vibrantly beautiful and the epitome of peaceful.
our third daughter was born in front of a fire, at home, on january 30th 2008 at 4:23am. aquarius sun. scorpio moon. sagittarius rising.
she is chubby and warm, weighing in at 8lbs. 9oz. she grabbed the nipple and latched on within 20 seconds on earth.
we are beyond in love. her sisters have never been so excited.
we give thanks. great thanks.
i am so excited. my glorious friend courtney (from waaaaaay back) and mama of a little lyon boy has (finally) started a blog. her words and images…her soul…has been long an inspiration to me and my man. Lyonmom welcome to blog world. may you only feel the love (otherwise hit delete). read up here: www.lyonmom.blogsome.com
What dreaming does is give us the fluidity to enter into other worlds by destroying our sense of knowing this world. - Carlos Castaneda
The waves crash against the windows. The room is circular and the bed in the middle is covered, no, piled with white cloud-like quilts. The girls are jumping on the bed, laughing, falling, playing, and teasing each other. I am just a bystander, not part of the scene yet. Each wave that crashes against the window makes me cringe, scares me, pulls me to collect the girls and protect them, but I am not really there in the room, just my mind’s eye watches the scene. The waves continue to crash, a pattern I begin to count in my head, like the kind of count I used to do as a little girl between lightning and thunder during storms. The waves would come every 5 then every 4, and then there was no pause between the crashes, the water just persisted against the window. My mother’s voice, like a song, entered my ears, its okay their not glass, they won’t shatter, they’ll just shake you up a bit.
And then I enter the room, my body does, and I am conscious of the fresh air circulating from somewhere and I keep my eyes on the window and I see fish swimming in pools, colorful blurs of scales, pass by. I have a blackbird on my shoulder; its beak rests against my hair. Even in the dream I know I am part of magic, and the bird guides me further in. The girls see me and start to cry and reach for me, asking me to hold them. I get on the bed and they jump around me, near me, giggling again. They pet the bird. And then suddenly I feel pressure and it feels so good, finally, I am opening up. I look down and the baby is crowing, being born right there at that moment. The head comes out without me even feeling it and then its hands, which are covered in little sock puppets. She is giggling at us. The waves keep crashing. B runs in the room and the girls say, the baby is born! the baby is born! her name is ZaZa Spiral! Spiral ZaZa! I look down at her and she is the size of a two year old with flax colored hair and dimples and she speaks to me, in this dream though, it’s not English. It’s an unfamiliar tongue. The girls laugh at her, and hug her, like they understand what she says. I’m sure that they do. I wake up and listen and hear our Deep Sleep Sea CD, playing the splashing wave sounds over and over again, on repeat, all night long.
***
My sister, who is a self-proclaimed clairvoyant, told me months ago that when she thought of the baby she just saw the number 29. You’ll have the baby on the 29th. Maybe the 26th, I could have seen an upside-down 6.
Like hell I will. This baby will be here by the 22nd.
Today is the 28th. Last night was the fifth dream I had about birthing this baby. The first one was of a girl, and was much earlier in the pregnancy and the next two were of boys, both who crowned without my knowing. The first one came out talking, asking me to call him Jim. The second one he came out so easy and fast, and with a penis so small that I thought it could possibly be a clitoris. When B saw the penis in the dream, he sighed and said, ah, the curse of the Irish.
Last night’s dream was a mix of all my emotions; whatever they are. At this point they are not separate from me, they are me, and I have lost myself in them. Perhaps lost is not the right word; I have found myself aching, within them, feeling every last part of me; my muscles are softened and stretched as far as they can go. My tissues saturated with a million memories. My blood is on high and it heats me up and only my tears cool me, relieve me. The fear of being overwhelmed and empty all at once, the wisdom of my mother who knows that with trust nothing will completely shatter, just shake. And this baby, coming out so large; I can’t help but wonder: how much longer will I stay pregnant? But as the Castaneda said, dreams give us fluidity. That water surrounding me is a reminder that I am fluid. As soon as I let down my walls of expectation, the water will wash over me and I will become it, taken over by the other world, leaving this one behind for some time so I can mesh with the spirit world and help my baby cross onto earthly ground.
***
In between words, I cannot help but kiss every inch of Sula’s bare little back. She stands next to me as I type, so close that I can smell her breath and the orange-ish scent of her little dready hair. I can hear the slight rattle in her chest, recovering from her cold. I have been so gifted. Can these gifts of life keep continuing? Sometimes I feel like I should have stopped while I was ahead. And then I think of my mother. Who brought seven us here, and I wonder if she ever thought that she was pressing her luck. I think of her not with me during this time, the first time ever she has not been with me post-partum. She lays in a hospital bed, her flesh cut open and her insides removed and rearranged, waiting for pathology reports to come while she tries to pass gas, so finally, after four days she can be given a sip of water or a bite to eat. I spoke with her today and she said she was glad I was having the baby at home. Hospitals are indeed too full of sickness to bring in life. That made me smile, my mother, turning into a homebirth activist. Her voice was frail, something I am not used to. I felt like she was the child and I was the mama. I remember my dream and her voice in my ear, they won’t shatter, only shake. And she’s right. I am too fluid to shatter, no matter what. And right now I can’t even let myself shake. I have to let the water come in and take me over. It’s the only way.
***
I’m not the pilot of this gridwork, this birthlight. Floating somewhere between hope and fear, I slowly let go of time and space as this world has defined it. Baby comes from another world and I can only wait for that perfect synergy, of this world and that one, when a new person on the verge of life and myself are both ready to let go and allow Radical Trust bring this on, this adventure in Unconditional Love.
I read this post the other day, remembering a few other people who have done the same thing and each story I hear about it makes me both wonderfully warm and sad. Sad because this is a question, that we need to be challenged to hug one another. Would we hug someone just for a hug’s sake? For love’s sake, even if that person was a stranger? With a sign? Or not.
