As Elias was finally pushed past the pubic bone, I sang Johnny Cash defiantly to myself,
Go down down down, through the burning ring of fire,
It burns burns burns, that ring of fire, that ring of fire!
What an amazing experience. I feel so lucky, so lucky. Perineum ripped to my anus, but what a lovely birth. Every one of my needs have been met. The three of us spent our day in the hospital, and everyone was quite satisfied to spend the day eating, napping and go to the bathroom.
We got to the hospital last night at 10pm and Elias was born this morning, March 11th , at 6:16. Things went incredibly smoothly, just a couple of kinks, but this was just about the best birth I could have imagined. There were also some things that surprised me. More about that later.
The night before, Tino and I had been reading about the role of the father in Birthing From Within, and he even read over my birth plan. Being together for only 10 days before the big day, we didn’t have much time to discuss these things. His openness and grace continue to impress me, and I could not have asked for more love and support, more massages and caresses from a man. My birth is the first time that Tino has ever been in an American hospital, and even compared to the top expatriate hospitals in the Tanzanian capital, this little community hospital is truly elegance. He is also the only man he has ever known to go into the labor room with his wife Now, before I came to the hospital, I was happy as a laboring clam at home.
So, after another night of honeymooning and discussing birth, I started having mild contractions. They were more exciting than painful, more like a cramp than the huffing and puffing of a TV labor. I slept on and off, awake more in anticipation than discomfort.
We spent all day the next day (10th) planting flowers in the garden and cleaning up the house. Tino laughed at me while I hobbled about, not buzzing around like my usual self, and doing more directing and supervising than actual planting (I could blame it on the early stages of labor, but was really just preparing him for the laws of our matriarchal household, as he mopped the floor, I sat on my yoga ball and ordered him about! Ha! No better way to get what you want out of a husband than to go into labor with his son,) My doula showed up at 4pm, my mom came home early, and we sat around chatting over tea and quesadillas until my doula insisted again that I stop doing and start resting. I was gonna need it. So Tino and I went upstairs to listen to some guided relaxation. My contractions had been about 5 min. apart nearly all day, but after I got out of bed with Tino, I don’t remember feeling them. From there I got into a hot candlelit bath, Juanita, my amazing doula, counted my contractions, the rest of our cargo was put together, and when the count reached 411 (for minutes between, lasting a minute, continuously for one hour), I decided it was time to check my progress at the hospital. (I had missed an earlier doctor’s appointment to labor at home.)
The whole memory of the day was completely happy, comfortable and calming.
I waddled into the hospital feeling confident and communicative. I had a huge support group gathered in the triage room, my husband, my two mothers, my father, and my doula. The nurses checked me and told me I was already 7 centimeters dilated. I knew I was a bout to transition and go to the hard part, but somehow, I equated the last 3 centimeters with like, three short hours, the first 7 were just so easy. Quickly after arriving at the hospital, I lost any desire to chat. I went deeply into myself and I barely remember walking down the hall to my room. It was a great room however, spacious, pretty comfy, and with internet access! It didn’t take me long to turn on the hot water in the shower and sit on my yoga ball as my back was soothed with the hot water stream. Tino and I had brought one of those plug in Himalayan salt crystals that emit such a lovely pink glow. So that is how I remember the first half of my labor at the hospital, pink and wet with pretty music. At 1am, I was checked again and told that I hadn’t progressed at all. This was extremely discouraging. The pain had seemed tolerable because I had known that it wouldn’t last forever. Suddenly my time frame stretched indefinitely out before me, and the pain was constant. I started to doubt my ability to do this. But that quickly changed. That is where I went from ‘Ahh- natural process’ to ‘This is labor and I have to work to get Elias out.’ They told me his head was turned and that was why I was so slow to progress. There was constant pain and pressure, and surges of intensity that made me feel like I was going to vomit or pass out. Juanita, my doula, Tino and my dad alternated shifts of pressing on my back. But if they moved even the slightest bit, I would snap at them. It didn’t really matter how they held the pressure, but when it lifted, it hurt more. Change was bad because I was trying to take my mind off of it. But everytime a shift occurred, my attention would go back to the intensity of my back labor, rather than the soothing wave of my breath. When contractions would hit and I might start to whimper, Juanita was always right there to tell me to breath. That coaching helped. The pain made me feel like I deserved to whimper, but whimpering didn’t help the pain, breathing did.
