All books are a work in progress and Fiona made a few edits that have clarified her positions. As she said during my interview, she was being relentlessly harassed during the writing of Eyes Wide Open and she threw it on the internet without a final edit.
Here is the link to read the updated version.
Lynn Griesemer owns the copyright and has been working on this new edit for a while now. She asked if I wanted to write a short review for the back cover and I sent one along to her.
https://twitter.com/jennyhatch/status/1181294113024430081?s=21
Marilyn died in 1998 six weeks after our first national conference.
I organized the second conference in 2001.
Click HERE to purchase my book A Lotus Birth.
My friend Becky had an eight pound boy at home last night. She asked me to be available to help with her three older children if she gave birth during the day. But since she gave birth at 2 am, I was not able to attend. While I would have loved to be around just to feel the energy and spirit of a homebirth, it felt right that this most sacred and gentle of moments take place quietly, without too many extra people hanging around. And so this morning as she proudly shared pictures of Her son on Facebook, I felt joy and peace that another blessed child had made it safely to the earth into his parents hands.
“[Imagine] if you sent your kids to the local swimming pool on ten different days in the summer. If your child was given complete CPR, oxygen, and a drug injection on nine out of the ten days he went there because the Lifeguard “thought” he was drowning, and he wasn’t, you’d get pretty upset. The fact that normal, healthy young women walk into the hospital to have a baby, and 90% of them came out looking like they’ve had major trauma, is ridiculous.” Gloria Lemay
Following is an excerpt from Rape of the Twentieth Century which is no longer in print.
Interview by Leilah McCracken.Gloria Lemay is the only non-registered birth attendant in the province of British Columbia still serving parturient women; all others have been terrorized out of practice by a monopolizing, litigious, government-sanctioned midwifery cartel. Ms. Lemay has been in service for over twenty years, and is currently the most popular midwife in B.C.
Q- Why did you become a midwife?
A- Because having my first homebirth was a life-changing experience for me. Up until that time I had worked in fields primarily involving men; and
when I gave birth to my daughter, I really claimed my womanhood – it changed my direction completely into wanting to work with women.
Q- What does birth mean to you?
A- it’s one of the few opportunities we have in life for transformation. The suck of life is that people can change- that change will happen over time.
We come to believe that because there is a lot of common agreement around it; and transformation is expected to happen in a predictable time-frame. Yet in birth, a transformation happens outside of time – outside of time and space. It’s not something you can repeat or do again; it’s actually a change of substance. I was transformed in my births, and creating room for other people to experience that is really important to me.
Q- Sometimes you call yourself a “private birth attendant”. Why don’t you like to be called “midwife” anymore?
A- Legally managed and sanctioned midwifery tends to become invisible in the system very quickly. Working outside the system is what I do, and I am not attached to calling myself a midwife- it’s a lovely word to my ears, but my definition of the word seems to be quite different from the legislators in my province: to them, “obstetrical nursing” is equatable with “midwifery”.
Q- What qualities make a good midwife?
A- Patience number one. And an ability to be in true service- to put yourself aside and see what is really needed in the other person. Love in the
heart… It helps to be smart. One should be able to stay calm,and be reliable in the face of emergency.
Q- What is the role of modern medicine in childbirth?
A- Mostly, to get the hell out of it. In a small percentage of cases, modern medicine can make a life-saving difference. But the harm that doctors have inflicted on the women of North America for no reason is like a holocaust. A good analogy would be if you sent your kids to the local swimming pool on ten different days in the summer. If your child was given complete CPR, oxygen, and a drug injection on nine out of the ten days he went there because the Lifeguard “thought” he was drowning, and he wasn’t, you’d get pretty upset. The fact that normal, healthy young women walk into the hospital to have a baby, and 90% of them came out looking like they’ve had major trauma, is ridiculous.
Q-Do you feel a backlash happening against the homebirth movement?
A- I actually think that there’s less as we approach the year 2000. We’ve gotten to a point where alternatives- and practices that have endured over time- are becoming increasingly accepted. Did you know that twenty-five percent of people buy organic food? When an idea reaches critical mass, what was the idea of a few people suddenly becomes everybody’s idea. The day is coming quickly when the women who have been persecuted as midwives will be rewarded for
their perseverance with very busy practices.
