didn’t contain much power; I had no urge to push. Jan got me out of the water and onto the toilet. That helped, but I could feel that there was little power in those rushes. Soon the ward midwife said we had to move out of the toilet as it was too small in there, which was strange and created some friction, but in the end we all piled back into the big birthing suite. Someone had set up a lovely birthing nest on the floor, and I was just trying to get into push mode. I tried so many different positions, on the nest, leaning over the bed, sitting on the birth stool. That was pretty effective, but they were very worried about the state of my bum, so they got me off that stool pretty quick. By this time Peter had arrived again and he and Ryan supported me on either side while I tried pushing that way. Time was ticking by.
I found it so hard to get into the feel of how to push, because I had to find that power within, it wasn’t innate and it didn’t come with each rush. I thought I could feel frustrated by the lack of progress, but that would have taken too much energy, energy that was currently being channelled into trying to nail this pushing gig.
In the end I got up on the bed and Jan and Peter held my legs back, while I reached forward and grasped Bibby’s hands, roaring and working. The hospital has a two hour limit for pushing and Jan was very aware of this so she came and spoke to me gently saying I needed to push this baby out or there may be some interventions on the horizon…that really spurred me on! I remember someone saying the baby was getting tired, that also really helped me…
Eventually there was progress and they got a mirror and showed me the head, it was just there, I was so amazed by that…more work, more roaring and labouring and channelling all the power. Things were happening and I could see this amazing being beginning to emerge. Jan took the monitoring straps off and she said ‘do you know why I am taking these off’ and I said I didn’t and she said ‘so you can hold your baby’. I couldn’t believe it was actually happening! Before long the midwife was helping to support the perineum and saying ‘wow you have loads of room there’ and I was saying ‘HUUUGE, HUUUGE’ and then Jan was showing me how to blow, blow, blow….It was a timeless moment, so many sensations and just when I thought ‘gosh this is too intense’ Peter said ‘well great, the head is out’ and I was like ‘Really’ and then they showed me in the mirror and there are just no words to describe how it felt to see that…I couldn’t believe I was so close to meeting my baby and I realised I had done it! I’d birthed this baby.
The next thing I knew the midwife lifted him out as his shoulders emerged and then he was on my chest, so slippery and warm and real. 2.02am 31st August, pushing for 2 hours and 12 minutes. Touching him and feeling his beautiful wholeness was indescribably beautiful. He didn’t cry, he just looked around with wide eyes. Ry was to my left, holding us close. We had become a family at last.
Jan, Pete and Bibby cleared out soon after, bleary eyed and flushed with good feelings after a great birth encounter. The midwife took special care of us, and she said to me ‘It was an honour to be at this birth. I hope that if I have a baby I can do it just like this.’ That was such a wonderful thing to hear, and Jan had also said she thought some of those young doctors were left pretty inspired seeing a natural birth in that setting…I had no room for anything but a bursting heart that night, but now a little down the track I feel full of pride that I was able to access and hold my birthing power, immense gratitude for all the energy that was sent my way by so many, some near perfect strangers, and also for the amazing team that were wholly focused on guiding me through the birth.
Blessed be life! Welcome earthside Dante my child – Papa-bear and I are here to hold your hands as you explore this marvellous world. We’ll try not to hold you too tight, to remember you are on your own journey, to let you express and explore. We’ll be here for you every step.
I wished I’d never told anyone that due date, as the days passed I realised how arbitrary such a concept was, how futile. How can we bind nature to a precise and human time-frame? When I turned inward, I felt Dante in his perfection. His slow, methodical process, his reluctance. I realised it wasn’t so much reluctance – he simply wasn’t ready yet.
It was difficult welcoming parents waiting to be grandparents, and then having to bid them farewell again, my belly still huge and round with life. I felt their ache, though they hid it well, and I felt my own ache too. My lover waited with such easy patience, such trust. Though he too ached, with the longing to hold his child, he was unfailingly open to the process, to the mystery of it all.
Visiting the hospital for the scans and CTGS was a big lesson for me in giving up expectations. Walking in I had checked myself and noticed I expected to be treated with contempt or suspicion or something like that. I stopped and let that one go, imagining that everyone I came across would do their best to help me with compassion. That is exactly how it was. The women in the Pregnancy day-care unit were simply lovely, and when they heard I was 42 weeks pregnant they’d say ‘Oh! Someone normal coming in, good on you love.’ I was to visit there 4 times in the next week, and each time I felt their support, their hope that I would have the birth I had worked and planned so carefully for.
