My Beloved was done with school. Degree in hand, the job offers poured in he did odd jobs for longer than I care to remember. Then he was offered a job as a teacher in a small private school five hours away, in my hometown. It’s a nice town, and my parents had retired there, so we prayed it through and said yes.

“Small private school,” I might add, could also be code for “sporadic pay, at best.”

Nevertheless we were happy, and settled quickly into our familiar routine of homeschooling, working, and being pregnant.

Did I say “being pregnant”? Well, okay, so it will never be routine, but it was becoming a pattern. Number five was expected in July of ‘94 and once again I was filled with wonder at the fact of it. Those little lines on the peestick just never lose their charm…I could stare at them all day. And how far pregnancy tests have come! The pregnancy test I purchased in 1986 was like a little mini-laboratory with tiny test tubes and instructions like “mix six drops urine with packet X and shake thoroughly.” Then you were supposed to judge whether the color had changed to one of the dozen or so variations listed as “positive.” And it took like TEN MINUTES, people! The agony!

Nowadays you can know you’re pregnant before you pull up your knickers.

This is a blessing and a curse, of course. Nine months feels undeniably longer when you have the whole nine months to think about it. I’ve always wanted to be one of those women who was taken by surprise at six or eight months pregnant, but I’ve never managed to be quite so out of touch, no matter how hard I try. The puking probably helps with that.

My Beloved’s extended family still lived in the vicinity of the town we had just vacated, so we made semi-frequent trips down to visit. It was no big deal to swing by Donna’s for a prenatal any time we happened to be nearby, and so in this way we continued to postpone a decision regarding what to do on the actual Birth Day Itself. However, the issue obviously wasn’t going to go away, no matter how distant the reality seemed.

There was a midwife we had heard a little about who lived an hour and a half away from our new home, but before we had to bite the bullet and actually break in somebody new, an option that was slightly out of the ordinary but undeniably attractive presented itself. My Beloved’s brother lived just minutes away from Donna. His house was large and lively with six children of his own, and he and his wife made us an offer that I’m not sure many others would entertain: have the baby there!

Given his teacher status, My Beloved had his summers “free” and so there was no conflict with regards to coordinating how much time he could take off to be in another state, waiting for his wife to give birth. To make matters even better, his other brother needed a housesitter for several weeks in June/July while he and his family went on vacation. This meant we would have a vacant house in which to spread out until the day was considerably nearer. It was perfect.

When school let out for the summer, we packed our bags and headed out for our extended vacation. As my due date approached, we settled into my brother-and-sister-in-law’s (exceedingly hospitable and laid-back) home for the Grand Finale. Given that the guest room in which we were residing was a little on the snug side, BIL and SIL were insistent that we use their master suite for the big day.

Yes, folks, I birthed a baby in my brother-in-law’s own bed. How many people can claim that kind of family unity?

Not many, I wager.

One evening several days past my due date I felt the familiar backache and practice contractions that bespoke a baby in the near future. I wasn’t going to get too riled up, but it was looking promising. True to my vow ever since #3, I did NOT go for a walk. I went to bed. I figured I’d sleep as long as I could and when I couldn’t sleep anymore, it would be time. Secretly I was hoping that I’d just be like one of those women in the fairy tales birth stories who claim they simply awoke pushing and had the baby in the bed before anyone could twitch an eyelash.

I slept fitfully and woke up to the dawn’s early light sans newborn, sadly enough. The contractions, however, were still regular. On the one hand, I was dying to meet the new little one just around the proverbial corner and I knew that as soon as I stood erect my body would begin to get serious about delivering the goods. On the other hand, I wanted to curl up in a ball and whimper like a sissy, postponing the inevitable for as long as possible.

Ah, the schizophrenic nature of childbirth.

In the end, I screwed my courage to the sticking point and got up to take a nice hot shower.

Wanna have a baby today? I asked My Beloved as I “accidentally” knocked him in the head upon arising (hey, if I gotta be in pain, he at least needs to be awake to witness it).

The question was rhetorical, of course, but he responded affirmatively. Then he curled up in a ball and whimpered like a sissy.

I’m kidding. Sort of. He didn’t actually do it, but I’m thinking he wanted to. My Beloved is not cavalier when it comes to childbirth. Contrary to what one might think, he is actually quite the Nervous Nelly about it. Yes, even to this day. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Contractions did indeed pick up substantially when I began to ambulate about. We called the family not-residing-in-house (MIL, little SIL, other SIL) and told them that Today Was Definitely The Day. I stayed on my feet, preparing the bedroom and gathering the necessary supplies. Often people wonder about the bed during a homebirth. How does one prepare it for the onslaught of bodily fluids that have a tendency to erupt during such events? In our experience, the best way is to dress it thusly:

1. Strip it down, then remake it with the most buttery-soft sheet set in your possession.
2. Outfit it with a plastic mattress protector atop the buttery sheets.
3. Place an old sheet set that you don’t care too much about over the plastic.

In this way, after the birth, the old sheets come off and go straight into the wash, the plastic protector is removed, and you are left with the buttery-soft, delightful bed in which to collapse straightaway. A post-delivery woman knows no greater joy than to be enveloped in such bliss as a soft bed offers, I can tell you truly.

So the bed was made, the birth kit brought in, and soon the desire to shut myself away became very strong. The labor was going quickly, but it was hurting a lot more than my last birth. Each contraction was causing knife-type pains in my lower abdomen, which made it hard to concentrate on my Tiki Hut in the South Pacific. It kept morphing into an Iron Maiden instead.

The various family arrived and we deliberated on when to call Donna. With every contraction I thought now! and then as it ebbed away I thought maybe after the next one… I always had an irrational fear that I’d call far too early and be disappointed to hear that I still had hours of labor ahead of me.

This time My Beloved, remembered the previous labor’s brisk pace and having a near-mortal fear of actually having to don the catcher’s mitt, decided to make The Call. By the time Donna arrived, it was obvious that Baby was headin’ out. The spacious master suite turned out to be rather handy in the end because for some reason I kept inviting people in to witness the event. And they kept taking me up on the offer, strangely enough! I think I felt it was something of my duty to educate the general populace on the superiority of homebirth. The viewers present in this case (as far as I can recollect) included my MIL, 4 SIL’s, a niece, and a friend.

My Beloved is not included as a viewer, by the way, because he is much, much more than that. He is support, strength, love, encouragement, and a handy punching bag when the need arises.

I always push while lying on my left side, for some reason. I know some women swear by the proverbial rice-paddy squat, but contractions have always been too overwhelming for me by the time I need to push, so I lay down to force them to space out a bit. I took to the bed and gave it all I had, but this time around Mr. Pushy was not so much my friend. He was a bit of a sadist with his stabby knife in my lower gut, and I was none too happy with him. As the baby emerged, the reason became clear.

She was as sunny-side-up as they come, staring straight into Donna’s eyes as she complained loudly about the sudden change of scenery.

I know a posterior birth causes severe back labor in most people, but it was the opposite for me. I felt it all in my guts. At any rate, our fourth daughter entered the world safely in spite of her unconventional methods, and has displayed very little evidence of a rebellious nature since then.

Sunny disposition, on the other hand? In spades.

Stats
Baby: Connie
Weight: 7lbs 12 oz
Labor: 5 hrs

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