I have come to the inescapable conclusion that my new daughter is a contrarian.
(Given what we know about her mother and certainly her father, this may be a real shock, so take a moment to let that set in properly. No no, seriously, we'll wait...)
The scene: Saturday, December 13, 2008, Palmer, Alaska.
Cathy woke me somewhere between 3 and 3.30 in the morning. She had just knocked over her water glass in the dark, but this was not about to keep her from a singularly urgent bee-line to the bathroom. (It should be said up front that Cathy was extremely easy on me during the whole pregnancy—seriously, almost none of what I had been prepared to encounter—but even in a sleepy stupor I was smart enough not to argue with a woman in her 38th week.) I mopped up the spill and promptly sacked out again.
I awoke on my own a while later (probably somewhat over an hour) because something was definitely not right: I have no idea how I knew this, but Cathy had not returned from the bathroom since the spill. At that realization, I was bolt awake, and as gingerly as I could manage—let's face it, this is not a delicate operation—I tapped on the door to check in on her.
Turns out Cathy had been awake since midnight-thirty or so. She was pretty uncomfortable with what felt like menstrual cramps, on the normal side of intense but with the alarming beginnings of back pain. She also noticed she was leaking slightly, no more than say a tablespoon at a time, clear and odorless. Above all she could not get back to sleep. We immediately thought that this was probably the baby descending into the pelvis—that precursor event that heralds a little relief for mom's lungs but hard times ahead for the bladder—and which usually happens about two weeks before birth, for a first time mom.
(Looking back on this, of course, it seems rather obvious that she was in labor even at this point, her water having already broken, but we were in no way prepared for that. Our official due date was still 11 days away, and everyone had been drilling into us how first babies are usually late, first babies in Alaska are almost always even later, and winter first babies in Alaska are almost always later still. We had just had the 38-week appointment three days earlier, at which the owner of the midwifery concluded that the baby still hadn't descended yet, so there was no real need to do a manual exam—we would do that next week, at the 39-week appointment. Cathy and I were expecting descent, not labor, and we had been advised that the sensation of the baby descending into the pelvis would feel like, well, menstrual cramps. And presto, there they were, so that's what we assumed. For anyone who doubts that Whoever Is In Charge has a sense of humor, I submit this as yet more proof.)
Somewhere along in there, two things happened: the back pain kicked in pretty good (far worse than the cramping), and the cramps started becoming quasi-regular. It became clear that something was up with the back pain—I could hear some fear in her voice, mostly a “what is happening here, nobody ever said anything about this” sort of anxiety. We later joked that we had both thought during this time, “holy crap, if this is what descent is like, we may be in over our head when real labor comes...” I mean, Cathy had always been told she had a good tolerance for pain, but what did that mean, really? We weren't exactly in familiar territory, and maybe we were wrong all along... I switched into caretaker mode, figuring that something was up, labor or not, and focused on my tasks: 1) keep her calm, 2) try to keep her fed, and 3) try to get her to sleep. I fetched the little “chronograph” we had picked up to time contractions with, thinking that I might as well start measuring the cramps in case they were contractions. I quickly found out that we had selected an absolutely worthless POS for this task. That I got any semblance of accurate information out of it was in spite of, and not at all due to, its design. We quickly learned that the “contractions” were not meeting the standard that would warrant a call to the midwifery, but we started calling them “contractions” nonetheless, as they were not stopping and getting pretty intense. (At least the back pain was getting pretty intense.) I all but shoved hot cereal down her, and did what I could to help her get comfortable enough to sleep—that latter being a real losing battle. (In our education and training, it had been well-impressed on me that moms do much, much better when rested and fed, and I was not about to set Cathy up for exhaustion if there was anything I could do about it!)
