"I'm not sick; I'm Zeben"

Last night as I slept, I began to feel like maybe I was sleeping with a hot water bottle instead of my usual sleeping companion, my wife my two-year-old. And sure enough, when I woke up in the morning, I realized that Zeben was, indeed, feeling quite a bit warmer than normal. I took his temperature to confirm and found him to be running at 102.4°.

"Why are you sticking that under my arm?"
"Because I want to take your temperature and see how high your fever is."
"Why?"
"Because you're sick."
"I'm not sick. I'm Zeben."

This is one of the most common corrections Zeben makes in his role as "the Word Police."

"No, I'm not 'two-and-a-half,' I'm Zeben."
"I am not a 'boy.' I am Zeben."
"And I'm not 'hungry' either. I'm Zeben."

Honestly, his attachment to his name as his sole descriptor pleases me quite a bit. Especially given how strongly I felt that his name should be "Zeben," before he was even conceived. And even though I doubted it at times--"are we really going to name our baby Zeben? What kind of a name is that?"--it was the only name that felt right.

Zeben at 102 degrees

But sadly, today Zeben is Zeben and he's sick. He remained relatively steamy all day long, and alternated between acting deliriously giddy, and like a melting stick of butter, heavy on the butter and the melting. I probably spent a good six hours just sitting on the couch, letting him suck on my boob--literally nursing him back to health, or trying to anyway--while contemplating what it means to have four kids and a virus living in our house.

The first time Luke and Jaz got really sick--sometime in the second half of their first year--I remember feeling like my whole vision of parenting had been a lie. I had left this critical detail out of my fantasy all together, and felt entirely unprepared for the reality of having sick babies to take care of. Hardly anything that I had figured out about caring for my healthy children applied to life with feverish, mucus-dripping children. My bag of mothering tricks was reduced to only one: my magical breasts were all that seemed to work. And even then, I had to take into consideration the difficulty that congested babies can have with staying latched on to nurse well, and the way my nipples felt after being sucked on hour after hour after painful hour. I started to think that they might really just fall off. And also like if they didn't fall off, then like I might prefer to have them surgically removed than to allow my sick babies to continue to suck on them day after night after day after night. Not that I'm trying to discount this top benefit of breastfeeding in any way--I'm seriously not sure how sickness works with babies and toddlers who don't have breasts to suck on and breastmilk to fill their tummies with; it's always been the only thing my sick nurslings would accept, and it's kept them from getting dehydrated many times--but it's not an all together easy solution.

a much-needed boob break!
Zeben drinking water/lemonade/herbal tincture
and watching a movie

Nothing is easy when I have sick kids. Or, when I have one sick kid, and three not-yet-sick kids, and one of the seemingly-healthy kids is a newborn baby (who I'm trying to protect from the sick kid's germs), and the other two seemingly-healthy kids are performing in their one-and-only final performance after two weeks of drama camp. I couldn't hold the baby. I couldn't miss the play. I couldn't unlatch the toddler from whatever remained of my sucked-dry breast. I felt a bit stuck. And then it dawned on me . . . now that we've created these four kids, we've also created the potential to have four sick kids. And that's a reality too overwhelming to imagine. But I can't stop myself from imagining even further. What if I got sick too? And my wife? And all six of us were too sick to move . . . how would anybody take care of anybody? Suddenly having the one sick kid didn't seem like such a big deal anymore. I loaded him up in the car. I nursed him through the play and didn't let him breathe on anyone. Especially not the baby, who my wife was holding. And my six-year-olds were fabulous--as the "Teeny Tiny Man"--and even succeeded in making my one sick kid laugh.

I don't really make a fuss out of the kids being sick--it's inevitable, it's good for their immune systems--but it is mostly a bummer when it happens. I hate the worry, and I hate the isolation. Waiting for a virus to make the rounds through all of the members of our family can mean that we're out of the social rotation for weeks, lest we inflict our germs on our friends. But there are upsides to sickness too, like extra snuggling time with extra-mellow versions of our generally-rambunctious children, and getting to teach the kids about how to be good caretakers themselves (Lukas, especially, really shines when taking care of his sick brothers). And then there's the reminder that illness brings about how great it is to be well, and the way that everything just feels so simple once the virus has left the house for good.


I'm hoping that tomorrow I wake up next to a much chillier version of Zeben, and that this particular virus is quick and kind as it tries out the rest of us as potential hosts. One at a time, please.

Just In Time

They say that babies learn how to smile "just in time," right at the point when you might be starting to feel like "slave" would be a better descriptor than "parent," when you're so desperate for some positive feedback from your little parasite that if you don't get any, you just might decide to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Or something like that. And I think we did feel that way, at least a little bit, when Luke and Jaz were newborns. And getting those first smiles--just in time--made it all feel worthwhile and we remembered why we'd decided to start this crazy adventure in the first place.

Leo
one month old

Leo is smiling now, with good regularity, and while I can't say that it feels as important as it did when our firstborn children started smiling, it's no less lovely. In some ways, it has even more of an impact on us than Luke and Jaz's drunk-baby smiles did, since Leo's smiles are quite contagious and there are more of us around now to "catch" them. This morning, Zeben was being his usual grumpy-at-daybreak 2-year-old self (he often has a small fit when I decide that our three-hour morning nurse-a-thon is over), throwing a bit of a tantrum beside me on the bed, when suddenly, Leo smiled in my lap. And even Zeben--grouchy and despondent as he was--couldn't keep a smile from spreading across his own face in response.

Leo
one month old

Lena and I didn't need Leo to start smiling just yet. His babyhood is flying by at such an astonishing speed that I could have gone a few more months without getting some positive feedback from our fourth baby. But witnessing the big brothers' excitement about Leo's smiles is possibly one of the highest joys of my mothering career thus far. Seeing how they can be so easily transformed by this tiny person who brings out everything in them that is sweet and loving is exactly what I need to keep me going some days. So for that reason alone, Leo did, indeed, start smiling just in time.

Jaz with Leo
3 weeks old

Luke with Leo
3 weeks old

Zeb with Leo
1 week old

I can only imagine what the impact--on all five of us--will be once this adorable "baby brother" starts laughing. The level of joy in our house will surely be outrageous then. You know, as if it weren't already.

Leo
one month old

The Mama Who Cried, "Goat Labor!"

When we first bought our goats back in April, we were told by the farmer who sold them to us that both of the yearling does--Chive and Petah--were pregnant. He was certain that Chive was due around May 1st (and she ended up giving birth--to Lou Lou Unicorn and Harvey Milk--on May 2nd), but he was less sure about a due date for Petah, saying only that she could be due anytime up until July 1st. It was actually hard to believe that she was even pregnant for the first month or so that she was here, since she showed no signs or symptoms (as is typical for goats in early pregnancy). But after Chive delivered her twins, Petah did start to look a bit pregnant, and she continued to expand rapidly as the months went by. As we neared the end of June, it seemed like it was up in the air as to who--between Lena and Petah--would give birth first. I was guessing that the goat would "win," but as we approached Leo's due date, I began to worry that the births might actually coincide. Once Lena's labor began, I sensed that Petah was about to go into labor as well, and it was actually a bit stressful. After staying up all night to witness the birth of my human baby, I couldn't imagine staying up for any portion of the night to be a goat midwife. I was shocked (and a bit relieved) when July 1st came and went and Petah was still pregnant. But after a week or so, I started to feel concerned. I contacted the goat farmer to clarify that July 1st was the absolute latest possible due date. He responded and said vaguely that it was "possible she was bred later than I thought." Much relieved, I stopped treating each and every day as the day when "surely the day the goat babies would arrive," but still was caught saying many times, "she will go into labor by the end of the week."

