On the last Friday in February at a music class/open play session with my son Mylo came a rush of something moist between my legs. I knew almost immediately what was happening but did not go to the bathroom. When open play ended we were one of the last to leave. Afterwards, we paid a visit to a neighborhood bakery and shared an over-sized vegan chocolate chip cookie. Even the cold February rain outside did not beckon us home. I was in no rush to discover what I was certain awaited me.
Not long after we got home the cramps started. I called my midwife on the phone who sounded less than optimistic, “Shit, why does this always happen on a Friday,” she asked, rhetorically. Gulp.
Weeks after the miscarriage I had a disturbing dream. A moving boat. An accident. Someone in the dream called for women and children to get off the boat first. I was toward the front helping someone, indifferent to the fact that the order applied to me. Then someone held a baby upside down in the air, asking “who’s child is this?” She was wearing fuchsia-colored pajama bottoms and I gathered that she was being held upside down because she did not survive the crash. The baby had blondish hair, like my son, but it was not curly. After a few moments when no one stepped forward to claim her, they lowered her down a conveyor-like pole. The older women on board looked at me knowingly, and shamefully, as I continued helping the injured.
I’ve interpreted this dream in ways that has brought some closure and helped to make some sense of the loss. For a multitude of reasons I feel confident and sure that it was just not our time to have another child. At times I still feel sad, but I have also made my peace with it.
I am officially a doula in training! Tonight marked the end of a three day workshop to become a birth doula certified with DONA (Doulas of North America). I took the course, taught by the extremely affable and entertaining Tara Poulin of Birthing Gently, along with 14 fascinating women.
Tara has a wealth of experience in the birth world. For starters, she has five children of her own! Prior to founding Birthing Gently in 2001, she worked on the labor and delivery floor at a Boston hospital. Today she is a certified Birth Doula (DONA), Certified Childbirth Educator (CAPPA) and an Approved DONA International Birth Doula trainer. The only, and I mean ONLY negative thing I can say about Tara is that she lives in Massachusetts. Boo! New York City’s loss, big time.
Tara’s course was engaging, contained a wealth of knowledge and left you hungry for more the next day. I have never said that before and believe me, with three degrees and many hobbies, I’ve taken my fair share of courses!
Tara Poulin of Birthing Gently
My journey to become a doula is a result of my own birth experience – one which was 30 hours long from start to finish, and, unmedicated. Although I did not have a doula – my husband and mom were with me – I believe that having someone who’s objective and who’s trained in emotional and physical comfort techniques could have made my long and difficult labor shorter and easier. Still, my birth transformed me. It made me stronger. And it gave me and my husband the most marvelous gift, a beautiful and healthy baby boy.
I would be honored to be a part of something so intimate and life-changing for other expectant moms and dads. Getting started might be slow-going but I definitely look forward to building my doula community and attending my first birth!
I can’t remember the exact moment my husband Jason and I decided we wanted the sex of our first child to be a surprise. With friends and family weighing in heavily about our decision, I do remember feeling great relief that we were on the same page.
In their defense, they were simply just surprised that I wanted to be surprised. After all, I still shake the presents under the Christmas tree that have my name on them!
While I was pregnant I got used to the same four questions: “How are you feeling? Do you know what you’re having? Have you picked out names? Are you sharing the names?”
I generally felt wonderful throughout my pregnancy and we were firm in that we didn’t want to know what we were having. But the name questions, that was a personal matter.
For starters, we hadn’t yet agreed on names, especially for a boy. We also didn’t want to hear people’s opinions on the names we had chosen. Say we were considering the name Lonnie, someone might have said “Ugh, I had an Uncle Lonnie who had an unfortunate LSD habit.” Get my point?
I did exactly this to a friend of mine who was due around the same time. She and her husband also wanted to be surprised but shared the names they had picked. Matthew for a boy and Reese for a girl. I remarked how Matthew was an interesting choice since the couple had a close friend with this name. She fell silent after I said that, and well, could I really blame her? I had just did to her what I was trying to avoid having done to me!
The spiritual side of us believed our child would bring its own name into the world. Or we at least wanted to meet the baby before saying ‘yes, he is a Harry,’ or ‘yes, she is a Sally.’
That’s not to say that we didn’t have some front runners, we did. We didn’t want our baby’s name to be as common as my husband’s name, Jason or as different as my name, Reedu, but some place in between.
