10 December, 2010

A Sequence of Breathing

Don't Forget to Focus On Your Breath...

Ma showed up yesterday, and we're all glad.

"Normal, But Not" 1:00 am: everyone in the house was asleep, and in general, everyone was breathing normally. Energy was moving, but we all knew we needed our rest.

"Ready To Go" 4:00 am: my attic light flickers on, Ma's standin over me, anticipation on her face..."Bek's contractions are about 3 min apart now...thought you'd like to come down!" Breathing starts to speed up, within minutes we're all in the living room, Bek on her hands and knees, me and ma squattin' over her, and all three of us are starting our deep breaths as a team, but with a good 3 or 4 minutes between each full-body breath.

At this point we headed to the hospital, and meanwhile started the 8-hour-long music playlist we had set up for the labor...it was amazing to have such beautiful art throughout our entire morning.

Here was our room with a view of the city and the sunrise!



"Things Are In Motion" 8:00 am: regular (half-screaming) breaths, every 30 seconds. Intensity. Tears. I find myself sweaty and out of breath after each contraction, as I'm strattling and squatting and lunging and basically doin' full blown yoga all morning; group yoga with the girls.

Here is a nice image of the skype birth with Jas, far away in Afghanistan, but still being present.

Let me interject here, that the power and magnificence that lies in assisting a woman through the birthing of her new baby (especially when it's your blood) is indescribable. I felt like I got to play Jason's role, not nearly as well as he would have, but nonetheless I felt like I was infusing life into my sister, on behalf of Jas, and for the sake of baby Dre. Every moment with my hands placed on her back or chest was me getting to inject love energy; every time I shoved my head into her tail bone I got to be a part of Dre, a part of Jas, a part of Bek. Even though I had no clue what to expect from a birth, my core knew exactly what to do. More than ever I am convinced that we are all intrinsically designed to know how to love and nourish those around us, from the little people inside our bellies, to all the other faces that walk across our paths throughout our lives here.

Moving on...


"Are Things Really In Motion Here?" 10:20am: not much progress. Bek is in a lot of pain, au natural of course. I'm basically punching her in the back to keep her sane, she's clawing at my neck and writhing around, nearly breaking the bed and really for the first time so far, finally allowing the scream that has been begging to come out for the past 7+ hours to fill every room of every floor of this hospital...

....I'll skip over the next 20 minutes, for mystery's sake. It wasn't even altogether eventful...

(ha)

"This Is It" 10:40am: Bek is only halfway on the bed, Erica is dutifully holding onto Bek, Dre is pokin' his head out, Ma is nowhere to be found (unfortunately stepped out at the worst time), Jason is basically pissing his pants from the computer screen (from Afghanistan) and I am racing in and out of the room, because "WHERE THE BLOODY HELL IS THE DOCTOR?!"
Suddenly there are at least 6 nurses in the room, lookin' a little panicked, trying to convince my poor and focused sister to stop pushing until the Doc gets in here. At this point, I think I'm going to be a witness to this nurse's first delivery (she was a doll) and I am just overcome with the electricity that is jetting all over the room.
Doc comes running, shows up just in the knick of time, sliding under my sister like Hank Aaron sliding up to the home plate at the bottom of the ninth, and says something about his head. Waaaaaiit, whaaat? That's his head? What the ****? Doesn't look entirely right...ok, that is definitely not right, his umbilical cord is wrapped around his neck. Twice? Yikes. He's not breathing. Is that normal? I know he's not entirely out of her yet but come on, this is my first live birth--I have no idea what's what.
"Somebody hand me a scissors," murmurs Doc, way too calmly in my opinion. Shouldn't she be freaking out a little bit? Snip, snip. Cord is good, no longer strangling this little man. Ok, Doc is now officially Dr. Bad-Ass.

The next moment was undoubtedly one of the most illuminative and enriching milliseconds of my life;

Everett's first breath.

The journey of getting to watch this little human learn Taekwondo in his momma's tummy for 9 months, singing to him and cultivating some familiarity for him while he sat cookin' still, was invaluable. And after all was said and done, I got to pump loving energy into him for his last 7 hours of gestation before he entered this world and joined the rest of us. Incredible.

But the pinnacle of it all? The acme? Getting to experience that split second where he went from being a blue mutant-like blob lying motionless in Doc's hands, to an eruption of animated life, all from that single first breath.
That moment, from inanimate shape to wiggling little boy, was sacred.
Transcendental.
As he erupted into life, I erupted into hysterical tears of elation.


"Temporary Wrap-Up For The Last 26 Hours" 3:00 PM

Ma, Bek and I fully honored the beauty that we got to experience together today, as a trio. How unbelievable to get to share what we all did.

Our mom has been a part of a lot of births in her day, and she was there for both Ava and Ev.

Dre getting his first of many kisses to come from his big sister Ava.


Of course, we all still love Ava Rene like none other.

♥ ☮ ♥ ☮ ♥

So my conclusion?

Never forget your breath.

It's what separates the dreary from the spirited;

the mundane from the inspired;

the living from the dead.

5 comments:

  1. You are an amazing writer!!

    Loved this!!!

    What a great story and it was told so well.

    That picture of you and Bek is my favorite!! (I mean little man is precious, but that picture tells so much)

    You're an amazing sister!!

    Can't wait to snuggle that nephew of yours!!

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  2. The photos really did justice to this post. Congratulations for tracking the process mentally and visually. Love permiates throughtout the entire post and again I'm glad you're blogging and got to help through all this. You are a great sister. I love you! Kepp it up.

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  3. So beautiful Hannah. . so enjoyed reading this.

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