BABYCATCHER
in May issue of Rosie
pg. 92
(Back to Latest News)

Everything hurts," moaned Mary Anne. "I can't stand it! My legs are swollen, I have indigestion, I've gained 60 pounds."

Eight months pregnant myself, I nodded sympathetically. I'd heard those  words hundreds of times from my patients; they were the laments of pregnant  women everywhere.  But I took a secret pride in the knowledge that my pregnancies weren't like that. I'm one of those women--obnoxious, some would say--who love being pregnant and waken every morning feeling like the Queen of England in a new hat. I would happily spend the rest of my life about seven months along. I'd wondered if my being 42 would make this pregnancy harder, but I couldn't see much difference from my other two.  

Then, two weeks before my due date, I felt as though I'd gained 30 pounds overnight. As I dragged myself out the door for a full afternoon of  office hours, the box of patients' charts felt like a wet sandbag as I  hoisted it into the car. At the office, I tried to make each woman feel as special as she deserved to feel, but I waged an uphill battle.  

Finally the last client left. My list of complaints now stretched miles behind me, unwinding like a tattered typewriter ribbon as I drove home.
 
The house smelled good, chicken something, and I flopped into an armchair in the  darkest corner of the living room. I cleared my throat, and my husband, Rog, poked his head out the kitchen door with a wooden spoon in his hand.  "Hi, honey, I didn't hear you come in."
 
"I don't want any dinner," I said, although he hadn't actually offered.
 
He blinked and pressed his lips together.
 
"I just want to be quiet," I warned, although no one said a word.
 
Rog and the kids ate, a hushed voice now and then interrupting the scrape of fork on plate. Half an hour later, my husband tried again. "Do you..."
 
"I want to be left alone." I sat there glaring.
 
"Uh-huh, we've been here before," he muttered. "We're gonna have a little baby soon."
 
My kids, Colin and Jill, tiptoed past. They'd been warned. Suddenly I knew what other pregnant women felt like. I'd just forgotten that it happens to me only at the very end. 
 
That night in bed, Rog laid his hand on my hip and whispered, "You'll have the baby tomorrow."  I snorted and tried to get comfortable in my nest of pillows. (drop) What was that? Did the phone ring? Was someone in labor? I looked at the clock: 5 a.m. As I rolled on my back and tried to think clearly, a sharp tweak of pain zipped through my pelvis, and a trickle of warm liquid dribbled from my body.
 
My eyes flew open. Okay! Bag of water breaking! I was the one in labor.
 
I stored my home birth equipment six feet from the front door, always 
ready. In the tackle box was a roll of Nitrazine paper, which would tell me 
if that pea-sized drop of something had really been amniotic fluid.  I squatted to get the Nitrazine and immediately knew I didn't need it. Wave after wave of fluid gushed from my body, smacking noisily against the hardwood floor. Then I heard the children coming from their bedrooms.  "Help me," I hollered. "Bring towels."
 
"Oh, wow! Dad, quick! It’s Mom. You've gotta check this out."
 
At 11 and 13, Jill and Colin considered themselves quite grown up, but they tumbled down the stairs and then collapsed in laughter as they watched me straddle the spreading pool. Rog mopped the floor with towels and rigged me a sumo wrestler's loincloth from a sanitary belt and bath towel.
 
"Okay, let's go back to bed," I said.
 
Jill looked at me in disbelief and said, "No way."
 
Rog, knowing how little sleep he'd get in the weeks ahead, turned without a 
word and headed upstairs.  Sighing, the children followed. "Just promise we won't miss it, okay?"  I assured them I hadn't had one single pain yet, but as I reached my bedroom door, I felt the first contraction. I lay on my side as the contractions rolled in like small swells on a sunny day at the beach. The tidal waves of amniotic fluid had swept away my depression, my impatience, my aches and pains. I breathed easily as I drummed my fingertips against my belly and signaled to my third child: today, little baby, today is your birthday: Feb. 20, 1985.
 
A few hours later, the house began filling with guests: my parents, several midwife and nurse friends, my first assistant Sandi and her two kids, a photographer, and Aggie, our Swedish au pair. All morning I stayed on my feet, busy doing laundry and preparing food for the post-birth party. By noon, I looked at the stairs and thought, I'll have to crawl up if I wait much longer, so I poured a fourth glass of iced tea and headed for my bedroom. The women followed in a little parade.  The three males - Rog, Colin and my father - hovered in Colin's bedroom, trying to figure out how to program our new answering machine. It was a guy kind of thing, planned mostly to keep Colin occupied. With contractions closer and harder, I timed my bathroom trips to avoid being caught neither here nor there. But once, just as Colin came into the hall, I realized I wouldn't make it back to the bedroom. I grabbed my belly and turned toward my young son.
 
"Oh, no, Mom, not me," he groaned.
 
"Hold still," I said into his ear, clutching his knobby shoulders while I nailed him to the wall. As the contraction pushed ahead like the wind preceding an avalanche, I spread my feet and let the pain rock me. Seconds later, the full force of it hit. I pushed my forehead into the top of 
his head and said, "Just stand still. Let me lean on you." Breathing between clenched teeth, I heard myself making a "sssss-huh-ssssss-huh" refrain as I swayed side to side.
 
Then I felt him relax. His hands touched my hipbones, and he held me the way he'd seen me hold Sandi six years earlier, the way I'd supported countless women over the decades. Locked together, we rocked like two trees in a wind. As the contraction eased, I opened my eyes. My son lifted his face with a quick, shy smile and kissed the tip of my chin.
 
"Thanks, honey," I whispered.
 
"Mmmm-hmm. Your breath stinks," he said. He hiked up his jeans and ducked 
into his bedroom. I brushed my teeth and headed back to my sunny room. Back to more iced tea, cold washcloths, acupressure points and the fragrance of plum blossoms floating 
through the open windows.
 
