Mackey's Birth Story (Part 3)

After Newbie was born, the only things I was looking at were the baby and Ashley, so it was a real feeling of calm, even though there was still the activity of delivering the placenta (I marvel that my body could CREATE an organ, then expel it when it’s no longer needed). But the midwives did more to handle that than I did, so I just kept staring at our baby. There were lots of things to monitor—my blood pressure, the baby's heart rate, whether she was breathing well, etc. Beverly had to do some suctioning because there was some mucus in her belly. So they took her over to the "armoire" where they keep all the instruments, and hooked up a suction machine that involved putting a tube into her mouth, down the esophagus and into the stomach. Then they turned the machine on, and it sort of vacuumed out the mucus (I didn't see it, but I learned this from Ashley, who was witnessing it). After that, all was good.


During the hours after the birth, while temperatures, heart rates, and blood pressure readings were all normal, I definitely had some spells of faintness and wooziness. It was like I was listening to myself have conversations with people, but I wasn't really there. Part of that was the rush of oxytocin and endorphins, but part was probably because of blood loss as well as my organs starting to readjust—the heart immediately drops back down into its original position after the baby is born.


After staring at our baby daughter for an hour or so, we called my parents, telling them “this is the call to get on the road—except that we’ve had the baby, and it’s a girl!” We also called Ashley’s parents, followed by our siblings. At last, we ordered some breakfast from Café Brazil (since at 10 a.m. we didn’t feel like eating the lasagna we’d brought), and then ate it on bed trays in the bed. I'd eat while Ashley held the baby, and then we switched. We listened to our "celebratory" iPod playlist, reveling in the music specially chosen for the day.


We stayed at the birth center until about 2:30, when we packed up and drove home. It was a blissful morning—one where I felt so well cared for and loved. The staff at the Birth Center was awesome—a perfect mix of knowing when to give us some privacy and when to provide care. In a word, I felt cherished. And I've never felt so unafraid to be vulnerable.


Mackey’s birth story is more than a story to me. It is a testament to following through with our plan to have a memorable birth of our first child. We wanted to experience the birth and be present for it, as opposed to getting through it by managing it with medication or instrumentation. Choosing the Birth Center and the philosophy of non-medicated, natural childbirth was the best thing we could have done to that end. Working with the midwives and with Sarah, our doula, was liberating and gave me so much respect for women as a TRIBE and for the culture of midwifery—women helping other women do what women's bodies are designed to do. I would do it all over again, exactly the same way.