Damn right I would, was my immediate response. Hell yeah, I’m Sicilian. We’d hug the UPS man if he didn’t run so quickly back to his truck after leaving the box at my door. I hug the lady who works at the local grocery store who manages the kid toy section almost every time I see her, because she lets me, I sense her openness and she is just amazing and I adore her. And at the other market, the Co-Op, I hugged the man who sweetly swept and mopped the massive canning jar that was almost full of molasses (it was taking forever to fill; slower than molasses in January? They weren’t kidding. The jar was covered in the goo, as were my hands). Somehow it slipped, I tried to catch it with my prodtruding belly, but alas, it dropped. Crashed and splattered. I just stood there and watched him clean it, the whole time apologizing for my sheer klutziness, blaming it on the pregnancy. He smiled the whole time and assured me it was nothing. When he was done, I smooshed into him with my huge belly, arms around his arms. Thank you, I said to him. Thank you for not making me feel bad. I break everything these days.
There is nothing I love better than to embrace my friends, heart to heart, passing back and forth that much needed vital force of energy called Love. And I have no problem embracing the stranger, too, especially if they have done something nice for me.
And today, my self-confidence in hugging anyone would be tested.
I walked into my local coffee place. Grabbed a muffin and a chai. As I was walking to a table, there was a middle aged-woman smiling at me, beaming from ear to ear. She was sitting at a counter on a stool. As I got closer her face lit up even more and it was easy to see she had severe Down’s Syndrome. She was drooling and her smell was intense. Her eyes were imprinting my soul. She stared me up and down. I love you. She said to me stopping me in my tracks. I planned to keep walking by her towards a table in the back. Can I hug you? My first reaction, to my surprise was not of openness, but a body and sensory shut down for the quickest moment. I retreated into my turtle shell, protection mode for body and spirit. What do I do? Hug? Walk? I breath. And immediately my body released. I put my cup and plate down on the counter. I needed no protection. I wrapped my arms around her scratchy wool sweater that quite honestly reeked of urine and gave her a big hug. Her arms were strong and her energy so vibrant I could feel it pulse right through to my heart. She patted my belly. She looked me in the eyes. I love you. I love you, She said to me again with a big, wide child-like smile. The woman she was sitting with, who was most likely her care-provider glanced at me and gave me a wink and then went back to reading her paper.
We love you too, I said, We love you, too. She went back to eating her cookie. I picked up my things and walked to a vacant table. I sunk into my seat. Saying the “we” before the “love you too” was so instinctual. It was like I knew she saw me as me and the baby. That would make a “we”.
I immediately thought of J’s link to the hugger. After initial hesitation, I had to check myself and my self-proclaimed status as being open to affection from the greater world I am part of. Sure, I’m a hugger, when I find you to be safe and relatively familiar and when I decide it’s you I want to hug. But for the random stranger, who looks different, smells different, sounds different; who approaches me with open arms, I had to think twice before extending my physical love. Of course, I fell into the act within moments of the request, but it wasn’t my gut reaction to embrace. Once I did, I knew it was more than right; this pure and sweet woman who sensed my readiness to have a baby, probably knew I needed some love.
And then I realized, it certainly wasn’t me who needed to extend my love to her. It was her who gifted me with her unconscious desire to open up to the powerful force of love and touch. It seemed primal and immediate to her. She didn’t think about it, she felt it and she acted upon it without a thought. With me, I had to stop, think, and then surrender that part of me, the part that should just know to love.
Back to understanding that I have a lot of work to do. That I know nothing. I believe nothing. Absolutely nothing. But that’s okay. It just means I constantly learn.
Nope. No babe yet. But I’d like to take the time to welcome Talia Grace into the world. Her bas-ass beautiful mama birthed her into the world two days ago. C and I have have been pregnant together from close to day one. I take such joy in seeing a photo of her and her newborn girl, surrounded by bright blessings and all things magic. My turn soon, just not yet….
While waiting to birth some life into being, I thought I’d take the opportunity to link you to a website I’ve started writing for. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do, but keep forgetting to tell ya’ll about. While driving in the ghettomobile up the coast and sleeping by the sea, I read the book 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl by Daniel Pinchbeck. It’s the journey of a man seeking shamanism in all forms, from Rudolf Steiner to the sacred tea from the Auyausca leaf, from Mayan timekeepers to crop circles. While the book questions new age theory, it explores our shifting consciousness as a collective, weaving the individual and the universal consciousness into one story. I loved Pinchbeck’s mixture of voices, from questioning critical thinker to soul-driven, third-eye opened seeker. He never once tried to give answers, yet as he seeks shamanic guidance on his own exploratory journey, he became a bit of muse to me, while I conjured up a whole new level of my own personal questions. Not once did I feel l was being sold a dogma, I was just invited on one person’s wild ride. The core of the book is about opening up to the idea of a shifting consciousness on fast speed, leaving power-centered and material rooted world behind and melting into spiritual awareness and inevitable evolution. I read some more Pinchbeck (articles and such) and the more I read, the more I became intrigued. Then I found out he created an on-line magazine, Reality Sandwich. And then somehow I weaseled some words into his domain (stalked them). It’s truly filled with interesting contributors including DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid (he’s one of my heroes, post-modern theorist, DJ and dub provider? If I wasn’t in love, I’d be in love.) Reality Sandwich’s theme is Evolving Consciousness, Bite by Bite.
I think my first and short news piece is up, but i’m not sure though. It’s called "Grow High" and it’s about the need for vertical sustainable farming in large urban centers (food farming. don’t let the title fool ya.)
Regardless, the site is good if you are into weaving stuff like consciousness shifting culture, shamanism, psyche and art. Check it out.
***
Now back to sitting on my cozy nest, keeping this little egg warm. Some cramping. Some serious spaced out moments where my husband may actually think I suffer from dementia. As my spiritual midwife would have observed if she walked into my living room: Your baby has landed. Oh, baby, I feel you. And you feel so good, I fly a bit high from moment to moment.
Yes, baby has landed. Now we just wait for sacred doorways to open, when baby says, Okay, enough of this super funky, juicy, internal plane of bliss and spirit, light matter and perfect flow, I now choose The Flesh. I’m supported and loved, and this world calls me to it’s other side. I’m coming home, Mama. Open up…and breath.
and still cookin’.
Today is the day the almighty Man, with Wand, and Goop, and Screen told me my baby was "due". Five days after my moon due date. The sky is unbelievably crisp and clear tonight. The moon widens at the cusp of fullness, somewhere in the middle of this night it will cease to wax or wane, but will sit for a moment in total round form.
Sula went to the window, looked out it and said, Moder Moon? Will you bring da baby danight?
