Chapter 4: Waiting for Hope

Chapter 4: Waiting for Hope
I wanted to honor our baby’s 5 and a half month life with the birth that had been intended for her- a calm, peaceful, unmedicated birth with loving midwives to catch her and love her, with her home in Union to welcome her. And so the waiting began.
My body started on night one with a little nighttime contraction and continued these gentle warm-ups for 6 weeks. During that period I put up the birthing wall, packed up the baby’s few belongings, puffed my eyes up with tears, wrote, visited, was taken care of, went to work on odd hours, met with our midwives. I traveled through many different places over these weeks- many feelings, many dreams, many turns.
There were moments of acceptance and learning, amazement of this journey unfolding. I learned that the place on my ankle from the dream is an acupuncture point were energy often pools and stagnates. A massage therapist intuitively went to this point and told me when I asked that this area had to do with reproductive health. My dream had knowledge I didn’t possess.
I dreamt of a branch in the river by our house blocking the flow of the river. When I woke, I dragged that branch out of the frozen river with the help of friends, in hopes that it would release any blocks in my body. But still, several nights later, I dreamt of a stack of rusted blue metal barrels tied up at the edge of our river, waiting to be released.
The weeks just kept going by, each morning waking again into what began to feel like my holding pen. I’m still here, I thought each morning, yup still here.
I started some gentle home induction methods- blue cohosh, black cohash, evening primrose oil, acupuncture, massage, meditation, nipple stimulation, and the winning herb schisandra.
I was holding up well enough for the first 5 weeks. Then the weight became too heavy: Brian blew out his knee, had surgery on his meniscus and ACL, out of work for a month, needing also to be taken care of. My two midwives, Donna and Ellie, had to leave town for their planned vacation. My three primary caregivers, Brian, Donna, and Ellie were all out of the mix. My two stillbirths were heavy. My five weeks were depleting. I felt abused by the circumstances of life, slashing at me as I tried to navigate. Sinking deeper into my sadness, sinking deeper into insomnia, I felt I could not take another step down this journey.