Scuba Claire

Claire's birth has been on my mind lately as I prepare for the birth of Mystery Baby, as I've taken to calling him/her. There are so many things I want to do differently, so many things that I want to avoid so that we get started off on the right foot this time. I still think of Claire's birth as the most beautiful moment of my life - I'll never forget how she looked when she was lifted out of the water and we locked eyes for the first time. It was like meeting a stranger, yet at the same time I felt like I had known her forever; somehow there was something familiar about her, in looks and in spirit.

Just moments prior, I had been in a state of extreme fear for her safety. The midwife had broken my water (more on that another time) and we discovered that Claire had already passed her first bowel movement, which I knew could be very dangerous and mean a trip to the NICU if she had aspirated any meconium. The midwife allowed me to get back into the birth tub to continue laboring, but cautioned me that I was no longer eligible for the water birth I had planned on having. Labor is already a surreal experience, and this was compounded by the element of danger; terrified, I got back in the tub and started pushing with all my might. I had to get my baby out to make sure she was ok! The midwife left the room ("a watched pot never boils!" she chirped, and was gone. Again. Despite my requests for help or direction, because I had no idea if I was pushing correctly. Of course I was doing it right, I just needed my midwife to confirm it and give me some encouragement!)

I was soon doing exactly what I knew I shouldn't be doing: ignoring my body and simply pushing, pushing, pushing. No break, no time to let my body do what it was designed to do, no time to let Claire glide into optimal positioning for her descent; I was taking charge and forcing my baby out NOW. Not even 5 minutes after the midwife left the room, she came running back in with an alarmed look on her face. "That's a birthing scream!" She plunged her arms into the water and brought my beautiful baby up to the surface. A birthing scream? Really, I had screamed? Wait, she's holding a baby...she's out! I was so exhausted from overworking myself that I was in a state of shock. It took me a moment to realize that I had just given birth. And this was natural childbirth - I hadn't had any drugs - it was just that intense that my brain was completely overloaded.

I hadn't meant to break the rules, I had only been focused on my mission of making sure Claire was ok. But it was a miracle the way things worked out, because Claire was perfectly fine. She was silent as I held her close and we studied each others faces; she was breathing well, and her apgar scores were excellent despite the fact that just moments before she had been swimming in her own poop for who knows how long. The waterbirth likely mitigated the danger, watering down the tainted amniotic fluid and helping to gently clear her lungs as she hung out underwater. The reason waterbirth is possible is because the warm water mimics the environment of the womb, other than the new sense of open space to move about in. Babies can stay underwater for several minutes with no danger; they have been in a similar environment for the last 9+ months. An additional factor that may have contributed to her safety was the fact that I froze, and didn't frantically pull her from the water right away. The midwife was in another room down the hall when she heard my scream, so it was a minute or two before she could get to me and lift Claire out of the water for me. Those precious moments may have been all it took to safely clear her lungs.

Needless to say, I'd like to avoid this sort of drama with our Mystery Baby. I don't mind the anticipation of which day the birth will happen, not knowing the gender of the baby, or any other details, I just don't want the fear of my baby not being ok. Of course the meconium issue can happen no matter the setting. It's not unique to hospital birth, although I do think in my case that it contributed. I had been laboring at home for about 15 hours before we headed for the hospital, and I was fully dilated and ready to push when we arrived. These first 15 hours had been hard work, there's no doubt about that, but it felt manageable. I was "in the zone", completely tuned into my body, and it wasn't scary at all. But the 15 minute drive to the hospital, along what felt like one of the bumpiest roads in the county, was enough to jolt me out of this concentration. Entering through the ER didn't help, as I had been there before with a bad case of food poisoning and don't have positive associations with it. The bright lights, the team of strangers coming at me and working on me as if I were on an assembly line, the stark look of the hospital room...it was all so different than the comforts of home. It's no wonder things changed and I suddenly started to feel stressed. Now that I had dilated fully I was no longer in any pain, or even discomfort, but I felt helpless. As if I were an actress on stage in front of a large audience who suddenly forgot her line in a climactic scene. The stress I felt certainly didn't help the situation and may have contributed to Claire's poor positioning and the meconium issue.

Planning a home birth feels right to me. This time around I fully trust my body. I started out that way with Claire, but once I got to the hospital I started having doubts...maybe it was all the nurses donning scrubs, or the intimidating medical equipment, but I can't help equating hospitals with problems or illness. The midwife's neglectful yet alarmist attitude didn't help. This time in addition to having two awesome doulas, I have two amazing and wise midwives to offer support and guidance when I need it. They will all be here just for me, and I know and love them all so there will be no "stranger" element this time. And my midwives won't treat me like a gadget on an assembly line, requiring internal exams and artificial membrane rupturing. Let's not even get into the whole third stage nightmare, that's an entirely different story! Mystery Baby's birth is coming together like a beautifully orchestrated musical. Everything is falling into place and steering me towards a safer and more enjoyable experience.

Instead of dwelling on the things that didn't go right with Claire's birth I feel as if I'm making progress, processing and purging the negativity. This is all stuff that I need to address so that I'm ready to face childbirth again without fear. It's such a wonderful feeling dissolving the frustration of what didn't go right, and instead focusing on the excitement of meeting Mystery Baby. I wonder how it will be similar to, or different than my first moments with Claire. During that first quiet moment Claire and I had after her birth, as we studied each others' faces, her lower lip suddenly quivered a bit and folded over in a pout. The cutest, most heart-wrenching pout I had ever seen. "Oh!" I softly exclaimed, new to motherhood and the giant responsibility of caring for a helpless human being. "It's ok, baby!" And like that, the pout was gone. And everything really was ok.