Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning: born of the one Light Eden saw play

There is some serious long wind in this post. I've been writing out pieces of it in the margins of my notes in my mind for awhile now. I wanted to put together a comprehensive history of how I'm feeling about birth and motherhood, and how I arrived in this place. I have a mother who in my estimation is one of the toughest and kindest women in the world. Her babies were treasures to her. She rejoiced in their coming and mourned their departure from infancy. Despite our family's awkwardness with affection, all the new babies were met with gleeful adoration by us older kids. I wanted to hold them and smell their heads with that intoxicating new baby smell. Sometimes I would secretly wake them up from a nap so that my mom (my poor mother) would get them up and I could just watch them. They are fascinating and have always inspired a sort of reverence in me. I also have tender memories of sitting on the floor at my mother's feet while she rocked and nursed one of the babies. I would tell her about my day and I loved the quiet feeling in the room all glowing with love.

And no one babied my mother. She did not "play the pregnancy card," as someone told me I would learn to do "regardless" of whether I really felt sick or not. What I learned from her about birthing was that bringing a child into the world was "euphoric"--in spite of the accompanying pain. I remember her saying "Sure it hurts, but it's one day in your life that you're in pain. And you don't think about it once you have your baby." There are other thoughts maybe too private so share here, but I'm grateful to my mother for the way she helped shape the way I thought about birth--that it came from a place of strength, not helplessness.

When I first heard about water birth (probably in high school), I remember thinking I'd love to do something like that--but for many years and for many reasons (mostly having to do with pride and disillusionment) I was convinced I was going to fill my days and my arms by loving other people's kids, that no babies of my own were on their way. Once that door opened (it was really hard for me not to make a euphemism here!) I became obsessed with studying childbirth, specifically natural or un-medicated birth. I read books and blogs, birth stories and watched birth videos. I have Katrina to thank for the excellent reading list that got me started, and the Lowe girls for their "paradigm shift" that caused a tidal wave of "birth keeping" passion starting with Asher's carbirth. Although at certain times in my life I NEVER would have believed it was possible, I was actually deliriously excited to get pregnant (it helped that I had a partner I knew would be a most excellent father! I'd never trusted anyone that much before). Jonny and I both felt good about getting started right away (lots of reasons for this, mostly because we're elderly and want a big family) and I guess the Little Stranger did, too. We're so glad he did! The first month we investigated a couple of birth centers (Bella Natal and Feels like Home Birth Suites). They were beautiful, peaceful, and welcoming. I knew I didn't want to birth in the hospital unless necessity demanded it, but I still had the idea that I had to "go somewhere" to have my baby--that if we got in the car and drove somewhere we'd be better off somehow and "safer." It dawned on me slowly that a birth center doesn't really offer much that your own home can't--you still need to transfer to the hospital in case of an emergency, but the midwife really can bring everything you need to your home. The facility fee gave me pause as well, so we left without signing anything.

Since we’d paid for the BYU health plan, I made an appointment with an OB-GYN when I was 10 weeks along. I didn’t have any evidence of my pregnancy beyond a double pink line; I wanted authentication from The Authorities that it was real; also, I was starving for information about the salamander. I met with a doctor that I really quite liked, Dr. Bean. He was friendly and approachable and asked about my father’s residency (Dr. Bean also happens to be the doctor who delivered Christine’s baby on TLC’s “Sister Wives,” so he is famous as well as congenial!). He complimented me on my uncomplicated medical history and told me, “You’re going to have a great pregnancy and a beautiful, healthy baby.” He told me about their policy that patients see a different OB for each pre-natal visit so they can get to know all the doctors, because “you never know who will be there the day you actually have your baby.” He said it can be distressing for patients to get attached to one particular doctor and then have another one they’ve never met before be on shift when they deliver. I told him about my insurance ending upon my graduation (5-7 weeks before baby) and asked if it would be possible to use their practice for pre-natal care but deliver elsewhere. When I told him about my plans to birth in a birthing center, his face fell. “I’m going to have to try to talk you out of that, if you don’t mind.” He warned me that “the stats just don’t hold up” for the safety of home/birth center birth and that “most midwives really don’t know what they’re doing—this is just some kind of hobby for them.” WTF! Take that, midwives everywhere! As they say in Tarkhaan, “the sun became dark in my eyes.” Dr. Bean showed me an article from a pediatric magazine that denounced the practice of birthing out of the hospital. I asked if he was positing that midwives falsify their own statistics, which are really quite positive, and he said, “Well, obviously everyone has their own agenda. Everyone will tell you something different.” I told him that’s why I find statistics confusing and not all that useful—it’s easy to use data mining to tell whatever story you want to with your numbers. Other studies are withheld when the results don’t suit the political purposes of the researchers. He agreed with me, and then we just sort of blinked at each other. I shared with him a few of the reasons I was loath to birth in a hospital—TBOBB kind of stuff, “cascade of interventions,” etc. Nothing you haven’t heard before. He nodded “Absolutely. There is absolutely a correlation between pitocin and epidural, epidural and C-Section. If you get the pit, you are way more likely to end up with a section. But on the other hand, you’d rather go through that than have a dead baby.” Of course! But what about all the choices in between? This is not a binary thing, at least in my mind. I said, “If you put it that way, I’m VERY likely to have an experience I don’t want if I birth in the hospital—my chances of that are much HIGHER than my chances of having ‘something go wrong’ with my baby. Because most low-risk, healthy births don’t require medical intervention, right?” I don’t remember the words he used, but in essence he agreed with me but emphasized the “just in case” part of the scenario.

