On the evening of Tuesday, May 13th I started to have contractions that felt like actual labor. I had been having contractions for weeks, but these were different. I guess by your fifth baby you kind of get a feel for these things. I went to bed that night thinking that I wouldn't get much sleep and we'd probably have a baby by morning. I was right about the sleep, but morning came and there was no baby yet, the contractions were still pretty sporadic and hadn't gained in intensity.
At 6:30 AM I took a walk down the road to see Sage, my friend and doula. Her house was dark and quiet, but I snuck inside anyway to see if she was easily rouse-able. I found her passed out in bed surrounded by her three littles. They looked so sweet and peaceful. I didn't have the heart to disturb them so I walked back home. About an hour or so later, after John called out of work, he walked back over to Sage's house and let her know I was in labor. She got up and got her kids up and came over to our house to make everyone breakfast. All the while I was still having very mild contractions.
After breakfast I decided to walk with the ladies in our community around the property. I walked up the rather steep hill to Liss's house. We walked down and continued down the road past my cabin and down to the community building, and on down the main driveway which is also rather steep. I was still having contractions but they just weren't organizing themselves into any kind of pattern or increasing in intensity at all.
Between all the walking and the restless night I had, I was exhausted. So when I got back to our cabin I decided to try to take a nap. I laid down for awhile, maybe about an hour or so. There weren't many, if any contractions in that time. My labor just kept stalling out. I was getting increasingly frustrated by the whole endeavor so at that point I asked Sage to check me. I usually avoid cervical checks during labor but this was getting ridiculous!
After checking me Sage determined that the problem was the baby's head was descending, but it was not centered over my cervix, but was instead in front of it. Sage decided to try to get me to do an inversion in the hopes that the baby's head would move to the right place. There was discussion over where this should take place. We don't have a lot of furniture, and we decided there was no good place to do it in our cabin so we walked back to Sage's and tried it on the couch. I was guided into some wacky positions by Sage and John! I ended up on my back with a folding chair positioned with one end resting on the arm of the couch and the rest under the cushion my lower body was on, to prop up my pelvis. While in this position both Sage and John had a turn with their hand in me, they pushed the baby around a little bit and got her head in the right place. I was pretty uncomfortable through it all.
We walked back home and I went upstairs while Sage made dinner for everyone. I think every kid in our community ate at our house that night. During all of that chaos Some of the older boys were sent on a water run, more to get them out of our hair than anything else. Meanwhile I was upstairs, in my most comfortable place in our home. John came up and checked me again only to discover that her head had not stayed over my cervix like it was while on the couch at Sage's, but had moved back to it's former position. At this point I was about 7 centimeters dilated. He was able to get his hand in my cervix and gently guide her head back to where it needed to be. It was agony and it felt like it took forever.
Almost as soon as he finished that Phaedrus, one of the boys who had been sent for water, came running up to the cabin and yelled "Teagan broke his arm!" (Teagan is my nine year old, second born). I didn't panic. I knew that sometimes kids embellish things. Sage happened to be the first adult Phaedrus came upon so she booked it down the hill to the scene of the accident. She came back and confirmed the news: Teagan's arm was broken. I asked her how bad it was and she asked me if I wanted the truth or not. I said I wanted the truth and she said it was very bad. His elbow looked like jello. I heard our van start and John was on his way down the hill before I had time to process anything that was going on. A few minutes later John was back to get his shoes and wallet. He came upstairs to tell me goodbye. We were both teary eyed. He said he was taking Teagan to the hospital. I said "you'll miss the birth." He said that our son needed him and he had to go. We both knew there was no other way around it, but it just sucked really hard. So they were off.
By this point I knew John's maneuvering had worked. The contractions were definitely regular now, but the intensity was increasing very slowly. I wasn't ready yet and my body knew that.
Meanwhile Sage took all of the kids to her house, along with Leslie (another adult community member who happens to be wonderful with kids) they set up a giant sleepover for the kids. There were ten kids in our community (eleven now, counting Willow). Sage had all of them minus Quinn, Phaedrus's older brother who attends school in Mass. during the week, Teagan obviously, and Kaleb (my oldest) who decided to stay home with me. So Sage had a total of seven kids in her living room. I was so worried about how Rowan and Seamus would do, neither of them have ever spent a night away from me. Cheryl, Quinn and Phaedrus's mom, stayed with me and cleaned up the giant dinner mess. After she had finished she went home with the promise that she would return shortly.
