saraki

On Thursday the 8th the contractions started. We had an appointment at the hospital to do a scan, we were so lucky we had Nicolajs car, Rowan had borrowed it for a couple of days while he was working on the project with the municipality of Aarhus. At the hospital they said everything was fine, the baby was ready and in the right possition, big and healthy. We told them I had been having contractions all day, they said “first baby isn’t it? - then go home darling, it will take a while”…

So we went home, and then to the school, to buy some food, to wash some clothes, to find a map of Aarhus for my parents who were arriving the day after… I was having contractions every 5 minutes now, so we had interesting conversations interrupted for 30 seconds of pain and our very well trained breathing technique. When we finally called the hospital at 8:00 pm the midwife said: “get some dinner, and come to the hospital at 9:00”
I was going to become a mother! I was going to give birth to a person!! “dar a luz” - “give light”… I was excited, scared, impatient, happy, nervous, calm… I felt strong, weak, hopeful, hopeless… I wanted to sing, to dance, to cry, to draw, to swim, to sleep, to run, to dream…
When we came to the hospital a very nice old midwife welcomed us, I was well on the way to full dilation, it should’t take too long!! 7 of the 10 cms already! We were going to become parents very soon!
I jumped into the bath… well, I didn’t exactly jump, I wasn’t the agile person I used to be with that big belly, but I got into the bath nevertheless and it was very nice, the contractions didn’t feel as bad any more, and we were gossiping with the midwife and it all seemed nice and easy and I imagine if I was probably thinking why all those women said that giving birth was something painful and difficult…? nothing like that I thought.

At 11 was the shift change, a new midwife came… I was sad that the nice old lady had to leave… she had given me a sense of security, she had so far been the only person who had managed to hear the baby’s heart without the ultrasound machine, she first found it with that strange long wooden tube, and then pointed to a place in my belly and asked Rowan to place his ear right there… and he could hear it too!! this woman knows what she is doing I thought. The new midwife was very nice and friendly, but at some point I thought that she wasn’t as skilled and as experienced as the other one… she couldn’t find the heartbeats withouth the ultrasound thing… and I got nervous… Then I thought, my success in this process depends on this person, how can I make this person the best in what she knows, how can I get the best of her? Trust, I had to trust she was the right person to help me deliver my baby, I had to trust this woman was going to help me bring a new life to this planet…

And she did! It took us much longer than expected, she kept talking about some “edge” or something, the last centimeter took about 3 hours to dilate, they attached some cable to the baby’s head to monitor the heartbeats, they got me out of the bath and took me to the room next door, where for more than 6 hours Rowan and I were working really hard to get this princess into this planet. We tried so many different possitions, standing, kneeling down, laying down, hanging from Rowan’s body… The first couple of hours were ok, we knew what we were doing, wait for the pain to come, and breath in… breath out… until the pain goes, pretty much the same as I was doing all day long, only a bit longer, only a bit more painful, only this time it was for real, I was giving birth to my baby! To help me distract from the pain I invented a little mental excercise, think of a nice word when breathing in, think of a nice word when breathing out… visualizing how energy was going into my nose and out of my cervix…

breath in (luz…) out (agua…) … (agua…) (sol…) … (amor…) (vida…)…

It might sound cheesy, but it helped, and for me, anything that helped was gold! I didn’t want any sedatives, I wanted to be fully me giving birth to my baby.
I now realize that pain and tiredness and the whole situation actually drug you and that you are not you and you are not in charge of the situation and you are not rational… maybe that is the only way life can be brought. The memories from the last 3 hours are very messy, I remember crying, screaming, smiling, I remember I only saw the eyes of people, the eyes of Rowan and eventually of the midwife, I remember she talked to me and I don’t think I was that good at answering her because I remember she asking several times “do you understand?” I did understand, only that my brain couldn’t produce words, or not words controlled by me at least…

At some point the midwife said that she was leaving and another midwife was going to be with me… I kind of panicked, I didn’t want her to leave, I didn’t want another person to be part of this, I had worked so hard to trust her now… I had no energy to trust anybody else… she couldn’t leave! She couldn’t do that to me!!!. In the end she didn’t I didn’t totally understood why, the other midwife came, but I think she was called to help somewhere else, so she couldn’t stay…

That “edge” was still there, that last centimeter was still not giving up, and I wasn’t supposed to push until I was fully dilated… I wasn’t supposed to push, but my body was forcing me to push, it was screaming PUSH!!!

The gasping breathing was supposed to help me not to push when the contraction came… at the begining it did I think, but then it just became too painful, at the begining of every contraction I said to myself, “ok, this is it, now you can do it, you are not going to push, you need not to push for that edge to go away, for that centimeter to give way” gasp gasp gasp gasp gaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrggggghhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!! “ and then I felt like crying… I couldn’t do it! It is my fault that that last centimeter doesn’t go away, it is because I am doing things wrong!!! and the contraction was gone for some minutes or seconds or what do I know… and then the next one “ok, this is it, now you can do it, you are not going to push, you need not to push for that edge to go away, for that centimeter to give way” gasp gasp gasp gasp gaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrggggghhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!! “. And I could hear Rowan, gasping with me, and fighting with me… and the midwife saying that what I was doing was great, and that that centimeter was still there… that “kant” was still there… kant? How, what do you mean by “kant”? How can there be a “kant”? And another contraction… “ok, this is it, now you can do it, you are not going to push, you need not to push for that edge to go away, for that centimeter to give way” gasp gasp gasp gasp gaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrggggghhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!! “…

This was the psychodelic part of the night… colours and voices merged… I threw up several times, I was swetting like crazy, I couldn’t stand on my feet, I couldn’t talk. I could scream… and I did… of pain and fear and frustration and hope and love and happiness and sadness and all and each of the emotions my heart knows.

I lost any contact with the concept of time… (not that I had a strong relationship to this concept before…) all I know is that at 5:55, friday morning, 3 hours before my parents arrived to Denmark, and after 24 hours of contractions I had a baby girl in my arms… I was crying, and my baby was craying too, so we had a common language already, she was my little girl, our little girl!! she was so pretty, and had so much hair, she was 52 cms long and weighed 3590gr, she had her eyes wide open and was looking from some strange place… she was so strong and so fragile and so wonderful… and we had brought her to life… we had given her “luz”

That was 12 days ago, we are now home, we spend a couple of days at hospital, and now are here in our little garden house with our princess and our vegetables and fruits and flowers. We are trying to find the right name for her, experiencing how painful breastfeeding can be, learning to change her nappy and to wash her and letting ourselves be hypnotized by her. She is strong and has a lot of character, she is lovely when she is happy and if something bothers her she certainly makes sure you notice it. She is full of life, she is a gift of love and energy and we feel so honoured and grateful for her presence in our lives.

And I have to get ready to feed my little princess, so I have to leave now, she doesn’t like waiting!