Despite what you might think, this conversation didn’t really frustrate me. I felt listened to and validated, even though the doctor didn’t agree with me. I thought his assessment of midwives very unfair and somewhat sexist, but overall I felt like it was a fair exchange of perspectives—especially considering that he comes from a medical paradigm and I have no experiential knowledge about birth. Dr. Bean invited me to come hear him speak at BYU’s birthing conference that Friday, and then whisked me through my first ultrasound, which was tremendously exciting! I got to see the little pulsating bead of the Little Stranger’s heartbeat and carry the black and white photos home to my husband to show him that we were, in reality, going to be parents of a mysterious blurry mass of some sort. Friday came and Jonny and I went to the birth conference. Dr. Bean delivered a charismatic discourse about hospital birth. Really the only thing I felt troubled by was at the end when he was lauding vacuum extractors and forceps as life-saving devices: “many of you in here will owe your babies’ lives to these things.” He went on to describe several scenarios in which the baby could become lodged in the birth path. I raised my hand and asked if those scenarios couldn’t be alleviated by the mother changing position and letting gravity work the baby down. He acknowledged that yes, typically they could, but that it was difficult and usually impossible for the mother to do so if she’d had an epidural… A homebirth midwife was the speaker after Dr. Bean. He came back and introduced himself to Jonathan and said he’d been hoping we could make it to the conference. He had brought us a copy of his article on homebirth and we had a friendly exchange; he told us to let him know if we had any questions. Before leaving, he gestured towards the midwife, who was explaining about licensure and why she had chosen to practice as an unlicensed midwife, and whispered, “She’s the worst kind. If you go through with this, stay away from types like her. She thinks this is some kind of fun pastime, but she’s dangerous. She’ll kill your baby and have you believe it was just God’s will.” We smiled and murmured our thanks, but as I sat back I felt sick inside. I didn’t know who to trust. I felt sincerely touched by the doctor’s concern for us; he’d been thoughtful to remember me and to go to the effort of procuring the article for us—I only met with him once. But his comments about midwifery were incredibly troubling to me, and seemed so unprofessional and even degrading. The midwife had sat quietly during Dr. Bean’s lecture, she didn’t act as an antagonist. By calling her “dangerous” and reducing her experiences to a “hobby or pastime,” he dismissed her as a silly woman with no important skills, nothing to offer. I was so disturbed by that. Only the man in the white coat knows best? Midwifery, “with woman,” intuition, nurturing, principles of empowerment, all of that was completely worthless compared to man’s medicine, man’s Western conceptualization of birth?