Eventually, probably about 5 in the morning, I called the midwifery. (The general rule is that if mom can call the midwifery, she's not ready to come in yet, but if dad has to do the calling because mom can't, it's time. I knew that we weren't there yet—I was calling as a courtesy, and to keep Cathy calm.) As I would have expected, the general tenor of the call struck me as testing to see if we were really ready to come in, or if it would be better to get her to sleep as long as she could. In the end, we concluded that we were probably doing the right thing; Cathy had even tried a bath, which often calms down false labor, after I had mopped up the water spill and gone back to sleep.
The bath had helped a little with comfort, but it didn't stop, and the back pain was still getting worse. We called back several hours later, probably 9 or so, and after some back-and-forth with Peggy, she suggested we come on in. (Remember: at this point, all we knew for sure is that something was happening, but we still weren't convinced that it was real labor. I was honestly half-expecting to get there and find out that we were still two weeks away.)
Come on in. Holy cow, was that a moment for me. When I say that we were not ready, there is a bit of understatement at work. We had been planning to take that very weekend and get our “grab-and-go” kit ready; we were probably at least two and more likely three weeks out from delivery, but best to be ready, right? Likewise, we were going to get a few more things around the house firmed up, like getting the new desk set up, the second car into the garage, etc. We were technically ready to bring baby home, in terms of having car seat, bassinet, a few clothes and supplies, but we were not exactly set up. And so here I was, with a 38-week-pregnant wife writhing with back pain, suddenly charged with getting everything together myself, right now.
And so I did. We found the suggestion list from the midwifery (very useful!), and I rounded up everything on it, including food and clothes for mom, food and clothes for dad, clothes for new baby, car seat, supplies and a few niceties like music. (It wasn't a pretty packing job, but it was pretty fast, and all there.) As I did, I could not help but think about the desk that had been in the car just the night before. Earlier in the week, we had bought an “assembly-required” desk in Anchorage, which took two people and a pallet jack to get into the back of the car. There was no way I was getting that out of the back myself; I had known that I'd have to disassemble it in the car and carry the pieces in bit-by-bit. I'd figured we'd do that on Saturday, but for some reason I could not explain to you, I got some bug up my butt to get this done Friday night, in temperatures of probably five below zero or so. But it got done, and as the car was warming up not twelve hours later, I put the seats back upright and got that car-seat base in place and started to wonder about things like unconscious prescience. (If that beast had still been in the car it would have added at least half an hour to our departure time.)
I've also gotta say that we couldn't have picked a more absolutely gorgeous winter day to have a baby. It was brilliantly clear and sunny, if very cold—the car's thermometer read thirteen below when we left. (I consciously added to my list of divine thank-yous the fact that Cathy is an even bigger polar bear than I am, and the cold didn't seem to faze her a bit.) Amazing what you notice at times like this, but the quality of the morning light on the mountains, with the fog in the Knik valley and the rime ice on the forest canopy, was breathtaking. We now live in one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen (and I have seen some impossibly beautiful places), and on this particular morning, Mother Nature was even more spectacular than usual.
Enroute, I can remember steeling myself to the idea that we would probably be coming back home in a few hours, with weeks left to go. We chatted and tried to get Cathy to relax and take her mind off the back pain, which really was getting alarming for me. The half-hour drive to the birthing center probably seemed like an eternity to Cathy, but we got there and settled into our preferred delivery room with Peggy, who started working with Cathy while I shuttled stuff in from the car. It was about 11 in the morning on Saturday, 13 December. Okay, we were now here, with supplies. The only thing we didn't know yet is whether we were actually going to have a baby.
A word, here, about working with midwives at a birthing center. One of the reasons we had chosen to work with Mat-Su Midwifery has to do with the delivery experience we wanted for ourselves. It has been said that with midwives, the birth of a baby is a natural event, not a medical procedure. That sounds really trite, but isn't—not when it counts. Cathy wanted the ability to move around, wanted to be able to make choices on the fly, wanted to be in charge of the operation. For my part, I wanted to be able to catch and cut, to work with Cathy during labor and delivery, to be educated as it all happened. The midwives (Peggy and Jackie, on this particular day) gave all those things to us, and more. They were brilliant at keeping Cathy calm and focused, keeping us aware and informed at every turn, letting us drive the decisions while being happy to offer advice when asked, and apparently being extremely prepared for things to go wrong. (It was not until after the birth that I noticed all the emergency equipment that had been on ready standby the whole time.) I later asked Cathy if she could imagine having the same sort of experience in a hospital...hers was as emphatic a “no way” as mine was. (I suspect that we could have had a marvelous experience, to be sure, but just not the same. I will always appreciate that, and I'll choose it again if I have a choice.)
