Traveling Monkeys

I love self-catering rentals. Instead of staying in a generic, mediocre chain hotel you can rent a little apartment or house with multiple bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living area. Save money by preparing your own meals! Unwind in a home-like environment at the end of the day! And, AND, you don’t have to go to bed at the same time as the kids. When you travel with small kids and you have one hotel room without a balcony (or during chilly times of the year), the family as a whole will go to bed at one of two times: seven-thirty or midnight. There’s no in-between. Either everyone goes to sleep when the first child does or you juggle for five hours trying to get everyone settled and down to bed. Those are your choices. Live with it or get a self-catering rental for your stay.

But sometimes…well. All the website reviews and photos in the world can’t save you.

We reserved a self-catering townhouse about fifteen miles outside of Bath for this past weekend; it was in a perfect location to be used as a base for trips to Bath, Salisbury, and Stonehenge. It looked cozy, rural, and quiet with two bedrooms and a full kitchen. Plain, but homey.

Now, I wouldn’t go so far as to call the owners hoarders…but they were definitely collectors. When we walked in, every available table and shelf and inch of wall space was covered with trinkets and prints. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen every figure there in the ten-cent bin at church rummage sales, so we’re not talking high quality. It reminded me of the overly decorated B&B from that one episode of “Gilmore Girls” and shrugged it off, but then I noticed this:

This was my first indication that something was seriously…off. Those aren’t real cats, but boy, I wasn’t sure. Neither Tom nor I have the best eyes, but we stared at them for a while before writing them off as taxidermy. *shudder* I brought Moira upstairs to nurse briefly while Tom got the rest of the tour, and there was one on the bed. I steeled my resolve to touch it to move it…and it was a fake. The legend on the bottom indicated its name was “Van.” The other two cats we located were Simple Simon and Miss Chippy.

Maggie, who gets most of her conversational contributions from memorized book passages, was moved enough for a breakthrough into spontaneous speech: “There are cats everywhere.”

She then went on to find some wooden toy cars, a display of fake Faberge eggs, and a collection of railroad train toys and Tom asked the proprietor if it was okay if she played with anything.

“No.”

NO?!

So let’s recap, here: this self-catering apartment was maybe 600 square feet, packed to bursting with gaudy trinkets, and Maggie can’t touch any of it. I might have audibly gasped. Later I asked “Tom, how are we going to get through the next three days?!”

“I told them not to expect to find anything in its original place. It would all be really high up.”

Smart man. The photo above is all of the things we confiscated from Maggie within a ten-minute time period before we decided it was time to get dinner, but not in time for us to avoid her discovery of the birdhouse that cheeped when it moved (a problem since anyone walking on the floor above where it was hanging made the entire house shake) and the faux squirrel.

SRSLY NOW?!

One of the things that struck me most about the decor was Jesus. The Jesus was a theme. Jesus was this man’s copilot, homeboy, and interior decorator. Crosses everywhere, blessing plaques, a decorative plate with a white Jesus crudely drawn next to the AA serenity prayer (and placed next to a tableaux of a…geisha serving tea? Okay!) and a rather large cross next to the bed.

OH WAIT. What could that be in the lit display case next to the cross on which the Son of God expelled his last breath?!

Daggers. SEXY DAGGERS.

Specifically, twelve decorative daggers, corresponding with the months of the  year, festooned with provocatively dressed and cartoonishly buxom corrupters of the flesh.

I can’t even. If it hadn’t been forty degrees in the bathroom, I would have immediately showered…which brings me to my next point. English homes are cold, and since this one was 300 years old, we expected unsealed windows and drafts. What we did NOT expect was that one of the bedrooms would not have a heating unit. The one that did had a small bed, one that I think was smaller than an American double.

