My due date had come and gone. I was getting huge. I felt massive, thudding through my house, the floor shaking beneath me. My movements were slow, deliberate, my pelvis loose, hips swaying and my great round belly protruding, throwing me off balance. I was beginning to wonder if I would be pregnant forever. As soon as I would become so thoroughly discouraged as to contemplate begging for an induction a round of contractions would strike, 20 minute, 15 minutes, 10 minutes apart. Each time certain this would be it. But no, that would be to easy, for me to simply go into labor. The contractions would peter out only to begin again in another day or so, to start another cycle of false hope.

I woke in a wonderful mood on the 30th of March, 1984. I felt strong and positive. Five days past my due date. "Maybe today" I thought. I couldn't be pregnant forever. My midwife called that morning to check on me. Since I was having a few contractions she said I could try taking some castor oil. Happily I waddled off to the drug store just blocks from my house for the magical potion. It was a beautiful spring morning, very warm, the sun shining, the blossoms sweet on the trees. I tried to make mental notes of it all, in case this was to be the big day, I wanted to remember everything. The clerk at the store smiled knowingly at me as I paid for my purchase, but neither of us said a word.

I walked home as quickly as I could, wishing then that I had driven. I couldn't get home fast enough. As soon as I got home I took an ounce of the awful stuff in a glass of orange juice. It tasted wretched. A taste I can still bring up just by the very memory of it. I drank it and waited, pacing. Within 45 minutes terrible cramps and diarrhea started, along with light sporadic contractions. I didn't have much faith in them, I had been fooled before.

I called my doula-labor sitter, Barbara to tell her what I had done. She suggested that if things didn't really get moving soon, that I might want to take another dose of the stuff. I waited another hour and when labor hadn't progressed as I had hoped I took more. This time mixing it with a protein shake. I stood gagging over the kitchen sink for some time, but the effects were immediate. I began having contractions every 12 minutes, lasting 45 seconds and gaining in intensity. I had done it! I was full of anticipation, my baby would be born soon! By now it was 2 in the afternoon and I didn't have any idea what awaited me. The contractions were completely tolerable, though mildly uncomfortable. I was determined to be the bravest new mother in the world.

I called my husband, Robert at work to let him know my labor had started. I told him not to rush home, I didn't need him yet. I told him to finish out his day and that I would call him if things got to strong for me to handle alone. I began preparing the house, changing sheets, gathering birth supplies and last minute cleaning. I took a wonderful, long shower with perfumed soap. My senses felt so alive. Everything was so vivid, every sight, every smell, each sensation was 10 fold. The water felt so warm and comforting, the soap smelled so sweet. I didn't want to get out and stayed in the shower until the water grew cold. The contractions were getting stronger and I wanted to be pretty for the birth of our baby, so I put on make up and curled my hair. I walked around with heavy electric rollers on my head. It was getting increasingly more difficult to ignore the contractions and I would have to stop whatever I was doing to follow the sensation through. The contractions started low in my belly, they felt hot and tight, spreading up through my abdomen, across my sides and back.

I felt the gentle leak of warm water running down my leg. My water had broke! A moment of reckoning. This was really going to be it! Robert arrived home and I was so glad to see him. I was beginning to feel a bit nervous about being alone. My bachelor neighbor came to check on me as he had everyday for 3 weeks. He was so excited to discover my labor had started. He and Robert stared at me and the two of them were quite distracting after having spent the day alone, so quietly. It was six o'clock and I felt it was time to call my mother and Barbara, I was ready for their guidance and company. I politely asked my neighbor to leave, I needed to concentrate. The contractions were now painful and requiring my full attention. I was certain that I must be at least 5 centimeters, perhaps more judging by the feel of the five minute contractions. I was discouraged to find I was only 3 1/2 centimeters dilated when Barbara arrived at 7 o'clock. I tried to stay as nonchalant as I could, visiting, talking on the phone, tackling the steep flight of stairs of our old Victorian.