After four weeks of that, my predictions reached an all-time high when I announced to the world (aka facebook) that Petah was, in fact, finally in labor, and invited all of our friends over to witness the birth. A few hours later, it was clear that she was not in labor at all, and I decided to shut my mouth about the whole thing from then on. But yesterday, Petah's udder looked quite full, and I hoped I wouldn't be biting my tongue when I once again found myself telling everyone that she would give birth within 24 hours. Luckily for me--friend of the boy who cried "wolf!"--my prediction really was right-on this time, over a month later than my original prediction. This morning it was obvious that today would in fact be the day, and once again I sent out an email inviting our friends over for the "show."

Petah had become so huge that we wondered if she might be having triplets. I thought she was probably only having twins--since it was her first pregnancy--but that the babies would be big. I was a little worried that Petah might have some trouble birthing big babies, and was glad that she chose 10:00 a.m. (instead of 10:00 p.m.) to go into active labor so that I could be an alert attendant.

Zeben, Araela, Lou Lou, Lukas and Jasper

We put Petah into the "birthing suite" (a sectioned off area in the goat stall), and all of the kids (Lou Lou included!) lined up against the fence, watching Petah labor. A bubble of fluid appeared from Petah's yoni, but then labor seemed to stall. During this time, a bunch of our friends arrived with their young children in hopes of being there for the birth. I was glad they made it in time!

the bubble of fluid

While it's normal for human labor to progress slowly, goat labor should happen pretty quickly once a goat reaches the pushing stage. From my research I knew that after 30 minutes of no progress during active labor, it's recommended for a human attendant to "go in" and assess the position of the kid. After 30 minutes, we still couldn't see any part of the presenting kid, and I decided that it was time to intervene. We cleared out the barn (it had become a bit full of human children and mamas), I donned some gloves, lubricated them with mineral oil, and reached inside of Petah to see what was going on. I stuck my finger right into a kid's mouth! It felt like the kid was presenting correctly (with two hooves under his chin), but he was big and a bit stuck. I began to help Petah by pulling gently on the kid while she pushed, and almost right away, he (a boy!) was born. Everything happened so quickly--after a tense few minutes of wondering how stuck the kid was--that we didn't get any documentation of the birth of the first kid. But Lena was able to film the birth of the second kid (who was even a bit more stuck than the first, with one of his front legs folded back), and here it is for your viewing pleasure:



Petah was sort of unsure about the situation for her first few hours of motherhood, but has since stepped up to the plate and is mothering her babies like a pro. Both of the new little bucklings--"Wolfie" and "Spotty"--are doing wonderfully, and are quite strong and stable on their feet already. We are very much looking forward to playing with them in the weeks to come. As frustrating as this "waiting for goat labor" experience has been, I'm actually rather pleased with the (delayed) timing of the birth. Last week little Harvey left for his new home (we simply cannot keep all of these goats in the space that we have), and our farmyard needed a new burst of life right about now.

Wolfie Nursing
3 hours old

Spotty showing off his fabulous spots

Congratulations to Petah, and Welcome to Wolf and Spot!

Play At The Pump

On Saturday Elijah and Aryeh--the twin sons of our beloved pals Katie and Aaron--celebrated their fourth birthday, and we were lucky enough to join in the festivities. I've mentioned it here before, but it's such a great story that it's worth repeating: Eli and Aryeh were surprise twins to the fullest extent. Katie and Aaron were expecting one baby and didn't learn of their second son's existence until his head--not a placenta!--began to crown, five minutes after his brother was born. As a mother of twins myself, I can imagine few other surprises as significant as the surprise arrival of a second baby. Celebrating Eli and Aryeh's birthday is always especially fun since it's just such a wondrous and crazy birth story to remember. I've so enjoyed getting to watch the boys grow over the past four years, as well as witnessing their friendship with Luke and Jaz really blossom. Luke said, while contemplating the boys' fourth birthday: "Wow, Eli and Aryeh are, like, almost as old as us now!" As their difference in age becomes less significant, their play becomes more and more elaborate and entertaining for all. It's hard to recall the time when our twins used to refer to Katie and Aaron's twins as "the babies."

Last year I made the boys personalized bean bags for their birthday, but this year I was hoping to make them something not-with-fabric. Katie and Aaron are gifting their four-year-olds each with a pedal car (so much fun!), and I wanted to think up a gift that would go along with the cars. A couple weeks ago I thought of making a gas pump of some kind for the boys to use to "fill up" their cars, and spent some time lying in bed at night, trying to figure out how best to construct it. Of course, as of Saturday morning--the boys' actual birthday and the day of the party--I had done nothing (a classic example of me and the progress I make towards most of my ideas, but also a reflection of how busy we are right now). Lena suggested that perhaps I abandon the plan. But, no. I was determined to at least try.

I took a tour through my mom's basement (where we keep a lot of stuff--much to my mom's chagrin--since our house has no closets), looking for anything that might be willing to re-purpose itself into a toy gas pump. After a few minutes, I emerged with five shelves from our Swedish shelving (3 apartments ago, we lived in a wide-open studio/loft and put up a TON of Swedish shelving to make a mud-room of sorts . . . thus we have more Swedish shelving than we could ever possibly use (in our current house we have two rooms full, and still there was more in the basement)). The shelves were constructed very simply, each consisting of three narrow boards nailed into a small piece of wood at each end of the shelf. I took apart two shelves completely, and put them back together with the small joining piece of wood in a slightly different place so that I could puzzle (and screw) four shelves together into a rectangle. The fifth shelf became the stand. I wish I had taken more (any!) pictures of the process, but I was in hardcore production mode (party started at 4:00, I started working on the gift at 1:00).

Once the rectangle was constructed, I rummaged around for pieces and parts that I could use to turn it into a gas pump. A broken bicycle air pump was dismantled and I added the hose and gauge to one side of the wooden rectangle. I glued a (solar-powered) calculator to a second side (for the pay station), and a third side became the actual fuel dispenser, with the help of a garden hose nozzle, some old climbing rope, a towel hook, and a door stop (for the on/off lever). The last step was to add some signage and a place to swipe a debit card.

It's $4.00/gallon in honor of the FOURTH birthday,
but I think also not an unrealistic price for the next couple years.

So glad that broken bike pump didn't simply end up in a landfill!

I think all of my kids knew how to swipe a credit card from the time
they were 12 months old. I am not proud.

The on/off lever for the fuel pump is one of my most favorite parts. Very satisfying "click."

