last baby

If it is to be that you are my last baby, you are my perfect end.

If it is to be that you're the last one to turn the two lines pink, I can still close my eyes and feel the ways you moved inside me.

If it is to be that you are the last wrinkly newborn that I pull up onto my chest, I'll forever hold how easy the transition seemed for you. Like you hadn't just left one world for another. Just as content on my skin as beneath it.

And if you really are my final birth, I'll always feel so lucky, undeserved, and amazed to have done it three times... and always want to do it a fourth.

If you're the last one to live on my left hip, I'll always remember the weight. The way our bodies click together like puzzle pieces, your ducky blonde hair under my chin when you're shy, and your breath on my neck when you're sleepy.

The last one to mispronounce strawberry and yogurt. 

The last one to plop your heavy bottom into my lap as if it was yours-- no ask, no hedging, just thud! right down. I am yours.

The babiest brother who made the trio whole. 

If you're the last to wean, my milk still won't dry up. How can I blame my body for holding on too?

If it is to be that you are my last baby, I've memorized it all, soaked it into my muscles and bones til they ache each night. But because you are my last baby I know that even the memorized memories dim, and even the babiest baby grows. I'm certain I will love who you will become, but each day forward is a day further away from you now, my last baby. 

If it is to be.

This is what it looks like to have it all: my feminist primal scream

Sometimes I joke that I need to have a little too much wine, or a little too much depression to do my best writing. Today comes to you by way of a spicy Moscow Mule and spicier feelings. And I don't know that my writing will be any good (as evidenced by this poorly-written sentence), but this quote by Maya Angelou scrolled by on my IG feed as an email notification popped up informing me of yet another daycare closure for Covid symptoms, and I feel Maya's nudge to switch over to my notes app and scribble down my feminist primal scream and beg any unvaccinated friends to get the jab and make. it. stop.

"Each time a woman stands up for herself, she stands up for all women."

The unvaccinated each undoubtedly has individualized reasons for turning down the shot, but a common theme is the conclusion that their decision's risk and impact begins and ends with themselves. But my view as a working mother of three, is that children and their mothers are still suffering the daily effects of those individual decisions that are allowing this pandemic to continue and evolve, and I, for one, am so, so tired.

Sometimes when I write, I think that I'm writing for my daughter, once she's grown. A window into the mom she can't know now, a mom with the context, nuance, and grace of an adult friendship. In an unexpected turn though, my old writing gives me that same window to know myself-- who I used to be anyway. Honestly, reading my poetic, butterfly-and-glitter feelings towards motherhood-- back when I was falling in love with my daughter, back when she was the only one-- can be hard for me to stomach. I just had no idea what motherhood would become... that it wasn't the work of one woman, and that it wasn't supposed to become all of me.

When I went back to work after my daughter was born, I wrote about gratitude-- how lucky I was to be fulfilled and inspired by motherhood and my career. I remember getting up at 3 or 4am after I nursed her in the middle of the night to begin analyzing graphs and getting caught up on other work, and sincerely thinking how lucky I was to have it all. And my only sadness was that I didn't have a mom-hatchet to split myself in two so I could live both of my "lives" 24/7.

That mindset is WILD to me now. Even more wild because I lived that middle-of-the-night work-shift for years before I started drinking coffee. Seven years, three kids, and a coffee-addiction later, I don't want to do it all anymore. But I do want need the support-- structural support-- to raise three good humans, and to have the opportunity to be a world-changer in my teeny-tiny corner of the world. And I guess it took the pandemic to show me the systemic failures of our society to support women. Do people even see us?

The irony and privilege in those words are not lost on me. My husband gave me a 5-year head-start on my career and was the primary caretaker of our kids for years; our families live across the country and still manage to come help bail us out when we're in over our heads, and when I finally accepted that I couldn't keep working without childcare or in-person public school, my employer granted an unpaid 12-week leave of absence (that fortunately, we could afford) even though legally, they were not obligated to do so since I had already used my federal leave and job insurance when I had a baby less than a year before. (I guess policy-makers didn't consider that the women who gave birth in 2020, also might struggle with childcare in 2020. I wonder how many white Boomer males overlooked that glaring error of omission?) When I returned to work in the spring, I managed to snag a promotion (how??) and with it, way more flexibility-- perhaps the hottest commodity to working moms.

