Birth story - 11 months, 1 week and six days late....

Pregnancy. A nine month build up to childbirth and one of the biggest rites of passage life offers. We celebrate other rituals - naming ceremonies, birthdays, weddings, and while the specifics may vary, the essence of these remain the same in all cultures and religions. Most help bind family and community connections. The big three, while common to all  and intrinsically a part of our shared experience of being human, are undertaken pretty much on our own, regardless of how many people we may physically have around us. Our own birth, childbirth and death - all intensely personal rites that transition us from one stage of life to another – from one state of being to another.

I have been meaning to document my experience of birth since the day my daughter was born. 11 months 1 week and 6 days on and I have reworked this essay countless times in my mind, eventually typing a first draft, re-reading and re-working it, available words inadequate to do justice to the emotional intensity, the chemical explosion that rushed through my body as it began to labour, the animal-ness of the act, and the miracle of holding my mewling newborn for the first time.

I knew it had finally begun. Not because I felt an urge to scrub my kitchen floors, (I didn’t) or because I baked a cake that afternoon (I was bored) or because I was afraid of being induced (I was 10 days late). Science has still not adequately explained what finally triggers labour. Its biology, when its time, animal instinct takes over. I felt a deep knowing, a primitive recognition, tapping into an experience passed down from my mother, through her mother, and her mother, and her mother…. backwards in time, a collective knowing shared through blood and womb.

My body pulsed, deep and strong, hourly, nothing fearful, a quickening, a shifting. I was selfish about those first hours, wanting to be alone, to just be with the feelings, to meditate a little with my child and my large rounded body. I visualised a lotus flower, petals unfolding, opening, opening, and I urged my body to be soft, to do the same. I needed to stand, leaning against the windowsill in the lounge I bowed my head, talking to her all the while, letting her know how I felt, how this was a first time journey for the both of us, that fear was real, and acceptable, that together we would work through this and that I would be waiting for her on the other side.

Hours later, contraction time quickened, double time. Tired, sleepy, fearfully excited, no longer so happy to be alone, needing E’s companionship, wanting him to be with me to share this experience. I woke him, and he watched and held. We phoned the hospital, checking in, letting them know that something had begun, that they could expect us at some point over the next day.

We knew the theory – don’t go to the hospital until contractions are regularly three minutes apart – stay where its comfortable or the process slows down. Consider that the hospital is 15 minutes away when traffic flows but can be an hour away in the morning rush when traffic is snarled. Consider that midwives change over in the morning, and we don’t really want a shift change during our labour. Consider that ideally we want to give birth on a weekday, when all specialists are in. All the practical advice we had been given by teachers and loved ones who had done this before.

Between contractions I could sleep, a deep rest, until my body shuddered again, blood rushing, coursing through my veins like a chemical surge, shivering, teeth chattering, the contractions of my womb clenching and squeezing - pushing around my child, inching her forward and down. I had read the books, could visualise the biology of my body working, but the experience was intense, and present – no time to think - just be. Rushing, rushing flowing, then still, calm, sleep.

Later still, more quickening, contractions closer, intense, holding longer, deep pulling muscles. We wake my mother who immediately was alert, a lioness, wanting to touch, to protect and stroke.

More calls to the hospital.

“Come if you are sure...”

Bath. Pull on clothing – anything that still fits, style goes out the window when you are pacing, arching, curling, crouching. Small steps to the car, crouching on the back seat. More cramping, more rushing, groaning, deep, ugh ugh sounds, round mouth, somewhere I had read that open sounds help dilation, closed high pitch sounds tense and close. Ugh, ugh, ugh, and then it stops. Time to laugh. Time to think about what the two men in the white van behind us are thinking, me curled around the back headrest, arching forward and pulling back.

Traffic flows, no queues, and we make our way to the ward, lifts still out of order. Pause on the balcony, breath, arch, ugh, ugh, ugh, round like, huge belly tipping me forward.

My name, already on the board,

“We have been expecting you, you are in…. your midwife is….” hospital administration, efficient, brisk, over my head, following my straining belly, needing to just get on with this.