I was a bit (or more than a bit) rushed at the end (we were two hours late to the party, but it was OK since it was just us and one other family, who was even later than we were and our hosts were incredibly forgiving) so I didn't get to do my most careful work (especially evident in the lettering on the signs), but I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out. My kids were impressed, and I figure that's a fine enough standard. Eli and Aryeh liked it too, and since their pedal cars had yet to arrive, they got right to work "filling up" their balance bikes instead.

Lukas paying before he pumps.

Jasper filling his tank
(this pump requires the user to make his/her own sound effects).

Aryeh making sure his tires are nice and full.

Once the bikes were properly fueled and the wheels were full of air and everything had been paid for, the kids were off! Katie and Aaron live at the end of a wonderful cul-de-sac, and it makes for the perfect biking (or pedaling) loop.

Three boys in tie-dye: Lukas, Aryeh and Elijah

The Four-Year-Olds!
(Eli on the left, Aryeh on the right)

While they were bike-run-balancing around, Lukas told me that, "this is the best party ever!" But there was still lots more fun in store for our 5-pack of boys (plus two baby boys who were too little to participate in full). There was a yummy dinner followed by a treasure hunt (we love treasure hunts!) and then, of course, birthday cake (x2).

Elijah
(The Firstborn)

Aryeh
(NOT a placenta!)

We had a truly fabulous time and are so glad that we were able to take part in celebrating two of our most favorite kids on the planet. Happy Birthday Elijah and Aryeh!

Eating Green

When I was 16, my parents bought an old one-room schoolhouse in rural (i.e. middle-of-nowhere) Vermont, and my family spent the next three summers living there. Having previously lived my entire life in a big city, I thoroughly enjoyed my immersion into such a completely different culture. Our neighbors in Vermont were mostly people who had lived in the country since they were born, who couldn't imagine ever living in the city we returned to each fall, and whose connection to the earth and the seasons I found enviable (and who themselves thoroughly enjoyed watching us "city folk" take a turn at country living; my mother quickly gained notoriety after using a vacuum to clean out the chicken coop). One of the things I was most struck by, the first summer we lived there, was the fact that everyone had a vegetable garden, and the success of one's garden was valued above most everything else during the growing season. The harvest determined not only what people would be eating that summer, but during the dark, dreary, and cold fall and winter that followed.

Running into people driving by (we lived on a dirt road that was also a highway, so we got a decent amount of "just passing through" visitors) or at a party (of which there were many since not a summer day went wasted after such a long, anti-social winter), the standard greeting was not, "how are you?" or "how have you been?" but rather, "how is your garden?" Friends who stopped by would always opt to take themselves on a tour of my mother's raised beds, and would comment on how certain crops were doing and compare the growth to that of their own vegetable plants.

This summer is the first summer that Lena and I have even attempted to have our own vegetable garden. For the past few years, we've opted to join local CSAs, and figured that adding home-grown vegetables to the bounty we picked up each week would be overkill (and it likely would have been). But this year we resisted the temptation to buy a share (as much as we would love to be supporting local farmers in that way), and instead planted a small garden full of our favorite crops. The garden--like most everything in our lives besides our children--has been rather neglected as of late, but it is still providing us with all sorts of yumminess in spite of our lack of commitment.

The other night we treated ourselves to a very green dinner, most of which--the peas, broccoli, lettuce and cucumbers--came directly from our garden (the delicious spanakopita was made by our friend Hannah who used local spinach and delivered it to our door, and we ate it two nights in a row).

To up the green quotient of this dinner even more,
we ate our plates of green, green food
outside in the green, green grass.

Our peas have pretty much gone by now, but we've still got lots of broccoli, lettuce, cucumbers, and basil ready for the picking, and the tomatoes and peppers aren't far off. We are quite pleased with how our introductory garden is growing, especially given the very small amount of energy that we've put into it. We're hoping that we never have another summer without a garden, and that the amount of food we can provide for ourselves each summer simply grows with each passing year.

How about you? How is your garden growing?

Ice Cream for Dinner

Since the day after Leo was born, we have been treated to one of the very best gifts a newly-expanded family could ever receive: homemade dinners delivered, hot and ready-to-eat, 3-4 nights a week. Our friends organized a "casserole brigade" for us in honor of Leo's birth, and we have been dining on the most delicious feasts imaginable; our friends are not only incredibly generous, they're also exceptionally talented cooks! We've been so spoiled by this royal treatment that on our nights "off," (i.e. the nights when we are responsible for providing our own meal, like regular people), we often forget until the last minute when we end up throwing some hot dogs or hamburgers on the grill. It really is hard to find the time and energy to prepare anything especially wholesome or well-rounded when you have a new baby in your midst.

Tonight was no exception to our new pattern of lack of dinner inspiration (after the most amazing delivery of a falafel and tabouli meal last night), and we were feeling equally disenchanted by some oppressive heat and humidity (not only have we been spoiled dinner-wise by our friends as of late, but we've also been spoiled weather-wise by one of the coolest, least-humid summers we can remember . . . meaning that we are totally intolerant when we wake up to a more typical hot & humid day). Since all we wanted to do was to lie naked in front of our fans, we couldn't imagine mustering the motivation to eat anything at all, let alone cook it first.

So. We bustled all four of our children out to the car, restrained each of them in a five-point harness, turned the AC on full blast (usually we're anti-AC kinda people--we don't have AC in the house--but sometimes it's pure heaven), and drove 20 minutes west to the closest furthest road-side soft serve stand we could think of (thus maximizing our time with four well-contained children in an artifically cooled environment), and we had ice cream for dinner.

"This is mine dinner?
This big, big, big ice cream? OK!"

Lukas held Zeben's ice cream for him while he took a break,
and "helped him out with the drips."

Sometimes even when you get the same flavor,
you still need to swap licks.

My happy, happy post-ice cream wife
(Leo knows all about having ice cream for dinner
since we think breastmilk tastes a lot like melted ice cream).

After ice cream (well, and during, actually), the kids played on the ice cream stand's funky, falling-apart, and rather sweet playground equipment, and then I took some great photos of the four brothers (some of which you may have already noticed around here . . . more to come, soon) before we loaded back into the air-conditioned minivan and headed home. Just in time for a cool bath and bedtime (I had planned on serving everyone "broccoli for dessert," but the kids felt plenty full and like there was no need to top of their bellies after all).

Zeben and I both fell in love with this vintage elephant slide.

Can't wait to see (and eat!) what shows up for dinner tomorrow! Thanks again to all of you who have been feeding us so well during this crazy, wonderful time!

Babymooning

Leo is three weeks old tomorrow, and it seems that the intensive portion of our babymoon has drawn to a close. For the first couple of weeks, I felt as though I was stumbling through life in an altered state, learning how to be a mother in a whole new way, struggling to find balance between meeting the needs of Luke, Jaz, Zeb, the house and the animals, and my own need to be nesting in bed with Lena and Leo. I found myself looking at everything differently, remembering the baby versions of our older kids while staring at Leo's beautiful face, and gaining new appreciation for Lena's past experience in my current position--as the non-gestational parent--after their births. My previous babymoon experiences had been so focused on the physical: recovering from pregnancy and surgery, coping with the outrageous amount of milk my body was making and my painful breasts, eating like I'd never eaten before, a practically unquenchable thirst, an exhaustion so deep it was exhilarating. But this time, I found myself experiencing the babymoon in a much more cerebral way, my thoughts racing a mile a minute while my brain worked to make sense of my new reality. It was not necessarily the relaxing, dreamy experience I had been anticipating, but it was definitely essential. I'm glad we took the time to hole ourselves up and shut out the world, forget everything else, and lose ourselves in this baby. Even if it means that the kids were late for camp every day and they watched about a million hours of Charlie and Lola while emails went unanswered, phone calls were not returned, and this blog was sorely neglected.

