3 days old, Sunbathing with his Daddy.
In honor of my son’s 8th birthday, today, I re-print his Birth Story:
Baby Devin Echo McClure was born 7 Lbs. 12. Oz. 21 inches on Jan. 13th 2007
For someone who’s never felt a birthing contraction, the closest thing I can compare it to is orgasm– except instead of producing pleasure, the sensation is anywhere between a light fluttering and an excruciating seizure–that lasts from 20 seconds to a couple of minutes. And then it’s gone. The pressure disappears and it’s like, what the hell just happened?
It was a planned pregnancy. In fact it was so planned, we spent a full year preparing for it. After we came back from India, 5 years into our marriage, we were more in love than ever. Michael took me to a fancy Creole restaurant to listen to his favorite Jazz musician over a plate of Gumbo. My hormone-inspired conversation went something like this:
ME: “if you don’t want to give me a baby, this relationship is going to have to end.”
MICHAEL: “I never thought of myself as a father, but if I was ever going to do it, it would be with you. I’m almost 40, so I guess this is as good a time as any. Except, I don’t want to fight anymore. How about, if we can stop fighting for a full year, then we can get pregnant.
ME: Really? One year from now?
MICHAEL: Yes…and I need you to get health insurance, incase anything happens.”
ME: I can do that! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you! (Hugs and kisses ensue.)
After a full year of re-directing my drama into writing and publishing my first novel, Michael agreed there was enough harmony in our relationship for us to begin “trying,” except we called it “intending.” We marveled at how strong the impulse was to have our poly lovers involved in our process. We even joked about throwing a big play party with our lovers and just “letting the best sperm win.” In reality we had a very conscious conception process that involved prayers and candles.
After only 2 months, Devin was conceived. I was pregnant at my book release party. It was a glorious pregnancy. Despite the first few months of nausea, I felt eternally infused with spirit. Michael had an awakening. He quit his job, did a green re-model on our new home and started an environmentally friendly christmas tree delivery company and realized his place in making a better world for future generations to inherit. We went for long walks, played the guitar my bump and made love nearly every day.
My first contractions came before winter solstice and continued inconsistently for over a month. We called them “surges” and had many sleepless nights of “practice” labor.
Despite his due date, the baby didn’t come the day after Christmas, or the following 3 weeks. When I was 43 weeks pregnant the midwife at the birth center informed us that she would have to transfer us to the hospital where the mainstream medical protocol is to administer heavy pharmaceuticals or surgery. So we considered natural methods of induction.
When lying on the treatment table of my acupuncture appointment, I retold my lucid and disturbing dream from the night before: Someone was trying to pierce my nipple and the baby kicked so hard you could see it’s little leg kicking at the walls of my womb, from the outside. My acupuncturist, Jess, wisely said: “This kid does not want to be rushed.”
So instead of inducing, she referred me to a midwife who specialized in llate term pregnancies because she trusted the baby to be born in his own time. Michael and I had about 3 days to turn our home into a free standing birth center complete with plastic sheets, rubber gloves and a warm hot tub.
On Friday Jan. 12th 2007 we called Jess to come and hang out with us while I labored (shivering) on the couch. Jess informed us that it was a record-breaking cold winter night and decided to drive back home to retrieve extra space heaters. When Michael plugged them into the wall, they overwhelmed the old circuitry in our 60 year old house and caused several black outs. I lay on my back clenching my fists and counting my breaths while Michael rushed around the house flipping power switches and hanging blankets over doorways for extra insulation.
I naively recounted my ‘hypnobirthing” script in my head, intending for a painless 3-hour birth.
But the surges came on strong, like painful pulses from outer space. The sensation was otherworldly, and when they were consistently 3 minutes apart for over 2 hours we called the midwife. By the time the birth team arrived, I was spontaneously chanting Om with every exhalation, and when that got old, I used other mantras like Open and Om Mani Pad Me Hum.
For untold hours, I labored on the couch, the toilet, the hot tub, but according to the midwifes, the anterior lip of my cervix still had to melt away before I could push. I wanted relief, I wanted to run, I wanted drugs, I wanted to chew on a nearby tree-trunk. Michael said my eyes were big and wild like a feral cat with a bird in her mouth.
