Finding a Midwife

The next few days gave us ample time to share the news of a new baby with all of our friends and family. The one place we did not share it with, however was our place of work. Upon his graduation from massage school, Corey was not only able to work full time were he had been serving tables, but he was also made bartender there. Meanwhile the resturaunt need a weekend hostess, and I was the person they called for the job. A friend of ours who worked there, Niccole, was already expecting her first baby. I wanted to tell her more than anyone else, but Corey and I were not ready for our coworkers to know our joy quite yet. When we did finally share with our coworkers that we were going to be parents, Niccole was on vacation in New Hampshire. I remember telling her our news on our 4th anniversary over the phone. She was by far the most excited person I had told yet, even more than my parents. She actually screamed into the phone. Ever since she had conceived, she had been telling me I needed to be pregnant too so we could be mommies together...well.....she got her wish :) Niccole recommended her midwife to me, and since I was set on doing a home water birth, I called Shell, the only midwife in town to see if I could be a client. She told me she had recently moved to Phoenix to start a midwifery clinic and that she was not taking anymore clients in the Sedona area. Disheartened, I looked online to see if there might be any other midwives in the area I had not heard of yet. In fact, there was, in Flagstaff. I met with one of the midwives at the clinic up in Flagstaff at the beginning of August. I asked her as many questions as I could think of. One major question that had been bothering me ever since I found out I was pregnant was would my mimosa brunch incident give my child fetal alcohol poisoning? I was amazed at what the midwife had to say. She told me that once an egg is fertilized, the sperm gives the egg enough nutrients to sustain itself for 4-6 weeks. During that time, the cells multiply and divide and create a small cluster of cells. After 4-6 weeks, the cells start to attach to the uterus lining. This explains why many women have miscarriages 4-6 into pregnancy. It is simply a failure of the fertilized to attach successfully to the uterine wall. If it does successfully attach, the placenta begins to form. So, the chances of me poisoning my child by over imbibing mimosas was very slim. The egg was not connected to a part of my body yet, and therefore was not damaged. After I heard about the egg attaching, it made me wonder, "Was that the child's first decision? To agree that it wanted to in fact develop further by attaching to its mother? That moment of attachment would be the moment that parenthood actually begins, when the child first depends upon the mother." I was disappointed to find out that the midwives in Flagstaff would not make house calls for my prenatal visits. That was a really big deal to me. I would be pregnant over the winter months, and winter in Flagstaff can be brutal. I didn't want to risk being cut off from my care provider during pregnancy, so I did not call them back to be a client. Shortly after that meeting, however, Shell's midwife apprentice called me up. She told me how she felt really badly that Shell could not provided midwifery care for me. She said that she was near the end of her training to become a midwife and that she would take me on as her client. She could perform all of the prenatal visits in the comfort of my own home and Shell agreed that she would oversee the birth as a licensed midwife. Everybody won. I got the midwifery care I wanted and Shell wouldn't have to make an extra monthly trip up to Sedona for my prenatal visits. I met Maryn, my care provider on August 24, 2008, one month after our 4th anniversary. Maryn was a petite, thirty-something woman, expecting her fourth child. Corey and I met her at her home in Cornville that afternoon. Corey palyed with her two oldest children while I recounted my experience with pregnancy massage and my views of birth. After about an hour of talking, she finally brought up the subject of hearing my baby's heartbeat. I told her I had not yet listened to it. She took me into her bedroom and had me lay down on her bed with my belly exposed. Corey came in too and we closed the door. She brought out a device called a Doppler and held it up to my flat tummy. Until that moment, I hadn't really felt pregnant. I wasn't showing, I wasn't having morning sickness, I was just a little bit tired. Then, I heard over the Doppler a faint and very fast, "womp-womp-womp-womp". "That's your baby," Maryn said, smiling. I laughed. It was so unexpected. I did not know what to expect, but whatever it was made me laugh out loud. It was hilarious! The quickness of the beat was ridiculous! This child is so tiny that its blood is pumping through its body and making a heartbeat that fast??? I couldn't believe I was laughing. I had seen TV shows and movies where the parents hold hands and cry at hearing their baby for the first time. I thought that was the way it worked. I was wrong. Corey was amazed and I was laughing. It was the first time that my child had made itself known in this world. The experience of hearing my baby's heartbeat made the reality of motherhood quite plain to me. I now knew, for certain, that there was in fact a human life, thumping away inside my uterus.