Birth Stories: Leo
The Birth of Leo Soali
- Born: September 25th, 2010 7:47 am
- Weight:
- Parents: Kelly and Tom
It was a cool, misty fall night. Tom and I headed out for a very, very slow walk down the long road that led out of town, into the rolling farms and forests of Wisconsin’s driftless valley. It was midnight, and we were the only ones wandering beneath the streetlights and their sparkling raindrop confetti. I had been feeling “tight,” I told everyone, since the late afternoon, so tight that every movement felt strained. I felt no acute or sharp pain; it wasn’t even vaguely painful, actually. I just couldn’t walk without my hand pressed against my back or my belly, and I couldn’t get relaxed when we went to bed, not even when Tom gave me a massage. And so there we were, privy to the magic of a quiet fall night, walking and talking of anything and everything and nothing in particular. There was a subtle feeling in the air, carried in our voices, of something big happening, of destiny brushing by us, moving in us. Everything was at once holy surreal and yet utterly common as I hobbled along holding Tom’s hand.
As we were crossing the street back to our place, a big, fluffy, regal cat ran across our path. Neither of us had ever seen a cat like that in the neighborhood before, and we took it as an auspicious sign that, maybe, a little Leo was on his way. Though we had chosen at the onset of my pregnancy not to know the gender of our baby, all along we both had the uncanny feeling I was carrying a boy. Almost everyone who knew me predicted the same, and I had dreamt a few times of our son. While I hadn’t felt a preference initially, all these feelings, predictions, and dreams had built up anticipation in me, and I couldn’t say I was still impartial. Several little baby blue outfits already hung in our closet.
Back home, we laid down again, hopeful that the walk had tired me out enough to sleep despite my discomfort. But the simple act of lying down felt impossible so Tom rubbed my back, sides, and belly to try to coax my body to relax as I flopped around the bed like a fish in a boat trying to find a position comfortable enough to rest my tired eyes. Somehow this ended in Tom snoring next to me, still wide awake and flopping about. So I decided to get up. I walked up and down the floral rug in the adjacent room listening to Marcel Khalife’s beautiful album “Promises of the Storm.” I did pelvic tilts to help my baby get his head in position. I walked again.
As the night wore on I kept puzzling over what was happening. According to all the handouts tucked into my birthing binder on the side of my bed, early labor was characterized by contractions less than 60 seconds long and more than five minutes apart; in between these, I remembered hearing, the cramping completely let up, the pain disappeared. But here I was with something that felt like a nonstop contraction, only not too intense, just uncomfortable enough to make sleep impossible. So was this early labor, or active labor, or not labor at all but just the sensation of being almost two weeks past my due date? Should I call Denise? As I walked and wondered and began to groan a bit, this questioned ripened in my mind until I finally woke up Tom to get his opinion.
It was now 2:00 a.m. We decided to wake my mom and ask her. Usually she is impossible to rouse and responds in incoherent mumbles to any questions you pose before she’s had a cup of strong coffee. But that night, when Tom said, “Mai…Mai, Kelly needs you,” she popped up, smiling, and said, “She does?!?”
She had experienced the same sensations when her labor started with me and my sister, my mom told me, grinning from ear to ear. We all decided to try to get some sleep and call Denise in the morning. In no time, my mom and Tom were snoring and I, still unable to rest, was pacing around the rug again. Finally after a few snacks and a warm bath, I fell asleep at dawn. When I woke up, I called Denise.
“It sounds like something is getting started,” she said, but it was hard to tell: it could progress steadily into active labor or subside, postponing labor for days even. “What’s important,” she told me, “is to get rest if you can. You are going to need all the energy you can get…Call me if anything changes.” So I slept until ten, woke up, and saw bloody show when I went to the bathroom which gave my mom an even bigger smile.
By the afternoon, I was in the bath again, and finally the contractions began to resemble what the diagrams described. They came as distinct waves of tension. Some women don’t experience labor as painful at all but as waves of energy flowing through them. I had been compelled by their testimonies and theories, had admired them, but I couldn’t pretend this didn’t feel painful for me. And yet the word pain doesn’t really get at it. No noun I know really names the experience; it can only be approximated with a verb: I writhed. I wanted and tried to embrace each contraction, to remember it was precisely this sensation that was bringing our baby closer to our arms. But despite my efforts toward this welcoming disposition, I could not help but to throw my limbs around and twist my body with each contraction. Waves these were--and big ocean waves that throw your limbs in different directions, that show you there are powers in this life beyond your will, beyond your little muscular efforts or cerebral orientation. To resist is futile.
