THE HOME BIRTH
On one level, Facebook can be great: reconnecting with old friends, classmates and workmates, finding old lovers and girlfriends, allowing the ability to stay current with friends in almost real-time, and being able to develop and nurture friendships in different ways that weren’t possible before social media. (That said, I’m STILL searching online for one of my high school teachers, Mr. Oberholzer, someone that purchased a hand-made bong/water pipe from my childhood friend Marc Chaton and I, products that we also sold in swap meets back in the day. Yes, while we were high school students. And, yes, I was entrepreneurial even back when I was 16.)
At its worst, of course, Facebook can be and is horribly divisive and helps foster tribalism, encourages shaming, and feeds on outrage. Good or bad, all that matters for Facebook is the clicks, so you can watch and/or read their ads, and which make them billions of dollars.
This essay, thankfully, is about something I read on Facebook in July that was and is simply beautiful.
It was a post from Shana Joseph.
Shana is a cousin in Wisconsin I’ve never met before, but plan to meet next June when we have a Joseph family reunion in Chicago. She’s the daughter of my first cousin Russell Joseph, the son of my uncle Jerry (my dad’s brother). Does that make Shana my second cousin, or my first cousin once removed? I’ll never figure that out. Anyway, she’s my cousin.
Shana’s post can be found on her Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/shana.joseph.7. Her post is from July 18, 2021. It’s beautifully written and heartfelt, and it’s not only about Shana’s personal experiences with homebirthing two of her own children, but also about her friend Kim’s journey with a homebirth. Shana, an excellent professional photographer, was invited to take photos and video’s of Kim’s experience, and also (and more importantly) to provide emotional support to her friend. I can’t do justice to what Shana wrote and photo-shot.
Do yourself a favor and find her post, and then circle back and finish this essay.
Shana’s Facebook post brought me back 19 years ago, to October 2002. And her writing made me cry, not painful tears, but tears of a memory I hadn’t thought about for a long, long time and of how it made me think and feel differently today about this event.
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Back in 2002, when she first got pregnant, Carmen and I planned on a home birth for our first child. Before we knew whether it was a boy or a girl, which we chose to not find out until the day of the birth, we called the fetus “Peanut”.
We took all the home birthing classes. Watched videos. Read books. Hired a mid-wife. And a doula. Brought in a warm tub that looked a lot like a portable spa and placed it in our living room. We were READY.
Well, we thought we were.
In the late afternoon of Friday, October 18 that year, I was taking a “power yoga” class with Bryan Kest at his studio in Santa Monica. I had my pager with me…yes, for you youngsters reading this, there were no iPhones. No texts. It was primitive, I know. Caveman era.
Buzzzzzzzzzz. About a third of the way through the class, I looked down at the pager in front of my yoga mat, and I knew it was time.
Carmen was having major and very frequent contractions, and she was going into labor! My heart was POUNDING. I quietly did a one minute child’s pose to try and center and calm myself, rolled up my yoga mat, and drove as quickly as I could to get home.
The details of the next hours are both fuzzy and not necessarily germane to this story. But what is important is that Carmen started going into labor on a Friday late afternoon. After a night of long walks around the neighborhood and very little sleep, she was still in labor Saturday morning.
And Saturday afternoon. And Saturday evening.
The birthing tub sat empty.
Carmen was exhausted. And appeared to be miserable. I was exhausted. And I knew I was miserable.
Saturday night: More walks in the middle of the night. And very little sleep again.
And Carmen was still in labor.
Carmen and the midwife huddled Sunday late morning and called an audible. A home birth wasn’t going to work. For whatever reason, Peanut wasn’t coming out or at the very least certainly wasn’t ready to be born. We were going to have to go to a hospital.
We hadn’t planned for this at all. Best as I can recall, we were busy furiously packing that Sunday late morning, in what was simultaneously an emotional place of both calm and panic.
I drove Carmen to Cedar’s Sinai Hospital in the early afternoon of Sunday, October 20th. Which also happened to be our one year wedding anniversary. It was quite a way to “celebrate.”