Finally, my midwife followed me to the bathroom to have a private chat. “Births usually stall because of fear,” she probed, “What are you afraid of?”
I searched my soul and told her that I felt like an animal. My pain-body was so overwhelming I couldn’t access my spiritual self. She asked me what I needed: to chant, to dance, to read scripture? Perhaps I have a picture of a guru or some other spiritual symbol that would help me. But I knew my strength didn’t come from anything external, I thirsted for direct experience, itself. I knelt down off the toilet, took the midwife’s hands in mine and spoke an invocation.
“I’m ready now,” I said, then marched into my bedroom to puke my guts out.
When I opened my eyes, I saw the divine looking back at me. There were five goddesses in the room in addition to Michael, and with each surge they chanted: Down, Down, Down Devin Down. They were a chorus of temple priestesses while Michael’s deep voice anchored me as it calmly coached me to breath down through my yoni.
I was high from the endorphins, serotonin and oxytocin. I was high on Love. Each surge came like a transcendent wave of light. I followed my inhalation up, out my forehead and used tantric cobra breath to bring my awareness back down to my yoni.
I changed positions from spread eagle on my side, to squatting, to the birthing chair, to slow dancing, to straddling Michael’s lap. After two hours of these gymnastics, I left my body. My mission: to reach out into the world of spirit grab a hold of my son and bring him safely down into the world of form.
When Devin’s malleable head started to crown, I squatted against Jess’s knees so that Michael would be free to catch him. When Michael caught sight of his pointy head he got worried and asked the midwife, are they always like that? She shrugged her shoulder and Michael resumed his post. The last thought that went through my mind before breathing Devin out was, I’m going to bring down Michael’s son.
I heard someone say “Your baby is here.” And other excited voices celebrating as if they were at the end of a long tunnel. “Slow. Be Careful. He’s cord-wrapped.” I could hear the midwife coaching Michael on how to unwrap the cord–twice around his neck and once around his abdomen.
Then somebody placed him on my belly. I heard a cute little sneeze. He coughed out the amniotic fluid and then cried. My baby was crying. I looked around the room and found eyes, but otherwise I only saw little points of light.
I looked down and made out the back of my baby’s head. His hair seemed sticky and black, his head was now perfectly round.
“Can you turn him so I can look into his eyes?” I asked.
And Michael gently rotated his little body. As soon as he looked up, it wasn’t my eyes he found but my nipple. He latched onto my breast and feverishly started sucking. Whoa. Now, my vision returned. His sucking pulled me back into my body. I held his head to my breast and marveled at his intense thirst for life.
My baby boy is born.
I looked into Michael’s eyes and felt the most amazing sensation between my legs: the placenta started slipping slowly down through my birthing canal and softly, squishing into the world. It felt divine, like God was licking me clean. In that moment, all the pain washed away. I was suspended in pleasure.
The birth was complete.
After the Midwives inspected the baby, I asked for privacy so my new family could have a moment of sacred communion before we cut the cord. Michael and I held each other, the baby, and prayed before floundering around trying to cut the very thick and grisly cord. At 3 feet, it was the longest the Midwife had ever seen and it looked like a telephone cord.
Thus, after 21 hours of laboring on the coldest night of the year, Devin Echo McClure was born.
P.S. When Michael tells the story of Devin’s Birth, he often adds the following detail about how we knew Devin was his biological son.
Michael has a small physical deformity of the lower part of his breast bone or sternum. It’s called the xiphoid process, and when most people breath in, it sticks in. But Michael’s has always stuck out about half an inch. It’s not a big deal, but he remembers his lifeguard friends used to tease him about it.
Before conception, I had a condom slip with one of my male lovers so there had been a sliver of doubt in the back of our mind as to whose son I was carrying. During the pregnancy, Michael became so clear about his purpose as a father, that he declared: regardless of the biological paternity, he would raise the child as his own. Shortly after Devin was born he noticed that his little sternum stuck out when he coughed or gasped for air. Devin had a visible xiphoid process, just like Daddy. We were both relieved to have any doubt about a paternity dispute disappear. Devin is positively just like his daddy.
