A Baby's Cry

Always, when I heard the first cry from my babies, I was the happiest of mamas.  That cry signified health.  It was a wonderful sound.  The nurses would comment about the "good cry".  'Course I couldn't be happier, being done with the hardest part of the whole laboring process and just waiting for the placenta to be delivered, have any tears stitched up, and then, I'd be holding my baby - just as soon as the doctor finished up checking the baby over. 

The first time I hold my baby - everything becomes so worth it.  Everything.  And I could care less what goes on around me.  (Just so long as nobody touches my belly or my nether regions.) 

Tomorrow, we'll celebrate Marie's first birthday.  Time has once again slipped through my fingers and this little bundle of joy is reaching a milestone.  I feel like she's bigger already, and I love it.

But it's got me to thinkin' about her birth and how wonderfully different it was from the other 5.  On many levels, it was different.  I still labored and delivered a beautiful, healthy baby, but the entire experience was one I will forever cherish because, I chose it and, I did it. 

Dru and I had no insurance which meant any costs were "out of pocket" for the pregnancy and delivery.  (Although, by the end of my pregnancy, I had qualified and been accepted for state insurance that would cover all doctor visits and hospital delivery.  It was nice to know I had it, just in case.)  For me, not having insurance was the liberation I needed to do what I thought would be best for me and the baby - to have a home delivery with a mid-wife.  And so, without someone paying the bills telling me who they would or would not cover, I took all my money to the person I wanted to have my money, my mid-wife Amy.  At $3,300 for prenatal visits, delivery, and post-natal check-ups + additional costs of an ultrasound, labs, and birthing equipment, Marie's been my most expensive out-of-pocket baby.  And, I'd pay it again in a heartbeat!

Throughout the pregnancy, some things were as I expected - labs, peeing in a cup, measuring the belly, hearing the heartbeat - and other things were a change in what I knew to be the norm. 

Visits for instance were always personal.  I never waited in a waiting room and then waited again in the patient room for a brief, 15 minutes at most, down-to-business meeting with the doctor.  And not to say that I didn't like those but I didn't know how much I'd like the difference in approach and knowing that the time was all about me and my pregnancy and who I was and what I wanted.  I knew that every time I walked into Amy's home and office, I would leave feeling only better about me.

My desires and rights were respected with Amy.  I was given clear information for every lab, every poke, every choice I made and it was always clearly stated that it was my choice to make.  And yet, I had a feeling that if Amy didn't feel right about my choice or could not support that choice, that she would have let me know and we would have parted ways at that time or figured something else out.  That's very freeing.  There's a lot of freedom in knowing that somebody trusts you to make good decisions for you and your baby; freedom in not feeling backed into a corner.  That's how I'd come to expect it in a Dr.'s office, anyway.  It was a "highly encouraged" kind of thing and I was afraid of not obliging.  A "this is our practices' policy" and I knew that no one else would do differently.  A "you want a healthy baby, don't you?" corner.  And once, I was even told, "if you decide not to, me and my staff will leave" (and that was said to me as I lay in triage, pregnant with twins and measuring a 5, wondering if c-section really was my only option).  I had always felt so little.  More like a parent-child relationship then an adult patient-doctor relationship.

Differences were in the treatment of my body.  I knew that any appointment with the doctor, I could be asked to strip down, put on the gown, and bare all to the doctor.  And that never bothered me.  It's how the appointments went.  And my doctor's were always respectful of my body and they'd do their thing and then we'd shake hands and I'd be on my way.  Amy taught me it didn't have to be that way.  I had always been nervous to bring my children to my appointments for modesty issues.  I needn't have feared.  She told me ahead of time which appointments to come prepared for and measuring for dilation or effacement never came up.

Amy loved my baby before she met her.  I was not another mother with another baby.  I was April, and I was creating life and that life was exciting and so very precious to Amy.  She would talk to my baby and wonder at it's movements.  I loved Amy because she loved my baby.  I had never known any doctor except for my very first doctor, to really, genuinely care. 

Amy taught me that having a baby could be so very different and more reverent and more empowering than I ever thought it could be.  All my births had been uniquely wonderful, but Amy showed me that they could be even more, if that were possible. 

Always, when I heard the first cry from my babies, I was the happiest of mamas.  That cry signified health.  It was a wonderful sound.  The nurses would comment about the "good cry".  'Course I couldn't be happier, being done with the hardest part of the whole laboring process and just waiting . . . But, when Marie was born, no sooner had she been delivered, but she was placed in my arms for me to hold.  She gave a small cry, and then she nestled into my bosom and she lay peaceful and slept.  And I held her close as I continued to have the last of my contractions.  I held her close, and she was perfect, wet and naked and with a cord still attached to the placenta.  In fact, she'd been given to me so quickly that it was a few minutes later when I asked if anyone got a look at whether my baby was a he or a she.  There would be plenty of time for checking and cleaning later.  For now, I just held her.  And I wept over her.  And there was a pause for the peace that was in that room.  And there was a reverence in the room for the miracle that had taken place.  And there was love that was felt by everyone, for the newest life that was now with us. 

And it was wonderfully different because somebody showed me, it could be.