My brother-in-law suggested we name the baby ‘Pomegranate.’ And my dad liked the name “Jazz.” I rest my case.
I was more than half way through my pregnancy when we were thousands of feet up in the air on our way to my brother’s wedding in San Fransisco. I was listening to something on NPR and the reporter’s name was Milo Miles. I leaned across the isle to where Jason was sitting (a great compromise by the way for two people who hate the middle seat), and asked what he thought of the name Milo. He flashed a big grin at me and his blue eyes beamed the answer back. It was the first male name we had agreed on.
Just a couple of days before I gave birth, Jason presented me with another boy name that I liked a lot. We went into the delivery room with two strong contenders for a boy, and three options for a girl.
In the moments after our son was born there was a ton of commotion and excitement in the room. My mom was bouncing around like a kid in a candy shop and my husband was holding on to the wall, fighting off happy tears.
It seemed like a half hour had passed before our midwife quipped, “So what’s this kid’s name?!”
Jason looked at me then, quite like the way he looked at me on our flight out to San Fran, and we agreed it would be Milo. Accept we would spell it M-Y-L-O in honor of our moniker for one another, “my love.
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How did you arrive at the name(s) of your baby? Did you share it with friends and family, why or why not? Please share with me, I’d love to hear!
Giving birth naturally was the crowning (no pun intended) moment in my life. It was the first time I understood the depth of my power and connection to the world and nature. It has changed the way I look at myself. I want more women to birth the way nature intended us to. When it comes to childbirth, I believe that women shouldn’t have to secede to man and his machines. Becoming a doula would affect what has become status quo when it comes to childbirth in this country.
Along with Goodnight Moon, my current bedside read.
My inspiration for wanting to become a doula is my mom.
Last year when I was pregnant, I told my mom that we were considering hiring a doula. She quipped, “You don’t need a doula, you’ve got me!”
Yes, I was one of those women who dared to let my mother be privy to one of the most vulnerable, intimate experiences of my life. And I should preface this by saying that my mom tends to wade in the bossy end of the pool (mom, if you’re reading this — I love you but you know it’s true).
I gave my mom clear orders weeks in advance of my due date. “Don’t talk down to the nurses. Don’t question my midwife. And whatever you do, DON’T try and run the show.”
As it turned out, having my mom as part of my birth team proved invaluable.
My mom timed my contractions at home. She held my hair back while I vomited profusely. She rubbed the small of my back in between contractions. She fed me water through a straw. She spoke to the nurses as if they were old college roommates. She kept an eye on Jason, my worried husband. She was in essence, my doula.
A Doula has to have amazing stamina. I know from my own experience that births could last 30 hours, possibly more! Now I’ll admit, I value nothing more than my sleep. And my designer shoe collection. And my son. But I also know I could go the distance. My stamina has shined in the four marathons I have trained for, and completed. The high of life entering the world is quite like the high that comes from pounding pavement for four hours.
Doula work is about providing emotional and physical support, something I know I would be good at. It’s not that far off from my time volunteering with hospice. Or time spent keeping company with homeless animals the night before they’re scheduled to be killed.
They are on complete opposite ends of the spectrum, but birth is strikingly similar to death. Difficult and hauntingly beautiful.
Childbirth. Few other events in the life of a couple bring them together in such a memorable and profound fashion. I would be honored to be a part of that.
My husband Jason and I were out for a rare night with friends on Saturday when we found out that one of the couples who was there are newly pregnant. They are expecting their third child while the woman’s sister and good friend (who were also there with their husbands) are both trying to conceive. The latter is even going the IVF route.
It wasn’t announced that night for a few reasons. One, we were there to celebrate someone’s birthday. Two, she is only five weeks along, and three, the woman who is pregnant was trying to take her sister and friend’s feelings into consideration.
But when you mix joyous news with alcohol it’s bound to not stay a secret for too long.
The drinks continued to flow throughout the night and the news eventually got out. And as I suspected, the sister of the woman who is pregnant was more hurt that she didn’t know. Of course that’s not to say there are not jealousy pangs going on behind closed doors, I am sure there are. In both respects, I can’t blame her.
It was considerate of my friend to be mindful of her sister and friend’s feelings who are trying to conceive but it was more awkward when she was trying to squelch her news then if she had just come out with it.
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I have no idea why some people are so lucky and for others it takes a bit more work. It is without question, unfair, but is there any real way to spare someone’s feelings?
Tell me your thoughts on the subject matter in the comments.