When I was actually able to turn my attention to being there, I noticed that the room smelled marvelous (lavender, I recall) and somehow was very homey and calming. At this point, Peggy had concluded from talking with Cathy that what we were going through was quite possibly real labor, with the back pain indicating back labor. (Perversely, this “validation” made us feel at least a little better, that we weren't crying over a little nick.) When Jackie arrived, they got an antibiotic drip into Cathy to counteract a positive test for “Group-B strep”--our one concession to modern medicine during the process. Poor Cathy, of course, simply detests needles, as her veins are not particularly cooperative for phlebotomists, and it was a minor struggle to get the shunt (an evil-sounding name unto itself, isn't it?) into that most uncomfortable of all possible positions—on the back of the hand. Oi.
The whole point of this was to find out where we were, exactly. The signs thus far had not pointed to anything we could count on, and for all we knew we weren't dilated at all. We couldn't reasonably do a vaginal exam until the antibiotic had had a chance to do its work (its whole purpose is to protect the baby while passing through the birth canal, so the exam itself presented a risk), and so during the time it took to get hooked up, empty the drip, and wait for it to have full effect, we tried to get a handle on the back labor. I got into comfortable clothes (still not knowing how long we'd be at it, I came prepared for a haul), put on our own music (a newgrass collection featuring Bela Fleck, Tony Rice, and of course Sam Bush, which drew some nice comments from Jackie), and went into learn-and-do mode.
We had taken recommended classes, read recommended materials, and did some of our own research, but in the end, as always, it came down to, er, “just-in-time” learning. It's not that preparation is not essential, but it's essential only in that it is background, it is context. Looking back on it now, every bit of that background was useful, but for us, only part of it happened in a manner that even resembled what we had seen and read. What really made it was having the midwives there, with their attention focused on the most important matters of principle, guiding us along, adapting and teaching and showing us as we went. (At a time when you are under a considerable amount of stress, in completely unfamiliar territory, not knowing what comes next even under ideal circumstances, for things to take a turn you not only did not expect but hadn't even considered, it can be very easy to get derailed from the objective. As Sun Tzu so appropriately said, “in any battle the first casualty is the battle plan.” Just so. And at that point you must fall back on principles and pay attention.)
The back labor was the big unexpected factor. Back labor essentially means that the baby is turned backwards so that the baby's spine is aligned with mom's spine. This is not an ideal position for a gentle birth, and if you can remedy it, you remedy it. It certainly explained the pain Cathy had been having, but was a bit alarming in that it presented a potential problem to go with the one we already had (not knowing if we were even in labor or at all dilated), and with the one we were currently discovering, which was that we could not find distinctively where the heartbeat was—that is, our best guess was back labor, but with no real confirmation yet. So, with the best intelligence we had available to us at the time, we set about focusing on getting that baby to turn around and align properly. (This is all during contractions, mind you.) Okay, great, how does one do that? We had heard in the classes that there are “things you can do” to get a baby to turn around, but no mention of what those actually were. Well, here we go: what's the trick to getting a baby to turn over on its own accord?
Gravity.