The questions, the doubts. Instinct and intuition, caution and the feeling of not knowing. Weighing up these things put a weight on my heart, but I had many sure hands that kept me focused, balanced. Jan our darling midwife calling twice daily to chart my progress. Rowena, our wonderful birth attendant who travelled many times to spend afternoons with me, calming and preparing my body and mind. My mum attending to all the little tasks that I was beyond, who offered us the nourishment of great food and a wealth of experience. Bibby, our student midwife who came with us to each doctor’s visit, who gave me the space to air my feelings and who responded with compassion and practicality. Our doctor Peter, a gentle rock, instilling confidence and dispensing just enough advice, always in the form of options and choices.
I tried everything to help Dante along. Spicy food, sex, the ingestion of all array of natural prostaglandins, bumpy car rides, hobbles down the street, nipple stimulation, visualisation, cumin seed tea, multiple sessions of acupuncture, gentle words to the child within, homeopathics and two big doses of castor oil.
Eventually we decided that at 43 weeks, it would be time to try something more formal. The choice wasn’t arrived at with ease, but once it was made, it was made peacefully. Two days before the induction date, we headed down to the beach to watch the lunar eclipse, a last date as lovers before we became a family. We gazed up at the clearing clouds and the strange reddish globe in the sky, and felt ready. Ready to begin, ready to birth.
We headed to the hospital around 6.30am. I felt no trepidation. My mind was focused on thoughts of birth, of all the women in all the ages who had birthed before me. They called for us to head down to the day care center. Four other women and their partners headed down in a group, Ry and I hung back. There was plenty of time. Soon after we arrived Jan met us and then it began.
The midwife decided to give me the maximum dose of gel. All the monitoring confirmed what my body knew already – our little baby was strong and sure in the womb. After the gel we sat out in the waiting area and Jan stimulated my poor little nipples to within an inch of their young tender lives. Bibby helped to pass the time. Soon a deep dull period-type pain started, what they call ‘prostin-pain’, a pain that would frame the rest of the birth journey. The gel or the pain left me feeling edgy, as if on some cheap stimulant. Ry and I headed out into the brilliant day and sat in a park taking pictures and recording little videos for our child.
I wasn’t able to sit still and yet the walking intensified the ache. We hopped along Lygon st, a café here, a book shop there, me always pushing to the next location, very uncomfortable in my skin. Eventually we headed back to the day center an hour before the next dose. The other women I saw from the morning looked equally as uncomfortable. I thought about speaking with them, but I sensed a big fear emanating and wanted to hold my space.
Very soon after the next dose of gel things started happening. The prostin pains were stronger and more insistent. I couldn’t say whether they were contractions, seeing as I had never had a single practice contraction to use as a measure. The pain didn’t seem to come and go, it was just there. I worked at smiling and paced the floor. I felt very frowny indeed. When Jan and Bibby returned they looked at me with broad grins. ‘That’s more like it’ said Jan. I couldn’t place this as labour, but their looks made me feel as if I was on the way, so I resolved to start opening to it all.
While all this was unfolding, all around Australia women were holding me in their thoughts, lighting candles, writing about me on various forums. I was being held by the compassion of almost perfect strangers, and the way events happened was so positive and lucky as to be almost magical.
The first lucky thing was that the second dose of gel set me on my way. The second was that all the labour wards were full, so they sent us to the antenatal ward. Jan in all her wisdom saw the opportunity in that and told me we had to try and stay there as long as possible, as we’d have far more freedom to labour in the way we’d planned. She told me to tell the nurses that the pains were just prostin pain and not contractions. She asked if I could do that. ‘Well, I’ll actually get a chance to use my theatre degree’ I replied, with the weakest of smiles…
They wanted to give me a wheelchair up to the antenatal ward. I strongly declined and Jan laughed as she helped me up. It was on the way I entered the birthing space. Things got very far away and my body spoke very loudly. Things are hazy from this point. The ward was full and we had a tiny cubicle. It was dim and a woman in another bed was speaking loudly on the phone. Bibby was so attentive, making sure I had everything I needed. Ryan offered me his arms and his soft words. I still couldn’t feel the pains as contractions…I remembered that when I used to have period pains, sitting on the loo was total bliss. I kept trying this again and it was no relief at all, in fact it intensified it! I remember sitting there going ‘ok, this is how it is. You’re not gonna get comfy and you’re not gonna get a break, so that’s that.’ It was a simple realisation and I quickly integrated it. It didn’t stop me moving into a myriad of different positions just in case though!
Jan gave me the TENS machine to use – it was an excellent distraction, something else to focus on. I wouldn’t say it relieved the pain at all, but it was a good strong sensation I could redirect excess energy towards. Eventually the contractions settled into being about three minutes apart, with that prostin pain singing loudly in every gap. I felt so nauseous and threw up a lot…I knew that was going to happen so it didn’t worry me too much, however the nausea was another challenge to contend with.
