My second son, Angus Lee, was born on July 25, 2015 at our home in Crestone, CO. His birth was just as intense as my experience with his brother, though different in so many details. Angus’ birth story has two distinct chapters - his birth at home, and the trip he, his dad and I made to the NICU in Colorado Springs 24 hours later. Twenty-four hours after that, we were home again, never more grateful for the comforts there.
Angus was born at 40 weeks and 2 days. I had been dilated a few centimeters for about one week prior to his birth and was feeling ready. Odin’s birth was so long and difficult, I was really hoping for a shorter labor and to remain in a space where we could include Odin in the process. Remembering the feeling of meeting Odin for the first time - complete sensory fulfillment - I thought I could keep my eye on the prize and it would certainly be easier the second time around.
I did have a much shorter labor. Regular contractions began around 2pm in the afternoon while I was on a walk in the neighborhood. The first few hours of labor were mild. Schuyler was home, working around the house, and my mother-in-law (Rona) was in the garden. Odin and I made muffins and the contractions intensified. I eventually went into the bedroom to be alone. Odin came in and straddled my back which felt good, until he started jumping on me, which didn’t. I realized, beyond cursory acknowledgment, that it would be hard to join birth with the presence of my 2 year-old.
From that point on things progressed quickly, and by “quickly” I mean it felt as if I fell off the edge of a cliff. I ate a few bites of dinner alone in the bedroom while everyone else was in the kitchen, and soon thereafter each contraction began rising directly up from the one before. Mama was in pain, and was not quiet! Odin came in and was clearly scared. There was the call to our midwife, Alycia, and there was a lot of crying (by Odin). To say the contractions hurt is an understatement, and I was also scared. I knew, but had forgotten, how intense birth is.
What if I can’t do this? It wasn’t a question of how we would get to the hospital, one hour away, if things went awry...I sensed things were going fine and my fear was more about that. I had to continue down this road, and I knew it would get harder.
Once Alycia arrived, my teary older son settled into his room with Nona, and graciously fell asleep before Angus arrived. There was no time to set up the birth tub as we had planned. I had gone from the floor, using the yoga ball and bed for support, to lying on either one of my sides on the bed, bringing up one leg with each contraction into some kind of lying squat. I was roaring against the grip of my own teeth, deep into my core and out into pillows.
I remember the contractions deepening somehow, so that at the peak I actually relaxed as they came back down, before they were over and the next one began. It was kind of a surreal relaxation, an altered state. I knew the baby was coming.
At first check, Alycia said I was dilated enough and could push whenever I wanted. With this green light, I pushed. I couldn’t stand not to. Just like my first birth, I pushed into a void, lost to the mechanics of what was actually happening. I visualized some point beyond the universe, and pushed towards that, beyond myself. Our second midwife, Nemonie, had arrived and she physically held me up a bit and said just the right things to get me through this part. Schuyler, who had been mercifully heating and massaging my lower back, moved into baby catching position with Alycia. My water broke on the first or second big push.
At 8:55pm, after one-half hour or so of pushing, Angus was born. He weighed 8 pounds 12 ounces, exactly the same as Odin weighed at birth (Odin was born at 40 weeks and 3 days). Schuyler caught him and passed him to me. I saw my mother-in-law come into the room as Angus cried, and I sobbed into his perfect, squishy body. A boy! Of course. He was exactly what we wanted...he was himself.
(My grandmother-in-law, Sheila, who had correctly predicted Odin’s gender through dousing, forecasted this baby as a girl. I needed no further convincing...so when he showed up as a boy, we were surprised! To Sheila’s credit, she had to make her prediction in the absence of a personal visit from me, unlike the first time.)
The few hours after Angus’s birth were poignant, and slightly blurry for me. We spontaneously sang a few verses of our favorite bedtime song (The River is Flowing) to Angus. He received a few puffs of breath from Alycia’s little breathing device, and then a Leboyer-style bath to try to slow his respirations down. From the murmurs and coos coming from the bathroom I knew that everyone was falling in love with him during that bath. I was grateful to my midwife and my family for their competence and love, and I appreciated that Schuyler had the opportunity to take the helm with bonding during this time.
I continued to have very painful contractions after the birth (somewhat typical of second and subsequent births) and also needed some oxygen support. I remember struggling to hold Angus before surrendering him for the bath, and feeling uncomfortable as a mother failing to get a grip on my own physical state. For a long time, all I could do was lie there and pray for recuperation, so I could simply hold my new baby. I remember Rona and Nemonie pressing on me with their hands and I was deeply grateful for their attention and efforts, which were calming. In the next few hours I was stitched up and able to get into a reasonable laying-down position in the bed, with Angus in my arms.
I wasn’t able to get up out of bed until after 3am when, unable to pee in my Depends (which was my plan for dealing with the inevitable need to urinate), I had to use the bathroom. Sparing the details of this endeavor, when it was over I finally felt myself returning to physical embodiment. I didn’t sleep that night, but rested and reveled in the bliss unique to this immediate postpartum time. Angus!
In the morning, Odin came in to meet his new baby brother, and we stumbled into our new life as a family of four (plus Nona). From what little details I can recall, it was a good day. Alycia and Nemonie returned in the late afternoon and it was joyful for me to hear their reflections on the birth, on Schuyler’s sureness as a birth partner and my power as a birthing mama! The bond with one’s midwife is so unique, to share the full journey and grit of your child’s birth.
