THE MOON

I hung upside down for what felt like decades waiting for her.  I felt her in the distance, knowing she would come.  She entered my consciousness unexpectedly, fierce…just like she is.  I became obsessed, just like I always get.  A girl.  I needed her.

We got pregnant accidentally but also on purpose, the way we do most things…in contradiction to one other.  We love each other that way too.  It was as if we tripped and fell and broke our faces on the asphalt of fate.  We’d spent close to eight years building the family we had…with time and effort and humility, but also somehow, inadvertently.  The structure of it all erupted from somewhere beneath our consciousness, and finally began to feel more stable and secure as the years rolled on.  The foundation was a mosaic of cracked and broken pieces, and every so often all that we were trying to hold together would snap.  That’s how E was born.

We may as well have been on opposite sides of the earth when I realized I was pregnant.  Nothing was working quite right as we shifted into a new life in our home state of California.  Now a couple of pink lines on a plastic stick were glaring at me, daring me to jump.  I was never not going to have her, same as the boy, but I didn’t know how to move forward.  Accidentally, but somehow still on purpose, as usual.  We panicked and held our breath for a while as the days passed and my belly grew.

I worked behind the bar most nights, taking off my mother’s mask and leaving the boys to themselves in the evenings.  It was an escape that reminded me that I was still alive and not alone…just a person existing in the world without the extra weight of home and mama.  I recalled a couple of midwives with kind faces sitting across the bar, drinking happy hour wine after long and grueling births from time to time.  She’d given me her card in case I’d ever wanted extra doula work.  I’d tucked it away just in case.  I called the midwife before anyone else. It had never occurred to me to go to the doctor.  I had to have our baby at home, in our home, in this home.  There was no other way for me unless there had to be.  Taya.  She passed through my front door and she didn’t mind my rambunctious dogs or curious kid, and she let me pour out my fears and anxieties across the kitchen table.  She offered support in every direction and I felt so lucky I could cry.  I did cry.  And I felt less alone.  My husband and I were navigating new territory.  We carried a lot of fear with our laborious love and tricky story.  Taya became our midwife and she never rushed me; she just let me tell my story.  She let me vent and cry and speak in astrology and she always listened.  She even entertained my fear that I was having a hysterical pregnancy when we didn’t hear the heartbeat on the Doppler right away.  I knew I was pregnant.  She knew I was too.  The boys were sure of it.  Even the dogs knew.  Still, a fear I’d never experienced settled in.  What if I lost her?  What if none of this was real and everything would stay just as it was, or even worse, what if I just disappeared into nothing?  I’m a person who requires transformation.  I crave birth.  My work in this life exists at the threshold.  I often push it too far.  Those who love me know that this is my greatest strength and weakness all at once.  I had to have her and if I didn’t who would I be?  So…I panicked that I wasn’t actually pregnant for a while.  Taya listened and loved me through it and reassured me as many times I asked.  This is what midwifery is.  Mothering the mother.  A different model of care that existed in my living room.  Holding hands as we cross the line in the sand from maiden to mother and from mother to mother again.

We heard the heartbeat at just the right time, my belly grew, and when we passed the mark we told our family.  There was trauma there, triggers if you will, and we didn’t know what any of this would bring so we worried that they would worry too.  So much worry.  Are we worthy of all of this love?  It was the same question as before.  The news grew like my belly, and I decided for us both we wouldn’t find out the gender of baby.  What’s the point anyway?  I craved a girl like sugar, but if I was meant to be the queen of my castle, I understood that as well.  While you’re waiting, it doesn’t really matter anyway.  The months roll on and a baby is a baby regardless of what’s between their legs and they are who they are just the same.  We would know for the rest of our lives.  The gender reveal was that moment, that indescribable moment of arrival.

The end was near and summer was blasting hot air in my face and I couldn’t take it any longer.  I was due the beginning of August and even though my brain knew there were a couple weeks on either side of that date, when the arbitrary day came and went, I was thwarted.  My intuition had failed me.  Like many mothers, I thought they’d come early, but this only shows how difficult it is to see straight when something is so damn close…literally inside of you.  Our boy was stale from summertime, school had been out for months and time was running out.  The concept of weeks and months for a six-almost-seven-year-old is wonky and abstract.  The days stretched on, like the skin on my belly.  I waddled around exasperated, emotional and impatient. I was snappy and overwhelmed.    They tip toed around me as I flopped over exhausted, running out of ways to entertain the boy, consumed by when baby would come. 