Q- What is your single greatest fear regarding childbirth?
A- My natural fear is having a baby death, because of the pain that the parents go through. That fear keeps me smart, prepared, and keeps me working
preventatively, so parents have the best chance possible of having a live baby. I also fear that one of my clients will have a cesarean section- or a
forceps delivery- or any of the other interventions that I hate.
Q- How many women should be getting cesarean sections?
A- No more than three percent.
Q- Why aren’t you a registered midwife?
A- I believe in joining and giving my membership to organizations whose actions reflect my own beliefs regarding their actions and stated
philosophies. The British Columbia College of Midwives is not an organization to which I’d give my name or my money. They see new midwives as a threat to their monopoly of the homebirth market– I was not welcomed or supported as a new midwife, to say the least.
Q- Is there anything positive in the medical model of birth?
A- There are a lot of positive things about it, and if midwives are smart, they’d take all the positives, duplicate them, and compete strongly on the things that are not positive. Taking things like clean fingernails, reliability (there’s always someone there when women show up at the birth captivity center), making sure there’s enough oxygen in the oxygen tank, always having lots of sterile gauze- there are certain things that are useful, and conscious, that doctors and nurses do that midwives can, and should, duplicate. On the other hand, we can compete very strongly with doctors and nurses because midwives can do all those things easily, plus offer preventative measures, womanly wisdom, and our own experience in giving birth. We can also offer
a lot of tricks of the trade that doctors don’t know about- plus a gentler approach.
Q- What is the role of men in childbirth?
A- To protect the women.
Q-What is your most important job as a birth attendant?
A- To create a safe environment for the mother and baby.
Q- What bothers you most about TV’s portrayal of childbirth?
A- In order to sell commercial space, whatever’s being presented has to have a dramatic element. Birth in real life is not dramatic- it is sacred, moving, alive and earthy- but it’s not something that would make a dramatic screenplay. Birth has to be warped a bit to make it saleable to commercial interests. Unfortunately, people get their general perceptions of birth, police work and legal matters- and their perceptions of those who work within these professions- through what they see on TV. Midwives, police officers and lawyers will tell you that the every day work of their businesses is nothing at all like what is seen on TV- but people never believe it.
Q- What questions do you hear most from families, and how do you respond to them?
A- Mostly- “How can we avoid being involved with the medical system in any way?” They want to avoid transfer to the hospital, having a doppler used to detect fetal heart tones ultrasonically, diabetes screenings…
Most people who come to see me are referred by friends- so they’ve already heard all about me. They already know that I’m out of the system. In the course of prenatal visits, we get to know each other, trust each other and understand each other’s vulnerabilities. This all pays dividends at the birth because everyone has only one focus- the highest good of mother and baby.
Q- What should midwives do in society to help heal birth?
A- What I concentrate on is one birth at a time, with excellence in my practice. One woman tells another, and soon a hundred people have heard the birth story. Each birth creates a ripple effect in the community- it’s amazing the effect that a normal birth has on people.
Q- What roles should midwives have- aside from attending birth- in the community?
A- Classically, midwives have been the wise women who looked out for their communities: they were the women to whom you would go to get help with burying your grandparents; the women who would come with hot meals for the family when the husbands have been ill; they were mature women who never gossiped or betrayed confidences. They furthered wise action and harmony in their communities, and in turn, their communities took care of and honored
the midwives. A midwife’s role should be to promote harmony.
Q- How would a woman go about becoming a midwife?
A- The way I did it twenty years ago was best for me. For four years I immersed myself in reading, eating and breathing birth. We formed different
midwifery study groups, and I began teaching prenatal classes. I did a lot of hospital labor support, and was helped by friends who were doctors and nurse-midwives. I learned a lot from them. I also learned a lot about what NOT to do at a birth… Some of these births were such gruesome rapes I shudder to think of them now. I know there are obstetricians who hate women and are just plain evil in their disregard. I really wanted to keep women away from medicine as much as I could- so I learned how do things like injections and suturing myself. Also, a midwife needs to know many things to be good at her job. She should learn all she can about all aspects of life- she needs to know about religion, government, history, economics, auto mechanics,
linguistics, geography, psychology, matters of the law, physiology, crisis management- she will have to have a wide repertoire of knowledge regarding all aspects of women’s lives.