I wonder. I am feeling a bit of hot flashes, anxiety if you will. But they leave within seconds. By mental body knows what is happening. My physical body tightens, my belly squeezes and releases, drops and tugs. My spiritual body just is. It just allows me to float into this. There is nothing that stops that body from this process. My mind might get in the way, my body might listen to my mind, but my spirit cultives trust and faith. I allow allow three bodies to unifiy. I must. I do trust this baby and I trust myself, the whole self.
We spent the day outside. Hiking. Remember all the great shit I said about my man in the last post? Strike it. He takes me on this insane hike when these days, if I could, would ask him to get up and take a piss for me because I am so lazy. It was beautiful, I will admit, but I’ll be honest: The couch is my friend. Child’s pose is my yoga. Anyway, he promised it would be mellow. We drove about 10 miles straight up, to a ridge right above the bay. The road was bumpy and and it kept going higher. I was promised it was a quick hike down to a crystiline lake, surrounded by fresh fallen snow, with the sun shining today, it’s going to be awesome, wifey!" Just what you need.
A short hike, right? Pretty level? Because inclines and periods where there is no bathroom are bad for me right now. Short? Easy?
Sparing the details. It was a long hike down. And so that means it was a very long and steep hike back up to where the car was parked. If baby’s head hadn’t dropped, it’s knocking on the cervix door now. Regardless, I forgave him because it felt great to just hike in that crisp air, the sun streaming through snow dusted fur trees, icicles sparkling on mossy branches, and with a glance to the left, the blue water of the bay shimmered like a sea of glass. The costal range hovered beyond, islands sprinkled in between. It was exhillerating. A wonderful way to celebrate my due date.
Afterwards we stopped by a park at the beach. The views of the ranges surrounding this city got better. I can’t even explain what it feel like to be surrounded by these kinds of peaks. Protected? In awe of nature. Listening to the lap of the water sunk me on the sandy ground and sang me a lullabye. The kids dug in the sand. Climbed around fallen wood and played on the park. I soaked in their two-ness. Just those sisters (who insist that their new baby is a brover, a boy because we have ‘nough girls in our family). I love them both so much. My heart swells. I hope i can do this, be this much in love with three without totally losing my sanity.
*****
Happy due date Love Dove. We can’t wait to meet you.
love and a wild and peaceful birthing journey we send you, whenever you are ready to make it. We’re here,
your family.
Here I am always posting photos of me and my belly.
But there is someone else who made this happy hump happen. He’s more than an incredible father. And as a birth partner, he is like my the wind to my storm, moving with me, through me and on to the other side. As he surrounds me with love and offers me the space to transform, I hold him. My love.
I can be pretty bitchy at the end of pregnancy. He doesn’t mind. He gaurds our space and nests with me. He doesn’t let a single piece laundry is sitting around. He finds my keys, charges my cell phone and downloads more stories for the kids on the ipod. He cooks dinner. Makes gallons of chicken soup and freezes it. Loads the dishwasher. And rubs oil on my feet at night. He vacuums. He runs out at midnight for lemon milkshakes. He makes me bowls of granola at 3am. He gets up with the kids and lets me sleep until I need to. This is not our normal day to day routine. He usually is up, working, I am taking care of the house fairy stuff and he brings us home security. But now, these days, we are able to play different roles. For another couple weeks I get my man at home so I can be the muggy, fuzzy, moody space cadet I need to be. He takes care of the rest.
I don’t thank him often enough. I don’t always see him as he is, accepting that the person he shares with us is exactly right person he needs to be. And a lot of the time, I see this process as mine; the baby and me. But he is being initiated, too. He is slowly preparing to be doula, partner, and father of three children. He is working on expanding his heart and his patience and in many ways his pocket book…as a father he finds role in gatherer. He is keeper of harmony and order and ease around my space so i can work through this birth without stress. We often cast aside the man, especially those of us who so believe in women centered birth; sometimes, if aren’t careful, the father can become a bystander, just observer. But they are more than that. There is merging of masculine and feminine that needs to take place the entire way, not just during the sex. There can be a push and pull between mother and father and if we don’t open hearts and eyes, we sometimes allow the sacred blend to slip through the cracks, and imbalance can be uncomfortable. I have been blessed. Either that or I am very good at training someone–10 years after we met, I can see he is no longer the searching boy. I think we pay close attention to our dynamic. We allow conflict, we allow silence, we allow slowly the heart to heal. We find synergy through these moments; we become the elements we need to walk together. And because of this, because he is open to it all, we become balance of sorts. Like sitting on either end of the teeter-totter, we work it until we hang out mid-air, waiting, communicating, our legs dangling, not forcing the other up or down. Birthing together will be easy. As he said the other day, As easy as whipped cream sliddin’ off a piece of warm pumpkin pie…
He is who he is with a smile and style. He rocks the turntables, rounds the wood, carves the stone, beats the drum and can ride a bowl on a skateboard like the kids half his age. He trusts our combined intuition, takes chances, explores and holds my adventurous nomadic side next to his nesting side. He grounds us all. He keeps us safe. He makes us laugh. He is silly.
I love him. I can’t wait to see his love explode for one more. I can’t wait to feel our arms wrap and bring this baby to our family. I can’t wait until he tends to the fire, all night long, as we soak in the love of our new family. I give thanks.
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Photo by Jason Byal aka Moebyal /Jan. 2008.
Here is a movie review for The Business of Being Born. I respect her choice to give it a rather negative review, dismissing it as important for our current birth culture. Although I don’t agree with her that documentaries should be unbiased and objective. I mean, they are called documentaries to document experience. Nobody said it’s “the news” (ha! Like the news is even close to being objective). And I hardly felt that Lake’s movie suggested that homebirth is the right choice for everyone. She just gave homebirth a voice that it craves. I personally do find that Lake’s film may in some ways feed the Fear Factor a bit for women who may have never even thought of the world of birthing in this way. I think dramatic plays on the horrors of what happens in hospitals, whether coming from a Baby Story episode or Lake’s documentary is not the way to inform women on birthing choices, which Stevens (the critic) makes note of.
But to call Michel Odent a crackpot? Hold me back…I’m swingin’ at her for that one.