The ninth morning after the estimated day, my husband stayed home from work.  Half asleep, I heard him say, “I’m not going in today.  You just rest.”  His intuition rivals mine constantly, we are sensitive flowing creatures, inexplicably connected.  Sometimes we purposefully wedge something between us to unravel all the ways in which we are tied together.   He just knew to stay home.  We’d spent all this time imagining a frantic phone call…but on this day he tended to all of our beings while I slept.  I rested until late morning, and as I hazily braced myself off the edge of my bed, I felt a slight pop from within.  Was that it?  It couldn’t be.  Will I be pregnant forever?  Breathy and teetering around my room, I still wasn’t sure.  My water had trickled out with our first, labor not officially starting for another twenty-four hours.  My legs dribble with fluid, I figured I might as well get the bed ready, layers of fresh sheets under plastic, clean throwaway bedding on top.  I called a friend for distraction as waves of pressure began to flow through me.  I listened to a story of a recent trip with her lover; laughter and analysis and feminine familiarity soothed me in my house full of boys.  I moved through the motions of tucking and folding methodically, murmuring a response into the receiver here and there, not really sure.  As her story came to an end, a bit out of breath I stated plainly…”Well, I think I’m in labor.”  She laughed, ecstatic, “Only YOU would just casually mention that you’re in labor as I’m rambling on!”  As soon as I had spoken the words the rushes came on stronger, more water seeping out, tinged with blood.  We hung up, sending love and a final goodbye to this version my self.  Sisters who would see each other on the other side. 

I hadn’t eaten.  My sweet, sweet husband was always tending to the fact that I forget to eat.  Avocado toast and a smoothie that my son offered to me in duty and purity, already reborn as big brother, his little hand rubbing my head as I moaned.  I could feel the uncertainty and excitement in his fingers.  Steel straws and chuck pads.  Coconut water abound.  A birthing tub lay deflated knowing it would never be blown.  Our boy dancing about, ecstatic with joy.  Thumbs up and a nervous smile.  A sibling was coming.  A new family member straddling two worlds.  Towels and the midwife.  When we finally called, she chuckled at the inopportune moment; her bag of supplies was back at home despite being downtown, minutes away from our house.  “I’ll be there in a moment to see you and then I’ll run home…?” she’d said.  Upon her arrival…“No.  The baby was coming. I’ll call for the bag.” 

By the time both midwives arrived and set up for care, I was in the throws of labor.  There is no way to describe it.  I birth my babies quickly, intensely and the rushes are relentless.  Contractions build on top of the other, with mere seconds in between.  I barrel through birth with the strength and intensity that I move through life.  I am focused, determined and a warrior woman, I suppose.  I still cannot believe the latter fully, yet each time my strength and grace has been proven.  I’d been here before, and this time I did not hold back.  I was unafraid.  I trusted those who surrounded me but I did not need them the second time…my husband, our son, the dogs who would not leave my side, and our midwives, our guardians of safety.  I had them, but I did not need them. 

I’d requested water, but there was no time for the birthing tub.  Still, I needed a bath.  I laid on my side, lukewarm water splashing my face as all of them squeezed into our bathroom to watch over me.  The contractions came and then expansion.  Our biggest, oldest dog refused to leave me, no matter where I went.  On the bed, his snout tucked under my palms, a cold wet nose offering comfort. Soft familiar fur in my grasp. He tucked his back along the side of the tub, his wolf face perched upon his paws…my protector.  It was time to push; I had gone from a few centimeters to ten in about an hour and a half.  It was time to get out and put in the work.  I made my way back to the bed with support, crawling on four legs, howling and ready.  I did not whimper or coo with reserve.  I gargled and I screamed and I growled.  I screeched and I grunted, thinking of all time I’d spent telling our son my cries would be necessary. I had watched him wonder, wide-eyed with worry. Who would his mother become during birth? “A part of the process,” we’d said.  His golden tendrils of hair surrounded me, jumping and leaping with joy.  His blue-green-brown eyes wide, staring at mama.  Sometimes unsure, but present and unwavering.  I pushed and I pushed, determined and ready to be done.  Her head finally gushed out of me and there was a moment of pause, lingering for us all to see.  I needed just a moment to breathe as her face exploded out of my body, wrinkled, wet and grey.

I heard my baby boy bouncing about as he yelped, “I’ve never felt this way before!” I whimpered that I loved him as they all laughed together with a deep knowing.  Yes, birth is like nothing else.  The waves came and went and I began pushing again and her body slithered out of me.  I reached between my legs, knowing it was her, scooping baby up as I plopped down on my bed in sweet relief.  “Well?!?” my husband asked, astonished that I hadn’t already sought out the answer.  I laughed, looking and said, “A girl.”  I stared in disbelief, “Look at her!  Jagger…it’s our baby.”  And just then, on an August afternoon…a new life, a new form… a brand new doorway opened and our family was reborn.