I Started This Newsletter for My Daughter, And Now, She’s Here
An intimate look at my entry into motherhood and how my little world has changed.
Note: This newsletter contains my birth story. While it is not intended to be overly graphic, it does describe…a birth. If you’re not comfortable hearing the details, you might want to skip over the content this week. The corresponding photos are in black and white to keep things PG, and in the interest of protecting my daughter’s privacy, they do not show her face.
You might have also noticed that the newsletter is a little late this week (and completely ghosted the week before). The events shared here are a big part of the reason. YM will return to its regular schedule on 5/4. Thanks for understanding.
“I feel everything now.” If you were to ask me what changed since baby E. entered the picture at approximately 9:45 am on Friday, April 14, 2023, that’s what I’d tell you. The separation between intellectualizing my emotions and feeling them fully dissolved the moment my daughter first lay sleeping on my bare chest. There is no going back to the way things were. I feel everything now.
And motherhood has already shown me that it will feature the highest highs and lowest lows. I laugh hysterically every day, usually something silly my husband says when the baby is losing her damn mind or at the little hat and booties that make her look like a garden gnome. I also cry dejectedly at the near-constant reminder that these porn star tits I developed over the course of my pregnancy are mostly for show (more on that later).
The transformation to feeling so very deeply any and all things may have had something to do with the way my daughter—an Aries if ever there was one—boldly barreled her way into the world horns first. Her birth was not the one I’d imagined for myself. Despite all the inner work, affirmations, visualizations, movement exercises and online birthing classes, my home birth looked nothing like the stories I’d read and re-read in Orgasmic Birth.
My experience was far from spiritual or psychedelic. I did not feel a deep connection to the universe. Baby E.’s arrival most definitely did not facilitate the greatest orgasm of my life. I tried not to feel disappointed that my decision to “go natural” hadn’t elicited a connection to the Divine Feminine in the way I thought it would. After all, hadn’t I come such a long way to get here?
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When I was in my twenties and adamantly against having children, I liked to joke that the only way I’d give birth was in the blissful haze of a medically induced coma. My own mother birthed two girls in the hospital sans epidural, and despite her reassurances that it was “completely worth it” and she “didn’t remember the pain” after her children came into the world, I remained skeptical. I figured I’d want some drugs.
But at 35, I wasn’t the same woman who hadn’t wanted children in the first place. My outlook had changed. I no longer saw motherhood as an obligation or a burden or even an either/or. Instead, motherhood became an expression of the Divine Feminine that I wanted to experience in its entirety. I decided to have the baby at home. Wary of the allopathic medical system and worried about the cascade of interventions that often accompany hospital deliveries, home birth seemed the best way to ensure I’d have the space to embody my Goddess nature in labor. An epidural was no longer an option. Once the decision was made, I knew I was stubborn enough not to change my mind.
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It's hard to recall exactly when labor first began on Thursday the 13th. Despite Googling “what do contractions actually feel like?” I was at a loss for what to expect. I experienced some light cramping as I walked each of our three dogs individually around the neighborhood, but this was somewhat par for the course late in my third trimester.
The day proceeded normally. I drove our English pointer Sally to the vet. On the way home, I stopped for gas. As I left the Circle K, I felt a tightening in my low belly. “This is how people in labor drive themselves to the hospital,” I thought. I texted R. at work: “I think you might be right about the baby coming on Friday.” It was pure speculation. Early labor is notoriously low-key. Nothing felt urgent or rushed.
That night, an increase in cramping sent me to the guest bedroom. It was beginning to look (and feel) a lot like labor. I found myself needing to move around, to focus my breath on riding out the waves of discomfort. I didn’t want to wake R. every time a contraction hit—there wasn’t much he could help with at this point. In the privacy of the guest bedroom, I started the timer. The rule for calling the midwife was 4-1-1: contractions every four minutes that last one minute each for at least one hour.
The intensity of labor began to pick up. I rocked my hips through cat and cow poses. I swayed them side to side. There may have also been some twerking. Throughout each movement, I visualized myself surfing a wave. “Peak” I inhaled on the ascent. “Valley” I exhaled on the way up and over and all the way down.
At some point, I realized I had been timing contractions for five-and-a-half hours. The intervals ranged from eight or nine minutes to 45 seconds. Some contractions lasted 90 seconds, others less than 30. Around 7:30 am, I told R. that we might want to make a call to the dog sitter. By 7:55, it became abundantly clear that no one was going anywhere. At 8:30, the rectal pressure had escalated to the point where 4-1-1 or not, I told R. to call the midwife on duty and explain the situation. C. said she would pack her car and head our way.
I got in the tub and asked R. to time the contractions. After three, the app he was using told us to go to the hospital. Somehow, the fact that we were technically already there was not comforting. The hot bath became a short-term solution. Contractions began ripping through my body. My vision of breathing this child into the world HypnoBabies style flew right out the window. I was on all fours and screaming bloody murder.
