I promptly collapsed on the living room floor and had a panic attack. No joke. I knew this whole birthing thing was not supposed to be about me, but there I was, feeling like an elephant was sitting on my chest. I've only had about three panic attacks in my life: that one time my girlfriend (not Eva) and another person were discussing what I should go to school for (I was 26) and just a month earlier when Eva said, Just think, when I’m done with school next week, I’ll be here every day, all day and we’ll get to be together all the time. I think it always has to do with people expecting me to take responsibility or something. The horror.
We were seeing a midwife in Yellow Springs. Eva had worked with all the midwives in Columbus and did not want anyone she knew professionally at her birth. For another part of our preparations, we had a giant water tub put together in the extra room that would eventually be Stella’s room. Eva spent the day trying to get some sleep between contractions, which were still very far apart. The midwife arrived close to 11pm, checked on Eva, set up in the other spare bedroom and then for some reason went to bed. Maybe she figured this was going to be a long haul. She figured right. But still.
I don’t remember much about the night. It was long. There was pain. I stayed awake with her. We were pissed at the useless midwife. The useless midwife seemed to know this about us and so started to avoid us, becoming even more useless. I read aloud to Eva while she sat in the birthing tub.
A few weeks earlier, once I got used to the fact she was home all day, I started checking out all the Atlantic Monthly’s from the library and reading her long articles while she knitted on the front porch. It was the Most Favorite Time in my Life. We whispered nasty judgments about the useless midwife. (Eva and I were always good when we had a common enemy.) By morning, she could not handle the pain so she called her doctor and told him that she was coming to the hospital for a shot of some pain killer.
Up until this point in her pregnancy, we had prevented all forms of intervention. Not even an ultra sound. Nothing. Completely natural. That was our plan. (Now I understand the saying, People make plans, God laughs.) What’s so funny about Eva jumping in the minivan with the second child Scarlett pregnancy and demanding the hospital immediately was that it happened after this fifty five hour journey. At this point, however, we were still True Believers in natural childbirth.
The doctor was on board with our plan. Get a little pain killer. Check out the heart rates. And go home. For those of you who birthed in a hospital, you know it’s virtually impossible to escape once you go in. But somehow we did it. By afternoon, we were back home. I think we even were able to take a little one hour nap or something. But then the pain started up. Lots of pain. With no progress. I don’t remember anything about what the midwife was doing, probably because she was not doing anything. But around 7pm, Eva realized things were not moving along. We sent the midwife home, and we headed for the hospital.
I’m going to fast forward now: We checked in. She struggled the night. I realized I had not had any sleep since Sunday night and I was about to die but I really couldn’t say anything about my predicament because there she was - also without any sleep but pushing through contractions so who was I to complain, really. But when her friend Jamie showed up at the hospital with support for Eva and Starbucks for me, I wanted to kiss her feet. The epidural finally happened in the early morning of the next day. The Pitocin kicked on. A little after 3pm, I saw the crowning head of our baby and I wept.
Now when I say I really did not know what love was until I met Stella, what I actually mean is that I did not know what love was until I met Stella. Srsly. Oh, I loved my family. And I had plenty of Great True Love stories in my past, starting in second grade. And, of course, I loved Eva. In the best way I could. But nothing like the tidal wave that was about to descend on me. We had been reading all that Dr. Sears crap. And before we turn this into a debate about Attachment Parenting, let me explain that we started out as True Believers and ended up thinking it was all bunk. But we tried. I tried. To hold that baby All. The. Time. And one day, maybe around six weeks, I could not tell if it was working for her (it wasn’t, eventually we had to put her down so she could get some sleep) but I could tell that is was working ON me. See, I’m adopted. And for awhile in my late teens, they made me see a therapist about how I did not seem “attached” to my adoptive family and they wanted to blame it all on that adoption thing. (it could have been, I don’t know, maybe also that I was queer but that’s a whole nother story.) And then I had a string of serial monogamy. Followed by heart-smashing break ups. (that’s the serial part) So I realized – as I was working to make sure Stella attach to me, her non biological mother, I had done something to myself, no, SHE had done something to me that had never been done before: she made me attach. And now I get it. Or at least I think I do. Someone breathing with you, someone puking down your back, someone screaming at you to hold them, someone pooping on you, and you keep going for them, you don't stop for any reason, nothing pushes you away, not the poop, not the sleeplessness, not the demands, you keep holding on.
That’s Love.
We got through that first year together . We later survived the onslaught of three babies together. We did endless library story times together. We explored CJDS for the first time together. We went to Israel together. We discovered Harry Potter together. We made it through the first few years of divorce together. We love movies and Buckeyes and baseball and theater together. I cannot wait to find out what we’re going to do together next.
The doctor was on board with our plan. Get a little pain killer. Check out the heart rates. And go home. For those of you who birthed in a hospital, you know it’s virtually impossible to escape once you go in. But somehow we did it. By afternoon, we were back home. I think we even were able to take a little one hour nap or something. But then the pain started up. Lots of pain. With no progress. I don’t remember anything about what the midwife was doing, probably because she was not doing anything. But around 7pm, Eva realized things were not moving along. We sent the midwife home, and we headed for the hospital.
I’m going to fast forward now: We checked in. She struggled the night. I realized I had not had any sleep since Sunday night and I was about to die but I really couldn’t say anything about my predicament because there she was - also without any sleep but pushing through contractions so who was I to complain, really. But when her friend Jamie showed up at the hospital with support for Eva and Starbucks for me, I wanted to kiss her feet. The epidural finally happened in the early morning of the next day. The Pitocin kicked on. A little after 3pm, I saw the crowning head of our baby and I wept.
Now when I say I really did not know what love was until I met Stella, what I actually mean is that I did not know what love was until I met Stella. Srsly. Oh, I loved my family. And I had plenty of Great True Love stories in my past, starting in second grade. And, of course, I loved Eva. In the best way I could. But nothing like the tidal wave that was about to descend on me. We had been reading all that Dr. Sears crap. And before we turn this into a debate about Attachment Parenting, let me explain that we started out as True Believers and ended up thinking it was all bunk. But we tried. I tried. To hold that baby All. The. Time. And one day, maybe around six weeks, I could not tell if it was working for her (it wasn’t, eventually we had to put her down so she could get some sleep) but I could tell that is was working ON me. See, I’m adopted. And for awhile in my late teens, they made me see a therapist about how I did not seem “attached” to my adoptive family and they wanted to blame it all on that adoption thing. (it could have been, I don’t know, maybe also that I was queer but that’s a whole nother story.) And then I had a string of serial monogamy. Followed by heart-smashing break ups. (that’s the serial part) So I realized – as I was working to make sure Stella attach to me, her non biological mother, I had done something to myself, no, SHE had done something to me that had never been done before: she made me attach. And now I get it. Or at least I think I do. Someone breathing with you, someone puking down your back, someone screaming at you to hold them, someone pooping on you, and you keep going for them, you don't stop for any reason, nothing pushes you away, not the poop, not the sleeplessness, not the demands, you keep holding on.
That’s Love.
We got through that first year together . We later survived the onslaught of three babies together. We did endless library story times together. We explored CJDS for the first time together. We went to Israel together. We discovered Harry Potter together. We made it through the first few years of divorce together. We love movies and Buckeyes and baseball and theater together. I cannot wait to find out what we’re going to do together next.
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