gearhead mama

Sophie is finally starting to wake up some. She spent most of the first 5 weeks sleeping, and I still can’t figure out why I’m so damn tired if all she did is sleep, but whatever. She still sleeps a lot, but finally has some alert periods. I got my first real smile a few days ago (she has been smiling in her sleep since the day she was born). She opened her mouth, crinkled her nose and smiled. It melted my heart. Sometimes in the haze of these early days where all of your time is spent meeting their needs, you forget there is an actual person in there. I am certainly looking forward to getting to know her better.

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Random thoughts in no particular order:
* I’d forgotten how their hands get full of lint and fuzz, and it gets stuck between their fingers and toes.
* I really hate the smell of spit-up. Almost as much as I hate being covered in it.
* I am extremely tired of hearing M screech “Hold ME!!! Put Sophie down and HOLD ME!!!” every time someone besides me (and sometimes even me) picks Sophie up.
* The six week growth spurt is killing me (up every other hour last night to nurse).
* This child is the most awful burper on earth. I have to pat her, jiggle her, bounce her, put her on her stomach, on her back, bounce her on the birth ball, over and over and over. This is not fun at 3 AM. It also means that I’m usually up for an hour every time she nurses at night (between nursing, burping and getting her back to sleep). Oy. It’s a good thing she usually goes 4+ hours between nursing (except for this damn growth spurt).
* I am so grateful that she will sleep in the co-sleeper. Otherwise her gassy wiggliness would positively kill me.
* Block feeding has helped some with the gassiness. But she is still gassy. This is apparently the curse I pass on to my children. I suppose it could be worse.
* When I’m trying to burp her on my shoulder, she wiggles around and has head-butted me on more than one occasion. Neither of us is happy when this happens.
* When I take her off the tap to burp her, she puts her arms over her head and does a huge stretch. Every. Single. Time.
* Holding Sophie and bouncing on the birth ball resolves almost everything that ails her. As long as I keep bouncing.
* She loves looking at the books on our bookcases, but more than anything the child loves looking at the trees and the sky.
* She has outgrown the sleep anywhere, anytime phase. While I still consider her to be a good sleeper, I need about 15 minutes in an environment absent of screaming, yelling and foot stomping to get her down for a nap. Apparently, this is too much to ask an almost-3-year-old. I have no idea what to do with M during this time, and have resorted to locking her in her room or stranding her in her high chair while I retreat to my room to get Sophie asleep. This two kids thing is proving to be tricky …

Well, things are improving. I finally broke down and went on the evil elimination diet (nothing but turkey, lamb, rice, potatoes, millet (yuck), zucchini, summer squash and pears, sigh). It made a difference – a big difference. The reflux is essentially gone, although she is still pretty gassy. In addition to the diet, we are doing chiro, CST, homeopathy and NAET. NAET uses acupressure to tell the body on an energetic level that it does not need to react to a food (or other irritant, like pollen, etc.). A friend has had very good luck using it to treat her son’s allergies, so I thought I would give it a try. The practitioner simply puts a few drops of my breastmilk (expressed after one hellish day where I ate a little of everything I could find in my house) on Sophie’s skin, then does the acupressure. She is also treating her for common candida problems – inability to absorb minerals, B vitamins, etc. We go back next week to see if she has “cleared” for that milk, which theoretically means I could go back to eating anything I ate that day. I am hoping like hell it works. In the meantime, the weight is falling off, which is about the only good thing about that fucking diet.

I want like hell to do a monthly update for my girls, but M discovered today that she can climb out of her crib. I’ve figured that she was physically capable of doing this for quite some time, but it only just dawned on her to try it today. She only naps once every week or two, but we’ve been doing quiet time in the crib for mama’s sanity. I’ve got her in there now, but I don’t think it’s going to last for long. Thankfully Sophie is a good sleeper, but I’m not sure if I’ll ever find the time to do regular updates again.

In the meantime, here are a few recent pictures at least …

Sophie has reflux, bad. Think projectile vomiting from the mouth and nose, silent reflux, lots of crying, etc. I have cut dairy from my diet with no sign of improvement. I went the total elimination route with M and am not eager to try it again. I am also trying desperately to avoid medicating her. We have been doing an herbal tincture of slippery elm for the past week with decent results. The problem is it needs to be given on an empty stomach (roughly 1 hour before or after nursing her), and she can’t go longer than 4 hours between doses or things start to get out of control. It seems like it shouldn’t be that big a deal, but trying to meet those two criteria have proven to be next to impossible, especially at night. I am up feeding her, then up again (and waking her) to give a dose. I’ve gotten hardly any sleep the last few nights. Not to mention the fact that she positively hates the stuff, and it breaks my heart to give it to her.

So today I made an hour drive to our holistic pediatrician to get a homeopathic remedy (Unda #46, probably not available over the counter anywhere) in the hopes it will make things easier. I can give it to her topically, so that eliminates the problems with the taste and having to wake her. I started her on it a few hours ago and the jury is still out on the effectiveness. It has been nearly 4 hours since her last dose of slippery elm and she is not screaming her head off – good sign. She has nursed, burped and spit up a little, again with no screaming – good sign. But when I have things under control with the slippery elm, she doesn’t spit up at all. And I can usually set her down once she falls asleep and that is not going so well this afternoon. So I’m hesitant to sing the praises of the homeopathic just yet.

And to make things even more fun, I have birthed yet another gassy child. But right now, that is the least of my concerns.

