Wednesday, April 03, 2013

Ivy Claire's birth story

Part I: Musings

I’m sitting in a still house on a Sunday morning, my newborn curled up in a sling. As Ivy sleeps and dreams, her face flickers with smiles and frowns. She’s practicing a repertoire of expressions that she will later learn to put on purposefully. She breathes irregularly, her body not yet fully attuned to the steady rhythm of earth life.

This will be a different kind of birth story. I’ve always written detailed play-by-play versions: this happened, and then this, and then this. It was my strategy for capturing as much as possible before the smallest things sifted away through the cracks in my memory.

But the problem with writing a story down is that what gets left out no longer can exist. It disappears from the page and eventually from memory. If I write that labor was calm and empowering, or difficult and fierce, or any other combination of words, then it becomes hemmed in by what it was not. By what I did not say or remember.

I could choose a list of words to describe the day I gave birth. All are true, yet they contradict each other and still do not approach the essence of that day. If I swim in a river for a few hours, I cannot return the next day and recapture the water I swam in. It is gone forever. Even if I document the moment in a photograph or video, those images cannot reproduce the pressure of the water or the pull of the currents or the way the thousands of tiny hairs on my body swirled in response.

And yet, I must try: I remember calm and peace. Quiet accentuated by the muffled thumps of my children playing in the attic. The clatter of pans and dishes in the kitchen, cupboard doors closing. Ferocity and fear and uncertainty. The peculiar stillness that follows a snowstorm. Wildness and chaos contained by the pattern of my body’s labor. Hope for a living, healthy child and the audacity of that desire. Disbelief that it would actually happen. Uncertainty about the process gripping my body, alongside an uncanny awareness--sometimes demonstrated only in hindsight--of what was happening.

During this pregnancy I swam in (against?) an undercurrent of fear. It didn’t dominate my pregnancy, but it was always there pressing against my body, reminding me that I could not blissfully talk about the baby inside me as if it were already safely born. It was a hint of bitterness in everything I touched, if only the smallest aftertaste. With each pregnancy, I become more acutely aware of how much I stand to lose. Amidst all the other reasons for being done having children, the biggest is this feeling of tempting--and cheating--fate. I have four beautiful, healthy children and for that I feel incredibly blessed. Lucky, even. Isn’t it best to stop while I am ahead? I often think.

I could not let myself fully believe or imagine this new child until it was safely here earthside. No matter that suspended belief would not alter the outcome in any way. Until I saw and heard the baby, nothing was fixed or certain. That is why I exclaimed, as soon as Ivy emerged, “I can’t believe I have a baby!”

Part II: A series of vignettes

The night before the birth. We eat dinner at a friend’s house, and I hide the strong but intermittent contractions. This is not labor yet: no pattern, no rush of hormones. But I know it was the beginning. It is my secret. Later that evening I feel shaky, anxious. I am brought back to my university days--those hours before you take a big exam, when you’ve prepared as much as you can and all you can do is worry and wait until the work begins. Multiply that anticipation and tension a hundredfold, and that is what I am feeling. I know that labor will begin at night with strong but irregular contractions. That I will sleep in between them for at least part of the night. That I will stay in bed until morning, listening to my hypnosis tracks if I am unable to sleep. That I will finally get up, knowing active labor will begin but ready to work with contractions after a night of lying through them.

Morning, 6:30 am. In bed, contractions are increasingly strong but still widely spaced. I do not watch the clock until right before I get out of bed. They are 10-12 minutes apart.

I get up and feel palpable anxiety within my body. I know what is coming. I know what I have to go through to get the baby out...and it weighs on me. I feel shaky, uneasy, and unsure.

I ask Eric for a blessing. Some things are too personal to share, but I feel the power of the message moving through Eric. At this moment he is just a voice for something more vast and wise than himself. He assures me that I will birth smoothly and without complications, that this birth will bring the same joy that my other children’s births did. I finally feel able to move forward toward the task at hand.

As soon as I am up, contractions come quickly. They also seem a bit shorter, but it might be because I’m moving rather than lying still. The few times I glance at the clock, they are around 4 minutes apart.