I am not just lamenting the loss of the physical place where my son Mylo was born, but the loss of the place where I became a mom and where I first laid eyes on my son. Any time I drive by LICH now, whether from the BQE, Hicks Street or Atlantic Avenue, I feel indescribably moved. I glance up at the building where I gave birth and quickly count four floors up while trying to scan to the window that I labored behind until Mylo was born at 9:00 am. It’s not just any room. It’s a room where a lot of blood, sweat and tears produced precious life on August 9, 2010, and has been churning out babies since the 19th century.
Long Island College Hospital: Where I first laid eyes on my son.
And of course I can’t help but think about Janelle, LICH’s best labor and delivery nurse and Bebeth, the kindest nurse on maternity, and above all, Beverly, our midwife, whose only privileges since St. Vincent’s closed, is at LICH.
I know what this means for Mylo’s future siblings — we were already planning to have home births from now on, but what does this mean for Janelle, Bebeth, Beverly and the 2,500 other employees at LICH? What does this mean for New York City, home to more than eight million people, now that a third area hospital may close? Cabrini Medical Center shut it’s doors in 2008, followed by St. Vincent’s in 2010.
What can I say? I hope Cuomo’s administration forks over the grants. I hope jobs will be saved. I hope babies will continue to be born there. I hope more women will become moms at LICH and have their lives changed, forever.
The goddesses at Groupon must have ESP! The morning after I submitted this post I got my daily Groupon email and it was (hold on to your seats), for three stretch mark removal sessions for $220 with Dr. Morris Westfried right here in Brooklyn!! The same Dr. Westfried that I paid $1,000 to remove one of my three tattoos in 2006. Where were the Gods, forget the Gods, where was Groupon then, HUH?!
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I often refer to the 40 weeks I spent pregnant as the most magical nine months of my life. But those gorgeous nine months left me with stretch marks on the underbelly of my belly, the part you can’t see when you’re carrying around a watermelon in your uterus. I didn’t even know they were there until I dropped a good chunk of the 32-pounds I added while preggers and my tan vanished after the summer. At my six-week post-partum appointment my midwife, Beverly, advised me there was cream out there for it.
Save. Your. Money.
I read the decidedly mixed reviews for Mederma on drugstore.com and took the plunge anyway. I have been using the cream as advised, twice daily, for a few months now and zero, zilch, nada. As in, they are not gone. NOT as in there are no more. My stretch marks, which are slightly darker than my skin color, are still very much with me.
I’m torn about my mama-marks. On the one hand they signify a magical time in my life when I did not yet know the little person budding inside me, and on the other hand they serve as a reminder that even if I can get my body back into a bikini, it won’t ever be perfect.
As far as Mederma goes, I wish I had saved my money.
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Are there any mama’s out there that can recommend a different product for stretch marks? One that actually works?! Do share!
Sunday. I went into labor on my due date, August 8, 2010 at 3:15 in the morning while laying in bed with my dog Ella at my parent’s house on Long Island. My husband Jason had to work that night and was at our home in Brooklyn.
Contractions started out short and far apart so I drove with my mom and Ella from Northport to Brooklyn later that morning and woke Jason up to tell him the news as we made our way over the Kosciuszko Bridge with New York City sprawling in view ahead of me. We have lived in the city for more than 10 years and were having our first baby there, so it seemed a fitting setting in which to tell him the big news. As contractions progressed slowly throughout the day we went food shopping, packed our bags, took a nap and even ate dinner at Chipotle (my all-time favorite), which wound up being an unfortunate mistake.
While I was pregnant, we took a six-week childbirth education class at Birth Day Presence in Park Slope, Brooklyn with nine other couples who were also looking to have natural births. One of the things we talked about in class but never really got a clear answer on was how to know when to leave for the hospital when we go into labor. All I had as a barometer up until that point was what I saw on television and the movies, which is NOT how it happens in real life.
It turns out there is no definitive answer as to what time is the right time to leave for the hospital. For starters, it depends largely on your health care provider. Where a doctor might tell you to go to the hospital soon after the first signs of labor, a midwife will most likely tell you to birth at home for as long as possible.