The physical fatigue is very difficult, but even harder is seeing my beautiful, precious baby in pain and feeling very confused about what I should do for her. I finally broke down at 6 AM this morning and had a good cry. I feel like no matter what I do I’m doing the wrong thing. Do nothing and she suffers. Going with prescription medication feels so very terribly wrong to me. Use the slippery elm and it works, but sometimes I have to let her be hungry for 30+ minutes because I just gave a dose and know if I nurse her it won’t work. And the look on her face when I give it. Add in the fact that I’m not getting any sleep, and it just doesn’t seem like a feasible alternative. So that leaves the homeopathic for now. Needless to say, I am hoping with all my might that it works for us.

Things were going so smoothly for us in the beginning, and I really felt like I finally knew what it was like to have a baby instead of living a nightmare. And now the train is off the tracks again, and I feel like I’m right back where I was with M, albeit with different circumstances. But the same overwhelming exhaustion and constant questioning about what I’m doing are all there.

I can only pray we pull through this soon. Very, very soon.

No, you have not traveled back in time 2 months. It’s just that I finally received the CD with my maternity pictures (it got lost in the mail). It’s hard to believe that’s little Sophie in there. So much has changed in the last few weeks …

All pictures in today’s post were taken by the lovely and talented Teresa of Teresa Anne Photography (you can find her here and here, and yes, there are pictures of Sophie, and me and Sophie together on her flickr page (uploaded on 5/10 and 5/11) … more of those to come when I receive that CD!).

To my second daughter,

This is the story of your birth, but to really understand it you have to know about your older sister’s birth, too. M was born 2 years and 9 months ago, and it was sadly not an entirely pleasant experience. I was committed to a natural birth - and I got one - but it was very long and difficult for both of us (you can read all the details here, if you so desire). M’s birth taught me a lot about myself … lessons that were slowly revealed over time, that brought understanding and deep healing. I learned that it was okay to love and trust myself, to have faith in my body and heart instead of just my mind. Your sister taught me so many things, as did my journey through pregnancy with you, and I was determined to use this knowledge to make this birth better … for me and for you. I worked hard to ferret out, process and release any hidden fears or traumas that might interfere with things.

I was also determined to make the physical circumstances of your birth different. I made your experience of this pregnancy and birth my first priority. There were no ultrasounds or doppler waves to disturb the sanctity of your home. I hired a midwife and planned a home waterbirth. There would be no strangers, no bright lights, no injections or ointments. Just my hands, my arms, my chest. I wanted to make your transition from the womb to this world as peaceful as possible.

As the time drew near, I felt I had done everything I could; that I was so ready to welcome you into my arms. And then … I waited. Sometimes not very patiently, because my body was tired and my back hurt, but I knew you would come when you were ready.

My midwife had assured me that one thing we could know for sure was that this birth would be different. We didn’t know how it would be different, but it would definitely be different. And she was right. At around 12:15 PM on Wednesday April 30th, 2008 (2 days before your due date), I was lying in the recliner trying to take a nap when I felt a small gush. A tiny gush. Tiny enough that I convinced myself it was just a bit of pee, and there was no need to get up. I closed my eyes and tried to fall back asleep, but to no avail. About 45 minutes later I was still in the chair, talking on the phone, when I felt another small gush. And another. I knew I would have to investigate, and as I stood the floodgates opened, and your water poured down my legs, drenching my clothing. I was startled, as this was not at all what I had expected. Breaking M’s water was the one and only intervention I had in her birth, and it occurred when I stalled at 8 cm. I had always assumed your bag would stay intact until well into our labor, but I was wrong.

I quickly learned that this is a difficult way to begin a birth. There were no contractions, yet I knew they were coming sometime soon … but when? Minutes? Hours? Days? It was like hearing the starting gun go off, but being told I couldn’t run yet. My midwife advised me to continue about my day as normally as possible, to get rest if I could. But the constant leaking made it hard to do anything, and I quickly felt irritated and unsettled. I called your father home from work so he could set up the birth tub and finish with last minute preparations. Then I sat in a chair and tried not to soak the few remaining clothes I owned that still fit me. And I wondered about what was coming.

Finally, around 2 PM, I felt a teeny, tiny contraction. I continued to have very mild contractions, but very sporadically … every half hour, or longer. Around 6:00 PM, I had several in a row that were closer together; maybe 7 minutes apart. Finally! We were getting somewhere. I even called my midwife. But then they petered out again and spaced back out to every half hour or so, with an occasional run at 5 or 10 minutes apart. They were still laughably easy (and finally the leaking had stopped) … I could walk and talk through them, play with your sister, carry on with my life.

I started to wonder if that was part of the problem, if it was time for me to turn my focus inward to really get things going. I spent some time with your sister before she went to bed, giving her my undivided attention as a mother of one for the last time. At 8:30 PM I retreated to our birth space in the basement, lit some candles, turned on some music, and turned my attention to the matter at hand. I sank deep into my body with each contraction, welcoming it, imagining your head and my uterus working in concert to soften, stretch and open my cervix, your portal to this world. I relaxed myself completely, let my tongue fall from the roof of my mouth, let my throat be loose, swiveled on the birth ball, stood and rotated my hips in figure eights. I felt no fear and no pain. I was ready to do this work. And still the contractions stayed short and sporadic. The work I was doing felt good, but I couldn’t be sure it was productive - it felt too easy. I started to fear that I was going through prodromal labor again, like I did with your sister. I had slept terribly the night before, and exhaustion was starting to set in. I didn’t sleep for many days during your sister’s birth, and repeating that was one of my greatest fears. I was starting to think I would be up all night with these piddly contractions, going nowhere. How could I know if they were even doing anything? Despite my best efforts, I was feeling discouraged … beginning to doubt. I read through the beautiful cards and poems my friends had gifted me during my mother blessing and felt some renewed faith, but it was hard to maintain. I called some friends, seeking encouragement. They told me to rest and relax, to try to sleep, maybe even have a glass of wine. That I had to let go and stop being afraid.