We had a massive blizzard the night before, and the roads are terrible. I tell the midwife and the photographer to come right away based on the following calculation:
Time from getting up to move with the contractions until birth:
Zari: 10 hours
Dio: 7 ½ hours
Inga: 2 ½ hours
This baby: ??? but I know it will not be long

Around 8:30 am. The household is awake. Children are eating breakfast. Eric is fulfilling a list of tasks (fill the pool, dress the children, call the babysitter, gather some final supplies). I’m leaning over the radiator next to the bedroom window, feeling the heat shimmer up my arms and chest. Outside is deep in untracked snow. Our babysitter pulls into the driveway and her car gets stuck. The midwife’s car has just turned onto the street. A man arrives with a snowblower, clears out the pile of plowed snow blocking our driveway and our entire front sidewalk. A small serendipity. I speak on the phone to the photographer, who arrives soon after and tries to enter the wrong house at first, 3 doors down. The snow has altered the landscape. It makes the day seem separate from reality, a small window away from the mundane.

Around 9:30 am. The birth pool is filled, yet I resist entering. For so many laboring women, the water promises instant relief. But for me, water can feel like a prison as much as an escape. I have to be upright moving my hips during contractions. I labored in and out of the tub when I had Zari, but never wanted to stay in for more than 30 minutes at a time. For my next two, I didn’t get in until pushing was imminent. So here I am, eying the tub, wanting the warmth and buoyancy of the water but dreading the restriction it might bring.

I’m also feeling tired and extremely dizzy. I never experience the pleasant, heady rush of endorphins I’d had during my three other labors. Instead, it manifests only as dizziness.

Around 10 am. I want to know what’s going on with my cervix. I’d reached in multiple times over the past several hours, but labor has turned all the familiar landmarks into mush. All I know for sure is that the head is fairly low. I catch myself thinking, “Does asking for an exam mean I don’t trust the process? Will it mess me up mentally by having a number associated with my sensations?” And then I realize: Who cares. I want to know, and that’s reason enough.

So I tell the midwife laughingly: “I’m asking you for the first vaginal exam ever in four pregnancies and labors!” She looks surprised and wants to know if I am sure. “Yes, and I know it has absolutely no significance on how long it will take from here on. But I really want to compare it against what I am feeling going on in my body.”

I am a very stretchy 5 cms and the head is quite low, past the ischial spines. This confirms all that I had been feeling and seeing so far. I am not delusional. The bloody show is telling the truth, that persistent rectal pressure wasn’t a figment of my imagination, and labor is well on its way.

I get in the tub and find that I can still move my hips the right way if I kneel and lean over the edge. Only my legs and lower belly are immersed, so I add lots of hot water. It feels delicious. I keep trying to sleep but I can’t rest my head properly.

A few minutes later. In between my efforts to sleep, I pop my head up and say to the midwife, “I really need to work on the CEU & CME applications for the breech workshop in June.”

Around 10:20 am. I know I’m going to start pushing. Not right away, but in 4-5 more contractions. It’s the subtlest catch in my throat, so quiet no one else can hear. It’s the slightest downward heaving during a contraction. I keep this knowledge a secret for a few more contractions. One nice thing about being a seasoned multip is that you can read your body’s cues with extreme accuracy.

Part III: Pushing

I really dislike pushing. I fear it, I dread it, and when it actually begins I endure it only because I have to. I try to convince myself that I should be excited because pushing means the baby will be born soon. But no, it still is just as unpleasant each time. I don’t doubt those women who look forward to pushing and find that it takes the pain of transition away--it’s just never happened that way to me.

There was something “off” about this pushing stage. It took too long at first and then went too quickly at the end. Once you’ve pushed several babies out of your vagina, you know when something is abnormal. When I first checked, the baby’s head was just two knuckles deep. But after several really strong contractions--violently strong--I reached inside and the baby’s head was significantly higher up. I felt a stretchy band of something, probably a lip of anterior cervix, about 1 cm at the widest point and as thick as my eyelid. It stayed through several more contractions. We guessed it was a cervical lip acting, in my midwife’s words, like a “slingshot” and pulling the baby back in. Between contractions I’d stretch it and try to slip it under the pubic bone, but there wasn’t quite enough space for my fingers to push it back.