Leo yawning
2.5 weeks

But now, 3 weeks after Leo's birth, our life has found rhythm once again, and I am feeling more like myself. We are no longer tethered to the bed, or the house, and the freedom of being able to pack up the car at a moments notice and head to the lake for a picnic dinner feels so good. This morning for the first time I brought Leo with me when I went to drop off the big kids at camp (while Lena stayed home sleeping after a rough night), and I loved getting to move through the world with my four small companions. It is finally starting to feel real: we have four children!


And it seems that everything is different now that this sweet little lion is among us, my visions of the future are changing, our dreams are morphing into something new. What seemed important before is not necessarily so anymore in this time of clarity about what matters MOST: the kids, being together, community, laughter, love.


The lessons of this babymoon have been rich and plentiful. This baby has already changed me, changed us, changed everything for the better. And I can't wait to see what comes next.

The Birth of Leo Star: Lena's Story

This is Lena's story, in her words.

I am writing this while my 6 day old baby is sleeping on my chest, with my laptop propped on a nursing pillow on my lap in my postpartum nest where I have dutifully stayed resting since the birth.

I had been having Braxton hicks contractions fairly regularly for weeks. I often had times in the night when I would feel them stronger, or have insomnia. But Thursday morning, my due date, when I woke up at about 4:30 am to pee, the contractions did feel a little different. More present. I felt myself wanting for spiral my hips through them just a little bit. I couldn’t go back to sleep. I got back in bed anyway and observed the contractions, coming fairly regularly, every 15 or 20 minutes or so. Some I felt more than others. Jasper, who often comes into bed and snuggles up to me at some point in the middle of the night, was in bed next to me as I rolled my hips through the contractions, unable to fall back asleep. I rested that way until morning.

A little after 7 am, Jaz and Luke had gone outside to check on our goat who was also pregnant and due anytime. I turned to Lex and told her softly, as Zeben sucked on her boob, that I thought I might be in early labor. I was very unsure about this because I was pretty sure my labor would start with my water breaking. All of my mother and sister’s labors had started that way and I was fairly certain that mine would follow that pattern.

We got up and started the day, getting the boys all ready for camp and nursery school, packing lunches and eating breakfast. We had been planning on going to the farmer supply coop 30 minutes away to get some supplies for our goats. We decided to go anyway, but called our midwife and let her know that we suspected the possibility of early labor and we would call again if it obviously progressed. She advised us to continue our day as planned, but to eat and drink well and rest as much as possible. The contractions became less regular and a bit less intense during the day. We had a productive trip to Greenfield. As we drove by our backup hospital on our way home, I commented that I hoped we didn’t see this place any time soon.

I took a shower and a brief nap when we got home while Lex picked Zeben up from school. At that point a professional photographer was scheduled to come take pregnant pictures of us. A friend of ours is starting a parenting support center in Northampton and they are decorating the walls with photographs of families and realized they didn’t have any lesbian pregnant pictures, so they asked if we would agree to be photographed before I had the baby. We cut it pretty close, but there we were posing half naked for photos while light contractions continued and occasionally I felt liquid of some sort drip down my legs. The day continued without much progress, Lex picked up the older boys from school and went grocery shopping on the way home. I had clearly stated that I wanted the house filled with fruit and food our children liked as part of my birth plan. I lay down again while she was gone, but didn’t sleep.

Our midwife called to check in that late afternoon, we told her how the day had gone and that we would call again if the contractions picked back up. We had a great dinner, I had a good apatite and ate copious amounts of cous cous, grilled zucchini, summer squash and apple chicken sausage. I was glad I had a good apatite, but I thought it might mean active labor was still a ways off. I also hoped that I would be able to digest the dinner before any onset of active labor because if I had to throw up that menu later would be pretty disgusting.

I put Luke and Jaz to bed that night, I read to them on the mattress on the floor in their room, pausing to breathe through the occasional contractions. Lukas asked me what was wrong, I said nothing was wrong but I might be in labor. He said, well early labor right? I told him I thought we might be moving toward mid-labor, but we would probably have the baby out sometime in the next few days. The boys went to bed well, I rubbed Lukas’ feet and snuggled Jaz as usual.

When I came down stairs it was just after 8 pm. I called my sister and told her I thought I might be in early labor, but was not sure, she told me she wanted me to call any time of night when I was sure, I told her I would. Then I called my parents and told them I thought I might be in early labor and asked if they would be able to be on call to help out with the old boys the next day in case I was in active labor. We didn’t want to send them away to nursery school and art camp if that was happening, they said they’d be happy to and to call them anytime. At that point Lex called Katie, our good friend who is a birth doula and had been our midwife’s assistant and would be at our birth. She decided to come over and check in, we asked her to bring her birth ball and to pick up some lemonade and Gatorade. I had been reading Baby Catcher by Peggy Vincent, I had just read about the birth of her third child in which she called repeatedly for iced tea. I imagined that I was going to call repeatedly for lemonade in the same way and wanted to be stocked up. Katie insisted on the Gatorade for it’s high electrolyte content. By the time Katie showed up the contractions weren’t much stronger but were more regular at about every 20 minutes, but varying from 15 to 30 minutes and sometimes lasting 5 minutes, and sometimes lasting 15 seconds. We put the drinks in the fridge and inflated her birth ball with our loud electric air pump.

Katie stayed until about 10:30 and then we all decided we should go to bed and get some rest, if the labor progressed we would call Katie back, but if it didn’t we would all need our strength for the coming days. Katie went home and we went upstairs and watched a show online in bed until about midnight when we turned off the lights to sleep for the night. Lex fell right to sleep. I tried to sleep but the contractions were getting stronger.

By 12:15 I started having contractions that there was no way I could lie down through. I got on my hands and knees and spiraled by pelvis in bed, then they started coming more frequently and were stronger, I got up and went to the bathroom and leaned on the sink and spiraled. For the first time I had to moan through some. Some were stronger than others but over the next hour while I let Lex sleep they became much more frequent, about every 3 to 5 minutes and stronger. At about 1:15 I woke Lex up and told her that I thought I was in active labor. The progression of contraction strength and frequency were hard to deny. Lex decided she should check my dilation before we called the midwife. She had checked me a few times over the last week, including the day before, so she had a reference point for comparison. She checked me on the floor in our book nook and I was just about one centimeter dilated.

