The roads that led to the birth center were nestled in golden hills and pockets of farmland. It was stunning. I looked forward to it every time.
Eight months later on a sultry, overcast June morning, I sat on my porch sipping cinnamon coffee and reading stories of birth and midwifery from the book Midwife in Amish Country when tears sprang to my eyes, as for the first time I was truly considering the journey of Wilder's birth. I was surprised by these tears; I hadn't once really sat with any feelings of disappointment over our experience. When my midwife Rebecca asked me at our two-week checkup how I felt about the birth now that I'd had time to settle into my role as mama to this precious newborn and had come out of the fresh-born haze that follows, I didn't know how to answer. "I feel... fine?" It was practically a question. "I feel... good about it. Yeah, it's good. Everything worked out really well." There was no emotion attached to my response.
After all, my labor with him was strikingly... normal. Average, in the realm of homebirth and subsequent labors. Different than what I'd experienced in a lot of ways, and at the same time, not that different. What was it about this memoir that was stirring up emotions that I had somehow buried deep into my chest, seemingly without even realizing it?
The year 2020 was hard for everyone, but my hard came from a different place. Yes, the pandemic was stressful to navigate and the entire year felt like an emotional roller coaster - it was certainly the theme of my fourth pregnancy. But pregnancy in general wracks my body with illness, leaving me bedridden and unable to talk, hug my kids, or stand upright in the shower for three to four months, so it wasn't the pandemic that was the hardest. We had already been through isolation & misery during my third pregnancy - it was our normal. It was expected. Of course, this time we had the added stress of the pandemic and constant worry for our high-risk loved ones.
Here's what was different: for the entirety of my pregnancy, I felt a loneliness I hadn't experienced before. John was unable to come to most of my appointments as he always had with our other babies, and the birth center where we felt safest had half a dozen midwives that cycled through, leaving a gap where before, I had had a close and trusting relationship with my care providers. During my first three pregnancies, visits with my midwives were personable and joy-filled, always lasting an hour or more and taking place in a cozy room of my midwife's home, or a beautiful, sun-filled Victorian-era house converted into a birth center. This time, the visits were short and felt clinical, and took place in a stark, bright room of an office with squeaky floors and silent, focused nurses in scrubs.
I became fast friends with my midwife who cared for me and River, and of course, she was with me when I gave birth to Austen. And even though I was in a new city across the country when I was pregnant with Chase, I was lucky enough to already know my midwives from the birth center in Texas (they happened to move to Washington around the same time we did). Pregnancy and birth was always a warm, sacred, special experience. During my hardest months, I had the emotional support of my beautiful midwives to guide me and care for me. I sat in plush couches and discussed life with them, I cried with them, I laughed with them. They asked me questions like, "How are you? Not Whitney, the mama - but Whitney, the woman?" They held my hand, both physically and spiritually. Here in Pennsylvania, the midwives were all endearing in their own ways, but I wasn't able to develop any kind of friendship or camaraderie with any of them.
That's why this experience was so entirely different. It felt cold, distant, and clinical. My children couldn't attend appointments because of COVID restrictions. My husband couldn't attend appointments because of his demanding job. My sisters couldn't attend the birth, and even though my dad came to see the baby after he was born, he couldn't even enter the birthing room because of the restrictions in place. A pain tugs at my heart now as I write this, a pain I didn't know existed. And so I will acknowledge it and allow space for it in my experience.
breathe in. breathe out.
And now, let's begin: eight months ago. The birth. Separate from all that. The beautiful birth of my sweet, quiet, calm, silly, precious Wilder boy.
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