Even with all of that privilege, the last 18 months have been brutal. 

Fortunately (or unfortunately?), most of my friends are also living in this unending purgatory with me. A few months into the pandemic, a good friend and I started texting each other pictures or stories of the ways we were "balancing" (what a joke) our 2020 careers with babies hanging off our boobs, and children hanging off of our backs, captioning them simply, "this is what it looks like to have it all," laugh-crying at how people look at us and mistakenly think we must have it all together. 

So in case you don't have multiple young children, and have not been living with the unbearable stress (the kind of stress that makes your hair fall out and your heart beat out of your chest) of unpredictable school and daycare closures, if you haven't spent part of your year writing letters to old white men at the top of prestigious institutions (I'm looking at you, Princeton Theological Seminary) begging for your childcare center to reopen (which ultimately closed permanently, forcing an all female staff, many women of color, to lose their jobs, because PTSem-- an institution with one of the largest endowments in the world-- no longer found it a financially worthwhile enterprise........ too bad for all of their students with young children), take a moment, I beg you, and imagine what it has been like for mothers and children. For nearly a year and a half. I dare you to send any of us a Pinterest board with new kid craft ideas, or worse, some vaguely encouraging cliche about how we will wish for these years back.

And in case you live in a part of the country that declared this pandemic over, before we've finished the work, I'd like to mention that during a 4-week run this summer, our daycare was closed all but 2 days-- once for a confirmed covid case (thanks to the one teacher who chose not to be vaccinated), and the rest because the Department of Health closes daycare classrooms EVERY TIME a child has 2 or more symptoms. To be clear, that means any time a baby, toddler, or preschooler has a runny nose and a cough within 72 hours of being in the daycare, the classroom is closed until they have a negative covid test + an alternate diagnosis (an upper respiratory infection is not an acceptable dx to reopen the room). Did I mention that we aren't reimbursed for these closures? And that our childcare bill is likely more expensive than your mortgage?

A few weeks ago, when Porter's classroom was closed again after reopening for a LAUGHABLE 2.5 hours, I spent his nap time on the phone with the DOH and gave my loudest feminist primal scream, proud of myself for only getting choked up once, and not using obscenities. The DOH director reiterated how they have to continue with these conservative policies to keep children healthy until community spread reached certain numbers, despite the harm to women and children. Then she gave me the number of the next person up the chain.

I guess my point is that I've done all I can do for myself, for my children, and for my family, but, as is the theme of motherhood, I can't do it on my own. This is not what it looks like to have it all.

Moon Song, by Kate J. Baer

"You are not an evergreen, unchanged 

by the pitiless snow. You are not a photo,

a brand, a character written for sex or

house or show. You do not have to choose

one of the other: a dream or a dreamer, the

bird or the birder. You may be a woman of 

commotion and quiet. Magic and brain.

You can be a mother and a poet. A wife and

a lover. You can dance on the graves you dug

on Tuesday, pulling out the bones of yourself

you began to miss. You can be the sun and the

moon. The dance a victory song."

 

 

You feel this too, right?

There must be some evolutionary reason that the fourth trimester is so vivid in my memory. Or maybe it's just that for once I'm completely present, FOMO at its most intense. Where the sunlight spills into the house in the afternoon, which flowers are blooming outside and which ones are dying, the phantom baby kicks inside my deflated belly, the places my body aches and bleeds pointing to the good work of birth-- I remember it all. It's an intoxicating way to live: the mindful fourth trimester.

But last year, my fourth tri landed in the middle of Before and After, as I've journaled about here. Somewhere in between memorizing the curves of Porter's face, the way his eyelids look like a line-drawing of angel's wings when he sleeps, and that searing sting of early breastfeeding, all the other "2020" memories are locked up and tangled in that postpartum haze too. And returning to that same bright winter sun can bring me to my knees if I'm not careful.

My PPD caught up with me around Porter's birthday-- an unlucky combo of PMS, the nagging feeling that my mind and body shouldn't *still* feel this postpartum a year later, and thumbing through pictures of his first seven weeks. Pictures of May holding him in the Groundhog's Day hat she colored at kindergarten, the same bitter cold of February school drop-offs where I fastidiously tucked blankets in his carseat, and signed my kid in tardy too many times. Even the pitch of his portable sound machine reminds me of the days we left the house without triple-checking for masks.