Q- Could you briefly describe your legal battles?
A- In 1985 my partner and I attended a homebirth in Vancouver where a baby died. We were charged with criminal negligence causing death to the baby, criminal negligence causing bodily harm to the mother, and four counts of practicing medicine without a license. What ensued was a six-year odyssey of appearing before the courts in British Columbia and Ontario- ultimately culminating in an appearance before the Supreme Court of Canada. We were finally acquitted of all charges in 1991. At that time I returned to my midwifery practice (I wasn’t practising at all between 1985-91). In 1994 I had a baby in my practice who died at three days old; and there was a seven day Coroner’s Inquest into his death- which resulted in a finding of “accidental death”. There was a lot of negative publicity and again, once it blew over, I returned to my practice.
Q- What positive result came from your Supreme Court case?
A- Our goal was for it to be the last time midwives faced the criminal justice system in Canada, and for our trial to be the end of all midwifery trials in
Canada. There has not been a criminal arrest of a midwife since.
Q- What is the climate for you inside hospitals when you need to take women in?
A- It varies- sometimes extremely hostile, sometimes extremely cooperative- it seems to depend on the mood of the hospital staff. I’ve learned not to take it personally.
Q- Do doctors really believe they do right by women by interfering with childbirth?
A- I think they’re resigned to birth as it appears to them inside the confines of a hospital. They get resigned to what they see every day, and believe that what they see is how birth is supposed to be. I really feel that doctors don’t have a clue about what to do or how to help birthing women- then they blame women for “needing” interventions. They blame the women for the terrible statistics. They’ve been taught how to do things- and have never questioned the wisdom of what they’ve been taught.
Q- Why do midwives in hospitals remain silent regarding alarming intervention rates?
A- I think they’re resigned to playing politics.
Q- Do some women- such as non-English speaking or minority- suffer more in hospital births than others?
A- I think that in Canadian hospitals some women are used as teaching patients more than others, so interns can learn procedures. These women often have no idea what’s going on, either to them or around them. They also have an unrealistic idea that modern technology is always better than the simpler, more natural ways in their own countries. I think it would make a difference to these women if there were labor support people of their own language or descent in hospitals to help them. Young and uneducated women are taken advantage of too. Two Burnaby midwives were running a program for teaching teenage mothers about nutrition in pregnancy; they soon got a huge number of young women coming to them for counseling. They would channel these young mothers for their regular prenatal care to doctors who never did episiotomies- that is, to gentle women doctors. Soon, other doctors could feel the pinch in their practices- and were forced to develop kinder approaches as well. Hit them where it counts to make change- in the wallet.
Q- What are the most important things a pregnant woman can do to ensure the health of her baby?
A- Eat a good diet. Muster all the social support she can around her. There have been studies that have shown that these are the only two things really make a difference.
Q- What are the two greatest advantages of homebirth?
A- No one will lose your baby, and so far no one has had a cesarean section at home.
Q- Can you think of any disadvantages?
A- Your midwife has to wash the sheets- there’s no paid cleanup staff.
Q- Do breathing exercises really help in preparation for childbirth?
A- Breathing exercises worked for me personally. I love to have some familiar tools when going into scary or unknown situations- learning how to
breathe was valuable for me going into my own births. Some women don’t care about them, though. Every woman has unique wants and needs, and midwives should listen, and put their own judgments aside. If women say they would like to be taught breathing exercises, then they should be taught. That goes for anything else as well. Midwives need to address women as individuals- they need to address individual needs.
Q- What do you find most rewarding about being a midwife?
A- Feeling like I make a difference- knowing that I make a difference.
Q- If you could tell all the obstetricians in the world one thing, what would it be?
A- That birth needs to be undisturbed.
Q- What would you like written on your gravestone?
A- “Gloria Lemay- MIDWIFE & MOTHER… She spoke up for babies”.
First published in 1999.
are promising to be well attended. In an effort to help support the families who are promoting them, here is the most recent email update from the Facebook Group:
“Dear all,
Only a few days away and the numbers are looking great. Keep spreading the word, it’s going to be a fantastic turn out.
