My sister, Georgia-Rae, and my dear friend Sammy had travelled from interstate to support me during Rae’s birth. We gathered around the time I felt a baby might be making their way to us, and two long weeks later, those mercurial days dragged. We ate together night after night, wondering if it would ever happen. The energy waned. I’d been in early labor for well over a week with tightening, cramps, lost mucus plug and a bloody show with no other signs. It was getting old and I began to feel heavy guilt that they’d taken so much time out of their lives to wait with me.
The morning I went into labour, we worked away in the backyard, re-staking the dahlias, tending to the sunflowers, weeding the chard. Contractions came and went, gently surging and subsiding. We all ate pasta for dinner while I bounced on the yoga ball, tried and quickly abandoned the tens. I realised I was forcing myself to eat and felt my mind begin to drift into a far, quiet, wordless place.
Glenn had blacked out all the windows in the front of the house. The birth pool was next to our bed. While I moved back and forth between company and solitude, Glenn tended to the turntable, playing all the records we’d chosen. I began to feel the pull of our bed and greyhound, Dale Cooper, who dozed peacefully on our bed. I was entering a new existence, a world split from the one outside our room, where I was walking with only my baby. On the bed, I labored through peaks, breathing the shapes of the alphabet with Dale Cooper’s wet nose touching mine. Then, Glenn and I danced slowly in the living room, swaying to the pain. Everyone else went to sleep.
In the early hours of the morning, Glenn called our angel friend and doula, Lilly. She was on her way, as was my best friend Bec. Glenn checked in with our midwife, Sam. I found a place in the hallway on my hands and knees, leaning on the yoga ball and it was pure, ecstatic bliss. Until I’d been there for hours and my back began to sear with pain. I began to vocalize and the sound of my voice was primordial and so familiar. I was telling myself I was going to be in labour for a week. Nothing was really happening. I’ll remain slow, present; it’s a long game. I inspected my contractions: what colour, shape, what shadows to they contain?
When Lilly arrived I was still in the hall on the yoga ball. I saw her face and broke a little. But she was assured in her role and didn’t meet my gaze. I realised we now had a job to do, and I was going to do it. I got in the pool. The pain in my back was distracting and I thought for a moment that I could be in posterior labour. Leaning on the side of the pool my waters suddenly burst. The relief was delicious. I looked at Glenn, smiling. It’s on.
I laboured in the shower in a strange looping rehearsal: legs baring down, arms on my knees, thunderous voice that came to me from the center of the earth. But when I contraction ended, I was up again, shaking it off, holding onto Glenn. Sam arrived and I heard her kind voice: ‘beautiful, beautiful!’.
The inky first light leaked through the shutters. I’m back in the pool, quiet, concentrating, speaking with Rae. ‘Hello, I feel you’. Around the pool, peaceful faces in circle. Glenn, Sammy, my mum, Georgia-Rae, Bec, Lilly, our midwife Sam and second midwife Tessa. Dale Cooper and our other dog, Tony. The midwives are reclined on the bed, casual. ‘You’re doing so well, Steph’. ‘Rae’s so close’. I hear the rubbish bins get collected, and someone open a cupboard. I hear slow, deep breathing from around me and the light shadow of every laboring person before me. Laboring, we hear all things of, and beyond the earth.
Things are slow. Slow enough to think ‘how can I get out of the pool and just leave for a while without anyone trying to stop me?’. ‘Caulophyllin?’ Tessa passed me a small capsule. It immediately brings on the contractions that will bring me Rae. The ring of fire, the fucking ring of fire.
Then I hear it, spinning on the turntable in the next room: Let’s Go Swimming. It’s my song. Here we go. I hear my out-of-body, shocked scream and know that’s it. ‘I have a head sticking out my vagina. Everyone, this is so weird!’. Giggles around the pool. I feel drops of water on my arm and look to see Glenn sobbing quietly.
With the next contraction, a splash in the water and I’m scrambling for someone, but who, or what. A scrunched up little face, black eyes and so much hair stare back and I hear ‘7:17 on the summer solstice!’ A little bleeting cry. In the murky water full of blotted stuff, Rae moves to my nipple and Tony rests his snoot on my head.
Written by mama, Steph.
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