Both girls had minor colds, so we knew that getting them a full night’s sleep was of utmost importance, which they could not get if they were both frozen like wee Monkeysicles. First we tried to divide and conquer: Tom and his majestic beard would sleep with Maggie in the unheated bedroom while Moira and I snuggled in the same bed in the other room. That lasted about 45 minutes until we realized that a) Maggie refused to keep the covers on and b) Tom’s face was aching from the cold. There was frost in his mighty moustache. Since the heater in the sole heated bedroom wasn’t doing jack for the temperature, that left one option:

The girls would have to sleep in the bed with me for body heat, and Tom would sleep on the floor. I was in head-to-toe wool–socks, tights, and shirt–with Maggie firmly pressed into my kidneys and Moira under my armpit. I could only accommodate all of us in the small bed by lying on my side with one arm over my head. And I’m going to judge some of you: those of you who practice family bed sharing in anything less than a California King are out of your minds. It was monstrously uncomfortable. I tried to buck up and remember that this is how the pioneers did it for years, and then I remembered that a lot of them died early and the ones that didn’t made it to California and invented the giant-ass mattress, bless their hearts. As I tried to massage feeling into my back I thought to myself “All we need now is for one of them to vomit, because in these temperatures I’m not going to strip them down to wash them.”

And because our purpose in existing is to entertain God, about ten seconds later Moira gagged on mucus and puked. She received my sympathies and a blotting with a swaddling blanket that for the rest of the trip was designated as her barf-catcher, and no more. Pulling her close a bit later was confirmation that our worrying was not an overreaction: the side of Moira that was not next to me (though still under her blanket) was ice-cold.

As it turns out, there was no need to set our alarms to be on time for the sunrise tour of Stonehenge. We were wide awake by six a.m. and Maggie perched herself by the door as soon as possible and amused herself with the iPad in anticipation of leaving. Tom and I decided the better part of wisdom was to mask any potential body odor with many layers of clothing and skipped showering; neither of us wanted wet heads. The less said about trying to pee in a sub-freezing bathroom, the better. Porcelain retains a mighty chill.

In the end, we bailed on our itinerary and headed to Cheltenham two nights early and were able to extend our hotel stay there. It worked out awesomely because we went to Cardiff the next day instead and got to enjoy a bit of Wales. The kids-stay-free/cheap-WiFi/tulip-prints-on-the-wall chain hotel in Cheltenham was so thoroughly generic and mediocre that it might have been American; it even shared a parking lot with a TGI Friday’s. We availed ourselves of their children’s menu and balloons and in my relief I ordered a cheeseburger topped with fried mozzarella washed down with a Sam Adams and unlimited Diet Coke refills and may have whistled “Yankee Doodle” as I drank it. And I’m not ashamed one little bit, do you hear me? I EARNED that bland, greasy heart attack on a plate.

I’m not sure if we’ll get refunded for those two nights; Tom is working on it now. We’ll absolutely use a self-catering apartment again in the future, and we’re writing it off as a learning experience (not to mention a good story).

God save the Queen. And Miss Chippy.

The back-and-forth of getting a toddler up in the mornings is starting to wear on me. I thought we’d have more time before I could buy clothing without Maggie’s input, but here we are; the only clothes that can be worn are ones selected by Maggie and the rest are forcibly rejected. Like most mothers of my age and education and social class, I feel weak and ineffectual. I vacillate between wondering if I should encourage her independence in picking an outfit that pleases her, if it’s building her confidence to do so, and is it wrong to just say “For the love of God, the shirt you want isn’t clean. Wear this.”

I don’t know. Today I don’t care. I just want to get everyone in the car and on the way to the craft store so Moira will sleep through most of the outing and I won’t have to nurse her in the front seat of the car.

*****

Why don’t I know where I’m going? Why is it so hard for me to follow the damn street signs? It’s a clear day, no clouds, minimal traffic, and it’s a straight shot on A61 to the store in Leeds. I’ve been there before; why can’t I remember if this is familiar or not? It’s something that used to drive me crazy about my high school boyfriend. “We’ve gone down this road a hundred times! Why do I have to remind you when to turn?” “I’m sorry! I don’t remember directions! I’m just not wired that way.”

I didn’t used to be that way. Now I am. Whether it’s sleeplessness of having a newborn or simple distraction, I can’t remember how to get to where I want to go. It’s 5am on the East Coast but wish I could call him up. I’m sorry, I’d say. I understand now. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Of course I can’t call, but I hope he’ll feel a little prickle on the back of his neck and know that someone on the other side of the world is wishing him well.

