Waiting

Waiting, and not always patiently. Two weeks until our estimated due date of lovely baby Numbah Three. Carpal tunnel still kicking my butt every night (which is why I'm up blogging at 4am on a Sunday morning). Had a complete emotional breakdown on Friday from sleep deprivation and feeling the strain of caring for a lot of pregnant women while pretending that I am not pregnant myself. I'm discovering it can be challenging to be a care provider in the final weeks of pregnancy. This falls totally on me. I'm such a suck-it-up and keep moving type of gal.

My lovely chiropractor, who was stumped over the source of my persistent carpal tunnel (and finding no tightness in my neck, shoulders, or upper back) finally hit upon what felt really big. I've been having horrible pain just below my right shoulder blade whenever I use my hands for longer than 10 minutes (you know, strenuous stuff like, preparing dinner or emptying the dishwasher). We ended up with me on hands and forearms while she worked my sternum and rib cage, and I don't know what she did, but something released. My back felt better, my arms stopped tingling and I cried and felt a bit stunned. The tears (that I kept mostly in check-typical and ridiculous given the situation) were purely emotional in nature. I looked at the chiro's surprised face and said, "It's so hard caring for others sometimes. I'm so tired." She lovingly agreed and said all the tightness was around my heart, both figuratively and literally. For some reason, it felt good to have that acknowledged. I normally would feel really crappy for letting someone I know on a professional level see me being so vulnerable and possibly a bit off-kilter, but I was this woman's midwife just over a year ago. I knew she knew what I was talking about. She kept adjusting people right up to the end of her pregnancy and had experienced some of the same emotional difficulty that comes along with the giving, giving, giving that normally is the best part of the job.

I left there feeling renewed, both by the physical adjustment and my final personal acknowledgment that it's okay not to feel 100% these days. That it's fine to be going a little bit more inward in these final weeks. Although, part of me worried if I could simultaneously honor this new revelation and still be on call. I went to bed that night with serious prayers for equilibrium and strength.
In answer to that,
The next day I attended one of the most beautiful births of the year. A birth where there was much worry about another heinous perineal tear caused by the first baby. The woman and husband are beautiful, kind folks with lovely humor. We were in a small house with lots of family members hanging out, waiting and watching for the new arrival. I felt a lot of pressure, knowing my job was to keep things as intact as possible and frankly was worried about having to repair a bad tear or worse, transfer to the hospital. The labor was going quickly and I had driven like a mad woman to get there in time (leaving a post partum visit prematurely- postponing one lucky baby's newborn screen heel poke for the next day!). I found the laboring mama in a pool of water. (A midwife always ends up dunking her boobs into a waterbirth catch, but I was curious how it would work with a 40cm belly of my own! Not to mention, I wanted to be as hands-on as possible to ease the baby out.) Before she started to push, the mama asked me between contractions for a reminder of how this was gonna go.
-You're going to barely push when it comes time. Let your uterus do all the work to push the baby down. I'm going to be talking a lot and that might be annoying. I want you to listen though, so we can eaaaase this baby out, okay?
And my, was I saying prayers. I had at least 5 family members standing over me, who remembered how badly she'd torn last time with another midwife. I felt big and lumbering and tried to stifle my own grunts as I kneeled over the edge of the pool. Her water broke and it was clear the baby just dropped down to her pelvic floor. And I started my jabbering, "verbal guidance" is what it's called on the MANA statistics forms! Slow, slow, sweetie. Good...
That baby eased out with a mere three contractions and amazing control from mama. My awesome apprentice leaned in to provide extra hands on support, which was great. A lovely child was born and was placed on mama's chest. No blood in the water. I hadn't felt any tissue give under my hands. This was looking good. After the usual waiting for the placenta and getting mama onto dry land, we found with the exception of a few skin splits, an intact perineum. Yaay! And a chunka-monk baby who was a pound and a half heavier than it's sibling. The entire family (and myself) sang Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow... it was lovely. The apprentice and I were both crying and sporting goofy smiles.

Since then, another mama has given birth (though my partner attended), leaving me number two in queue, so to speak. There's actually three of us due all around the same time, so who knows when my time will come. It feels wonderful to have gotten through a busier period. After a very emotional Friday (for no good reason, other than another night of sketchy sleep and numb hands; and possibly the reality of our own family dynamics about to change in a big way), I had a great day yesterday with the kids. We ate at a greasy spoon diner for breakfast, went grocery shopping, walked to the playground, visited the costume shop, and ate this amazing kielbasa, quinoa, butternut squash (from our garden!) and cauliflower dish for dinner. After G was home, we went to buy more chicken feed and stopped off at another playground and ate Junior Mints. At home, we watched old Inspector Gadget cartoons past bedtime. Then I was able to just lay in bed with G and cuddle- something I totally needed to do after weeks of just going to "bed" sitting upright on the futon in the dining room.
Even though I woke at 3am, I'm feeling so much better than I have all week. Replenished in so many ways. Trying to patiently savor every day while waiting for this new little person to arrive.