Wednesday, September 29, 2021

Welcome to the world, Ezzah!

As I entered my birth doula certification process this summer, I had my own four births and two births as an informal doula under my belt. It just so happened that those two informal doula experiences both took place on my birthday. So when I lined up my first "doula client" for my birth doula certification process and the due date was September 30, I could not help but wonder if I'd be three for three. But what are the chances? As it turned out, I got to be a doula on my birthday and on Jason's birthday. And little Ezzah decided to arrive at 9:28 a.m. on 9/29. So she straddled my birthday and Jason's and was the best birthday present for us both. But here I am getting ahead of myself. 

I wanted to share some snippets of the birth experience from my perspective (and am just noting two things: 1. that this is only being posted with the permission of Shama and Akram, who I feel so honored to have been able to accompany through the process of birthing their second daughter and 2. I'm still not very good at writing short birth stories). 

I imagine I will probably end up quoting Jason after nearly every birth I accompany. I just can't imagine saying it better than he did reflecting on his experience of being with me through Nora's birth: For me, the labor and delivery were an awe-inspiring experience. To be so closely involved in such a monumental process with someone who did it so well was truly beautiful, and a memory I will always cherish. 

As the midwife congratulated Shama on the birth, she noted that Shama was her new shero! And with good reason! I think being brave is not about never being afraid but having courage to name and face one's fears, and asking for help when it's too hard to do alone. And I think being strong isn't about never feeling weak or saying, "I can't do this" but instead finding the courage to take the next step (or, in this case, ride the wave of the next contraction) even if you don't know how you will find the strength to go on. So as I right this, Shama is among the list of the bravest and strongest people I have had the privilege of knowing!

Other than our weekly or so visits leading up to the birth, I mostly got to come in on the exciting grand finale. This is after months of them preparing to welcome a new family member. And, in Shama's case, she experienced weeks of pre-labor contractions and discomfort, which really ramped up in recent days. On the Monday morning (9/27) I was doing chicken chores when I, in a rush, set the two 5-gallon feed and water buckets down quickly and felt three nearly simultaneous pings in my back. I wasn't immobilized but my mobility was greatly reduced by these back tweaks. I had two thoughts: this is bad timing for our sweet potato digging day and I'm hardly in any  shape to accompany a birthing person today! As eager as I knew Shama was to be on the other side of birth with a baby in her arms, I secretly hope she might give me at least a day to recover so I could be physically fit to accompany her (rather than stealing her heating pads for my back!). 

It wasn't too far into the day when I got the call that contractions were coming more regularly. Ready or not, babies come when babies come! So I showered and managed to get dressed with some trouble as bending was mostly not happening. My bags were packed and by the door when things seemed to have eased up for the time being. So I stayed put and managed to be of some use in the sweet potato patch and was supremely grateful for what a night of sleep did to the healing process. My birthday morning dawned a beautiful day for a slow hike with Jason before the call came that things were picking up again and settling into a pretty regular rhythm (this came also with the knowledge that she was already 4+ cm dilated at that morning's midwife appointment). 

So my packed bags went into the car and off I went, reminding myself that I was to be the calm one and doing some 4-7-8 breathing on the way to town. I wasn't nervous but was clearly a jittery kind of excited that I thought might be useful in some ways and not in others. Births get me kinda jazzed up, which can be helpful for some people and for some stages. I will probably get better over time at knowing when to show the full extent of my enthusiasm!!

Shama was doing great handling the contractions coming about every 5-6 minutes and lasting for an average of 45 seconds. Their handy dandy app kept telling Akram it was time to get ready and head to the hospital but I wasn't ready to go with the app over what Shama wished to do. She was eager to finish some cooking so their was food prepared for the days she would be gone (yes, thinking of others' needs while laboring!). And she was also doing well managing the waves in the comfort of her own home with full freedom to move around and busy herself with other things between contractions when inspiration struck.

