Moonstone, Jasper, Feldspar, Dara and Kell

[Nemain]

I've written and rewritten these stories so many times it's interesting to me to revisit my journey to motherhood now that I stand at the threshold of becoming a mother once more.

I was a virgin, hymen intact, on my wedding day, way back in 1997. My lover and I had been together for four years but I'd always just known that I wanted to wait. I organised a crossing over ritual the night before the wedding for my closest friends and I, my first step from maiden to mother.

In 1998 I peed on a stick when my moontime was ten days late. Positive. I immediately went out and bought a baby name book. Moonstone slipped from my womb on Easter Tuesday, a little white ball in a nest of blood. I took a photo and gathered my things and went to hospital to get checked out. Two weeks later, insane and still bleeding I went back to discover that I in fact had retained "products" and needed a D&C. By July I was pregnant again but Jasper left my womb in even less time, just six weeks. A healing trip to Thailand with my similarly grieving and shell shocked dh in September meant that we were willing to try again in October. Feldspar, a little girl with Trisomy 16, left my belly five days before Christmas with much blood loss, condescending and disbelieving doctors and just on the magical 12 week mark. The frogs singing through the night kept me sane. My dh and I moved to Tasmania, embarked on genetic counselling - all perfect, grief counselling - ah so much to off load, marriage counselling - so much shit to go through. In the middle of 1999, on a perfect day we woke up and decided to make a baby and we did. No longer trusting my body I entrusted my self and baby to a kind and loving OB who administered scans and tests and more scans and let me be a patient that she was going to cure of this illness. Knowing her own birthing history might have saved me some grief but at the time she was my talisman, my guru to birth a live baby. At the end of my pregnancy, bloated and swollen and showing distinct pre-eclamptic symptoms and still working two weeks overdue I had a routine visit to check BP and had a registrar strip my membranes without consent. Given the night before I'd had a show and the gentle beginnings of contxns I should have walked out there and then but hey, I was a patient and what the hell did I know!?! To make a long but typical story short, I let them try to break my waters - they told me what they were going to do, no-one ever asked me; when that didn't work gel was applied and I was told to go to bed and sleep. Which I didn't because I was too excited. So I started labour the next day with AROM, already exhausted, and while the first mw was very natural, hands off and encouraging she finished her shift and left me with the obstetric nurse who believed in nothing but machines and medications. Despite being told by my guru OB initially that I was dilating faster than she'd ever seen, within an hour of the shift change she and the nurse were coercing me into a c/section, finally a scalp monitor so I could keep moving and an epidural so I couldn't. Late that evening, scalp blood was taken from my poor little girl and in again for another sample at which point she evacuated so much meconium that her first newborn poos were just like b'fed babies, no sticky stuff at all. So the OB got her c/sec and the chance to be the rescuing hero while I shook and vagued in and out of reality. My dh watched my body go into shutdown mode, managed to get our dd away from the paediatrician and danced about the theatre singing "Welcome to the Planet". Refused directions to place our dd in a bassinet he carried her down for an unnecessary two hours in NICU. I went to recovery and was given a tiny tiny cup of water which I will remember on my deathbed as the most delicious thing I've ever had. This was to wash down the two panadol they gave me. Finally back in my room and dh was in protective bear mode - growling at mws to get baby and mother together. Spent a week in hospital, had a blood transfusion and went home not knowing how incredibly blessed I was that neither dd nor I were ill, had bonded, were b'feeding well. I couldn't believe how this happened. When we decided to try for another baby we had already found the perfect mw and had an appt with her, she got my records and went through them with me.

Part II - Kell and "Strawberry" to come.

[The Morrigan]

So many hugs, Kris. I have watched your stories grow and develop as your views have altered. Such a blessing to have them here.
*hugs*

[motherearth]

Thanks for sharing your story with us Kris.
Wendy

[~*heket*~]

It never ceases to amaze me the things women survive. Well done for writing it down. I hope Strawberry has a wonderful contribution to make shortly!

[Shen]

wow what an amazing journey

really sounds like you have come a long way, and have been doing a lot of healing- can see it here, and in the dreams you wrote the other day

i love how your babies names are symbolic of how they appeared in your life

thanks for sharing

[Nemain]

We moved to house near the beach where dolphins played, all decked out in chalky colours of the sky and earth and there we asked anothe child to come into our lives. About six weeks before his conception we had turned to each other in the car and said "If we ever have a son we should call him Kell". We'd never been able to agree on a boy's name in any of my other pregnancies and this time, when the pee stick confirmed it, our the 19mth old dd said "baby brother" and was unswayed that she might have a sister. I had an ultrasound at seven weeks to reassure myself I was carrying a live baby in my womb - I was! and then booked in with the wonderful Terry, mw extrordinaire.