Ideas for Banners have been brought up, so i’ve included a few ideas that i have come across in a few rallies. I’ve also been informed that it’s probably better NOT to use wood to hold banners up. Something such as flexible PVC piping would suit. If it bends, and it’s not hard, it’s probably ok to use!
Ideas:
“I give birth and i vote”
“Mother knows best, save birth choices!”
“My right to choose nature’s way”
“Birth is women’s business, not politicians business”
“My body, my baby, my human right”
Feel free to add your ideas to the discussion board, and also please remember this rally is not just about home birth, but about choices for ALL women. The amendments to the legislation WILL impact more women.
Finally, remember to wear the traditional women’s colours of Purple, Green and White. We will have balloons to match, and feel free to bring your own balloons to add to the colour! Let’s show Australia that women’s rights matter!
Kelly”
If you are in Australia and can take a few minutes to help support these families right to decide where they will give birth, please stand in solidarity with them!
Here is a list of all of the various protests:
| Date: |
Thursday, February 18, 2010
|
| Time: |
9:45am – 11:00am
|
| Location: |
We are planning to meet at Civic Park before 9:45am and walk down to Sharon Grierson’s office which is located at 427 Hunter Street Newcastle NSW 2300
|
| Date: |
Thursday, February 18, 2010
|
| Time: |
10:00am – 11:00am
|
| Location: |
Unit A, Ground Floor, Law Society Building 11 London Circuit Canberra ACT 2601
|
| Date: |
Thursday, February 18, 2010
|
| Time: |
10:00am – 11:00am
|
| Location: |
161a Main North Road NAILSWORTH SA 5083
|
| Date: |
Thursday, February 18, 2010
|
| Time: |
10:00am – 11:00am
|
| Location: |
91 Mann St GOSFORD
|
| Date: |
Thursday, February 18, 2010
|
| Time: |
10:00am – 12:00pm
|
| Location: |
Kevin Rudd will be in Ballarat on THURSDAY 18 FEB, in the morning and need people to be in Ballarat by 10am. VENUE to be confirmed soon, everyone will be messaged through facebook with a location ASAP
|
| Date: |
Thursday, February 18, 2010
|
| Time: |
10:30am – 11:30am
|
| Location: |
Outside Senator Trish Crossin’s office 25 Chung Wah Terrace Palmerston NT 0830
|
| Date: |
Thursday, February 18, 2010
|
| Time: |
10:30am – 11:30am
|
| Location: |
Macdonnells Building 102 Grafton Street Cairns Qld 4870
|
| Date: |
Thursday, February 18, 2010
|
| Time: |
10:30am – 11:30am
|
| Location: |
Outside the office of Melissa Parke 62 Wray Avenue Fremantle WA 6160
|
| Date: |
Thursday, February 18, 2010
|
| Time: |
10:30am – 11:30am
|
| Location: |
Outside office of Kerry Rea Where: 69 Clara Street Wynnum Qld 4178
|
| Date: |
Thursday, February 18, 2010
|
| Time: |
10:30am – 11:30am
|
| Location: |
Outside the office of Tanya Plibersek 111-117 Devonshire Street Surry Hills NSW 2010
|
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Note: This birth story is mainly for my own record and benefit. It may be rather boring and long in some parts, and a little more detail than you want in other parts. Feel free to read it and comment, if you’d like, but just know that I wrote it for me.
One week ago today, as was normal during the last several weeks of my pregnancy, I woke up for the fourth or fifth time that night to use the bathroom. It was just before dawn. When I got back into bed, I was surprised at how wide awake I felt. Usually, with waking up so frequently during the night, I never felt fully rested, and it took incredible amounts of willpower to get up before 9:30am. So feeling wide awake before dawn really got my attention. While I was laying in bed, waiting for sleep to return, I had a contraction. It was just before 7am. That in and of itself wasn’t unusual, since I had been having sporadic contractions for nearly a week at that point. But usually, those contractions happened more often in the late afternoon and the evening. This was the first time I had noticed one while I was laying in bed. At this point, I really couldn’t sleep. Soon enough, Jesse was getting up and getting ready for work, and I just kept on laying in bed, hoping to get more sleep. I had another couple contractions between the first one and the time that Jesse left for work. I wasn’t paying much attention to the clock, but it seemed like they were maybe 20-30 minutes apart at that point in time. I didn’t say anything to Jesse.
