Morganne - the Story of Your Birth

When I think of the events leading up to your birth, Morganne, I have go back a long time to find the beginning of the story. It began the moment I looked at Garry across a room and saw my future shift. He was sitting at a desk wearing a purple letter jacket. He held a pen in his beautiful, clever fingers. I was sitting on a couch wearing a filthy blue down jacket. We were both bored by the meeting we were attending. I looked up from my daydreams and my eyes met his. In his eyes were infinite compassion and longing and understanding. Our gaze held for an eternity, perhaps ten seconds. From that moment, I knew that I belonged with him, that I wanted to marry him, wanted to have children with him. I knew he was my soul mate. I couldn't imagine how it could ever be possible for us to come together. The situation was complicated, so we both resisted the attraction for a long time.

Over the next six years, we grew a lot and went through a lot of changes. Our child-wanting tide ebbed and flowed. On a beautiful starlit night in Hawai'i, we watched Madam Pele give birth to the land. She marked our brows with the sign of life and showed me how to birth. As we watched the volcano erupt, Garry and I decided that we would conceive a daughter. The next morning, I thanked Madam Pele for her grace and made three promises:

A year and a half later, we went cross-country skiing in the Giant Forest in Sequoia National Park. We spent time communing with the giant sequoias in the snow. Then Garry injured his rib. We came home early and you were conceived the weekend we got back home.

We'd been waiting so long and had lost another baby to a miscarriage while waiting. I was once again shocked, this time shocked to discover I actually was pregnant. Garry was even more shocked. When I was five weeks pregnant, I began spotting. Garry brought me home early from work. My daffodils had been taking their time unfurling. On the car ride home, I had the image of a full-blown daffodil and a healthy baby. I knew that if just one daffodil had opened during the day, you would stick around. I climbed slowly to the daffodil bed at the end of the lawn. A daffodil waved in the gentle breeze in full cream and yellow glory. I went inside and rested for a few days. I told you how much we wanted you, how much we would love you. I realized that I would cheerfully endure the discomforts of pregnancy for you, but that the pain of another miscarriage would tear me apart.

A few weeks later, I could feel your life firmly attached to the wall of my womb. Your grasp on life felt firm and I no longer felt that any stray wind might blow you loose. I knew then that you were going to be our baby. Garry took a little longer to convince.

You may know someday, Morganne, what it's like to watch each month to see if you've conceived. My cycles have always been very regular - if I'm three days late, I'm pregnant. It's a roller coaster ride to hope each month to be carrying new life and to have your hopes disappear again and again in a gush of blood. It's still more difficult to be pregnant and feel that tenuous little life ebb away. Garry and I had been riding that roller coaster for 18 months. So, when I was finally pregnant, although we wanted you very much, our first reaction was shock and disbelief. We'd both been trying not to hope too much because the disappointment was too hard to bear.

The first few months of pregnancy found Garry and I distant from one another. My response to pregnancy was to focus inward: dream, tailor my diet, begin prenatal exercises and read about pregnancy and birth. Garry focused outward - he saw the unpaid tax bill, the unfinished garden and walls to rip out in the house. While I experienced mild, although omnipresent, morning sickness and rare, but debilitating, headaches, Garry was a dynamo. He dug and hammered and sawed, made countless trips to the lumberyard and worried about finances. I tested foods to see which triggered nausea the least. I discovered that hunger signaled first by a faint dizziness, then by nausea and only then by the signs I had lifelong recognized as hunger. After that, the nausea would become overpowering.

Garry was impatient with me. (Neither of us has been blessed with extraordinary patience.) After all, I didn't look pregnant, how could I be acting pregnant? I felt pregnant! I was disappointed because he wasn't involved with the pregnancy (with you). The feeling of life inside me totally absorbed me. I think this polarity of man and woman is pretty normal and probably beneficial in ways we don't recognize.