I tried to relax in a warm bath, but the water didn't fully cover my belly and I felt claustrophobic in the tub. I passed only 2 contractions which were now coming every two minutes before I got out. It was becoming hard to think straight. I was hot and sweaty even though everyone else was chilly. I wore only Robert's oversized shirt and a pair of socks, but I was burning up inside. The contractions seemed to give off heat, starting off nice and warm in my pelvis, spreading up my body until finally, my face was ablaze. I began feeling nauseous and dizzy. When I was five centimeters dilated, I ran from the living room to the bathroom and vomited. I felt momentarily relieved, though it didn't last long. I began to vomit after every couple of contractions. It felt so unfair, that I should feel so sick when I was so busy dealing with the contractions. I camped out in the bathroom. The tile felt so wonderfully cool. I wanted to lay on the floor, to feel the cool tile against my face. Instead, I kneeled there with my face in the toilet. When I wasn't getting sick I would sit on the pot. It felt comfortable to sit behind the closed door in privacy. Barbara would check on me, sometimes rub my back or talk me through contractions. She assured me that the combination of pot sitting and vomiting was helping me dilate faster. I was moving along nicely, about a centimeter an hour. My mother and Robert sat quietly, waiting. With exception of Barbara no one really knew what to expect. We had taken childbirth classes, but until we had actually gone through labor, there was nothing that could have fully prepared us. I was so thankful to have Barb there to help guide and reassure us. My CNMs had been hesitant about attending a first time mother birthing at home and had insisted I hire a doula to help with early labor. It was one of the greatest investments we made.

When I was about 6 or 7 centimeters I began "changing gears", readjusting to the new intensity of the sensations. Though I was using a self made breathing pattern to cope with the contractions, it was no longer enough. The contractions now felt like a tight, thick rubberband around my middle, constricting tighter and tighter and then gradually loosening. I related to them as tidal waves. First the swell, gaining momentum, strength, sweeping me up in the powerful current, pulling me along. I was powerless to fight it. I had to yield to it, give in to it, surrender. At the peak of the contraction the wave would crash on the shore then slowly spread across the beach as the contractions dwindled away. The less I fought the feeling, the less it hurt. The calmer I remained, the faster and easier the contractions seemed to pass. So I set my mind on being perfectly still and open to the sensations. I soon began to visualize the contractions as wave. I could "see" them. Then, spontaneously, I began to see myself on a big, bright yellow surfboard, riding the waves out in the ocean. I laughed in my head, to myself, but this vision helped me through several strong contractions. Visualizing became a very important coping tool. I put all my focus during a contraction upon what was physically happening. I would try to imagine my uterus tightening and visualize my cervix opening and allowing my baby through. It helped me more effectively deal with the powerful feelings I was experiencing and prevented me from feeling it was all idle pain. It reminded me what I was working for, that I was having a baby, which was remarkably easy to forget. The thought of having an actual baby at the end of this seemed ridiculous, this seemed the furthest thing from a baby I could imagine, everything seemed so bizarre and surreal.

I began to think of all the other women who were also having babies. My sisters in birthing. Then I wondered who was dying, but it was fleeting, for I really didn't care. It came to me in a flash, that I was all alone in the world. Even those in the room who loved me were so separate from me, me who was trapped in my birthing body. No one else could feel what I was feeling. I was on my own, no one else could get in and I certainly, as much as I wished, could not get out. I wondered if I might go insane. I wondered if that had ever happened. I began talking to myself in my head, full conversations, in between contractions, which by now were running together. I had no sense of time. A spacy feeling had taken over me. Robert and my mother and Barbara all slipped in and out of my consciousness, their voices and faces like a dream. I could hear the sound of rain tapping on the window. When had it begun raining? Was I imagining it? No, it was raining. Then, I heard them talking about how I was sleeping in between contractions, but I wasn't. I simply could not speak. I was paralyzed, to heavy and tired to respond, to even open my eyes. Then a contraction would come and drag me from the rocking chair or the toilet. Sometimes I would remain seated, other times I would get up and walk, try to walk away from it. At times the walking really helped, made me feel more in control of my body. Even if I could not escape the contraction, or speak or think clearly, I could still walk.

At nearly midnight, Hsui-li (Sho-lee), one of my midwives arrived. I had completely forgotten about her and didn't even know she had been called. By now we had all gathered in my bedroom and when she walked in I felt a bit of my composure fall away. I felt ready to fall apart. I wanted to fall apart. Again I wondered how the baby would get out if I lost my mind. I knew though, that the baby was coming, labor would continue and nature made no exception for insanity pleas.

I had been 7 centimeters when last checked and expected to be 8, but when Hsui-li checked I was only 5! I wanted to scream. How could that be? How could I be going backward? I had been doing everything I was suppose to: moving around, relaxing, having faith. Had Barbara's estimations been wrong? How could I possible continue on if I was only at 5 cms? Hsui-li said the baby was now posterior, facing my front instead of my back and the head wasn't well applied to my cervix. I remembered how I had read that posterior babies were harder to push out and sometimes had longer more difficult labors. I wanted to cry. I wanted to pout, I wanted to insist that the whole thing be stopped. I wanted off that ride! I remembered though, all the people who had told me I was crazy to have my baby at home and I wanted to prove that I could do it. I wanted to be brave for Robert and my mom, both of whom were somewhat nervous. Barbara suggested I get on all fours to help the baby turn. I was so tired though, so I kneeled on the floor with my arms and upper body laid across my waterbed. Oh how I wanted a nap. I wanted for labor to stop for just one hour so I could sleep. The 2 minutes between contractions was not enough and I felt so weak from all the vomiting and diarrhea, all my energy was stolen by the pain.