Getting in the shower was magic. I started blowing horse lips the way Ina May talks about in her books. It was magic, I could feel how much that helped as well as keeping my moans low and deep. I chanted 'oooopen, open, OOOOPPPEN' quite a lot. I became monosyllabic. I remember thinking ‘how will I get out of the shower’ and then when I wanted to go back in I would think ‘how on earth will I get back in?’ But I managed somehow with lots of help.
Jan wanted me to walk, and I did so. It was tough going. Visiting hours were on and there were kids running around. I remember being stared at by three small kids and one saying to another ‘what’s wrong with that lady?’ The little girl answered ‘She’s having a baby!’ Both Bibby and Jan walked me around the halls, guiding me through the rushes.
There were also visitors back in the ward I was in – a large Italian family. I can only imagine what it must have been like to hear my horse lip deep moans, my monosyllabic grunts. They probably wondered why on earth I hadn’t been fixed up yet. I barely registered them at all.
By this time the nurse had figured out I was really in labour, but she’d also discovered my doctor attended the birth of her son 18 years ago, and she was on the wavelength. She kept the other nurses away and let me do my thing. Eventually the registrar came along to check me out. Another lovely flash of wonderful luck, she was Dutch and totally supportive and delighted by the approach we were taking. She asked to check my dilation and I somehow managed to get on the bed. Jan said ‘Tell us she’s 3cm and I’ll call you a honey’ and the woman said ‘Call me a honey, she’s 7cm!’ Everyone was really chuffed about that. I remember hearing that but I was too far in the zone to respond. Jan asked if I could crack a smile, but I don’t think I really managed it.
Soon after that my membranes ruptured, as I was squatting on the floor wrapped in a piece of material I’d bought in the town where we made this baby, and we had to head up to the labour ward. The liquid was clear and that was another marvellous and positive thing. They tried to put me in a wheelchair, but again I refused, and Jan said ‘great we’ll load all the bags on it, thanks’. The nurses were horrified, but off I went. It’s hazy but I remember a bunch of shocked looking labour ward staff staring as I dragged myself in.
It’s hard to recall the order of things from here. They wanted me hooked up to the monitors straight away, and Jan had to step in to get me on the portable waterproof monitors. It didn’t bother me as much as I thought, I was just not in any position to even think about that, I was just totally in birth mode. Somehow Jan got them to let me in the shower, again it was amazing to connect with water. The pain started to feel different, and I was saying to Ry ‘I don’t like this pain, this kind of pain isn’t nice.’ A little while later I said ‘I think this is transition, but I can do it, I can do this.’ He was just there for me, completely and utterly. I felt completely supported by my team.
Rowena had been waiting all day to come in. At first it seemed kind of pointless as I was just wandering the streets, and by the time things started happening we were in the tiny cubicle and it would have been near impossible to fit another person in. I was thinking of Rowena a lot during the labour, I could feel her sending energy and it felt really psychic. Jan was mindful hat Rowena was meant to be present, but when she asked me about calling her, once we arrived in the labour ward, all I could say was ‘I don’t know.’ I think what I meant was I couldn’t think of anything at all. My spirit felt her so close so I was fine with that. Now I really wish I had managed to say ‘call her’ and I hope she doesn’t feel disappointed, because she was instrumental in getting me to the point of this birth. More than once in those three weeks she swooped down and gathered my pieces up, spent long hours completely focused on my balance and well-being. The most important thing Rowena did was to show me how to hold my birthing space within, that it wasn’t an exterior place but an interior position. That was so integral to how I was able to birth at a hospital.
Back to the labour ward and somehow Jan got me in the bath. They basically don’t let people use the tub at all, especially not women 43 weeks’ pregnant! But amazing Jan managed to work her magic and soon I was relaxing in a gorgeous warm tub.
I was able to get a little rest, and dilated to 10cm in the glorious water. I felt all my dreams were unfolding, and the bath was just perfection! A young doctor came in and checked my dilation and I helped her to push the cervical lip out of the way.The contractions had changed by now, they were very deep but didn’t contain much power; I had no urge to push. Jan got me out of the water and onto the toilet. That helped, but I could feel that there was little power in those rushes. Soon the ward midwife said we had to move out of the toilet as it was too small in there, which was strange and created some friction, but in the end we all piled back into the big birthing suite. Someone had set up a lovely birthing nest on the floor, and I was just trying to get into push mode. I tried so many different positions, on the nest, leaning over the bed, sitting on the birth stool. That was pretty effective, but they were very worried about the state of my bum, so they got me off that stool pretty quick. By this time Peter had arrived again and he and Ryan supported me on either side while I tried pushing that way. Time was ticking by.