We went downstairs and called Katie and our midwife. Katie decided to come right over, she could help us decide when it would be a good time to set up the birth tub and tell our midwife, Tanya, that it was definitely time to come. Lex called Tanya and told her about the contractions and the dilation, since I wasn’t very dilated Tanya thought it would probably take until the next day, I should try to eat, drink and rest as much as possible and that we should check in as things progressed. She said she would probably see us tomorrow. At this point I started feeling sick and I ran to the sink and threw up, retching repeatedly while running water and rinsing out my mouth. Our garbage disposal has been broken for a while and the, luckily mostly digested, puke wasn’t washing away well and I begged Lex to do something because the smell was horrible for me. She grabbed the plunger and drained the sink while I continued to rinse my mouth. I knew that puking in labor can really help dilation, so I tried to think positively about it, but I was nervous that this was just the first of many pukings. Luckily it turned out to be the only one.

By the time Katie arrived I was moaning through all of the contractions. Lex put on the birth mix I had started working on. I enjoyed the first song, “Walking in Memphis” and found it helpful to listen to during the contractions, which were taking more and more of my focus as I paced around the kitchen. When “Ooh child” came on next I immediately knew it was the wrong kind of beat and without even realizing what song it was yelled for it to be skipped. For me this kind of marked a shift from being a regular person with contractions, to being a bossy woman in labor. After the mix played through I realized that I had felt best during the Enya track and asked for that album after that.

Katie encouraged me to rest as much as possible between contractions, because this could still last for days. She encouraged me to lie down on the couch and drink something between every contraction. I was able to lie down between contractions for a little while, I drank some lemonade water (lemonade mixed with water, my favorite drink these days) from a straw after every contraction. They weren’t exactly regular in length or frequency, but they were stronger and stronger and taking more and more of my attention. For most of them I was having to get up and spiral my pelvis and moan, I tried being on my knees with my hands and elbows on the couch and hanging over the birth ball on the couch, both these positions helped as I rolled and moaned. I don’t know how long it went on like this, I had lost a sense of time, the pattern was only broken by occasionally going upstairs to pee. I asked Lex to call my sister because I was certain that I was in labor and she wanted to know, and it was not going to last for days, not at this pace. At a certain point I stopped being able to lie down at all and I started needing someone to push on my lower back. This need for lower back pressure became more and more desperate. I tried to keep my moaning low and my jaw loose like Ina May recommends, but during the stronger contractions this was taking more conscious effort.

At some point it started seeming like the contractions were never stopping, I had a vague awareness of Katie and Lex talking to each other in hushed tones and calling Tanya. They told her about the progression of the contractions, I heard them say double peaking and remember feeling like they were quintuple peaking. Tanya asked Lex if I felt like I wanted her to come, Lex asked me and I moaned out a desperate “YES”. At this point I felt like the contractions were so intense that I had to have this baby soon, and our midwife lives about an hour away, I couldn’t imagine this going on for much more than a few more hours.

Just after the phone call I was on my knees leaning on the couch, moaning and rocking through a contraction when I felt something dripping down my legs. I was wearing a loose V neck tee shirt and a loose calf-length black skirt, as I went up stairs saying it was time to pee again I remember saying that some kind of liquid was dripping down my legs. I was thinking that my water had finally broken, but as I pulled myself up the stairs I lifted the skirt and saw that blood was flowing down both my legs to my knees. I got to the bathroom and peed, stripped off my clothes and asked Katie to start the shower, and the not make it hot. I never went downstairs again. I washed the blood off my legs and dropped to my hands and knees as the next contraction washed over me. There were two wash clothes in the tub left from when I gave them to Luke and Jaz to wash their feet and knees in a shower the previous night. Between contractions I shoved the wash clothes under my knees, which were digging into the sides of the rounded bottom of our clawfoot tub. I braced my arms on the side and the back of the tub, between the rounded edge and the wall. I called for a hand towel the pad the back of the tub as I rested my head on it and felt the shower on my lower back. I still needed someone to be pressing as hard as they could on my back at all times, it was the only thing that got me through.

Zeben woke up in our bedroom and Lex went to nurse him back to sleep. Katie had been planning to go set up the birth tub, but I needed her to press on my back desperately. Eventually the hot water ran out and the shower went from luke warm to cold, so I asked someone to turn it off, but continued on my knees despite the lack of running water. At this point the contractions were so intense it felt like a freight train was hurtling through me. I moaned and yelled, trying to keep my tone low, but loosing control as the strongest ones peaked. It felt like someone was trying to shove a baby’s head into the deepest depths of my ass and they were succeeding despite any size restrictions. It was a feeling impossible to describe, but unlike what some friends had warned me of, I never felt like I was dying or like I couldn’t do it.

Then, suddenly, I felt like I had to push. It wasn’t like I had a choice about it, it felt like my body was going to push whether I did or not. I remembered that if a woman’s body feels like it needs to push she is probably 10 cms and the baby could come real quickly, or it could take a long time, but it certainly meant I wanted my midwife to be there. I told Katie I had to push and she encouraged me to breathe through the urge and try my hardest to not push until Tanya arrived. This was the hardest thing in the world. Like trying to tell your body not to have explosive diarrhea, when you do. Only instead of liquid shit, it’s a baby’s head my body was convulsing to expel out of what felt like my ass. I blew as hard as I could out my mouth, I screamed and moaned loader than ever, I think I said “oh God, oh God”, but I can’t be sure. I blew raspberries with my lips and did everything I could to concentrate on redirecting my pushing uterus. I reached down and felt for his head. I could feel something; it felt like the water bag, then a couple millimeters of water, and then his head. I kept my hand on his head and tried to hold him in while I tried to stop my body from pushing. I wasn’t totally successful, some pushing happened despite my best efforts, but I held it back for, what I am told now, was about 25 minutes until Tanya arrived. That was by far the most intense 25 minutes of my life.

During that time Lex gave up on trying to nurse Zeben back to sleep and they both came in the bathroom. Zeben stood quietly watching me intently with a plastic whale toy and a bath hippo in his hands. I looked over at him, when I could, between contractions and tried to smile and tell him it was okay. He seemed rapt, yet calm and surprisingly unfazed throughout the rest of the birth. I was so grateful to hear Tanya arrive. She came into the bathroom and checked my dilation, I think she said something like, “oh yeah, we got a baby coming here.” Then she told me that I could just do what my body felt like doing. Tanya quickly checked Leo’s heartbeat with her Doppler and I was amazed at my ability to stop all sound while I listened to his perfect little heartbeat. Then I resumed pushing and moaning. Although I wouldn’t say that pushing felt “good”, it certainly felt more satisfying and natural than trying to stop my body from pushing. I let my body push, I really felt my body take over beyond consciousness. I moaned, grunted, yelled, and pushed while on my hands and knees in the tub. I felt a sudden pop and clear liquid squirted from me as my water broke. Very little water came out because Leo’s head was crowning and blocking the flow of the rest of the fluid. I suddenly felt like I couldn’t get my knees far enough apart for the baby to come out and I felt like that was what was going to happen next. I moaned this sentiment out to the crowd in the little bathroom and they responded by quickly getting a birth stool that Tanya had brought and putting it right next to the tub.

