The Other Side of the World

the lovely shirt

the lovely dress

the lovely back

the lovely bum

re-made. lovely.

and taking out the compost. . . no-one else allowed to help, thank you!
(I’ve had school + pharmacology exam all week, give me a minute to catch a breath)

yes. . . we are on it

summer ripening -

a very good season indeed.

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.

Ah, the disappearing act -

We’ve been over the ditch:

Celebrating Joanna’s wedding:

In all her glowing glory. . .

and, okay – I was pretty happy too. . .

and she was just delectable. . .

After the wedding, staying in the rural bits of Melbourne, visiting my fantastic photographer friend on her farm-let

with the lovely daddy administering to Ride Duty. . .

Until such time as the pony became available. . .

my attempts to caption this one just ended in gibberish. . . snurfle. . . glug. . .

and a few other things happened while we were away, better illustrated when there is not said snurfling child asleep on my arm precluding hooking up the digital camera . . .

arriving home in time to enjoy a warm evening of New Zealand barbeque – and promptly following that a phone call from a labouring woman.

While my preceptor and I sat quietly catching up on *two whole weeks apart* in the corner – she calmly laboured over the birth ball in between joining our conversation. So calmly, in fact, that if she hadn’t announced it was time to take her pants off – we might have missed altogether her 1 min of pushing. As it was, I cupped her sweet baby boy’s head with one hand while I pulled a glove onto the other with my teeth.
And just in time – crouched under her to let his warm, slick skin slip over my forearms and down towards his mother’s.

A short while later – one of my favourite occurences ever happened (yet again) – a proud Grandmother declaring that she had been wrong – homebirth was a great idea after all.

. . . and we drove home through the quiet fields, under the whole swollen moon – basking in the glow of delicious right-ness. . .

. . . and a touch of jet lag. . .

home again, home again. . . jiggety . . jig. . .

because it’s always a good time for mama milk

from Sue’s fridge circa June 2007

Dear Noemi,
The day you were born really began the day before – as befits you, one day would not encompass your arrival. I was woken up by the phone ringing. It was probably some decent hour, but we’d been up late the night before watching Taxi, cooking hotdogs in the woodstove and being cozy (clearly a direct result of post-dates waiting induced insanity, because they were really quite terrible hot dogs). The phone went to the message and it was the midwives’s office calling to let us know we were scheduled for a post-dates assessment at the hospital in two days time. You, my un-tested, un-prodded, trustingly gestated baby were 41 weeks and 2 days which was uncomfortable for me, but also nibbling dangerously at the borders of protocol in our community (bloody protocol). I sent you a silent message to help us avoid the whole ‘system’ and went back to sleep, warm beside your daddy.

An hour later I woke up with nice gentle contractions and wondered if they were going to amount to anything (this had been happening all week). I got up, enjoying the quiet morning to be alone and sat on the birth ball in the front room bouncing meditatively, doing the crossword and peering at the clock every once in awhile – as I’m sure you know, I’m terrible with time, so it was an easy-going sort of timing. An hour later, our home-birthing friend Kate called and I told her I was wondering what these contractions were up to, so she sat through a few with me and declared they sounded regular and real. I let the idea of labouring loll around in my mind and wandered back to the bedroom to wake up your dad. Despite his obsessive “is it baby-time yet?” questioning all week, he was pretty sleepy and un-enthused. There was a bit of mucous and bloody show which I proffered up as encouraging signs and he eventually got up and (rather giddily, I think) went out to get coffee. In the meantime, my mother arrived back and clomped around in her red high heels moving boxes in preparation until I decided I needed a quiet nest for labouring and evicted her ruthlessly from her own house! Joanna arrived a bit later with a bag of labouring supplies and gave me a loving massage just as she had done so many times before. It was a lovely and familiar rhythm to sink into as the contractions carried on and Joanna prayed over me. I had a blueberry smoothie and wandered around the house, calling your dad over periodically to do acupressure on my back. He was so effective at this task that I demanded he carry it on for the next 20 hours (which he did without complaint – I am in awe of his powerful thumbs to this day!). Around 2pm I called our midwife, Mico to let her know I was in labour and she came over to check how things were going. I had never had a VE before (despite having given them to others) and was surprised and relieved that our midwife was so gentle and they felt just fine. I was 3cm and almost fully effaced and she left again until we needed her as I was only having contractions about every 8 minutes.. The birth pool was full and warm so I jumped in just to try it out. It was relaxing, but made my contractions space out so I hopped back out. As night fell, the contractions were getting stronger and our attempts to watch Arrested Development DVDs were thwarted by the increasing concentration they took. Around 8 we called Mico back, but there had been little progress, other than you wriggling your way nicely into a lateral position. I had had a feeling that you were going to take a long time get into the right place, and I was determined to patiently wait it out. I was getting tired though, so Mico left her TENS machine (of which I had unbounded skepticism) and suggested Tylenol and Gravol in order to get some sleep. After she left, Kien called to see if anyone wanted Sarah to bring by some coffee when she got off work (she was working at a café at the time). I’m sure your dad could have used some coffee, but I couldn’t think of a more ridiculous idea and threw the phone across the room (where we found it some days later). I was lying across the bed on my left side, and quite miserable, so we decided to try the TENS machine – and surprisingly enough, it did make things much more bearable. Joanna and your dad were quietly around me in the darkened room as I rode the peaks of each contraction and hoped fervently that they were doing their work. Joanna went home to get some sleep and finally around 1am I was beginning to be distraught with the pain and told your dad to call Mico back.

