Hover Over Me

Holy. Moly. Or, as Olivia says, "ho mo!"

I don't even know where to start.

I've been on call as the primary midwife for a homebirth that was going to be any day. Every time I would think about this upcoming birth, I would get all tense and stressed. It was a major cause of my stress cleaning and meltdown earlier this month. I was seriously dreading this birth, more than any other births I've attended. My intuition was in overdrive and I had some not-so-pleasant ideas about how the birth would go. It was haunting me.

Not including Sesame Street on YouTube, I'm only watching about an hour of TV per week now and there's only two shows I like - the Big Bang Theory and Oprah's Super Soul Sunday. A few days ago I caught a super soul Sunday show with a woman named Carolyn Myss. I'd never heard of her before but I was so into her after watching the show. She talked about intuition and grace and the need to let go of expectations. After being a midwife for a few years now, I get what grace is and this woman explained it beautifully. I'm not remembering the other highlights now but the one thing that stuck with me was a prayer she quoted by Saint Teresa of Avila (my saint-day saint) with the line, "God, hover over me." 

When I heard my client was in labor, the first thing I did was have a total meltdown, complete with sobbing, "I don't want to go to this birth!" to poor Louis who didn't know what to do. Then, I remembered the show I watched with the prayer I loved and I had a little talk with God, I pulled myself together, and I headed to the birth.

FORTY-SEVEN HOURS after her labor started, she gave birth vaginally and pain-med free to a baby girl. Everybody is healthy and happy.

I was with her for most of that time and after being without sleep for two nights, I am beyond exhausted. I also feel like I went through some kind of transformation. This was my most challenging client ever. She has made me rethink my decision (multiple times) to provide care to her, to plan a homebirth, and even to be a midwife at all.

I knew, knew, KNEW this birth would be challenging. So many times during our prenatal visit I felt like I was failing her and like I couldn't give her what she wanted or needed. More than just wanting her to be happy, though, I wanted her to be healthy and have a healthy baby.

So when she decided to get up and openly smoke a cigarette during her labor (not once but four times), T and I just looked at each other like, "what the what?" I failed.

During her labor, I asked for a sign about whether I was doing it "right" and my sign was that her blood pressure started rising and we needed to be in the hospital. I failed again.

We were treated with so much respect in the hospital and it was probably the best hospital transport I've seen. Even with the severe anxiety and fear of hospitals and all things medical and the serious distrust of all white medical personnel (holy crap, I got myself as a client), she persevered and got through it. In the end, she says she's so grateful for everything. It's clear she loves her baby girl. Grace.

I'm still feeling unsettled about the postpartum but I know I need to see it to the end. I'm loving the "God, hover over me" prayer and I'm thinking I want to find it on a necklace or something I can take to births.

For now, sleep.