I dragged myself upstairs and poured a glass of wine. I would drink it and lie down in the recliner to see if I could sleep. I wasn’t hopeful - my experience with your sister told me these contractions were just irritating enough to keep me awake - but I felt I had to at least try. I settled into the chair around 10:30 PM, and as expected, being in a reclined position made the contractions more difficult to deal with. I desperately wanted to lie on my side in the bed, but I knew my hip and back pain made that impossible. I decided to stick with the recliner and tough it out for a bit to see if I could rest. After a few contractions, I realized they were coming closer together. I had steadfastly refused to do anything more than guess at the frequency of contractions up to this point, but I finally relented and started looking at my watch. I needed to prove to myself that something was actually happening. For an hour, contractions came every 10 minutes on the nose. Perhaps the wine relaxed me just enough to let go and allow things to proceed. But as predicted, sleep was impossible, and at about 11:45 PM I finally threw in the towel. I would return to the basement, return to my focus, and make the best of the situation. If that meant being up all night with easy, short contractions spaced at 10 minutes, well so be it. There was nothing I could do about it. I sat and talked with your father for a while, and then he went downstairs with me to help get me settled. At 12:30 AM, I sent him back upstairs to get some sleep.

I was trying to trust the process of this birth, but I couldn’t help but worry about your posterior position because I knew it could contribute to a pokey labor. My back was bothering me a little during contractions but not between, so I didn’t have classic back labor. But I decided maybe I should encourage you to turn anyway. I kneeled on some pillows and leaned forward on the birth ball, rocking lightly through contractions, which seemed to help a little with the back pain. It also dawned on me that they seemed to be more frequent, maybe lasting longer. Again I consulted my watch, and many of them were now 5 minutes apart, some lasting as long as a minute. But they were still very manageable. More intense than earlier, yes, but I was still able to relax and welcome them, sink into them and work with them. I did not feel that dealing with them was particularly challenging. Earlier, my midwife had told me that she would come whenever I felt I needed support, but that she definitely needed to know when the contractions became hard enough that I was having to “recover” in between them. I was feeling neither of these things, so I decided to just continue on, knowing this could last a long time. I didn’t want to bother anyone, and I was doing fine.

A little after 1 AM, things kicked up another notch. The contractions were getting longer, although they were still mostly manageable except at the very peak. For those few seconds I started having thoughts like, “I think I’d like to get in the tub,” or “maybe I should get your father down here.” But then I would slide off the peak, feel immediate relief, and tell myself I would work through a few more before doing anything. He needed his sleep, and I was afraid I would slow things down by getting in the tub too early. I was still not convinced that things were really happening. I was making low, humming vocalizations and smelling my lavender oil to stay centered, but it still seemed too easy, especially compared to your sister’s birth. This couldn’t possibly be “real labor.” (Apparently, my benchmark was not a good one.)

By 1:30 AM, I still felt that I was handling things well, but I knew it would take your father a little while to top off the tub and I wanted to make sure it was ready by the time I needed it. I called him and asked him to come down and help me.

By 2 AM the tub was ready, and I made a final trip to the bathroom for a Hibiclens wash (I was GBS+). I was supposed to do them every 4 hours, and I wanted to make sure I could stay in the tub for as long as possible. I asked your father to note the time so I could tell the midwife when the last wash had been. I gingerly got one leg into the tub, and realized that it was far too hot. It was so hard for me to get in and out, though, that I went ahead and pulled my other leg in and stood in the scalding water, knowing I didn’t dare lower my body into it. I urged your father to hurry up and drain some water out and get things cooled down. I was definitely feeling the need for the water now. As he scurried about trying to get a siphon going, I leaned my hands on the side of the tub and swiveled my hips through contractions. They were starting to challenge me now, although I still felt like I was coping well.

The cold water was coming into the tub at a trickle, and I was mad at how long this was taking. I yelled at your father to turn it on full blast and he ran off to comply. It was still too hot, but I didn’t care. I lowered myself into the water and felt instant relief (this was most welcome, since the water had not helped me much during your sister’s birth). The contractions were still hard, but it took the edge off and I felt that I was handling things again. I was beginning to wonder if it was time to call the midwife, though. I still felt that I was coping well and not feeling that I had to “recover” in between contractions, but things were definitely picking up. I continued to be uncertain, so I asked your father to time contractions so that we could provide her with some additional information that would help us determine if it was time yet. I was hoping to get a good 20-30 minute stretch timed to make sure we were in a good pattern. But your father was still running around, trying to get hot water out of the tub, cold water into the tub, cold washclothes to place on my neck, and timing contractions on top of that proved to be too much. The few that he managed to get down told me they were now 3 minutes apart, and anywhere from 40 seconds to a minute and a half long. I was still coping well and not yet feeling like I had to recover in between. At 2:30 AM I asked him to call the midwife anyway, even though his sporadic timing meant I wasn’t satisfied that we had managed to show there was a consistent pattern. It would have to be good enough.