Between pushing urges I stood up and climbed out of the tub and positioned myself on the birth stool. I still felt like I needed to hang on something and I articulated that somehow. Lex sat down on our little foot stool in front of me and I hung onto her neck, buried my face in her neck and made pushing sounds, said “oh my God” repeatedly and blew raspberries as my body was wracked with intense pushing rushes. Tanya checked Leo’s heartbeat again and squatted next to me, she told me that if I felt like the pushing was getting too painful that I wanted to shy away from it, I should avoid that urge and try to push through it. I never shied back from the pushing, I gave into the rushes sweeping through my body and allowed my body to push with all it’s might. In what seemed like no time at all, but was probably 5 or 10 minutes, I felt the pushing urge peak and pushed as hard as I could through it and felt the head move through my yoni, the pushing urge continued, and I looked down between my legs as I pushed Leo’s shoulders out and watched as Tanya, who squatted next to Lex and I, caught my purple scrawny little baby as he dropped between my legs. His cord was around his neck and she quickly un-looped it. She saw him take a breath and she put him right up and into my arms. I’d been reading so many birth stories I was ready for him to start crying right away and for all the pain I’d been feeling to immediately disappear and become blissfully filled with oxytocin love hormones. He didn’t cry immediately, so I just kept saying, “why isn’t he crying”, while no one else seemed worried. They said he was breathing and he just didn’t need to cry yet, but I still felt like I needed to hear him cry to know it was real and all was good. While I held him and watch him incredulously he gave a little crying squawk and then I let myself believe that it was real. Somebody said something about him being born at 5:26 am. I stared at the little naked baby on my naked chest and marveled at him, at the cord that still ran from him to inside of me and just knew that this was crazy moment.

There was bustling happening all around me as I stared at the baby in my arms. Chux pads were moved around, for some reason the stool was moved and I was sitting on the floor on a pad and Tanya was getting ready to catch the placenta. She said if I felt another urge to push to do so, right after that I felt a small contraction, nothing compared to what I had just endured, and I went with it and out came the rest of the cord and the placenta. The cord blood had finished pulsing and Tanya tied off Leo’s cord and Lex cut it. Apparently it was very thick. I was still very dazed, staring at the little baby on me and surprised by how much my body ached.

At this point our older boys, who remarkably had slept through the entire birth in the bedroom just across from the bathroom, woke up. A procession of people, supporting the baby and me and holding a chux pad between my legs worked our way through the boy’s room and into our room, where our bed was waiting for me to climb into with Leo. The boys met their little brother, with incredible excitement while I positioned myself on chucks pads on the bed.

Everything is kind of a blur after that, I snuggled Leo skin to skin, I was overwhelmed by exhaustion, Katie, Tanya and Lucinda, Tanya’s midwife partner who I had not noticed arrive, helped clean up while Lex, the boys and I acquainted ourselves with Leo on the bed. I tried getting Leo to nurse; he took to it quite quickly. I nursed him lying on my side because I was far too sore to consider sitting up. After bonding for a while it was time for the infant exam, I was curious to know how big he was, we all made guesses, and he was 7 lbs 2 oz. We washed the blood off of Leo and me with warm wet wash clothes. Tanya checked me and I only had one tiny tear that didn’t even need a stitch.

It has been almost a week since then, Leo is nursing beautifully, my milk came in, my wife has been taking wonderful care for me as I have stayed in this postpartum nest recovering. Leo is so beautiful. He is very peaceful. He mainly fusses when we switch him from horizontal to vertical or vice-versa, besides that he is sleeping, nursing or staring about. He loves to be worn by Lex in the sling and he sleeps curled up in my arms next to me between nursings and changings throughout the night. We are all very in love.

[Scroll down or click here to read Leo's Birth Story from Lex's perspective].

Leo's Birth: My Perspective

While we were at the beach, I was hoping--of course--that Lena would not go into labor until we got back home. But I was also hoping that we wouldn't have to wait a long, long time for Leo to be born. I figured that the ideal scenario would be that we'd return home safely, have some time to unpack, do 100 loads of sandy laundry, resettle, and that THEN labor would start, right at 40 weeks or so. And this is exactly what happened.

I had a feeling on Monday, June 22nd, that something was shifting. Lena started to act a little bit spacey, mixing up her words now and then (i.e. saying "two eggs in one yolk!" instead of "two yolks in one egg!"), putting batteries in wrong, losing my credit card in the pocket of her sweater, just some small uncharacteristic things. A friend called us and asked if we would be willing to be professionally photographed because she is opening a new maternal wellness center and wanted a photo of a "pregnant lesbian couple" to hang on the wall. I said sure, but let her know that it better happen soon because I didn't think we were going to be a pregnant lesbian couple for much longer. We made loose plans for the photographer to come that Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Lena went for her monthly acupuncture appointment and I wondered if that would get labor started. But, when she returned home, she told me that her acupuncturist (and long-time family friend) said that he didn't feel comfortable doing anything to stimulate labor since he believes that all babies should get to choose their birth dates. There was no physical indication that labor was about to start anytime soon, and Lena seemed pretty stable emotionally too. She certainly wasn't sending down eviction notices or talking about wishing the baby would just get out. Nor was she lamenting that she would be pregnant forever. I started to wonder if maybe we still had a couple weeks to wait after all.

But then, on Wednesday morning, Lena said, "you mean, this could go on for another two weeks?!" And I smiled and said yes, but also thought that her change in attitude/tone was a good sign. That night we had a picnic in town, and had fun telling everyone we ran into that Lena was due the very next day. On Thursday morning, the due date, I woke up at the usual time, and Lena said, "I think I might be in early labor." She explained that she'd been having regular, mild (but stronger than Braxton Hicks) contractions since about 4:30 a.m. They were coming every 10-15 minutes. She had also maybe lost her mucus plug, which she saved for me to inspect. I jumped up and ran into the bathroom, just as I had on the morning when Lena peed on the pregnancy test in October, and inspected the suspect mucus. It looked like a plug to me!

We knew that it could still be days--or maybe even longer--before our baby was actually born, but it definitely seemed like something was starting to happen. We made the kids' lunches and got them ready to go to camp. Lena called our midwife to let her know what was happening, just in case she had been planning to go out of town or something. Our midwife said her schedule was wide open, and advised Lena to eat well, drink lots of water, and try to sleep as much as possible. I also called the photographer--who hadn't come the day before due to the weather--and told her that she should probably come sooner rather than later if she wanted to photograph the pregnant belly. She planned to come around 1:00.

Our goat, Chive, had been steadily declining in health for the past few days, and I had been planning to go to the farm store about 30 minutes away to get some de-worming medication for her (wanting to rule out worms first). Lena decided that she would come with me, so we dropped the kids off at camp together and hopped onto the interstate. Lena had a couple of contractions in the car, and she would lift her bum up off the seat a bit to wiggle her hips through them. We were very excited. After getting everything we needed at the farm store, we headed over to the co-op to pick up some groceries (and to check and see if they had Lena's most favorite eclairs, which, sadly, they didn't). I decided to get some snack food for the kids so that they'd have plenty to eat over the next couple of days, in case this was labor.