The second trimester was a wonderful time. My nausea disappeared, my energy increased and, around 18 weeks, I felt your first discernable wrigglings like a little fish swimming inside me. Hiccups were great fun. My whole belly jumped. You went from a little fish flip-flopping around to an octopus wiggling everywhere at once. Until about week 28, you lay crosswise in my belly most of the time. From week 28 to week 32, you lay mostly diagonally with your head in my right ribs and your bottom down in my left hip. About week 31, you took to tumbling in my belly. That was tremendous fun. You'd push off one wall of my uterus with your feet and roll. At week 34, you settled in the head-down position with your bottom under my right ribs, your backbone going up my right side and your feet tucked in the middle of my belly. Your actions were very definite. By this time, I could palpate you easily. Books and drinks resting on my belly were in eminent danger of being kicked off. You seemed to delight in punching my bladder -especially in the car.

All in all, I had a pleasant pregnancy. I was well able to take care of my body's needs and to focus inwards on the wonder of your development.

At 34 weeks, 6 weeks before your due date, I started having regular, mild menstrual-like cramps. They weren't painful, but they made it difficult to concentrate on anything else. I was concerned that you would come early and that you might have problems because of it. For the next four weeks, I had these cramps. For the first few weeks, I tried to get them to stop. Later, after Kate the midwife examined me and pronounced you big enough to be born, I welcomed them and was soon impatient to see you. The contractions were hard to sleep through and I felt like I was in a no-woman's land between pregnancy and labor.

The pregnant energy that holds the baby in and protects it was struggling with the birthing energy that wants to open up and let the baby out. Transition was one of our lessons in this birth. It kept coming up again and again: the transition into pregnancy, the transition into labor, the transition between opening and pushing contractions and the transition between being a placental mammal and an air-breather. We always had difficulty getting adjusted to the changes.

The Saturday before you were born, I started having stronger contractions. Garry was down in Pacific Grove fetching Alex. Kate came up and said that I was 4 centimeters dilated and that you'd be born that night. Excited, but not really believing it, I called your Grandee to come down for the birth. Garry and Alex got home and spent the rest of the afternoon playing. My contractions kept getting stronger. After awhile, I wanted Garry's attention. He was busy with Alex, playing with him, fixing his dinner, bathing him and taking an hour putting him to bed. My labor slowed as I waited. The energy was dissipating. My mother arrived and the contractions stopped. She had come straight from a party and had brought the party atmosphere with her. I wasn't feeling safe or comfortable with my mother and Alex there, so my body stopped my labor.

Kate and her assistant Margann (no relation to your name) arrived about 11:30 p.m. Saturday. I was somewhere between 4 1/2 and 5 centimeters dilated. I felt flat and disappointed. Kate suggested that we try to sleep. I was pretty discouraged. I'd been having contractions for 4 weeks and it looked like you'd never be born. As soon as everyone left and Garry and I went to bed, things started up again and I slept fitfully that night.

The next morning I cried in frustration. It took most of the day to recover my sense of humor. My mom took Alex out for the day. Garry and I snuggled and went for a short hike in Big Basin. I was over 5 centimeters dilated and it felt strange to have my water bag hanging down into my vagina and swishing back and forth as I walked.

We had a birthday dinner for Alex that evening and then he and your Grandee left. Garry and I played dominoes and went to bed early. We had recovered our senses of humor. He was sure you'd be born the next day and I believed so, too. I thought you'd come early the next afternoon.

I woke up about 4:15 a.m. and heaved myself out of bed to go the bathroom. As I sat on the toilet, I felt a small stream of water flow out of my vagina. It didn't seem like very much water, not as much as I'd envisioned. I told Garry that my water bag had broken and that I was going to get up for awhile. I lugged the birthing stool out to the living room and sat on it. I had a few mild contractions and leaked a little amniotic fluid. The water was clear and had little white flecks of vernix in it. It looked beautiful, magical, alive. There was no meconium and my contractions were light, so I decided to go back to bed and call Kate in the morning.

Ten minutes after I'd snuggled back down in bed, I had two very intense, back-to-back contractions. I was completely awake now. I told Garry that I was getting up again and that he should try to sleep for a while longer. I went back out to the living room. I kept the lights low. Everything had a jewel-like clarity and the air seemed to sparkle with magic. I put my hand on my belly and thought that it would soon be empty. I patted my belly and told you that we were ready for you and eager to see you.