The contractions were coming every seven to ten minutes, lasting for 30-45 seconds: textbook early labor. Tom was timing them, getting me snacks, and keeping Denise updated by phone. She came over in the evening to check in on us and take our vitals. By this time, I was growing impatient with my contractions. They had not “progressed” for hours, still the same duration, the same frequency. When I couldn’t sleep Thursday night, I was sure our baby would be born on Friday, but now I wasn’t so sure. Yet, Denise reassured me everything was going as it should, that I was doing great, and her arrival, her simple reassurances instilled me with a profound confidence and peace.
She gave us a few options for the night. Because I had hardly slept the night before, she said I might want to take a Benadryl along with a glass of wine or a beer to try to induce sleep for a few hours, from which women usually wake up in active labor. Alternatively, I could try to encourage my body to go into active labor sooner by walking around. Or, she smiled, I could just let things continue as they were; we were doing great.
I didn’t want to take alcohol or Benadryl. I didn’t want to be drowsy for this. I opted to walk around and get things moving. But as soon as Denise left, I fell into the slump of my labor. I was lying on our mattress in the living room and could not, for the life of me, get myself to get up. It was like the night before: no position felt comfortable. I felt a constant, intense need to readjust myself, but standing felt impossible. Tom was sweetly rubbing me, sitting with me, getting me food or juice. I knew I was supposed to eat and drink to keep my energy up, but I had no appetite. Finally, in attempt to get some protein, I asked Tom to bring me some of the chicken that our dearest friends Erin and Youssef had brought over that evening. He, enthusiastic to help give my energy in whatever way he could, brought over a big pile of rice heaped with steaming Moroccan chicken. “It’s too much!” I said, pushing the bowl away. “Just looking at it overwhelms me. Can you give me a small portion?” He came again with a tiny portion. I tried to take a few bites, but the smell of all the spices—usually irresistibly delicious—was more than I could handle. I gave the bowl back to Tom and as he began to eat it himself, I said, “You have to brush your teeth when you are done or the smell of your breath will make me sick.” I was sitting on a chair by this time, and then another contraction came, I let out a loud moan, Tom, toothbrush in mouth, came running out of the bathroom to attend to me but as soon as he came near I said, “I can’t smell your toothpaste now!” Pushing him aside, I stood up and vomited all over my foot and the floor. Feeling a little better, I got in the shower to wash off.
As the night wore on, I asked Tom to stop timing the contractions. I had gotten dismayed when the numbers didn’t change: still seven minutes apart and 45 seconds long. My mom was in bed by now, with repeated instructions that we should wake her should anything change. I was groaning, moaning, and “stuck” on the bed again, flopping with each contraction, feelings defeated that I could not embrace them and enter active labor, worried that I might even be closing down. I had convinced myself that I should not bother Denise in the middle of the night unless my contractions were five minutes apart and 60 seconds long. But her presence earlier had filled the room with so much peace. “I wish Denise were here,” I told Tom at about 3 in the morning.
“Do you want me to call her?” he asked.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not in active labor yet,” I said.
“So,” he said, “let’s call her anyway.”
“I don’t want to bother her.”
“I’m sure she would want to be here if she knew you wanted her here, if her presence would help you.” He was right and after a little more insistence, I agreed to let him call her. As soon as he told her I wanted her there, Denise said she would be right over. I quickly realized it was not out of concern for herself, but out of respect for the mothers she served, a respect for the intimacy of birth, a trust in a mother’s and father’s ability to begin the journey in their unique way that caused Denise to stay in the periphery during the early phases of labor.
As soon as Denise came, things turned around for me. I managed to move to the couch. She sat next to me on a chair and gave me sips from a straw of the sweetest tea I’ve ever tasted. Since I hadn’t been eating well, I think she put many spoonfuls of honey to help restore my energy. During the contractions I squeezed her hand. It was soft and calm. I also looked into her eyes which had taken on a new twinkle, one I hadn’t seen during our prenatal visits, and I felt sure she had found her calling in life: birth seemed to transform her, to bring her into an angelic, very alive state of being. I honestly did not expect my midwife to play such an intimate, active role in my birth. I imagined Tom as the one who reassured me most or perhaps my mom. But, while they did support me in turns as well, they were also so excited and exhausted, so swept up in the event, that it was Denise who gave me strength in this critical moment of labor. In her eyes I saw all the mothers and all the births she had witnessed. She kept smiling and saying, “Good,” when I had a contraction, and that alone dispelled my fears.I started to feel like I was doing exactly what I needed to do. “Great.” She would say, with a bigger smile when the contraction was stronger. When I really writhed about she just repeated, “Opening, opening.” I started saying that too, and then I moaned more freely, and began to talk more to our baby, saying, “Come on, baby. Come on, baby.”