The sun splinters the road before me as I make another u-turn. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

*****

It’s been an hour longer than it should have been. I still can’t find the store. A wrong turn brought me onto a motorway, which I managed to exit but not before I saw a fork that would have rerouted me in the direction of London. We circle Leeds again and again and I expect Chevy Chase’s voice to pop out of my stereo, except instead of “Big Ben. Parliament!” it would be “Royal Armouries! That porn store!” I decide the supplies I had wanted to get–a few things for homeschool crafting and activities–aren’t worth it, but I don’t want my trip to be a waste. The kid room at the Royal Armouries is fun, and free, so we’ll go there.

*****

The kid room is being renovated. Nothing is easy today. I find a sunny corner to feed Moira, who has been more patient than I’d expect, and try to decide how I’m going to salvage the day. I decide on pizza at the little sit-down place around the corner; they have balloons for kids and if nothing else I know Maggie will eat their signature pizza dough balls dipped in butter. Maggie blows me away at lunch. She sits politely and silently, doodling on the kid’s menu and enthusiastically sharing half of my caprese salad before digging into Roman-crust pomodoro pizza. She drinks from an adult glass–the actual shatter-prone kind–with no issues. There’s hardly a mess, save for an errant smudge of sauce. All in all, she is delightful company and it was wonderful dining out with them. On the way out of the parking garage I look to my right to check traffic and see the craft store. If I had looked around a little, if I hadn’t been so focused on trying to follow the path I had picked I would have seen it.

The universe needs to get better writers; a metaphor that heavy-handed would get laughed out of a Writing 101 workshop.

*****

Somehow I manage to settle Maggie for a quick nap at home before heading out to a haircut. I need something sassy and fun; failing that, I’ll get something manageable and short. In the great tradition of postpartum hormone recalibration it’s begun to fall out in huge clogs so the shorter the better. Moira sits on my lap and gazes into the mirror, oblivious to the snips of hair that have begun to coat her back. Maggie hangs back by the cash register. I offer to make an appointment for her but I know better and the look she fixes me with confirms it–there will be no haircuts for this one. She was asked to be a flower girl in a wedding this summer and my first question was “How important to you is it that her hair look nice?” The suggestion that she might like to see everyone else get their hair done and do likewise filled me with hysterical laughter. Literal hysteria, in fact; I’ve given up on even brushing it into a simple ponytail. The idea of an actual stylist is like inviting an unpinned grenade into your home. She doesn’t give a damn if you like her, which is admirable…in its way. For better and for worse, Maggie has her own agenda and to hell with yours. Maybe we can get her a straw hat.

But the moments when her agenda meshes with mine? Divinity with a side of pizza dough balls.

*****

It ends on my side, this long day of errands and busywork. Reading but not processing; thinking idly and drifting. But I’m still working–the hunger of an infant is primal and doesn’t recognize “Wait just a second.” We settle into a rhythm and her eyes bulge as Moira grabs my skin to pull me deeper into her; the fear that the milk might vanish fuels her first few gulps and then she settles. Her body arches into mine and we both doze off, her hot breath on my skin and her warm, sleepy weight grows more solid next to me on the bed. I think she dreams of milk; certainly, with the tiny twitches in her legs and the occasional sighs and shudders, I can be sure she is dreaming of something.

But not me. Tonight, I won’t dream at all.

let it slide, let your troubles fall behind you

Dear Moira. My last baby. Your first eight weeks of life have been some of the most remarkable weeks of mine. Parenting the second time around is so much easier; we aren’t convinced that every squeak means an ailment or that every false move is going to scar you for life. You seem to sense that confidence and respond with an easy, sweet manner that everyone can feel. Everyone who holds you agrees: you exude such calm that it can’t help but soothe anyone who cradles you.