That’s what our midwife Beverly advised us to do. She didn’t want us to go to the hospital until my contractions were following the 3-1-1 pattern. That’s three minutes apart, lasting one minute, consistently, for an hour. But even then, it might not be time to go to the hospital. As it proved not to be, for me…
My mom and I determined that my contractions followed the 3-1-1 pattern by 10:00 Sunday night. Jason came home from work around 10:30/11 and we made our way to the hospital. When we arrived at labor and delivery, Beverly was sitting behind the reception desk with the nurses who were on duty. She took one look at me and said “the only thing you’re ready to deliver is the evening news!” Beverly and snarkiness pretty much go hand-in-hand so I had cast the comment aside. We were ushered along with all of our bags into a room leftover from when there used to be a Birthing Center at LICH. They are reserved for women who are low-risk and/or using a midwife, and I was one of them.
I changed into my Pretty Pusher and Beverly hooked me up to a portable doppler to listen to the baby’s heart rate. She gave me an internal and much to my shock and disappointment, I was only four centimeters dilated. I still had a ways to progress. I’ll spare you all the back and forth, (which was pretty frustrating at the time), but Beverly’s point was that while we “could” stay in the hospital, we “shouldn’t” stay because there was only so much intervention she could stave off from the hospital staff.
We had jumped the gun and arrived at the hospital too early. I felt all sorts of things at that point: pain, shame, exhaustion, frustration, fright. I had been in labor 20 hours and was certain I was going to have a baby on my due date but it appeared not. We hung our heads with defeat and drove the half mile home.
Monday. We returned back to our apartment just after midnight. My mom retired to get some much-needed shut eye while Jason drew me a bath. (If only he had scrubbed the tub in preparation for it like I asked earlier in the week!) While Jason was on his hands and knees in the bathroom making the tub spotless for my laboring ass to sit in, I lay in bed working through excruciating contractions. When the contraction would leave, I would vomit into a pail on the ground below. I feared the future did not bode well for Chipotle.
I never got to feel the calming affects that warm water is said to have on painful contractions because two minutes after I sat in the tub my water broke. In fact it didn’t just break, it burst! It was so alarming that I stood up stark naked and looked at Jason in a panic (our menagerie was lined up outside the bathroom door by now) and he frantically called Beverly to tell her the news. Within seconds of his hanging up the phone, my mucus plug dropped next. I wasn’t just panicked this time, but I was also a bit embarrassed. Little did I know that that would be the first of many things to come out of me during labor and childbirth.
The tub broke my water and gave me a bloody show. I was scared the baby would fly out of me next and yet Beverly still did not order us to go back to the hospital.
A term that was tossed around a lot in childbirth education class was “labor land.” Our instructor, Jada Shapiro, explained it as a state that a woman goes into during labor that is both euphoric and trance-like.
We went back to the hospital for the second time after I had reached “labor land” and could no longer talk through my contractions. And THAT is what I would say should serve as a measure for going to the hospital. It was 3:00 in the morning or a full 24 hours later when I had finally moved from the latent phase of labor to the active phase of labor. This time when we arrived at the hospital and Beverly saw me she said, “now you look like you’re ready to deliver a baby!” The intake nurse, Janelle, thought my Pretty Pusher was too pretty to wear for childbirth even though Jason tried to explain to her that that was exactly what it was for. I didn’t have it in me to fight with her though, and so nurse Janelle won what would be the only intervention battle: a dreary hospital gown.
One of the main reasons we switched to a midwife from a doctor was because I knew our wishes to go at it drug-free would be more respected and embraced, and because I wanted the liberty to move around in between contractions. I was about seven centimeters dilated when I arrived at LICH the second time and it would take a grueling four more hours to get to 10. In those four hours, Jason, Beverly and my mom did a superb job of keeping out further intervention. An anesthesiologist did a lot of lurking outside my room and even made her way in to talk to me about “managing” my pain until Beverly showed her the door.
We practiced many different birthing positions in childbirth education class because one of the beauties of not having an epidural is that you can move around, implementing positions that feel most comfortable to you. After weeks of visualizing myself on all four’s, on a birthing ball or in a jacuzzi, I wound up being able to sustain just two positions while laboring in the hospital: leaning over the bed with my head down (this was particularly handy when I was hurling), and lying down on my back. So much for freedom of movement!
I remember feeling many things while I waited to dilate those last few centimeters. I was flat out scared for one. The pain was so extreme from behind that I thought I was going to deliver the baby from my rear. I also thought at one point that I was going to deliver an alien. I remember thinking that if you told me that cutting off all my hair would help with the pain, I would have done it. I swore off having more children with my husband, stressing that we would only adopt going forward. I grounded the child who was inside of me until he was five. I even threatened to leave, saying I would jump out the window and into the Hudson River which was right outside. At my weakest, I begged for drugs but was told it was too late. I even pleaded for a doctor to cut me open, which was what I had been striving to avoid all along. It was the pain talking and I am so grateful my labor team understood that.