Denise tired and laid down on the mattress. Tom came to my side, handing me tea, smiling, holding my hand, and I watched the twinkle in his eye. My mom came with her huge smile and her twinkle too. I was moaning from a depth I had never uttered anything from before. Then, all of a sudden, a contraction moved my entire being: I grunted-moaned. Denise popped up and was at my side in an instant. “Did you bear down?” she asked. “Yes. I guess. I think so.” I said. I had wanted to wait until my “pushing” was spontaneous, and just by thinking about opening, about the contractions bringing my baby closer, it worked.
In no time, Tavniah, Denise’s apprentice at the time, was sitting on the couch, the first rays of dawn lighting up the window, and I was squatting on the corner of our mattress, my hand holding the crib next to us, moaning ancient moans, bearing down with each contraction. I went from squat to kneel back to the squat. Finally after an hour or so, my legs felt like jello, and I moved to the little inflatable pool that Tom had been diligently filling with pots of water heated on the stove. I had seen pictures of women sitting spa-style in their water-birth pools, leaning against the wall with their arms resting on the sides, so I tried that, but my body would not have it. The contractions were less intense, but the pain was worse. So I went back to the squat.
The sun was just rising over the horizon, and the dawn’s first rays, softened by the rising dew drops, were coming in through the kitchen window. For an instant, as I looked out, the world felt still. The warm water was helping to relax my sore leg muscles, but I found it relaxed me too much. At this point, and actually for all of my active labor, I was impatient for the contractions. I wanted them to come quicker, to be more intense, because now it was so clear to me that they were bringing my baby to us.
While I was in the pool, Denise kept adjusting a mirror on the floor to help me see my baby’s emerging head. He or she was almost crowning. Denise told me I could touch the head with my fingers which I did, but what I felt was so soft I couldn’t believe it was really my baby’s head. Just before our baby was about to crown, I left the pool and went back to the mattress, resuming the trusty squat position. By now, I felt myself willing the contractions to come in rapid succession. I didn’t let up from my moaning, which was now less a function to soothe me or help me cope and more an expression of my purpose: the moans themselves seemed to be pushing my baby out, or calling him forth. I really never knew I could make those sounds and I could not recreate them now if I tried. Soon, our baby had crowned. Tom’s eyes filled with tears. Then, I waited. One more. It came, I fell forward from my squat, kneeling now, leaning on Tom who had been in front of me, in position to catch our baby but now was supporting me. I bit his shoulder, bore down and our baby slipped out behind me into Denise’s wise hands.
“It’s a boy!” My mom shouted.
I don’t remember the order of what followed. Leo opened his mouth to cry, letting out a tiny little, “Maaa,” like the sound of a little lamb. He had the cord around his neck when he first crowned, and Tom told me, Denise quickly freed him of it, even before he was out. He had a little congestion, so Tom took him into the bathroom with the hot shower steaming the air and swung him to and fro to help clear his breathing passage. Denise did a few things more, holding up an oxygen tank to his little nose. At some point I delivered my placenta, rinsed off in the shower until I felt my ears buzzing and Denise helped me out and back onto the bed. Tavniah weighed and measured Leo, and checked his reflexes. My mom ran around smiling, taking pictures, and calling family to announce the good news. Tom held Leo so tenderly. And, in what felt like a few minutes, I was holding my little bundle, nursing him. He ate for awhile on the left, then for an eternity on the right, giving me blisters that took a few days to heal. Tom brought me juice and more juice and crackers and peanut butter, thrilled that I actually had my appetite back, that he could bring me things I actually wanted to eat. I finally ate and enjoyed the Moroccan chicken.
We stayed in bed, the three of us, all day, Leo sleeping on our chests, in our arms. But that day neither Tom nor I slept a bit. Even later, at night we could not sleep despite our exhaustion. We sat mesmerized, watching our little angel, who laid between us, in his little green dinosaur outfit, snorting as he breathed, a perfect creation, a blessing from above. For four weeks it did not rain. Summer came back to the valley in warm breezes.
