It was a little over six years ago when I was beginning to enter into the most serious and painful part of an initiation. I was crossing the threshold from maiden to mother.
Sylvan was born at 2:12am on September 20, 2002. Though technically my labor started on September 18th with the rupturing of some membranes, I count my labor as starting when the serious pain began. Let me take you a few steps back for a moment......
I have a slight fear of white coats. I could not imagine listening to someone telling me when to push under the harsh fluorescent lights of a cold and sterile hospital room. I knew from the moment I was pregnant that I would birth my baby at home. I was living in Eugene which may be one of the best places for a home birth in our country. It did not take us long to choose our midwife.
She is an amazing women named Joni. Her natural confidence in the ability of womens bodies to grow and push babies out spilled over to my budding understanding of what becoming a mother would mean for me. It helped shape how I would approach this threshold.
I read various books and articles. Some of them were about indigenous cultures and traditional birthing practices. I came across a few descriptions of women from various parts of the world grabbing a rope that was hanging above them.
Birth ropes.
When my midwife called on me, after everyone else in the room had already answered her question during one of our bi-monthly potluck gatherings, I sat quietly for a moment.
Her question was, how did we think we were going to handle-deal with-manage the pain of deep labor. I had heard the other women answer things like yoga, dancing, walking, or being in water. Yes, Yes, Yes, and Yes. Those all sound good. Those might work for me too. I could try them. When Joni looked at me with her coy smile it was like she could see something working through me that I was not aware was present. I opened my mouth and that something dangled out straight from my heart.
"My apple tree," I said, feeling like a complete dumb ass in this room of
strong-Eugene-home-birthing-women who were going to dance and do yoga while they were in mind numbing pain.
And my pregnancy went on and my baby grew inside of me. In those last weeks of being pregnant I wore the same black capri pants and pink shirt almost everyday. I will admit that my usual sense for my personal fashion tastes went awry within my pregnant hormone riddled brain. I don't know, it happened with Talia too. I, for some reason, really loved to wear pink during both pregnancies. Did I wear pink before pregnancy-rarely. Do I wear pink after the combined 18 months of dry-heaving and vomiting if someone stood too close to me and breathed their breath on me pregnancies--never.
Bear with me here...I am remembering and just writing out of a flow. Back to the apple tree. Back to my lovely garden where I watched the morning glories grow all the summer long and where luscious raspberries were my breakfast every morning. I stood on a stump and watched the fat moon rise. It was a day before the full harvest moon and it was a silver-orangey-pink color. I stood on a stump and let the contractions rock my body.
I was all alone. Q had gone to secure a good supply of recharge and the midwives were on their way. I felt good and strong and in a state of consciousness unlike any I had experienced before. The veils were thin and I was being guided. And I made my way over to underneath my apple tree. I put my arms up and felt out a solid branch. Q came home and found me there. I was starting to swoon and circle my hips. The midwives came, stood under the apple tree, and watched me.
Somewhere from deep within me came a feeling so primeval that I felt every woman who had ever birthed a baby, standing behind me and holding me up in a spiral of infinity. And then my body pushed. I did not. I did not think--Okay now it's time to push--and then actively engage my uterine muscles to contract.
My body was taking over and numbing my mind.
Joni said, "Did you just push?"
"I think so," I replied.
"Do you want to go inside?"
Why not...so we did.
I ended up pushing hard for the next six hours.
Near the end, when I was falling asleep for thirty seconds between my one minute contractions, I had my first drop of fear. How long can I keep this up I wondered? Thankfully, I had the thumbs of the assistant to squeeze and her eyes to look into and they told me to be not afraid. I was on my knees with my upper half of my body on the bed. Q and Joni were behind me in the candlelit room.
I felt the ring of fire and then I felt a slam. The slam was me feeling my first and only out of body experience. I can only describe it as my ego, brain, I as an I, self, what have you flying to the top corner of the room where I witnessed my body birth my son. As soon as he was out, WHAM, I was back in my body and I was so weak that I could not stand without help. Sylvan did not cry and I watched as Joni shone her flashlight on his tiny little balled up hands. The cord was four feet long and wrapped around his neck four times. He was breathing. He was alive. I was so relieved that I had not just birthed a dead baby I practically collapsed. I felt and counted his toes and fingers. I reached down and felt that this baby whose gender remained a mystery throughout the pregnancy, was a boy. I had thought all along I was having a girl.
I climbed onto the bed oh-so-carefully as the placenta was still inside of me. I held him and we sang to him. He opened one of his eyes and looked around and the other eye was swollen shut from the ride out through the birth canal. (I recently heard Sylvan explain that he had paved the way like a bulldozer so his sister could shoot out like a race car. His tone was a bit annoyed at the fact that he had to do the work while Talia got to have fun and be born in water.)
And then...enter motherhood. It took me until my second baby was born to fully accept and surrender to this part of my life. There is no crossing back over. I will always be a mother and it took me a good long while to fully understand that.
And now I feel like I am crossing a new threshold. This threshold is different and not as easy to see or define. I am sure I will keep you all updated as the mood and the moonlight shines upon me.
Much love and light,
Georgia