And then swiping through the other ten and a half months of his first year-- all of which happened within our own walls, or in empty parks, with our family of five. This inescapable reality that we are almost back to March 13, and my newborn is a toddler now, and my 6-year-old will dress up for her 100th day of "school" sitting at a desk in her bedroom, never mind the "remote learning" folder she brought home last spring. The left side was labeled "Week 1," the right, "Week 2," as if a pandemic could be neatly tucked into a paper folder. 

I try to tie things up when I write. Doesn't every story need a good denouement? ...Something I've learned, a nod to my Christian heritage, or even a metaphor that helps me move on. But, I guess what I'm trying to say is, I can't be alone, right? You all feel this too? And remember where the afternoon sunlight falls in February?

Would be but

Dot would be 4 but I still remember driving to my midwives' office. That awful combination of dread, and stupid hope, and incredulous intuition. Was I stupid to have doubts, or stupid to hope? Stats were on my side that the baby was fine. 11+6. Healthy ultrasound at 8. "Perfect heartbeat," my midwife said only a week before.

But I knew what the back cramps meant. I had the same ones 5 months earlier. I remember making that last turn into the parking lot and thought, "this is the last time I can pretend my baby is alive."

Dot would be 4 but I remember the nurse making small talk as she took my vitals, commenting on how she felt like she just saw me. I told her that I just wanted to hear the baby's heartbeat before the weekend-- that I had a bad feeling. She joked that I should buy a doppler to use at home so I wouldn't need to come back every week. 

God, she must have felt awful when I passed her with red eyes on my way out. She's taken my blood pressure and weighed me, and handed me cups to pee in for two full term pregnancies since then. I always wonder if she remembers that day.. and her words.. and my face.

Dot would be 4 but I remember when my midwife's chipper, "hop on up here and let's listen to your baby" turned into the deafening sound of the doppler. It was so loud. But maybe it wasn't? Maybe it just *felt* like a fog horn blaring that my swollen belly was nothing more than a tomb.

I remember the viability ultrasound. Why do they have to call it such an awful name? Dot was so still. The ultrasound tech didn't need to say anything. She hastily took the measurements she needed, sensitive to the fact that I was staring at a baby that I would never get to hold. Like it was too painful for both of us. But I didn't want it to end. I wanted my midwife to sew my cervix shut so I could keep my dead baby forever. 

Dot would be 4, but I still have this recurring dream from time to time, that I died before I miscarried, which, as macabre as that sounds, the dream is a comfort-- to keep her tucked away with me. I wish the tech asked if I wanted to take the last grainy pictures of my baby, but instead she asked if I wanted to take the box of Kleenex's across the hall to my midwife's room.

Even still, I ended up soaking my midwife's shoulder in tears and snot. She told me how sorry she was and I remember saying, "it's ok." And she said, "it's ok not to be ok."

Dot would be 4, but the cramps gave way to contractions that evening. I remember sprinting to the bathroom unable to keep the baby inside any longer. I pushed. There was so much tissue. So much blood. It was the middle of the night and I could hardly see. I turned on the light, realizing what I had just done. In a moment of insanity I almost stuck my hand in the toilet to try and pull out my baby. I flushed the toilet instead and closed the bathroom door.

Dot would be 4 and it's still raw. I hold on to the details because it's what I have to hold, like the blood-stained skirt that hung in my closet for years after my first miscarriage. The screen shot of my NFP chart with it's perfect triphasic thermal shift, the ultrasound picture where her heart was beating, the picture I snapped of Mary Allison the next day at the library when, as fate would have it, the first book she pulled off the shelf was called, "What's inside your tummy, Mommy?"

Nothing, I remember thinking. A twice-empty tomb. 

Dot is not 4 today and I even though I have more kids than I can possibly wrangle at the moment, I still feel Dot's absence. But just like the macabre dream, I'm grateful to feel her absence-- a reminder that she lived, and she lived within me.

Art by Samantha J. Hahn

what I did and what I couldn't

No one is impressed with what I did or remembered before 8am. I'm the only one who even knows how long my list was, or that it begins the moment the last kid falls asleep each night, and even I can only see the things I didn't do.

The daycare teacher called to remind me to please put the blue tape on the baby's bottle caps. I remembered to write his full name and date on the blue tape that sticks to all three of his bottles, and the red band to note that it's human breast milk. And all that milk? I pumped all 15oz in the middle of my work day while catching up on emails and, at the same time, falling behind on the work that used to be easy for me.