I really try to keep my birth talk, my birth writing personal. I/We (my family) personally chooses homebirth. I do so because this is what my body tells me is right and good and safe for us. Before I even got pregnant, I was given a glimpse through my immediate community what it was like to birth in both homes and hospitals. I could compare stories, read up on the subject, talked to care providers..etc. I was a lucky one, for some reason I stumbled upon enough information and evidence based education. I also fostered a deep intuition that birthing would need to be private and holistic for me in order for it to be safe and empowering. My decision came easily, and immediately I fell into a supportive system.
I do not think that homebirth is the right choice for everyone. It’s absolutely not. Nothing is an absolute in life. Everyone walks different paths. Breastfeeding is not right for everyone. Co-Sleeping is not the answer for all. Clothe? Disposable? Who knows except you? Nobody. There are a million other choices one could make in parenting and there are no rules, we need to find our own path. To think one way or another is ‘better’ is just ignorant. And propagandist. For myself, homebirth is beyond words a way for me to bring peace on this earth, because it brings peace to myself and my little circle of family. I like that quote by Gandhi that so many people share: Be the change you wish to see in the world. Not once in there does he say preach the change. Being the change means exactly that. I homebirth because I want to see the change happen: in myself. I do not expect others to make the same choices as I do.
But sharing information is not preaching. Women deserve to be handed a wide variety of literature and support. We need to ask ourselves: Do all women understand the slippery slope of medical interventive births? Do all women know that homebirthing without drugs is intense, wild and sometimes ends up in needed transfers and sometimes non-vaginal birth? Do all women understand exactly what epidurals do to the fetus? Do all women know that OB’s must take, on average, 30 clients a month to pay their malpractice insurance and perhaps the rate of inductions and scheduling is not in the best interest of the mother and baby, but a simple necessity of the doctor (30 births a month is impossible to attend if mother is left to birth on her own). Do all women know that the hospitals would not survive without the ‘interventive’ birthing industry (including anesthetic and surgeries and pharmaceutical outfits..etc). Do all women understand the birth is not a guarantee? Women and babies do die, as in life? Do they understand that no matter where one births, there is risk? Do they know that moving in birth and positions other than laying down can help babies come out? Do they understand that sometimes drugs can help a women birth her baby more safely than not? Are they prepared to accept that birth might not be what they thought it was going to be? Each woman who prepares to birth needs to hear it all. Informed choices equal power.
There will always be a divide between birthing practices. We argue the esoterics and ethics and medical reasons for either or. But until we all are offered an array of information, we are marginalized and fall prey to propaganda. On either side.
What a women needs is love and support. Offerings of gentle information and people to hold her space safe; to allow her to experience the vastness of pregnancy and birth, whether she feels safe in the comfort of a doctor, or a midwife, or on her own. Each woman needs the respect to make decisions based on her body wisdom. All women need to be encouraged that they are indeed FULL of body wisdom, and their babies share in that space. Women need to be held and encouraged to listen to themselves. When a woman listens to herself and her baby, makes choices for herself and her baby, regardless of what they are, she deserves respect in her community, from her care providers, from her culture. There is a saying…mother knows best. It starts when the baby is in the womb.
I get annoyed when people try to passively and aggressively tell me it’s dangerous to have my baby in my home, just as I get annoyed when people claim that homebirthing is best and safest choice. I just listened to my body wisdom, my subtle whispering soul, the one that wants me to grow and expand. That voice, for me, led me to stay at home. If my body whispered to me that another place, such as a hospital, was where I needed to be, then that is where I would be. And on top of listening to myself, I was blessed: I knew I had choices. I know I could be at home and I knew it was safe for me to do so.
I didn’t personally think The Business of Being Born was the greatest documentary in the world. but for goodness sake’s she is trying, she is trying to get the word out there so women understand they have choices, all kinds of choices. There are doctors and hospitals on every corner, filling up chunks of the Yellow Pages. We know we can go there and they are so easy to find, but do all of us know what we might encounter when we birth there? And in some places finding a midwife to attend your birth at home can be hard to find, and once we do, do we know what it could be like to labor for 3 days at home with no drugs? Are we ready for that? All of us may not know that homebirth IS safe, and so Ricki Lake shares information that allows us to understand that is indeed is. It is safe. The rest of our culture is quite sure the other alternatives are better. Let a little homebirth voice be heard.
And again Odent is NOT a crackpot. It is a shame she put that down as words. He really is a gift. But that’s just my little opinion. His waterbirth work probably was a reason I was able to have one. And to birth without water for me is like living without air.
(Okay, I am going back to being a mushy headed, emotional pregnant woman, soaking in her birth tub, drinking Lime Seltzer Water and reading silly magazines.)
*disclaimer. i did not proof this at all. no spell check or editing. my apologies, but i want to just do this, to get this out. this is a journal entry. don’t feel obliged to read it if you like my more "together" stuff (not that I write together, but this is really loose my friends.
***
I am starting to wait. Not the impatient kind like when -is-it- going -to -happen- wait. But a quiet and grateful wait. A watching and observing wait. A jot down these notes without thought kind of wait. A chocolate cake with lemon ice cream milkshake kind of wait. A dried mango and tamari almond wait. A laugh and cry out loud kind of wait. I sit, eat, sleep, walk in the woods and by the beach. I lean against large pieces of fallen trees on the sand and listen to the water slap agains the earth. The wind has been strong but not cold enough to keep me inside. The skys have been gray, but not enough that the sun doesn’t come out and warm our faces at least every couple days. These days are gifts, perfect days for waiting, dancing, trying to be my raw and authentic me. Birth demands that.
***
From the beginning, it could have seemed like the entrance of this baby into my body was practically fatalistic. We questioned how on earth we’d ever be able to continue with our move; which entailed strenous work in remodeling and planning and organzing all through those tender and fragile months of the first trimester. And if it all worked out, how would we actually do the move, on our little budget, while my belly was getting big and I would undoubtedly begin to feel uncomfortable on long car rides and alternative sleeping arrangements made on the road. And could it ever be possible to make it to our destination in time, to find a place to live, exactly when my nesting and hibernation would be kicking in beyond my emotional control? There were many times we doubted. But my thoughts wander to my grandmother and how she rode a shipt across the seas with a baby stirring in her womb, getting ready to become part of a New World. And my heart remained hopeful that all would just fall into some kind of place without too much of a shatter.