The next seven hours stretched out for me. Each contraction was timeless. I welcomed the contractions and rode with them to unusual destinations. Ten contractions after I went back out to the living room, the contractions grew very strong. Welcome to transition. I had a strong urge to pee with each transaction. When a contraction would start, I'd run to the bathroom, dribble a few drops, run back to the living room because that was where I wanted to be and then collapse, exhausted between contractions.

Garry must have been having difficulty sleeping, because he got up at 5:30 to see how I was doing. I had been thinking about waking him up and was very glad to see him. We should have known, but didn't, that I was already in transition. The contractions didn't hurt, but they were extraordinarily strong, like having a diesel locomotive drive through my body. I was definitely in an altered state of consciousness. I could understand why women asked for drugs. The contractions were so strong, so persistent, so overwhelming. A woman could easily panic, lose her composure and make it much more difficult on herself. I decided not to panic, just try to stay with it.

Garry tried to make me comfortable. I wanted to get comfortable so I could put my attention into the contractions. I'd get into a position and chant or count or breathe through a few contractions. Then, my bladder would be squeezed some more and I'd be off again, running around the house. I should have just put pads down where I was and let it flow.

At 6:30, I told Garry to call Kate. I'd been telling myself to get it together, to be centered. When I'd called Kate with early labor, she'd always asked me, "Are you in labor?" I'd been annoyed because I didn't know what labor felt like, how could I know if what I was feeling was really it? This time, I was annoyed because I was clearly in labor. I told Kate I didn't feel like talking. By this time, I was pretty businesslike and wanted to get to work.

My biggest concern about labor had been that I'd become a whining ninny. By this time, I knew that wasn't a possibility. I was having a hard time getting comfortable, though. Garry was as helpful as he could be, but I was still in transition and the sensations kept changing.

Kate and Shelly arrived about 7:45. I didn't even say hello, just "Can you help me get comfortable?" Very businesslike. Kate gave me a funny look and said, "We'll try." She and Shelly spread out pads and helped me on the birthing stool. They were efficient and they felt very connected to what was happening with me. During the first contraction, Kate groaned long and low and said, "Yes, give into it." That helped and soon I was settled comfortably.

I'd been very clear with Kate that I didn't want anyone else in control of your birth. I had told her that I'd hit anyone who told me to push. She took me very seriously and the "P" word became a joke among the midwives. I didn't laugh, being too busy. Soon after Kate and Shelly arrived, I started pushing. I wasn't yet fully dilated, but the nudging definitely felt good.

Garry was sitting behind me, rubbing my back and shoulders, kissing me gently and feeding me ice chips. He was supportive and wonderful. Shelly spent the next several hours on her back on the ground. She massaged my perineum, put endless hot compresses around my perineum and wiped away the little pieces of shit that were being pushed out my anus. Kate called them dingle berries and I'd let Shelly know when another one was coming. Kate turned the living room futon into an after-birth bed for us. She sat there, reading and telling me how well I was doing. Kim arrived with Maddy, her six-month old daughter. Kim snapped pictures and Maddy nursed.

At one point, I pushed harder and felt your head move down. Kate, looking at my face, announced, "She's complete!". I pushed intently for the next few hours and loved it. It felt so good. It was hard, sweaty, worthwhile work, like climbing a Zen mountain.

"This is fun!" I said. Kim stared at me in disbelief. Another time, Kate told me I was doing great. I said I knew and no one laughed. Mostly I didn't speak. I pointed at my mouth when I wanted ice. I got an average of three pushes to each contraction and rested completely in between. Every so often, I would reach in and feel your head coming down. I could feel your hair. I felt awe every time I touched you.

Pushing was exhilarating. The cats were all sitting outside the window, curious about the goings-on. I watched the day dawn, a gray, foggy fall day. It got lighter and lighter. The trees were beautiful, vibrant with life force. I would look into eyes - Kate's, Kim's, baby Maddy's. Maddy moaned with me as I pushed - in total empathy.

As ballplayers say, I got into the groove. The world felt very peaceful. Kate, Shelly, Kim, and Garry talked softly. Maddy nursed, making little sucking noises. I was beyond talking. I'd gesture to make my desires known. At one point, Shelly asked me if I wanted my hair up. I pantomimed a brush, absolutely unable to talk.

