When the
referrals for expecting moms comes in to Everyday Miracles (
http://www.everyday-miracles.org/services-and-classes/our-doulas/)
it tells us only the barest of information on the woman. We see her due date,
whether this is a first baby, if she is eligible for a car seat and breast pump
through her insurance, what hospital she has chosen, where she is receiving her
prenatal care and often not much more than that. Occasionally there will be a
note, for example that she is in a methadone program, or that she doesn’t speak
English. Our secretary will call the mother and explain a bit about our doula
program and confirm that she would like to participate. So when I received
Jessica’s referral it didn’t say a whole lot. I called her and set up an
appointment for the following week at Everyday Miracles where she could attend childbirth
education classes, yoga classes, and other offerings.
When she came
I gave her a tour of the place and visited with her. Jessica was excited about this
baby and they had both already read a lot of information about natural birth
and knew what they wanted. She gave me a copy of her birth plan which looked
perfect. I wouldn’t add anything. Then she told me she was in training to be a
doula. Oh, wow! This will be fun!
She had taken
the DONA birth doula course already and sent for the certification package. (
http://www.dona.org/develop/birth_cert.php)
At this point you have 2 years to meet all the requirements and submit your
paperwork. She has attended a few births already and was gathering the rest of
the information she would need. I invited Jessica to meet at my apartment for
her next appointment and offered to lend her any books that I had ordered when
I was being certified. Thus began our friendship. Since I didn’t need to
educate her about labor or breastfeeding we used the times when we got together
to look at birth videos, my own included. I had gone to The Farm in Tennessee
to have my twins in 1982 with Ina May Gaskin and the Farm midwives when I had
exhausted all the options to have a natural birth in Minnesota or Wisconsin.
The birth was filmed and made into a teaching video called “Twin Vertex Birth”© Ina May Gaskin 1982. (See
our story at this blog under the April stories listing, called
Twin Birth on The Farm.)
I had several
other teaching videos that Jessica had not seen, so we saw those together and
talked about everything about birth and doulas and midwives and hospitals. This
reminded me of the days two and a half decades before when I was expecting our
5
th baby and I was starting to take classes which would eventually
lead to my midwifery license. My mentor back then was my own midwife, Roberta.
We were living in a log cabin at the time, our back-to-the-earth-simple-living
experiment which was anything but simple. With 5 children and no electricity or
running water (except if you counted my husband running the 50 gallon jugs up
from the well at the pump house once a day), three still in diapers, and a ¼
mile dirt driveway which was impassible in the winter except by sled and also
impossible the rest of the year after each rain which washed out the gullies
further. But our 11 pound Hannah was born, though a whole hour before Roberta
made it out to our rural route, parking on the road and hiking in the rest of
the way. See “Wet Nurses and Other Alternatives to Bonding (and Free-Range
Children)” at this blog also under the April listings.
It must have
been past 5 a.m. several weeks later when Jim called to let me know they were
in labor with regular contractions. I asked if I could speak to Jessica which
would give me even more of a clue if this was early labor or the real thing by
how well she could talk to me during a contraction. I encouraged her to labor
at home a while longer if she was comfortable there. I called back around 6 a.m.
not having heard again and spoke to Jim because Jessica could no longer speak
through the contraction. I asked if they were thinking of heading to the
hospital yet and he said they were still thinking about it. I offered to come
to their house but they were doing OK so far on their own. When I called back
again a little later I asked if they wanted to have this baby at home or in the
hospital and that got them out the door in no time.
I was very
excited for Jessica and had been looking forward to this birth. She was so down
to earth, so well prepared, so healthy. Not all of the refugee and low income
women we also serve are. I quickly dressed, checked my doula bag and called a
taxi. I was at the hospital within 15 minutes. I asked at the desk if Jessica
had shown up yet, and they assured me that they had not come in yet. A half an
hour later, I checked at the desk again and they said she had still not arrived.
Then they asked what her last name was, and they couldn’t find her in their
system. I called Jim back and quickly realized I was at the wrong hospital! I
had never done this before. I hadn’t opened her chart; I just assumed I knew
which hospital it was. Apologizing profusely I hung up and called the cab
company back. I couldn’t believe it. Was I getting senile? After this birth I
put a pad of paper and a pen next to my alarm clock and I ask EVERY SINGLE TIME
what hospital are we meeting at, even if I think I am sure I know, and write it
down ...
each time.
I arrived at
the right hospital 25 minutes later, wearing my happy birthday tiara. At least
we could laugh about it. She was still in the triage area of labor and delivery.
