Shaking off the dust

I stumbled upon my blog tonight while setting up my new laptop. I slowly starting paging through entries and realized how very long it had been since I was writing on a regular basis. And then I realized how very much I miss it. I don't write for others' to read, I write because I love to express myself and have a secret love affair with being able to create cadences and music with words.

I realized I had disappeared and have left so much unsaid! BK and I have been married for over a year, our youngest son is eighteen months old, we have purchased cars together, had a baby together, we are looking at homes and our dreams of property, I work for the local University of California, and as a whole - life has completely and drastically changed in every good way possible.

As I read through my last few entries I realized though what the purpose of my stumbling upon my previous musings was really all about. It's been over eighteen months and I have yet to write out a birth story, something that is usually done while the reality and pain and wonder of it all is still fresh within my soul and my body. Each of my babies and surrogacy deliveries has had a birth story written out in completeness, but I had never quite done it for sweet baby GM. So bare with me, while I walk through the cobwebs and give our sweet boy's story it's deserving moment.

The birth of our perfect phoenix baby -

I managed to convince myself of all the reasons why not to deliver for days and days after I was due. Fear had grabbed a hold of my soul and bodies in ways I had never experienced or allowed before. And, selfishness. I did not want to be done with pregnancy and babies, delivery and births just quite yet all the while knowing it really was time to pass those years onto other women. And so I went weeks and weeks with prodomal labor. Waking up to walk the house for hours, with sweet and faithful BK coming out and asking if I was okay, what I needed and if he needed to call in sick. I would open up the slider and listen to the quietness of the neighborhood, socked in with fog creating a soundproof envelope within which we lived and think to myself, "the midwives will never make it through this down the 99, it's too dangerous. Tonight is not the night". And I'd carry on for a few more hours until about 5 am when the contractions would finally let up, and I could grab an hour and a half of sleep before I had to get myself up to get all the littles to school.

Eventually I grew tired of this pattern, and we discussed natural induction methods, which made both my midwife and BK happy as she had a long drive and my last labor had been under three hours. For the next few days my body stopped with the prodomal labor and I thought more and more about how hard my body was working, how big the losses were between myself and BK that we each had experienced with previous pregnancies, and how I couldn't risk doing something to force baby out and possibly mask signs of something being wrong simply to get baby here in a convenient manner for all of us. At our next midwife appointment I let my midwife know, having already talked it through with BK and I reassured both of them and said, "If it comes down to it, we will drive 5 minutes down the street and deliver at the hospital if you cannot make it. That won't be the end of the world". And it was settled.

I remember very little of the end of this pregnancy. I know I was uncomfortable and in loads of pain from the SPD, this sweet boy had dropped early just like the last few but had simply snuggled in. Most likely determined to be the heavy weight champion of the bunch for who could extend their stay the longest. The weekend rolled around and my big three kids were overnight with their dad, I was antsy and restless all while being more exhausted than I had ever felt before and so I spent much of the day in bed. Watching The Blind Side. Contractions started up and everything felt different, I thought to myself that I needed to poop or get off the pot with this labor business already and sweet baby boy was simply just waiting for me to be okay with it. We set up for BK to drive the 3 hours to and from the meeting point to pick up my bigs, and he anxiously asked if i was sure I would be okay. I let him know there was no way in the world I was delivering this kid on the side of 99 but most likely it was yet another false alarm. He headed out, and I slowly began getting things ready. Just in case, as I had zero trust in my body at this point to actually go into labor despite being a week overdue.

BK and the kids got home about three hours later and we did our normal nighttime routine. I tucked them all into bed, not having the slightest clue that my tenure of being a biological mom to three was rapidly coming to a close and shortly after BK started talking about calling the midwives. I was too restless to rest, had been trying all day and contractions had interrupted them repeatedly. Being my sixth birth I was no dummy nor was a I hero under the illusion I could withstand a long labor without rest. So I had tried to nap all day, with zero success. By this point I'd already been in early labor most of the day, and my gut had a feeling so I told BK to call in and let them know he was going to start his paternity leave. We called the midwives as I wanted them to get on the road before the fog was impossible to navigate through. It was somewhere around 9 pm pm and I knew they'd take at least three hours with the fog to get here. And so, we slowly started getting things ready and taking out all of the birth items.