I told people when your sister was born that Maggie was an easy baby; in a lot of ways she was. But she didn’t sleep well–didn’t nap easily, woke up three and four times a night until she was old enough to walk. But you? You sleep, and you sleep fantastically well. Getting you soothed enough to nap is usually just a matter of snuggling you close in the wrap. You fall asleep after a ten-minute meal at 4:30 in the morning–usually your only wakeup–and stay asleep until dawn starts to cast light over our room. It’s magical. So are you.

let it shine until you feel it all around you

You’re my little heat-seeking missile. For the first three weeks you slept wedged into my armpit; I didn’t sleep so well for fear I’d suffocate you, but there was no problem. We eventually eased you into your bed for most of the night but you generally sleep best wrapped in someone’s arms. We cuddle…and cuddle…and cuddle…and it’s wondrous.

and i don’t mind; if it’s me you need to turn to we’ll get by

It’s something of a relief that you sleep and cuddle so reliably. We’re able to go on outings without having to stop every half-hour to figure out a way to nurse. And you are a champion nurser–thirteen pounds already and filling out six-month clothes. Nursing isn’t quite like riding a bike; it’s more like doing a familiar dance with a new partner. There are idiosyncrasies to contend with and difficulties with second babies aren’t unheard of. Not you. When we put you to the breast it was more like “Stand back, Mom. I got this.” You latched like a champion the very first time and never looked back. Feeding you has been easy. It’s been a pleasure. We are so lucky, you and I. We’ll do this a long time.

it’s the heart that really matters in the end

I love that photo. All our hats for babies your age look delightfully goofy. I just put you in Maggie’s hats and call it good.

our lives are made in these small hours

these little wonders, these twists & turns of fate

Moira, I wrote before that I didn’t know how good life with a baby could be and I didn’t. It’s unfair to compare you to your sister; I brought my own neuroses and stressors into my early relationship with your sister and while I was a good mother to her, I was terrified. I’m not anymore. Now there’s only joy. You made me a better mother than I was; you made me better for you and for Maggie.

time falls away, but these small hours

My love, my little wonder. You make me laugh. You fill my arms with solid, perfect warmth. Your love smells like milky breath and looks like a cheek pressed against my arm and I ache when I have to give your father his turn. When I think I can’t love your sister any more, she looks at you and rushes to give you kisses and tuck you in with her special blanket so you’ll stay warm, and I think I’ll explode from the force of loving you both.

Most of all, sweet girl, you healed my heart. You fixed something in me that I didn’t know was broken. You gave me the confidence to keep moving forward and the knowledge that while it goes fast (it does, it goes by so fast) this time is still mine to enjoy. I can’t wait to see what comes next, my sweet love.

these small hours still remain

(italicized lines are lyrics from Rob Thomas’ “Little Wonders”)

As I have written before, Maggie is a special little snowflake. She is not like other children in a lot of wonderful ways…and some not-so-thrilling ways. We have been coping with a bugger of a case of sibling jealousy here. Maggie seems to not take Moira herself personally; she’s very gentle to the baby. No, no, she haaaaates us to the point of hunger strikes and tantrums so violent she breaks out in hives. It’s just boundary-testing to see how much nonsense she can pull before we push her away in favor of the new baby and of course, we would not do that. We just need to wait for Maggie to internalize what we’ve been telling her all along: that we will always love her and that she is a very important member of this family. It doesn’t make it any less trying, though.

Enrolling her in preschool has been great in terms of giving her a space of her own during this transition; she is opening up to other adults, if not other children, and is settling in rather well. This year the preschool did a reenactment of the nativity for the parents with a few holiday refreshments afterward (and big, big thumbs-up to a school that will serve alcohol to the parents at noon). Because I am essentially naive, I decided Maggie would be joining everyone in the nativity play. Lots of stimuli, organized activity, responding on cue? What could go wrong?!

Obviously, this did not work out. Specifics need not be mentioned but as we walked in you could practically see the words “Bull. Shit.” pop into Maggie’s eyes. There were about 20 kids in various costumes, including an angelic little choir, and Maggie in her striped fleece hat and puffy coat, resigned to the “musician” section. Her job was to ring bells.

She did not.