My body was pushing ferociously, made so much worse by the unexplained resistance keeping the baby’s head from descending. You won’t see any gentle “breathing the baby down” in the birth video. I had absolutely no control over what was happening during contractions.

During one of the pauses, I reached inside and felt a small bubble of water bag. It burst with a small pinch. “I just broke the water bag,” I announced. Maybe this would help bring the baby down?

Nothing happened after the next two contractions, but the earth shifted during the following one. In what I call The Mother Of All Contractions, my body gave a tremendous, 5-minute-long push that brought the baby all the way down, to crowning, and out with only the tiniest pauses.

This was just as un-fun as pushing with no progress. I was sure I’d tear. (I didn't. My body rocks.) Nothing had time to stretch or mold. I barely had time to apply counter-pressure and to cup the baby’s head in my hand before it slid out. The shoulders came just a second or two later. I didn’t even have time to look down before she was all the way out.

The first thing I remember seeing was Ivy’s hand reaching up. I lifted her out of the water, unwound a nuchal cord, and put her to my chest in one fluid motion. When I watch the birth video, I am amazed at the complex series of movements that I performed without conscious effort. I don’t remember thinking about having to shift her to the other hand and unwrap the cord; I just did it.

Part IV: Feel the Fear

Two days after I gave birth, I read these words from a British midwife currently practicing in Australia:
In a backlash against the medicalisation of birth women are beginning to reclaim birth (yay!). Partly thanks to the availability of information via the internet, a counter culture has emerged. Movies, images and stories of empowered birthing mothers circulate through social media – women birthing in beautiful calm environments (usually in water, surrounded by candles), looking like Goddesses whilst gently and quietly ‘breathing’ their baby out. Women are able to see how birth can be, and many are inspired and driven to create a birth experience like those they watch.

Whilst these images can assist in building self-trust for mothers as they approach birth, they do not tell the whole story....

Regardless of attempts to ensure safety, deep down, like our ancestors we know we step into the unknown during birth. Fear is a normal part of birth....

Women who manage to remain calm and serene whilst birthing are admired for maintaining control. In contrast, those who are loud, and appear to ‘lose it’ are considered to be out of control....We have created a culture (and birth culture) that seeks to avoid and minimise extreme emotion and pain, and encourages being in control.... I think it is a shame that this powerful aspect of the birth experience remains hidden and suppressed.
I am telling my story first, before sharing the video or the pictures, so you know my internal experience before viewing it from an observer’s perspective. This birth was really hard. When I edited the video, I purposefully kept the most intense parts. Most of what I removed were the long periods of silence and rest--not because they don’t have value, but because if the video is too long, people won’t end up watching it!

I’m going to share the pictures last because I know they will be transcendent and amazing. If I have any complaint about birth photography, it’s that it can capture beauty in the most desperate, difficult moments. I don’t want my birth story to only show a calm, beautiful “birthing Goddess” or a triumphant superheroine or a rockstar or a woman silently relaxing through her “pressure waves.” I want it to also show the agony and the difficulty that make those previous images possible. Birth isn’t about avoiding one set of realities in favor of another. It’s about embracing all facets of birth--contradictory, messy, or unpleasant as some might be--as vital to the whole.

Ivy's birth video here.

Ivy's birth photos here

26 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us, and so beautifully written. I admire your commitment to true storytelling and keeping it real! You rock, Rixa!

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  2. Ivy Claire is a beautiful name! And you have no idea how much it eases my mind to hear you say you hate pushing. Yours was the first home- and natural-birthing blog I ever read, and to me you've always been this competent, fearless rockstar! (Which you are, don't get me wrong!) But it is so good to hear that there are parts of the whole thing you aren't in love with, too. Thank you for sharing your honest experiences.

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  3. When I was younger, I totally wanted a daughter named Ivy. I love the name.

    And I love your birth story. There really is so much going on in your head- and when you first see video or pictures, it's so strange! I held off watching my birth video for a couple of days so that I could process what I was experiencing.

    And yeah... pushing is scary! For me, there are so many unknowns: Am I pushing too much and will I cause a tear? Am I not pushing enough and I'm prolonging the labor? Am I pushing too soon and this pushy feeling is lying to me about how close I am to having a baby? And it all goes through my head so fast!