Yup, apparently simple gravity works, even in the womb—baby's backside is heavier than its frontside, and so we got Cathy on all fours, which was at least initially not comfortable for her, but she was a trooper and did it anyway. With a little bit of time and with some attention from dad and the midwives, she learned how to work with her own contractions, and got visibly better at managing the pain and discomfort. I was amazed by this, at how much better she was handling these much-more-intense contractions than the ones that we had started with. Along in there somewhere she even tried a shower, which definitely made things better. (It's a weird thing for a first-time parent to really buy into the idea that you don't want the pain to go away—it's going to happen whether you are ready for it or not—you want to learn to ride the contraction like a surfer, letting your body do the work instead of fighting it. The whole purpose of labor, if I understood all this right, is to achieve effacement and dilation, which is involuntary. Mom will do best to simply learn to get out of the way.) This went on for a while, with Cathy on hands and knees and the birthing ball, and with both parents praying hard for a little coaxial roll, until we were confident the antibiotic had had its full chance to take effect. Hopefully, we could now find out where the heck we were.
Peggy was the one that did the exam, and I confess I was still pretty worried at this point—for me, the worst part of anything is not knowing, and we didn't seem to know much for sure, despite quite a few hours of what sure seemed like labor to me. I was doing my best to keep Cathy calm (meaning, I was doing my best to keep me calm; Cathy was already a proven rock star by this point) when Peggy started, and almost immediately got really wide-eyed—but it was a bright sort of wide-eyed.
“Oh my God, I feel hair!”
Now, it took me a moment to realize what that meant. I'm fairly sure that everyone else in the room figured it out well before me; in fact I think I got it right about the time Peggy was explaining it to me. This one little revelation was pretty conclusive proof of the following:
Cathy's water had definitely broken. (In fact, it suddenly occurred to me, it had probably broken even before she was awakened by the cramps. All those little tablespoon-sized leakages had probably added up over the course of everything that happened.)
Baby had most certainly descended, and apparently went right into labor directly thereafter. Apparently this is common in a mother's subsequent deliveries, but not common for her first.
She was not just dilated, she was really dilated. We went from not knowing we were dilated at all, to being at 10cm. This also meant that all the pain and labor she had gone through thus far was not only not in vain, it was real, honest labor—and it was already behind her.
As if this news were not heartening enough, Peggy also said that she felt the head turned correctly, toward Cathy's back. Jackie was instantly on it, figuring that if that were the case, they should try listening for the heartbeat again—since we had been looking for a baby that had not even descended yet, not one that was already at zero station. “Well, if that's right, then we should be able to listen right about here...” wump-wump-wump-wump-wump... Cathy and I both got a huge jolt of both adrenaline and relief at that one. Big, strong and beautiful, and right along the anterior the way we wanted. (Imagine that...just getting her on all fours, and working with the birthing ball, caused that baby to roll right around and cooperate. If I hadn't already accepted that a successful, healthy birth really is something of a miracle unto itself, I was definitely there now.)
“Hey, let's have us a baby!”
With that, we shifted gears and started walking (again, that marvelous gravity thing), while the midwives drew the bathwater in case Cathy wanted to do a water birth, which had been an intriguing option but one that just kinda got overtaken by events. (We may yet try one in the future—personally, I am fascinated at the idea that it presents no risk to the baby because it does not try to draw any breath until air hits its face.) We did several laps around the birthing center's “classroom”, and even a couple trips up and down the stairs. It was during this process that Cathy felt the shift into transition, when the urge to bear down and push starts to become inexplicably compelling. (And it continued to simply amaze me, having grown up with such a limited mental image
The midwives had Cathy try several positions to facilitate the birth, including both the high and low stools, which can seem almost amusing or medieval until you actually take a look at how they open up the pelvis to, well, exactly the right attitude to let a baby come out. The contractions for Cathy seemed to take on a very different flavor; it wasn't so much pain as it was discomfort, and not so much discomfort even as an uncontrollable urge to get this done. We got to the point at which the midwives must have known the birth was imminent, as they seemed to be testing her to see how effective her push was. Apparently at this point, you want to push as hard as you can, but no harder, to avoid tearing the perineum. The midwives used olive oil and literally supported the perineum with fingers, during the pushes.