Maggie did, however, come sit with Moira and me to watch the nativity play and enthusiastically clap for her classmates for a few minutes before she wandered off to rummage through a bin of stuffed animals. No doubt she wanted to cherry-pick a few good ones while her classmates were all occupied. She pulled out two I recognized from earlier in the term (“No, Maggie, those don’t go home with us! Sorry!”) and brought them over; she cuddled them as the obvious favorites that they were. I had Moira in the wrap and had juuuust enough room left on my knee for Maggie to perch.

I briefly was jealous of the other parents with their enthusiastic participants and wondered if we would ever get to the point where we could take photos of our firstborn participating in…hell, in ANYTHING. It was brief, though; she is still so young and I have vivid memories of being backstage at my first dance recital with my mother unsuccessfully trying to convince me to join my classmates in performance. Who can blame her for not wanting to don angel wings for a group of strangers?

Then I realized something else was going on. Maggie was making her animals dance and chat to each other, as per her usual. Then she stopped to stare at Moira. She thought for a few moments.

“Moira needs a toy.”

Then she tucked one of the animals–her beloved favorite–into the wrap next to Moira’s face, patted her sister gently, and resumed playing with her lone animal.

Onstage the tiny wise men were offering their gifts to the son of God, the miracle of Bethlehem. But in the audience we had our own tiny miracle too.

Happy winter holidays to you all.

What has our new family of four been doing? A lot. We’re also dealing with colds, random fevers, and a WHOPPING case of new sibling jealousy that has taken years off my life and added grays to my head.

But like my friend Laurel says, I’m keepin’ ‘em alive. Some days only just, but alive we are.

One question I’ve gotten a lot (aside from “Did you have a c-section?”) is “Did you know Moira was going to be ten pounds?”

No. We had absolutely no clue whatsoever. I measured small; I gained about 20lbs. That’s all. And I drank a lot of coffee trying to keep up with Maggie. My guess was just under eight pounds. So when I looked down at Moira for the first time I wasn’t really thinking about her weight, although she did look exceptionally plump.

Moira had a short cord, so once she was resting on me she couldn’t get much higher than my belly button. It was pretty incredible: I had read that babies placed on their mothers would instinctively gravitate toward the breast and latch on, which was exactly what my hungry little lassie was trying to do. For my part, I just shivered uncontrollably. All that adrenaline was flooding out of my body and I realized the window I had insisted on having open to cool me was making my shakes a hell of a lot worse.

While we waited for the cord to stop pulsing and for me to stop chattering we called our parents. My parents had some advance notice but we surprised my father-in-law during his Rotary meeting. The nice thing about Moira’s time of birth–12:13pm–is that it was just past 7am on the East Coast of the US. Perfect time to make calls. Much was made on Skype about her head strength and the roundness of said noggin–no conehead for my Moira. But come to think of it, it was a sizeable melon indeed. The cord stopped pulsing and Tom gave it a snip. The midwives took a glance at my ladyparts: no damage. Not a single, solitary tear. No stitches necessary. Both of them cocked their heads and said “Well, would you look at that?”

I like to imagine they were seeing a Georgia O’Keefe painting.

And then the moment of truth arrived: the scale came out. Because this is England, we got the weight in kilograms first–just shy of 4.6. I tried to do the conversion in my head and paused–I’m notoriously terrible at math. So the answer I was getting just couldn’t be right. Tom was the one who pulled up the conversion website and confirmed it:

Ten pounds, two ounces.

To say I was blown away was the understatement of 2011. It took the full part of three days to mentally reconcile what I had borne. In the meantime we just quoted this scene from Grosse Pointe Blank to each other except substituting “pounds” for “years.”

The rest we found out later: twenty-one inches long! A FIFTEEN-INCH CIRCUMFERENCE HEAD. Y’all, I have eaten pizzas that were meant to be shared with other adults that were smaller than my child’s head. But yeah. Ten! Pounds! I said to Tom “You know…I am going to crow about this a little, because this is the most impressive physical act I have ever performed.”

TEN. And don’t forget the two ounces.

