By Nici Holt Cline
Ruby’s unexpected stay in the hospital pushed her birthday into distant memory. But it wasn’t that long ago and a day worth celebrating even more now. Girlfriend needs her birth story written.
12/14/09
Dear Ruby,
It is a very snowy, very dark morning. You are three weeks old. You are asleep next to me on an industrial table in the pediatric ICU. We’ve been here for 11 days. And, guess what? Today you are no longer an intensive care patient and they are bringing in a bassinet. You are about to go home. To your home. Not today but soon. I hope by Margot’s birthday (I not-so-secretly hope it will be tomorrow but everyone is just so cautious with what they promise around here). Right now you are on .5 liters of 30% oxygen and breathing 41 breaths per minute. Three days ago you were on 8 liters of 50% oxygen and breathing 130 breaths per minute.
Your plight, your fight has inspired a world of people, including me. I love you so deeply and I just can’t wait to see how you insert yourself into this life.
1/1/10
Dear Ruby,
You did indeed go home the very next day and home, or close to it, is where we have been since around 1pm on December 15. There are intense feelings and fears we are working through as a family but, on the whole, we are whole. Cheers to 2010 little girl. Love you so.
:: :: ::
A crazy alignment of stars allowed me to attend an all day mama retreat on Saturday, November 21. I spent the day with 12 incredible women doing yoga, making art, meditating, writing and dancing. We danced to beautiful African inspired rhythms and it culminated in a magic four minutes when my 200 pound body jumped around to Justin Timberlake and Madonna. When I was leaving, my dear friend, Jennifer, turned to me and said, if Justin and Madonna don’t make you have this baby tonight…
No baby that night but it was the most perfect way to spend the day before having a kid. Sunday, November 22 is my grandma’s birthday. Alice Sylvia Bratton. It was so cold that day. We went for a slow slow walk around the hood. Everything was achy and low but I had felt that way through weeks of contractions.
We putzed that afternoon. I should have known the kid was readying when I had an overwhelming urge to finish prettying up her thrifted bassinet. As I was sewing, my beautiful labor bracelet, strung with beads my friends picked out for me, broke. Suddenly. It just dramatically flew off my wrist and beads went rolling and pinging everywhere.
With the bassinet complete and Margot in bed, Andy and I lay on the couch together for a hot second before I decided to go to bed early. But, then, as I lay in bed, I wanted to lay with Andy and so I heaved my big body out of bed and returned to the couch. I asked him when he thought this kid was coming and he said I didn’t even want him to tell me. I asked why and he said because he knew I was so ready and he was so certain we had at least a week. We laid facing each other, my round middle reminding us what was coming. And, right then, my water broke.
I didn’t say anything at first because, contrary to movie depictions of waters breaking, mine was more like a huh, I think I just peed myself a bit. Which wasn’t entirely impossible. In fact, it was quite possible. But then it happened again and I stood up and again and I said, well, here we go.
It was about 10:30pm and we excitedly scooted about our quiet house readying. Andy pulled out the birth tub and realized we didn’t have the right hose attachment to the sink and so we went to get the air compressor and then saw a giant ‘do not use air compressor’ warning on the tub. Shit. But, thankfully his handy skills rigged up a faucet adapter and he managed to use the compressor and not explode the tub. My concern was tidying up our room and living space. I didn’t want piles of laundry to welcome our girl and I had very specific ideas about placement of candles so I set out to feng shui up our pad. I placed the beads from the busted bracelet in a shell with some of my grandma’s ashes next to my bed. At one point, around midnight, when I asked Andy where the spackling was he said Babe, I didn’t realize we were doing home remodel projects tonight. Hey, I had my priorities. And the nice man fetched me some spackling.
My first seven hours of labor were slow and manageable and, at times, pleasant. With Margot I didn’t have a warm-up as my contractions were nearly immediately a few minutes apart and a few minutes long. But this evening, I listened to music, I wrote, I stared at my belly and thought, this time tomorrow….
Andy and Margot slept while I wandered and wondered and stared at both of them in their sweet slumber. I thought that maybe I’d have one of those labors where the baby just falls out while the woman has an orgasm…but at 5am, it became clear that wasn’t my path. Dangit.
I woke Andy with it’s time and he lept from bed with rhythm and purpose. He filled the tub as I leaned hard on the kitchen counter, focusing on my amazing strength. He called our midwife, Jeanne, and we started timing the contractions which wasn’t easy since both of my running watches needed batteries (a sure sign it’s been a while since I pounded pavement) and Andy doesn’t have a watch and our clock doesn’t have a second hand. So I’d say OK! and he’d start with one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand as he dashed to the computer to start the online clock and then I’d exhale ok and so it went. He recorded the contractions randomly on a tiny piece of paper from our recycling.