Back to the Future was on and we watched bits and pieces of it, while drinking tea and me trying to rest through contractions. I told BK to nap, but don't remember if he did or not. The midwives arrived around 11pm-12 am and busily got started setting up. I apologized (as I always do when in labor) for wasting their time and said regardless this baby needed to come since they were there. Tuesday asked if I'd like to be checked and I asked her to only tell me if this was a false alarm. She checked me and said they were camping out until baby made his debut, it could be that day or groundhog day and he got to choose. The next few hours was spent with contractions gaining in strength and pain. After the last two relatively easy and fast births I had prepared myself for a repeat. And all we had prepared for was a fast, oh crap BK you better catch birth. We really hadn't prepared ourselves for the opposite, little did we know we were in for one heck of a long labor.

This labor was hard, probably my hardest of all six. I think this is why it has taken over eighteen months to finally write it out. I'm a badass, forgive my lack of humility there but this is to express that I'm not a wimp. I've had four unmedicated births and half of them were not easy. All but one were with back labor. I know how it goes, I know what to expect and I knew how hard this baby business really is. But this birth was different. Despite my own miscarriages and previous belief in my trust and love for BK, there was so much emotional baggage that carried into the labor and delivery. I think I can only safely admit to this, knowing I'm never going to deliver again and that we are all safely years past that 29 hours of labor with GM.

We tried the ginormous soaking tub, ironically it caused me to flash back to the first time I ever walked into BK's bathroom and saw the Jacuzzi tub and how my first thought was, "WOW that would make an awesome delivery tub" because that's how my brain works and I was hoping to eventually do one more surrogacy. It forgave some of the pain, which was due to wicked back labor. But mostly it just annoyed me because I couldn't move much. I did a lot of rocking and walking, I remember my midwives son was up and down, poor guy because he was still nursing. I joked that he was going to be the most amazing husband one day because he was going to be really empathetic to laboring women. We listened to music while watching Back to the Future on mute. We danced, we swayed, I cried out in pain and then I grew tired and frustrated. BK and Tuesday reminded me that I was safe, I replied shortly that I knew that. What I couldn't say out loud was that I knew I was safe, but I had no way to ensure that GM was safe and suddenly the months of worry and concern that we would repeat the past were in my face. With no way around it. I fought every which way to get around it. Not the pain, I kept reminding myself that as soon as I could walk through the pain it would be done. But this time, the pain wasn't stopping me. I wasn't scared of it, I knew it wouldn't kill me. I wasn't afraid of it, I knew it would end. I was prepared and ready to barrel through the pain, soak it in and push through it.

But I wasn't prepared to confront my fears. My fears of if this man loved me enough to take me and the broken parts of my soul that would forever accompany my life. If i could ever heal from my own tragic loss of a previous late miscarriage that I'd never dared to open up about to many others. If I would be able to escape repeating the past and deliver a live, healthy, crying baby boy. And if I was worthy of any of it. Fear covered every moment of that labor and sucked into every labor pain as I breathed in deeply. It crept into my soul and lingered, pushing out self-doubt, pain and refusal. Refusal to let go and let God. And I found myself toe to toe with God again, refusing to trust in Him adamant that I could do this on my own, without His help.

None of this could I express to anyone in those moments. Instead I just kept saying I could not do it and the pain was worse than anything I'd ever experienced. We labored, I tried. We checked me, and I became devastated hours and hours later to find out I was only at a 5. My own typical labor patterns of the races taking off once true labor began and going from 4-10 in an hour suddenly was a myth of the past. I had only progressed one centimeter in over four hours. I was over the 24 hour mark and hadn't made much progress, let alone any confidence in delivering a healthy baby that night. And then I began to doubt myself.

We started tinctures, which brought on the worst of the worst contractions. Think pitocen and cervadil with a side of someone cutting into your back with hot dull pliers. And I began to question why I was doing any of this. BK suddenly became my biggest fan and cheerleader, holding on to me for life. Everything else around me swirled away, even my midwife who had previously been my only lifeline in all my labors, I didn't want. I held onto BK as if he were my life vest, as I was being knocked around in the waves of a storm far beyond my control. The midwives would provide counter pressure for my back as I told them to press harder, and BK would hold on to me as I swayed and cried and willed myself to walk through the ever loving pain, because I knew what was on the other side. I could NOT deliver a dead baby. I could not let BK down. I could not have taken him this far, only to let him down. I could not put that pain on the children in our family who had already survived that pain once before. And I could not survive the thought of losing another child, suddenly my loss from before reared it's head and I wondered what he would have been like, how would my life have been differently, would he be proud of me? I wondered what BK's son and my son were doing at that moment, were they both preparing to gather their brother with them?