I didn’t know it then, but that’s when I crossed a line. You can’t have a baby at home or have a ten-pound child without being something of a novelty; give birth to a ten-pound baby in your bedroom without so much as a belt to bite on and not need a single stitch? You, your kid, and your ladyparts have just punched your ticket as the main attraction at the birth freak show. That was a hell of a conversation stopper at Thanksgiving–you could almost hear the needle scratching off the record when I truthfully answered “Ten pounds. No, no c-section; born at home.”

Everyone I called fell into two categories when they asked about Moira’s size: they jokingly guessed ten pounds and then reeled in shock or they thought I said “seven” and had to be corrected. It was a good time. My Nana accused the midwives of having a broken scale; Tom’s aunt taught our British midwives the American idiom “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

I harp on her size for two reasons: a lot of people congratulated me for bravery and said they couldn’t do what I did. I will be the first to admit that if I had known, had any inkling at all, of her size, I might have thrown in the towel. But I don’t consider myself especially brave. Homebirth isn’t for everyone; neither is drug-free labor. I know how awesome that epidural feels; if that’s what you chose you will find no judgment here. But don’t underestimate the power of what your body can do. The second reason is to say that the lack of…er, “collateral damage” was entirely due to my midwives convincing me to assume positions that utilized gravity and engaged strong muscle groups. Left to my own devices I may very well have needed sutures because I would have stayed on my side and then semi-reclined to push. So make of that what you will.

At any rate, Moira’s birth was a transformative experience. The midwives drew me a bath and we washed her hair, dressed her, and I got to soak for a bit. My bed was made and ready for me. Maggie came upstairs and immediately dismissed her new sister for her brand new baby doll, a gift “from Moira.” The plush purple number Maggie named “Violet Snowbaby” was far more interesting to her than the new baby. We made a few Skype calls throughout the afternoon but mostly we just watched Pixar movies in our bed–a new family of four. Moira slipped into our lives like she had always been there; a calm, round, perfect peach of an infant who only asks to be loved on and snuggled and fed copious amounts of milk. After the daze of Maggie’s birth combined with our first-time parent nervousness, I didn’t know it could be that way.

I had no idea that having a newborn could be this good. But oh, it is.

Before we begin, I leave you with Dr. Spaceman of “30 Rock” and his wisdom on childbirth: “Everything about this is disgusting!” So consider yourself warned about the graphic content ahead. You don’t like bodily processes…perhaps go read something about the Supercommittee. Same quantity of poo, different type.

**********

On November 6 I started feeling odd. Not in labor, but the intensity of the Braxton-Hicks contractions picked up along with the lower back pain and my emotions had spiraled out of control. Waves of nausea would hit at random times and my digestion was shot–most mornings began with stomach pain and gas. You might have noted that Moira was born on the 18th…and my due date was the 11th. I spent 12 days in pre-labor bodily prep, seven of which were after my due date, and straining to maintain a Zen attitude about it all. So you’ll understand why, when my first few contractions hit like a runaway train and woke me from a sound sleep around 6am, I brushed them off as the French onion soup I had for dinner.

Maggie woke up around 8 and by this time I suspected there might be more to this than wine-infused beef broth and gruyere. I had enough presence of mind to think “There is no way I can prepare a hot breakfast” as I flipped Maggie a dry scone, summoned Tom home from work, and called the midwife. I thought about timing contractions but the app I got for that purpose was on the iPad, which Maggie had stolen while I was on the phone, and I was too busy groaning to use my watch. My best guess was every 5 minutes.

Tom arrived home to find me hanging from the stair railing like a rhesus monkey and took over, setting Maggie up with a proper breakfast and a day’s worth of amusements on the DVD player. I did as I normally do under stress and paced aimlessly, suggesting that Tom run a quick vacuum in our room before making the bed up in plastic. Once he did I was able to administer a chlorhexdine…let’s call it a wash instead of what it really is (rhymes with sploosh), recommended by some for group B strep positives who don’t want to go to a hospital for antibiotics. Now, my mother used to keep the books for a convenience store/gas station and the back hallways were lined with various cleaning fluids and windshield wiper spray. I am here to tell you that the antiseptic smelled exactly like car cleaning fluid. So obviously I was really excited to administer it to my hoo-ha.