I remembered her Chromebook and its charger. Two spirals, both math workbooks, a pencil pouch with all the things, pink head phones and matching pink mouse, a dollar bill for the snack she wants to buy, the Expo markers, the play-doh, the ADHD medication and her activity schedule and motivational system that I made her myself, the lunch I packed the night before, the mask, the extra mask. I filled out her covid-screener, my covid screener, took everyone's temperature, and made sure she had plenty of time to tie her shoes by herself. I even sent off that email to her neurodevelopmental ped about her 504 renewal meeting this month. But she wanted to chew gum on the way to "school" but the pack was empty. She wanted a different Taylor Swift song that wouldn't load, and wanted her dad to drop her off. And despite my very best efforts for a seamless morning, I had already yelled and she had already cried. It's only 7:40am.

Maternity leave is so far gone, but my hair still comes out in clumps e v e r y d a y, my hormones still feel wildly out of my control, my breasts still soak my shirt from time to time, and the baby blues I had with my others feel nothing like the ugly postpartum anxiety and depression that took over this time. I wish I was the weepy kind of depressed mom. Maybe it would feel good to cry? Instead I'm the rage-y kind which only makes the guilt worse. Will this postpartum ever end?

There is so much for parents to carry, especially this year. An enormous invisible load on top of the number of children people can see spilling out of our arms. But nobody seems to care.

That's not actually true, I know; I'm so lucky to have the friends, family, and colleagues that I do. Heck, even the stranger at Target who heard me scream the darkest scream to stop my three-year-old from being hit by a car, offered her empathy as she passed us: "I almost had a heart attack," she said to me as I grabbed my kids' hands, pulling one who is stomping her feet, still holding a grudge about the toy I wouldn't buy her, and another who was scared shitless because he had no idea his mom could scream that kind of scream reserved for parents who think they can't stop their child from being killed. Even if I could have reached him to pull him back, I was wearing his baby brother, and in that instant I chose the baby. (I wonder how long I'll hold onto that guilt?) But even the woman who saw us drowning didn't offer to help-- how could she during this pandemic? We passed each other, our faces covered in masks. Mine wet with stinging tears.

But I remember when strangers would tell me how amazing I was to be out grabbing coffee with my newborn, back when I gave his age in days. Like it was a true feat that I'd showered and stood there holding my perfect sleeping babe while someone else made my latte and my kids were safely at school. 

This shouldn't need to be said, but 8 months later the baby is still here, and rather than impressing people that I put on pants and left my house, the world has moved on. All expectations of what it is to be a good mother and a good working mother are just as high as before... even during a pandemic.

My midwife reminds me that I need to pace myself after she asks which pharmacy to send my anti-depressant prescription to. But the world doesn't see the dogged pace that mothers run. Or maybe they do see it, as they say, "I almost had a heart attack," and pass by our full arms.

day 4

homesick

1-20-2020 seemed like a cool due date. It's MLK day, for one. Naked, wet life in the first month of a new decade, for another. And all of those twenties in a row.. strangely satisfying! But January 20 would not be Porter's birthday. Instead it stands as a grim national banner, marking the first confirmed Covid-19 case in the United States.

Six days later Porter came. I remember the casual sign taped at the receptionist's desk in the ER-- just a regular piece of computer paper with the default font, asking patients to alert the person behind the counter if you'd recently traveled to Wuhan, Italy, or Iran. The images of empty subway stations, masked citizens, and scrolling obituaries felt like exotic, foreign problems then. Kobe Bryant's death seemed to be the only one that mattered the day that Porter was born.

The day I had my six-week postpartum check-up with my midwife was an unusually mild day for March in New Jersey. I remember walking out afterwards with my perfect trophy baby, and a healthy body that I recognized as my own and was grateful for. My stitches were gone and my uterus had tucked itself back where it belongs, and even greater healing had taken place within our home. Our family had survived two incredibly draining years (see here, ICYMI), and my shoulders, alleviated and untroubled for the first time in so long, finally let go. It felt like Porter and I were free, a new beginning. Maybe we'd even have an early spring. 

