Amelia Likolehua Louise's Birth

10-24-2015 Saturday

Baby Name As of Yet Unknown has arrived! She  is dozing on the boppy on my lap, Maile is watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for about the 8th time this week, Rosie and Matt are grocery shopping after Rosie’s double header soccer games-- last of the season. Oh-- I just heard the chain clinking on the gate- they’ve made it home.

I want to write down Baby’s birth story while it’s still fresh and visceral and hasn’t reduced itself to an outline…

So she was due October 12. Liz was here, with kids and husband in tow, staying down at my dad’s timeshare in Kapaa with a beautiful condo, a big TV, and a open-late pool that we swam at every day. Liz, with her experience as a doula and auntie status, was here to help with the birth, and especially to watch out for the girls, make sure they were in the right place, make sure they weren’t freaked out… so we waited and waited, spent nice time at their pool, sent their family off on little touristy adventures while we had spring break (clean all the things!!! Declutter and disinfect and discard!) and then when the girls went back to school, riding the bus back and forth and I stayed home and tried to think birth-giving thoughts. Every evening contractions would pick up a little, especially if I was walking around, and I would think, FINALLY HERE WE GO! And get all settled in, tidy the Birth Stuff Box, and then settle down for a sleep before things got really started. And then wake up the next morning with no labor, no action, nothing. It got discouraging. I wondered if I was mentally blocking myself-- I was REALLY REALLY anxious about giving birth (nobody die, nobody die, OMG what are my girls going to do without me, how would I ever survive if the worst happened...) But on the other hand, you can’t THINK your way out of a pregnancy. It HAS to come to an end. No amount of self-blame can dissolve the situation! So that’s what I was hanging on to….This has GOT to happen.

Around a week late, baby really started dropping, and I really was waddling around as I walked and walked and walked. A stranger at the soccer park said I looked like overripe fruit. Thank you stranger.

Liz and Andrew and cute boyos left on the 19th and-- still nothing. I tried everything: I tried red raspberry leaf tea, I tried evening primrose oil, I tried pineapple and spicy food -- one night it really seemed like something was happening and I turned off the “wake up, take the girls to school” alerts on my phone, but…. nope. Morning came and we stayed home, walked around to the new goats at the far end of the station, and the last remaining contractions dwindled to nothing. I told Keala at school that I was keeping the girls hostage at home until baby showed up.

I met with my midwife Sharon and we talked about my anxieties a bit-- she heard me out, just that don’t enjoy the pushing and I was kind of dreading the intensity and pain of labor. She checked me out-- I was already 4 cm dilated. It was encouraging to know that all of the false starts were doing something-- almost half-way dilated and no actual labor!

Day 10 overdue arrived -- Thursday night-- and I made an appointment with an acupuncturist. I was sufficiently spooked. I was having occasional nice contractions-- I had to actually whistle and blow through them-- so I had Matt drive me down the hill for my evening appointment. To my surprise, the acupuncture was more than I could handle. It was excruciating-- like getting hooked up to electric fencing. She said that was a good sign, it meant I was ready to give birth. While I sat in the recliners with skinny needles in my hands and legs, I had some brutally intense contractions. I was supposed to stay for an hour and a half, but I texted Matt and said, Ack I can’t handle it come and get me!! He did. I made a panicked break for it.

It’s funny-- things that haven’t bothered or scared me in the past-- the gyn exam, the acupuncture needles, my flu and Dtap shots, labor-- have been completely emotionally overwhelming for me. Hormones, man. Hell of a drug.

That night, after we got back, I blew and whistled like a bomb dropping through increasingly serious contractions. I fell asleep on the couch watching Qi and Whose Line is it Anyway clips on Youtube. At some point Matt went to bed and turned out the lights. At about 1:30 I woke up with actual contractions. Matt came out and paced around with me-- I called the midwife Kelly right away-- she’s the young intern who they’re letting be lead on everything-- sit the long hours of early labor, do the after care visits-- and she came up right away.

And by the time she was there, things were already a little weird, and my recollection is already in an altered state, through a weird shattered timeless lens. Later talking it over with Sharon, she pointed out that labor time isn’t linear-- it’s a different dimension like a maze- that’s very true or me. Events seem weirdly stacked in time-- 3-D rather than a timeline-- I was joking and shivering and listening to music all at once.

It was dark-- just the kitchen light on-- the fans going, the girls sleeping in my room. Matt put on Metamora then Sileas then Nightnoise-- each album seemed very short. He read our list of names out loud. I started shivering and shaking right away. I still was dreading actually delivering, so I was battling myself. I knew if I stood up and walked, changed position, relaxed, I could bring on strong contractions and I could get this over with. So I did a bit-- got on my knees on the floor-- Matt put out the waterproof mattress cover and pillows on the livingroom floor so I could kneel comfortably and lean forward onto the couch.

Then I would wimp out, back away from it, lock my knees, and curl up on my left side and on the couch and just wish for the whole thing to be done, and shiver violently under piles of blankets.