Proust had his madelines; I have my windshield wipers.

I kept pacing and harassing Tom about setting up the house. Finally I realized I was making us both nervous and hit the shower. Ohhhh…shower good. I had three contractions while showering that required my full attention to get through but I still managed to condition and shave my underarms. It’s the little things, you know? But then I realized: it was only a ten-minute shower. And the contractions were lasting about a minute. That…was that right? That couldn’t be right. That was too fast. I got Tom to wrestle the iPad away from Maggie and officially started tracking: less than three minutes apart. I tried to sit on the exercise ball but had to stand up and hang off our closet shelves to power through each contraction. Apparently my pains were counteracted by all my sloppily-folded laundry.

I started wondering where the midwives were, because dude, this was really starting to hurt. Time to call in reinforcements; that is, wake up my mother in Florida. I didn’t think she’d mind (actually, I didn’t really care because I don’t know if you’ve heard: contractions hurt) because what mother doesn’t like to hear that her child needs to hear her voice, even if said child is an alleged adult groaning under the strain of passing a human being? While I was making my mother feel bad for me I had to excuse myself to take solace in my laundry, which is a pretty effective way to end a call.

Now, as an obsessive type with a fast computer and internet connection, I had done a lot of homework prior to the birth. I spent a lot of time studying this article on labor positions and committing the various merits and demerits to memory. Despite the red flashing warnings going off in my brain reminding me that lying on my side makes contractions “more effective” (re: stronger) and slowing labor, I hit the bed to assume the position that got me through labor with Maggie: on my side biting on my pillow.

Once on my side my groaning got an upgrade to full-on yelling. I wouldn’t call it screaming (not yet) but the contractions required a lot of volume. My midwife, K, arrived and I begged for something that most women dread: the dilation check. Since my midwife is smarter than I am she tried to talk me out of it.

“We don’t usually do that…it’s quite uncomfortable.”

“I need to know. I need to know how much further I have to go.”

“If that’s what you want I’ll do it. But we really don’t do this typically.”

So…she checked.

This was…unwise.

Once I peeled myself off the ceiling I immediately accepted the wisdom of my midwife’s warning and didn’t ask again. However, I realized I could really have used Tom’s hand to hold during all that. I could hear crashing around downstairs and realized he was doing dishes. I resolved to break UK handgun laws and shoot him in half at the first opportunity but later he clarified that he was getting Maggie settled so she wouldn’t come upstairs. That was acceptable and I no longer felt the need to murder him in a highly sensational way.

Another part of my prep was reading birth stories online; stories of this type glut the parent blogs but my favorite is from Fussy. (“I shit my guts out. Labor does not begin.”) Having essentially committed it to memory I was more than willing to head for the toilet when my midwife suggested that “having a wee” would help me get more comfortable. I don’t know if that’s true but I didn’t care: sitting upright DOES feel glorious! Hallelujah for gravity! Tom set up shop at the edge of the tub as I downgraded my yelling to “focused moaning.” It didn’t hurt any less but the position allowed me to feel like the baby might come out in a sensible way. I felt well enough to think about Maggie:

“Does she have water? A sippy?”

“Yes, she is fine. She isn’t bothered or scared.”

“I love her so much.”

“I know. So does she.”

For the record, she spent the labor watching movies in her britches:

JAZZ HANDS!!!

The other nice thing about this position? Less messy. You cannot give birth to a ten-pound child without also giving birth to a lot of mess. Your metaphorical bathwater is going to get tossed out with the baby. Everything about this is disgusting.