In delivery and birth, there should be no room for death. But if you have ever lost a child, it is there. It is deep and heavy. For some reason, it didn't hit me with my other son's birth because I was so busy trying to overcome birth trauma that I had developed cognitive dissonance. With this birth, it was all about facing both BK's and my loss. It was hard and raw and painful. And I doubted myself and my decisions. I told them to stop. No more tinctures. No more making these contractions come on. As they checked me I could no longer even sit still through them. I told them I was going to try to take a shower, but I wanted to go to the hospital. I could not sustain this anymore and with each contraction I fell to my knees in what felt like life dying pain. I asked them to get things ready and all of them looked at me as if I was crazy, I don't think any of them believed me but I was done fighting the demons. And I went and got in the shower. By this point the contractions were so hard, and back to back and felt as if they were killing me. As each one would come I felt so much energy and strength and pain that I would tap it out on the tile of the shower. I had to get it out of me somehow, knowing I couldn't survive much more of this. I guess I spent about thirty minutes in there. Just letting the hot shower pound on my back, shutting out the noise and concern of everyone. At one point they opened the door and asked to monitor baby as they had been doing through out it. I said fine, and they reassured me his vitals were strong and consistent.

By that point, I don't know how much I cared or had the energy to acknowledge. I just wanted the shower door closed back, I wanted the pain to wash away with the shower water. I wanted to escape all of this pain. The physical pain, the spiritual pain, and most importantly the emotional pain and fear. I tapped it out through a few more contractions and quickly it began to feel as if i was going to knock down the walls of the house from pounding. I quickly got out and asked someone to shut it off, by this point I remember very little except BK asking me what he could do. I looked him square in the eyes and said, "Take me to the hospital now". My midwife came in and told me all the reasons we'd picked home birth. She reminded me of my previous births. And I told her to get me some clothes, through out these conversations I dropped to hands and knees as contractions came steadily every few minutes. Ripping my body from top to bottom, I barely could hold on for the ride. These compared nothing to any of my previous births and I instinctively knew something was deeply, irreversibly wrong. I told her we needed to go in and locked eyes with her, I still don't know if she could see this was deeper than the pain or if she simply is that amazing of a midwife and who advocates first for her patient's and listens with an instinctive gut, trusting in them to bring their babies into this world how they need to. Regardless, she got on the phone with the local L&D at the hospital and told them we were transferring over as soon as I could get dressed and arrive. I heard rustling in the background and BK set his feet into the ground as he asked what was going on. "You need to suck it up, we are almost there. We can't go to the hospital", he caught me completely off guard. Wasn't he paranoid and worried his son wouldn't make it? Wasn't he thinking about C and how he hadn't made it? Wait, contraction. I don't care WHAT he ...... and I'd drop down on fours with just a towel around me as I tried to make it what I knew was my and my son's death. After a minute or two, I managed to regain consciousness of what was going on around me. The midwives were flurrying about trying to find me something to wear and handed me a dress, despite it being the middle of February. I directed BK to grab my yoga pants off the dresser, my midwife to grab a pair of his boxer briefs from the dresser and the assistant midwife to put a monstrous pad in it just in case as my water still hadn't broke. I was blind sided by another life altering contractions and everything blacked out as I sat back onto the toilet and thought, "I'm not going to make this. But they have drugs at the hospital, if he dies at least I can be medicated and not have to feel the rest of this pain. Maybe they can even give me something in the ambulance. Wait, why is nobody calling 911?"

I emerged from each contraction more and more settled that I was going to the hospital. They could knock me out and c-section him if needed. I had always told Tuesday and BK that if it were a true emergency knock me out, don't get permission just save whomever you can. And that suddenly passed through my mind. I thought of the sleeping kids and asked who was going to stay with them. The apprentice midwives offered to stay back with my midwife's son, I told them the pack and play was set up or to feel free to lay in our bed with him if needed. I started to ask them to please tell my kids I loved them and would be back soon, never for a second doubting I'd live through it but all the while wondering how i would survive SO much pain, when another contraction stopped me in my tracks and I fell back onto the toilet. I pushed everyone out and shut the door, making so much noise I was sure I was dying. And then I looked down. Dark, thick blood. Everywhere. I wasn't just releasing bloody show, I was gushing blood. Later this would make sense for someone who goes from 5-10 in five minutes flat, but my panicked and fearful mind knew for sure I was losing our son.