This segment was fascinating for me to observe, as Cathy seemed at turns to doubt herself, and the midwives on a couple of occasions actually had her take her own hand and feel where the baby's hair was, for herself—this immediately produced a positive reaction in Cathy, who found the strength to bear down again and more besides. (Interestingly, Cathy does not remember any doubt, herself; she remembers the intensity being overwhelming, and thinking that she really wasn't as far along as she actually was.) I was also tremendously impressed at how with every contraction and push, the midwives checked in on everything—perineum okay, heartbeat okay, mom okay. They've got your back.
We eventually got to the point where we chose a birth position, with the deliberate intention that this is it; it's time. It was at that point that I reminded Peggy and Jackie that I wanted to catch if I could, and they didn't even blink, but immediately put me to work. Initially, I held the perineum as Peggy worked on the crown and Jackie worked with Cathy; the position she had chosen was sort of sideways-supine, with Peggy and I manipulating legs to simulate the great effectiveness of the taller stool but without having Cathy feel like she was sitting on the crapper to give birth. (I get the impression that a birth is necessarily an indelicate experience, and we had certainly long since subordinated any sense of propriety to the desire for efficient function. I cannot imagine that anyone who has attended a birth would argue that efficient function does not have its own compelling dignity.)
Cathy pushed and she pushed, and in the end it really didn't take that long. I was on perineum duty when the baby crowned, and I gotta tell you it is heart-wrenching to see that little head suck back in just a fraction as mom lets go of one push and rests for the next one. Holy cow! But the next contraction came, and Cathy bore down, and the head came out with Peggy's help—and here was another one of those images that a new father has simply never even fathomed; the head is out and mom rests for a minute or so before the next push. The baby even began to cry in between, which both startled me and brought tears to my eyes.
“Okay, dad, time to pull him out.” Ah, right! I was so flabbergasted at the whole spectacle that I had to be reminded that this was my moment. And here's the crazy part: I kinda figured that by the time the head crowned, the shoulders would just sort of slip through and I'd truly be catching a baby that was sliding out on its own. I was not prepared to actually have to pull to get the little munchkin out, but I learn pretty quickly when I have to, and with a little tug, we had us a newborn.
And, for you eagle-eyed readers, about that “him” in the quote above: all throughout our time at the midwifery, through all the appointments with all the midwives, we can recall only one comment that did not predict a baby boy—on one occasion, Jackie had said “either it's a boy, or a sleeping girl”, referring to the relatively slow, steady heartbeat. Apparently boys' heartbeats are very steady, while girls' heartbeats will fluctuate and flutter with certain stimuli, and every heartbeat we had heard previously had everyone confident of “boy”, right down to the birth itself. Which is why it was so amusing to pull our new daughter into the outside world. Somehow, the mental image of “my child, contrarian from birth” seems perfectly right for the occasion, and I will always remember that.
Peggy and Jackie deftly got her cleaned up and onto mom's skin while Cathy and I both had some pretty nice tears. The time was 3.50 in the afternoon, after probably 16 or so hours of labor, and less than five at the birthing center. Looking back on it, Cathy handled it all with amazing grace and not even so much as a Tylenol; I was there with her the whole time and I can still hardly believe it.
Sabre Ruth Wilmeth (first name is pronounced SAY-bree) was 6 pounds 13 ounces, 20” long, with a 13” head. She is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, and I have never been more in love with my wife than I am now.
(When you're male and grow up with such a limited view of what the birth experience is like, it is easy to think of some of the common clichés as little platitudes designed to make moms feel better about their accomplishment, but without really meaning anything. Well, I cannot speak for anyone but myself, but brother, it's real. The birth of my child is the most astounding thing I have ever witnessed, in almost every one of its parts—the mother's body that somehow knows exactly what to do, and does it without direction—the voluntary cooperation of the baby who has not yet drawn her first breath—the very development of this miniature human, against all sorts of odds of defect and mishap—the mother learning how to voluntarily submit to what must be tremendous discomfort and pain—and the midwives, performing the incalculably valuable function of showing us all, by demonstration, that this is a perfectly natural process. And there is the indescribable spectacle of literally watching your child come from your wife's body. It is impossible to describe how impressive that all seems to someone who is completely and utterly not capable of these feats. Cathy has told me countless times since then that my assistance was valuable and even essential to her success, and I certainly appreciate that, but it just pales in comparison to what she can do—to what she has done. That she chose me to do this with is probably the greatest compliment I have ever received.)