I dropped Lena off at home so that she could shower and try to take a nap before the photographer came. She was still having contractions, though they seemed less frequent (every 20-30 minutes now). I then went to pick up Zeben and brought him back home. I decided not to put him down for a nap, since when he naps he tends to stay up very late at night (usually until at least 10:00), and if he doesn't nap, he's in bed by 6:45. I theorized that labor--if this was labor--would likely pick up once it got dark out, and I thought it would be nice to have Zeben asleep for as much of the evening as possible. Lena, on the other hand, had indeed fallen asleep for a quick nap, sleeping through any contractions she may have had during that time.

The photographer arrived and started taking pictures of Lena outside, and eventually I joined in the "fun" (I actually really hate having my picture taken, but it wasn't that bad). A vintage pick-up truck had mysteriously appeared in our yard a couple of days before, and the photographer had a great time taking pictures of Lena sitting in the cab, with me leaning on the hood. We both ended up getting naked from the waist up, which was a little nerve-wracking since we don't live in the most private location, but our landlords were away (one of our hopes for labor all along), so it seemed OK. Lena continued to have contractions throughout the photo shoot, though they definitely seemed to be petering out a bit.

a photo from the shoot

I went to pick up Luke and Jaz from camp, and on the way home stopped by a different grocery store to do a bigger shop so that we'd be really all set food-wise for the next couple of days. We had chicken sausage, cous cous, and grilled zucchini and summer squash for dinner. Lena ate well, and only had to get up from the table once or twice to wiggle her hips. For a very special treat (something we've never done before), we watched a movie, "Newsies" during dinner. We wondered if it would be our last dinner as a family of five. Zeb went straight to bed around 6:30, and then we let Luke and Jaz continue watching the movie while Lena and I went out for a little walk. We walked along the river, and the breeze was wonderful.

walking along the river

pausing for a contraction in the garden

The contractions seemed to be picking up in frequency, but not necessarily intensity. When we got back to the house, Lena spent some time getting Luke and Jaz in bed. Once everyone was asleep, we worked on cleaning the house. We put away all of the toys, did all of the dishes, and vacuumed all of the rooms. Everything looked great. Then we called Katie, our bestfriend/doula/midwife's apprentice just to check in (as we had been during the day). She mentioned that she had the next book in the series Lena was reading, and was thinking of bringing it by, and Lena said, "yes, please." We also had her pick up some gatorade and lemonade that we'd been meaning to have on hand for the birth.

When Katie arrived, around 9:00, she noted that the contractions were coming way more often than we had said (we were still thinking they were coming every 15 minutes or so, but hadn't been timing them). Katie timed a few and said it was more like every 8 minutes. Zeben woke up soon after Katie got here and didn't want to go back to sleep. He thought he had just taken a really late nap. So I set him up in front of a Charlie and Lola movie, got him a snack, and continued hanging out with Katie and Lena. We blew up Katie's birth ball since we realized that ours had a hole in it (not surprising since the boys had been playing with it outside for a few weeks). Katie listened to the baby's heartbeat with her fetascope, and Lena and I got to listen too! It was actually the first time I'd heard his heartbeat since our 13-week midwife appointment (where we listened with the doppler). Our midwife's fetascope doesn't work for me (I can't hear a thing), but Katie's worked great. It was the best sound in the world. Lena still seemed completely coherent, and it was unclear whether or not labor would start in the night or if the contractions might just stop all together once we went to bed. At 11:00, Katie left, and Lena, Zeb, and I went upstiars. Zeben quickly fell asleep and Lena and I watched a show for an hour. During contractions, Lena would flip onto her hands and knees, but the contractions weren't taking much of her attention. At midnight, we decided that we should try to sleep. I didn't think I'd be able to--too excited--but apparently I fell asleep instantly. The next thing I remember was hearing Lena moaning and feeling her rocking beside me, and then she woke me up and said that she thought she was in active labor.

It was 1:15 a.m. Lena had been having diarrhea, and said the contractions were coming every five minutes, if not more frequently. She thought it was time to call Katie and the midwife. I suggested that maybe I should check her dilation first so that we'd have that information to tell the midwife and to gauge how things were progressing. I had been checking her dilation every so often for the past couple of weeks, and I knew that her cervix had been completely closed the day before. So I washed my hands, and checked and found that her cervix had moved down quite a bit, and that it was just about 1 cm dilated. I knew that generally it wouldn't be considered "active labor" until 3-4 cm dilation, but Lena seemed quite distressed and was definitely acting like she was in active labor. We went downstairs so that we could call Katie and the midwife. I called Katie first and told her that we wanted her to come. She was definitely surprised to hear from us again so soon! I explained that Lena was only 1 cm dilated but that things were intense and that we could use some support (I thought that having Katie there would help "lighten" things up). I told the midwife that the contractions were coming every 5 minutes or so, and that they definitely required all of Lena's attention (she did not feel like she could make the phone call herself), and that she was 1 cm dilated. The midwife said that she would come whenever we wanted her to, and I said that we would wait until after Katie arrived so that she could help us assess the situation. Our midwife thought that sounded great and again advised us to try to rest, and said that maybe Lena should try to take a warm bath to help her relax in order to sleep. I learned from our midwife later, that she didn't expect to hear from us again until the next day.

Katie arrived just as Lena finished throwing up in the sink. She told us that she thought our primary goal should still be to sleep, so she helped us get cozy on the green couch in the kitchen. When Lena would have a contraction, she'd flip over and put her knees on the floor, leaving her head on the couch. After a little while, she needed to have someone pressing hard on her lower back during contractions. Katie and I took turns doing this and Katie was so great about making sure that Lena was drinking. Katie also checked the baby's heart tones with her fetascope, and it was amazing to see how much lower Leo was than he had been a few hours before (based on location of his heartbeat). Things seemed rather serious and intense, and at some point I said, "hey, what happened to the dance party?" Lena smiled a little--I think that was the only time during the whole active portion of labor--and I turned on the labor mix.

Jaz woke up, and was confused when he couldn't find Lena in bed (usually he snuggles her in the night). I snuggled him back into his own bed, and told him that we simply hadn't gone to bed yet (I purposefully did not tell him that Lena was in labor). While I was upstairs, I also quickly posted to the blog and facebook that labor was a happening thing. When I got back down, I felt more awake than I had before, and suggested that I make a breakfast birthday pound cake for Leo. Katie said it wasn't time to do anything like that yet, and that we should really still be trying to sleep (in retrospect, I'm really glad I didn't start making a cake just then!).

Around 3:15, Katie suggested that I try to lie down in the living room and see if I could fall asleep. We still thought that we had hours to go, and since Lena only needed one person pushing on her back, it seemed to make sense that we should trade off. I went and laid down, but couldn't fall asleep. It seemed like I was hearing Lena moaning more and more frequently, so I went back into the kitchen. It was 3:45. Katie said that the contractions were coming much closer together, double-peaking, and that it was time to call the midwife again. I called her and explained what was happening, and said that she should come. She asked if I was sure if we wanted her--did Lena want her? I asked Lena and Lena said, "YES!" Our midwife lives nearly an hour away, so we knew it would be a while before she actually arrived.