Margot woke around 6:15 and came strolling out of her bedroom to the surreal world of mama in a tub where the kitchen table usually is. We took a break from the contraction timing so Andy could tend to our first born. What’s mama doin’?, she asked in her groggy morning voice. Mama’s having your sister. Margot peered at me knowingly and quietly through contractions. Each time I finished, she’d say good job mama! Our neighbor and good friend arrived a few minutes later in her nightgown and puffy coat to fetch jammied Margot and her elmo back pack filled with clothes and snacks. Bye mama! I thought, life will be so so different the next time I see you, my bug.
It hurt so bad but this time I knew this was the right feeling. The first time I thought there was no way in hell it was normal or productive. I pressed my forehead into my knuckles on the soft tub ledge and moaned. As I worked through the contractions I imagined myself widening, opening to let the kid out.
At some point Andy had phoned Jeanne to give her a report and she decided to come on over. She got there at 7am and when she asked me to get out of the tub so she could check my dilation, I was psyched, certain I had done good work. When she said I was at three centimeters I nearly started crying. I would have cried if I didn’t need to get through the next relentless tightening of my torso. Three centimeters. How was it possible? I had been at two the previous Friday. No fair no fair no fair no fair no fair no fair no fair. Jeanne and Andy sensed my disappointment and cheered me on with don’t let this discourage you. You’re doing great. and you so got this, babe. respectively.
It was hard not to think it took me nine hours to achieve one centimeter and I have seven to go so I’ll be having this baby in three days give or take… or I progressed at one centimeter an hour with Margot and pushed for two and a half hours so maybe she’ll be born around 2:30…. I was obsessing with time and math between contractions. I was standing, squatting with my hands on my bed, supporting my wobbly but so strong body. I hadn’t sat down in hours. I was so hot. Even with the windows open and frigid Montana air pouring in. I asked Jeanne when she thought this girl was coming and she said, I think you’ll be holding her by lunch time. Lunch time, ok, so that’s four hours at the earliest because people don’t really eat lunch before 11 and six or seven hours at the most…and the math obsession continued.
I started to make different, deeper noises. My legs were so tired they were shaking but I still couldn’t imagine sitting or lying down. I was in a half-down dog position with my closed eyes smushed into the deep blood-colored sheets at the edge of the bed and my arms outstretched, holding Andy’s wrists as he supported the weight of our world. He said, I think she’s coming sooner than you think. And the puking started to pick up a bit. I puked or dry heaved through nearly every contraction with Margot’s labor and, so far, had only had a few bouts. And then it hit hard and I heaved and panicked through the breathless wretching of my body. Oh it sucked so bad and I roared fuck.
It is interesting how memory works. As I moved from one contraction into another and my cervix dilated, I remembered that impossible pain and what to expect next. I remembered feeling outside myself, as I channeled the strength and will of the millions of women who had done this and who were doing it right then. I remembered feeling like I’d maybe break into pieces right there. The cool thing about the second time is that memory also reminded me that this was going perfectly and I was going to meet my second daughter soon.
It was the same way for Andy. He was so calm and supportive through the first birth but this time he carried memory of what I could do, what I might say, how I would need him. And he intuited my every need before I knew it. That’s how he knew she was coming sooner than lunch. He remembered the low, primal noises, the sounds that germinated in my uterus and rolled up and out involuntarily.
Jeanne checked my cervix again at 8am and I was at six centimeters. Her touch threw me into a wild contraction that blurred my vision. I was in the counter-intuitive position of on my back for the dilation check and was pinned there, paralyzed. As soon as the tightening stopped, I flipped my huge self over and assumed my familiar squat-lean on the bed. I was plié-ing through contractions. I would inhale and rise, exhale and squat. Jeanne asked if I was feeling pushy. I said I didn’t know. I said I thought so and she said give it a try and see what it feels like. You know what to do, she said.
She was so trusting of me. And I of her. And Andy held my whole self in his hands. And I held his whole self in mine. And the person we created was dancing her way into our quiet bedroom on a cold Monday morning. It was so beautiful.
Her nurse, Tina, was there by then and she was sitting in the hallway between our bedroom and our daughters’ bedroom recording and offering calm words of support. I did know what to do. I had done it before, been through the not-knowing and now I knew. But I was at six the last time you checked me, I said. Well, just do what feels right. So I tested the pushing a bit and felt that familiar, soul-shaking pain of opening, bulging, stretching. I wasn’t there yet but I was close. I remembered.
The contractions came quickly with little time for recovery. The calm between the surges is wild. No pain. Total stillness. Andy, Jeanne and Tina would talk quietly during the 30 seconds to one minute and Jeanne would check the baby’s heartbeat. I remember their conversations always made me smile though I now don’t remember what they were talking about. The weather, Andy’s art exhibit, toenails. Just normal stuff during the blip I had to recenter myself.
