The Birth of Noam Fisherman, as told by Mama Jen…

Journal entry, February 26, 1997:
Noam Fisherman was born at 5:31am, on Sunday, February 23rd: just a few hours after my last journal entry. My labor started and he was born less than 6 hours later. Now he is here…soft, sweet, wide-eyed and so beautiful. My love and tender feelings toward him grow and grow. My last few days have been spent looking at him, feeding and changing him, sharing him with Dan and my mother, and thinking a lot about mothering and love, protectiveness, wanting to do the right things. I feel so blessed, so very fortunate to be having this experience. It makes it all the easier for me to give it my best, to be completely present and ready to give my love to my family, friends and everyone/thing around me.
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The story:
Saturday (2/22) I hadn’t been feeling the baby move very much and it started to concern me. I’d eat chocolate, push on him but no real response. Several times I lay down with the fetascope to listen and his heartbeat sounded good, but I was a little worried. Dan went to bed right after dinner, around 7:30pm, and Mom and I decided to watch a movie, “Uncle Vonya on 42nd Street.” It was over around 10:30pm. I’d gotten up often to pee, but nothing unusual. I was still feeling concerned and not quite ready to just go to sleep, so I decided to take a bath. While in the bath I talked to the baby and told him that I would be happy to stay pregnant as long as he wanted to stay inside, but that I was starting to feel worried that he wasn’t moving much. I told him that his movements are my main way of knowing that he’s okay and that, if he wanted to stay inside, I’d like to know that he’s safe so would he please let me know. I also started having a lot of doubts and fears that something was really wrong and maybe I caused it by doing so much construction throughout the pregnancy. I cried a little. I got out of the tub and climbed into bed around 11:30pm. My first contraction came as I looked at the clock around 11:45pm. It felt like pulling, tightening in a triangle from ovary to ovary to cervix. I didn’t know what to make of it, so I ignored it and the ones that followed for awhile. I kept getting up to the bathroom, and sometime around an hour into it, I noticed some bloody show on the toilet paper and realized it must be labor or something leading up to labor. I climbed back into bed and timed a few by the digital clock. They seemed to be every 2-2.5 minutes and lasting nearly a minute. Uh oh, I thought, my uterus must by hyperactive! I kept trying to sleep but they were too frequent. I was already nauseated and had thrown up a tiny bit, so I knew a glass of wine would make me feel worse. I decided to try another bath to see if the sensations would space out a bit. By now it was around 2:30am. The tub felt so good and after a little while I realized I was going to be thirsty soon, so I called Dan to wake up and bring a glass of water and something to throw up in. He woke up very sleepy, asking, “Is this it?” I said, “I think so.” He started timing the contractions and confirmed that they were every 2-2.5 minutes and lasting 50 or more seconds. We were both figuring it was early labor, though they were getting stronger and I threw up again. I was working harder, breathing harder and getting uncomfortable as the tub water cooled off. I couldn’t lift my legs away from the faucet for Dan to add more hot, so I decided to get out. As I was trying to quickly get out between contractions, I threw up everything I had had to drink up to that point and started wondering if we should call Maria. I still thought it was early labor but I wasn’t sure what to do next. I found my way to the bed as Dan called Maria, who arrived at about 4:30am. When she arrived I had my biggest contractions ever where I felt I could see my cervix opening and then I started spontaneously pushing. I couldn’t believe I could be pushing already. Maria scurried over and snapped on a glove, pronouncing that I had just a lip of cervix left and a bulging bag of water. My mother then called for my second midwife, Amrit, and said, “Maria says you’ve a lip,” which we all laughed hysterically about the next day. Amrit flew across the bridge and made it to my house 20 minutes before the birth, and Maria’s son Tyler arrived somewhere in there as well. Meanwhile, I was still in the same spot where I’d landed on the bed, on my left side hollering curse words at the top of my lungs into a pillow. It must have looked hilarious and I almost wish I could see it on tape. None of my birth supplies were set up, so between pushing contractions I was telling people where things were. Pushing was an outrageous sensation, where my body was in full control and the rest of me just had to hold on tight and hope someone could slow me down at the end of the ride. My water bag broke and there was lots of thick meconium, something I had known long before I was in labor. I was unconcerned, knowing the skill level of my dear midwives, and trusting my baby completely. Crowning was the one part of the process I would call painful. Contractions, for me, were very intense sensations that required work and breathing, but it never felt scary or painful to me. The big stretch of his head coming though at the end, however, really did burn and I was glad to have help slowing down with the pushing. My mother, witnessing her first birth since the birth of my sister, took some incredible pictures of this part of the labor. As he emerged, Maria suctioned him and he came onto my chest, carried up by both me and his papa. He was all sloppy-faced and kind of floppy, needing a little oxygen to get his breathing started. He was pink very quickly and came right back up to me and Dan, sweet, wide awake and very peaceful. It was an incredible experience for me. My midwives, my husband, my mother and Noam all made me feel like the most powerful, beautiful person in the world. I am deeply grateful to all of them, especially Noam, for opening my heart so wide. I love you all.