And now a word about midwifery:
I’ve mostly avoided going on a political diatribe about this country’s birth industry, how it could be improved, and how that can happen largely through more and better access to midwives, but I’m going to talk about it a bit in this column. If you don’t want to read my rant, skip down to where I revert back to your regularly scheduled column about pregnancy after stillbirth. But I hope you will read on, since midwifery care and undisturbed birth are a big part of what pregnancy after stillbirth has been about for me.
I’m planning my third homebirth with this baby, and with all three of my births, I’ve been attended with incredible skill, compassion and wisdom by Certified Professional Midwives. Honestly, there is no other way someone could get the kind of care I’ve received except through CPMs. With each pregnancy, I’ve had prenatal visits that have lasted one and a half to two hours, and that’s mostly made up of talking, not testing. I’ve been seen only by the women I hired: no other midwives, nurses, staff or doctors.
With our stillborn son Day, our midwives, Donna and Ellie, who are the same ones we have this time around, visited us in our home almost every day from the moment our son died until after he was born and buried three weeks later. They made us muffins. They babysat our daughter and let us use their sauna. They scheduled acupuncture and massage visits for us. They stayed on top of the research around waiting for physiological birth with a stillborn baby. But mostly, they were totally present for everything we experienced, were unfailingly good and comforting listeners, and truly took care of my whole self—body, mind and spirit—and my whole family.
Of course, the difference between standard medical care and midwifery is tangible during labor as well. With my first child, a five-day labor, I had unbelievable support and encouragement for a birth that would have certainly ended with an unnecessary cesarean in any hospital: as it was, I had a fun, occasionally frustrating, but ultimately beautiful and very safe birth without any drugs or surgery and a very easy recovery.
With Day’s birth, Donna and Ellie attended us with dignity, respect and love. We had a truly sacred, beautiful birth once again, and considering it was not going to end with a live baby, I feel like it was the best birth experience anyone could hope for in such a situation, with incredibly calm, individualized, intimate care. It absolutely kept me whole and my family intact.
With this third baby, technically, I don’t need anything special in terms of prenatal care: I’ve been healthy, the baby seems fine, and there was nothingabout Day’s birth or death that indicates that I am high-risk (nonetheless, some practitioners, both doctors and midwives, might deem me high-risk simply for having had a stillborn child). But in another way, I do need very special care, because this is a pregnancy after a stillbirth, and I am not like most other pregnant moms. I have no illusions about the ways pregnancy and birth can be controlled or predicted, and I have more than my fare share of paranoia and worry. Donna and Ellie take all the time in the world to show us that they understand this. They have offered to listen to my baby’s heartbeat anytime, night or day, if that’s what I need. They cry with me. They come to our house and call us to check in. They gave me a Mexican amulet, passed on by another midwife they know, to protect our baby.
And get this: they are throwing me a Blessingway (a sort of New Agey baby shower, which I’ve never had before). I dare you to find an obstetrician who, after coming home exhausted from a complicated birth and right before leaving town the next day for a much-needed vacation, sat around hand-making and hand-addressing invitations to a baby shower which she will organize, plan and host in her own home for one of her clients. But that’s what they’re doing for me, because celebrating and spiritually accepting and guiding in this baby’s safe arrival is a big part of what I need in my care this time around.
Donna and Ellie have literally held my hands every step of the way, and I couldn’t be happier to be birthing with them once again. My husband and I trust them with every aspect of ourselves and the experience—my health, the safety of our baby, our emotional and spiritual well-being.
This kind of care is called the Midwives Model of Care, a model that was developed in part by an organization I work with, Citizens for Midwifery. It’s the kind of care I wish all women received before, during and after birth, no matter what the setting or kind of practitioner. And I wish this especially for women who have suffered losses, because we, more than anyone, need this level of understanding and compassion.
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And here’s where I go back to the column as you know it, with a specific example of the kind of care we’ve gotten from our midwives. For several weeks around my 31st week, the week I lost my son Day, as my anxiety mounted and became an almost daily occurrence, my midwives tried gently to talk to me about how my fear was communicating itself to the baby. Donna and Ellie reminded me, carefully, that my baby feels my worry, and is probably wondering what’s so scary out here in the world. Even though they said this without judgment or scolding, it was hard not to hear that they thought I was unnecessarily freaking out my baby-in-utero. I resisted and resisted this message.
Finally, I went to see them before a plane trip, my last, just at my 31st week. We talked for an hour about my building paranoia. “Have you spoken to your baby about these fears?” they asked me. This struck me as a strange idea: my baby must know my fear, because it lives my fear, and it hears me talkingall day long, to all sorts of people, about my fears. But it also occurred to me that no, I’d never spoken directly to the baby about what was going on with its mama. “Why don’t you try just talking it out with your baby?” Donna and Ellie said. “Don’t blame the baby or put pressure on it—just tell it what’s going on, why you’re feeling the way you do.” And I burst into tears. So something was obviously hitting home.
So even though it seemed semi-ridiculous, even to homebirthin’, cloth-diaperin’, organic-eatin’ me, that night I spoke to my baby. I sat in my bedroom, cradled my big belly in my hands, and said to my baby, “You know how I’ve been feeling all worried if you don’t move? You know how sometimes I seem to just freak out? Well, here’s the deal: you have a brother, and he died, at right about this time in my pregnancy, and it was really sad. You’re not him, and he’s not you, but I really want you to live and be healthy and well and stay with our family. We all do. And we love you so much, and so I worry about you. It’s not your fault, and I don’t expect you to do anything about it. It just comes from how much we love you. We just so want you to be born alive and well.”
And guess what? It worked. Almost instantly, a cloud lifted, and every day thereafter, things got better and better. I flew across the country and back during my 31st week and hardly felt anxious once. It still flares up every so often, but not nearly with the weight or frequency that it had been. And even better, I’ve started feeling something new: hope. Genuine hope. Joy. Eagerness. The expectation that this baby might really come to us alive and well.
I’ve hardly bought anything or planned anything for this baby this entire pregnancy, but now, finally, I’ve got that urge. I ordered a custom-made, sparkle-vinyl diaper bag from a work-at-home mom. I’ve got my eye on somenursing bras. I’m getting excited, guys. And as scary as it is in some ways to allow myself to get excited, it also feels GREAT.