After Jesse left for work, Melinda and Jacob were up and out of bed, and soon asking for some breakfast. So I dragged myself out of bed and got them some cold cereal. And then I promptly went back to lay down. I had another contraction before it was time for me to get up and shower, and again, it seemed like it was probably between 20 to 30 minutes since the last contraction. I used the bathroom again at some point during all of this, and noticed some bloody show on the toilet paper. Then I started getting excited – this was something definitely new, and usually considered a solid sign of true labor! By the time I left the house at about 10:45am, I had used the bathroom at least 5 more times to “check” for more bloody show, and it was there each time. And the contractions were getting a little closer – about 15-20 minutes apart by my best guess (since I still wasn’t writing them down).
I had a chiropractic appointment at 11am to help with the Pubic Symphisis Dysfunction. While I was there, I had a couple more contractions, and the chiropractor went ahead and did a little acupressure on my feet and ankles which had potential to encourage labor, since it was definitely beginning to appear that I was in fact in early labor. On the drive back home, which only takes 10-15 minutes, I had a couple more contractions.
Once I was home, I had to use the bathroom, and got another sure sign of labor – my bowels were very loose. At this point, I decided it was time to start calling people. I called Evelyn, my midwife, first, to basically just give her a heads up. I felt like I was still a good ways off from actually needing anyone to come to our home. When I talked to her, she told me, apologetically, that she may not make it to my birth, since she was with a woman in labor and only at 4cm at that point in time. But her assistant, Casey, would definitely be there, and they have another midwife they work with occasionally when situations like this pop up, so that Casey wouldn’t be alone. I was a little nervous about Casey being the one to come, since I had met with her the least amount of times during my prenatal appointments, and didn’t feel like I knew her very well. But it turns out that her being present at the birth confirmed my initial impressions of her anyway – she was a very warm, calm, happy presence.
After calling Evelyn, I called Jesse at work to let him know what was going on. He sounded a little excited, but not too concerned. But he ended up arriving at home for his lunch break a good half hour early. Apparently, once I had called him, he just became too unfocused (and nervous, in his words), and just sat at his computer doing practically nothing, until his boss told him to “just go home!”
Once he did get home, I decided to start timing contractions and really get a good idea of where I was at. I had quite a few that were 10 minutes apart, until 1pm, they suddenly started getting closer together, until at 1:20pm, they were suddenly 5 minutes apart or less. And they were starting to feel strong enough that I felt a bit serious through them. And while I could talk through them (my friend Cara even called me on the phone and talked with me for a few minutes), it definitely took a bit more effort. So I called the midwife again, and told her it was probably time to send Casey over, since contractions were now so close together and feeling stronger. If we were planning a hospital birth, this would be the point where we packed things up and headed out the door. But when I called Evelyn again, she said, “Are you sure? You seem awfully calm and chatty still.” I told her that I was sure, and so she called Casey and sent her on her way.
At about 2pm, Casey arrived and checked me back in the bedroom. She took her time, because my water was bulging and she commented that it’s a little more difficult to “assess” when the water is right there. She said I was “stretchy”, hemmed and hawed a bit, and then decided I was at 7cm dilated. I hardly believed her, and said, incredulously, “Really?!?” Well, at 7cm, things were really a lot further along than I thought they were (I really would have put myself at 4, maybe 5cm, just based on how I was feeling and my past births). So I went into a frenzy of phone calls. I needed someone over ASAP to watch the kids for me. My visiting teacher, Andrea, was my main person to call for childcare, but I had talked to her on the way home from the Chiropractor, and she told me then that she’d be unavailable between 2:30 and 5:30, when she had to drive her kids around to various appointments. And when I tried to call her after I was checked, she wasn’t even answering her cell phone. I started calling people on my back-up list, and soon found that nobody was answering their phones. I pulled out my little Relief Society directory book, which had just been made a couple months earlier, and found myself so grateful for its existence. I started flipping through it and calling anyone who I was remotely comfortable with and lived relatively close to me. Finally, after some time on the phone, I got a hold of Liz from the Primary Presidency. I told her my situation and she rushed right over, I was so thankful for her being available. But she needed to leave just after 3pm to pick up her kids, so I wasn’t done with phone calls yet.
