Tatiana Efremova Gives Birth To Pasha, 10/07
Eugene, Oregon
On Tuesday my friend Oksana arrived by train. I invited her to be present for the birth because having her around stirs strange and beautiful things in me. She is a mystic, a woman of power, a healer and a friend. The days she was there she called to me to enter into a calmer, more tuned-in place and I hissed back that I would get there just as soon as I settled my bills and wrapped up things at work and had my home ready for a water birth and... and... In short, I was frantic with worry that something supremely important would be left undone. Instead of the gentle puttering of the nesting instinct, I spent the last days of my pregnancy in mental chaos.
On Wednesday morning I lost the mucus plug. Stirrings. And errands. Terribly important errands.
Thursday morning I went to work. I showed my boss a few things he would need to know before I left, and sighed with partial relief. We went out for tea and as we watched the elaborate preparation of a sampling of green teas, I began to feel the gentle movement of occasional cramping. As we parted I told him I probably wouldn't be in to work on Friday.
At home I turned up the water heater and then gazed at the birth tub at the middle of my apartment, hopelessly collapsed on itself. It was a puzzle to assemble that had left us stumped. I sighed and let it be, trusting the midwives would know what to do with it.
I hung a barrier of cloth across the apartment to create a bit of recluse for the birth tub in the small space. Long sheaths of brown and red velvety material, sheets of soft satiny reds, and lustrous golds created warmth. As the sun set it grew lovely and cozy in my space.
It was Thursday night, time to let the fretting end and celebrate. My friend Leisha arrived to join Oksana and I for dinner. We ate well. Kaboucha squash roasted with butter, mushrooms sauteed slowly with onions, and served with sour cream and a fresh salad. Fed, we walked to the market through the rain and slush of mushy leaves and bought ice cream. I was slowly creeping out of my dark wood of worry. Every now and again I felt my uterus rock. At home we heated mochi in the oven until the soft rice squares swelled up into sticky balls with hollow insides and crunchy outsides, and filled them with coconut milk ice cream. Delectable.
Much later the celebration grew warm bellied and sleepy. Leisha departed, Oksana turned in for the night, and I, too, curled into bed. I had come away from my fretting, back into the raw moment, back into my body. There was nothing left to do. I suddenly felt very, very tired.
As I relaxed and began to drift to sleep a wave pulled me back. I lay, wide eyed, and felt it grow in power. It passed and I drifted into a light doze, and again woke up with a wave of contracting muscle, and then some nausea. A few more waves and I shifted into a mode of action. I began preparing my bed and putting pots of water on the stove. In the kitchen I dropped a pan and Oksana came running. I felt a bit like I'd been caught. I laughed, and sheepishly admitted that I was in labor.
She seemed to move into automatic action, too, doing exactly what was helpful. I spent a confusing while trying to time the contractions and the spaces between them. My brain wasn't in its usual state and I found the process frustrating. I eventually established that it was time to call Anita, the midwife. She sounded drowsy and like she was used to these calls, like she thought it was probably quite early for her to come. But I had moved through waves in secret all day and it was really on now. I told her things were happening quickly, and the midwifery envoy came. I called Phyllis, the friend who taught the Hypnobabies course and offered to be at the birth as a hypno-doula. As I called her the nausea turned to vomiting. "Sometimes that happens," she told me, and was on her way, too.
Some commotion later there were people all around. Two midwives and their helper, Phyllis, Oksana. We called my mom, who was driving up and had stopped for the night an hour away. She got back on the road. A bit later we called Don, the little one's father. He rode his bike over, precariously balancing two gallons of water.
That hour or so of time after the falling of the pan felt somewhat frenzied. A flurry and a scramble of phone calls, people arriving, waves of vomiting. At one point I was sitting on the toilet wanting to poop and vomit at the same time. My midwife came in I was sweating, pants down, nearly throwing up, in the middle of a wave and I said, "It feels like there's something trying to come out of every possible hole!" She reassured me, and I sweated out that odd patch.