But after a few hours of regular contractions of increased intensity, it seemed wise to make the transition to the place intended for the birth. So our little caravan of two cars made it's way to RMH once their very excited soon-to-be-big-sister was in the caring and competent hands of a friend. And there we transitioned from the comforts of home to the sterile hospital environment amidst a pandemic where protocols must be followed because they are, well, hospital protocols. This is not easy for most of us, and I would say most certainly not a birthing person trying to get in the groove of labor. 
We found ourselves in the little triage area where they now put people in small rooms to monitor the baby for awhile and then check to see how far the cervix is dilated before determining if admission is possible at this stage or not. When Shama, now thoroughly exhausted from 48 or so hours of pretty consistent contractions, didn't meet their current stricter protocols for admission (on top of them also noting they were full without an open rooms at present), she was given the option for "restorative rest." That was a combination of medications to ease pain and promote sleep, which she so needed to regain strength.

Well, that didn't net her much sleep, though it did ease the intensity of contractions. It didn't seem like the medications touched the baby as she was doing dance routines when we thought maybe she would also have felt inclined for a nap. So with little more than a few cat naps, it all started wearing off and we were about back where we were before walking the halls and attempting to find comfort measures that worked well in a tiny room in a hospital. I was really wishing she could sink her weary body into the warmth of a jacuzzi bath and see what that might do for the process. But that was not to be. 

So about 8 or so hours after we arrived at RMH, they found themselves in the hard position of choosing between several not very optimal options - stay in the tiny room where contractions had slowed down considerably in frequency and intensity and hope that they pick back up or that she could rest there, do more medication to promote more sleep when she hadn't really enjoyed some of the effects of the previous round, or head home and try to get more rest until things picked back up again. In the end, I think Shama picked going home partly so I would go home and get some sleep and for Akram to maybe catch some winks. I think she knew full well that good sleep was not in the cards for her until this baby was on the outside. And right she was!

I don't think there is any point in trying to hide the fact that I think all of us felt a level of disappointment as we left the hospital, maybe even bordering on failure? I think we were all wanting to stay positive and upbeat. As I drove home I knew that I could not magically make each birth I accompanied go perfectly or quickly or as desired/planned. But my how I wanted a magic wand to wave to give these dear ones either good sleep or a baby in their arms, or ideally both! Instead here I was in a position of accompaniment and bearing witness to their process and joining in the messiness and unpredictability that is birth.  

So I landed home just in time to wish Jason a happy birthday as we crossed from my birthday to his. I was up six or so hours later and wondering what the day might hold. I was just considering whether to dive into making Jason a birthday breakfast when the phone rang, helping to shift me from a place of indecision to immediate and speedy action! There wasn't as much to do to prepare for my departure as my bags were still packed, just needing a quick water bottle refresh. 

On the phone, Shama initially suggested I come to their home as I had the day prior to assess the situation and then decide where to go from there. But based on the report that she had been having 1+ minute contractions every 3-4 minutes for several hours now and had started throwing up some, I was not inclined to delay our return to RMH much longer. Somehow I kept thinking that once things started rolling they were really going to roll. In retrospect, I am glad for my intuition on that one!

So we decided to meet there where we could walk outside in the beautiful crisp fall air until we all deemed it time to go inside. Well, by the time we met up there shortly after 8 a.m., Shama was not in the state to go for a walk other than to make a beeline for labor and delivery. I also noticed something else immediately. I would say that Shama had entered the very normal "I'm done" and "I can't do any more of this" and "Do anything to get this baby out" stage of things. Most of us who have given birth have passed through one or all of these places. And from my very limited reading to date, I also was clear that what might have worked well in early labor may not work as well at this stage. Well, that was very true! Touch and words of affirmation no longer seemed to be helpful - ok, so they were downright aggravating a good portion of the time! 

We got back up to the family birth place and found ourselves in a new triage room where every step of the process towards admission feels painfully long as contractions come often and are reaching an unbearable stage. I understood only a percentage of what was said between Akram and Shama throughout this birth experience (just the English words), but I know from what we have shared together since the birth that a little consult happened without me where Shama was ready for any/all interventions to get this baby out NOW! 

But Shama's cervix was now 6 cm and they were ready to start the admission process. And at the end of that process was the promise of trying out the tub to see if water would ease the intensity of things and provide some comfort, giving her strength for the natural unmedicated birth she had wanted. With that hanging out there in the not so distant future she road the waves of contractions that came until they seemed to be toppling over each other. 