Since I still hadn’t gotten through to anyone else, I decided to just start leaving messages with everyone I could think of, hoping someone would call me back before Liz needed to leave. The contractions during all of this were getting closer (2-3 minutes apart) and stronger, but I pushed them to the back of my consciousness and just focused on the phone calls. Some people later called me just about crazy for being on the phone when I was so deep into labor, I should have had Jesse making the calls, or I should have thought to call the Compassionate Service Leader (which never even crossed my mind, really!), but in retrospect, I’m kind of glad for something to occupy my mind for that length of time, so I wasn’t focusing on the pain of contractions. It made labor feel that much faster and not so intense. I had been standing against the kids’ bunk bed during all the phone calls, and even commented to Jesse a few times, “Man, it’s really hard to talk on the phone through contractions!!” Eventually I got a call back from Brittney, who I had ironically made plans with for that afternoon, and had canceled with because of labor. (I had joked with her that maybe this baby just needed a written invitation to turn down, in order to decide to come out!) Brittney said she could come right over as soon as she got her youngest son out of his bed. I thanked her profusely and got off the phone. When I looked back at my phone log, it was just about 2:45pm when I was on the last call. As soon as I was done, I went and used the bathroom. I had a very strong contraction while I was washing my hands, and informed Casey when I came out. During this time, the midwife Karen had arrived, after Casey had informed Evelyn of how far along I was, and it was apparent that there was no way Evelyn would be able to join us in time for the birth. Almost as soon as I had told them that I had had a strong contraction in the bathroom, I had another one, just as strong. “Holy cow!! Those were practically right on top of each other!,” I complained.
And before I knew it, they were all practically on top of each other. Melinda started coming in and out of the room, wanting to watch, but since nothing super interesting was happening, was fine with leaving again. Brittney soon arrived, and offered to take the kids out back to play. Melinda just couldn’t pass up that opportunity, and dashed out of the room to put her shoes on and play. (Her hierarchy of priorities: TV is less interesting than birth, but birth is less interesting than playing outside!)
It seemed practically no time at all before I was suddenly feeling pushy during the later parts of the contractions. I announced it, and all I got was a cheery “That’s fine.” Casey and Karen encouraged me to stay upright and let gravity help, and positioned me at the foot of my bed, leaning on my hands to support myself, with my legs apart so I could sway my hips through contractions. I eventually felt very tired of supporting my weight with my arms, and asked if it was okay to kneel down instead. “Of course!” they said, and made sure I was helped down. I soon buried my face into the mattress, Jesse holding my hand and rubbing my back, whispering encouragement in my ear. I was starting to have trouble through contractions, and the pushy feeling intensified to the point where I was grunting and giving small pushes through many of the contractions. Soon enough, I was fully pushing, and very uncomfortable. If there would have been time enough between contractions, I later remarked, I might have cried from the intensity of it all. But there was very little in the way of breaks – only enough time to catch my breath before the next contraction, really. During one of the later pushes, my water suddenly broke, and then I could really feel the baby’s head in the birth canal. It did not feel good, and since I’m so great at stating the obvious, I said, “I can feel the baby’s head in the birth canal!” Everyone thought that was hilarious, apparently. Karen said, “What did you think was there, a cabbage head?” And Jesse joked, “I don’t know, it looks like it could be a pony, maybe!” And it was all odd enough that it pulled me out of the intensity for just a few seconds, and I had myself a little laugh right along with them.