Rog divided his time between Colin and my dad, keeping them occupied as my 
labor dragged on. Now and then he came into the bedroom with a fresh pitcher of tea, and I grabbed him, hanging from his belt loops as I hula-danced through another contraction. It felt good to cling to his masculine body, to feel his strong arms and rough whiskers. I could lean all of my weight into him.
 
But mostly I wanted the women. The women with heartbeats that pulsed on my wavelength, their touches that felt just right, the pitch and timbre of their voices that hummed an ageless birth song along with mine. The knowledge of our shared profession, the intuitive gift of women who care for women, of knowing how to be "mit wife" With woman.
 
My daughter already knew. A year earlier, while Rog and Colin went camping for 10 days, I'd taken Jill to eight births. By the end of that time, she'd learned how to massage, touch, and verbally support women in labor. Now she stayed at my bedside, her eyes fixed on me. One contraction brought me to my knees beside the bed, and I flung my hands out. I felt small hands in mine and heard my daughter's voice through a fog of pain.  "That's it, Mom. You can do it. Great, keep it up." When I opened my eyes, she smiled shyly.
 
Like most laboring women, I had shed one item of clothing with each centimeter of dilation. By 1 p.m., I stood nude at my bedside, surrounded by women. Mijo rubbed my calves. Claire stroked my hair. Carole smiled with confidence. Maggie kissed my back. Bonnie held Jill in her arms. Jamie took pictures. My mother pressed her lips together, silently suffering.
 
Sandi knelt on the floor to examine me. Nine centimeters. Soon, soon.
 
Ten minutes later I felt a curling-over at the top as my uterus began to bear down like a giant toothpaste tube emptying. I began pushing. Standing at the bedside, I gulped half a glass of iced tea after each contraction.
 
Without preamble, my left hip cramped, and within a few minutes it felt as if a railroad stake were being driven into the joint. I threw myself onto the bed, scrambled into a curled position, and screamed into a push. It felt wrong, all wrong.
 
My unquenchable thirst for iced tea was nearly as unbelievable as the hip pain. "Tea, quick! More tea," became my refrain, and Aggie ran downstairs to brew another gallon.
 
I struggled to find a path around the pain--if not around it, then under it or over it. Nothing helped, and I fought the forces of my body.
 
My son appeared and stroked my cheek, whispering, "Come on, Mom. You can get him out." As each contraction ended, he held the glass of tea to my mouth. I drank 24 cups during the last hour of my labor, and still I begged for more.
 
But the baby didn't come.  I sensed a stillness, a heightening of tension, lowered voices. I snatched brief glimpses of the knowledgeable, loving women surrounding me, and I saw their concern. Rog rubbed his chin. Claire and Maggie frowned. My dad rocked in the corner. In all, eighteen people stared at me, hoping I'd get my act together before the baby became distressed.
 
Damn, his head must be right there, I thought. I just needed to push it maybe another two inches to get the biggest part out. But it hurt so much I feared I'd break something.  The next contraction came grinding down, and a white-hot hole of knowledge opened. I saw that in my effort to avoid the pain, I'd been avoiding that central point of intensity, staying on the brink of the primitive surrender that's required to get a stubborn baby out.
 
I'd talked hundreds of women into taking that leap of faith, that shut-your-eyes-and-jump moment of bravery. With sudden clarity, I knew it would have to hurt more before it got better. I wouldn't be able to circumvent the pain. I had to go through it.
 
With a roar that must have sounded like Godzilla shoving over a skyscraper, I pushed into the center of my pain. Then Sandi leaned forward and peered between my legs. "I think..."
 
"Yeah!" Colin said. "That's gotta be the head." With the next contraction, the whole room erupted in a communal yell.
 
"Yeah! All right, now we're rolling!"
 
"Move in close, Rog, so you can catch him. It's coming fast now."
 
As Rog knelt between my legs with Sandi's hands on top of his, I felt that impossible moment when what is already stretched to the max stretches more. And then just a little bit more.
 
In a red blur, I watched through two more contractions as the head oozed into Rog's cupped hands. Colin's cheek pressed against mine. Jill stood behind Rog with her hands on his shoulders and a rapt look on his face. My mom stood to one side, her face crumpled in tears as my dad put his arm around her. And all the rest of them, all around me.
 
As the baby's arms slipped free, I reached down and pulled him out myself, lifting him above my head as the room filled with cheers. Jill clamped the cord. Colin cut it, saying, "Okay, little bro, you're on your own." And my mother dressed him.
 
I cuddled him to my chest and stared into his face. Like mothers the world over, I sniffed him and peeked into all his crevices. So beautiful, so perfect in every way.
 
Dewy champagne bottles and tall-stemmed glasses appeared, and everyone drank a toast. Soon it was time to weigh him. Sandi swung him aloft in the flannel pouch that had held more than 500 other babies: 7 pounds,12 ounces.
 
He lay drinking in his new world of color and sound, my boy, my son, my spirit baby.
 
Suddenly I felt a wave of tea hit my bladder, and as my mother murmured, "It's about 
time!" I dashed to the bathroom and peed like a stallion. I did it twice more in the next half hour. Then I speed-showered, picked up my sleeping baby, and headed downstairs to the party.
 
"The stairs," my father stammered. "You shouldn't be out of bed."
 
"Oh, Bill," said my mother, "things have changed." She patted his hand.
 
Jill brought me cake and a fork. "Do you want something to drink, Mom?"
 
"Just some iced tea."
 
Conversation stopped. "Did she say 'tea'"? whispered Mijo.
 
Aggie rolled her eyes and turned toward the kitchen to put the kettle on.

(Back to Top)