I lay on the bed with Phyllis speaking sweet hypno-nothings in my ear. I got into a sweet far away space, her words lulling me quietly. I don't remember any discomfort, just a distant sense of allowing and a great deal of intensity building in my body. Moving, pulling, stretching. I imagined my uterus pulling my cervix open with every wave. I could feel the strain of that. It felt right. An occasional bout of nausea brought a bowl to my side. Some rare request muttered from my lips brough some invisible friendly hands with water or the pillow or whatever it was that was wanted. It felt as though the whole world was in some grand agreement to support my every need. Rather than being self conscious, I was totally at peace with my body and what it told me, and asked easily for what was needed.
When the tub was ready, I got in eagerly. Sinking into that pit of warmth and levity was vastly gratifying. As I got into the water I looked at Oksana and asked her to get in, too. I asked her without thinking about it, automatically, though I'd never planned to. It simply felt right.
By then it was the dead of night. Once I got in the water the waves grew further apart but their intensity mounted. If I could have had another body that was my own to maneuver, Oksana would have been it. She seamlessly adjusted to just what I needed, mostly by intuition and also when I asked directly for a specific shift. I leaned on her, pulled on her, had her pulling or pushing on parts of me, giving resistance where I needed it, and being a warm body of comfort when I needed that. She was an incredible prop in that tub, and my body and hers were in easy rhythm with each other.
All the while Phyllis cooed hypnotic sweetness to me and I floated into that great embracing hypnobabies space. A delicious birth. An easy birth. Gentle opening, deep relaxation, waves of comfort. My eyes were closed, and the friendly words floated by. I had an amazingly tuned in body to dance the birth dance with in warm, comfortable water, the primal comfort of my mother nearby, the silent watchful presence of the midwives. All was well.
Mostly the midwives watched keenly and took note without unnecessary questions or investigation. Why meddle with something that was going so magnificently well? They checked the wee one's heart beat every now and again. I asked an occasional question. Towards the end they asked me to feel with my own fingers and tell them what was happening, rather than poking around themselves. They were magnificent.
As transformation shifted into push mode, Phyllis fell silent and I began making low growling sounds. It felt wonderful. The waves themselves were powerful, overwhelming, intense. I was pushing because I wanted to push. And when each wave passed, pleasure would overtake me. I felt so good between the waves, like in that post-orgasmic haze when you still feel after-tremors that curl your toes. "I can't believe how good this feels," I said. And then another wave, and more growling. On like that. With my fingers I began to feel a little head at the cervix. A sweet and hairy little head.
During one powerful wave I growled, and pushed, and as my fingers felt for the baby's head they tripped accross my clitoris and discovered it was alive and on fire. So I played with it as I pushed through that wave.
Just before the moment where the widest part of the head passes through the cervix, I remembered the stories I heard about the "ring of fire" and felt a pang of fear. Would I be able to take this imminent pain? Just then I felt an amazing surge of pleasure in my body, that oxytocin surge you get when you're giving birth without drugs. And the most right thing in the world was to give it another push and feel that head slide on through. No pain. Ecstacy. Holding that pointed little head in my hands was unspeakable joy. Another push and the rest of the body slid out. I pulled him out of the water up to my chest and melted into an ocean of love.
I sat in the tub for a while, holding him, cooing, delighting, staring. Amazed. It was several minutes before anyone thought to check if it was a him or a her. And it was in the tub that the name Pasha floated into my awareness. So gentle a name for so gentle a boy with so gentle an entrance. Pasha. It was early Friday morning.
The afterwards was wonderful. I was so glad, when that big surge of hormones wore off, that I only had a few feet to travel to find myself in my own bed. There I nursed my son without trouble and pushed out a beautiful placenta. The cramping of the uterus as he nursed was strong, and felt good as I relaxed into it. After a bit of tending from the midwives everyone left us alone. I felt protected in that warm bubble of peace, I felt immensely grateful and completely satisfied. I couldn't have dreamed the birth more deliciously.
We stayed cozy in that apartment for about a week before I ventured out for a walk on a sunny fall day bundled warmly with little Pasha naked against my bare skin underneath everything. The wild reds, greens, oranges, and yellows blazed above us in the trees and below us on the ground and the sun warmed us from above.
