You quietly edged your way into the beginning in the gentle hours of Monday morning. I was still asleep on the couch, propped up against its odd comfort, leaving the big bed to your daddy and sister. I dreamt then, that my mother was asking me if it was still ‘safe’ to be pregnant ‘at this time’ and I emphatically answered ‘yes!’. Thus, with her presence and opinions known, my mother disappeared and the lull of rough-edged contractions began to fill out my consciousness.

Clinging to the last moments of rest, I hunched forward, leaning into the arm of the couch while Jess, who had come from Auckland to be with us, filled my request for a back massage. Squirming through that, and then a short-lived breakfast of homemade yoghurt and peaches  – I suggested to her it only might be labour. Then suddenly your daddy and Noemi appeared in the living room and I suddenly relented to the notion that today you would be born.

Retreating into the roomy cocoon of our bedroom, I curled myself, hands and knees around a pile of pillows and let your daddy work his magic acupressure points into the small of my back. Each contraction’s stiff peak suddenly melted into a dullness that spread through my body, relaxing me and allowing me to enjoy the time together.

No need to call the midwife – we merely waited for her to return home from boxing class whereupon she surveyed me swaying against the door jamb en route to the toilet and said “right”.  My desire to hibernate was strong and she intuitively headed out again – this time to gather an epic’s worth of groceries. Apparently births require good food to proceed.

The day passed calmly – snug in bed, eating grapes and reading friend’s blogs. Relishing the peace and quiet. I was encouraged by some bloody show and the discouraged when I peeked at the clock and saw the contractions were still five minutes apart. I popped out of the room and asked for a quick check – 5cm. Ah, so something was definitely happening.

Around dinner time the discomfort had swelled and I announced I wanted into the warm pool your daddy had filled in our alcove. The bliss of warm buoyancy conflicted with the tiring heat of the water and the steady increase in power of each contraction. A photo of me smiling took some effort! Pressed into your daddy’s neck, the water reflected strangely off the clear plastic of the pool in the dimly lit room. I felt you gently shift and turn inside me, pressing your way through the labrinyth of my pelvis. Our midwife crept around sopping up the leak that had sprung in the pool but I was only briefly roused from my labour-dreaming to be unreasonably annoyed with her.

Soon the split and heave of collapse and collide within began to over power my sense of self and frighten me. Afraid it would never end and I would forever be thrust, blind and heaving into the vast oblivion of pain I demanded our midwife check my progress, break my waters and get me out of there! I was tired and angry and unable to see the way through any more. Because I had been to so many births as her student, I was worried that anything she said to me would fail to impress and steady me. Thankfully, I was wrong and her words were soothing and strong.  I did, however, turn a few times to your daddy to ask him if what she said “was true”. His reassurance was somehow more trustworthy because I knew he had seen me through birth before. His quiet presence each and every second I clung to him became the epicentre, the life-point to which I could cling, or at least view through the tempest.

At last it was night, and at last the wholeness of your body was bearing its full weight against mine. The feeling was threatening and yet inviting, asking me to plunge into the darkest point where only the tiniest hope of breaking through resided.

Thrusting my way in and out of the birth pool, to the bathroom (where I remember noting that my footprints, small, neat and wet on the black & white bathroom floor were improbably lovely) and back to the bed I ranted and flailed looking for a non-existent escape-clause. Demanding another examination, the news that only a small lip of cervix remained was more distressing than heartening. I moaned and seethed through the urge to rip myself open and be done with it. Lying on my side, the contractions occasionally had no pause between them and the world seemed to have disappeared altogether. Only the sight, just out of the corner of my eye, of the second midwife calmly finishing up my knitting for me by the light of a small lamp reminded me that all was well and right with the world.

Finally, the lip had melted away and our midwife’s finger slipped through your membranes and flooded the end of the bed with relief. And then, as the vast and roaring power filled every space between you and I, out, out out into the wide world we hurtled. Bound together in a tight and seamless unity, speeding towards the moment of being ripped apart. The very last contraction that held you inside me I remembered my desire to give you peace at birth and I calmly breathed through just one contraction. Then the crash and tumult of unimaginable proportions hit and your sleek wet head was flung into open air. “still posterior*” remarked our midwife admiringly and I paused to laugh in amazement and allow the second midwife to take a quick photo at your unusual entrance.  Star-gazing we sometimes call it in midwifery.
Then the last razor-tipped wave – the one that will never be remembered, because on its crest came you,  serene and blue. As if gently deposited on my chest by the evening tide.  Calm-eyed and wise, soaking your sweetness into my skin and deeper. Saturating us all with your beautiful completeness. Bringing the starry night in to stay with us forever.