A week later the world stopped. There's no reason to describe the scrambling, the angst, or the upheaval. It happened to all of us. The pandemic seemed to cut into each of our films, turning our moving pictures into stills. It caught our family with Chris working inside the make-shift Covid ICU floors as the only chaplain at a community hospital in the epicenter of this global curse. I was home alone teaching our kindergartener how to read and write, sending apologetic emails to her PE teacher for blowing off the obstacle course assignment, resentfully shoving screens in front of our 2-year-old's eyes, and wondering whether I should call this heavy fog "postpartum" or "pandemic" anxiety and depression. And that was before our next freeze frame when my laughable "maternity leave" ended and I added full-time WFH to my to-do list the same week that the virus peaked in New Jersey. 

I've heard that grief slices life into Before and After, and that try as you might, you never get to return to Before. I'm a sucker for newborns; I always have been. The birthday cocktail of endorphins, oxytocin, and the smell of baby's pink skin is intoxicating, and the world seems to simultaneously stop spinning and spin wildly away. But the way I look back at Porter's first weeks of life is more than wistful. My eyes linger at each picture wringing out any drop of Before, homesick for a home that is no longer here. 

The big kids must feel it too-- the satirical homesickness felt by those of us who never leave the house. On days that were too rainy or too cold to play outside, I would take them for a drive to stretch the afternoon to dinnertime. The kids took turns picking our route. Each time they wanted to look out the car windows to see their schools, the library, and the hospital (now adorned with "healthcare hero" signs), asking to recreate meeting our new baby who didn't even have a name back then. Their last memories of Before.

The name Porter means "gatekeeper." In the Benedictine tradition, the porter is someone chosen to welcome visitors to the monastery, no matter who they are, or how they arrive. Said another way, the porter is someone who looks for strangers to welcome in as guests, to see Christ in each of them. The name rose to the top of our short list as we watched in horror at the current administration's immigration policies that separate families at our border, and perpetuate the discrimination against "strangers." We hope that our Porter will be a gatekeeper with the spirit of proactive hospitality, inclusion, and compassion. As Pope Francis said, "The future is, most of all, in the hands of those people who recognize the other as 'you' and themselves as part of an 'us.' We all need each other."

The passive aggressive middle finger to Donald Trump when we named our son felt good too.

It was impossible to know then, on 1-26-2020, that Porter would be another kind of gatekeeper in our family-- a strange bridge connecting us from Before to After. In so many ways it feels like we are stuck in the same blurry still-photo, the snapshot taken when none of us was ready-- not looking at the camera, chewing a bite of food, blinking our eyes, not smiling. 

But then I look again. I see the growing baby, the one who learned to smile the same week wedged between Before and After. And I earnestly hope that we have only come upon a new gate, one with a hospitable porter who seeks strangers to welcome as neighbors, one where we value communion over self-centeredness. A new home that might heal the homesickness that sickens us today.

Porter's story, part 2

Waiting for the onset of labor is a weird game of mental toughness (and like I said, my brain was fried). (See part 1)

As a behavior analyst, I've become a really good observer. Identifying patterns of behavior and manipulating environmental variables is my actual livelihood. But this skill set went into hyperdrive about the time I hit 37 weeks when I began having prodromal labor off and on (just as I had with Declan). I became a psycho for the next month trying to analyze every possible labor symptom in hopes of catching the right wave and hanging on so we didn't end up at 42 weeks again. This exhausting mental exercise is quite useless, by the way. 10/10 would not recommend. 

Cerebrally, I knew that I couldn't control when labor would begin, but what kind of perfectionist would I be if I didn't try and control everything else around it? For weeks I attempted the fruitless tasks of keeping the laundry folded, the dishwasher emptied, the toys organized, the fridge stocked, and the beds made. Bless my mother's heart for helping me execute said rituals when she joined us in Jersey just before my due date. 

Basically, I needed homeostasis. I wanted to be continuously well-rested, well-fed, well-hydrated, well-adjusted, and showered. Clean hair and shaved legs, bonuses. I barked orders from the couch to my kids as a hilarious attempt to keep them in this perfect state of readiness too. Even more hilariously, I checked the forecast multiple times a day as if I could will my baby to be born into the sunshine.

... 

