The Story of Kishkalena's Birth
-by April Johnson. This appeared in the Fall
1995 issue of the New Nativity 2.
On the twentieth day past my due date, I called
the midwife I’d seen in Oregon for a few
prenatal visits. After telling her that I was
three weeks late, she responded with lots of encouraging
comments like: "Isn’t that wonderful?
Everybody’s so different." Then she
asked me how I was feeling and if there was lots
of movement from the baby. I said that I felt
great and that the baby was active. She had a
woman there that was four weeks late and two other
women who were due at the same time who gave birth
three and five weeks early. Everyone’s different.
That phone call was a blessed change from all
the worry and concern I was getting from everyone
else I know. I was content to let her grow more
and always felt that we were healthy and doing
fine.
The last week my feet and ankles were so swollen
that I’m sure any doctor would have had a
fit, but I’d just read Dr. Mendelssohn’s
book, Malepractice. He said that the body stores
water that will be needed for amniotic fluid and
other stuff. This made sense to me and I didn’t
want to mention the swelling too much to prevent
more worries from relatives.
I went into labor the next day at exactly three
weeks overdue. I’d felt a lot of pressure
all day and was pretty uncomfortable. We had visited
my boyfriend’s old babysitter with her new
five week old and stopped for pizza on the way
home. At the pizza parlor I felt some pretty strong
contractions that felt different from the ones
that I’d been feeling for three weeks, but
I still wasn’t sure because every day for
weeks I’d had new and different feelings.
One more stop at the grocery store before going
home, then I was sure it was real labor. This
was the first time in weeks that no one in the
grocery store asked me when I was due or said,
"Still no baby?" Oh well, so I couldn’t
tell anybody that I was in labor.
When we got home, Choice started to mow the lawn.
It was the middle of June and we’d just bought
a new lawn mower. The grass was about two feet
high and our neighbor was having a big problem
about it. That night we made love better than
we had in months. (My sex drive had been way down
during this pregnancy.) After making love, Choice
fell asleep. Every few minutes, I got out of bed
and knelt on the sheets on the floor. I did this
all night wishing I could get some sleep. In between
contractions, I would go to the bathroom to pee
or have diarrhea.
Around 5:00 in the morning, my breathing and
moaning got loud enough to wake Choice up and
he held me from behind through contractions and
brought me water and anything else I wanted. I
don’t remember much else around then except
hearing Choice’s footsteps running toward
me when I’d start breathing loud or moaning.
I think I remember crying at one point and felt
bad because he was so concerned and there wasn’t
really anything wrong, it just felt good to cry.
Torrey, who’s two and a half, woke up at
some point that I don’t remember. He saw
how Choice was dealing with me and just rubbed
my back and kissed me. In between every contraction
he’d come over with a glass of water for
me. He knew exactly what I needed. It was really
neat.
By this time I was in the living room kneeling
in front of our living room bed. I was almost
sitting on the ground and my legs were really
getting sore from being in this position so much.
I threw up a lot and was so glad that there was
no one else here to make me uncomfortable. On
one trip back from the bathroom a contraction
started and I tried to standing up holding onto
Choice. It got way too intense, so I ran over
to the bed and knelt down. I felt lots of pressure
and the pain was really intense.
On the next contraction, I felt inside to see
what had changed. I could only feel the front
part of the cervix because my arm wouldn’t
reach around my belly. This time I felt the water
bag bulging into my vagina, and as the contraction
got stronger it broke. Water gushed out and almost
all the pressure was gone. What a relief! But
now there was a whole new feeling as her head
started to be born. Like I’ve heard other
people say, I felt like I was pooing a bowling
ball. I told Choice to get washcloths and hot
water, really hot and asked him for the olive
oil. I was panting and breathing really hard and
thinking that as long as I gave in, she would
be born and it would be over soon. The contractions
were coming one after another and I had to push.
With each one, I could feel her head come down
and then go back up when I stopped pushing.
Choice kept running back and forth getting more
hot water. We were both saying stuff like, "Here
it comes!" and "Come on out, baby,"
and "It’s finally coming." A little
while and a lot of pain later, I felt her head
crowing and thought for sure that I’d feel
most of her head out, but when I checked I only
felt about a silver dollar size of her head. I
had hot washcloths on the front and Choice was
putting them on from behind. I’d say, "Too
hot! No, that’s good," then "No,
get it off! NO, back on, Oh oww, oww!! Olive oil!
Come out baby, owww!"
We were telling Torrey to come watch, but he
was involved with his toys and not interested
in watching. He came over as her head came out
and said, "What’s that?!" As her
head came out, her mouth got stuck and I felt
a ‘pop.’ I remember vaguely wondering
what it was. Then Choice said her hand came out
and she seemed to pull herself out. When her head
came out, we could hear her crying. Choice had
to tell me to lift myself up to give it room to
come out, so I got up onto my knees and lay my
upper body over the bed.
I had been holding her head as it came out and
said, "Here, take the head," to Choice.
Another contraction came and went, and Choice
said, "So…are we waiting for another
contraction or something?" "I guess
so," I said, and we both kind of laughed.
The next contraction started and she started kicking
me so hard I said, "OOW, it’s kicking
me, ow, no, baby, don’t kick mama, oww!"
and out she came!
Choice said, "It’s a girl!" and
I turned over and sat down, lifted my leg over
the cord and took my baby from her daddy. I held
her on her belly and rubbed her back. Then I brought
her up to my chest. I was just kind of looking
at her as she caught her breath and turned from
purple to pink. She squished up her face and whimpered
a little bit, so I offered her my breast. She
latched on right away and hasn’t let go ever
since.
We cut her cord about an hour and a half later
and I gave her to Choice while I went to rinse
off in the shower. After I rinsed the blood off
me, I squatted down and felt inside for the placenta.
It was right inside my vagina, so I pulled on
the cord and part of the sac that was hanging
out and the placenta came right out. It was kind
of falling apart from being so overdue, but again
I felt that everything was fine with me.
I brought the placenta out to the living room
with me and showed Torrey and Chocie where Kishkalena
lived while she was inside. We put it in a big
cup and into the freezer. We buried it under a
big oak tree in our backyard a few days later.
When she was three days old, we went to Choice’s
mom’s house to enjoy the air conditioning.
It had been in the 90s for a couple of days. We
weighed her with the bathroom scale and she weighed
seven pounds, so we don’t know exactly how
many ounces she weighed three minutes after birth.
Kishkalena Tuesday Johnson was born on June 15,
1995 at 11:36 a.m.
April Johnson
San Diego, California
Note from Valarie Nordstrom, New Nativity
2 editor:
"Recently April sent a follow up note. It
made my day. I just grinned when I read it, and
I’m glad to share a portion of it here: 'Kishkalena
is doing great. She’s about fourteen pounds
and two and a half months old, or eleven weeks
today- super cute and chubby. Torrey loves all
the new mama milk...'"
Read April's third birth story here.
This story compliments of...
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