He was handed to me in the inflatable tub, I reached for him and brought him to my chest. My memory doesn’t serve me if his cries were loud, but I recall his noises being perfect and each person smiled in pride. He looked right at me, and he looked… like a baby! He was a full grown, no vernix, no blood, plump, but tiny, baby. I either thought or said out loud, “he’s beautiful”. As I remembered my physical support was Jeff, I leaned back again to receive my first kiss as a family of three.
He arrived at 6:55am. We quite literally started hearing morning birds outside the window as he arrived. The sun was blessing the window blinds.
I personally love sunrise, and for my son to be born at sunrise, felt the definition of perfect. (Not to mention I had been calling him Sonny/sunny in utero).
From here, as I’ve attended dozens of home-births assisting both the mamas and the midwives, I knew the routine. Once I felt ready, I stepped out of the birth tub tenderly, as I held my new, wet, tiny prize. As many babies, his cord was short and I couldn’t bring him up high on my chest, so I was delicate to keep him low. I lay on my bed and I think to myself, “I know this part. I can’t believe I get to nurse my baby.”
After having supported so many births, there are parts that I have longed for myself.
That first latch,
that first shower,
that first meal.
These are moments I’ve dreamt of.
That first latch as you stare your delicate newborn in the eyes and support their greatest desire and the greatest service you can offer them.
That first shower after a “job well done”, with a body exhausted, a mind relieved, and a heart so full.
That first meal, when you think, “oh man, do I deserve this” and your understanding of food as medicine goes beyond explanation.
I have watched countless women at each of these milestones in “Aw” and admiration.
Baby boy had a significant hematoma (bruise) on his head, and this bruise was not ‘perfectly’ centered over the vertex of his head. This implies his head was tilted while traveling down the birth path.
Clinically, this is referred to as acyclinic. It is a variation of normal, and relatively common. However.. if preventable, it makes the passage down the birth path much easier.
After seeing his head shape and bruise, it was now obvious why the “pushing” stage took several hours, and why the guttural noises my body was making were necessary. Some women experience fetal ejection reflex and don’t need to bare down so much during their birth phase of their labor.
I put the word pushing in quotations because I was not pushing voluntarily. My body was baring down, and it felt as if my body would have done this even without my participation. (However, my participation made it much more manageable!).
Hearing that I ‘pushed’ for nearly 5 hours can sound out-of-this-world. Sort of like hearing someone was in labor for 36 hours. However, time is elusive in these moments, you enter another world that does not count the seconds or minutes the way we do in our reality. Or at least this is how I can best explain it. I did not feel like it lasted that long..
It also feels important to denote that if you are familiar with ‘purple pushing’ in hospitals, this is not at all what the ‘pushing’ phase of most home birth looks like. As a matter of fact, that type of pushing is purposely avoided for many reasons, and has gained popularity because of epidural use. Women who can’t feel the contractions or “know” when to push, need to be guided and simply ‘PUSH’ their babies out. BUT… in my experience, this has never been needed for home births. With sensation intact, and the mind at ease, the body takes over and does the “pushing” on its own. My situation was one of those exceptions where my participation was recruited… and this is entirely more common for those giving birth for their first time.
