By Gerald Grow
After the ultrasound and a visit to the birth center, Christl, who would be 41 at the time of the birth, turned to me and announced, “I’m going to have this baby at home without a midwife — and I hope you’ll be there.”
Her experience with our first son in 1977 soured her on a hospital birth. Even though she negotiated what she wanted, the new shifts ignored the agreement. And, sensitized by pregnancy, she did not like the midwife’s vibes. So, our second child was to be born, in the summer of 1985, on the bed where he was conceived — with just the two of us present.
We worked hard to make a home birth possible. We took classes, we rehearsed, we studied. I practically memorized a manual on emergency childbirth — the most useful thing I found.
Christl gave herself totally to being pregnant. She exercised, she practiced yoga, she meditated, she danced, she followed a pure diet. She focused every day on bringing a healthy baby into a loving home. She meditated on her ancestral home in the Austrian Alps and summoned the generations of mothers whose birthings had produced her, and me, and every person who ever lived. She was calling them, and joining them.
As the pregnancy progressed, her body grew entirely new dimensions. Her belly and buttocks spread. Her breasts revealed their true identity as organs for nursing. A new strength emerged, a new grace — and, with the growing bulk, an inexplicable lightness. Behind her confident posture, a ferocity flickered, yet she remained preternaturally joyful. Her eyes shined. She glowed. Something powerful and ancient rose up and filled her and shaped her, took her over, came to life inside her. It was as if a goddess entered the room. I was in awe.
https://web.sites.google.com/view/hd-the-suicide-squad-movies/
https://web.sites.google.com/view/hd-reminiscence-full-movie-sq/
https://web.sites.google.com/view/hd-jungle-cruise-full-movie-sq/
https://web.sites.google.com/view/hd-eternals-full-movie-sq/
https://web.sites.google.com/view/hd-shershaah-full-movie-sq/
https://steemkr.com/news/@marvel06/home-birth-home-death
https://cox.tribe.so/post/https-web-sites-google-com-view-hd-the-suicide-squad-movies-https-web-sites--61285f7ff54cdf63d3f2f37f
Relax, the manual said. Women have been giving birth for millennia. Birth is not an emergency: It is the most natural thing in the world. — I was convinced of this, at least when I was with her.
We gathered supplies, arranged for a friend of hers to stay with our first son during the birth, and prepared for the day.
On a Sunday, her water broke around dawn, and the first contractions started in the early light.
I won’t give many details, and there are no pictures of the birth because Christl was a deeply private person and forbade them. My role was minor, but that’s what I can write about — helping her change position, massaging, adjusting pillows — but mainly propping up her confidence, supporting her determination, shielding her from doubt, soothing a feeling, monitoring her heartbeat, being her strength when she needed it, waiting, watching, being there for her, and doing whatever she asked.
It was labor, and it was long. As I studied her face, drawn inward while she breathed into contractions, I could look up and see through the window the great live-oak tree that spread over the bedroom with its resurrection ferns, Spanish moss, and, on warm nights, flying squirrels — and, beyond it, the wide, spreading sweep of Greenwood Cemetery that rolled away behind our home. Life and death, being born and dying, hovered in the air all day as Christl labored.