Matt was absolutely my anchor-- if he was right there with me he could bring me into calm and focus. If he was out of reach, I got all out of control and screamy. I leaned on him and needed him right there. At some point I looked up and Colleen-- the other midwife-- and Nicollette-- the secretary/birth photographer--were there! I walked around a bit and experienced weirdly lucid moments where I joked and chatted and laughed and thought, weird, I’m fine. Is this done? And then-- wham. Completely out of my brain again.

I was feeling for the first time the slightest little desire to bear down-- I’ve never felt that before. I decided to go and hide on the couch. During some mega contractions I gave experimental little pushes. Kelly got ready to check my progress but I couldn’t face it-- I knew if she did, it would be too intense for me to handle. So they left me alone. Colleen, from somewhere in the dim room, said I could stop blowing and moaning upwards through the contractions and could start bearing down with a grunt and low growls. It was very easy to obey her voice-- It gave me something to do, to focus on.  I gave it a try and -- oh #$%^.

As soon as I started pushing, I knew I was really in it. I was still mostly on my side on the couch, with my knees weirdly locked, hips angled awkwardly to the left. Kelly was at my feet, Matt got the girls up and they came out-- I gave a mighty push and my water broke with a deeply disturbing POP sound and unnerving sensation. I could feel the head! Maile started to cry and left, I gave one more huge push with Kelly saying slowly slowly slowly keep going! and the head was out already! I felt it down there, little bumpy mushed features, and gave another mighty push and out came the shoulders and there she was! I was still lost a bit but I heard Kelly say It’s a girl! She put her on my stomach -- all purple and slimy and bloody and flailing-- in blankets and she snorked and coughed and spluttered-- Matt cut the cord and then Kelly tilted her forward on me and rubbed her back vigorously till her breathing was better-- I babbled and babbled--later I asked what the first thing I said was-- Colleen said it was, “oh you’re so beautiful!” Baby immediately tried to vigorously suck on her arm, and then latched on to me and snuffled and snuggled…and it was 4:58am, Friday 10/23/2015.

The rest of the morning blurred quietly into dawn. Eventually they weighed the baby-- 8 lbs 9 oz and 19” long, they gave baby her vitamin K shot. That fractured time sensation faded a little… Matt made breakfast for everybody-- beans and eggs and toast and coffee, Colleen started a load of laundry, Colleen and Nicollette left, Kelly stayed for a while to make sure everything was normal and talked me through a pile of paperwork with instructions that I retained zero of, and then there we were! Just us. All at home safe and cozy and well! The girls watched shows, Matt went and milked the goats, I carefully stood up in my realigned skeleton and felt hips and coccyx and sternum crack into their unfamiliar original spots and tied a sarong tight around my wonderfully empty but very sore belly to keep from giving in to the weird feeling of my guts actually falling out… Oddly, my ribs hurt worse than everything else-- I could feel them bending back into place. Very unnerving.

It was wonderful to just… be at home. To come slowly back into time and  space. I took naps. I drank cider and martinellis. We went to bed early and baby woke up and nursed every two hours and pooped spectacular meconium poops and was unbelievably small and soft-- impossibly soft skin and hair, wrinkly little hands and feet, tiny red bum…

And today-- Rosie played her double-header soccer game in the wilting heat, Maile and baby and I napped and watched shows and I creaked around and baby’s name continued to elude us...what a glorious blessing to have arrived safely at this day!

October 30, 2015 Friday

Now it’s a week later--I can’t adequately hook my gratitude-- it’s too big. It runneth over the confines of the ceiling, of our bodies. Her perfect little fingers-- my thumb fills her whole palm-- and toes the size of lentils. Her intense focus and sweet snuffling snorting and growling, her enthusiastic nursing and sudden quiet focus, her random panting breaths, the rise and fall of her tiny ribcage-- she hardly cries, she just snuffles and wriggles and yawns and growls and roars and mutters and cooes and drifts suddenly to sleep, blinking unfocused, arching her back... She inches and squirms around, flips herself over to find boob, grins dopily as she drifts off, dribbles milk, poops mightily.

Her piko stump came off already-- her piko is still a bit oozy and crusty-- the other morning when it came off I squawked, “There’s a hole in my baby!!” Maile thought this was hilarious, and cackling showed me her piko-- “Ack there’s a hole in my kid!”

The girls are so soft with the baby-- they coo at her. She’s so soft! she’s so cute!l Look at her fuzz!  They take showers right after school so they can snuggle her without me freaking out about nasty school germs and the cartoonish clouds of dust they seem to bring home from school every day...  

And her name has settled! Amelia Likolehua Louise! I think of her mostly as Baby… and then Baby Liko… ooooh I could eat her up, those little vestigial legs...

A week from birth and we’ve settled into our life so pleasantly. This has been the easiest recovery yet. Goodness, I don’t have words to express my gratitude. I should chant it or sing it or draw it… Praise for the miracle of each simple shimmering new day!