And last night we spoke of how utterly unfatalistic it really has been. And how beautifully serendiptious it actually is. In the middle of the storm of movement we may have forgotten this hope, but not for long; we are so assured that this baby has always been quite knowing when and where it wanted to be born. It is sure of the timing, and the season and the moment. And I place great faith in this gestation, this time to wait. I see now how their are no boundaries in the perfection of the universe. There are being out there with perfect timing. It’s our perception and time-keeping methods that are askew. So now time doesn’t exist. The only reason I know the day is because my phone has it digitized across it. Otherwise, I don’t care.
And I enjoy this wait. I have never enjoyed waiting for anything before, so I am surprised. This wait is nurishment. Each moment it offers me something nurturing to chew on, to swallow and call in as my own.
Tomorrow, the 15th, is my ‘official’ original "due" date calculated by my mooncycle. I always thought the 15th would be a good day to have the baby, but now I am in no rush. The towels are all clean. The sheets are fresh. There is food in the cupboard. My birth tub is set up, the water warm. The candles are all out, my altar is friendly and beautiful, comforting and bright. Maybe it will be tomorrow. But maybe it won’t. There is nothing to do but allow whatever my birth work is to be done, until the baby’s work is done on the under side of things. Collestrum leaks from my breasts. Low dull pulls tug on my belly. Baby moves less and less, but the energy is strong. It’ll be soon enough.
There are these moments at the end when I bounce as fast as a super ball from high to low. One moment I cry at how supportive and conscious my man is. Othertimes I cry in his face at how much of a disconnect I sense between the two of us. It’s crazy, really, that one person can experience all these emotions. And each one lets me see my faces, all of them. I get to know myself by allowing myself to feel the entire spectrum. Call is manic, because it is, but that mania is what will ground me in the center so i can open up above and below and let life come through me.
Tonight I ran to the bathroom to cry by myself. Reason: unknown. I was sitting on the floor, sobbing, moaning and all of sudden the tears disappeared and all I could do was see the dirt around the bathroom. I jumped up with foreign energy and began cleaning the bathroom, spraying and wiping. Scrubbing the toilet, the floors, behind the sink. Picking little lint balls with my fingers, one by one. Taking an old toothbrush and scrubing between tiles. Organzing the cabinets. It felt good, so good to cleanse. I think there is still alot of cleansing to be done within myself. I talk to the baby. I listen to the baby. We are both waiting for some karma to play out. I am not a perfect person; along with my deep well of love I harbor some of the ugly stuff, a lot of the ugly stuff: doubt, anger, fear. These moments before birth I look straight into my heart mirror. It is who I am and it’s my own choosen state of mind. I don’t judge it. I let it happen and sometimes I think it’s best to keep it away from my tongue, and sometimes I express. These days are expression, uncencored honesty. It’s what must be done to let it all go and become the birthing mother I am to be. I focus on an ecstatic birth, I want to transform the energy, consciouly. I don’t hold myself to having orgasim throughout the birth, but I will say that I have been practicing. I bring tons of energy down, especially the energy in my body that holds fear and pain and anger and I see it being held around my hips and then I breath and spiral them and imagine it melting apart and transforming into warmth and love and pleasure. I am not going to believe it can’t be pleasurable. We have been told the same story over and over, and I refuse to believe I am being punished through birth. I can’t and won’t be held prisoner to discomfort and in the end a state of mine that doesn’t serve me. Perhaps birth is actually the reward; the actual act of birthing a savory gift of goo and goodness and tingles. I’ll choose to take that reward. I mean, in the end, I understand that the reward I hold in my arms and if I am blessed, all will be well. But we all too often cast aside the experience of birth. I am ready and waiting and willing to be blessed with whatever birth wants to deliver to me. I know it can happen many, many ways. But the work I do now is to feel it deep in my core; and I know what I would like. Maybe I will get it.
I exhale very loud all the time and people think I am sighing. Funny, how loud exhales are heard so rarely people thing they are sighs. While let the breath go, I remember to open my heart. Soften it, feel rays of warm and ancient sunlight beam from it. I try to imagine this cord that goes from my heart to B’s to Mia’s to Sula’s to babies. This is the kind of love I’m talking about, the kind of birth I’d really love to have. It’s the kind of life I try to live. And really, what’s the difference between birth and life? Birth is a moment in the life; an intensified, naked, bloody, glass shattering, cloud floating, wave ripping moment in life.
There isn’t saying that I don’t have fears about what it’s going to be like. The perception of pain that I have is real. The ridiculious idea that I might forget how to birth a baby comes up once in a while. I have to address it and remind myself that blood, bones, DNA does not forget. My spirit doesn’t forget. I have been doing this for millions of years. We all have. I also have some fears that I won’t feel the love and support of those around me…that I won’t LOVE those around me. In the beginning, I wanted to birth this baby alone. In the end, I still do. But I also know I want someone there, to take of the little things I don’t want to bother with…listening to the heart, determining what the arrythmia is doing, changing towels and cleaning sheets. I also have no idea what will happen with Mia and Sula. I have faith in their little buddhaness. They are insightful and aware little souls. I put my energy in seeing them getting the moments of birth, their healing, caring and gentle side will be a gift. I notice them lately nesting along with me. They stay busy in imagination play; cleaning, folding, cooking. Sula pretends she is a little baby and Mia is her mama. They create art work of spirals and mixes of reds and oranges and blues. Sula resists any sort of potty-time. Mia spends many moments in quiet embrace around my belly, "i love you baby, i love you," she whispers.
**
We still have no boy names. We go back and forth and can’t agree. Girl names, on the other hand, there are a couple we love. If this child is a boy (which more than many insist it is) he may be nameless for a bit. I can’t say what I feel. I just feel it’s a baby, my baby. I have little concern about the sex. It’s the mystery I so love. That moment when the babe comes to us. It’s a baby, that’s all, and all we know is how much in love we are. This child is so energized and charasmatic, a captivating character full of sensuality and intrigue. This child is a peace Dove, but s/he is also a firey, passionate being from another side. A perfect balance. To imagine this baby will be in my arms in no time at all. Until then, I wait.
I promised myself before this new one comes, Sula deserved a birth story written down. Two and half years after the day I’ve been feeling kinda bad. I was only 20 weeks pregnant with Sula when I finally finished Mia’s, so I am a bit behind here. Better late than never. It was so hard to capture her story. It was birth; just a perfect, soft, waterbirth, nothing eventful. I’ve tried to explain what it meant to me, what it gifted me. It is my offering to her today, the last days she is my ‘baby’ and every day she really is such a joy. I am lucky beyond words to have been picked by her to be Mama.