Alycia listened to Angus’s breathing, then listened again, and again. I didn’t suspect anything was wrong until she started to explain that his continued high respiration rate was cause for concern. She would make some calls.
It dawned on me that she might be suggesting we take him to a hospital.
What? I didn’t want to believe there could be anything wrong with Angus, and I didn’t want to leave home. From Crestone, leaving home to go anywhere with a hospital would mean a significant journey.
In the two years since Odin’s birth, I have born witness to and personally experienced much grief and loss. An acquaintance gave birth to a daughter with a genetic mutation that has caused serious health problems and will likely affect her longevity. A close friend’s baby girl died at 39 weeks of pregnancy. In late 2013 my father died, from a long physical illness coupled with Major Depressive Disorder. And completely unexpectedly, as I’ve written about previously, my mother was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, and died three months later, while I was pregnant with Angus.
Whereas at another point in life I might have had an immediate confidence in my baby’s health, Alycia’s words made their way into a dark place for me. And I don’t mean a dark place that should be light - it is the darkness of a full life, with the inclusion of death. It was possible that Angus would not be “okay” (someday he won’t), and I cried and clung to his little body. A gate behind which I was holding back grief for my mother opened, and I cried, and cried.
Alycia called the spectrum of medical professionals, anthroposophic to allopathic and at all levels of practice. There was 100% consensus that Angus should be taken to a hospital, but little clarity about what might be wrong with him or what the course of action would be. In the end we decided to travel nearly 4 hours to the closest NICU, in Colorado Springs, hoping to find answers rather than speculation and prophylactic treatment. We left at 7pm, not knowing when we would return. Odin stayed behind with his Nona, who did not question the plan or her role. She was there for him. Another step into this transformed landscape of family...Odin had never been without Schuyler or I overnight before.
Angus, looking impossibly small, slept in his car seat the whole ride while I sat next to him and held his hand. And bled. Our midwives had expertly packed food, medicine, tea and my Depends for the journey.
As soon as we entered the NICU, around 11pm that evening, we were provided with information that allayed most of our fears and restored a basic confidence in Angus’s health. Newborn tachypnea, his fast breathing, was not uncommon. It likely had one of three causes - one of which was non-amniotic fluid in his lungs, which could clear on its own without intervention. They could test non-invasively for the other two causes - infection, or a tear in his lung. Even if the tests revealed something serious, there seemed to be clear paths of treatment. There would have been no way of knowing the cause of Angus’s fast breathing without bringing him to a place that would do these tests - so regardless of outcome we understood it had been an important trip.
Although the doctors were reassuringly competent, our nurse wouldn’t let me hold Angus beyond feeding him, citing a precedent of mothers falling asleep and dropping their babies on the floor (seriously?). It was a long, sleepless night much different from the previous night at home, with Angus wired into his plastic baby bin and alarms going off in all of the patient niches (including ours). The alarms never prompted a quick response and were usually just turned off. Angus’s blood test and chest x-ray were completed promptly but we soon realized that no one was in a hurry to get us out of there, when no one came to talk to us about the results.
By 6am I sought out the nurse practitioner and summoned the courage to tell her we needed the results, and we wanted to leave. She had all the results, which revealed no signs of infection and no tear in his lungs. The tachypnea would likely resolve on its own - but one particular blood test (a platelet count) needed to be repeated. She would order the retest for noon. Six hours might not seem that long compared to the length of time some babies spend in the NICU...but once we realized Angus was basically okay our preference for home over hospital was coming back.
Shift change occurred and fortunately the new round of staff felt the blood test could be repeated earlier. The result was clear, and our gratitude for Angus’s health was profound.
The discharge process began at 9am. Now, one cannot simply walk out of the NICU. You must watch videos about shaken babies, infant CPR and other topics (a total of five 20-minute videos). You must have your car seat inspected, and if it fails (as ours did...it was more than 5 years old), you must go out and buy a new one. Then you must put your baby in the car seat, attached to all of his monitoring devices, for 90 minutes to make sure his vitals remain strong. Then you must call your PCP to schedule a follow-up appointment. Then, someone must escort you to your car to watch you put your baby inside, correctly.
We left the NICU at 2pm. Having been so deeply shaken by the unknown state of Angus’s health the previous evening, it felt like a minor miracle to navigate the bureaucracy involved in simply leaving the hospital. We drove out of the flats, back into the winding foothills and steep mountain passes leading us home.
We came back to a freshly delivered meal, provided by friends, and the embraces of Odin and Nona. While Angus’s breathing remained fast, we were less worried.
Separating from Odin and traveling to a major hospital was not part of our plan, but it was also not not part of our plan. No matter how much you prepare for birth, you don’t actually know how it is going to go. It is amazing to me now, how the experience simply folded in to how things were. I didn’t feel that we lost something vital in leaving the house, even though everything we might have successfully avoided by doing a home birth came crashing down on our heads at the NICU (bright lights, monitors, heel sticks, car rides...). It is all part of Angus’s birth story. It is what happened, and we navigated it as best we could, with love, as a family. As it turns out, it was a wonderful lesson in the primacy of love over circumstance. Sometimes this lesson is harder-won, at much greater cost.
Angus’s fast breathing lasted well beyond the two weeks suggested to us at the NICU, but now at twelve weeks, I haven’t noticed it for quite some time. He is happy and bright, despite the near constant chaos of living with a two year-old brother, and you can already see the friendship twinkling in both of their eyes when they look at each other. There’s much to say about life with two children, but perhaps another time!