There were no free rooms yet in the regular section. It was early, but there
was really no room to move around at all and we couldn’t walk around the halls
because there were families of all of the emergency room patients milling
around. After monitoring the baby for a while the nurse said she would let us
know when something opens up on the floor.
So we visited
and breathed through the rushes which were steady but not unbearable. In Jessica’s own words, “We were finally moved to a labor
and delivery room, though not in the midwife section, and they brought in a portable
tub right away but had issues filling it, so ya’all were grabbing buckets of
water from the sinks to fill it. I had to pee but just couldn’t and spent some
time on the toilet whilst the tub was being filled… oh, and the popsicles,
those were life-savers! Once filled I labored in the tub until I got too warm
and stood in the tub and swayed and slow danced with Jim while you and my
friend rubbed my back and fed me popsicles and water. Things were moving rather
quickly. I came in at 6 and my waters broke – a water balloon between my legs!!
and a couple of hours later I was 8 cm. Then things slowed down and I labored on
all 4s in bed while ya’all reminded me to breathe and gave me my elixers -- H2O and
popsicles. Once I felt the urge to push the midwife checked my cervix and I
still had a lip on one side; later I learned that this is a sign of the
malposition of baby’s head. I waited until I could push.”
Her midwife assured her that the baby sounded very good
when she listened using a Doppler. Jessica explains, “Once pushing I didn’t
feel like any progress was being made and asked if this was really possible.” It
was hard to tell her she was doing everything right when she knew s/he wasn’t
moving a whole lot.
“They made me change positions a few times, not delightful
in high pushing mode, and finally ended on my back with my legs in the air and
pulling on the sheet attached to the squatting bar. (Finally we could see a tiny circle
of baby’s head.) Then the little guy came out after 2-plus hours of pushing.
Bring on the waffles! This mama’s HUNGRY!”
She pushed for what seemed like forever and finally her
baby boy was born, all 9 pounds and 6 ounces of him! And as he came out, out of
the corner of my eye I saw a geyser of blood shoot straight up in the air. The
midwife was at the bedside with Jim next to her. The nurse had not come back in
yet. Somehow it registered in my mind that the cord must have broken at that
moment, and in one move I spun around, grabbed a medium forceps clamp from
behind us on the table and opening it up handed it to the midwife. We both saw
the blood at the same time and both reacted immediately. She pinched the cord
still at baby’s end with one hand and taking the forceps grabbed the placenta end of the cord
as it disappeared back up into the birth canal. A bruise on the side of the baby’s
head confirmed that he had been in an acyclic position, meaning his head was
turned slightly sideways on the journey down to being born, which made it
difficult to mold and difficult to descend properly. And now we knew his
cord was short and just very grateful it didn’t break before he was out, which
could have been catastrophic. It would have taken time to stretch so he could
be born. It never ceases to amaze me how Nature accommodates such exceptions to
the rules. The combination of all of these factors caused Jessica to sustain a
4
th degree tear, which caused some complications later on though she
was able to find help for it.
I saw Jessica
and Taran (left) at our 10
th year Birthday Party for Everyday Miracles last week. He
is so amazingly strong, self-assured and inquisitive, a real ‘in arms’ baby.
The difference is very obvious to me. (See at this blog the story under July
listings called “The Ultimate Bonding Model.”) And now, having herself been on
this bizarre, wonderful, outrageous, momentous journey of birth, I believe
Jessica is
truly a doula, able to put
herself into another mother’s sandals or socks or bare feet at their birth.
STAY TUNED... This and other stories will be appearing the book, Stone Age Babies in a Space Age World:§ Babies and Bonding in the 21st Century© or Call the Doula! a diary© both pending by Stephanie Sorensen
§This phrase was first coined by Dr. James McKenna, used here with permission and gratitude for his work. A world-renowned expert on infant sleep – in particular the practice of bed sharing, he is studying SIDS and co-sleeping at his mother-infant sleep lab at Notre Dame University. He is the author of “Sleeping With Baby: A Parent’s Guide to Co-sleeping,” 2007, Platypus Media, Washington, D.C.
“Around us, life bursts with miracles--a glass of water, a ray of sunshine, a leaf, a caterpillar, a flower, laughter, raindrops. If you live in awareness, it is easy to see miracles everywhere. Each human being is a multiplicity of miracles. Eyes that see thousands of colors, shapes, and forms; ears that hear a bee flying or a thunderclap; a brain that ponders a speck of dust as easily as the entire cosmos; a heart that beats in rhythm with the heartbeat of all beings. When we are tired and feel discouraged by life's daily struggles, we may not notice these miracles, but they are always there.”
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