Damara' Birth: September 25, 1974
The story of my daughter's homebirth in which I gave birth to my midwifery self
My decision to have a homebirth was both simple and very complex. It was simple in that from the very beginning of this pregnancy it never entered my head that this baby would be born anywhere but in our home. It was complex because the decision to do this personally represented a stage of growth and awareness of many issues — social, philosophical, political and even spiritual. They related to my sense of being a woman in touch with and responsible for my own body. It had to do with our sense of family, of the naturalness of life, of birth, of sexuality.
We were learning slowly and somewhat painfully, but gladly, a sense of the seasons of things. We wanted our children to learn these things naturally from the early years of their lives. Being part of Damara’s birth in our own home with our friends we felt was a way of doing this. I wanted to have a real choice about how and with whom I gave birth. I wanted to shape and create the environment our child would be born into. I wanted her birth to be a celebration; I wanted her to be born in a happy, colorful, yet peaceful place. I wanted music for labor and people to support me and celebrate with us. Mostly I didn’t want the rhythm of our life disrupted by separation from each other or from Jonathan and Peter.
I had also developed strong feelings about what technology, inappropriately used, and what institutions that become ends in themselves, can do to depersonalize, dehumanize and in many ways take from us the most basic and peak experiences of life, like birth...and death. They can become so removed from us that we don’t even experience them. I had felt painful ruptures in the births of my other two children and had been able to reflect on what had happened to me and to them and why it shouldn’t again.
Most painful had been that initial ten to fourteen hour separation routine in most hospitals. My best instincts told me that initial contact and being together was critical and that separation was no less painful for the one born than it was for me. At home we knew there would be no separation. At it turned out it was those first few hours of skin-closeness and warmth and wonder that was most precious to me.
In deciding to have a homebirth I had to deal with the possibility that something could go wrong — as it could in the hospital, although we are led to believe otherwise — meaning we had to face the possibility of death. My sense was that quality of life is as important as the fact of life; that how we birth is as important as birth. Damara was to be our last child. I wanted to end by bringing all we were and knew to make her birth our very own experience, and as rich as possible.
We were learning slowly and somewhat painfully, but gladly, a sense of the seasons of things. We wanted our children to learn these things naturally from the early years of their lives. Being part of Damara’s birth in our own home with our friends we felt was a way of doing this. I wanted to have a real choice about how and with whom I gave birth. I wanted to shape and create the environment our child would be born into. I wanted her birth to be a celebration; I wanted her to be born in a happy, colorful, yet peaceful place. I wanted music for labor and people to support me and celebrate with us. Mostly I didn’t want the rhythm of our life disrupted by separation from each other or from Jonathan and Peter.
I had also developed strong feelings about what technology, inappropriately used, and what institutions that become ends in themselves, can do to depersonalize, dehumanize and in many ways take from us the most basic and peak experiences of life, like birth...and death. They can become so removed from us that we don’t even experience them. I had felt painful ruptures in the births of my other two children and had been able to reflect on what had happened to me and to them and why it shouldn’t again.
Most painful had been that initial ten to fourteen hour separation routine in most hospitals. My best instincts told me that initial contact and being together was critical and that separation was no less painful for the one born than it was for me. At home we knew there would be no separation. At it turned out it was those first few hours of skin-closeness and warmth and wonder that was most precious to me.
In deciding to have a homebirth I had to deal with the possibility that something could go wrong — as it could in the hospital, although we are led to believe otherwise — meaning we had to face the possibility of death. My sense was that quality of life is as important as the fact of life; that how we birth is as important as birth. Damara was to be our last child. I wanted to end by bringing all we were and knew to make her birth our very own experience, and as rich as possible.
It was rich and it was uniquely ours. Most amazing had been how in touch with my body and its messages I had become. I knew my baby was coming. Awaking at midnight out of a deep sleep (I’d gone to bed at eight), finding myself in labor, my energies were totally directed. I knew the baby was coming, and coming soon. The memory of her two and a half hour journey is filled with images, feelings, sounds. The long hot bath I took; the water, soothing, relaxing, easing the intensity of the contractions. Peter, our two year old, resting his head on my lap as I labored sitting on the rug while Tom fixed the bed and vacuumed (tried to; I protested at this point a little dirt wouldn’t hurt anyone), and set up the stereo. And then the music, soft, beautiful in the background, totally concentrated while I rode the waves of contractions.