We were transitioned to her birthing room and I could sense that the scurrying had intensified on the part of the staff, clearly hoping to have her admitted before this little one came out. It was not too long after we were in that room that I noticed a clear shift in Shama during contractions. Was she pushing? Yes, she was definitely pushing! No one else seemed to have noticed... But she knew what she was doing and a quick cervix check showed what she already knew, which was that she was fully dilated and ready to push. That was at 9:26 a.m...Ezzah was born at 9:28 a.m. 

Throughout today as there were little snippets of calm, I started working on my birth doula certification paperwork for this birth and there a section where I'm to outline what happened in each state of labor. Nothing like these forms to highlight a 72 HOUR stage 1 of labor and a 2 MINUTE stage 2 of labor! But no one better say anything to insinuate in any way that Shama was "lucky" to only push for a few short minutes. I think it is better to say that maybe there is some mercy in the universe that after 72 hours of intense labor she was not asked on top of that to dredge up strength she had used up long ago for a lengthy stage 2 (pushing and birth of the baby).

Will I ever not cry alongside those first cries of a newborn. The emotions just well up and bubble out. And I can't take it all in. Here was the same little one that had been doing calisthenics under my hands hours earlier. And here we had entered this building as three this morning and now there were four of us making our voices heard. And look at that adorable head of dark hair. And look at these dark eyes blinking as her mama and bobbing her little but clearly strong head around. And listen to a new mother who has just done what she considered impossible minutes ago. I felt so proud of Shama and of Akram, who was an incredibly steady source of support all throughout. 
By late morning, we had transitioned to the postpartum room that would be theirs until they were discharged to go home. The hours go by pretty fast with vitals taken on either baby or mama so very often, many pictures to take of all the new little expressions this baby human makes, first/second/third nursings, a visit from her proud and adoring big sister, feeding and extending drinks to a worn out but victorious birthing mother and processing aspects of the birth experience together in snippets between all of that alongside a few way too short cat naps. 

I pulled myself away around 5 p.m. when things had calmed down and Ezzah was swaddled and sacked out, which hopefully meant that Shama was about to get some well deserved and long overdue sleep! As I joined my family back at home I realized that the more I do this the more I will have to develop some strategies for re-entry. How does one go from witnessing a birth to the mundane of every day life? Here I was sitting down to dinner (albeit a yummy belated birthday dinner) and there was a whole new little human right across town. 

As this day comes to an end I'm so grateful for so many things. That Shama and Akram invited me to accompany them and trusted me enough to be vulnerable and open about their own experiences, hopes, fears, questions, and dreams. That we come to end of this birth experience with a healthy mother and a healthy baby. That many of their hopes and wishes for this birth experience came to be. That I had the opportunity again to see how important it is that we accompany each other through challenging "I can't do this" kinds of times (and how it important it is that the ways we accompany others be driven by those we are accompanying, and not by those doing the accompaniment). And I'm pretty glad to have it reaffirmed for me that I am a tried and true birth junkie! When I sent the initial picture of me holding the baby to Jason, he replied, "Very sweet, but I'm still not undoing my surgery." I chuckled and read it to to Shama, but also felt another level of gratitude that maybe I've landed on something that fits my passion and (hopefully growing/expanding) skills, that can be a gift for others, and that gives me opportunities on somewhat regular intervals to get in a little "baby fix" for my mental and emotional health. For now, I'm grateful for the perfect way to celebrate a new year of life! 

Sweet potatoes and the start of a monumental birthday!

Just as a small disclaimer: I'm starting this blog post 100% annoyed at this computer! My picture thumbnails are gone and I've tried any manner or settings to get them back with no success. So it's impossible to choose pictures for this post without an archaic, highly unsatisfactory method. And I've used more time that I wished to attempting, unsuccessfully to figure it out, when this isn't even the blog post I'm most interested in working on tonight. Sigh!

So I'm writing this on the evening of Jason's birthday and the day after mine. But the purpose of this is to share about the sweet potato digging day on Monday, the day before our birthdays came around again. Let's just say that the 12 3/4 bushels of gorgeous sweet potatoes were present enough. And what glorious digging!!! 