As he was dialing, I was suddenly gripped by a strong contraction, stronger than I had felt all labor. It left me panting and gasping, exactly the sort of “recovery” my midwife had spoken of earlier. I could hear him answering her questions, and was rocked by another hard contraction. I yelled out for him to tell her the last two were “doozies” … I was no longer wondering if it was too soon to call. He hung up. She was on her way.

Another contraction rolled over me. I was staying on top of things, but just barely. I moaned loudly and smelled my lavender. It dawned on me that this was finally the real deal, and it could still last for a very long time. I did not believe that the hours leading up to this had done much, and was sure that at best there were still hours of this ahead of me. I started to get afraid.

I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my stomach, and grabbed it with my hands. I was in between contractions, so that wasn’t it. I felt like I was being poked, kicked, and I wondered if you were changing position. In hindsight, I realize that whatever it is you did, it was in preparation for launch.

The next contraction was stronger still, and I felt that I was losing my ability to cope. My mouth opened and I started groaning, still trying to maintain a low pitch. I gasped out that if I had another one like that he was to call the midwife back and tell her to hurry. Another contraction came on, and did I? Was that downward pressure? Was I imagining things? My mind still questioned, but I opened my mouth anyway, “Call her back. Tell her to hurry.” I didn’t mention the pressure, afraid that I might be wrong. Your father secretly rolled his eyes, wondering how often our midwife must hear this line.

The next contraction came, and suddenly I was a tiny ship tossed into the maw of a giant hurricaine. I was lost, utterly lost. I threw the lavender to the floor, gripped the side of the tub and howled. The small part of me still controlled by my brain was consumed by utter terror. The rest of me was turned over to the primal power of birth. There was nothing to do but hold on for dear life. But the pain … oh the pain. I was rocked again, and yet again, with barely a moment to spare in between. I was upside down and inside out, I didn’t know how I could go on and didn’t know how to make it stop. A fourth contraction hit, and I knew, knew it was coming, could feel the freight train in the distance. I was completely terrified, but it didn’t matter. Halfway through the contraction my body took over and I suddenly felt my uterus turning inside out. I was screaming and growling and managed to yell out, “I’m puuuuuussssshhhhhiiiinnnngggg. CALL THE MIDWIIIIIIFE!!!!!” Your father had already dialed and had her on the phone. It was 2:38 AM. I’m fairly certain I went through transition in less than 8 minutes.

And oh, it hurt. Pushing your sister out had been a breeze compared to this. I’d had no urge to push, and while the contractions hurt like crazy, the rest was up to me. This … this was entirely different. I had another contraction and felt you barrel down my birth canal. I reached my hand down to feel your head as it landed on my perineum. “BABY IS COMING!” I yelled, and steeled myself for the next contraction. My mind was whirling, knowing the midwife would never make it, but my body told it to shut the hell up, there was work to do. I was on my knees, leaning forward onto the side of the tub. I held on for dear life with one hand, and kept my other hand on your head. The contraction hit and I felt the top of my uterus crush downward. There was no “breathing the baby out,” no panting and gentle easing to allow for stretching. You were coming. Now. I felt myself stretching, stretching, and your head grew bigger, bigger and bigger still in my hand. There was a brief pause and my uterus pressed down again. The burning was agonizing, and suddenly your head was filling my hand, my fingers were wrapping around it, and then the sweet relief of release. Your head was out, the contraction ended. I stroked your silky hair with my fingers, amazed at how soft you were. “The head is out.” There was stunned silence, and then, “Are you serious?” Your father, on the phone with the midwife, had no idea just how far things had gone. I knew you were coming on the next push. I knew how to handle a water birth, to not put you back under once your face had touched air, but your father didn’t. I was still on my knees, and worried what he would do. I had seconds until the next contraction. I screamed, “Ask her what to do! Ask her what to do!” The contraction started and I was instantly in agony. It felt like he had grabbed you and was pulling you upwards. “ARE YOU TOUCHING ME?!?! DON’T TOUCH ME! DON’T TOUCH MEEEE!!!!” He assured me he wasn’t, and I suddenly knew it was your shoulders as you spun inside me. My body pushed and you slid out. The next few seconds are a blur. I don’t know how I did it, but I must have hooked my fingers under your armpit. I pulled you down between my legs as I simultaneously came up on my knees, rotated and sat back against the wall of the pool. As a woman who has been crippled with back pain for several months, hobbling about like an invalid, I must say I admire the grace I mustered in that moment. It was 2:42 AM.

I knew you wouldn’t try to breathe until you felt the air touch your face, so it was safe to keep you under for a few moments. I wanted your transition from womb to this world to be as gentle as possible. I cradled your head in my hands and let you float under the water. I stared at your face and you opened your eyes and gazed back at me through the water. It was just for a moment, but felt like an eternity as I sank into your beautiful dark eyes. I will never forget it for the rest of my life. I slowly lifted you and let your face break through the water, letting your body stay under. You floated peacefully, but made no cry, no effort to breathe that I could tell. I lifted your limp body and realized the cord was wrapped loosely around your neck. It was a little short and I didn’t want to tug on the placenta, so your father helped me untangle it. I brought you into my arms and gently rubbed your back, saying, “Hi baby, breathe for your mama.” You finally let out a tiny cry and started to pink up. We had done it, Sophia, just you and me, our bodies entwined in an intricate, beautiful and intense dance that has been perfected over the milennia.