It was September 25th, the first cold night of the fall. I will always remember hearing, “Try to remember...the kind of September when life was so slow and grain so yellow.” It seemed to come on just for me. The words, “without a hurt the heart is hollow,” spoke to my labor, the intensity of the very powerful thing happening within me. There was the support I felt in between contractions from the people who were with me.
And there were the funny things — Christina, my midwife, telling me I did not look comfortable; my response being, what did she expect! I wasn’t and couldn’t imagine being so until it was over. Her asking if I’d like a bigger clock to watch (I had become wedded to Tom’s wrist watch), and my answering emphatically, “no, if it were bigger it would take longer for the seconds to go by!” For me, time was of the essence: to experience completely the sensations of labor, knowing they only came a minute at a time, to be in the present. It was good to be able to drink all I wanted when thirsty, a sharp contrast to my hospital labors. I had thought of everything — even the three, thirty-five cent lollipops from Brigham's: one for Jonathan, one for Peter and one for me. Mine went untouched.
There was the birth itself. The still excitement I felt in the room; Jonathan and Peter’s intent gazing, my own excitement and eagerness to push and then the shock of the pain (those good old posterior presentations). I just pushed and pushed, carried on the powerful waves of downward energy. I remember voices gently saying, “push, push, you can do it.” It was as if everyone was pushing with me. I remember the strength of Tom holding me, voices again, “A girl; it’s a girl.” There she was, quiet and still and so beautiful.
She waited before she breathed. I can hear Christina, our midwife, touching her gently and whispering, “come on, little girl, breathe for us.” And she did. She was Damara; “gentle woman” her name meant. My fingertips touched hers as she let out a little yell. All was quiet and peacefulness and so much welcoming. I felt all my energy had drained into her.
The intensity of the feelings that followed in those hours, in the next few days, were such that they overshadowed the events themselves. But I remember the wine, the music, the song, “Moments to Live By....when we are open to the great wonder of life in each other’s hands.” Tom had practiced this song for months ahead of time. But first there was two year old Peter’s plea for “Old McDonald,” a request that had to be honored.
Everyone left as quickly and quietly as they had come. It was 4 a.m. and we were alone with Peter sleeping on the rug next to our bed and Jonathan tucked back into his bunk. Tom and I lay there with Damara between us, her skin touching both of ours. Tom fell asleep but I was as intently awake as Damara and I watched the changes that each moment brought — in her and in me. I was overflowing with gratitude. Through our window I watched the sun rise. Outside our room were beautiful wild flowers, silhouetted against the predawn sky. They turned yellow and then almost golden as they blew gloriously in the autumn breeze. The sun rose and we rose. Family and friends came in celebration and welcoming and feasted on turkey and heard of Damara’s birth as if there had never been another birth.
It was September 25th, the first cold night of the fall. I will always remember hearing, “Try to remember...the kind of September when life was so slow and grain so yellow.” It seemed to come on just for me. The words, “without a hurt the heart is hollow,” spoke to my labor, the intensity of the very powerful thing happening within me. There was the support I felt in between contractions from the people who were with me.
And there were the funny things — Christina, my midwife, telling me I did not look comfortable; my response being, what did she expect! I wasn’t and couldn’t imagine being so until it was over. Her asking if I’d like a bigger clock to watch (I had become wedded to Tom’s wrist watch), and my answering emphatically, “no, if it were bigger it would take longer for the seconds to go by!” For me, time was of the essence: to experience completely the sensations of labor, knowing they only came a minute at a time, to be in the present. It was good to be able to drink all I wanted when thirsty, a sharp contrast to my hospital labors. I had thought of everything — even the three, thirty-five cent lollipops from Brigham's: one for Jonathan, one for Peter and one for me. Mine went untouched.
