Our birth story headline was “Amazonian amazing with a forceps finale”. That was the shortest version. The good ol’ f-word sometimes proceeded forceps, depending on the audience, but in short the majority of our experience was as “good” as it could be.
Some say your birth story stays with you forever, others say it quickly becomes a blur, especially when you’re lining up to go again for round two. Or three. Or more. I don’t think I will have another baby, at least not as the birth mother, but suffice to say your arrival is firmly implanted in my mind.
I can hear my roar as the over-sized barbecue tongs wrenched your head from within me. I can hear the midwives telling me if I look down, I can see your head. Instead I turn away, too destroyed to even sneak a peek at the child emerging.
Another brutal yank, an animalistic grunt and there you are on my stomach, grey and still. My heart stops. I wonder if yours has too. The ghost of medical conversations throughout my pregnancy, drenched with discussions of stillbirth, advanced maternal age, complications post forty, rears its head.
I hold my breath, close my eyes.
You are rushed to a resuscitation station. A gaggle of midwives and doctors descend. I hear you cry, and the light is golden.
You are on my chest, mama is above us, leaning over you to kiss me as I smile, cry and breathe. That image is so strong. You are howling as we kiss, your tiny, beautiful face red and full of life. We have delivered you into this world.
I was cognisant of each, and every, moment. Every millimetre of your movement towards earth echoes through my bones. Just an hour before the intervention, I was swinging from the bed, hurtling downwards in deep squats, dancefloor “slut drops” that rode the power of gravity to bring you down, down, and out, into our arms.
I hovered above a mirror and could see you crowning. The contractions stopped when they urged me onto the bed. Gravity was my necessary partner.
We did everything we could to bring you smoothly and peacefully into this world, but when the medical world took over and your heart rate started to increase, we of course followed the advice. And there I was, on my back, feet in stirrups, midwives pulling my knees up to my ears as the forceps were inserted. But, somehow, we were still smiling as I cracked jokes with the entourage of women surrounding me, willing you out.
Our spectacular doula was at my side. I looked into her eyes, grinning. “How can it be that we are here? Thrust back to the 1950’s, my feet in stirrups…I tried so hard.”
She came to us at 3am. That’s when all the doula action rolls. I had an induction booked that morning at 8am, but we wanted you to come when we were all ready. No inserted balloons, no IV drips or gels. We first took ourselves back to the 1950’s as I guzzled down a sizeable dose of castor oil that afternoon following a doula come old wives’ tale of a “natural” induction.
Sure enough, eight hours after my guzzle, your vibrations began. Everything was exiting from my body, violently and abruptly, clearing the way for you. I braced myself through each contraction, assuming the most absurd positions to ride our waves, clutching at slumber in the space between, summoning my sustenance for our journey ahead.
My waters broke spectacularly as the clock struck midnight. In fact, I’m not entirely sure we were able to remove their trace from our Highgate Hill apartment carpet, a tattoo of new life, forever etched.
From here we move to a film roll of images. Me, kneeling in the backseat of doula Moran’s 4WD, hurtling through the back streets of West End my fingernails grinding into the headrest as I breathed through clenched teeth, resisting the temptation to howl directions as we lose ourselves down the narrow laneways. We steal a rock star car park, I stumble through the sliding glass doors.
The foyer is empty. I groan as you tumble, twisting your way downwards, making your presence known. The pain subsides and I hot-foot it to the maternity ward, dropping to my knees with an almighty wail as you twinkle and tousle, ready for your grand appearance.
The next slides are a morass of bureaucratic bullshit. Between my unearthly hollers and moos, we are buffeted from midwife to midwife, in an attempt to secure a birthing suite as we reject their intervention attempts, holding fast to our natural pathways. We can do this together, my darling, we can draw into each other and bring you into the world as gently as possible.
And we did. Mama and I interlocked our fingers tightly, so firmly that I peeled her soft skin from her knuckles. We laughed, we pushed, we breathed, we transcended. But the ticking clock of pure medicine engulfed us, and the pressure was impenetrable. At our most vulnerable, we had to heed their advice, to keep you safe, to keep you beating.
You will do whatever it takes when the moment comes.
Despite the demonic holler that accompanied the wrenching forceps, the majority of my labour felt strong and empowering. As they bandage your head, slashed red by the tongs, we wonder whether this will be your forever stardust mark.
My placenta then refused to come willingly. We waited as long as we could, but I had no more grunts to give. As they wheel me out to theatre to remove it, I look across and see you in mama’s arms, skin to skin in a chair under the window, midday Brisbane sun engulfing you both in its glow. You are peace, you are softness, you are heaven on earth.
What comes next requires its own chapter as our lives turned upside down and I lost my balance, teetering into a spiral of sleeplessness, delusion, and distress. I was outside of myself, engulfed in a heightened reality awash with hallucinations and ghouls.
We will go back there, to mark that time, to appreciate its passing. But for now, you have arrived. Your long fingers wrap around my thumb, your ruby lips curl into a smile so sweet we are molten in your midst. Hello little Ziggy, welcome stardust boy.
rome, italy : april 2023