I could hardly believe it. It was only 12 minutes since I had decided contractions were getting hard and it was time to call the midwife. A harrowing 12 minutes to be sure, but I was in complete shock that I was actually holding you in my arms. After a few minutes, I realized we still didn’t know if you were a boy or a girl. I had been convinced even since before conception that you would be a boy. Almost every single person in my life felt the same way. I carefully moved the cord aside and could not believe my eyes when I saw you were a girl. I even called your father over for a second opinion, to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. I was absolutely thrilled that I had given M a sister.

And that is the story of your birth, little one, although it wasn’t exactly what I had planned. I have always admired women who choose to birth unassisted although I have never felt personally comfortable with what I perceive to be the risks. But I’m guessing you - the baby who didn’t even like being listened to with a fetoscope - planned it this way all along. I have learned so much on this journey through pregnancy and birth with you. You reminded me over and over to trust myself, to listen to myself, to care for myself. You had faith in me even when I didn’t. There were moments of doubt during this birth, but in the end I followed my body and my heart, and they led me straight to you. I am so proud of myself. I worked so hard to prepare for this birth, but I could not forget how brutal your sister’s birth was … could not entirely let go of the fear that birth would be like that no matter what I did. That all of my healing and preparation would be rendered useless in the face of such an overwhelming force. But now I have learned the truth - birth does not have to be brutal. Was it painful? Yes. Were there moments of fear? Yes. Was it incredible and amazing and powerful and would I do it all again in a heartbeat? Yes, yes, yes!

I thank you for sharing this journey with me, my beautiful Sophia, and for all that you have taught me along the way. I am honored you have chosen me to be your mother, and I am so excited about the life we are starting together. Oh, and you were 8 lb 4 oz, and 20 3/4 inches long. Absolutely perfect.

Love,
mama

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Some final notes …

Due to the speed of the birth, I had a decent tear and am on bedrest trying to get that healing started. I wanted to do a lying in period anyway, so this has forced me to take it easy and just spend my time falling in love with my new girl. Overall I am feeling really good, though, and more than 48 hours later still feeling an intense birth high. What an incredible difference compared to M’s birth, when all I could think was, “I don’t ever want to go through that again.” I cannot say how ecstatic I am that this birth was an enjoyable, empowering experience. It is very healing.

My milk came in last night and Sophia is nursing like a pro (no nipple pain either!). This is such a departure from my experience with M, and it’s a true pleasure to nurse a baby and not feel like I’m torturing her. I am feeling so much more confident this time around too … I didn’t realize until now that I lived in a certain amount of terror after having M (no doubt exacerbated by her birth trauma issues). It is the early days still, so all she does is eat and sleep, but that is fine with me. I love watching her face while she dreams … she purses her lips, wrinkles her forehead and smiles. I can’t tell for sure, but it looks like she might have dimples. She already holds my heart in her hands.

M is a bit unsettled, which is to be expected, but she seems to be making the adjustment well. She loves to hug and kiss her little sister, but she’s not so keen on all the attention we give her. She insists that I put Sophia down and hold her instead, and whoever is slinging Sophia should be slinging her instead. I try to see beyond her behavior and focus on the feelings that are driving it. I put words to those feelings for her, asking her if she feels replaced, and talking about how hard it is to see her mama giving all her attention to someone else. I reassure her that we both still love her very much, but I know it will just take time for her to grow into her role as an older sister.

It melts my heart to watch Mr. Gearhead with his new daughter. He makes faces at her and tickles her nose. He whisks her away for diaper changes and I can hear him talking to her in the other room. I can practically see the love oozing out of his pores.

I look at Sophia and simply cannot believe she was inside my body just a few days ago. What a radical transformation for all of us, but I welcome this new stage of my life with open arms. I was sitting in the recliner with her yesterday and M crawled in to be with us. They laid, one on each side of me, and gazed at each other across my chest, M leaning over to kiss Sophia on the forehead, nose and eyes, and offering her a toy. I wrapped my arms around them and held my girls. My two girls. A new adventure has begun.

As my due date approaches, I have been feeling more and more apprehensive at the idea of giving birth. It’s all fine and dandy to be romantic and idealistic about it when it’s months away. But when the countdown can be done in days (very likely, since I am exactly one week from my due date and M came the day after hers), it starts to seem a lot more real … and a hell of a lot less romantic.

I know that fear in the face of so many unknowns (When will it happen? How long will it last? How much will it hurt?) is very normal. But this felt like more than that. It felt like … baggage. So I went into my CST appointment on Wednesday with the idea of trying to ferret it out. I told my CS therapist (Kelly) that I was feeling a lot of fear, and it wasn’t long before she zeroed in on the locus.

What’s going on with the cervix? I feel fear there.

I felt instantly that she was right, took a deep breath and tried to connect with my cervix. It’s not surprising that fear might sit there … this is the doorway that must open, the part of my body that will go through the greatest change, face the greatest challenges. I thought about how hard M’s birth was, how long it took my cervix to open, how this was complicated by M’s poor positioning and the scar tissue. The scar tissue. My mind kept wandering back to those words and couldn’t seem to let them go. I had an image of my cervix struggling to open and being held back by the scarring. There was something there, and I voiced this to Kelly. We talked about the scar tissue, how it surely made things difficult, but it was gone now. That doorway has opened, the scar tissue dissolved … it won’t affect this birth.

Does your cervix feel like it was somehow a failure during M’s birth?