Unlike our white potato harvests, the sweet potato ones are going in the RIGHT direction (i.e. UP!). And not only are we getting more sweet potatoes but the quality is also skyrocketing. We used to have potatoes that clearly had to find their way through tight soil full or rocks. Now they are much more uniform and will be a delight to chop up. And even the voles didn't take a very high percentage. 
It was very fun for Terah to be able to dig ALL BY HERSELF. Then when Ivy joined us in the afternoon, she had a lot of fun joining Kali to learn how to dig (i.e. stand on the shovel and fall back on her butt in an attempt to dislodge large taters from the earth). It was a pretty fun digging party. 
They are now all cleaned up and in trays in the new curing room in our crawl space. We got those tucked away just in time to clean up and enjoy a birthday meal made by my mom on the deck. Following dinner, the girls headed over to Ivy's to sleepover and surprise her on the morning of her birthday. With kiddos away, Jason and I enjoyed a slow hike (due to me tweaking my back doing chores the morning of sweet potato digging - yes, horrible timing) to Hensley's Pond where we enjoyed leftover elderberry pie and pumpkin chocolate cheesecake with decaf coffee from the night before. 

It wasn't long after our return that plans for my birthday and Jason's were beautifully interrupted. But that's the subject of a forthcoming blog post!

Sunday, September 26, 2021

No wonder I'm tired...

I just downloaded pictures from the last two or so weeks, not thinking there would be all that much to report on. I was wrong! I'll start with what is freshest and that is the fun we just had going out for a sweet potato greens extravaganza! Will it become an annual event (or something we do multiple times before digging the sweet potatoes?). We set a timer for 30 minutes and each had a 5 gallon bucket and a clippers. We blitzed through the patch getting whatever leaves looked tasty and came in with 3 full 5-gallon buckets. I've reduced that now to just over 8 stuffed quart containers of blanched greens. That should be enough for us to decide if we like using them over the winter. I must say that if we do, trying to grow enough spinach to freeze will soon start to seem a little pointless.
 
But backing up considerably, I realized that I never included at least mention of having enough grapes from our vines to do a load of grape juice again this year. Just one juicer full, so we'll savor it. We kept out enough for Mom to treat us to grape pie.
This update will more or less be focused on food, but I'll just put a quick plug in for what I've been taking in while making cheese, chopping veggies, washing load after load of dishes, etc... After having multiple people recommend it to me, I began listening to the Seeing White podcast. I just finished it up yesterday and am now eager to recommend it, particularly to any white person that has yet to listen to it!