Even though I’m positive this wasn’t his intention, I felt that my sweet secret hopes and dreams for the birth of my baby were belittled as well. Maybe I was an idiot to want to experience the pinnacle moment of what my body had the capacity to do, to surround myself with individuals who believed in my strength, to seek introspection and self-discovery in the birth of my baby. Maybe the whole process really wasn’t any more valuable than elimination or the removal of a tumor, and by getting caught up in ideas that made it seem so, I was only endangering my baby’s life. On the drive home, I told Jonathan I felt deflated, and foolish for considering my choices with emotional reasoning. I tried to read some of the article Dr. Bean gave us and couldn’t make any sense of it. I complained to my husband about my doubts with statistics, and my tendency to make decisions based on principles rather than odds. I wailed, “I just don’t know who to believe!” Jonathan was quiet for a moment and then he said, “I think it has less to do with stats and more to do with whether or not you want to live your life in fear of what might happen.” He said that things can always go wrong, anywhere or at any time. So do you make your choices out of fear? He asked me to think about my life, and whether I’d made choices because I was worried about what might happen. I thought of choosing to leave on a mission although at the time I was dating someone I didn’t want to lose. I thought of all of the dire warnings I received before I moved to Mexico for 6 months, all the stories of kidnapping and drug runners and beheadings. Even running for student government in high school--which I was terrified to do--the odds were ever NOT in my favor, but I survived all those things and my life was made more abundant for taking the risks. I decided that since I'd felt unsettled about the birth centers I wanted to just talk to someone about home birth and see how I felt. I contacted Cathy O'Bryant and set up an appointment with her. I heard her speak at the birth conference in spring 2010 specifically about home birth and waterbirth. She'd had her last 3 (of 10!) children at home and labored with many of the others in the parking lot of the hospital, so she could spend as little time there as possible. I wanted to filter my ideas and thoughts through the mind of someone who knew these things well. I found Cathy's beautiful home in Payson and soon I was on her couch pouring out my soul to her. I told her about my mother and what she had told me about euphoria and not wanting anyone to take the experience away from her. I talked about my fascination with water birth and how I was re-thinking the notion that "going somewhere" to birth my baby was in any way safer than not, since either way all of the action would be going on inside my body. I explained my confusion after the encounter with Dr. Bean. Cathy listened without interrupting and when I had finished my impassioned speech, she said, "It sounds to me like you already know what you want. You don't need me to tell you what to do." It was so simple, but tears stung my eyes when she told me that. I felt like light was blazing into my mind. I did know what I wanted! She did not try to convince me of anything at all. She didn't deride OBs or the medical profession or sprinkle happy numbers over me to pacify my worries. She just reaffirmed that I was capable and worthy of making this choice, and that it belonged to me. This was such an empowering moment for me, I felt like I had reached up and seized the moon. Since that day I have felt such peace and confidence about preparing for a homebirth. I think about birthing in a pool with genuine sunlight streaming in on a May day, or sweat on my skin and candles lit on a June night. I think about breathing through it, cradled in water like the water in me has cradled our little guy. When I do visualizations it's so beautiful and exciting! Igniting my brain to fill the walls of my consciousness with vibrant and powerful images. Those things I've witnessed and felt will never be lost to me. I think of how my husband's eyes welled up the night I was holding Alex and told him “Someday I'll be like this with our baby!” I think about holding my sweet baby in my arms after and feeling like I moved the earth. Being able to fall asleep in the same bed where we sparked his existence. I do understand that birth is not something you can control, and I am also trying to prepare for the letting go and the surrender that is part of the gift and the lesson of birth. Whatever turn my birthing does take, I feel blessed preparing for it this way, for the feelings and visions I've had. I have gained so much strength in the process of preparing for this birth; delving into the dark parts of my fear and releasing it. Those things will not be lost to me, whatever happens. My favorite Spanish verb is "dar la luz," a way to say giving birth or "to give the light." I'm not afraid; if things don't work out the way we hope they will, I've still given and been given the light.

These are my philosophies about my own home birth. I don't intend to generalize, disrespect or to impugn anyone else's experience. I know everyone walks a different road with their perceptions about birthing; these are just the things that are guiding my way. It's okay if they sound crazy to others--they are powerful and meaningful to me.

I'm not broken unless something breaks. My body is strong and instinctively knows what to do. I am the descendant of thousands of mothers who were successful birth-givers. My body knew how to grow my beautiful baby and it knows how to bring it into the world. If something "breaks" I will go to the hospital, just like I would if I became sick or injured in any other context. But normal, healthy birth is not a medical emergency and I don't need to be hospitalized and wrestling with staff and doctors just like I wouldn't on any other day with my normal, healthy body. I don't drop by there every day “just in case” something goes wrong. I'm not a patient unless I need to become a patient because something abnormal is occurring. My midwife is perfectly qualified to handle ANYTHING that could occur in the process of normal birth. She has delivered over 800 babies; only 7 have resulted in a transfer for a C-section. I trust her implicitly that if I do need to leave home she will know and know quickly. Many of the common "what if" concerns can be handled just as well at home as they could in the hospital. Cathy has experience with breech, hemorrhage, baby in respiratory distress, shoulder dystocia, tight nuchal cord, compound presentation, bradycardia, 1st, 2nd, 3rd degree tears, hypertension, woman going in to shock, baby needing CPR, meconium staining, retained placenta, prolapsed cord. There are a few things midwives can't do, like give you a C-section or a blood transfusion. So should those things become necessary in the case of emergency transfer we'd call ahead and get there speedy gonzalez. Remember even if you are already IN the hospital and an emergency occurs, they still have to prep the O.R and wait for doctor to arrive, scrub in, etc. The kind of care we'd be transferring for would not come any faster if we were already on the premises. Remember all this is IF and ONLY if something breaks.