The answer was yes, but I could tell that wasn’t the full answer. My mind wandered further … back, back, back in time. The scar tissue was there because I contracted HPV. Because it wasn’t caught due to the incompetence of my OB (“Oh, don’t worry, that abnormal pap is just due to that abortion you had. We don’t need to follow up on it.”). Because it was allowed to grow and spread until it coated my insides and outsides and the only remedy was laser surgery. An unspeakably painful experience that coincided with the beginning of a two year nightmare that I won’t detail here at the moment. Let’s just say it involved an abusive boyfriend, rape, suppression of memories, physical and emotional numbing, complete loss of self and the hitting of absolute rock bottom. Which sadly had to happen in order to get to where I am today, but it still wasn’t pretty.

These thoughts floated and my mind spiraled closer and closer until … I had it … shame. My cervix was completely bound by shame. Shame that I had HPV. Shame that I had let someone do those things to me. Shame that cinched around it like a wire around the neck of a bag. Shame that has been discussed and processed and released over and over, and yet here was a fragment, overlooked, hidden in my body, waiting for over 15 years to be discovered.

I let these thoughts and feelings float out of my mouth on words, and we talked about the shame and how it isn’t serving me anymore.

What do you want to do with the shame?

I want to tell it goodbye.

Kelly, her hand hovering near my pubic bone, talked me through unwinding the wire, releasing my cervix from the prison of this shame.

Do you feel that? she exclaimed.

I didn’t feel it so much as sense it. My cervix was like this, I said, and held up my hands, fingertips touching, pushed up high like an inverted “V”. And now it’s like this, and I let my fingers relax until they formed the shape of a shallow dome.

Yes, yes, exactly! I’m not going to have to catch a baby here, am I? she joked, and we giggled.

I felt the fear – shame – drain away from my body.

Is there anything else your cervix needs from us?

I tuned in and was rebuffed. Cervix and baby had discovered each other and were doing their own thing. Whereas before my cervix had been hanging out in the middle of nowhere, unsure of what was going on, now it felt the baby’s head pressed against it, the long muscles of the uterus connected to its edge. It was suddenly aware of its place in my body, and how these things would work in concert to help it open when the time came. I’m cool, it said. I’ve got it now. Well alright then.

Fear? There is still fear. But it no longer feels like baggage. It is no longer holding a part of my body hostage. It’s just there … healthy, normal, “You are about to go through a huge transition” fear. I’m okay with this fear. And now I finally feel ready.

39 weeks today. Still here. Still pregnant. Actually feeling pretty good except for the back pain. If it wasn’t so debilitating, I wouldn’t even mind being pregnant at the moment. But it is a serious hindrance and makes it so hard to care for M, so I am really starting to look forward to having my body back … in a sense, at least (baby will vacate my uterus and take possession of my boobs). Except for the fact that I will then have to care for M and baby. This, uh, freaks me out a little.

I did have professional pictures taken about a month ago, and they should be here soon. I will post them as soon as I have them.

I have some posts I am hoping to get out before the baby arrives. M is with my mother-in-law for the afternoon, so maybe I can get some writing in …

My amazing friends threw me a Mother Blessing today. The best way I can describe how I feel is that I am truly … blessed. They cleansed and purified my birth space with smudge, wove a garland of fresh flowers for my hair,

assembled beads into a birth necklace for me and a big sister bracelet for M,

henna’d my belly, soaked and rubbed my feet, brought me beautiful objects and gifts from nature for my birth altar,

endowed me with words of strength for my birth,

read me poetry and assembled a book of drawings, poems, wisdom, kindness, love and friendship.

They held candles for me to blow out as I released my fears to the wind, and brought runes for me to choose from that were a window into my heart. We bound ourselves together, and while the threads were physically severed, we each wear a reminder encircled around our wrists to symbolize the web of love and support they wove for me today.

It is hard for me to put my feelings into words. In these weeks approaching birth, I find myself sinking into a place where there are no words, just feelings, existence, being. My heart balks at the idea of trying to capture these ephemeral strands and bend them to my will, shaping them into letters and sounds, and today is no different. I am giving myself permission to be okay with this, knowing that this is a necessary place for me to be in order to birth, and so I will simply say that I feel encircled and supported by this community of amazing women; that I feel blessed … loved.

As the guest of honor, I vowed to fully immerse myself in the day instead of watching at a remove, camera in hand. As such, I have no pictures of the event itself, although my friends took some so there may be some more images forthcoming. In the meantime, I have shared with you the reminders they left for me today, as well as a picture of my birth space (imagine a birth tub in the general vicinity of that round table).

Blessings.

I awoke to you calling my name last night. I was ensconced deep in the recliner, swathed in blankets, pillows supporting my arms. We bought this recliner when I was pregnant with you and I remember laughing at the old fogey models that would slowly rise and deposit you on your feet with the touch of a button. I’m not laughing anymore, as I contemplate heaving my hugely pregnant body out of the chair (a task I already undertake numerous times a night for trips to the bathroom). I hold my breath and hope that you are just yelling out in your sleep, but after a brief pause you start to cry. I wait a few minutes, hoping you’ll either fall back asleep or that your father – sleeping in the other room – will get up to tend to you. And still you cry. My pulse quickens and I can feel my body wakening. Despite my reluctance to rise from the chair, I feel drawn to you, sensing instinctively that you need me. I struggle to my feet, but as I enter the hallway your father stills me. She’s winding down. Don’t go in. Remembering the several horrific nights we’ve had over the past few months, up with you for hours on end, I understand his fear. So I stand silently in the hall, and listen as your room becomes quiet. I don’t think this is the end, but I decide to take one of my numerous bathroom breaks, and sure enough, the crying resumes. Ignoring your father’s exasperated sighs, I enter your room.

