The Other Side of the World

The very first home-born baby to meet my hands on exit now has a brother.

Edged onto alert by a slightly-over-40-weeks mama who was slightly-over her pregnancy I snapped awake at the fingertip tap of my preceptor at my bedroom door – 3:50 am.
We spent early labour rubbing our eyes at her kitchen table, sipping tea and pausing occasionally to observe her rocking pas-de-deux with the chair.

Night lengthened into morning and the intensity increased without settling into that familiar rhythm that all birth attendants nod happily to see.
So, I offered a check – and now that I am a final year student it was my check – not a practice to be confirmed by my preceptor. A hold-your-breath and pray-you’re-feeling-right moment.  7cm on one side, 8-9cm on the other. Not really what I wanted to be feeling. *

Working a baby down the birth canal is by rights an unbelieveable physical feat (that women do every minute of the day!). Working one into the world with its head slightly cocked to one side just makes it that much rockier a journey.
And so we spent the bright summer morning enclosed in the dark little room at the back of the house; encouraging – water and rescue remedy and position changes and continuing on past where the limits seemed to be on to bravery and sheer, stunning, monumental determination.

Finally the epic task reached its peak and one pale-fuzzed head began the slowest ooze out into daylight – a push to the eyebrows, then one to the bridge of the nose, two for the nose, another for the lips and an incredible three for the chin. I know all this because I was counting, hands poised, calling out to his mama to reach down into someplace deep and unfathomable and find even more strength. And hoping with every tensed muscle in my body that my midwifery skills had not and would not fail me.

And then, a quick swivel of his sweet head and there was the shoulder – eager and slippery and then his body suddenly in my hands – one last push for his hips (just to really prove he had reservations about coming in) and there he was born, onto his mother’s sweat-soaked, awestruck chest.
It was hard to tell who was leading the chorus of joyfully relieved sobs – his daddy or I. My preceptor hugged me from behind with her clean, gloved hands.
The best thing about midwifery is that every birth lets you be born again. A little bit – over and over again.

You caught all our children!

I’ve got a new addiction lately – a vintagely perfect sewing machine lent to me by a kindhearted friend. So, I’ve been experimenting with all sorts of things on it, and hit upon the idea of sewing some tie-one diapers for the baby. These, if you are uninitiated (and if you are, your excuse had better be you have no babies and are therefore not quite up to speed on your cloth diapering ennui) are comfy, perfectly fitting, perfectly customizable diapers that take a tad more time getting on, but are my favourites for the long night-haul of diaper-wear. No snaps, tabs, pins, claws . . . just soft stretchy, absorbent goodness.

Anyway, keep in mind my sewing skills are a brilliant juxtaposition of inexperience and lack of willingness to follow any instructions whatsoever (it’s a trying trait for those around me, I know). As my brother circa 2003 might say, very rogue.

In this instance I used some luscious, whipped-creamery-soft bamboo velour (purchased very on-sale through an odds & ends bin at Greenbeans).  I used a double layer for a thick, squishy diaper. It works with any soft, stretchy, absorbent material though.

Then I folded it in half to attain a symmetrical shape

and cut out this shape – sorry no pattern – er, this is the pattern- don’t worry, it’s easy to freestyle, just guess based on the size/shape of your baby

turn it inside out and stitch up the sides

sewing in approx 1/4m of twill tape at the very bottom of the narrow end

to use – place an insert (in this case, a colourful prefold folded in thirds, but, it could be anything) in the middle, fold that up over the baby (the real one was asleep so ‘Sassy’ stepped in) and bring the two back sides over top

Sassy is, by the way, much more stiff and bow-legged than my real baby and this, combined with trying to take photos made the task a little more difficult. I promise you it’s easier on a wiggling child.  Bring the front over top and wrap the ties around the back.

and finally tuck the leg cuffs around nice and evenly (or not if you are, say, the lovely daddy and do not care about the aesthetics of night-diapers)

here’s another one I made with two kinds of cotton jersey (and a better model)

And of course, I couldn’t leave out photo-evidence of this dramatic moment at dinner -

Now that I’ve indulged in my secret desire to leave people step by step instructions for items which are essentially instruction-less, I will leap into my cozy bed, pre-warmed thanks to the sweaty bodies, of which, at least one has probably turned horizontal in the time it took me to invent this post (including sew the diaper). 110 minutes in case you were wondering.

Off to sleep the slumber of the on-call!

p.s. thanks to my preceptor for letting me steal her bear for modeling purposes while she was out

Lolling around enjoying the piercingly unfiltered Aotearoa sun (from the safety of our covered deck, with mad dashes to the clothesline and burgeoning tomato jungle). Awaiting the not-so-imminent arrival of this family’s baby which feels a special sort of honour, given that my much-less-green hands will (all things willing) be poised to scoop up the next bit of their familia. There’s a nice ring to I caught your family, isn’t there? And a warm reassurance that they liked your work well enough to re-invite you to their most intimate of family gatherings.

And from the family-bed trenches – this photo, which requires your utmost appreciation since one of the subjects claimed the flash “woke me up”. Lest I need to articulate it any more clearly: sleep is King, do not interfere with the Sleep for any reason, whatsoever, not fire, nor flood nor uprising. See? You’d better enjoy the photo. . .

Lastly – yesterday, this lid was immoveable to the under-2 set. Utterly confounding in its screw-top firmness. Yesterday.