It was New Years Day eve. The moon was full. Earlier in the
evening we went for a drive; despite the heavy cloud cover, I found the moon:
low, large, and a deep orange. I thought to myself, "If any moon could make
a baby come, this is it." But alas, I felt nothing. That night, everyone went to bed, save myself. I decided to
spend another night knitting until my eyes were about to fall out. And knit I
did.
Right as I began to see the end of my project, I started feeling
very mild, yet consistent, rushes. So with that, I went to sleep, thinking that once more, this would be nothing. But at 6
am I woke with a slightly different feeling. Now I was having consistent surges
of pain in my hips. I lay in bed for a bit, changing positions, to see if they
would subside. They didn't. So, I decided to get up, have a drink, and walk
around. This proved to only make them more noticeable, so I decided it was time
to wake the boy and "get things ready".
We came downstairs and he began to fill the pool (with air). I sat on my yoga ball, while Brian rushed around getting
everything in its place. Eventually, he began to fill the pool with
water. Naturally, my now-awake daughter, Dorothy wanted in, but I had decided that would be best saved for
post emergence. As soon as there was warm water in the pool, I joined it. My
rushes were enough to require a substantial amount of concentration at this point. Brian rushed around, boiling water on the stove, heating it in
the electric tea kettle, draining the hot water heater, checking the water's
temperature with a candy thermometer, while I sat in the mini-ocean that would never
be deep enough, waiting. Sort of patiently.
At some point I gave up conversing. Not long after that I was
"singing" my way through each rush, and using every cell within me to
relax in between. The pressure, I had never experienced pressure like this. It was
so strong, so forceful on my hips, my back, my pelvic floor, like a truck was
trying to drive through me. Once the pool was full Brian came in to rub my back. I just really
needed some sort of pressure to fight off the pressure from within. And finally,
I felt a gush; my membranes. Ahhh, the pressure had by no means disappeared,
but it certainly changed its face enough to keep my interest. And not long after that I started to work in conjunction with my
uterus. At first meager pushes, mostly to give me somewhere to put all of this
energy that would surge through me. With each consecutive rush, stronger and
stronger, I'd focus more energy, until I was using it all. My body would hand me
a huge rush of energy and power, and just as soon, I'd return it, to move the tiny
baby along.
Then she was crowning. The "ring of fire," and I had
to wait, wait for another wave of energy, as she sat, preparing to emerge. Then
came her head. The worst was over. For the long minute or so while I waited to
move her body, I could feel her head, its hair. My other babies came out all at once,
so this was new to me. I waited, and more energy came, and she was out, just
before 8am, in Brian's arms. Almost instantly she cried. And cried. Loud and
proud. I held her close and invited Dorothy to join us. She was later dubbed "Veda-Lou Calidonia."
images from Stock Exchange