When I was told I had finally reached 10 centimeters I blurted out “HALLE-FUCKING-LUJAH,” which set everyone in the room into a fit of laughter. But I can tell you that making anyone laugh at that moment was the furthest thing from my mind.
I wish I had known that the pain endured while waiting to dilate to 10 centimeters was an entirely different type of pain than pushing. Pushing, while tough and at times embarrassing, was at least productive and made me realize there was indeed going to be light at the end of the long, dark tunnel. No pun intended.
I pushed with all my might for two hours. For the final two pushes I was on my side with my mom holding my left knee back and my husband pushing against my right heel. Beverly advised me at that point to do a small, half push and to roll onto my back. She then told me to reach down and grab hold of my child. I told her I couldn’t. She repeated the order once more so I leaned forward and put my hands under the baby’s arms. They were slippery and I was shaking as I literally felt my baby leave my body. I saw a butt and underneath that, a perfect set of balls dangling in mid-air before I brought him to my chest and screamed, “IT’S A BOY!” Wow. Wow. I had just delivered my own baby. It was the single, greatest and most selfless gift someone had ever given me.
It was a profound moment, meeting my newborn baby for the very first time. I was elated yet also fraught with emotion. I went into the hospital a daughter, sister and wife and in one fell swoop became a mother. Nothing could have prepared me for this life-defining moment, but I am so grateful it came, and that I did it.
I gave birth to my first baby, a boy, at Long Island College hospital on August 9, 2010 under the care of midwife Beverly Woodard and I can say that the hospital and Beverly’s services, were excellent.
I write about our decision to switch from using an OB/GYN to a midwifehalfway through my pregnancy in an earlier post, here. So I thought it was important to follow it up with my experience at LICH, seeing how I went into it with negative and mixed reviews. Not to mention an article in the NY Times about Brooklyn mothers choosing Manhattan hospitals to give birth, that came out six weeks before I went into labor.
First off, it all comes down to your health care provider. In the case of my long, 30 hour labor (24 of which was spent at home), I believe I would have had a c-section had I been under the care of an OB/GYN whether at LICH or any other hospital.
LICH wasn’t perfect. There was a cleanliness factor that turned my stomach and the postpartum breastfeeding support was disappointing. But for the most part my experience at LICH was a very pleasant one. From the nurses to the pediatric residents and even the orderlies — everyone at LICH was polite, helpful and nurturing.
The labor & delivery floor at LICH.
My husband Jason, who was in and out of the hospital many times throughout the two days we were there so he could tend to our menagerie at home, even found the security guards and the cashier he paid to room-in on the maternity ward, extremely helpful and polite. By the way, the price for partners to room-in at LICH is $210, which is a fraction of what it costs at most Manhattan hospitals!
It took us some time to write it, but we wanted the supervisor of the maternity ward at LICH, Wanda Hernandez, to know about the people who helped make our experience a positive one.
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October 21, 2010
Dear Ms. Hernandez:
My husband and I welcomed our first child into the world, a boy, on August 9, 2010 under the wonderful care of Midwife, Beverly Woodard at Long Island College Hospital. In short, our experience at LICH was an exceptional one.
On our list of things to do since we’ve been adjusting to new life with a baby is to write to let you know that being under the care of a few specific people made our experience at LICH that much more memorable. Paulette and Janelle on the labor and delivery floor, Bebeth in the maternity ward and Myra in the nursery went above and beyond to treat myself, my husband, my mother and of course my son, with a great deal of warmth and compassion.
Giving birth, while not easy, was at least pleasant thanks to your staff. Thank you for making our experience such a positive one.
The cracks in my skin are like cracks in the floor
Been waiting all year, I’ll be waiting some more
I sit here and think of the summer we had
The winter is cold, the winter is black
And I, I’m haunted
And I, I want you
Hundreds of miles of falling apart
I’d give anything to go back to the start
Hundreds of miles but less than a day
To just hear your voice, to just see your face…
After 30 hours of a grueling, albeit drug-free labor (24 of which were spent at home), on Monday, 8/9/10 at 8:55am Jason and I welcomed our son, Mylo Taha Wood, into the world. We are absolutely elated!
