by Magda Pay
Solan was born at the crack of midnight on the Full Moon in October. I labored for about seven hours with forty-five minutes of hard labor.
I could feel the contractions starting early in the day and I kept trying to waddle off to Englishman River, my instincts telling me to take time alone. I spent most of my pregnancy floating in that river. My family didn’t have as much faith as I did in my ability to give birth on my own and kept herding me home. At about eight at night, my contractions were a steady three minutes apart and they made me call the hospital. I was told me to come promptly. By the time I arrived at the Nanaimo Hospital, I was four and a half centimeters dilated and experiencing major contractions. The nurses were blown away that it was my first child and that I was so calm. There was an endless stream of health care professionals who seemed bent on feeding me drugs. I declined and continued chatting with my family who were all bug-eyed and staring at me like I was some exotic creature in a zoo. In forty-five minutes, I was up to nine and a half centimeters, still without drugs, and the nurses were in a tither about my pain threshold. Things took a turn around then, and I remained at nine and a half centimeters until the general practitioner (GP) on call decided to call in the obstetrician (OB). During my contractions, the fetal heart monitor could not pick up the heart rate of my son and for fear his heart rate was actually stopping, the GP decided to call in the “big gun.” When he showed up (not my doctor—he was on his sole one-day vacation in something like four years and had his two young children at home by himself), and while I was on my hands and knees mid-contraction, he introduced himself whilst sticking his hand inside me to check the thinning membranes. He promptly broke my water and flipped me on my back, ushering my family out of the room and wheeling me to the operating room, spouting about a C-section. I couldn’t speak as I was in hard labor, but I remained hard as coal. This doctor was a fool and I knew it. Solan was coming right then, there wouldn’t be time for a C-section. I had already dreamt how my birth would go and all was unfolding according to plan. In the operating room, the doctor told me not to push. While doing so, he performed an episiotomy—inserting the anesthetizing needle straight into my pubic bone—effectively freezing me for years to come. The needle hurt worse than the actual contractions and was intensely traumatizing amidst labor. He then cut my vaginal opening, and due to the intense pressure from the contractions, I proceeded to tear both along the inside of the canal and along the outside toward the anus. It was an odd sensation to feel my skin splitting and tearing in many directions and yet feel no pain associated with it. I was furious and I began to reel. My eyes went toward the back of my head. Someone grabbed my hand as I was losing it and snapped me to attention, saying, “You are not going to lose it.” I replied, “I am not going to lose it!” The doctor was shouting, “Forceps!” I pushed and the doctor spun around, dropping his forceps and catching my son. My legs, mounted in the stirrups, were thrashing uncontrollably from the trauma. The nurses took my son (whose eyes stayed on mine no matter where they took him) and ran the normal routine: washing, drying, weighing, measuring, dressing—while the doctor went to work repairing the damage he’d done. I lost a lot of blood. My son, who was still looking at me, was asking me if I was OK, as I was asking him if he was OK. And then his father was allowed in. I said, “Get him, get the baby.” I couldn’t hold him. I couldn’t hold my own head up.
Back in the recovery room, Solan latched on naturally and I enjoyed my first few moments with him and the rest of my family. A nurse came to wash me and I said, “I think I will take some Tylenol now . . . ” The nurses, one by one, and even the GP, came to see me over the next few hours. After looking around as if to make sure no one else could hear, they all said to me, “You shouldn’t have had to go through all that.” I walked out fourteen hours after Solan was born against doctor’s orders. I’d had enough, I was taking my child home.
I had wanted to birth my son at home. My family had been fearful. When I became pregnant with my daughter and said I was having a homebirth, this time no one questioned me. It was six years later. I was really, really, really ready to have this baby. My partner drove a lowrider with hydraulic shocks and it bounced everywhere we went in it. I told him to take me for a drive. We went to Nanaimo. We were in Chapters Bookstore when I got a call from my best friend in Vancouver. She asked me how I was feeling. She told me she was pacing the floor thinking of me. I remember standing there looking up at the ceiling: it was surreal and I said from somewhere deep inside of me that I was feeling “very cervical.” She said, “I am getting on the three o’clock ferry then,” and hung up. My water broke right then and there. I hobbled past the in-store Starbucks, and went to the washroom to clean up. I had been prepared, but the cloth pad I had worn was at capacity—was I ever grateful! I then hobbled over to my partner who was looking at a book about Cleopatra. I said, “It’s time.” He looked up and said, “Do you think we should buy this book?” I fixed my eyes on him and said, “IT’S TIME!” He went pale and dropped the book and then began fussing about me like I was a china doll. I hobbled back to the car and this time we drove about a half an hour home to Errington.
My contractions were fast and regular right from the get-go—less than three minutes apart. I labored with my daughter for three hours in total, twenty minutes of which was hard labor. She came in a flash!
I remember going deeply within to be with my daughter and my body during the contractions. I saw her clearly lined in gold and silver light as though angels were protecting this royal creature. In the beginning, in between the contractions, my mind went straight to the to-do list: did we have anything? Did we need to stop in town for any last items we might need? My partner, bug-eyed, said nothing and drove me home. I called my midwife. She was grocery shopping. I told her I was fine and we’d see her in an hour when she arrived. I sat outside my house and greeted my son as he got off the school bus, with my partner recording and timing the contractions. I smoked a little ganja and her head moved into the birth canal. I had to raise my hips for fear of sitting on her head. My midwife showed up, took one look at me and said to get me in the house.
I was calm. I stood up, had a contraction, waited it out, walked three steps, had a contraction, again waiting it out. I had two more before I made it to my daughter’s nursery, all painted and prepared for her arrival. My midwife called for backup, but the cell system was down. There was a solar eclipse happening at the time, and I later wondered if that buggered the phone lines. She dropped the phone and tore open my skirt. I gave birth in my socks—there was just not enough time. With one push she crowned and I stretched farther than I knew was humanly possible. I felt the contraction begin to fade and I remember going “No . . . no . . . no!” I didn’t think I could endure that stretch long enough to wait for another contraction. I threw my head back and inside screamed for ginger ale—odd because I don’t drink the stuff. I felt it coming back and pushed her out. I took my daughter. I was dazed. She was gray and the midwife said, “Get your baby going, Maggie!” I rubbed her and she screamed. Not a new life sound—an angry battle cry.
And she is still loud. I told my partner to turn off the hose—I had intended a waterbirth but we didn’t have enough time to even get in the pool. My family then showed up to take care of Solan. (We had called them earlier but they didn’t make it in time.) Dinner was half an hour late that night. Her father came forward with her name, Cleopatra. I always intuited she was a girl. I would have named her Kali myself, but Cleopatra translates to “dark goddess,” and “glory of her race,” which holds a similar vibration to Kali. Since another name did not enter my consciousness during the pregnancy, that’s what we chose. It was only slightly ironic that we were looking at the book when my water broke.
My friend showed up and heard Cleopatra screaming. She came in the room saying, “Did you have a baby?” We laughed.
Cleopatra’s birth repaired all the damage from Solan’s. My sensitivity returned and the damaged tissue repaired itself. My lower spine adjusted during her birth and I actually stand an inch taller now. I had no tearing and I healed quickly. It was faster than I thought possible but it was what I wanted. My daughter came intensely and is an intense lil’ lady to this day.
Magda is a Vancouver Island-based painter and leather worker.