As you got close to crowning, Garry moved around to the front of the birthing stool. At some point, I was asked to lay on my side for a few contractions because the skin of my perineum was blanched-looking. Pushing was much more difficult on my side. Soon, I was back on the birthing stool.

Your head took about 10 contractions to go from visible to crowning. At first I felt great that we were getting so close to seeing you. Then, my entire entroitus was burning. I said (as Diane had insisted I would and I had been sure I wouldn't) that I didn't care if I tore. A contraction would come. I'd long to push, but the burning kept me from pushing. I said, "Oh, it stings so much." in such a calm voice that Kim was amazed. It stung amazingly, but somehow it wasn't painful.

Finally, your head popped out. At first, I thought your head was completely out, but Kate showed us that your head was still halfway inside. I ran out of contraction and I could not push. We waited, a very long time it seemed, for the next contraction so I could finish pushing you out. I think you may have started breathing then and inhaled a blot clot. On the next contraction, you whooshed out, purple and blood-streaked, but also magical and ALIVE.

Garry had been reluctant to catch you or cut your cord before your birth, but decided to catch you and cut the cord at the last minute. I was so mesmerized by you that I didn't noticed what he'd done until later. Garry and Shelly caught you. The cord had stopped pulsing, so Garry cut it right away. Shelly said, "Here he comes!" and handed you up to me. Kate immediately covered you with a warm blanket and I saw your face for the first time. You looked familiar to me, like I'd known you forever.

"Oh, it's a boy." I said, a little surprised. I'd asked the midwives not to tell me your sex because I wanted to find out for myself. I was disappointed that Shelly had told me and also a little shocked because I had been pretty sure that you were a girl.

Garry came up behind me and put his arms around me as he greeted you, "Hello, Nolan." (Well, Morganne, every birth needs a little comic relief.) Your head was pretty molded and you were purplish, but that just added to your spirit-like quality. You were, as you still are, beautiful to us. We were very happy to see you at last. I started getting used to the idea of having a son.

After a few minutes, Kate asked us if anyone had checked the baby's sex. I peeked under the blanket and had my second surprise. You were unquestionably a girl! We'd discussed the names Maris and Sage, but hadn't come to a decision. Now, of course, that seems strange because you are very much Morganne.

You were breathing from the start, but you weren't pinking up well and your legs and arms were floppy. Garry and I tried to talk you into pinking up. "C'mon, baby, cry, we need you to breathe deeply and turn pink." You opened your eyes and looked at us, but you hadn't yet decided to come into your body.

I had dreamed about your birth late in the pregnancy. In one of my dreams, your daddy opened the front door to let your soul in and I had watched your soul fly into your body. Garry had taken my dream to heart, because a few minutes after you were born, he went to the front door to do just that.

Soon, the midwives became anxious to see the placenta. They were also concerned about your color and wanted to give you oxygen. I lingered over you as I handed you to Garry and got ready to push the placenta out. I could feel that it hadn't yet separated and I hadn't had any contractions since you were born. I waited, but I never had any. As soon as I felt it separate, I push it out.

Meanwhile, your color wasn't improving. I had tried to nurse you immediately after birth, but you were too out of it to notice. Shelly helped me to the futon in the living room and the three of us lay there together. Shelly assessed my small tears and worked on my uterus to get my bleeding to stop. You were getting oxygen and having warm blankets put over you to bring your core temperature up. I got a shot of pitocin to help my uterus clamp down.

It's hard to describe how I felt then. I was joyful, ecstatic, powerful with the effort and beauty of your birth. You were familiar and oh-so-precious to me. I loved (and love, my darling) you more than I could have ever imagined I would. I was also afraid for you, a fear that would be my constant companion for the next difficult days. I knew your spirit was strong and my love for you was a constant prayer.

You sit asleep now in a windup swing, eleven weeks later. You have grown, and, aside from your early problems, you have been very healthy. You're a good-natured baby, but an active person who seldom wants to sleep. You sleep now, while I try to get through the day of your birth, a day that changed me forever.

