I am waiting. Sitting on a hand loomed throw rug on the floor in front of her kitchen sink. The eighteen by eighteen inch ceramic tiles are immaculately clean. There are no crumbs along the kickboard of the floor. I checked.
She is sitting in the lotus position, naked, soaking in the warm water of the blue inflated birth tub where her dinner table usually sets. Her thick brown hair is piled on top of her head. Calm faced she moves only as the contraction builds. Breathing with concentration she leans back and reaches for her husband's hands, all without opening her eyes. It is hard to trust my sense of time in a space like this. The last ten minutes feel like an hour, the last hours feel like just ten minutes.
As I left my house in the dark star filled night I texted the midwife. “Is there coffee?” The midwife’s reply, “She’s making some for us now.” As a midwife’s helper I know one constant about nighttime birth work is coffee. Midwives need coffee.
I scroll up to the first text message received regarding this pending birth, “Jenny is 8-9 cm! I just got here. Whenever you are able, you might head this direction. J”. Laughing I recall my own labor with this midwife several years earlier. Making coffee for my birth team was NOT something on my “to do” list at the time of late stage labor. These Amish ladies, our beloved clients, seem to effortlessly labor AND host a homebirth.
We wait; the midwife, myself, the husband and mama each contraction taking its time. Sweet mama rests, dozes between each contraction. I am reminded how hard it can be to wait for the body to birth. Doing nothing sometimes takes more effort than doing something.
Her bag of waters not yet broken, cushions her baby’s head from intense contact with her cervix. The cushion makes for a more gentle rhythm of contractions. Gentleness means slow pace progress. Young twenty-something mama calmly teeters on the verge of pushing for an hour- rather than minutes.
Many practitioners would encourage intervention to “move things along”. Their seemingly helpful hands nudge progress. Intending to encourage a faster pace they break the bag of waters, coaching hard pushing. Happy ending reached in a fraction of the time. Tempting is the idea to quickly bring birth’s relief. But not always best for mama and baby.
Midwife and mama discuss the options: do something or wait. She shows no haste to finish her labor shyly saying, “I enjoy the rest between contractions, I’m in no hurry”. By her declaration we will wait.
My back resting against kitchen cabinet with feet touching tub’s edge I scribbled down some notes. “Remember her diligent patience”, it says. “Really, it IS happening- in her pause, at her pace, in her own power- it is happening.” Such beauty in her patience, her wisdom to follow her body despite the hard work she endures.
Too often those of us who do birth work forget. I become a bit immune to the wonder of birth sometimes. Weary from missed sleep, away from home and my kids for hours sometimes days. I yearn to welcome healthy baby and return home to my own nest. This birth is not about me. It is about this mama. These are once-in-a-lifetime initiation into motherhood moments. She chooses to savor them.
Savor them she does. Sweating brow, lips dry from breath, grasping for masculine-rough hands- mama pushes. Moments pile up: push then rest, more push. Under the watchful eye of the midwife her daughter emerges. Baby rises to the surface of the warm birth tub waters into the arms of her mother. Arriving into the kitchen of this new family’s home she draws breath. Peaceful is the welcome of this first born. Tears loom in his eyes, a father’s joy overfilled. Content victory displayed on mama’s face.