Friday night I climbed into bed as a new round of contractions began. My belly was high and huge as ever, and if Chris videoed what I looked like rolling over, it would probably be a viral gif by now. I shrugged off the (painful) contractions, irked that they would taunt me with spontaneous labor only four days after my due date. I was equal parts determined to sleep, and to stay awake neurotically timing my contractions, as if that would keep the waves coming. My neurosis won and I stayed awake the ENTIRE night tapping the contraction button every 10 to 15 minutes on my newly downloaded app. I finally nodded off after 6am, just in time for the kids to wake (me) up.

As I cynically predicted, my contractions petered out that morning, further reinforcing my self-fulfilling prophecy that I would do this song and dance for many more days and nights until my pelvic floor just fell out from under me. So when the same pattern of contractions began wrapping around my back and belly again that afternoon, I pushed all thoughts of labor aside. After convincing Chris (and myself) that there was nothing to see here, I sent him to Philadelphia in the driving rain to pick my dad up from the airport. Meanwhile I stared into my closet trying to dig up anything that could possibly cover my enormous belly for an ABA conference scheduled the next day. Pure denial. 

By dinnertime, I was bleeding, contracting, and nearly dry-heaving as I hid in my bedroom away from the salmon in the oven. I texted my beloved doula, Kristy, (who moved out of state after Declan was born) to give her the TMI play-by-play that she's probably grown to expect from me now three labors deep. (Side note, everyone should have at least one friend that thinks conversations about mucus plugs and the like are completely ordinary.) Her sage advice, “you’re in labor; go to bed!”

Somehow Kristy’s encouragement and my own exhaustion weren’t enough to convince me to sleep, or that this was *real* labor. So with the leftover salmon safely in the fridge, and the kids tucked in bed, I rejoined Chris and my parents in our living room to do figure eights on my birthing ball in hopes of rocking the baby lower and lower. Eventually I went to bed, and closed my eyes for a contraction or two before it became obvious that I had missed my chance for any sleep. It was close to midnight and I knew I’d be holding my baby by the next morning. So instead of being well-fed and well-rested, I was starving and nauseous (a la first trimester vibes), and was heading into active labor with about 20 minutes of sleep since Thursday night. Perfect.

Looking back, I wish I had taken a Benadryl and fought for even a little sleep, or at least drowsy labor in bed. But strangely, all I wanted to do was get out of my house, away from my sleeping children, where I could labor selfishly. (I’m pretty sure birth is the antithesis of self-centeredness. What I mean is, I only wanted to think about myself— ergo, selfish—and wanted to be close to my midwife and far from my light sleepers.) So I called my midwife, Jennifer, grabbed a box of Cheerios to eat on the highway, and awkwardly moved my 20-pound bump out of the way to tie my sneakers one last time. Chris and I were off to the hospital and, embarrassingly, it almost felt like a date. 

We met Jennifer in the ER and rode the elevator together to the sixth floor where we met our nurse, Katie. There are three midwives at my practice (all of whom have labored with me now!), and it always feels funny to see who’s on-call for your birth, like “hey, we’re about to do this really awesome thing together, but also, I’m probably about to get completely naked and shit all over you.” (But really, Yelena, sorry I almost pooped on your shoe last time..) 

By the time we settled in, checked on the baby and my cervix, and went through my medical history with Katie, it was 2am. My labor had (predictably) slowed from my transition from home to hospital and I felt mostly fine. With no birth photographer this time around (why did you both have you move outta state, Esther and Kristy??), I took a “boomerang” of my hospital tube socks with the non-slip grippies for posterity, swallowed a few spoonfuls of applesauce in a failed attempt to curb the nausea/starvation combo, and then tried (and failed) again to sleep. 

Soon enough the “leg shakes” came which had been my cue during my other labors that the real fun was about to begin. I asked Katie to fill up the Jacuzzi tub that I’ve come to count on, and I climbed in. Everything felt pretty familiar and pretty manageable… until it didn’t. In addition to the back labor that has come along for every second of each of my labors, an excruciating, invisible line appeared next to my spine that shot electric pain all the way up to my neck and down my left leg. And unlike the contractions that helped me out with little breaks in between, this ungodly line grabbed on to the contractions so the unbearable throb felt continuous. In that dark haze in the middle of the night, labor no longer felt like painful, hard work. It felt like suffering.

My trusty Jacuzzi tub let me down, and I needed out. And needed to puke. I remember catching a glimpse of my sallow face in the bathroom mirror as I threw away the barf bag and swished some water around my mouth, thinking, “what the heck has happened to me?” When Katie offered to start an IV with some anti-nausea meds, I was ALL in, and in the same breath I asked for an epidural.