After I was cleaned up and outfitted with a diaper to catch the lochia, I moved my tired and aching body to the wood stove room couch where Garry was trying to make you warm. I sat down and held you, encouraging you to breathe. You were too floppy, too cold and your hands and feet were purple. "C'mon, baby", I whispered, "be strong, my little one." I held you close and willed you to cry, to turn pink. I held you until the fire department and paramedics arrived.

All of a sudden, a dozen men in full fire gear and medic smocks burst in and swarmed through the house. I was sitting naked on the couch holding you. I didn't care. Holding you was more important than mere modesty. There was a blur of activity. The ambulance arrived. I decided to ride in the hospital with you and get my few necessary stitches there.

Kate wrapped some hot water baggies in blankets and put them around you. She wrapped you very carefully, like the precious treasure you are. She took you down to the paramedics and came back to help me down (I was offered a ride in a stretcher, but I had a vision of the stretcher losing control as it went down our steep driveway and declined.). Meanwhile, the paramedics unwrapped you and, when wrapping you back up, the hot water bottle slipped and ended up next to your left leg. That's how your leg was burnt. When I, unsteadily and with great difficulty, walked down to the ambulance, I got on the gurney. You were handed to me and we started our ride to the hospital.

I held you, pouring my energy into you, encouraging you, loving you with all of my being. Little snippets of fear kept surfacing. I let them be and kept giving you all the positive energy I could. I was simultaneously ecstatic with your beauty and the joy of your birth and terrified at the thought of losing you.

A few minutes down the road, I shifted you and felt the hot water bottle by your leg. "Too hot." I said, pulling at the blankets and tossing the bag away. I saw your leg then, already blistered in places. "Good God, no!" Kate exclaimed. The pain and fear and guilt on her face were terrible to see. A wave of fear swept over me. And pain. And grief. I became fierce in my fear. "C'mon baby, breathe, cry!" You were grunting a little and breathing very laboriously. You were not really conscious of any of this. My love for you was so strong that it washed over the pain and terror and overcame them.

I want to talk for a minute about fear and about courage and about being positive. From the time you were a few minutes old until you were ten days old, fear and pain were our constant companions. We feared for your life, for the emotional scarring your hospital experience would bring, for the damage to your leg, for the possible damage that drugs and medical procedures might bring and for the pain and discomfort you endured so stoically. We were with you as much as possible, so we had to observe all the insults to your body, each striking as though to our own bodies. Almost immediately, I realized that I had to act out of love rather than fear. If I gave you my fear, it would certainly affect you. If I gave you love and courage and positive healing, that would also affect you. That didn't mean denying the fear, it simply meant that the fear couldn't be fed. I put my conscious energy into healing you, not fearing for you.

Ecstasy and terror. You were/are such a gift. I had known there was a baby in me, felt your kicks and punches and rolls. I couldn't know that the baby was so beautiful and such a special person. I knew you were a calm, active person. I didn't know that you were brave and stoic and wise. I learned.

When you read this, I may have come to take you for granted. I may feel that this writing is too open, too frank for mother and daughter to share. Whatever happens, my dear child, please remember that I love you with all my being. I thank the powers that be every day as you unfold to me. I will make mistakes as I go, but I hope I will have the strength to love and support you no matter what happens.

I held you, with that mingled ecstasy and terror, as the ambulance took us to the hospital. I held you as the ambulance crew wheeled us to the nursery. I kissed you and felt my heart rip as you were taken from me at the nursery door. I sent my love with you and Kate, who stayed with you, as I was wheeled back down the hall to the emergency room to await my stitches.

I waited. Your father, who had followed the ambulance (albeit more slowly; he had no siren or flashing lights), checked us into the hospital and went to see you. They kicked him out almost immediately so they could intubate you. Then he came to me, to share my wait and my ecstasy and my terror.

A doctor I'd seen before finally arrived and put a few stitches in my perineum. Kate and Shelly took us to the maternity section of the hospital, where we were given a room to rest in. Shelly fetched us food, which we ate hungrily after the morning's work. I was very sore and tired. Peeing hurt and I could barely control my muscles enough to walk.