R., who was trying to both time contractions and make me a smoothie per the midwife’s instructions, gave up trying to achieve either task and focused on applying counter pressure to my back and hips based on my whimpered instructions of “higher,” “lower” and “sides.” After a few moments, I had to get out of the tub. I sat on the toilet and labored there. This is relatively common. The toilet gives pregnant people the opportunity to rock their hips back and forth, and the birthing stool—a common labor tool—is basically a glorified squatty potty.
After a particularly intense contraction, I told R. that it felt like the baby was trying to come out my butt. Without skipping a beat, R. goes, “Oh my God, do you think that’s how it happens?” And I laughed…right before I yelled through the next wave of labor. R. told me later that he held back a few jokes because it didn’t seem like I wasn’t in the space to appreciate them. His risk at humor paid off. I was still laughing about his quip days later.
At this point, it’s important to note that there are stages of labor. Early labor is what I experienced when driving back from the vet. Active labor is what was happening sometime between dawn and the bathtub contractions. Transition is the final part of active labor. It’s often when you get the urge to start pushing. That part is an understatement.
For those who haven’t given birth or chose an epidural or have only witnessed a birth in the context of Hollywood’s standard interpretation, you’d be forgiven for thinking that someone (usually a doctor) tells you, when you’re fully dilated, that it’s time to push and that’s that. Sometimes in unmedicated birth, no one has to tell you anything because there’s a distinct point where your body takes over. It’s called the fetal ejection reflex for a reason. You can’t slow things down. Your body is pushing whether you’re on board or not.
When I began pushing uncontrollably, I knew we were in trouble. Things were moving fast. I broke the news to R.: this baby was coming. He started to panic. C. was still 30 minutes out. “I didn’t think that was something you’d just say,” R. told me later. He was unprepared to deliver E. with just the two of us present.
The midwife’s assistant N. arrived to find me in the bathroom, just in time to tell me to look down at the top of my baby’s head. She asked me if that’s where I wanted to deliver my baby. “Maybe not on the toilet,” I managed before getting to my hands and knees on the floor. The whole time I battled my mind. “This is terrible,” I thought. “This isn’t how I wanted this to happen.” I had to keep reminding myself that this was the birth I needed to have. It was happening this way for a reason.
C. made her entrance. E. crowned, prompting the ring of fire (a burning sensation I barely registered—one that’s not to be confused with either the Johnny Cash song or the geological phenomenon). Someone told me that the next big push would be the shoulders, and I was determined for it to be the last one I needed to endure. I bore down. Someone said, “Oh, wow!” as the baby slid into C.’s capable hands. She was in my arms moments later. The entire process took maybe 20 minutes from start to finish. I remembered wishing for a quick and powerful birth. I’d gotten what I’d asked for, even if it wasn’t what I meant.
As I pulled E. into my chest, I’ll never forget the first thought I had: “I think they gave me the wrong one.” For one, this baby was huge. I worried about dropping her. She was slick with fluids and, we’d later learn, a cool 8 pounds 5 ounces and an unfathomable 20 inches long. Her umbilical cord was twice the length of normal. This gigantic baby seemed like she belonged to someone else. I was immediately worried that I didn’t feel it—that transformation everyone talks about where the whole world is different and all you feel is an overwhelming sense of love.
It just so happens that there was a good reason I was so out of it, particularly after delivering an inside-out placenta. A postpartum hemorrhage is anything over 500 milliliters of blood loss. By C.’s estimation, I lost 1500—a triple hemorrhage. It felt like a lot of blood. R. confirmed. He saw everything. As I rested on the bed with E. beginning to nurse, I asked R. my most pressing question: Do you still want to have sex with me? “Of course,” he said.
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The next couple days blurred together. At the two-day check, E. had lost 11 percent of her weight. Anything over 10 was cause for concern. Although I was committed to breastfeeding exclusively, it became obvious that I wasn’t producing enough food. The first line of defense was to feed more often. Every three hours became every 90 minutes. E. would stay on the breast for an hour, only to need to start feeding again 30 minutes later. My bruised and battered body couldn’t keep up with her needs.
By day four, E. was so lethargic, she barely woke up for feedings. If I’d been distraught before, I was inconsolable now. Frantic messages to the pediatrician, lactation consultant and the midwife on call yielded mixed advice about whether this was a true emergency. Formula was our only option for effectively countering my lagging supply. It felt like defeat. Every time I pumped for forty minutes only to produce less than half an ounce of milk, I sobbed. It was a cycle I couldn’t stop. One time I got so little from the pump, the milk froze to the bottom of the bottle in the refrigerator.
There was nothing more to do. Despite every effort, I felt like I was killing my baby—a thought that prompted me to cry harder. I was crestfallen at every failed attempt to nourish her the way my body was supposed to. I didn’t want it to be this way. I needed someone to tell me that it wasn’t my fault, that I was doing my best and that it was enough.
Eventually, I sent R. to Whole Foods to get the bougiest formula he could find. By day nine, E. was finally gaining weight, and I could make it through a rendition of You Are My Sunshine without bursting into tears. Motherhood had officially taken hold of me. I now know for certain that I’d die for this little bean. I’ve never been more vulnerable and less cool. It’s alright. I feel everything now, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.