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  4. First and foremost heartiest congratulations ! I have followed your blog silently for years without ever leaving a comment or note. But this birth story and the way you narrated it is just so heartwarming and brilliant! Hats off to you, your strength and conviction and the honest power of your words ! Ivy and all your other children are beautiful, god bless !

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  5. Rixa, what a pleasure to get this side of your story. As always, powerful.

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  6. Rixa- so beautifully written-I was able to re- feel (I'm pretty sure that's not a word) my own experiences from so long ago, as I read and felt of your experience

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  9. Wow Rixa!!! What a great story and yes I was thankfully cautioned before my first birth not to think that I was somehow going to be able to replicate all those nice and calm birthing videos I had watched. This whole post is such a great thing to read!! Love it! :)

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  10. YES, yes and yes!!! Thank you, thank you Rixa for writing this post. I have looked for a birth story like this after having my second son 10 mos. ago. Ironically i just happened to watch his borth video literally 10 minutes before reading your post and again felt ashamed that I was screaming out and begging my midwives to leave me alone. I was having a beautiful home birth, but in some of the video it doesn't appear very beautiful, i'm losing it, in fact I even ask for a moment after my son comes out, it is literally 1 second and then I pick him up, and I love that part but wow birth is hard!
    Thank you again so much for sharing your story! It inspires me to share mine more and not feel guilty that it wasn't all candles and roses!

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  11. Wow - thanks for sharing this. The excerpt at the end was especially moving for me. I'm due with our second in about 12 weeks, and I so appreciate the labeling of my healthy fear (and my known ability to "lose it" during labor) as important facets of birth. I'm excited and scared to do it again, but it helps knowing that I don't have to be serene to be awesome.

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  12. You are an amazing storyteller and your herstory is powerful, vibrantly open, brutally honest. You have managed to share deep feelings that many of us feel/felt as we prepare to welcome another being to our lives, to our hearts; but feelings that are difficult to put in written words. Thank you so much! Blessed be....

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  13. Amazing and beautiful story! I could really relate to your story. During the labor of my fifth and last child I remember feeling so mentally weak. I knew exactly what I was headed for and the thoughts of how much pain I was about to go through made me feel like giving up before things really got started. But, as usual, I hit the point of no return and put my game face on. Whew! It makes me exhausted just thinking about it. Congratulations!

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  14. I love this! I just had 4th baby on Saturday, and I relate to so much of what you've related in your birth remembrance, especially that under-current of fear that was always sweeping around my ankles. I really had to pray myself through this pregnancy (which was strange, because of all four gestations, this was the very, very easiest of them all!) I know every labor and birth is different, and yet, for some reason, I'm always surprised when each labor and birth is different. With this one, I went to 42w5d,
    i had 4 days of prodromal labor (it wasn't unmanageable at all, just frustrating), and when I finally actually went into active labor, I was totally in denial, which resulted in an unassisted birth (which was perfectly fine by me!). It was my shortest active labor period, and I was really thrown off when I felt baby's head push past my tail bone, and then felt the ring of fire, almost simultaneously. It was a difficult easy birth. Anyway--I loved reading your reflections on the birth. Congratulations!

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    1. "a difficult easy birth."

      I love that phrase!

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  15. I can definitely relate to your feeling of tempting fate. And I like the names you've chosen - I have a niece on one side named Ivy and a niece on the other named Claire:)

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  16. Beautiful. I agree that so many birth stories seem to leave out the messy parts - the parts where women are deathly afraid, screaming and ripping their hair out - only to leave a half-truth behind.

    My second birth was messy but quick; just 30 minutes! When I tell people that, they all assume it was "perfect" because they don't want to hear about the absolute fear I had while my body pushed my baby out (I felt the terror rise, only to be lessened when my husband gave me Reiki at that moment) or the animal sounds I made while I laboured (I think I sounded like a dying cow stuck in a fence). The fact was that I was terribly afraid but I also knew that I had to embrace the fear in order to move through it - I could not fight it and I could not ignore it. It's that embracing of fear (embracing the possibility of death) that leads to enlightment and power.