You are sitting upright in your crib and right away I know this is not going to be our average nocturnal waking. Usually my presence alone is sufficient to stop your crying, but this time you continue on. Although your digestive issues have been remarkably in hand lately, I administer a dose of Colic Ease, just to be sure. Then I lift you to the changing table. You are crying and mumbling but I can’t figure out what you’re saying. When I try to put a new diaper on, you erupt in a rage, legs churning, body twisting, screaming don’t change my diaper! I set the diaper down and lean close to you. Ignoring logistical concerns for the moment (there is no way in hell I’m putting a not-yet-potty-trained 2.5 year old back to bed without a diaper), I stroke your face and push your hair out of your eyes. You quickly calm and we chat about mundane things for a few minutes. Confident that I have met whatever need you had for exacting some influence over the happenings of your life, I return my attention to your diaper and am rewarded by a resumption of the kicking and screaming.

Now I feel that I’m foundering. I check myself and find no internal anxiety that could possibly be triggering this episode. I already gave you a few minutes’ space which is typically more than sufficient. Quite frankly, I’m stumped. I think to myself that this is very unusual behavior, and that’s when I get the proverbial smack upside the head. You see, there is a lot about these last few weeks that has been unusual.

My beautiful daughter, I am 35 weeks pregnant and not having an easy time of it. The lumbar fusion I regrettably agreed to some 15 years ago does not agree with pregnancy. I am in so much pain that it’s difficult – sometimes impossible – to meet our daily needs. I find it hard to stay on my feet long enough to prepare a simple breakfast. Getting you into or out of your car seat completely wipes me out (needless to say, we don’t go anywhere these days). I pay dearly for rocking you, or lifting you in or out of your crib. In fact, this is the first time I’ve gotten up with you for quite some time.

Thankfully, your father has taken over bedtime and nighttime duties, and your Farmor has stepped willingly into my daytime role, becoming your primary caretaker so I can rest and try to keep my body from falling apart at the seams. You are clearly thrilled to spend so much time with her, especially since you last saw her in the fall before she departed for her southern, snowbird environs. I will be forever grateful to her for dropping everything and flying here to help me, as I am not sure how we would be making it otherwise.

And yet, it is still a big change for you. I’ve mentioned to your father on several occasions the widening gulf I feel between you and I. And the sadness I feel that I can’t give myself fully to you in these last weeks before you make the abrupt transition to older sister. You love your Farmor undeniably, but perhaps you are still wondering, Where has my mother gone? Perhaps that gulf I feel is you being angry at me for my sudden absence in your daily life.

All of this hits me in an instant as I stand before your rage, and it dawns on me that this has absolutely nothing to do with your diaper. I weigh my options, and since going diaperless is not one of them, I soldier ahead and wrestle a diaper onto your writhing body. I scoop you into my arms, grab a blanket and sit in the rocking chair. My body is crying out in protest, but I ignore it. You lean into me, your heart pressed against mine, and scream. I wrap my arms tightly around you and rock. Before I know it, we are crying together as I think of all the ways I can’t be there for you, and how confusing it must be. I don’t say anything to you; I don’t need to. I just hold you, and together we rock and cry. After a while I smooth your hair and tell you that I’m sad too, and it’s okay to cry. This sets off a round of fresh tears, and again we rock and cry. Finally, the last of the emotion leaves us, as if swirling down a drain, and we are silent except for our sniffling noses and jagged breathing. I hold you close to me; your head rests on my shoulder and your body drapes over my enormous belly. We rock for a while, and I think of how little time we have had like this, just the two of us. My body is hurting but I don’t care. You need this time. We both need this time.

I am still clutching your pajama bottoms in one hand, as I didn’t dare try to get them on during the melee of the diaper change. I have one last moment of doubt about what has occurred as I open my mouth and softly say, Let’s put your pants on. Have I really understood what just happened? Or will this request trigger yet another round of mystifying rage? You plop down on the armrest of the rocker, stick your foot out and cheerily announce that you will help me. It is then that I know with certainty that my instincts and feelings have uncovered the truth yet again. The purifying power of acceptance never ceases to amaze me.

I dress you and rock you for a while longer, savoring our closeness despite my discomfort. When I set you in the crib, you roll onto your stomach and draw your knees up into a fetal position (your favorite position to sleep in). I cover you with blankets and rub you for a few minutes, before leaving you to your slumber.

As I laboriously settle myself back into the recliner, I think about the lesson you’ve just taught me. I remember all the times I’ve found myself crying over a trivial matter, only to realize it was just a trigger and my tears were for something else entirely. Babies will cry whenever and wherever with no regard to societal norms, but you aren’t a baby anymore. You have reached an age where it is unlikely for you to fly into a rage for no apparent reason. And yet, you are not cognitively or emotionally mature enough to say, I’m angry because you hardly spend any time with me. I see now that we have entered a place where your emotions may not always correlate to the most obvious trigger. This night taught me that when I’m feeling confused and uncertain about what is going on, it’s a signal to look deeper, to resist the temptation to dismiss you as irrational and uncooperative. There are deeper currents running here, and it’s my job as your mother to ferret them out and understand them.