When she arrived she surmised that you had turned posterior – helpfully deciding to take the long way around to be born. My contractions were still a bit sporadic, though very strong and she tried some homeopathic remedies for irregular contractions to no avail. Finally I asked her to give me Pulsatilla which I thought would be good for positioning. Since I had still not dilated past 4cm I took some Tylenol and Gravol and tried to drift off between contractions. Later I got into the bath and your daddy poured warm water over my back and side with each contraction. I was so enveloped by the pain of contraction I thought that it would overtake me and eradicate me completely from the face of the earth. I wasn’t overly afraid of this happening, but I felt the need to point it out to the other people, but found it difficult to express from my place of deep concentration. What resulted was me pointedly explaining to your daddy over and over again that I was dying. I don’t think it was really effective communication or eased his worry, but he remained steadfast and reassuring.
Finally, Mico decided to check things again and I was at 8cm and your were in a wonderfully anterior position. I cried with relief! My body was working!
Then the contractions became even fiercer, eliciting roars from deep within me with each surge. They were so deep and powerful I was in their thrall, and yet I was their thrall. It was magnificent and terrible and completely dark. I was all alone with the pain of bringing you down, into the world, away from your ethereal, watery world of warm love. The end was uncertain, but I felt sure if I curled up and let myself be buffeted and torn, shredded and pounded, there would be an ending.
The pressure in my pelvis was enourmous and I squatted and groaned and pleaded with you to come down lower, lower. . . oh baby, oh baby. I didn’t know you, but I was enduring everything for you.
Hours rolled past – strange and murky in the most desperately dark part of the night. And finally the crack of pale blue hit the sky and Mico decided to call the second midwife, Heather.
She wanted to break my water (your water too, I suppose) in the hopes that you would descend onto the cervix and cause it to finish opening up. I knew she was tired, and that I was too tired and in pain to think straight, so I was glad Heather was coming to offer her opinion, her wise counsel, her fresh thoughts.
Heather arrived and agreed, yes, waters breaking would help. Then the student arrived and after her Joanna – silent apparitions at the back door. By now I was angry and stomping around the kitchen, looking for an escape. No way but through it though. I remember thinking that “this is just pain, and it is just now”. Not forever, just until it was enough.
Waters were broken, a clear warm cascade, and down your head plopped.
Everything sped up – there was a lip of cervix left – a couple of contractions later it was gone too, replaced by a massive roaring wave of throwing down that made every contraction before seem like a zephyr to a tsunami. On the couch, clutching at your daddy, and then at someone’s suggestion – on the birth stool. Screaming into the cool, bright October morning. Throwing down everything, into the wide, splitting chasm. I couldn’t believe it was you, that the warm wet of your head as someone told me to reach up inside me – that solid, real head – was you. You, and you were coming, thrusting your way closer to the brilliance of the day.
And then, with the most excruciating moment of all you came – and I grabbed you up, up, out of me, past the midwife unwrapping the cord from your chest, right up into my chest. Unbelieveably shell pink (just as your father requested – blue babies scare him he said) with breath and sound. Sweet, sodden and solid with the damp hair at the top of your head to press my face into forever.
After all catching all those other babies who were then swept up into amazed mothers arms – finally there you were, for my arms, for my heart – for my joy- forever.
“It’s a baby, and I had it at home!”
Oh what perfect delirium.
For you,
a thousand times over
and over
again

all my love,
mama

It seems the last couple of weeks I’ve been out in the wide world – first a week in the hospital gynaecology clinic and then a week in Wellington (photos to follow when I get some) for my last block of class of the year. And while both these events were necessary and allowed me to acquire knowledge I wouldn’t otherwise be privy too – it wasn’t the midwifery sort of feeling that I covet and feel best in. In other words – it just wasn’t home.

But I’m back now, and despite a couple of pesky exams looming in the corners (and yes, they still loom despite my ever-maturing attitude of refusing to be intimidated) I’m most looking forward to welcoming the fourth baby from one of my favourite homebirth families – in fact the very first homebirth family to honour me with a place at their birth last year.

That and postponed Thanksgiving dinner with the expatriate Canadians and lots of snuggling with the thing-which-is-unbelieveably-almost-not-a-baby (sporting multiple teeth now!) and hanging out with good (and ridiculous) conversation and company. I’m blissfully aware of my wonderful, amazing lot in life.

And, perhaps most wonderful of all – I finally made a lemon meringue pie. And – O – it is a thing of beauty. And yes, I must be the one perverse person in the world to bake a rectangular pie. Hopefully it’s also edible – we will eat in as soon as I am finished studying cervical screening theory. . . which is what I am clearly doing now. . . as you can see. . .

. . . just  back me up on this one, ok? Surely I deserve a break to inform you of the sweetness of my home.

sweet, sweet, sweet home that it is.