There was the birth itself. The still excitement I felt in the room; Jonathan and Peter’s intent gazing, my own excitement and eagerness to push and then the shock of the pain (those good old posterior presentations). I just pushed and pushed, carried on the powerful waves of downward energy. I remember voices gently saying, “push, push, you can do it.” It was as if everyone was pushing with me. I remember the strength of Tom holding me, voices again, “A girl; it’s a girl.” There she was, quiet and still and so beautiful.
She waited before she breathed. I can hear Christina, our midwife, touching her gently and whispering, “come on, little girl, breathe for us.” And she did. She was Damara; “gentle woman” her name meant. My fingertips touched hers as she let out a little yell. All was quiet and peacefulness and so much welcoming. I felt all my energy had drained into her.
The intensity of the feelings that followed in those hours, in the next few days, were such that they overshadowed the events themselves. But I remember the wine, the music, the song, “Moments to Live By....when we are open to the great wonder of life in each other’s hands.” Tom had practiced this song for months ahead of time. But first there was two year old Peter’s plea for “Old McDonald,” a request that had to be honored.
Everyone left as quickly and quietly as they had come. It was 4 a.m. and we were alone with Peter sleeping on the rug next to our bed and Jonathan tucked back into his bunk. Tom and I lay there with Damara between us, her skin touching both of ours. Tom fell asleep but I was as intently awake as Damara and I watched the changes that each moment brought — in her and in me. I was overflowing with gratitude. Through our window I watched the sun rise. Outside our room were beautiful wild flowers, silhouetted against the predawn sky. They turned yellow and then almost golden as they blew gloriously in the autumn breeze. The sun rose and we rose. Family and friends came in celebration and welcoming and feasted on turkey and heard of Damara’s birth as if there had never been another birth.
The days that followed were a time of rest and reflecting on all that had happened. I thought of how Damara would someday share in her own birth in a way I never knew of mine, a birth that was hers and no one else’s. I hoped that this would be a point where we could again touch as she moved one day into womanhood.
The second day was warm and sunny. Tom and I buried the placenta next to our house. We planted a yellow chrysanthemum over it to remind us always of the pain and joy that was Damara’s birth, to remind us of the golden days of September, to remind us “without a hurt the heart is hollow,” to remind us of the oneness of life and creation. Life is birth but it is rebirth too. To remind me, for others, that birth is one of the moments we are given to live by, and it shouldn’t be taken from anyone.
Shortly after Damara’s birth, on a sunny afternoon as my children napped, I found myself musing on birth and death and how they had connected in my life and shaped my attitudes from inside out. Birth and death had embraced each other in my body, leaving me without fear and with a deep sense of the care with which they should be approached. I wrote:
My mother was born at home; so was my father. In fact, each of their five siblings were born right there at home. I’ve been in the houses where my grandmothers gave birth — strong and rooted homes, solid enough to hold life and death. My father’s mother died in the same room where she gave birth to her six children. Today she would have been in a nursing home at best. I was not born yet, but I “remember” her dying as vividly as I would had I been there. It must have been talked about. It was a family affair. I was in my teens when my mother overheard me telling a friend that I was there when my grandmother died.
Only then did I learn that the frail hand I remember touching from my privileged position on the bed, the sunken cheeks, the hollowing eyes, the wispy hair the color of ashes, were really experienced by my brother, two years older than I. The pictures were taken out and it was my older brother, I still growing in my mother’s womb. Real memory or family given memory, it was not something I was frightened by — not unnatural. Her slipping away was as natural as Damara’s coming into our home so many years later. And I hear Peter, then two and a half, talking of Damara’s birth as if it were his own — the sounds, the sights as they happened; he adds the feelings from within. Her birth gave him a “memory” of his own. And I’ve never argued with him. My mother’s revelation to me as a grown child changed nothing.