I stood up through the most horrific of pains and willed myself to walk out into the bedroom and stood in the hallway of our bedroom, not 5 feet from the very place our son was conceived. I firmly said, we are going to the hospital now. I had managed somehow to get on the boxer briefs and my yoga pants and a tank top, I asked for flip flops and everyone realized I was serious. We were leaving and they all started to trickle out and gather items, BK looked as if we were pulling a joke on him and then the mother of all contractions knocked the breathe out of me and I fell on the ground to my hands and knees and I knew I had to get up if there was any hope of saving him. I couldn't express any of these fears or gut instinct thoughts. I simply had to just get us to the hospital. But I couldn't. Moments stood in time, and I was glued to the ground on all fours willing myself to survive this contraction and get up and in the car. Seconds turned into eons as I caught my breathe and felt the sweat roll down my face, I looked up and could see our J & B letters my mother in law had made with pictures of all our kids, including the one my BK had lost. And suddenly, the flame of life lit inside me and I bore down with all my might.

"GET MY PANTS ..." I yelled. I caught my breathe and continued, "OFF NOW". Suddenly, the sweet relief of pushing and knowing you were past all the pain and agony hit me. This is what I'd been waiting for, 24 hours ago. It was here. "Tuesday, BK needs to be down there if he's going to catch. You're hands are full with L. BK catch now." And then I tuned everything out and simply breathed our baby boy out. Somehow the apprentice midwives shimmied my pants and underwear down, they got caught up on my knees as I was on hands and knees and I felt BK's gentle hands between my legs as I pushed out GM in one push. I knew he was going to stop at his shoulders, in true form like my other babies. And Tuesday told me to get ready to push the rest of him out. I reached down with one hand and felt his sweet, wrinkly head with a bit of hair on it. He was warm. He wasn't gone, he was very much alive and wiggled just a bit as I made contact with him. BK's hands enveloped our son and I let go, putting my hands back down on the ground to do the hefty work of navigating his shoulders. Within half a minute he'd been born, but it felt like the longest moment of the entire process. I saw him as BK gently laid him on the blanket and chux they'd placed between my legs, I laughed thinking how closely he was born to the spot he was conceived. And then I thought, "THANK God that is over, I'm never doing that again." And then I asked them to please grab him so that I could roll over, I NEEDED to see him and hear him as he was so very quiet and checking out his world.

BK handed him to me with a look I to this day don't know how to identify. He was present. He was there. He was hopeful. He was my everything. And we walked over to the bed, somehow I wrapped him up into me and I smelled him and breathed in the essence of this common denominator that was part of so many children who existed and the few who had not. And the kids started trickling in. As he had come out and BK had caught him I'd told the midwives to wake the children. Their sleepy heads came in and they were enthralled and in love with him the moment they met him. They hadn't heard a single thing, they'd slept through the entire labor.

Later we weighed him. 8 lbs 2 ounces, just like his two older sisters (my 2 oldest girls) and 19" inches. He was perfect in every way. He had a tongue tie, but we were prepared for that after my 3 had lip ties. He was quiet and smelled heavenly. After about four hours he started to have some fast respiration's and my midwife was not comfortable without monitoring. BK had taken the three older kids to school and we prepared to transfer to the hospital. He got home and off we went. The next three days were a complete whirlwind and we learned a lot. Babies who skip transition all together make mama's bleed, a lot. They also tend to keep all those fluids in their lungs that long transitions are meant to squeeze out, causing a bit of respiratory distress. And every single ER, NICU and pediatric nurse who cared for us told us that he would have ended up in NICU regardless with that type of a birth, if not worse because I'd have been medicated if I had it my way. It was so refreshing to be at a hospital that was so home birth friendly, in fact our ER nurse had delivered her two babies at home and all the L&D nurses were friends with her and familiar with home birth and believed it to be a viable option for healthy pregnancies.

Time has eased the pain of the memories, at least physically. Emotionally, I've had eighteen months to work through the rest. I'm not there 100%. C and my boy that I lost were there through it all, they were guiding GM through that delivery. That I am sure. I was so fearful I thought we were going to lose him, too. Instead, he stayed. He joined us and became what we lovingly joke is our common denominator. I have zero desire to deliver ever again, that's for sure. GM has rockstar status and will be the last of his people. And there you have it folks, the birth of a Phoenix. While he is each of our own rainbow baby in a sort of way, together he is more so our Phoenix baby - born from the ashes and igniting the fire teaching each of us to fly. He is an amazing gift, solace, balm, and joy that neither of us ever knew we wanted and we are so exceptionally grateful for his existence.