I wanted to push and I did and bright red drops fell to the floor. I asked Jeanne to check me again and I was at eight centimeters. I wanted to push. I felt like I could push myself to open the other two and so I did. Soon I was up on the bed on my knees and elbows, still holding onto Andy, staring into his dark brown eyes or smashing my face into the bed. I pushed slowly and tentatively until I knew it was time to have this kid. And I pushed and pushed with strength that came from deep down in the earth. I pushed and pushed, every single cell in my body trembling and vibrating. I could see us in the vanity mirror in our bedroom, lined up and ready. You are so close. I see the head!
And I pushed and pushed for all the love and all the hate in the world. I pushed myself inside out and was exposed and malleable, ready for my daughter to reshape my soul. I screamed at the end of each contraction. I felt the thunderous heaving and twisting of the head moving through my pelvis and out of my vagina. I pushed as hard as I could and I looked to the mirror and saw my pregnant profile on all fours, for the last time ever, and I pushed and saw her tiny, slippery body exit mine.
Jeanne cradled my daughter and slid her between my knees and under my body so she was face to face with me. My exhausted body was tingling with the crazy pain-managing cocktail mother nature thankfully gives mamas. The euphoria was punctuated with a electrifying surge of adrenaline and release. My frame hovered over her, a person, and I kissed her.
Our nameless girl was born at 10:08am on November 23. I went from three centimeters to birth in three hours. I pushed for 20 minutes. Hmmm, still preoccupied with the numbers. I think it’s because they are the only quantifiable aspect to the whole wild ride of birth. All else–the love, anxiety, enrichment, fear, hilarity, the new world I am so thankful to know–is only understood as I wade though it and hard to articulate.
Andy, the babe and I stayed in our bed, in the bright, clean light of the new day and stared at each other for a while. Jeanne stitched me up a bit and I continued to have painful (way more painful than the first. what a crock.) contractions as my placenta came out and my uterus returned to it’s itty size. After only a few minutes I was craving Margot so Andy called and she came toddling across the icy alley, having spent the last few hours with two of her favorite aunties eating oatmeal and making forts. She was crushed which crushed me. She wouldn’t come to me and kept saying no sister born, a reference to the news she had just received over the phone, your sister is born! But in true Margotness, she got over it pretty quick. We encouraged her to take her time and so she played in the giant pool in her living room, occasionally peeking in at her sister until she was ready to tickle, kiss and burp her ‘sister born.’
The next day we named her Ruby Jane. Margot still calls her ‘sister born’ and she has red hair, giant graphite eyes and smells like new promise. I didn’t realize anything was missing from my life until I met her.
Nici Holt Cline is a fourth generation Montanan working on raising a fifth. You can read “Mama Digs” every Monday exclusively at www.mamalode.com. Nici also writes regularly at dig this chick, a blog about gardening with Montana, growing with two wondrous kids, cooking with impulsive whimsy, sewing with naive courage and some other important observations.
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Beautiful Nici! You inspire me to actually believe that I can do it again. Thanks for sharing your experience with the world.
I power read this, I bet I passed the test of most words read per minute while achieving 100% comprehension! Then I reread it slowly, savoring every word. Quite simply…..the birth of a child is a miracle, especially to the one pushing it into the world. AND and added “especially” when the one doing the pushing is one I too loving pushed into the world.
So well said Nici.
Welcome little Ruby Jane, we are here to love you!
This is an amazing story – although I have to confess my favorite part is “And the nice man fetched me some spackling.”
Beautiful birth story, so pleased you took the time to write and publish it after all of Ruby’s struggles with RSV. She truly does have two birthdays!
Happy to hear that you’ll be writing weekly on MamaLode! Throughly enjoy your blog.
This story had me on the edge of my seat as did Margot’s story. Once again you have shown your writing skills beautifully. Yes the birth of Ruby Jane has changed all of our lives. She is indeed a gift to us all. Love you and the whole family. XOXO J
You are amazing. Thank you for sharing this Nici. Fifth photo down.. what a powerful image that is. I am so glad you continue to write and have all these things going on that use your talent.
I’ve always loved reading birth stories from the mother’s perspective. I wonder what Andy would write? or even myself since I was playing a different role.
You write with such beauty. You missed your calling!
Beautiful and amazing. Birth is such a powerful and humbling experience. I’m so glad your Ruby Jane is home safe with you and your family. I love to read your writing and waited with baited breath until you told us all she was well and home.
Thanks for sharing!
Unh! Lovely. I love the intimate details of your heart and mind during your birth. And I love the line about her smelling like a new promise. Yes!
I finally had the opportunity to take the time to read this and I’m so glad for that. This is beautifully written with such honesty and showing your true self. Thank you for sharing this story, Margot and Ruby are very fortunate to have you as their mama, wonderful!
This is such a beautiful birth story. Thank you for sharing it. I’m just reading it now, almost eleven months later. I’ve discovered your blog only recently and realized that we share a similarity. My sweet baby girl was born on November 22nd, at 10:54 a.m. Almost exactly a day before your little Ruby. This last year has passed so quickly. I can’t believe her first birthday is so soon.