Pain! Right? That's practically the first thing you ever learn about birth growing up, either from the war stories the women around you tell or from the screaming ladies on TV. I'm not expecting my experiences to be free of discomfort, but I don't see avoiding pain as a good enough reason to subject myself to someone else's policies and agenda which could jeopardize bonding with my baby or him coming into the world in a peaceful way. It's just not worth it to me. I'm trying to work with the idea that the pain of surges/waves/contractions is productive pain and is a natural, purposeful part of me. Unlike other pain I've felt, it is not indicative of injury, it's just sweeping my baby out into the world. And if I'm not injured, there is no reason to be afraid of that pain. I'm used to responding to pain with fear because usually it is a signal that something is wrong, but this isn't so in the case of birth. I want to fight through my conditioning to wake up my dulled biological responses, see and comprehend and live this as it really is. It's not the jellyfish tendrils I screamed and writhed to get away from, not the unrelenting agony of kidney stones. It's not an alarm bell or a warning of danger or the curse of Eve. It's the muscles in my body doing what they are trained to do. I want to trust them and trust the natural part of myself that exists free from our cultural paradigm of birth. Basically I think it is unacceptable for any of my decisions with this to be motivated by wanting to avoid pain. I think I can do better than that. It may be frightfully hard, but it WILL end eventually and as far as I know I can't die from it.

This is the most important. And I know I haven't been through this yet, but I have given it some thought and the thoughts I have had have distilled over me like golden glaze, belonging there. I at least want to approach it with this attitude. A lot of people make derogatory comments about lack of sleep, the disruption an infant causes in one's life, the grand inconvenience of it all that causes such suffering as new mothers are adjusting. I always feel so sad when people tell me about that, and then I tried to examine what I was really sad about. Was I really despairing that I might not ever sleep again? Did I think my husband and I would really never have time for each other again, that we would become strangers instantly? Was I worried that I might not have as much free time as I wanted, to read blogs and look at facebook? What was so precious to me that the idea of having it jarred or poured into a different shape made me so unhappy? My mantra for this is, taking care of my baby doesn't prevent me from doing what I want to do, taking care of my baby IS what I want to do. I'm really not afraid of what it will take to care for an infant. I'm luckier than so many—I have support, I have access to resources, I have a partner who wants to be involved and will work hard by my side, and I'll be released from my school and work responsibilities about a month before my baby's birth. I know it will likely be different from what I am expecting, I know it won't be intellectually stimulating (unless I work very hard to make it that way), I'll likely struggle with the “girl” thing and imagine I'm Betty Draper, etc. But (assuming I have a healthy newborn) for a very brief time in my child's life, I can actually fulfill all of his needs. If he is fussy and wants to be held, I have arms that were made to cradle. If he's hungry I can feed him amazing food from my own body. If he's uncomfortable I can change him or walk with him. I can make everything all right again! What a gift! and how fleeting it will be gone! I look at the kids at Vantage Point and feel a sense of despair when I think about having teenagers, when I talk to parents who are mortified and devastated by their surly, disaffected, “grosero” adolescents. I can't protect my little boy from coming home hurt and frightened because some mean kids made fun of him. I can't answer all his questions, I can't take away the rage and shame that he will experience as he grows. When he suffers heartache, when he is disappointed, I can't erase the bitterness of those feelings. When he makes mistakes, I can't inoculate him from unpleasant consequences. All I can do is love him and empower him, but there must be a point when everyone realizes that their babes in arms have rough roads to travel in life, and you can't run ahead and pave every possible road with foam and pillows and bubble wrap. Painted wings and giants' rings make way for other toys. “A sword shall pierce thine own soul also.” Knowing this, how can I begrudge that hazy infant time? Wouldn't any parent of an older child, wracked with heartache, gladly wake up 14 times a night and willingly accept sore and cracked nipples if it meant they could have their child safe and whole again? Good-hearted parents would do it without thinking. So I'm going to try to do it now, with a good heart. I want to cherish the time that the catastrophes are minimal and the solutions simple. It won't be that way for long.