I see my midwife, beaming white smile, rounded black face, I forget her name but not her smile nor her wonderful magic eyes. We go through our birth plan, have enough time to speak about Africa, she’s from the North, I am from the South, but the motherland connects us, I felt that this beautiful Ghanaian woman was the perfect mediator for this rite of passage, my daughter was in safe hands.

That was the last coherent thought I had. Everything accelerates. Needing to stand when the contractions come, lie when they cease, somewhere in-between I run to the bathroom, I repeat this dance endlessly, spinning in a triangle, time whirls, waters break, the cycle intensifies, and then…

“Right! I think you have had enough. No longer coping….time to have an epidural….”

Another spiral of white coats, needles, drips, needles, explanations. E’s eyes, wide holding tight, be still, more white coats, eyes, names, explanations, lean forward, needles, still, be still, still, don’t move, hurry … and then… release…. floating, fluffy, soaring, blue sky, euphoric dreamy high, while my body still animal, continuing its work, muscles clenching, pushing, contracting, squeezing.

Numb now, I see it happening but don’t feel the rush. Have time again to reassure my baby, that we are here, waiting, don’t be scared, just go with this, we’ll be here to hold you, can’t wait to meet you.

The machines sing, green bars rising and falling, showing the contraction intensity, heart rates, hers and mine, eyes focused on their upward downward cycle, relying on the machine to interpret what my muscles are doing, what my daughter is feeling, when I should work with it and push, when I can relax back and breath. My body still works, does what it needs to do to shell my daughter out into the world. She inches along and I need to help her now. Don’t have the option to get up on my knees, meconium in the blood and the midwife’s instinct says no, she fears the cord may be wrapped around my daughters’ neck. E and I trust her, watch her orchestrate the influx of white coats in the room, another midwife, registrars, senior registrars, anaesthesiologist, senior obstetrician, junior registrars invited in to watch and learn. It’s a teaching hospital, and I am okay with this intellectually and with legs in the air have no time for modesty at this stage – this is so beyond being about me, about modesty.

Now, push now, focus, focus, not with your feet, push focus, hold on tight and then she’s through, and we are crying and she is tiny, mewling, perfect and in my arms. We stare at each other, touching, gently, everything around us fades, just the three of us, together.

“Hello my precious….”

Our Chi walks....

7^th March 2006

So our Chi is walking now. No longer the tentative first steps she started with a couple of weeks ago – now she walks by choice, lifting her tiny body from a perfect down dog to standing in one steady breath, she pauses at the top – smiles, and charges on, busy, things to do, drop this toy here, wrap the scarf around her neck, taste the edge of the coffee table, again, just to make sure, and then she is off again. I can trace her morning activities from the trail of clutter – my bottom drawer – t-shirts pulled out and draped along the floor, her fathers daily benecol bottle (a firm favourite every morning) rolled under the bed, the trainers reassembled, somehow she doesn't’t relate to my sense of order, toys flung into the empty bathtub – the ultimate big box. Right now she is in her toy cupboard, pulling out each toy to examine, taste, turn, taste, fling, onto the next one.

Yesterday she took her first steps outdoors – we were in Holland Park –walked in the sandpit, (tasted the grit hhhhmmmm grit….) walked to the fountain, entranced by the sparkling water falling, walked to the patch of newly planted beds, yellow and red tiny flowers, and she stoked her first trunk, a big English plane tree that I love to sit under in summer. We watched the bunnies, pigeons and squirrels beg for treats and then the peacock graced us with a flamboyant display, fanning out his glorious tail, and she lifted her hand up in excitement, finger pointing to the sky, whole body tensing up and nose wrinkling in this new strange expression she forms.

We are going to have to go on a shopping expedition for big girls shoes soon – would be happy to let her roam barefoot but this is England, and its just tooo cold.

