Grace's Birth

Wow! What an experience! 16 hours of labor in total. Teale was amazing! Early labor was crazy hard because Teale was vomiting so much she was mega-dehydrated and needed to be on IVs. At one point, we were genuinely worried for Teale and our baby Grace’s health because of elevated heart rates. Amazingly after that scare, and three IVs later, Teale gave herself permission to slow the process down. This letting go made space for her to move into active labor.

Double WOW! Active labor was intense. Teale was in so much pain, and to top it off, she only wanted comfort from me in between contractions and not during. I felt really helpless during some of the hardest moments.

In fact, during this time, I started to feel really rejected. It was hard to see Teale seek and receive comfort from our midwives and be non-responsive to me. At the same time (as Teale shared with me afterwards), she was feeling stuck in wanting comfort from me but not knowing how to reach out and be in contact with me emotionally in the midst of such an intensely vulnerable process. So there we were catapulted into the depths of our primary attachment wounding. Me, frozen in powerlessness and not knowing how to reach out for fear of rejection, and Teale, wanting comfort but stuck in the shame of not knowing if reaching from such a vulnerable place would be received.

Then, during “Transition” (an altered state just before the pushing starts), Teale and I locked eyes from across the room. It was a magical healing moment. I came to her and held her and she welcomed my presence and love with openhearted warmth. We were completely inseparable emotionally and physically from that moment on. It was the moment we felt received and met in the places inside where we both feel most unlovable, most inadequate. Quadruple Wow!! Glorious belonging… thank you!

Next came the pushing. Speechless WOW!! If Teale was reluctant and hating early labor contraction pain, she took to pushing like she could compete and win the Olympics in baby-pushing for the next four decades straight! She pushed Grace out within 30 minutes.

Just a couple minutes before Grace “graced” us with her presence, we heard the most amazing and other worldly sound I have ever witnessed. We could hear Grace singing, literally, a haunting little cooing from inside Teale when only her face had emerged. Hard to believe, I know. (Grace had enough room in Teale’s pelvis to expand her lungs and take in oxygen to do that singing!)

Hearing Grace cooing, I literally felt like I had ceased to exist in this world and was transported to a place of such deep unknowing, the place where little babies come from. I was both exhilarated and terrified all at the same time. My mind just couldn’t make sense of what we were hearing, Teale too. Again, I remember our eyes locked in to one another as we experienced this miraculous moment, literally at the “threshold of revelation.”

And then it happened, Grace was with us, and Teale was up and kneeling on the bed with Grace in her arms quicker than anyone could tell her to slow down. Teale held Grace, looked at her and then looked at me and repeated, “Look at her, she’s so beautiful” over and over again, with a loving and maniacal look in her eyes. If you know Teale, you know the way she can look half-angel and half-devil all at the same time… yep, it was that look, only 100 times more maniacal than I had ever seen before.

After Teale lay down again, she began to insist I take my shirt off so I could hold Grace against my skin. Interestingly, I became uber-shy and self-conscious at that moment. I would have liked to believe I would be immune to feeling self-conscious at such a huge moment in my life, alas not so… I just didn’t want to take my shirt off. I was so overwhelmed. I wanted to be in the background and enjoy Grace’s arrival as a supporting character and I was too scared to be center stage.

Eventually, I relented and took my shirt off and held Grace for the first time. WOW! (Again with the “Wow,” Figs? Really?) “I am a father.” I still can’t believe it. “I have a daughter.” How is it possible that I get to write these words? The process of feeling safe enough to attach emotionally to a significant other has been quite the journey for me. I have worked so hard to shine a light on those shameful hurt places inside. All I can think is I must have done a fine job at learning how to be a partner and father to have ended up with Teale as my love, Grace as my capacity-filled daughter, and Zephyr (our dog), who will always be our first born.

Lastly, I cannot thank our midwives enough for their expert, skilled, kind, and sensitive guidance. How they got Teale to start having contractions outside of the bathroom (where she had bolted to each time they began) I will never be able to comprehend. I had started to prepare for Teale giving birth to Grace in the bathroom with me waiting on the other side of the locked door.

Lastlier, while we are so thrilled we gave birth at home, we are not completely crazy western medicine-avoiding hippies. Ours was a low risk pregnancy and we still went to UCSF for regular non-stress tests and ultra sounds, and we always knew UCSF was just a five-minute drive away if any complications arose that would fall outside of our midwives’ expertise.

We were fortunate enough to experience prenatal care in the early stages at UCSF, but eventually decided on a home birth facilitated by the incredible Michelle Welborn (yep that’s her real name).The level of knowledge and care we received from Michelle far surpassed what the doctors and nurses at UCSF could offer (I am sure some of this is down to the crazy state of medicine today). Our visits with Michelle were always at least one hour in length, involved space to explore emotions, as well as detailed examinations of Grace’s heartbeat, body position, and Teale’s health.

So there it is, I don’t like to spend a lot of time editing or considering what I will write…so thats it!