While this may be obvious, let me just state it anyways: this blog is not just for you all. It's also for my Ruby. It's my journal of parenthood, my journal of Ruby's little person and her growth and place in this world. It's my way of processing and remembering and giving her my story and my version of her life. It's personal and it's political. And for now it's public.

So on this mother's day in 2009 I want to write about the day she was born and I became a mother. Many parent bloggers write about their child's birth story, in all the different ways that their children come to them. I've been wanting to do this for a while, and this seems a good occasion.

One of the amazing things, for me, about becoming a mother, is that many of the decisions I've made, from how I wanted to birth my child, to how I wanted to try to raise her, have felt so natural. What is surprising about this, for me, is that I don't feel like I'd thought a lot about giving birth and parenting before Ruby was born.

I would be remiss if I did not recognize that-- most days and most of the time--I feel confident in who I am and what I want for my child and this world we live in. While my journey with my own parents often still feels complicated for so many reasons, this confidence that I have is in large part their doing.

So I surprised myself, and David, when I announced that I wanted to give birth at home. I don't think I knew anyone here in NYC who had given birth at home at that point. But without really knowing why beforehand I knew it was the right thing for me. And it was and I feel proud to now belong to a small but fierce home-birthing subculture in NYC.

I was about 10 days overdue when I woke up at 2am on a Thursday morning with cramps. We called Joan, our midwife, and started timing my contractions (see here for a thank you for Joan, written soon after Ruby was born). I didn't want to go back to bed, so David and I hung out in the living room. David watched tv and I bounced around on a yoga ball to help sooth the pain of the mild contractions.

Towards 6am they started becoming pretty painful and intense. I wasn't sure what I needed to help get me through them, so I tried all kinds of different positions and places in the house. David poured me a bath, but that didn't help. I rocked on the yoga ball and that didn't help. Ultimately I found the best position and stayed there throughout all the contractions, right up to when I started pushing: standing up and hunched over a metal storage rack that I could pull on without it budging. There was a huge planter in it with, I think, a bamboo in it. When I needed to crouch forward, my face would be practically inside the planter. Ruby, you remind me of moist soil and nose tickling spindly bamboo.

David would help massage my lower back during the contractions too. But really, truth be told, nothing helped. Ruby my babe, I love you more than anything in the whole world, but I will never ever go through that kind of pain for anyone, ever again. It was horrible. They say that women forget about it eventually (so that they can have more kids). I haven't.

As the contractions got closer and closer together, David became my hero. He would insist that I drink gatorade. He would come running as soon as I insisted, just to be there with me during the pain. He was on the phone with Joan, who was at another birth that was taking longer than expected. He talked with our backup midwife, Cara. (Who we'd never met; my consult with Joan's preferred backup midwife didn't feel good to me, so Joan found someone else. The article linked here is interesting in that I think it approaches home-birthing way too negatively, and takes Cara out of context. Mostly it shows what common misconceptions exist about home-birthing.)

When Cara rung the doorbell, I refused to let David go downstairs to open up. So he called our neighbor Bob who had already said he would help. Bob was home and well aware of the situation because I screamed my guts out with every contraction. Bob spent the rest of Ruby's birth in our apartment, helping out and just being there. He took the very first photo of Ruby, seconds after she was born. I was standing, barely, against David, who was sitting on our bed. Ruby was in my arms. The umbilical cord was hanging out of me and we were standing on a sheet covered in blood. The look my face spoke to the utter exhaustion of giving birth and the fact that my legs were probably about to give out. That loving "oh my gosh" look that you see in movies and on the tv when the mom is holding the baby for the first time? I didn't have that until I was lying down and had a second to pull myself back together, both mentally and physically. Bob captured my real first-moment after birth look.

When Cara entered into the bedroom, after getting some "facts" from David (frequency of contractions), I looked at her and then my body switched, of its own accord, to pushing. That was probably around 11am. She talked me through the pushes. I remember feeling a huge wave of relief that a woman was there, with me (in fact two, because Cara had brought her assistant also). I was exhausted from the pain and felt like I was on the verge of blacking out. She talked me back into a strong place.

Joan arrived about an hour later and took over. I was on the floor, crouching through the pushes and half-sitting, half-leaning on David in between. There's nothing beautiful about giving birth. Pooping while pushing your baby out of your birthing canal is just plain weird. Stopping to let your perineum stretch instead of "just.pushing.that.child.out.now.because.enough.already" is annoying (but am I ever relieved I didn't tear). And not caring but knowing damn well there are people in the room who are seeing you--phyisically and mentally--in ways that only your parents or your partner have ever seen you, is strange. I'm not a queasy person, but sheesh, there's more blood (and poop) and stuff involved than I ever expected. And the whole peeing and pooping thing after you're born and I just hurt everywhere down there and don't even want to think about it ever again? That just sucks, whichever way you look at it.

But Ruby was born, healthy and blue, at around 1pm. The first look I got of her was when she was flying out of me, into Joan's hands. I thought, wow, she's blue. It was only when Joan said that she was a girl that I realized, oh, yeah, I kind of was anxious to know that. Joan put her in my arms. Bob took the picture. And I just wanted to lie down. Which I did.

So there you were Ruby, in my arms, in our bed. We hadn't decided what to call you, was it going to be Ella or Ruby? Your papa David settled on Ruby. Joan and Cara helped me nurse you. David started cooking some food for me and Bob went out to buy a lottery ticket for us. The numbers he choose were the time you were born. Somewhere in there I birthed the placenta which was a breeze. While I taking a shower--Joan, can I just say that I was so grateful you suggested I do that!--David and Ruby walked around the apartment. He showed her around and our quiet David was suddenly talking non-stop to you. I swear that's why you are so verbal and started speaking so early.

That's the story of when (not how, that's a whole other story!) I became a mother. And not just any mother. Your mother, my baby girl. So the world goes on, from mother to mother, we become women who give birth (and so many still in totally wrong circumstances and conditions) and nurture the men and women of this world.

Happy mothers day to my Mom, my Oma, Grootmoeder and Grandma Pat. I love you for being part of my daughter's story.