After spending so much time alone in the bathroom I no longer wanted to be alone. I wanted everyone near. I needed them, needed their energy. I would announce the onset of each contraction, believing if they knew of the contraction they could somehow take the edge off the pain, simply by knowing it existed. Hsui-li did accupressure. She would hold pressure points on my head quite firmly. I would imagine the pain going out through my head into her hands. She would tell me to relax and I would try to melt into the floor.

When she checked me again my water began to trickle some more. She began turning the baby internally with one hand and on my belly with the other. I kept saying that it hurt, hoping she would stop, but she kept on. A contraction came and I screamed or moaned, I don't know which since no one else ever heard it. For a moment I was lost in this sound. It was as if the sound and the pain were one, neither came from me, but I existed within them. But when she finished, perhaps seconds later, the baby was turned and I was completely dilated. She told me I could push whenever I felt like it. I didn't have an physical urge to push, but was anxious to try. This was the moment I had been waiting for, to have some control. I was trying to get comfortable on the bed, and it was difficult since it was sloshing around. Robert was at my side, holding my hand. At first I gave a tentative push, I knew that wasn't go to get me anywhere, so I pushed with all my might and felt my bottom half open up. I felt the baby begin to move through my pelvis, a slow rumble. There was some commotion as last minute supplies were being gathered, but I paid no attention. I was absorbed in my task. Once I had begun pushing the contractions no longer hurt. I propped my legs up on Barbara and Hsui-li's hips on each side of me. My mother was taking pictures. I felt my body open up wider and wider as the baby moved down. Felt the burning, stinging, stretching of my perineum as the baby's head pushed from within. Robert was pouring olive oil and it felt soothing and cool on the stretching skin. With each contraction I would push harder than the contraction before. Barbara was feeding me ice chips. I became dependent upon these chips and would urgently call "Ice, ice, ice!" between each push. It wasn't that I even wanted the ice, but I was so overwhelmed and the ice took my mind off of the burning sensation. I could feel my pelvis separate some as the baby moved down even further. Barbara told me to touch my baby's head. I reached down and touched the warm, wrinkly, wet scalp. It didn't feel like a head at all. I didn't know what it felt like, I only knew I wanted it OUT! I began to laugh and cry simultaneously. Overwhelmed with emotion, feelings I had never known and will never forget. Feelings that belong only to that night, belong only to birth. For a moment it all made perfect sense, labor and birth and life. Within all the turmoil and buzzing of energy, there was an absolute peace. There was no time, there was no pain, all of life was suspended, held in that instant.

Just as the baby was crowning in dashed Hsui-li's partner, Carol. I vaguely remember her presence. I was far to busy to even acknowledge her.

I panted so I wouldn't push to hard and tear my perineum. Hsui-li was helping ease the head out. Once it was out, I expected the body to just slip out. Instead it was sliding out very slowly. I looked over my belly to see the baby. Hsui-li was unwinding this beautiful blue cord from the baby's neck. It was out, my baby was born. I lifted up my shirt and a limp, little baby was placed on my belly. Why so limp, so still? They began suctioning her until there were faint, gurgly cries. I let out a relieved sigh. I asked if it was a boy or girl, but no one answered. They were to busy to check. It seemed like a long time before Hsui-li answered, "A girl" A daughter. Our daughter. "What will you name her?" she asked. Brittany, Brittany Michelle. Robert kissed me. And the next few moments were a blur of hugs and kisses and exclamations.

Robert cut the cord. I had been waiting for him to do it, watching. I always thought it very symbolic for the father to do this. I remember watching him prepare to make the cut, but I do not remember the action, the actual cut. As if my mind was trying to block out the fact that the baby was now separate from me. She was now her own person.

As my mother dressed little Brittany the midwife coaxed the placenta out. I was tired and no longer wanted to push. After being convinced it wouldn't hurt, I gave a big push and out it came. The midwives helped clean me up, freshened the sheets, then handed me my baby to nurse. I was very awkward, not sure of what or how to do it, but baby didn't seem to mind, she wasn't so sure herself.

We all just stared at her, so pure and perfect, marveling at her tiny, little fingers. Her perfect miniature features. She seemed the most beautiful, perfect baby ever born. She was gorgeous. How could we have created such a miracle? It was difficult to believe she had come from my body. It was on a prayer of thanks that we drifted off to sleep, me and my new family.