But then it was back to work, and I pushed with each contraction. Not with any coaching – nobody told me how or when to push, I just pushed when my body told me to. If I had been in a hospital, I might have been told I was doing it all wrong – the pushes were short, definitely not to a count of 10, but they were effective. The head was soon crowning. I could tell, it was a familiar enough sensation, and the most uncomfortable part of all, but nobody was telling me that the head was crowning, and I guess it frustrated me a little bit. I asked quickly and breathlessly, “Is the head crowning??” “Yes, the head is crowning.” Of course it was. What I felt was accurate; I knew what was going on. But it was still nice to hear it. Another push or two, (pushing with all my might, but backing off a little with the fear of tearing) and the burn of crowning went away. “Is the head out?!?” I asked, a little panicky. “Yes, the head is out now.” Of course it is. Thank goodness. Another couple pushes, and then the pain really intensified again. “Is it the shoulders??” (PLEASE, say it’s the shoulders!) “Yes, it’s the shoulders now.” Oh, good, what I felt was right. Thank goodness again. They had me put one leg up, so I was on one knee and one foot, to help make room for the shoulders to come out. A couple more pushes, and the shoulders were out. I remember in my past labors, once the shoulders were out, the rest of the baby’s body just slipped out without any effort at all, and that slipping felt like such a huge relief. This time it felt a little different – not so much an effortless slipping out, as it was a slower “oozing” out.
Alex was quickly placed on the floor in front of me, born at 3:27pm, only about 45 minutes after I had gotten off of the phone. I sort of just looked at him with a little bit of disbelief! I definitely remember thinking, “Wait a minute, a 9 pound baby should look bigger than that….” It took me a couple seconds to realize, “Hey…I’m supposed to pick that baby up!!” And I did pick him up, and held his slippery, blue-purple body against my chest, a little awed that I was finally seeing him, that he was finally out. Casey and Karen helped me sit down, put some pillows behind me, and I just stayed there on the floor, between the foot of my bed and the file cabinets behind me. Alex wasn’t suctioned out, his cord wasn’t clamped and cut…. nothing was happening except for me meeting my baby. After a minute, they laid some warmed receiving blankets on top of Alex, but that was it. It was so different from hospital births. Alex cried, and I couldn’t seem to really soothe him. He wasn’t interested in nursing just yet. While I was still sitting on the floor, Melinda and Jacob were brought in to see the baby, but they didn’t seem especially impressed, and just wanted to go outside to play some more!
Several more minutes went by, and I was helped up to the bed to rest until I felt cramping again, to birth the placenta. I tried several more times to nurse Alex, but he still wasn’t interested. Then I was asked to push with the next cramp I felt, and with that push came the placenta. Alex’s cord was clamped and cut at that point.
The order of things that happened after that is a little bit blurred for me. I believe that the placenta was examined first. Casey called it a beautiful, perfect placenta. I watched her examine it… I’ve seen placentas before, but it’s still something interesting to watch. It looked so much bigger than I would imagine a placenta to be. Alex was also weighed and measured. Karen and Casey had a little exchange: “How big do you think he is?” “I don’t know, I think he might be 10 pounds!” I sat in disbelief, hearing how big they thought he was. Evelyn had said at a recent prenatal appointment that he was “definitely” 9 pounds, and that was about what I was expecting – just a bit bigger than my other two babies. But 10 pounds sounded a little on the crazy side! They put him in the blue fabric sling, and weighed him – he was pronounced to be not only 10 pounds, but 10 pounds 10 ounces! “You’re kidding!” I exclaimed. “What on earth is wrong with me, that I look at a 10 pound 10 ounce baby and think he looks small?!?” I really couldn’t believe it. I have always loved hearing about the births of bigger babies. I have always believed myself capable of birthing a bigger baby. But I was expecting something at least a full pound lighter at this birth, so I was a little bit shocked!! His length was 21 inches, and his head was an incredible 15 ¼ inches around. He cried through the measuring, and got very upset. When I had him back, he was finally ready to try nursing, and managed to do it with no correction needed!
After measuring and weighing him, Karen checked on me. I had a slight tear. She said it could have used maybe one or two stitches, but when she and Casey both looked at it, it was a nice clean, straight tear and looked like it could heal itself fairly easily. We all decided it would be far less traumatic for me if we just skipped stitching altogether. I’m glad for that decision – I’ve had practically zero pain in that area since the birth, compared to the stinging and tenderness for the first few days I’ve had with the others. They also made sure my uterus was shrinking normally, and that the bleeding wasn’t too much, and found me in good condition. Soon, they were cleaning up and on their way out. And I was still snuggled nicely in my own bed, in the comfort of my own home. It all felt perfect to me.
