Sunny's Recounting and Reflections on Samson's Birth

As I slipped into bed around 11:00 PM quietly, so as not to wake Stephanie, I reflected on how unconnected we had been that day. She had spent the day with her friend Forest from California, who had just flown in, catching up on things. I spent time at the computer working on Earthaven's web site and out on the land working on roads, having meetings, and taking a hike up to High North Spring, to check it's elevation and feasibility as a water source for our neighborhood to be. As I lay in bed drifting off, I could here Steph breathing deep and rapid in her sleep, It seemed like she was having a weird dream. Well by midnight she was awake and in intense labor. This seemed so ironic because since her mythical due date a week and a day ago, we had spent many days and nights together assuming labor would start any minute, and today we hardly saw each other.

Steph was having contractions every five minutes or so, each lasting 30-40 seconds. We spent some time becoming more closely connected and open hearted with each other, in between contractions. She was unable to talk during them. After a half an hour or so, when we were sure this was not a false labor, I called to wake our midwife. I let Jan know things were under way, and I would call back when they had gotten a little further along. I quickly reread the chapter in our home birth book on emergency delivery, just in case I had to do it solo. It felt like I was cramming for a big test. After another hour or so Stephanie checked her cervix to see how far she was dilated, she thought 2-3 fingers, but wasn't sure. It was time for the midwives to come over.

Jan got to our house around 2 am, by this time Stephanie's moaning, had waken Jim, our friend and house mate, and Forest our visiting California friend. Steph and I walked around the house some and then secluded ourselves in our little nest (our bedroom). When Jan arrived she set up all her midwifery objects, including an oxygen tank, that brought up some fear in me around blue babies that don't start breathing easily. Jan checked Steph's cervix and she was a full 7 centimeters dilated, 10 being fully open. Jan said she was glad we called her when we did and then she called her partner Nancy. Steph's contractions became more intense and closer together, she was very uncomfortable. I was right there with her through them all, coaching on her breathing and soothing her pain. It all got really intense, she was going through a lot of pain. She had some interesting coping strategies including but not limited to psycho-babble, pushing against my hands and thighs as hard as she could with the bottom of her feet, digging her nails deep into my hands, and every sort of moan, scream, growl and yell one could imagine.

By 4 am Nancy, our other midwife, arrived on the scene and it looked like we would be having a baby very soon. Things kind of stalled out for a while though, with Steph 9 centimeters dilated, but with a cervical lip, that is one side of her cervix wasn't opening fully. All she wanted to do was lie on her side and have it all stop, we finally got her to stand up, hanging on to me. Standing up was good for the process, it allowed gravity to help out. Although I'm glad we didn't do the whole labor standing, it was pretty draining for me to suspend this 180 pound woman while breathing and moaning with her, and being in a sleep deprived state.

Then finally she began to have pushing urges. It seemed best for her to sit in a chair, which was a compromise of her being upright which the midwives and I thought was best and her feeling the need to lie down, due to her exhaustion. I drug one of the living room chairs into our room, knocking over everything in the way. I washed my hands in preparation to "catch " the baby, and arranged myself in position. She was pushing real hard, the midwives seem to think the birth was about to happen, I was less than convinced though, I imagined we could stay in that state for some time. Then finally the baby's head started to crown. Jan said "there it is the baby's head" but it sure didn't look like a head to me. It was all squashed up, the skull bone plates were overlapping to allow for the passage through the birth canal and vagina. There was all this blood and goop and it was hard to make out just what it was, but it didn't look like any head I had ever seen. I had a flash back to a story in a Ina May Gaskin book about a woman who had a baby that didn't have a top of the skull, it had just the exposed brain. I thought Oh God No, but the midwife seemed to think everything was fine, even after I asked if she was sure that was the head. After a couple more real strong pushed I could tell it was a head and was amazed it was going to fit through such a narrow passage. This was the most intense part for Stephanie and all she wanted to do was push it out. We didn't want for her to tear though so we told her to slow down and I supported her perineum with my hand. Which seemed odd, like I was pushing the baby back in. Then the next push the baby's head came out. The baby was face down, just like it was supposed to be, then right away Steph pushed again, the baby just naturally turned a bit and then all at once the whole thing was out and in my hands. It seemed so big and was covered with goop, I immediately placed the baby up on Stephanie's belly and we covered it up with towels and began to wipe it off. Then the "it" became a boy. A boy , a boy. The baby was squirming, and then let out a little cry and then another louder one. I was just overwhelmed with inexplicable joy. All those subtle fears I had been carrying about the outcome of the birth were released.

It had been such a long road for us to have a child. We went full term only to have our baby die halfway through labor the year before, due to a congenital heart defect, and then a miscarriage at three months followed that. So to finally have a real live kicking and screaming baby was such a huge joy, so long waited for. After the birth we lied down in bed holding the baby, I held him as Steph delivered the placenta, he just cried and cried , a hearty robust cry. I had flashed on a woman I met at the co-op telling me her child didn't sleep and cried for the first two years of it's life. I thought OH GOD NO not this, she said she had forgotten her name the sleep deprivation got so bad. But after those ten minutes of a good healthy cry he calmed right down and has been mellow since. I knew the baby and I would get along, when after I took my crying baby from the midwife at one point, as I spoke to him he quieted right down. The first night even though I had been up for 40 some hours all I wanted to do was look at him. I love him so much and it is just such a pleasure to have this new addition to our family. It is so exciting and new to see all his different attributes, to watch him look around, his little facial expressions, his emissions are still being met with little hurrahs by us.

It wasn't until the next day that I began to realize how much for granted I took home birth to be, and how wonderful it was to be in our own comfortable and familiar home, surrounded by people who loved us, feeling safe and secure, able to focus on the matter at hand and not be concerned with extraneous, unfamiliar concerns a hospital might offer. I began to think of the contrast a hospital birth could have presented with it's sterile environment and bright lights (we gave birth by candle light), unfamiliar people odd and new sounds, machines, mechanical monitoring ( only an old fashion fetascope was used, the kind only an experienced midwife is comfortable with, not a machine bombarding electromagnetic radiation at our unborn son, emitting an electronic facsimile of heart tones), we didn't need to fit into any doctors schedule, we weren't pressured to do anything that may harm our child, everything was gentle and soft. We knew our midwives well, having developed a relationship with them over the last 6 months, they knew where we were coming from and they had let us know their beliefs. Our birth was just so harmonious and flowing to me, this is something I will always be grateful for.

The New Wonderdad,

Sunny