We continue to be drowning in fresh raw milk for making a whole range of dairy products. Some are made as needed or as requested, and also I pretty much get a cheddar going any time I see a day where it can fit in. So the counter often has cheddar rind drying to make our "Tangly Woods parmesan" and the shelves in the root cellar are near capacity with aging cheeses.
In order to get back to the cheese shelf, I walk past the rest of the canning shelves. The shelves are probably as full as they will get until they have a fresh round of lard on them in December. Other than a few more rounds of hot sauce, I don't think there will be any more big canning days any time soon (fingers crossed!). 
Now most of the things we are harvesting are the crops that won't have to be frozen or canned. Terah (and briefly Alida, not pictured) got in on the hazelnut harvest recently. Jason got 3 bushels of hazel cobs off of the tree he's picking in the photo and cumulatively about 5. 
They are now drying down in our back kitchen, along with black and other beans, buckwheat, and popcorns, in the new drying trays Jason recently constructed for said purpose. The tower is even taller now than when it was photographed here. 
With plenty of rain lately and 2.5 inches in the most recent wet patch, the grass is growing FAST! And that means that the butter we are making is once again bright yellow and we have egg yolks that are changing from yellow to pale orange to a deep reddish orange. A whole bunch of those eggs went into a humongous patch of green noodles that Alida and I made recently. Our pantry is stocked with homemade pasta for a bit. There is beautiful amaranth coming up in the pig paddocks so Jason picked us a generous bowl full and I used it all, making for a whole lot of noodle cranking. I was glad for good help!
Some fall harvests are happening more on a daily basis and we just accumulate them over time. Most recently that included black walnuts (about 15 5-gallon bucketfuls total, still in husks; two bushels after husking), daily chestnut picking up to try to beat the squirrels and now adding in persimmon perusing also daily to beat the chickens to them. 
I must pause here to celebrate a new found method for roasting chestnuts! Discovered today and I'll never go back. I'm not sure if I had never looked this up before or what, but this season I realized that I really needed some tips. I love eating chestnuts but do not enjoy prepping them for roasting OR peeling them. So my feelings, as the quart containers of chestnuts build up in the fridge, is mixed. Then my internet poking around let me to this site with step by step instructions. I found it the other day when I was putting some in the oven so I did the "wrap in a towel" part at the end but that was it. It might have helped a little? But then today I did it "by the book" and it was MAGICAL! I did just one slot across the top, put them in cold water and brought them to a boil, fished them out right away and popped them into a hot oven (425 or so degrees) for about 15-20 minutes. Then I wrapped them in a towel for 15 minutes and then popped them out whole from the shells. I was honestly a bit flabbergasted by how well it worked! So glad to keep learning new things...
So tomorrow is sweet potato digging and we'll see what the yield is like. After a kind of sad white potato harvest, we had another superb delicata squash harvest. That one is going up each year - with a total of 5 bushels this year. And they are so colorful! We've only eating seconds so far and the fact that even those were good is exciting.  We were able to harvest the delicata squashes before the rains came. This was fortuitous for a number of reasons. The rain laid over a good portion of the amaranth that had been standing up all perky and tall adjacent to the delicata patch. It was nice we didn't have to wade over fallen amaranth to harvest the squash.
We ate the last of our summer carrots recently and were sad to see them go. But so thrilled that growing summer carrots with shallots/onions is working. Now if only we could figure out what nibbled our new seeding of fall carrots as they emerged from the soil here recently, we'd be glad. We resorted to starting some inside in flats and are having better success inside but still not great germination. We love carrots so much, so we'll keep working at it! This is probably a good time to shift from food updates to a few people updates (not that food and people updates aren't mostly intertwined anyway). 

A few nights ago, Terah was sitting on the futon eating a popsicle when she burst out crying. She couldn't get words out right away but finally holding her mouth she said, "My tooth hurts. I think I bended it." Alida was nervous about whether she was ok and ran from the room as I checked things out and sure enough felt one of her front teeth "knocked loose." In that moment, I felt a little rise of panic and stayed calm externally telling her we'd just watch it and check it tomorrow. As the words came out, something felt odd and then it dawned on me. "Wait, how old will be you be soon?!," I blurted out. Then it all made sense - our almost 6-year old has her first loose tooth! Kali was wondering why I was seeming at all concerned because, of course, she knew immediately what was going on. The tears turned to giggles because this gal has been very eager to lose her first tooth. And I wondered at myself for completely losing track this third go round on what happens when!

A few other happenings worth noting:

Mom and I enjoyed a beautiful morning walk up to Hensley's Pond today. What a gift to both be in good enough health to do it together. 
Recently, Kali and Jason went together to donate blood and both came back with the arm bands and smiles denoting success!
And on that same day, we enjoyed the only full family swim of the year in our friend's pool. AND Alida learned to swim! It never ceases to amaze me how all of a sudden it seemed like everything was in order in her brain and body and it clicked! I won't leave her alone in the deep end quite yet, but I imagine she will soon be a very competent swimmer. Terah's got a little ways to go yet but our friend had these new little weights that are used for some kind of pool exercise thing and they made perfect floaties for Terah. That was a very fun way to spend a few late afternoon hours together.
We topped off our spontaneous family night (planned only a day or two ahead constitutes "spontaneous" for us these days!) with a trip to Smiley's Ice Cream. 
Ok, if I wrap this up now, there is time to squeeze in a short Sunday afternoon rest before the evening fun ahead of us. After I meet with the couple I'll be accompanying as a birth doula any day now, I'm cashing in a coupon for homemade coffee ice cream, made by Kali. I've made some chocolate squash brownies to go with and I imagine they'll be some games alongside the food - maybe I can convince all 5 to go with a word game tonight?! We are heading into Jason and my birthday week and I'm happy to have been able to take off work for the week. I hope to have more mornings like today, when I took my time a bit more while doing chores and even stopped to take in the beauty of the goldenrod!!