Such peace and such power.
Thank you forever and for always – for the gift of birthing you.

All my love,
mama

Living on a little island in the middle of nowhere, we are usually a little zio deprived.

Sometimes we get lucky though

Sometimes, we get a whole month of a resident zio

Complete with grandiose plans, epic installments of the family favourite “running out of petrol game”, giant pots of pasta, beans, bony meat and the contents of an entire jar of mixed italian herbs. . .

O, and a garden!

Fitting that he came all the way over the ocean to help us sink our roots into a new little bit of soil.

Thanks little zio (and Big Zio, for lending us your first-born)!

Home is a tiny warm orbit to return to after a day of bright lights and uncertain newness and potential face-thrusting-into challenges that seem to often occur only after I’ve finished my shift. It’s a small, safe place to ponder the planting of winter gardens and admiring the growing attachment between sister and brother and the steady thrum of old sewing machines churning out the almost undetectable thrills of double-sided cloth wipes and draft-stoppers crammed full of holey socks (I knew it was a good idea to save them!).

It’s a good place to sip cider by the roaring pot-belly stove, to celebrate 27 years of life (and my mother’s 24 epic hours of labour) and to entwine myself amongst the loving limbs of my affectionate people.

It feels like catch up time. There is time to sleep, gaze, ponder, plan, do a little growing. A very different pace from the past year. And plenty of time for, as someone around here likes to say: Acuddle.

steadily treading the round and round here

learned, yet again, something new about patience when a young gazelle of a woman breathed slowly and tumbled her son into my crouched hands

took my sea-pebble faced babe over the churning unseen expanse to both meet and farewell his great-grandfather – and in doing so taste the fruit of the family tree

cooked, ate, sang, talked into the night

quietly moving from one goodness to the next

Now where to?

Two degrees, two babies and two continents later and here we are.

The lovely daddy is outside soaking in the autumn rain as he plays elaborate games of Tetris with our surprisingly many belongings (we came with four suitcases he says half chagrin, half wonderment) and a ramp-less truck.

and we’re off.

to a little valley
living as a little family in a little grey house
one where every so often I leave (not too far or too long)
to do some midwifery*

Here we are, on the edge of another beginning.

Because life does that – that part where, just as you come to know you have a good place

Things shift.

*I’ll be working at a small rural service hospital staffed by ~2 midwives and an on-call obstetrician. When we transfer, we do it by helicopter!

sort of unbelieveable.

the sheer number of intense hours – brain-stuffed, lip-chewed, fingers slippery with anxiety, heart tripping from rending exhilaration to agonizing dances with patience.

the babies – mostly-fat, always hot. Squelching in their other-worldiness. Holding my breath with theirs as they dangled on the perineal precipe of life.

the teacher-midwives – the ones with faces of faith (when I burst not one, but two mid-semester pregnancies into their carefully planned schedules), of calm, of passion. The ones I cried to and cried with through every strange hour of the night. The ones that stood behind and held me forward – guiding my hands, needle, heart with their steadiness.

my friends – who showered me with every imaginable provision of love and care. For nodding encouragement into my dream-whispers at the very beginning and the very end. For holding me in a vast and beautiful web of love – feeding me, housing me, loving my children. For the countless hours and travel-miles and even breastmilk they shared willingly and easily.

my family – who overcame their skepticism (what’s a midwife?), mostly bank-rolled the operation and always made sure I knew they cared.

my babies – for showing me the unfathomable depths of richness in life. Who knew you could just make beautiful little people?

the lovely daddy – for not knowing what he was getting into, but getting in anyway – whole heartedly, without reserve and with seeming preternatural calmness.

and, of course -

the women – for being infinitely generous in letting me learn to be with them.

this is for all of you.

 thank you

Doing a bit of breath holding.
We’ll be back shortly.

deck baths at dusk

tub tub

peas: serious work

window ledge contemplation

not pictured: mama catching a few last babies as the last weeks of student-dom  sally on by

he’s

freakishly

delectable

no?