So your story, for the sake of this narrative, begins two days before you are born. It is Saturday in the dandenong hills, summer. I am heavy with you, though this has not stopped me going for a walk in the crackly green-brown bush. I am ready for you, I decide on this morning. I am not sick of being pregnant, simply ready to meet you. I have done all I need to- almost.
I tell Adrian that I am ready, call my mother who recommends an evening of curry and sex. So, I spend the morning baking your birthday cake- chocolate fudge with blackberry filling- and the evening cooking curry for the three of us. In the warm afternoon I stitch your muslin wrap, tea-dyed a light brown, stitch your name, MAYA, in green life-giving thread as I pray words of gratitude and hope. You will be born tomorrow, I believe.
Sunday arrives, lengthens, and you do not. Trying not to be disappointed I invite a friend, Jana, for dinner, and tell her to pick up a bottle of red wine. As I sip my glass of red and listen to Jana and Adrian talk I feel the tightenings in my belly intensify. Is it coming? That night the power is off. I cook early to use the last of the daylight and we eat dinner by candlelight, take our candles upstairs to our bedrooms. It feels fitting, this return to pre-electricity at this time, bringing me closer to my body, to my daughter, to the earth.
I go to bed full of nervous anticipation, expecting an interrupted night, wondering whether to tell Adrian what I suspect (he is already observing me suspiciously), and then I sleep soundly! But when I wake around seven, lie for a moment tree-watching as I do every morning, my waters gush out around me in an ohhhh of surprise. This is it now, truly, one of those lovely no-doubt signs that I can celebrate, and which I instantly share with Adrian. Before calling the midwives at the birth centre- I am to give birth at monash birth centre clayton, in the birthing pool I hope- I eat some cereal Ad brings me, light incense and thank the goddess all the ways I know. Then I call the midwives, and my mother, and when Jana wakes I tell her too while making cups of tea and big slabs of toast with tomato and basil from the garden. We breakfast outside, all of us buzzing with a what-next? excitement.
Soon after my waters breaking a contraction begins which is different to those practice ones I’ve felt so far. This is much stronger, not painful, but strong and I know it to be a real one. More follow, and when Adrian times them they are coming seven or eight minutes apart. I spend the morning upstairs, dancing through my contractions initially, on the balcony (there are photos of me at this point, smiling, then frowning with concentration), moving to lie on the bed later for a rest. Adrian breathes with me, kisses me with compliments on my beauty and strength. I will be a perfect mother, he assures me. These first hours (4? 5?) are blissful, peaceful and warm.
Not far into my labour our housemate treads up the stairs and calls out that he needs to speak with us both. Adrian goes out to the hall to have a conversation, which drifts in to my room, but I refuse to aknowledge the words. I have no time for trivial household matters now. This is too important, all-important, this next breath is all there is. Only the next day do I ask Ad about the conversation. On the other hand, when our favourite chicken lays her first ever egg, Adrian tells me and I am ridiculously happy to share this first special day with her- on the day you were born our little Pencil laid her first egg!
My mum arrives at some point, and Jana is still here, with no way of getting to the train. I worry about her at first, but she is enjoying this experience, making cups of tea and hanging out washing, sometimes coming to sit with us and breathe, radiating her own light as only Jana can. Mum brings me a hot water bottle and takes turns rubbing my back. She and Adrian are all I need, the perfect support, and as my focus turns more inward and contractions demand more of my attention- and last longer, arrive closer together- I need them to make decisions for me. I am unaware of the time of day, the time between contractions too, I am unable to have conversations mostly. All my attention is on my breath, my womb, my muscles, my daughter readying for birth.
Towards late afternoon mum decides I am ready, it is time to leave. Adrian walks me to the car, which Jana has quietly packed, and we drive the 40 minutes to Clayton, to the sounds of massive attack. I learn later that mum completed some highly illegal manouvers to avoid a traffic jam! This time in the car is the hardest for me, my focus having been disrupted, I struggle to not lose my breath, and I think I begin to really vocalize at this point, moaning into contractions giving me new strength. Our walk through the hospital up to the birth centre is punctuated by three contractions, me leaning into Adrian and moaning into his neck, wearing sunglasses and with my eyes close. I don’t want to see my surroundings, don’t want to know that I am in a hospital. Later I think that this really helped me to hold my focus and not become scared or stressed. Unlike many women, my labour did not slow with my arrival at the birth centre. Covering the bed with the familiar fabric of our bedspread bought in CandiKuning, and setting my small bronze goddess on the table helped me to feel comfortable in this new room.
It is five or six when we arrive, and apparently they are busy because while a midwife greets us she soon leaves and for the next hour I don’t see anyone else. The three of us- four including you!- continue to labour peacefully, with contractions building in strength. I am kneeling on the bed, draped over the high wooden head, rocking us through. At some point I wonder if a midwife will come in soon, examine me, take me to the bath. Then all I think of is my contracting/expanding uterus, your small body, my own body opening… moving from this place, this position, is out of the question, I am too involved … I open my mouth and moan, echoing the opening of my cervix. I feel a strong urge to push- it’s too soon, isn’t it? I try not to push- I need to poo, no I don’t I need to push! I feel myself open and I swear your head is right there… I manage to whisper to Adrian that I think, I need my underwear off (why the hell is it still on?!) and look- yes! I can feel her head with my hand!
You are coming… now a new energy soars through me, I know that you are coming, you are close, so close now. I will meet you so soon! All I need to do is keep breathing, let my body do it’s work…
A midwife comes in, mum having called for one, says (Adrian remembers this) “Well, I don’t know you Cathy, but you are very close to having a baby” and starts to do her thing. Now I push! I feel you on my perineum, as they say, and that burning they speak of is very real, burning is how it feels. But you are coming, and if I just groan a bit louder I can push harder…
The midwife encourages me to change position, a half-lying which will open me up a bit and allow your head through. And it does. Your head crowns, I can feel the difference, and a release of pressure until I begin to push out your shoulders.
You are born slippery, black-haired, open eyed; caught by Adrian and the midwife together; delivered onto my chest where I struggle to hold your slipperiness and am stunned by the size of you. So big! How did I birth you? How did I carry you? I am amazed at both of us, so proud of us both, and I am grinning at Adrian, the third element of team bob-bob, this amazing unit that is us. Your grandmother is still here, welcoming you into a line of strong women. The midwife cleans up and leaves us. You are so obviously healthy, pink and alert. You are perfect. I recognize you. You are Maya, my daughter, strong and calm little person.
This is of course the climax, but there is more:
Your cord, that pulsing ugly-beautiful cord that fed you, is cut by Adrian. It’s harder than he imagines (your placenta, which it inexplicably takes three hours and a team of
Medical staff to deliver, we take home to plant under a special tree for you). You take to my breast like a natural, which of course you are. Mum leaves and the three of us sleep- well you sleep soundly and we doze in between watching you and congratulating each other on our very fine work! Adrian and I devour crap hospital sandwiches with pleasure, the pair of us starving after not eating and working so hard for 12 hours. We wait until the next morning to weigh and measure and examine you and you pass all tests with flying colours, a perfectly healthy little person- well, quite a big person for a newborn, 53cm tall. We take you home that day, almost 24 ours after your birth at 7.45pm. Out of the airconditioned centre and up to our treehouse in the hills, to get to know each other.
It’s well into morning before I realize that I never made it near the pool. I didn’t need to. Your birth was more perfect even than my dreams of it. And you, my Maya, daughter, are exactly who I knew you would be. Thanks for coming to me.