I found it so hard to get into the feel of how to push, because I had to find that power within, it wasn’t innate and it didn’t come with each rush. I thought I could feel frustrated by the lack of progress, but that would have taken too much energy, energy that was currently being channelled into trying to nail this pushing gig.
In the end I got up on the bed and Jan and Peter held my legs back, while I reached forward and grasped Bibby’s hands, roaring and working. The hospital has a two hour limit for pushing and Jan was very aware of this so she came and spoke to me gently saying I needed to push this baby out or there may be some interventions on the horizon…that really spurred me on! I remember someone saying the baby was getting tired, that also really helped me…
Eventually there was progress and they got a mirror and showed me the head, it was just there, I was so amazed by that…more work, more roaring and labouring and channelling all the power. Things were happening and I could see this amazing being beginning to emerge. Jan took the monitoring straps off and she said ‘do you know why I am taking these off’ and I said I didn’t and she said ‘so you can hold your baby’. I couldn’t believe it was actually happening! Before long the midwife was helping to support the perineum and saying ‘wow you have loads of room there’ and I was saying ‘HUUUGE, HUUUGE’ and then Jan was showing me how to blow, blow, blow….It was a timeless moment, so many sensations and just when I thought ‘gosh this is too intense’ Peter said ‘well great, the head is out’ and I was like ‘Really’ and then they showed me in the mirror and there are just no words to describe how it felt to see that…I couldn’t believe I was so close to meeting my baby and I realised I had done it! I’d birthed this baby.
The next thing I knew the midwife lifted him out as his shoulders emerged and then he was on my chest, so slippery and warm and real. 2.02am 31st August, pushing for 2 hours and 12 minutes. Touching him and feeling his beautiful wholeness was indescribably beautiful. He didn’t cry, he just looked around with wide eyes. Ry was to my left, holding us close. We had become a family at last.
Jan, Pete and Bibby cleared out soon after, bleary eyed and flushed with good feelings after a great birth encounter. The midwife took special care of us, and she said to me ‘It was an honour to be at this birth. I hope that if I have a baby I can do it just like this.’ That was such a wonderful thing to hear, and Jan had also said she thought some of those young doctors were left pretty inspired seeing a natural birth in that setting…I had no room for anything but a bursting heart that night, but now a little down the track I feel full of pride that I was able to access and hold my birthing power, immense gratitude for all the energy that was sent my way by so many, some near perfect strangers, and also for the amazing team that were wholly focused on guiding me through the birth.
Blessed be life! Welcome earthside Dante my child – Papa-bear and I are here to hold your hands as you explore this marvellous world. We’ll try not to hold you too tight, to remember you are on your own journey, to let you express and explore. We’ll be here for you every step.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
9 months ago...a wish for you
Our little pouch dweller.
Going over photos of our year, I came across a wish plaque we made in Tokyo at the Meiji Shrine.
Today I wish for all these things again, sending the thoughts skyward and inward.
Going over photos of our year, I came across a wish plaque we made in Tokyo at the Meiji Shrine.
Today I wish for all these things again, sending the thoughts skyward and inward.
Friday, December 8, 2006
A letter to Papa Ryan
I watch you in your element -- the wood and metal in your hands, the soaring sounds that come off of the fret board, the strings, through the pickup out out into the cool gallery space.
These sounds you make, this music that begins down in your place of fire, in your place of earth -- it enters my belly and reaches the busy little mass of cells. The brilliant and perfectly forming being that emerges, emerges, that will emerge as your child.
My child.
Our child.
Sure to be soothed by the music we create. Sure to be enveloped and held by a lullaby, rocked by a symphony, sure to be safe in music.
Your music.
My music.
Our music.
Fear not, I trust you with my life. Remember what we vowed; 'to grow ever more tolerant with the world and with each other.'
Let's hold hands and souls, place your hands on my belly, my hands on your hands, and we'll strive together.
Your path.
My path.
Our child's path....
Us three and beyond.
Ever yours,
Kimba
These sounds you make, this music that begins down in your place of fire, in your place of earth -- it enters my belly and reaches the busy little mass of cells. The brilliant and perfectly forming being that emerges, emerges, that will emerge as your child.
My child.
Our child.
Sure to be soothed by the music we create. Sure to be enveloped and held by a lullaby, rocked by a symphony, sure to be safe in music.
Your music.
My music.
Our music.
Fear not, I trust you with my life. Remember what we vowed; 'to grow ever more tolerant with the world and with each other.'
