born at home

a story about being born at home in San Francisco

 

written by alex tower ewers

This is not solely a story about hours in labor or number of contractions. It is actually less a story about Kirian’s birth and more about the winding path that led to Sunday, March 22^, 2009. For as always, the road less traveled it is not a straight path but instead one that is full of road blocks, detours and speed bumps.

And it all began 16 years ago.

On a rainy Sunday evening, my freshman year in college, I ended up in the student union listening to a group of local women sing the accolades of the midwives who had helped birth their children. Unexpectedly and for the first time I was hearing a language I had known all my life but had somehow forgotten. That evening, as the rain rhythmically beat down upon the glass skylight above, a seed was planted. At 19, still convinced that I need not marry but certain that I would have children one day, I instantly knew that my babies would be born at home.

And that was that. I remained interested in women’s issues surrounding health and reproduction but it wasn’t until years later when I found myself signing up for a post-partum doula training that the seed would finally would get some water. Enthralled but a bit put off by the “hippyness” of the class materials and the other attendants, I kept my attendance in this class to myself. I had just returned from working in the fashion industry in New York City and was now sitting on the floor, drinking herbal tea and learning about sitz-baths and perineum care in the musty back room of a natural childbirth resource center in San Francisco. I was 25.

 

For the next 5 years, I took doula trainings and flew to international midwifery conferences. I read birth books and watched badly made home birth videos. I became home births greatest verbal advocate. In action, I was restrained and immobile for two reasons: First, I had not yet given birth and second, no role in the birthing community seemed to suit me. I often asked my teachers if they felt it mattered that I did not have the visceral experience of giving birth and ultimately they all side no. But it mattered to me and that was enough. I continued to passionately support homebirth, denounce medicalized hospital births and haphazardly walk through the maze of the birthing community in the Bay Area. The closest I got to a role that suited most parts of me, was as manager to that same small resource center that had now moved and gotten a coat of paint and a breath of fresh air. There I learned that the organized and aesthetically able parts of myself had a home in this community as well. But I quickly grew frustrated with the lack of funds, lack of organization and lack of medical community support for midwives and natural birth and out of sheer overwhelm, threw up my hands. “I am out”, I proclaimed - I can’t be a pioneer and pay off my student loans.

 

Somewhere during this time, I met the man whom I would later marry. When I was still dating him, at one point I found it necessary to tell him that our children were going to be born at home and I was simply giving him ample time to get used to the idea. He looked at me with that glassy look of disbelief and then approval that happens when someone you are dating says something that you know might affect your life significantly but you haven’t been together long enough to make too much out of it. I was satisfied that this important man now had heard my important news and with that I stopped paying attention to birth altogether.

 

Until one day in late June 2008. We had returned in May from 10 months of travel around the Pacific Ocean – our hearts were wide open, our minds were still and calm and we had the renewed sense of clarity that comes from removing yourself geographically from jobs and old habits that no longer suit who you are. Open to the idea that we could potentially be ready to start our family and believing that as with many of our friends it could take a while, we threw caution to the wind. I think the final words were something like, “Let’s just see what happens.” A few weeks later, driving on the non-descript section of Highway 101 between Monterey and San Francisco that I had driven hundreds of times in my lifetime, I just knew. I knew that if I took the next exit and went into Target and bought a pregnancy test and peed on the stick that there would be two pink lines.

 

Two pink lines, an OB appointment to confirm and a conversation with a surprised yet ecstatic father-to-be later, I was standing like a deer in the headlights. “And what the *$^# now?” I thought. I was totally removed from the birthing community, we were still using our travel insurance that was about to expire, Natural Resources had been sold and had moved, our apartment was so not the home I imagined having a baby in, I had forgotten everything I had learned and I was scared – because now every decision I made was no longer just “in theory”.

 

I went straight to Natural Resources asked for Cara (the new owner) and blurted out "Help, I have forgotten everything I know and I have no idea what to do. Is Yeshi still doing her thing at St. Lukes? We can't have a home birth because our apartment doesn't feel like home and it’s too small." She smiled, assured me that all my knowledge would come back, that Yeshi was in fact not involved at St. Luke’s anymore and that my best bet for a midwifery assisted hospital birth was with the nurse midwives who were working at CPMC. I got in the car, looked at the piece of paper in my hand and couldn't believe that I was thinking of having my baby at a hospital and that that hospital would be CPMC*.

This detour lasted almost 5 months. After only two appointments, I was informed that the first nurse midwife I had been seeing was leaving the practice. Okay, I thought, there was still one left and I really liked her and this would be fine. I buried moments like when I was in the waiting room and another expectant mom leaned over the appointment counter and in hushed tones asked, “Can I see a real doctor for my next visit – I’ve only been seen by the midwives?” I kept reassuring the now screaming internal voice of mine. At least I thought I was reassuring it. But something was cooking and it wasn’t just the bun in my oven.

 

I suppose I knew something was up. I extended my toes into the midwifery waters and found myself on the phone with a rather straight forward, no bullshit German midwife. Yes, she would do my pre-natal care and then assist me in having a hospital birth. But she was insightful and immediately clung to the homebirth fire that was buried somewhere inside me and she didn’t let go. I think she said, “If your apartment isn’t right for homebirth, then move.” The tower of excuses I had built was crumbling, right there on the phone. And what came brutally aware to me was that I was concerned more with having control over the first precious hours of our baby’s life than the actual birthing process.  As I pressed End, the decision to birth our baby at home was gaining momentum.

 

Several regular appointments with the remaining nurse midwife and the big 18-week ultrasound later, I was informed that this second nurse midwife was leaving this CPMC practice. Ironically, it was our relationship that had reminded her of own homebirths and her true philosophy that was being squelched within the confines of this particular OB practice.  She told me that I could stay on with the regular OB physicians but that I should know that they would not be adding any new nurse midwives to their practice. Several horrendous Yelp reviews of the OB’s in this practice and my inability to relax every time I got near the hospital helped me to say, "Alex, run home.”

 

And so I ran, straight to the Bay Area Homebirth Collective. And here is where I had an advantage. You see, I knew these women, I trusted these women, I had recommended these women, I had learned from these women. I wasn’t starting from scratch and that was a truly divine gift reconsidering I was changing my prenatal care only a few months before I was expected to give birth. I already had the relationship, now I just needed a bit of pre-natal care and some instruction on when to push. And I needed my husband to trust my choice as much as I did – with the care of his wife and unborn child.  And all it took was one meeting.

 

Aside from several aggravatingly bureaucratic conversations with Blue Cross, morning sickness that turned into most-of-the-time sickness and debilitating sciatic pain that finally was relieved with cupping (a Chinese healing modality that leaves you temporarily tattooed like an alien), the remainder of this pregnancy went without controversy and problem. My prenatal visits morphed into total self-care as they went from barely 5 minutes to almost an hour. My nesting instinct jumped into hyper-drive, for now home suddenly meant home in a whole new way. Our attendance in the Mindfulness Based Childbirth Preparation class not only empowered us to use our mindfulness practice during birth as a powerful pain management tool, it solidified our commitment to each other and our decision to have our baby at home.

 

Most applauded our decision and were far from surprised. We only heard the “we were so nervous for you and kind of uncertain about your decision” after our birth – which I suppose is a better time to hear it than before. Regardless, our experience moved some to tears, others to question everything they knew or thought they knew about birth and others to birth their own babies at home, only weeks later.

 

Now this is a story of an actual birth, so here you are, as written by me, a year afterwards. Click here for the rest of the story...