I think of the baby that is coming to us in a few weeks, and the tumult and change that will come with it. I am not a perfect parent, nor am I delusional. I know there are some hard times just around that bend up there, and we will surely find ourselves in this place again. But I also know that if I pay attention and watch for that signal – for my heart telling me to look closer – and if I listen to and honor you, we will find a way, you and I, to navigate the rocky shoals that lie ahead.

I have wanted to write about this craniosacral therapy session for a very long time, but have never been able to find the time or the words. With the birth of this baby looming in the near future, I feel the time has come to finally get it down.

This happened near the beginning of my journey with CST, probably close to two years ago during one of my earliest sessions. I did not yet fully comprehend the power of CST, how it melded body and mind, that it was more than just a way to “work out” physical kinks. My body knew, though, and acted accordingly.

We had barely started the session when I found myself in an intensely uncomfortable position. I was lying on my back on the table, my head twisted to the left and at the same time bent so my ear was practically touching my shoulder. I wasn’t very happy about this, and sat there wondering why Kelly was shoving my head into such an unpleasant position. After a few moments, she asked me what feelings were coming up for me. “Trapped. Stuck. That’s how I feel.” She encouraged me to talk about other times in my life when I’d felt that way. So I sat there, my head jammed into my shoulder, and tried to think of when these feelings had arisen before. I hadn’t yet learned to listen to my heart, so I swirled around in my cognitive brain and talked about my childhood for a while; how I “must” have felt this way because of x or y. Kelly listened attentively, paused for a moment, then asked when was the first time I’d felt this way. It was then that my body decided to speak up. I chuckled. Then giggled. I couldn’t help it because it seemed so silly, but outlined in neon flashing lights in my head, it could not be denied. “BIRTH CANAL” is what my body was screaming at me, and even though I felt a little sheepish, I spoke up and told Kelly. “Now we’re there,” she replied, and we were off and running.

We spent the next hour dissecting my birth, probing my cellular memory, unlocking the secrets carried within my body. It would be wrong to say I remembered it in the way I remember my daughter’s birth or my wedding day or even what I ate for lunch yesterday. This was a different kind of memory … one of the body, sensations, impressions, visualizations. When asked who was in the room, I saw darkness with a circle of light in the middle and a doctor peering through the hole. Of course I couldn’t have “seen” that while in the birth canal, but I could have sensed it; that picture may simply be a visual method for my body to communicate what it knew was going on.

I knew from my mother that my birth started with my water breaking, a trip to the hospital and then pitocin. I didn’t know that I was also posterior and acynclitic – just like my daughter – although I confirmed these things later. The position I was sitting in, head crammed against shoulder, is the position I endured during labor and birth. My body remembered this and put me there, not Kelly as I had erroneously assumed. She just followed my body’s lead, kept her hands on my head, maintained a connection. “Trapped. Stuck.” Those were the feelings that came up for me, even before I was aware we were talking about my birth. How prescient. We talked about the pain and fear I felt. My need to stay in the womb for just a few days longer. The relentless pounding of the pitocin-induced contractions, and how it felt like there was no escape.

After we talked through my birth, Kelly encouraged me to “re-work” it, to make it what I wished it had been. I carefully considered the power she had placed in my hands and how I wanted to use it. Slowly, a vision came together – no water breaking, more time in the womb, no pitocin, optimal positioning, warm room, darkness, just my mother and father present. I stumbled over the words, going in fits and starts, but as I recreated my birth, made it into something new in bits and pieces, my head slowly righted itself and by the end of the session I was staring straight at the ceiling. I will never forget the drive home, when I did a shoulder check before merging onto the freeway. I was astonished by how far I could turn my head, and it dawned on me that I’d had a kink in my neck for 30-some-odd years and hadn’t even known it. I was even more astonished by the healing power of that hour with Kelly, how the gentle touch of her hands, her warm encouragement, and my ability to connect with and honor my body had finally exposed this long-held trauma to the light of day.

It is no accident that my daughter’s birth so closely mirrored my own. It was my body’s way of trying to resolve what had happened, and it ended up working in the end. My daughter’s birth led to her trauma which led us to CST which led me directly to this session and these discoveries about my own birth.

It is this experience more than any other that has taught me that babies are profoundly affected by their births; that they remember them – not in the way you and I remember things, but they remember them nonetheless. It is what finally helped me make sense of my daughter’s birth experience, and why she was so traumatized by what happened to her. I viscerally understood the pain and fear she endured for so many hours, her head tipped, body trapped, the two of us struggling together to continue on. I didn’t have to imagine what it had been like for her, because I went through it too. It made me realize that body memory, cellular memory is just as valid, if not more so, as cognitive memory.

This session taught me that birth is sacred, spiritual; that it is so much more than a bodily act. It started me on the journey that will culminate, in a sense, in a few short weeks. A journey that will bring this new baby into the world with the utmost respect and love. It started with a conviction to make my womb a sacred space, untouched by ultrasound or Doppler, unnecessary procedures or invasions. It will end, as much as a birth can be an ending, in a gentle birth that honors my baby’s journey, and does everything it can to protect it and make it safe. There will be no suctioning, no separation, no premature cord cutting, no probing or prodding. No bright lights or strange hands. It is what has driven my desire to bring my baby into this world by myself (with a trusted midwife in the wings), to catch it with my own hands and lift it to my chest, to gaze into its eyes and finally meet this person I have known forever for the first time.