I remember my maternal grandfather’s death — his dying robbed from him by machines, tubes down his nose, IVs, all Intensive Care has to offer one suffering from a massive stroke. The “stroke” moved center stage; grand-pére receded into the wings. Always crippled, since I knew him, he had spent years gently bidding his farewell. The stages were ritualized; my French speaking grandmother sang the antiphons so we’d know: “Grand-pére put his canes away today...grand-pére put the crutches away today...grand-pére put the walker away...grand-pére does not get out of bed very often.” But instead of slipping away, the sirens of the ambulance screamed. His dignity was stripped away with his clothing...I try to forget the body, the tubes down his nose, the misshapen face, the, to me, lifeless hand. His dying was when he put his canes away in the seven room apartment my grandparents shared for most of the fifty-four years they lived together.
My living grandmother is 91 — growing old beautifully, graciously. I watch the dance, the poise, the almost impossible balance between letting go and desperately clutching. She loves life — homemade bread, laughing children, parties — but, “Oh, how I miss grand-pére so.” I picture her rocking back and forth in grand-pére’s chair — as a child I wondered if grand-pére and the chair were separate, so constantly was he in it. I see her quietly closing her eyes, slipping into the love and hope that hold her in that chair.
I fear the scream of sirens.
The second day was warm and sunny. Tom and I buried the placenta next to our house. We planted a yellow chrysanthemum over it to remind us always of the pain and joy that was Damara’s birth, to remind us of the golden days of September, to remind us “without a hurt the heart is hollow,” to remind us of the oneness of life and creation. Life is birth but it is rebirth too. To remind me, for others, that birth is one of the moments we are given to live by, and it shouldn’t be taken from anyone.
Shortly after Damara’s birth, on a sunny afternoon as my children napped, I found myself musing on birth and death and how they had connected in my life and shaped my attitudes from inside out. Birth and death had embraced each other in my body, leaving me without fear and with a deep sense of the care with which they should be approached. I wrote:
My mother was born at home; so was my father. In fact, each of their five siblings were born right there at home. I’ve been in the houses where my grandmothers gave birth — strong and rooted homes, solid enough to hold life and death. My father’s mother died in the same room where she gave birth to her six children. Today she would have been in a nursing home at best. I was not born yet, but I “remember” her dying as vividly as I would had I been there. It must have been talked about. It was a family affair. I was in my teens when my mother overheard me telling a friend that I was there when my grandmother died.
Only then did I learn that the frail hand I remember touching from my privileged position on the bed, the sunken cheeks, the hollowing eyes, the wispy hair the color of ashes, were really experienced by my brother, two years older than I. The pictures were taken out and it was my older brother, I still growing in my mother’s womb. Real memory or family given memory, it was not something I was frightened by — not unnatural. Her slipping away was as natural as Damara’s coming into our home so many years later. And I hear Peter, then two and a half, talking of Damara’s birth as if it were his own — the sounds, the sights as they happened; he adds the feelings from within. Her birth gave him a “memory” of his own. And I’ve never argued with him. My mother’s revelation to me as a grown child changed nothing.
I remember my maternal grandfather’s death — his dying robbed from him by machines, tubes down his nose, IVs, all Intensive Care has to offer one suffering from a massive stroke. The “stroke” moved center stage; grand-pére receded into the wings. Always crippled, since I knew him, he had spent years gently bidding his farewell. The stages were ritualized; my French speaking grandmother sang the antiphons so we’d know: “Grand-pére put his canes away today...grand-pére put the crutches away today...grand-pére put the walker away...grand-pére does not get out of bed very often.” But instead of slipping away, the sirens of the ambulance screamed. His dignity was stripped away with his clothing...I try to forget the body, the tubes down his nose, the misshapen face, the, to me, lifeless hand. His dying was when he put his canes away in the seven room apartment my grandparents shared for most of the fifty-four years they lived together.
My living grandmother is 91 — growing old beautifully, graciously. I watch the dance, the poise, the almost impossible balance between letting go and desperately clutching. She loves life — homemade bread, laughing children, parties — but, “Oh, how I miss grand-pére so.” I picture her rocking back and forth in grand-pére’s chair — as a child I wondered if grand-pére and the chair were separate, so constantly was he in it. I see her quietly closing her eyes, slipping into the love and hope that hold her in that chair.
I fear the scream of sirens.