    Thanks so much for writing Ivy's birth story this way. Congrats on the new addition!

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  17. Wow, what a beautiful, heartfelt birth story - thank you for sharing it.

    I have a question (and it may be too early to ask - if so I apologise!) but despite the difficulties of this labour is there an element of sadness that you may not get to give birth again?

    I'm due to have my third baby in 8 weeks and of course I have all the normal fears, but this time I'm also a little bit upset that it may be the last time I get to experience such an empowering and emotional life event... pain, fear, challenges and all!

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    1. Lauren, I'd say there's some of both right now. I'd say right after the birth I was just glad it was over, period. Even more than giving birth, though, I am really sad at the thought of not having another newborn again. It's my all-time favorite part of the whole pregnancy/labor/birth/baby year.

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  18. Thank you so much for sharing Rixa- amazing. And I love the thoughts on fear at the end. Read that same blog post from Midwife Thinking and loved it too. YES! Congrats-

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  19. I found this very interesting to read - there is so much going on "inside" that you don't get from just watching. I found your reluctance to get in the tub interesting. Maybe that restriction is why a water birth has never appealed enough for me to do it. But with my last birth (my 3rd), I felt so hot once I was pushing that I wished I was in the shower, but getting there was too overwhelming to even think about. So getting into water just for pushing sounds like something I might try next time.

    I agree that pushing is the worst part. For my first birth, I pushed for an hour without a really intense urge to push, and I preferred pushing to transition. But with the next two births, when I had a 15-20 minute pushing phase with an overwhelming urge to push, it was much more intense and difficult than in my first birth.

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  20. Didn't your blog used to be The True Face of birth? Maybe I am remembering wrong. But I appreciate the truth of what you said. Sometimes birth is scary and hard, or there are parts of birth that are. Realizing and embracing that can actually make it easier than thinking it will be all sunshine and flowers. :) Though sometimes it can be that too. But usually it is a compilation of almost every emotion and experience crammed into a few hours time.

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    1. Yes, that was this blog along time ago.

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  21. Thank you for writing this! Even reading after the fact, it is very comforting to hear of a noisy, hard-work birth, one that was good and mother's choice, but not airy fairy.

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  22. I am so incredibly thankful that I read this- thank you so much for this story and for you honesty. I am 31 weeks pregnant with baby #4 and have been feeling fearful of giving birth. My first birth I was so terrified and knew nothing. I was induced and had an epidural. The next birth I read like crazy in preparation for a home birth and was so proud of myself for how wonderful it all went and how well I managed. I felt like I had conquered all my fears and was excited to give birth again. But baby #3 was hard at the end. Really hard. The labor was incredible and I loved the contractions because I felt like I could stay calm and focused and knew that each one had an end. But transition was hard. Baby was coming fast and my body felt like I was being ripped into two pieces. The 5 minutes of pushing was enough to convince me that I NEVER wanted to do that again. But here I am pregnant and I have to do that again! I watched my birth videos recently and hated watching myself moaning and breathing because I could tell that it was taking everything in me to stay calm and it reminded me of what I was feeling inside. My friend saw me give birth the last time and she said after, "You were AMAZING!" But no one knew what I was feeling inside. My birth video reminds me of what I was feeling. I had thought that birth wasn't supposed to be painful (after reading Childbirth Without Fear and Hypnobirthing) and yet it was. And so I've been afraid to do it again. Your story has helped so much! I had watched a friend's birth video were she was so calm you couldn't even tell she was giving birth and felt bad about my own video's where I am NOT calm. I am thankful to be reminded that I do not have to be that calm birthing goddess. I can be loud and vocal and not think that it has to be completely pain free. It is okay if I am afraid of transition. I can be scared and still get through it like I did the last births. Thank you again for sharing your story!

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    1. Renee, thanks for your comment. I'm so glad my story has helped you as you get ready for baby #4. I think the info about the fear-pain-tension cycle is important, but sometimes the message gets warped into the idea that if you have no fear or extra tension, then you can somehow magically avoid all pain. I think you'll avoid any unnecessary or additional pain...but not the sensations of labor itself! Anyway best of luck with your upcoming birth.

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