Right after I called the midwife, Lena said that she had something wet on her legs, and she had to go to the bathroom. We went upstairs (our only bathroom is on the second floor), and discovered that both of Lena's thighs were covered in blood. It was pretty intense. Katie came up and I could tell from the look on her face that this wasn't something she had seen a lot before. She told me that that much blood probably meant a lot of cervical change. Lena got in the shower to wash off, and decided that it was a great place to labor. She resumed her trusty hands-and-knees position, with luke warm water pounding (lightly, since our water pressure is not amazing) on her back. She wasn't talking much at all, but she would yell out, "hands!!" if Katie or I weren't there and ready when a contraction hit. I remember her saying at one point, "Why aren't I getting a break? Isn't there supposed to be a break?" Katie and I just kept reminding Lena that she was doing a wonderful job. She really did seem like a professional birther to me, making all sorts of great noises, and moving her hips perfectly.

Katie started to think that it was time for us to set up the birth tub, and went downstairs to get things ready. I was pushing on Lena's back in the shower. Lena said the suddenly felt really constipated, and I said that that was probably just the baby moving lower. At this point, I was thinking that she was probably at 4 cm. Zeben woke up in the next room, and I called Katie to come up to be with Lena so that I could go and nurse him back to sleep. It was a little after 4:00, and that's when Zeb usually wakes up every morning and then nurses pretty continuously until 7:00, when he wakes up for the day. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get him into a sound enough sleep for me to be able to go back to Lena. It was awful to lie there, nursing him, hearing Lena moaning in the bathroom. I just wanted to go to her. Finally, it seemed like he was asleep (I think it had probably been about 20 minutes), and I snuck back to the bathroom. Katie rushed downstairs to quickly get to the birth tub. I understood why after pushing on Lena's back for a contraction. It sounded a little bit like she was pushing, and then she said that she felt like she wanted to push. Katie came in, and I said, "it seems like she might be pushing?" And Katie nodded and said, "she is." But Lena was trying really hard NOT to push, and she was doing a great job blowing through her lips to try and disperse the energy. She wanted to wait for our midwife to arrive. Zeben came into the bathroom crying (as I feared, he was not able to sleep without me in bed at that point), but stopped once he saw what was happening. He remained quietly observant for the rest of the birth, and didn't leave my side.

Katie went downstairs and called the midwife again, telling her that Lena was pushing and to HURRY. Our midwife says that she then stepped on the gas and accelerated from 50 to 75 mph. It was such a wonderful sound to hear the midwife's truck drive into the driveway at 5:00 a.m. Katie helped her carry everything inside, and up to the bathroom. The first thing the midwife did was to check the baby's heartbeat with the doppler. Everything sounded great. She told Lena that Lena should just go with whatever urges she was feeling. She checked inside Lena's yoni and said that the baby's head was right there. Lena felt for the baby's head too and said, "it's not as close as I want it to be!" A few minutes after the midwife arrived, Lena's water broke with a pop and a splash. What better place to have it happen than in the bathtub! The fluid was clear, and the midwife checked Leo's heart tones again to make sure he was still doing well after the bag ruptured (and she continued to check his heart tones every few minutes for the rest of the labor).

Soon after that, Lena felt like she couldn't spread her legs wide enough apart in the tub to push the baby out. The midwife set up her birthing stool right next to the tub, and Lena climbed on to it. The midwife sat behind Lena, pushing on her back, and I sat on our little step stool in front of Lena. Our knees were touching and Lena grabbed onto my shoulders and buried her head in my neck. She pushed, and pushed and pushed. She was so strong. Sweat was dripping all over her. She said, "oh my god, oh my god, oh my god," but mostly just made amazing noises, occassionally blowing and panting. She really seemed to know exactly what to do. It was truly awesome.

We had planned on me trying to catch the baby, but from where I was sitting, I couldn't adequately reach, and I didn't want to abandon my post. I tried to help massage Lena's perenium with oil, which the midwife was also doing. Then suddenly, Leo's head was coming out! Once it started, it didn't stop, and his whole body slid out over the course of a few continuous pushes, along with a lot of fluid that splashed on my feet. A real baby!

Katie took this first picture of Leo from a small opening in the doorway
our bathroom is so small that the door had to be nearly closed
and there wasn't room for anyone else besides
the midwife, Lena, Zeben and me
--Leo is probably only barely a minute old here--

Lena's first look at Leo
(he was still connected to her via the umbilical cord)

Our midwife brought the baby right up to Lena's chest, and Lena held him, but seemed very stunned. I remember thinking that he was so beautiful, especially his perfect little mouth. All of his features seemed so delicate. He also looked really tiny to me. He didn't cry, but he was breathing just fine. Lena wanted him to cry, and eventually he did let out a little tiny cry. The midwife wanted Lena to move into a different position since the birthing stool is not good for postpartum bleeding. So the stool was moved out of the way, and Lena leaned back against the tub, sitting on a chux pad. I went to set up our bed (clean sheets, then a shower curtain, then more sheets, topped with an absorbent pad), but Katie took over for me, and I went back to the bathroom. While I was gone, the placenta had been delivered. It looked perfect. Our midwife tied the cord, and I cut it, and then we helped Lena walk from the bathroom to the bed.

All this time, Luke and Jaz had been sleeping about 10 feet away. They are really sound sleepers when they're asleep! Jaz finally woke up with everyone bustling through the room (you have to walk through the boys' bedroom to get to our bedroom). Katie told him that his baby brother had just been born, and Jaz got the cutest smile. A few minutes later he woke up Lukas, who was elated, and all three gathered on the bed to check out their new brother.

welcome to the pack, baby brother!

Lena tried to relax on the bed, and Leo soon latched on to nurse. Lena was not feeling quite as comfortable as she wanted to. The midwives (our midwife's assistant arrived soon after Leo was born) gave her some herbs and arnica and assessed her bleeding, which seemed fine. We all snuggled in and marveled over our new boy. Lena was nursing Leo, and I was nursing Zeb (who said, "now can we go back to bed?"). Our midwife gave the boys a "tour" of the placenta, and then popped it into the freezer for us (we will later bury it under the same tree where the other kids' placentas are buried).

the marvelous placenta

Then the big kids went downstairs and, eventually, next door, so it was just Lena, Leo and me. A couple of hours later, the midwife came in did the newborn exam.

getting weighed

We found out that Leo weighed 7 lbs., 2 oz and was 19.5 inches long.
He seemed impossibly tiny.

me touching Leo for the first time,
marveling at every little body part

I got to hold him for the first time while Lena went to the bathroom and tried to pee. Then we called everyone on the phone and let them know that Leo Star had arrived!

The only thing I regret about our birth experience is that I checked Lena's dilation that one time. If I hadn't checked her, we would have likely had the midwife come much sooner, and would have had time to set up the birth tub and take advantage of everything else our midwife had to offer in labor. But Lena has no regrets at all--she feels like everything happened just as it was supposed to--and I guess that's all that really matters. But it does prove that dilation really doesn't mean much of anything at all!

Lena and Leo spent the first week postpartum almost entirely confined to the bed, and since then have gradually been spending more time up and about with the rest of us. We are still adjusting to our new-and-improved family, but are so glad that Leo decided to join us. He is the sweetest little one. We are all 100% smitten.

pure love

sleeping on mama's chest
one week old