We ran tests, and did the foot-prick, and cut the cord (tougher than you think!), and before long Cathy delivered the placenta naturally. Even here, the midwives did a great job of educating us as we went along, showing us by looking at the placenta that everything looked great. I filled out some paperwork, Cathy got little Sabre nursing on colostrum, and the postpartum checks on Cathy started. Everything looked good, with the perineum intact and those marvelous words, “mom and baby are doing fine.”
It was late enough in the day that Peggy and Jackie invited us to stay the night at the birthing center. By 7pm, we would have been cleared to go, but we took them up on this offer. The midwifery ordered dinner for us, a pizza from a local and fairly swanky Italian place down the street. (To mom & dad, this simple meal tasted pretty exquisite.) We finished the evening off by making the most important calls, to parents. We were lucky to reach both sets of parents directly (it was getting late in St. Paul, and not exactly early in Bozeman), and they seemed quite pleased, if as surprised as we were that Sabre had arrived eleven days early.
As we calmed down a bit after the events of the day, we also reflected that our first daughter had been born to a Sam Bush record. Somehow, that seemed extraordinarily right. After all those years watching Sam at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, literally watching pregnant women one year return with babies the next, and seeing those kids grow up each subsequent year, I wouldn't have chosen it any other way. A small thing, to be sure, but at the same time, not so small.
We slept well that night, given that we didn't sleep much that night. I got some great daddy time with the wee miss on my chest, after she made it fairly clear that the midwifery's bedside bassinet simply would not do. I had read a number of testimonials about how nice it can be for a dad to have the little one sleeping like this, and I gotta say oh yeah, that is just one hundred percent a-OK with me. (Naturally, my subsequent ability to achieve this same result has been woefully inadequate—at least by my reckoning—but whenever it does happen, it makes everyone happy.)
The next morning, we were visited by the owner of the midwifery, Judy, who checked in on us and ordered us breakfast (completely above and beyond the call, and highly, highly appreciated). Both Sabre and Cathy got a clean bill of health and we were good to go home right away. This worked out well for everyone, including Judy, who was on her way to an alternate church service that Sunday morning. It seems that someone found it necessary to burn down the governor's church the day before, which just happened to be the same one that Judy goes to. I wish I could say that I was really surprised by this, but sadly in my observation, naked arson is just about in keeping with the type and quality of attack against her that we had seen throughout the campaign and even well after her loss. (I have personally seen otherwise intelligent people whipped into an inexplicable ad hominem frenzy against her, featuring such total, naked contempt as to be the crown jewel of any military propagandist's career. And my use of the word inexplicable here is carefully considered, taking into account the even more vile and sanctimonious tyrant-in-waiting whose boots her attackers would apparently rather lick instead. [Those of us who simply reject anyone who promises to be a tyrant, are neatly dismissed as insane.] One can only hope that a proper sense of shame will eventually come to those who would have burned that witch at the stake, simply in order to pave the road for their own witch.) At any rate, it impressed me that the church had decided to meet elsewhere, at last minute on word of mouth, and if Judy was any indication of the congregation, they did so with considerable grace and class, and little if any judgment. (She never even hinted at what she thought of the governor, one way or the other. Gratifying.) It probably will not surprise you that we wished Judy well and let her get on her way as soon as we could.
So! We had a healthy baby, and a healthy mom, and it was time to go home. Sunday was another really cold and clear day; the car thermometer said eighteen below, and lemme tell you, that was one of the most gingerly handled car rides of all time!
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This post continues in Sabre Ruth At Home.
1 comment:
So glad you joined Facebook, because it led me to this! What a fabulous post. Everything I've come to expect from the Wilmacheks!
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