That afternoon, the medical team at Cedar’s determined that Peanut had to be birthed via a Cesarean section. Plans were made, surgeons and nurses scrubbed, and the soon to be mom and dad were trying to muddle through, even while experiencing complete exhaustion.
I should note that Carmen was put on some drugs after being hospitalized.
I wasn’t so lucky.
At 11:47 PM that Sunday night October 20, 2002, about 50 hours or so after going into labor, Carmen gave birth to Jasper Paul Joseph, a 10-and-a-half bound “bouncing” baby boy. Jasper was too big of a baby and we now knew why a home birth was simply not going to work.
(I have long made a joke that Jasper came out kicking and screaming, and that he’s the same kid today. Jasper, if you’re reading this, I’m mostly kidding.)
In the ensuing days, Carmen dealt with postpartum depression, plus the normal anxiety of being a new parent, along with the bitter disappointment of not having Jasper birthed at home. I tried to be a good husband and learn how to be a dad, but in hindsight I probably wasn’t very good at either during that stressful time.
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I posted the following comment to my cousin Shana on her July 2021 Facebook post:
“Our first child was supposed to be home birthed. We went through the training, hired the right people, had the tub in our living room, etc. My then-wife went into labor on a Friday late afternoon. By Sunday morning, she was still in labor. And suffering. We were all suffering. It didn’t work out for the home birth. As it tuned out, my son was 10 and a half pounds when he was born via c-section, over 50 hours after labor started. It wasn’t meant to be for us. But I love love love the celebration of home births.”
Shana’s almost immediate response:
“oh man what a tough scenario. Believe me, I would have tapped out long before 54 hours! What a warrior she was. Home birth definitely isn’t always an option. Thank you for sharing.”
Boom! A warrior. A warrior!
I had never used that word to describe Carmen.
As I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever used that word to describe anyone.
How many soon-to-be moms are in labor for 50 hours? And how many have then gone through both the joyous occasion of giving birth but with the lingering and deep disappointment of not having the birth you had wanted and planned for? Oh, and who also had to deal with the surgical pain of a c-section on top of that?
I’m gonna’ guess not many.
I’m mindful that birth plans often go awry, but this was a lot for anyone.
I thought I knew back then what Carmen had gone through. The truth is, I watched her go through the experience, and I had my own experience, but that’s different than LIVING the experience that she had had.
***
Almost exactly two years later, our second child was born, AJ. Another c-section, as Carmen chose to not have to go through what could have been another painful emotional experience of birthing a child at home. It was her body, her decision, and it was an easy choice for me to agree and respect that decision.
Nineteen years have passed since the home birth experience. Jasper left in August for his first year of college in the Netherlands. AJ started 11th grade at Santa Monica High School.
Carmen and I have been separated since 2011, and divorced since around 2014 or so.
Marriages sometimes don’t work out.
Carmen has been in a long-term relationship with her boyfriend Linwood, the love of her life. I’m in a long-term relationship with Susie, the love of my life.
We are who we are supposed to be with.
But that takes nothing away from the two children that Carmen and I created together, and have seemingly successfully co-parented together.
A marriage ends, but parenting never stops.
And if not for social media, and if not for the cousin that I’ve never met, I’m not sure when or if I would have ever come to the realization that I was blessed with watching a warrior.
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For more info on my written works, please go to:
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The Home Birth
Chris, Thank you so much for posting yours and Carmen’s story. It brought a lot of old and more recent home birth memories back.
Like your cousin, I had my daughter at home. When my daughter grew up and was ready to have her own baby she chose a well known birthing center. When her water broke and the baby didn’t come, she went to the hospital where they scheduled a C-Section. But for some reason they continued to wait and as a result, my daughter contracted an infection. It was pretty scary. The baby was born with the infection and had to remain in the nicu for 3 weeks.
It just goes to show with all the planning, study and expense you can go through nothing is certain. We must cherish every moment we have.