I don’t know what time I got the ok to start pushing, but I was tired. I asked them to tell me when to push, and I would fall asleep between times. I had righteously laughed at how every labor info pamphlet says that laboring on your back is the most painful, inefficient way to deliver, and I had set myself up with the necessary gadgets for my imagined squatting birth. When it came down to it though, it was too tiring to hold myself up. I did some squatting pushes, but I couldn’t squat for hours. When I lay down on my back, I felt I had a pretty powerful push (from my cheering squad) and I could sleep in between. The nurse told me that when he starts to crown I would feel a ring of fire. So I pushed and looked forward to that burning ring of fire. The doctor was a wee late, and I just think that after all that work, waiting to push is a bit cumbersome for one guy to get all the glory, so I paid the price and pushed. In my right ear where Juanitas whispers of encouragement en espanol, ‘go ahead, push if you feel the urge.’ And in my left ear I could hear Tino sniffling with emotion as he whispered encouragement and endearments in kiswahili and held my hand.
I felt the ring of fire, so much so I didn’t realize it when I tore my perineum and labia.
A smooth creamy baby suddenly slipped out after all that, and I will never forget, the feeling of our skin touching, and he simply looked at me, and I looked at him, for what seemed like forever. I saw the dark eyes of the being who agreed to let me raise him. There was trust, there was a calmness in not knowing. In his little tadpole body that trailed behind, I felt his active future spread out before him, and I felt so excited for him, and so thankful to be allowed to give it all. I gave him a nipple and he took it. It felt so graceful. Tino cut the cord and Elias was whisked away to the unnecessarily bright lights.
It would have been easy for my dad to video tape the birth, and sometimes I wonder why I asked him not to. That would have allowed me to get a glimpse of all those who agonized as they witnessed me labor, hour after hour all night long. My parents’ was the most impressive labor, to stand by silently and watch me labor, knowing that I could do it and not jumping in to try to save me from my pain. I’m blessed that they were there, and so is Elias.
Now however, as I finally finish this birth story that had been started while I was still laying in the hospital bed, I realize that although I was fully aware for the birth and many details have been played and replayed in my mind, the whole experience has ended up in a smoky bubble of pink tinted magic. The salt rock glow, the whispers of my family, the dark shining eyes of my son. There isn’t anything that I need to see. Tino brought pictures from home, and the youngest picture that he has of himself, at all, on the planet, is a picture from high school. No baby pictures, no childhood photos. Sometimes I feel cheated by this. I want to be able to see this a young daddy Elias that I never knew. What will the connections be between father and son? Then I enjoy the opportunity to love someone who hasn’t had every phase of his life documented for posterity. The memories and the feelings and the stories remain, allowing the visual obsession to rest.
Because the circumstances allowed so many different possible birthing scenarios, I still am often transported to what would (or what will?) birth be like in Tanzania. Tino’s sister in law had a baby a month before Elias was born. At this point, we were still unsure when Tino would arrive, and I was beside myself with longing to be there for her, with her, to go through it together. She had gone to the government clinic to give birth. The government hospitals are free, except for the ‘donation’ for supplies like rubber gloves.
Things like this I would remember as I tossed in the Biohazard Waste Bin another one of the gazillion disposable pads, and all around me, disposable, disposable, disposable. A victim of a wealthy consumer society, I was drowned in more ‘gift’ sacks complete with formula samples, diapers, crappy baby wash and a bunch more that irritated me to have to find the space and opportunity to use. Bu my eco-righteous cynicism was fleeting, and leads my first point: I surprised myself. I was very thankful for during this experience to have been giving birth in the hospital. My first instinct was to stay in the States and give birth in a hospital, thankful for what resources we have, and convinced that the pain or beauty of a hospital birth largely depends on your communication and perspective. After reading a pile of natural birth books, I had all but come to believe anything short of a water birth at home would be icy cold. In reality, I was thankful to have every luxury of knowing nurses were constantly checking to make sure that anything that could go wrong, would and I could relax my mind and focus on a natural birth. I still wonder if there will be a next baby, and will the next one be conceived in the States and born in Tanzania? I will be older, I will have scar tissue from a hefty tear. That and you never know what else. But it is too soon to allow my mind to wonder very far: it still hurts to sit down or stand for long periods of time, and it I am currently still basking in having a wonderful magical birth.