Let's hold hands and souls, place your hands on my belly, my hands on your hands, and we'll strive together.
Your path.
My path.
Our child's path....
Us three and beyond.
Ever yours,
Kimba
Settling down now
It's been only a week since we discovered that you, little pouch dweller, little child still yet a mass of rapidly dividing cells, are with us. What a huge week. A slow week, a week of many emotional and spiritual states.
There was some pain, my old right fallopian tube that lets me know every month when an egg is released, well its been complaining. It's my barometer, so I try to welcome it's pangs and aches, but it had me worried. After 3 trips to a hospital, which seemed so strange since I already feel pregnancy to be a state of naturalness, not something unhealthy to be treated, I got my little hormone read-out that showed my pregnancy hormones (HcG) to be doubling as they should.
I decided to work at letting the worry go, and developing trust, in my body and in you my child -- that you will grow as you should.
My belly feels so strange already, achy and tingly and sensitive. I am eating so well and farewelled my beloved booze a week ago, as easily as running my hands through water, something I have taken to doing as often as possible...swimming laps, floating, breathing. I know I'll be welcoming you into the world in water, so I want us to have as much time together in this fluid world as we can.
My dreams are still anxious, but my conscious mind is changing with you.
Mama and Papa bear in India
There was some pain, my old right fallopian tube that lets me know every month when an egg is released, well its been complaining. It's my barometer, so I try to welcome it's pangs and aches, but it had me worried. After 3 trips to a hospital, which seemed so strange since I already feel pregnancy to be a state of naturalness, not something unhealthy to be treated, I got my little hormone read-out that showed my pregnancy hormones (HcG) to be doubling as they should.
I decided to work at letting the worry go, and developing trust, in my body and in you my child -- that you will grow as you should.
My belly feels so strange already, achy and tingly and sensitive. I am eating so well and farewelled my beloved booze a week ago, as easily as running my hands through water, something I have taken to doing as often as possible...swimming laps, floating, breathing. I know I'll be welcoming you into the world in water, so I want us to have as much time together in this fluid world as we can.
My dreams are still anxious, but my conscious mind is changing with you.
Mama and Papa bear in India
Discovery
The test and that one line told me almost immediately 'you're pregnant.' I took it out to your papa and DT. They looked at my face and then at the test. Everyone sat blinking.
We weren't sure what to do! I sent papa Ryan out for another test. I can't remember what I did then, paced around, trying to keep my breaths deep. The night at Om beach came to the front of my mind, clearly, as I took the second test, the line developing immediately, I knew that you had chosen the moment, you had known it was time. Without us even knowing we were open.
For a moment, worry flooded my mind, mama bear had been playing hard, out late, living her lush jazz cat life. But there was a hum, in the water falling from the fountain, in the sound of my own breathing that said 'trust...not resistance.'
You chose the moment, and the setting, I can only trust in your path. In mine.
I'd been saying so many things, making jokes about falling pregnant whilst on the road. 'Yeah, and when I get home and people ask me 'what will you do now', I'll say 'well, I'm having a baby!''
They say be careful what you wish for, what you call into your life, but for me -- I am so glad I was reckless! Reckless with my jokes and comments, reckless with my wishes and thoughts.
Papa and I hugged. When I worried and waited for expert opinion, he held me while the tears flowed. We smiled. Laughed. We sat quietly. I called my Dad. He was so happy. I felt tired.
Here we are at the start of a new adventure.
from www.maryedwardsphotography.com
We weren't sure what to do! I sent papa Ryan out for another test. I can't remember what I did then, paced around, trying to keep my breaths deep. The night at Om beach came to the front of my mind, clearly, as I took the second test, the line developing immediately, I knew that you had chosen the moment, you had known it was time. Without us even knowing we were open.
For a moment, worry flooded my mind, mama bear had been playing hard, out late, living her lush jazz cat life. But there was a hum, in the water falling from the fountain, in the sound of my own breathing that said 'trust...not resistance.'
You chose the moment, and the setting, I can only trust in your path. In mine.
I'd been saying so many things, making jokes about falling pregnant whilst on the road. 'Yeah, and when I get home and people ask me 'what will you do now', I'll say 'well, I'm having a baby!''
They say be careful what you wish for, what you call into your life, but for me -- I am so glad I was reckless! Reckless with my jokes and comments, reckless with my wishes and thoughts.
Papa and I hugged. When I worried and waited for expert opinion, he held me while the tears flowed. We smiled. Laughed. We sat quietly. I called my Dad. He was so happy. I felt tired.
Here we are at the start of a new adventure.
from www.maryedwardsphotography.com
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