I think I was almost as surprised to say the words as my midwife was to hear them. “That doesn’t sound like you,” she said. She was right— it didn’t sound like any conversation we had ever had in the years I have known her, but I also really didn’t feel like myself either. The pain from my other labors must be imprinted in my mind because I knew right where I was in my labor trajectory without a cervical exam-- just beginning transition, but still miles away from delivery. Even greater pain was on its way— unhelpful, intrusive third-birth baggage—and I was not ready to take on another layer of pain.

I’m not sure how they teach midwives what to say or do when their patient asks for something they’ve repeatedly said they didn’t want, but Jennifer knew. She massaged my back, offered more support and reasonable alternatives (if I had been up for listening to reason), and validated my pain. She walked the delicate line between encouraging me to stay the course (out of my own preferences, not hers), and helping me get the pharmaceutical pain-relief I was asking for. Most impressively, she did it all without letting me feel like a birthing failure, even if I wouldn't be getting the Ina-May-birthing-goddess experience this time. I suspect this kind of compassionate intuition is earned from her years of supporting women during the most painful and intimate hours of their lives. I remember leaning over the birthing ball, locking eyes with her, and shaking my head, “no.”

You'd think for all of my pregnancies that I would have read up on epidurals at some point (especially considering I'd persevered through two unmedicated births to avoid it), but I didn't have a clue. I don’t remember much from the procedure. Just the blinding lights and the way Jennifer and Katie held me like I was their own sister. 

A few minutes later my contractions were erased. It was like magic, and I finally understood why most women pick the giant spine needle over the ring of fire. Although some of my back labor persisted, and that devil line on my left side hung on tight, I finally fell asleep for the first time in two days.

While I slept, my body labored on without me. And when I woke up an hour or two later, the sun was beginning to rise and my body was instinctually bearing down. By now it was 7am (shift change), but instead of tagging out, Jennifer stayed with me, and Danielle joined our team. 

Usually at this point in birth, my body is splitting in two and I look something like this:

But this time I casually sat in bed and chatted with my midwives. It might have been brunch with mimosas except that I was fully dilated and completely aware that with each contraction I was shitting myself. (Insert soapbox of how undignified birth is and how birth workers somehow manage to give that dignity back to you.) I asked Danielle about her recent trip to Disney World with her kids, commented on how completely unlabor-like "labor" was with an epidural, and asked how delivery was about to go down-- something that happens organically and loudly when there's not an epidural muting the waves. 

After a couple of pushes on my back (something I swore I'd never do again after my first birth), Danielle suggested I flip over onto my hands and knees-- a trick I didn't know was possible with an epidural. When I wasn't holding my breath and counting to ten, I was asking where the heck the ring of fire went, amused and incredulous that this was even birth. In fact, looking back I'm kind of sorry that I slept through transition, and skipped out on the ring of fire (in a really bizarre way), like I chose to miss part of my son's birth. There's just something about feeling every ounce of pain, and then trading it-- in an instant-- for the greatest joy and relief. I can't describe how odd it felt to know precisely what pain was happening where, but only feeling pain's dim shadows in its place.

I hugged the back of the hospital bed, and counted to ten one last time. Suddenly my baby was laying belly to belly with me, the sunrise shining on his pink back. My little Sunday sunrise baby peacefully curved around his old home, beginning our new home together.

When I finally recognized the telltale first trimester queasiness last year, I couldn't imagine why I was given this gift-- a gift that initially felt so misplaced, if I'm honest. Motherhood had lost a lot of its joy, and was riddled with anxiety, guilt, and shortcomings. A baby due at the end of January-- the month with some of the grayest days and the longest nights, when the tulips and daffodils of spring might decide to stay buried in the cold dirt forever-- it felt like another layer of control was pulled away from me. 

On January 20, Porter's ill-fated due date, the first patient in the United States was diagnosed with COVID-19. Who could have guessed that the entire world was about to embark on some of its grayest days, and weeks, and months? Death and suffering stifle life across the globe while fear sits stagnant in the air. And yet the tulips and daffodils poked out of the dirt and decided to bloom, Jesus still rose on the third day, and in our little home, Porter Theodore sparkles as our brightest spot-- our perfect, undeserved Sunday sunrise.