Throughout the day our community had been communicating with each other through google hangouts on our phones. We had a group chat going keeping everyone up to date on everything. John informed us all when he arrived at the hospital and what was going on with that. It turned out that Teagan would need surgery on the arm, and the hospital he was at was not equipped for that, so he would need to transfer to Dartmouth-Hitchcock. He asked if anyone could bring him some things, since they had left in such a hurry Teagan didn't even have a shirt or shoes on. Cheryl volunteered. Kaleb was sound asleep on the mattress Rowan and Seamus usually sleep on in my room, so I had to rouse him to go up to the room he shares with Teagan and get him some clean clothes. (They sleep in an upstairs loft, only accessible by a ladder which I was definitely not trying to climb in labor!) Waking Kaleb from a dead sleep and trying to get him to function was pretty amusing. I finally got a bag together and Cheryl came by to pick it up. She told me she'd come back over as soon as she returned. I was still in denial that I wouldn't be birthing how I had pictured: just John and me. We love birthing together, the two times we had done it prior it had just been a very special, bonding experience for us. The intimacy of a husband and wife birthing together in their home, undisturbed, peaceful, and without fear, it's just something that has to be experienced to be understood. When I am pregnant I look forward to the birth. Not as something painful and terrible to get through to meet my baby, but as an amazing experience in and of itself. So yes, I was in denial that I wasn't getting that this time. So I told Cheryl "Ok yeah, we'll see where we are then. Just message me when you get back." or something to that effect. I had kind of been waiting for everyone to be gone so I could process the new reality and could surrender to what my body had to do. I think I even thought that if I couldn't have John with me, I could do it on my own. I probably could have pulled that off for Rowan's birth if I had to, so I was thinking maybe this would be one of those births.
I had a private chat going with John throughout. I told him that I thought that my body wasn't letting her come yet because he wasn't there. He told me to let her come. Things started to get pretty intense as soon as I was alone. I couldn't distract myself from it anymore. It wasn't long before I sent Sage the message that I needed her. She got the last couple of stragglers to sleep and came right over. Cheryl got back shortly thereafter. It was getting late. We were in my bedroom, my soft blue Christmas lights and the beautiful full moon shining in the wall of windows beside my bed the only light in the room. I was naked and laboring with two people that I did not expect to be naked and laboring with. It was starting to hurt pretty bad. Meanwhile updates were coming in from John. They had arrived at Dartmouth. They were prepping for surgery. I was standing up and leaning on Cheryl during contractions. My water hadn't broken yet and that was driving me crazy. I thought for sure it would stop hurting so damn bad once it did. I couldn't stand anymore so I sat on my bed. That hurt too so I was going to try to get back off the bed and lean on the yoga ball. That plan got derailed when a contraction hit as I was sliding my butt off the bed. So there I sat, butt hanging halfway off the bed, it hurt too bad to move. I wanted to say "I can't do this!", the telltale line that means a baby will be born any minute. I willed myself not to say it out loud because I knew if I did Sage would smile at me and say "That's good! You're almost there!" and I thought I might deck her if she did. I know she'll laugh when she reads that. Sage jokingly picked up a chux pad that was on the floor and ducked behind it. My water broke on the next contraction. (I hate it when she's right!) Finally I moved to the floor and leaned on the ball. It was time, Message from John: Teagan has been taken to surgery. Two minutes later message from Sage: the baby is here. Cheryl caught her. I remember her saying "she's so slippery!" a few times. It was 1:57 AM, May 15th. I guess my body just really wanted to see what one of those 24+ hour labors was like. That, and she was waiting to be ushered in by the beautiful full moon.
After several minutes I was able to maneuver to a seated position, with some help, and could finally hold my baby. I was surprised to see a head full of dark hair. She was so beautiful. Her cord was very short. I moved onto the bed with some help and she latched right on. Kaleb had woken up to meet his sister. She was an expert nurser from the start. We waited awhile for the placenta. It was a little stubborn, as mine tend to be. I moved to the edge of the bed and it finally came after some uterine massage. We decided not to cut the cord until John got home so he could cut it. Then Sage somehow made an herbal bath appear in a shallow tote (if you understand how we live, you know that this was some manner of black magic.) I sat in the tote with my legs hanging out until I started getting cold and they got me settled into bed. They cleaned up and left. It was about 4 AM. I sent out a few e-mails then passed out beside my little Willow tree. She made these little squeaking sounds the whole time we were asleep, like she wanted me to know she was ok. John and Teagan arrived home around noonish. The pictures in my FB album of him looking at her on the bed are of their first meeting. If you look closely you may be able to see the tears in his eyes. <3 We gave her the name Willow Luna Elizabeth Williams. The first of our children to have two middle names. Willow to go with my Rowan. Luna for the beautiful moon that shone over us as I birthed her, and Elizabeth is a name that she had whispered to John months ago.
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