We had quite a bit of company that day. Between both Liz and Brittney (with her 2 boys) there to watch the kids, and then my visiting teacher Andrea showing up just as the midwives were leaving, it already felt much more lively than I’ve experienced in my hospital births, where nobody was there except for hospital staff, myself, the baby and Jesse. And of course, the other major difference being that Alex was born in the afternoon instead of the middle of the night. Usually I was done birthing and so exhausted that all I wanted was to sleep! But this time, I felt wide awake and thrilled that everything had gone so nicely, and happily chatted with my visitors.
The first 12 to 15 hours of Alex’s life were making me a little bit nervous – he would go from perfectly content to completely upset in no time flat. He’d be nursing just fine and happy, and all of the sudden refuse to suck anymore, until I would offer a finger to suck on. Then he would be happy with that for a little bit, but go right back to being upset again. Eventually Jesse figured out that when he wouldn’t want to suck at the breast or on a finger, he wanted a diaper change, and then he would be calm again. Thank goodness for that discovery. We must have gone through about 8 meconium-dirtied diapers just between midnight and 5am. Who knew a baby could poop so much?! But after his last dirty diaper, he finally slept quietly so we could get some rest. After that he was a totally different baby, thank goodness! I was definitely not feeling ready to handle a baby who cried a lot.
I was instructed to spend at least the first two days laying in bed. Unfortunately the first few bowel movements I had after the birth were not friendly to me, and I found myself dealing with very painful hemorrhoids, just like I did after Jacob’s birth. So really, I’ve spent nearly the entire first week staying in bed. I’m feeling better now, and although the hemorrhoids aren’t gone, at least they aren’t causing me significant pain…as long as I sit on the Boppy while I’m on a hard chair, at least! I’m still trying to limit my sitting time (with the exception of typing out this long birth story, obviously), hoping to speed healing time. Aside from that one problem, though, I’ve been feeling fantastic. And Alex is also doing very well, nothing like that first 12 hours of his life. He’s been good at sleeping, nursing, and fairly easy to calm when upset. My milk came in quickly, and he was already a full ounce heavier at his check-up, 3 days after his birth. According to our doctor, Alex is just “perfect!” And how could I possibly disagree with that?
Casey visited me again a couple days after the birth, and had barely enough time to check on me before she had to rush off to another birth. While she was there, she told me that the week had been incredibly busy for them. She had been up for 48 hours at one point. I told her how hard a job like that must be (and I had just been reading “Pushed” by Jennifer Block, where I had been reading of similar situations by midwives), and she told me that yes, it was hard work sometimes, but it was also so rewarding for her. When things occasionally got very busy and difficult, she would just pray for strength, and got what she needed. She really feels like she is doing God’s work, she said. And after such a nice, peaceful birth experience, I really have to agree with her on that count.
Casey also told me that she’d been sharing my experience with all the other mothers she worked with that week, she was so proud of me! In her words, I was so calm during labor, and just a “grunt, grunt” and out this 10 and a half pound baby came! I laughed and told her it felt a little more than a “grunt, grunt”, but she said she was amazed by how calm I was during labor – not a “drama” person during labor at all. Again, I certainly didn’t feel calm through all of labor, but at the same time, I was definitely more kept together than I was during Jacob’s birth, which had similar timing. I always remember feeling very much like I had been plowed over by a freight train, after Jacob was born – my emotional response just couldn’t keep up with my body’s physical progress, and I just felt very panicky, and then shell-shocked when it was all over. It was very different for Alex’s birth. It was certainly very intense and hard at the end, but I knew what was going on, and I still felt generally in control of what was happening, and overall content with my surrounding environment. I really think that a homebirth made all the difference in the world for this birth. I’m sure, with a 10 pound 10 ounce baby, if I had been in the hospital, I would have felt just as crazy panicked – if not more – as I did during Jacob’s birth. Many people I’ve talked with since the birth have expressed how amazed they are that I birthed such a big baby at home – that I’m some sort of super hero or something! In reality, I think I was able to do it, simply because of my surroundings, being where I already felt comfortable. I don’t feel like a super hero, but I do feel proud of my choice to homebirth, and elated that it was such a good experience for me. If we have another baby, I will definitely be planning another homebirth. I wouldn’t trade this experience for the world.
