Organic Mutant

It has been a long time since I checked in with the Mutant. I missed this space even tho you can hardly tell by the dearth of entries. Life has been busy. A few days after the calendar new year we welcomed our daughter, Quinn, into the world and we haven’t stopped since then. In November we started a project that has been difficult to complete. I hoped and hoped that the baby would come on its due date or later even tho I was so very uncomfortable at the end. I just wanted to have the time to finish the project before bringing the baby home. I so need and crave order that I was willing to entertain more discomfort in order to make sure everything was ‘perfect’ before we brought her home. What do they say? ‘People plan and the goddess laughs’ or ‘If you spit in one hand and wish in the other, which fills up faster?’ Yes, the universe laughed when I sent out my plea & little Quinn arrived 9 days early and the project was unfinished yet everything was…okay.

The morning of her birth I woke in the wee hours with noticeable labor pains. I didn’t mention it to any one in the hopes that the labor would subside and that the baby would come closer to the EDD (estimated due date). I had read of many women who experienced ‘false labor’ and I secretly hoped to be one of those. O, denial, she is not a river in Egypt! Wade left for work and Lucas and I started our day, going through the quotidian practices that make a day: washing, breakfast, cleaning, playing, dressing, &c. Around half past 10, I felt the pains increase in intensity and duration and realized that things might not go according to my plan and since we had been so focused on finishing the kids’ room there was nothing washed or ready for the new baby, not one bodysuit or footed sleeper, so I called Wade and alerted him to my situation. He came right home.

For the next few hours I paced the house while Wade washed laundry, organized, cleaned and otherwise prepared for our return home after a few days in the hospital. Nonno came to get Lucas so that we could prepare with little distraction. Last time we endured a long hospital stay pre-delivery and we had determined that I would do most of my laboring at home this time or so we hoped. We tracked contractions through the afternoon while we prepared for the inevitable. Toward five o’clock in the afternoon I contacted the midwife to tell her of our situation. She invited us to come on in. Around that time I finally acknowledged to myself the reality that I would be bringing home a little one sometime soon and that my enormous pregnant belly would be history sooner rather than later. There were some pictures to take before heading to the hospital.

As the evening deepened, the intensity of my contractions strengthened. They stopped me in my tracks. At one point I found myself on the sofa, sitting in tailor’s pose entranced by my socks. At this point we decided to head in to the birth center. On the ride there, the contractions started coming closer together, but when we arrived at the hospital I insisted that I was fine to walk from the parking structure rather than leave the car in the loading zone. That was a struggle. The contractions started coming every minute or so and I would find myself crouching on the ground while my glasses filled with tears. We finally made it up to the birth center where a very sweet Labor & Delivery nurse asked if we were the ones for whom she was waiting. She took one look at me and sat me down in a rocking chair and explained to us why I was experiencing so much pain. She showed me how to breath through each contraction. She seemed to have a mind-meld with Wade and for the next hour he gently guided me each time I forgot to breathe. The midwife checked me and determined that I could stay as active labor had begun and she thought that the baby would be arriving sooner rather than later. They shuffled me off to the shower where I labored under a strong stream of soothing hot water with Wade’s encouragement coming softly from the side.

Eventually I tired of the water as I started feeling cold and agitated. Wade helped me from the shower back to our room where a huge tub of warm water waited. As my labor had advanced significantly, they eventually allowed me into the tub where my labor started with a vengeance. A woman’s labor is the transformation of her body from a closed container to an open vessel. This transformation can take days or minutes. The faster the transformation, the rougher the ride. The 45 minutes I spent in that tub were some of the most physically and mentally challenging minutes of my experience. They were primal. They were raw. They were overpowering and completely human. They took me completely out of myself and were transforming. At the end, I felt the so-called ring of fire, which is aptly named, and was helped out of the tub to the bed where less than 20 minutes later we welcomed Quinn, our daughter.

Each birth is special, but this one was especially special. I learned so much from the entire experience from beginning to end. A few days later we brought her home to the midst of our project and yet everything was perfect. We had the most important things: a healthy family and each other. For a few weeks, we all shared the same bedroom. During the night I would wake to hear the sounds of three sleeping beauties and I felt content. It ended up being a special treat to be able to look out from my cozy spot to see and hear each one. The one whose curious eyes started us along this inevitable path. The one whose glorious laugh fills my days. The one whose dreamy sighs have added such sweetness to the new year.