I’m not one to capture it into real time. But labor was 6.5 hours from start to finish.
Please excuse tense changes and errors. This late in pregnancy my mind works in it’s own way. Editing will come later.
***
l
The Birth Of Sula Pearl. July 26. 2005.
Remember this can be gentle.
I stopped pushing. The bearing down was far from feeling gentle. Instead, I imagined my tissues opening. I slowly, gently breathed downward, using the quiet yet vital energy to open the contracting fibers of my flesh and being. I could see the ruby redness of my insides accepting the air, spreading apart, savoring the breath and allowing it to free it from mere matter, losing its solidity and welcoming a new fluid spirit, without any rips or tears, I became liquid silk. Then I felt a small head emerge. The head led the way for shoulders, almost instantly.
Reach down, MaryBeth. Go on; bring your baby up to you.
The words were whispered but still heard over my Darth Vader-ish sounding.
I…can’t…reach…
Immediately the hold that was under my arms, the hold that previously had held me up, relieving gravity and allowing me to hang, the hold that invaluable supported for me as my baby traveled down, was loosened. My arms were freed to reach a few inches longer so I could get to my baby. I felt her head and then felt B’s hands already there, his fingers spread across her crown. I unconsciously pushed his hands away, held on to her like I have never held anything before in my life, hooked my fingers under her armpits like it was the first thing and only thing I had ever learn to do in all of existence and I lifted her up through the water, right to my chest. My arms lengthened and surrounded her slippery self completely. The only sounds were the buzz of the air conditioner, the swishing of the birth tub water and my voice whispering, perfect, perfect, baby, you are so perfect, perfect, perfect.
I looked at her. Bruised nosed, pushed down flat from a posterior exit, little slits for eyes with noticeably long eye lashes that seemed to be fluttering, waiting for the perfect moment to reveal what was underneath. Creamy and unusually thick vernix covered her, but still I could see she was as brownish pink as a berry. She came out with a tropical tan. And she was small. So tiny compared to the size I was while she lived in me. So tiny compared to her sister on her birth day. Could I have made someone this small?
And there I was. Mother of two. Within moments, I was nursing my second child, unable to take my eyes away from her. There I was, moments after the birth, standing up, cord hanging out of me, still attached to her, stepping out of the tub, ignoring the help of others and landing right on the rocker, laughing, smiling, gushing with sweetest sugary unhindered love I think I have ever felt.
M, you okay? Do you need help? A bathrobe was draped around me. More dry towels suddenly appeared around the baby.
Help? Hell no. I felt better than I think I ever felt my whole life. I just ran a marathon and I was ready to run another. Exhilarated. Energized. Empowered. Ready to do it all again.
I remember settling in the rocker, totally alive and aware and renewed and B whispering to me, you are totally amazing. She is totally amazing. Wow, that was unbelievable. Thank you….thank you….
We looked down to make sure, although we knew in our hearts she was a girl. B and I caught each other’s eyes again for the millionth time that morning. We knew what her name would be. Sula. She was absolutely Sula. Sula Pearl.
********I guess I should start more toward the beginning of her birth story. But the end is what sticks with me. It is the gift that keeps on giving as each year passes. Those final moments of labor breathing her down, the warm water soothing me, the arms of support around me, the sensation of catching my own baby; it’s all glory and grace. But there is more to it, just as important. It took some work to get there. It took some work in patience. I guess her birth story started about 4 days before she was actually born.
I was angry. Impatient. Hot. Grumpy. I was also approaching 42 weeks which is the time limit in the state of Arizona for a midwife to legally attend a birth at home. Although my midwife assured me she would be there for me regardless, she also knew how badly I wanted this baby out of me. She gave me a few home remedies that if I wanted to, I could give a try. They won’t work if the baby isn’t ready, I heard her say.
I was hesitant to even consider any kind of induction. Attending births and being a listener to all birth stories, I had heard horrors about the intensity of inductions: labor like pains and the only thing born is hours of diarrhea, or stepping on that path of interference can only led to more interference.. But somehow the need and want to go into labor over-rode any of my usual personal beliefs of just let it all be.
I remember talking to J on the phone, staring at the little amber colored bottles of tincture in front of me on my kitchen counter. I held them, felt the coolness of their bottles, tried to take in their energy to my palm. As I was getting ready to embark on an experiment of herbal induction, she asked me to question why I wanted to take the herbs. I wish I could remember how she said it, it’s been over two years now, so my memory has faded in blurred spots, but she wanted me to question why I thought my body wasn’t going into labor on my own and she expressed it in her very doula-mode way. Do you really want to do this? She asked.
Fucking hell yes, motherfucking yes, Bitch, was probably my response. I was carrying around about 60 extra pounds, the temperatures were between middle hell and the deepest realms of hell and my not quite two year old was cranky and clingy because when it’s 118 degrees who isn’t? She was nursing non-stop on top of my huge belly and sucking on my sore-ass nipples. Hell yes. I wanted to go into labor. Right. That. Minute.
So the cocktail of herbs began. Thirteen drops of Blue Cohosh. Thirteen drops of Black Cohosh. In a little cup, mixed with a very little bit of water, I’d shoot it down like it was Sugarcane rum and I was ready to party on the Jamaican sands. I did this little ritual three times that day, each time reminding baby what the herbs were trying to do. I did the ritual three times the next day. On both evenings I pulled out the castor oil and had B give me the deepest massage on the belly I could handle. Then for a few hours I wore a robeezo around my gut dancing like a lunatic around the house, trying to jiggle the baby out. Then it came time to get “romantic”. I’d open about 10 Evening Primrose Oil capsules and slathered the oil that was inside all over the tip of B’s penis and had the most uncomfortable, sticky sex of my life. We did that two times each night.
The second night after marathon sex, we crashed on the living room floor. Me with a glass of red wine. Him with green tea. I cried with my face in his lap. What the fuck is wrong? What’s wrong with me? Why won’t I go into labor? I am two weeks late! I sobbed and sobbed as he smoothed my hair and rubbed my shoulders and tried to whisper words of peace and assurance to me. Suddenly, I jumped up. Did you hear that? B just stared at me. Uh-uh.
I listened. I heard it again, the voice of my heart and my hara together made the most beautiful sound to my ears, Stop. Mama, just stop. I’ll come when I am ready. It was her. My baby.