They wouldn't let us see you for a long time. I don't know all that you went through then, even now. When I finally saw you, you had a tube down your throat into your lungs and an umbilical catheter so they could give you fluid and drugs. Your leg was wrapped in fluffy white gauze. I loved you and ached to hold you, ached at your pain and discomfort.

Kim arrived at the nursery with an electric breast pump. We stayed quite late at the hospital before I realized you wouldn't be coming home with us that day. They couldn't figure out what was wrong with you (they never did), so you were going to be transported to UCSF, the hospital where I was born, where you would stay at least a week.

Even after we were told you'd be hospitalized for a week or longer, it took a long time to sink in. After planning a home birth, it was difficult to adjust to the necessity of leaving you in the hospital. It was still more difficult to actually leave you.

At the age of 12 hours, you were transported by ambulance to Moffatt Hospital in the UCSF Medical Center. Garry and I would be spending at least a week in San Francisco. We watched as you were wheeled away and then we went to eat and sleep.

I was still high from your birth, but very agitated by the hospital experience. At that point, we didn't know whether your breathing difficulties might signal something serious - a heart defect or worse. We also didn't know that the burn was as serious as it turned out to be.

After a lot of thought, I've decided I don't want to dwell on your hospital experience. It seemed to last forever, and yet, now that you've been home for three months, it seems as though it was really very short. It was ten days of torture for all three of us, ten days of deep, effective prayer and visualization, ten days of living very close to the heart of love.

Many things made those ten days harder. For the first few days, I could barely walk and my bottom hurt a lot when I sat on the hard hospital chairs. We were staying with my mother who was very angry and uncompassionate. There were several different doctors and nurses on your case each day. We had to tell them all firmly that we wanted to be involved in your care and point out information to them that they'd missed in the shuffle.

We weren't allowed to pick you up, so we held your little hand, stroked you, talked to you and sang to you. I wanted to be sure that I had enough milk for you, so, every two hours, I had to walk across the hall for half an hour and pump my breasts. There we were, across the hall from one another, hooked up to our individual machines. There was a sign on the pump, "Give a mother's gift of love." It made me angry, because I knew that you would nurse if they'd let you. We tried to get the medical staff to leave you alone as much as possible. You needed rest and nourishment, not tests and proddings and pokings. I'm very pleased with the way we protected you. We were able to convince the doctors on several occasions to do what we believed best.

Garry and I were united in our purpose: to get you well and to prevent the medical staff from hurting you more than was necessary. Garry was wonderful with both of us. We were also connected with great spiritual resources that we previously hadn't known existed. One night, I visualized a white cone of light around your cot to prevent the nurse from taking any more blood from you. Garry had resolved to tell the doctor that they could only perform blood tests on you once a day. When we came in the next morning, we discovered that no additional blood had been drawn and that no more blood tests were scheduled.

We found the strength we needed, bit by bit, as we needed it.

The ICN staff insisted that you needed to take bottles before you could nurse. You clearly didn't like bottles, even when they were full of my milk. The first time I nursed you, I had to lean over you cot. As soon as you caught sight of the breast, your eyes lit up and you started rooting like mad.

You took to breastfeeding right away. You've never had any use for bottles or pacifiers. I was glad because I'd been afraid that you'd become nipple-confused and refuse the breast. That was not an issue. Two days before you were released, I decided to stay with you and breastfeed you full-time. They rolled your cot to the end of the hall and there we sat, on a genuine Naugahyde couch, for the next two days. You nursed almost nonstop. We were outside the well baby nursery and we could hear newborns, separated from their mothers at birth, taken to the nursery to be weighed, measured, fed sugar water and bathed so that none of the birth fluids remained on their skin. The babies all screamed nonstop through these procedures.

We were eager to be gone. When you were nine days old, we were finally able to bring you home. We felt like escaped convicts or successful jewel thieves as we left the hospital with you in my arms. We were exhausted, but very happy. We came home and fell into bed. It took us several weeks to shed the hospital trauma.

I'm very glad that you were born at home. After the hospital experience, I believe even more strongly that it's better and safer to have babies at home. And I'm very glad, as I tell you almost daily, that you decided to stick around and be our little girl.