Understanding, listening, learning

14^th Feb 06

Language is complex, millions of words, many with double and triple meanings depending on the context. Rules govern how they are pronounced (I guess this only becomes an issue when you learn to read) other rules govern how they fit together, how they are made plural, how many you can string together in one go before sounding breathless and the listener has lost track of what you are really speaking of because you have gone on for toooooo long. See what I mean?

Words mean different things depending on the tone of voice we use. "No" can be a simple response, a reprimand, the beginning of game.

This week I learned that my daughter has learned language. She has broken down the gobbledegook I have been speaking at her for the last 9 ½ months and has learned to assign meaning to words. She knows Aba (father in Hebrew), kitties, chair, light, Swami (her silver cat) Shambay (her gold cat) nappy, splish, splash, bath, time, mama’s room, ChiChi’s room, bathroom, food, water, pram, don’t cry, book, butterfly, give, give me, give Aba, give Azra, I will give back, clap, dance, quack, duck, olli octopus, which, one, do, you, want, to, listen, to /read /eat….. and a whole lot more.

Its amazing. For months I have walked around talking to myself. Describing in minute detail what I am going to do, what I am doing, and what I have just done (death by PowerPoint in a former life you might say) and suddenly my daughter responds to me with meaning. “Shall we pull the plug” I say rhetorically and this tiny slippery object turns around and pulls the plug. This is a big thing. She took her first steps on Thursday evening but this recognition of language is bigger yet.

My Chi, three months in...

13th July 05

(copied from my journal written at the foot of our favourite English Plane tree in Holland Park. - for recording sake!)

Bluest sky, no clouds, and the sun radiates a warmth that soothes the heart. Not the scorching heat of my childhood summers, and the lightest wind skips across the skin, in the shade of this big tree I feel air conditioned. The grass below my red stripped rug is shorn close to the ground, stretching to cover the brown earth, there is no softness here - no pulpy green lawn fringes thick to sink into. I wait for my Chi to wake up determined this afternoon to play with her rather than shunting her around the shops while I stimulate myself only with glittery merchandise I don't buy but plan to, or think about. I need to change the structure of my days, to build into them time just to be with her, away from the distractions of housework, email and shopping. I have also put my skipping rope into the pram, and need to include this into my weekly excersise - to slim down these stubborn thighs I seem to have developed. Not quite paranoid yet - it has only been two months since the Chi arrived and already I lost some of that baby weight I had picked up.

My Chi is beautiful. I wish I had been diligent about documenting the journey of pregnancy and childbirth - already she is 2 ^_1/2 months old and she has grown so big, has lost some of her newness. I think I need to try and put down my thoughts and memories about the last two months before it fades completely.

How would I describe my Chi?
She is lithe, sweet little pink baby body, filling out, dimpled arms and wrists, broad hands, tapered fingers edged with perfect nails. Her legs are long, although she likes to keep them bent and her thighs are beginning to bulge into double thigh chins, dimpling up into her tiny fat bottom with its forked v shaped crease.

She has a lovely rounded head with a think silky matt of hair. I thought it was black but now in the summer light it is dark brown with glints of red in it - like mine. Her eyebrows are dark too - framing her almond shaped eyes that shine with life when she looks at me. Chi has the longest most graceful lashes, all long, and curled upwards naturally. The colour of her eyes has not set yet - at times slate grey, while at others I see shades of hazel green surrounded by a ring of brown.

Her nose is definite - and the only aspect of her that I recognise as my own, a sweet arch that will give her character. Her lips are rosebud - perfect, symmetrical, and a luscious pink that can't be improved upon with artificial colours, complimenting the strawberry blue tone of her skin.

I know this child now. I can close my eyes and imagine whorls of hair - her double crown, the little raised head on her belly button that still has not fully settled - it will be an innie I'm assured.

Her long toes, all equally long, tactile, monkey feet I call them. She is lying on her pink floral matt in her turquoise dress, with her maroon hat on her head. She is sucking her fist - distracted occasionally by the patterns of the spiky leaves against the blue sky, but she is hungry or thirsty and her father has just called to find out where we are so he can join us - am off to play and feed.