And so I did.
It was an interesting lesson. It made me cry and cry that I hadn’t learned it earlier. I was rushing something that could not be rushed. I was forcing something that couldn’t be forced. My baby wasn’t ready to be born. I wasn’t ready to give birth. Something was still undone and I was ignoring the greater push and pull of birth. Birth happens. Nothing indicated that my body wasn’t making the proper hormones. Nothing indicated that my baby was in danger of being in my womb until she was ready. There is something to be said about allowing the subtle interaction between Mother, Child and Cosmos picking the birth date of a person. I mean, I may have forced a moody Cancer to be born when the world really needed another spitfire Leo.
I have never been a particularly patient person. I want things when I want them and I have admitted that I tend to rush the process. I have always tended to keep my eyes on the target, wanting that finality, never really comprehending that to receive what I needed was to just notice the moments on the journey; allowing the journey to happen. Those steps are the most profound, the most exiting and rewarding. I know that now, sort of. But I don’t think until then did I really see this part of me, this person who needed to just sit back and wait and understand there is plenty of time. I’ve rushed jobs and moves and lovers and all sorts of things. I always wanted to be powerful than time. That is dangerous. I think I spent most of my life running from one thing to the next, in desire and haste. It took my unborn child to shake me up a bit, to speak to me: Stop.
On exactly 42 weeks and 1 day, just over 24 hours after my baby told me to relax and to wait for her, I sat straight up in bed. B was snoring softly and next to him Mia was drooling on her pillow. Her small body curled up around her blankie and one hand draped over her daddy’s side. This would be the last night she was the only baby in our bed. I knew it was happening. The cramping came again, tight and sharp around my lower back and hips. And then slowly vanished, without a trace, like a wave receding from the shore, I was pulled back down on my pillow. I closed my eyes and drifted. Twenty minutes later it happened again.
B? B…wake up. I’m in labor. I pushed on his arm gently a couple times. I’m in labor.
He snored a bit. Cleared his throat and opened one eye. Huh?
I’m in labor. But it’s early. I’m going to try to go back to sleep.
Okay, wifey. That’s great. Let me know what to do…..And immediately the snores continued. I wondered if he had any idea what I just said. He can and has slept through earthquakes. Big ones.
I went back to sleep, waking up on and off, gently breathing through the tight sensations that grabbed hold of my lower back. But I was given a break as soon as they were done. This was very different from Mia, where the contractions started and continued, one on top of the other with no more that 5-10 seconds in between. I felt good about this. I was able to rest, dream, drift off to a place where I was refueled. I was hoping I’d wake up really far along. I curled against B, reaching my hand across him to hold on to my Mia. I just enjoyed this sleepy time, waking and breathing, and feeling so grateful it was finally happening.
Until about 6:30am. I woke up with a jolt. B snored loudly next to me, his lips parted and his body relaxed. I got out of bed in pain. It was heavy. I paced the side of my bed. I went to the bathroom. Put my check on the cold concrete floor. I moaned. I groaned. I went back to the bedroom.
WAKE UP! I climbed in bed and shoved his body. WAKE. UP. I startled him and he opened his eyes, Huh? Wha? Wazgoinon?
I was surprised at the sudden shift to urgency and annoyance, seeing his comfortable sleeping body. Why does he get to be so comfortable? I’ll change that, I thought. That is when knew this was real, the baby was coming.
Are you gonna get up or are you gonna sleep through the birth of your baby?
Huh? Holy shit. Sorry. He jumped out of bed. He looked confused but immediately jumped into his role. He turned the heater on the birth tub. I heard him banging around the kitchen, taking the soups out of the freezer to defrost, the spoon clanking against the side of a glass, stirring Emergenc-E in water. Lighting incense. Running back and forth into the bedroom where I was, checking in on me, making sure I was ok, preparing snacks, gathering towels and blankets, getting the camera out.
Mia woke up and together we got out of bed I climbed in the tub and put on a Sesame Street DVD. She thought taking a morning bath in the living room, watching Big Bird while eating toast with melty butter that dada made was a load of fun. We floated around together and I was amazed at how the buoyancy and weightlessness the water offered such ease for those tight sensations in my lower back. The pain left and it just became energy, tight energy. Then Mia decided she wanted to nurse. I really wanted in my deepest of hearts for her to remain present for the labor and birth. But as soon as she began whining, crying and begging to nurse, grabbing at my bare chest, pinching at my Nigh-Nighs (her word for them) I knew I couldn’t handle it. I let her latch on because I really wanted to keep her there and I thought even a sip would calm her down. Instead everything intensified. My primal urges were to push her away, far away. I had work to do, hard work and unless she was there to help me, she had to go. Breastfeeding during a big contraction was close to hell. My body wouldn’t let me near that kind of fire and discomfort. My body rejected her even though my heart longed for her.
By 7:30am our friend K came over to take my firstborn girl away. To this day, I wish it could have been different, but I knew that my choice not to wean before this birth was not going to be compatible with labor.
The world started to spin after Mia left and I wondered if I was being taken away with it. I couldn’t get enough of the tub, my body freely floated and I easily switched positions. Its obvious baby was posterior; no surge had been frontal, instead my back bones felt like they were being reorganized and shifted and, well, crushed. But the water soothed and relieved. I wondered aloud if I should get out, could I be stalling labor by being so relaxed in the water. B said if it feels good, why get out? He turned on some mellow and gooey dub music right around the first time I vomited over the edge of the tub and on to the pile of clean towels. He ran over with our puke bowl a moment too late. When I was done heaving up nothing, I noticed there was a summer storm pending outside, the light coming in from my French doors dimmed to a hue of gray, but the system hung somewhere south, and the sun won over. I wondered what it would be like to give birth under full sunlight. It seemed odd, different from my last experience, like babies wanted to come under a moonlit sky or the fresh dawn, but what kind of child wants to come mid-day, in the middle of a constipated heat wave?
Morning was beginning to turn into afternoon and I hadn’t gotten out of the tub once. I had to pee. I didn’t want to pee in the tub. I climbed out finally and gravity was my enemy. I cried out loud; the fierceness of surges on dry land was out of control. Why would anyone ever labor out of water, I wondered? I got on all fours and crawled to the bathroom. My belly hung low and my back bones felt flattened as baby made her way. I climbed up on the toilet and relieved myself. Next time, I told myself, I’ll pee in the tub.