I was very fit, the lightest I'd been in years and feeling great. I remember describing myself as a supermodel with a belly strapped on and while I've always been a big girl I just revelled in this pregnancy. Apart from 12 weeks of projectile vomitting and total nymphomania in the second trimester the only thing to mark this pregnancy out from any other was a total craving for salad with eye watering vinegarette on a daily basis.

My mw introduced me to Cathie who was a paramedic of nearly 20 years standing who had decided on a career change and was doing midwifery studies. She and her daughters became an integral part of our lives as I agreed to be her major project for her degree. I invited her to come to my mw's visits and we spent time with she and her girls and once in labour we asked her to care for our dd. We also had a close friend as a back up and general gopher and she was, one of those incredible people whose egos melt away and they just care. No energy draining when she came into the room.

At nearly two weeks over my mw suggested she do the first VE of the entire pregnancy and confirmed I was dilating and effacing and left me to start with the homeopathic drops. I started "rushing" (by this point Spiritual Midwifery had become one of my "bibles") that night but they all tapered off by about 2am. I remember sitting there on the Tuesday morning watching the sun come up totally frustrated. I was like this huge alabaster statue. An enormous fight with my dh, make up and laksa for lunch and then curry for dinner and I was bounced out of bed on the Wednesday morning by a fair contraction. These kept up at about half hourly till I tried to nap so they kicked into ten minutes apart. Went out into the nearly drizzling day and played soccer with my brother who was on crutches. The contxns started coming at five minutes apart and I was having trouble concentrating on anything else so home we went and called my mw. As soon as she arrived they got down to about two minutes apart and in hindsight I had spent the entire day in shock that I'd gone into labour and so frightened of going into labour that all the early labour preparations we could have done to make the active labour part "easier" hadn't happened. I hadn't called mw or Cathie or our birth support person, hadn't set up the birth pool, hadn't really eaten. So in the space of about 10 minutes, mw arrived, Cathie took my dd away and Mandy (bsp) turned up. Tried out the bath tub a few times but an old narrow tub left me bath phobic until now. DH lit a candle for me and I discovered that covering a birth mat with a rubberized curtain is a sure recipe for grazed hands and knees. When the contxn eased I could hear the frogs singing. Hours passed and I wanted to push and push. Glorious. Had not idea that the first stage was for opening up and just got carried away by the pain. Pushing seemed to be awesome BUT I wasn't fully dilated and I had to pant and pant, tried blowing out an incredibly easy to visualise flame on the end of my nose. Still no progress so in the end, reassuring me all the way that transporting wasn't an automatic c/section, my mw phoned the hospital and we headed in. First they had to get me dressed so I was fighting with my mw in the corridor (consented to sarong round hips and towel round shoulders) and then out into the blessed cool night air. Pushed all the way down two flights of steps, in the car, in the hospital lift (fantastic) and down the hall to the labour suite as anonymous mws introduced themselves to me in between contxns. My dh and my mw were a wall of protection round me. The most gorgeous OB I've ever seen came in and I agreed to rehydration fluid and some pethidine. Had some gas and relaxed enough to get fully dilated. MW had another fight with me to get the mask off my face. Still couldn't quite get baby out so the instrument trolley was wheeled in. At this point I realised noone was going to cut me!!! Took a little doing, mostly forceps (I must be the ONLY woman in the world who looked over at a trolley and asked "are those the Neville Barnes?" and was delighted when told they were). As I felt the burn and my baby's bones and mine against each other as he passed out of my belly into my arms there was such a sense of euphoria, the OB said "Ohmigod it's huge" which made me giggle and then there was this slippery purple crying Krishna baby in my arms and I was singing "Whoo Hoo I didn't have a c/sec I pushed a baby out of my vagina". Everyone in the room got hit by the endorphins, they were all grinning. Except for my dh who was crying and telling me I was a goddess. Had a good hunt round my baby's head to see if he was boy or girl and then remembered it was the other end so pulled up his leg and BOY. Stitched up and showered and discharged ourselves. As we pulled up at home there was a huge rainbow over the mountain and we went inside to eat the most fantastic fry up breakfast ever.

[~*heket*~]

Well done! I can only imagine the euphoria!

[ruby]

Oh Wow! Fantastic! What a woman!
~Ruby

[Cyathea]

What a journey you have had, thanks for writing it all down and sharing it.