Despite this, I was still really working against two problems: every contraction triggered a panicky flight response and my skin felt like it had gone to super-receptor. It literally felt like I was buzzing–actual, literal vibrating from the endorphins. Not only could I not stand to be touched or spoken to by anyone else, oh no: I couldn’t bear for my OWN hands to touch me during a contraction. So my arms went between fluttering uselessly and death-gripping the edge of the tub in one hand and my pillow in the other. Sometimes I would stand to stretch my back and incorrectly timed sitting back down, which was excruciating. Tom helped me drink sips of water. They took my temperature and pronounced it normal, which shocked me because I felt like I was on fire. All I wanted to do was lie down and go to sleep; I wanted to return to the days of twilight sleep and forceps. I kept thinking “I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

And then the cold voice of reason and self-preservation spoke up from the bottom of my brain stem: “So don’t be here. Find somewhere else to be.”

…Huh. That’s not a bad idea, Voice. I think I’ll go here:

Nice, eh? This is Chun’s Reef, my favorite beach on the North Shore. Tom tells me that around this time I completely checked out. I stopped vocalizing and shut my eyes; there were a few times they thought I fell asleep. For my part, I was on the beach. I was feeling the heat of the sun on the black lava rocks under my feet and the salt drying on my shoulders. Every contraction brought me into the tidal pools.

Time passed, just me and my beloved Hawaiian sunshine. An hour and then into a second hour.

And it was fine. Everything was fine. Two or three nasty ones snuck in but I handled them. Later I mentioned to Tom how if I had a long labor I might have given up. He disagreed: “You were in the zone. You could have kept it up for hours.” And I could have except the feeling of a Shrike missile dropping into my lower pelvis completely wrecked the groove. I snapped back and shrieked, which summoned both midwives from the hallway where they had been discussing ordering sandwiches for what they thought might be the long afternoon ahead. Then another one, and another, just as intense. It was almost noon.

“What’s happening?”

“HURTS IT HURTS!”

“In what way?”

“BURRRRRRRRNING!” (In my mind I heard Ralph Wiggum. Go figure.)

“Can you check yourself?”

Before I wreck myself? Regardless, I checked. Everything was right there.

“Okay, the baby’s moved down. Can you get on all fours?” No, I sure as fuck could not. K said very calmly “Well, okay, Deanna, but you can’t have your baby on the loo.”

That made sense but I was stumped. Frozen and stumped. At that second I could no sooner have moved from that position than I could have jumped up to do the rumba. I had to make myself remember how to stand. “Just…give me a second.” Tom and the midwives got me up and walked me through the longest 15 feet of my life: from my bathroom to my bed. I let everyone position me: on hands and knees, head face-down on a stack of pillows, and a half-dozen strategically arranged towels under me.

My water broke at 12:03 with a pop I felt in my ears and teeth. I prayed nothing had hit the wall behind me and tried to find the words to summon Tom to my head and away from his bird’s eye perspective of the carnage but it would have interfered with the unabashed screaming I was doing. (Maggie watched on downstairs, oblivious.) A few more contractions brought the head came barreling through.

“Gently now, gently! Wait for the next contraction!”

“I CAN’T!” I roared. “Get it out, oh my God, get it OUT!” Tom admitted that at the time he felt terrible for me but fully anticipated having a laugh about my first words to our child later. He had a perfect view of the baby’s face and arm, which emerged at the same time, and was able to answer “Fine, it’s fine” when I asked if our silent baby was okay. You see, he got to see her brushing her face off with her little hand and begin to smack her lips and root for food. Not even fully born and looking for a snack.

While Tom was sniffing back tears and waxing sentimental, I was dealing with the wall. The head that had emerged so freely slammed into a shoulder barricade and the whole works halted.

If I live to be 100 I don’t know if I will ever have occasion to scream that loudly ever again.

Thankfully, K was able to adjust the shoulders and a mere ten minutes after my water broke, Moira was born in a frenzied push and laid, perfectly pink and as plump as a roast, on the bed underneath me. Tom yelled “It’s a Moira!” I babbled and cried and laughed. “Moira!” She looked around, as shocked as I was, but quiet and rosy and happy despite the frantic cleaning going on around her. Tom helped me maneuver to lie down and they put Moira on my belly, and we looked at our baby together.

And that’s how it was.

Maggie at 4 weeks:

Moira at 5 days…roughly the same size:

So very thankful. 

Happy Thanksgiving from your friendly monkey collective!