As I was crawling back, B asked me if I wanted to go into the backyard. The July heat had broken for a moment, the sun shone, but there was dampness in the air, the sky wanted to pour down, but the sun still held the thrown. He draped a robe on me and we swayed together in our backyard. Just the night before we had made love out on that grass sans the primose oil and the desire to jumpstart labor. We made love, just because we were in love. While I leaned all my weight against him and moved his hips, spiraling, helping me to do the same, the storm came down in my body instead of the sky. My mind whipped like the wind to places where thoughts don’t live and sounds are created and then emerge from the belly and travel up from throat to mouth
Maaaaaaaaaaaaa Maaaaaaaaaaaaa Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa*
And my birthsong was born right then. This is the sound that got me through the next three or four hours. I climbed back in the tub, began submerging my whole head under the water, blowing bubbles until I needed a breath and then would left my head out and up, MaaaaaaaMaaaaaaMaaaaaaa. On hands and knees I’d dunk myself again, spiraling my hips, rolling them, rocking. Maaaaaaaaaaa.
B knew it was time to call our midwife. I spoke to her briefly, and expressed I couldn’t be too far along, that I felt like I had just begun. This was my way of not expecting anything, although I hoped, if I claimed I was still early, then all the faster I would be done. She was in the neighborhood running errands, so she said she’d just stop by.
She entered and all things got even softer as her presence is like a velvet pillow. After some talk, she checked me for the first time in 9 months.
Am I at least half way?
Just about.
Then in a hushed manner she called her assistants to come over with her kit. I got the feeling I was farther along than I’d imagined. And even if I wasn’t, that thought passing through me made things go even deeper, much more intense, like lightening I was bolting down, blowing bubbles and sounding. Time becomes warped and moments move like shapes and sounds instead of lines and graphs. I traveled up and down and around and back and forth. My birth team surrounded me. I heard the baby’s heart tones thump from somewhere. I felt my lover step in the tub and encircle me with his strength. I held him, wrapped my legs around him, and stared into his eyes. As blue as the water, they offered me everything he had. They mirrored me, this baby’s journey, our trip together. This was it. This was all there was. We kissed gently and I buried my head in his neck, swirling around the tub. There were moments when all I could do was hold on to him and stare into those blue eyes as he emanated the most compassionate and awe-filled love to me. To this day, there is no better doula for me than my husband. Although my Birth Shaman was dwelling above my head, opening my seventh chakra, creating a pathway for this deep, deep work of bringing a baby from spirit to flesh, my husband had his own Birth Shaman dwelling around him. Together we shared some ancient, unspoken secrets, and together we were birthing this baby. And I can honestly say, that in those moments, I was conscious of it. I knew we had it going on.
And then there were other moments when I had to push him away. I wanted nothing to do with him. And as he scooped up poo from the water with his little net, I held my face under, blew those bubbles, keeping my lips vibrating and opening my yoni wider and softer each time, and the releasing and MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.
And somewhere between feeling the magic and vocalizing and blowing bubbles, during I allowed my head to go somewhere I never expected. As Sula was traveling down the canal, I saw flashed of red lights, heard sirens, and saw myself getting taken away to a hospital. That is when I let myself vocalize, is the baby stuck? Am I stuck?
And immediately I heard a chorus, to this day I don’t know if it was my actual physical Birth Circle or my Birth Shaman speaking through me, but the chorus was a reassuring: No. Nothing is stuck. You are not stuck. Baby is not stuck. I let go of those thoughts. But they popped in, like an unwelcome stranger, bring doubt and erasing the trust that was this birth’s foundation. I could see that if I wasn’t in the place I was, with the love around me, I could have gotten ‘stuck’.
But I didn’t. Instead someone from my circle lifted my mop of wet wavy hair on top of my head and cinched it with a rubber band. Someone offered me more water from my bendy straw. My husband rubbed my back and held my hand. I sat up and looked around. I was home. In my house. I sunk back in and blew more bubbles. And I was told, You are totally becoming a mermaid, a sea goddess in that water. I can see it. I will never forget her words. Another person came walking into the room with my lit candle of Mary, Virgin of Guadalupe, the Mother Goddess of my birth fate now flickered hope on the table next to me, sharing space with Quan Yin and Gaia. And the force coming from the top of my head and trying to connect with the spot below my yoni was so great, so much bigger than me, yet all me, that I knew it was time. A baby was going to be born.
I sat up. Arms linked under my own to hold me so I could hang. My body was telling me to get ready, to stay calm. Baby’s coming. It’s time. Baby’s coming, it’s time. I chanted out loud. I think I sounded frantic, but afterward B assured me my voice was just powerful and vibrating with depth. And I started to push. This baby was ready now. And so was I. I pushed some more. This was what I was supposed to do right? I felt a head inside me and I needed to push it out? I had to work hard, right? I pushed some more….and then I heard those words,
Remember, this can be gentle.
And then I remembered, somewhere in my bones, to be patience. My body and baby could work this out without force. It could be gentle, if I just let go, let time and softness slide her out with my breath.
And I did. And it was.
It was one of the gentlest moments of my life. And my Sula Pearl, a gentle soul who walks this earth, carries a lighted torch from her heart center. Perhaps she was just the tool to offer me such gifts. Or maybe it was the work I did while pregnant with her and that worked paid off; an easy, mellow, giving soul from her first moments. Regardless, I think I know a bit more about patience, and with it all good things do come.
________
*Interestingly enough, I looked up the word "MA", my ‘came from outta nowhere’ birthsong in a copy of The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myth’s and Secrets (everyone should have a copy of this book, btw). Here are some meanings:
Basic mother-syllable of Indo-European languages, worshipped in itself as the fundamental name of the goddess.
It’s sacred letter “MA” in pictorial form as the Spark of Life (bindu or vindhu) was said to be “in the Great Yoni”.
In Indo-European root languages, it was as intelligence, the maternal force that bound elements together to create forms at the beginning of the world.
In Hebrew the same sacred letters of MA made the Mem-Aleph. Combining ideographs of “fluid” and “birth” . The holy sign was credited with great protective power and was written on Jewish amulets during the late 9th Century B.C.
MA-MA means mother’s breasts in nearly all languages around the world from Russia to Samoa.
