by Rosa-Maria
...continued
Susie and David rushed around and got the things from her car and made the bed and such with lightning speed in between the contractions. Rachel still hadn�t come yet, but everything progressed normally. When Susie said where I was at I think something clicked inside David�s brain that yes, we really were going to have a baby now and he got into this new mode. He held my hands through the contractions and we said I love you a lot. He got a cold wet wash cloth for me that I wrang out over me. He got a bowl for me to throw up in. He pressed on my back when he could (I sat on the toilet through most of the contractions). I just kept looking at him and thinking how amazing he was, as the contractions were getting harder and harder. Susie was reminding me how to breathe and work through them.
At about 3:00 I started feeling pushy through the height of the contractions. I had a little bit of a cervical lip, and I was trying to get rid of it I think. After �melting away� that lip inside my head and pushing a little, the urge to push came on really strong. I had to push. I wanted to be on the toilet more than anything but knew I couldn�t have my baby there (our bathroom is the size of a matchbox, there�s barely enough room for David to stand in there with me). I got on all fours, I got in a side-lying position, I turned around, cursed the god-damned toilet, and tried every position imaginable with David and Susie constantly rearranging the chux pads under me (poor things, I was hard to keep up with). Susie asked if I wanted her to get the birth stool and I said yes. I tried that and didn�t like it - but felt kind of bad because I made her go all the way down the stairs to her car to get it! I pushed mostly on all fours or leaning on the birth ball, and then in kind of an upright semi-sitting side-lying weird position that felt good. I got leg cramps and Susie gave me homeopathic Magnesium Sulfate for that. I was swearing and apologized for swearing. I remembered to apologize to our neighbor, Roger, for being so loud, because I was being LOUD. I was thinking it was a great thing that everyone in the complex knew I was having a homebirth.
Eventually, the baby was crowning. David said he thought she was a girl and Susie agreed she thought the same thing. I had thought it was a boy or leaned more towards having a boy my entire pregnancy until the end, and now I was thinking she was probably a girl too. I wanted to get her out so I could know for sure! She was crowning for a long time, very slowly coming. I looked over at David and he looked really white. I asked him if he was okay and he replied with �I�m fine� or something�. Later I found out that he thought that the baby�s head was too soft and she must not have a skull! He was worrying about what we were going to do if our baby didn�t have a skull, of all things. It burned like Hell as she was crowning, but felt good at the same time, because I knew my baby was finally coming.
Eventually her head was almost all the way out and I instinctively panted out the rest of it. Relief! The cord was wrapped tightly around her neck and we couldn�t slip it over her head, it was too cone-shaped. Instead Susie put it over her shoulders and she was born through it as I pushed her out; first her shoulders then her entire body swooshed out of me. Twenty-four hours after the first light contraction, about six hours of active labor and then an hour and a half of pushing, at 4:31 in the morning on May 22, 2002. She came out kind of blue and shell shocked, a little confused at being born and pretty floppy. She had a lot of mucous in her mouth so we suctioned her with the bulb syringe, and by one minute old she had pinked up nicely and was already nursing. I was cooing at her, amazed, she was so beautiful and perfect! She was perfect! David looked the most amazing I had seen him, so into it (especially since he saw that she did have a skull, I�m sure). We kissed and I checked and saw she was a girl, and then I did a recheck just to make sure. Eva! You�re an Eva! You look like an Eva! You are so beautiful!
I bled out a little after the birth but knew it wouldn�t be a problem. I took homeopathic Phosphorus and either that stopped it or it just stopped on it�s own, I don�t know. We cut the cord after it stopped pulsing and just looked at her, and amazed at my belly, which was now so much smaller. We did it. We had our baby girl.
Susie prepared an herb bath for me and Eva and we soaked a bit, which felt great. Then we snuggled into bed and hung out, our new little family. Everything was perfect. We were all high from it. All I could do was stare at her, she has the most amazing presence and the longest fingers and toes and looks a lot like her Daddy. I know almost every new parent will say this, but she is the most beautiful baby I have ever seen. I have never felt more in love before, both with her and her father, my husband. He is so proud of her and they are so sweet together, I find myself falling more and more in love with them each day� It�s only been four (well, five now) days since she was born but it feels like she�s been with us forever. We�re starting to get the hang of this parenting thing. It�s amazing how much different it is when it�s *your* baby� all the work I have done with mothers postpartum, etc. and I still have so many questions and wonder if things are �normal�. They are, and she is. We are so lucky to have her here. Our little miracle baby.
Susie�s apprentice, Rachel, never showed up for the birth. It made it a lot harder for Susie, but I think it helped things out for me, because things felt a lot more intimate, since I have known Susie for a long time and didn�t really know Rachel, and I was nervous about her coming to the birth anyway. David got to have his hands on his daughter as she came out, and I pulled her up onto my belly with the both of them. I didn�t tear although I do have a few skid marks which burn. I feel very proud that I did this without any help from the medical world- I didn�t have tests, I wasn�t poked and prodded, I grew her in my womb, I went into labor on my own accord. She was born twelve days �late� but was perfectly on time, with ample vernix on her to prove it. We birthed her in the comfort of our own home- I can�t imagine it any other way, and I am so thankful I wasn�t drugged and my child wasn�t drugged as she came out. I make the milk that she drinks. She is amazing. We are a very small, very new, and very happy family.
[It turns out later that our neighbor Roger heard everything that was going on and was so excited that our baby was being born that he was waiting outside his apartment to hear the cries and smoking cigarettes. All of our neighbors have come up to visit. Everyone�s pretty sure that she is the first baby born at the Conquistador (our apartment complex). We�re planning on planting her placenta in the courtyard (well, what else are we going to do with it??). ]
