So, I started my period when I was 11 and a half. I didn’t know what a period was. I come from a pretty dysfunctional family. And I started bleeding, and I saw some blood, and I thought, “Oh, I don’t know what that is – It’s gonna go away.” (I didn’t have a good relationship with my mother) But it just got worse and worse. I kept putting tissue in there throughout the day. And by the end of the day, it was heavy enough that I had to do something. My mother was in the bathtub and I went up and knocked on the bathroom door. I said, “mom, I’m bleeding.” She said, “come on in here, under the sink, there’s a Kotex.” And so I got one of these big old things out, and she said, “and there’s a belt there.” I was like, “okay.” So I put it on. That’s how I started my period. That was the beginning.
Okay, fast forward to my first love. I was 16 and I met a fellow who was maybe 18 at the time? 19 maybe? He was out of school. He was, you know, Oh, you know, this, this guy. This cool guy. Anyway, his family had a little cabin on their property. And, we had some people over there. It was the first time I smoked pot. And, we were sitting in a room on the floor and these two guys at either end of the room were playing an imaginary ping pong game. And I was kind of sitting there, you know, like I’m not high. And then I’m watching this thing. It’s like, “oh wait, I am high.” Um, so then that night, he had a futon and there was a poster of 10, 000 Oaks, California poster (that’s still around. You still see it.) Anyway, to me, we made love – to him, I don’t know what it was.
Anyway, so I was 16 and that was, 1968. Anyway, I got pregnant and I told him after I realized there’s nothing I can do about this. I knew about the clothes hanger thing and I really thought about that. I did not want to be pregnant. Uh, I actually got a coat hanger and it’s like, well, I don’t, I don’t know what I’m doing here. You know, I put it up there and it’s like, well, I don’t know. I didn’t want to hurt myself, you know? Anyway, so I told him and it’s like, okay, we’ll get married. So, we got married and we lived in that little cabin thing on his parents property. When I went into labor, took me to the hospital. In Ann Arbor, Michigan.
[Okay, usually I don’t interrupt people because my voice isn’t supposed to be on this, but can you rewind to the coat hanger thing? Just because I’ve never heard a story like this before. And I, I wonder if you could just like, go back to that and tell me a little bit more.]
Um, again I didn’t, I didn’t disclose… I didn’t have anybody in my life to talk to. I come from an abusive, alcoholic. I was sexually abused as a child by my stepfather, you know, domestic violence in my family. My mother would get beaten up by my stepfather and it was just, you kept your mouth shut and you… Anyway, I didn’t have anybody to talk to about being pregnant.
And I knew I was pregnant and I didn’t know what to do. I was terrified. I was in 10th grade in high school and knew a friend had gotten pregnant. We thought she was pregnant. They just sent her away. She disappeared and came back nine months later. “Oh, she was visiting somebody, you know, a cousin.” “Oh, okay.” Anyway, I was terrified. I mean, really terrified. It’s like I can’t, I can’t do this, you know. It doesn’t fit in my life. I mean, I’m in high school, I’m scared, physically scared. I have to get rid of this. How can I make it go away? Um, I didn’t know how to make it go away other than I heard about the coat hanger. And I had the idea. And I got a wire coat hanger and I didn’t really know other than just stick it up there. So I somehow managed to get it apart and I thought, okay, I’m going to do this. And so, I put it up there and as soon as I kind of felt it, it was like, no, I don’t want to hurt myself. I didn’t want it to hurt. And so I stopped and I just kind of had to surrender. You know, I’m going to have to go through this.
So back to the labor. So, he takes me to the hospital, and again, I was scared. I was 17. My mother was absent. It was like she didn’t even want to know or care or whatever. I was by myself. I was a kid. I was barely 17. I turned 17 in March and I had him at the end of July. And so we go in and I say, “can he come with me?” They want me to, you know, check me out. “No, he has to stay out here in the waiting room.” Oh, okay. So they take me in. They check me and they say, “okay, we’re gonna, we’re gonna, uh, give you an enema.” And a thousand milliliter enema, that’s one of those big bags. So they, take off your clothes, put on this gown, she laid me down, this nurse, and gave me this enema. She says, “okay, I want you to lay here as long as you can with all that water in you. And there’s a toilet over there. When you’re ready, get up and go.” “Okay.” She left the room and I’m like off – I’m like over. And the toilet was like – it wasn’t against a wall or anything. It was just like a toilet, you know. And in the middle there was a little table and she says “if you need me ring the bell” – this little ding ding bell. And so I went over there and I let it out and then the next contraction my water broke and it just went and terrified me.
I didn’t know what it was. So I’m like, ring the bell, ring the bell, nobody’s coming. And so I screamed. And now I know that that opens up an orifice, and I screamed. My husband heard me out in the waiting room. I was like, WAAA! People came, and they took me into the operating room and laid me on a table on my back with all the lights and, you know, these men. Putting their hands up there and their arms and going up inside me and I’m having contractions. And, she says, “Oh, do you want to watch?”
And I said, “Yeah.” So she put a mirror so I could see. And I saw my vagina. I was like, “Oh my god, that’s not me.” You know, it’s like this bulging, huge, furry thing, you know, it’s like, “oh.” And, I could see the top of the baby’s head. At the time, I didn’t realize, I didn’t know, that once the baby crowns, you don’t give an epidural.
They pushed his head in there, said, okay, sit up. We’re gonna, we’re gonna give you something, you’re not gonna feel a thing. From the waist down, you’re just gonna, you’re not gonna feel it. And I just went along, I didn’t know, there was no education, no nothing. So they gave me the epidural, the spinal block, laid me back down, put my knees up, and I felt my legs, and it feels like somebody else’s body. I remember how weird that was. They didn’t ask me. They didn’t tell me the options. I think they did it because I was young. And they didn’t want me to have to feel it.
Baby comes out, they put it up here, this red little squealy thing with a pointy head. I was like, “Okay, you’re my baby, mmm.” “Well we have to take him to the nursery.” So they cut the cord right away, took him away, put me in my room, and I went to sleep.
He was born at like 3:52 in the morning. They brought him to me around 11 o’clock. And they bring him in this nursery bassinet thing. And you could see through it. And I looked at him and I said, “that’s not my baby.” He’s like, “yeah, that’s your baby.” “No, my baby was all red and had a pointy head and that’s not my…” you know, they change a lot in those hours. “That’s your baby – look at the things on his – it matches.” “Okay.”
I don’t think I bonded with that baby. I kept him. We kept him. Um, I don’t think I bonded with him at all. Didn’t breastfeed, wasn’t given the option. Nobody educated me, talked to me. It’s like “formula.” So, that’s kind of the end of that story. That part, my first experience.
[So, did they give you something to suppress your milk?]
Yeah, yeah, pills. I had to take a few pills for five days or something like that, as I recall.
[Do you remember any of that feeling?]
Engorgement, yep. I mean, really, you know, the tightness.
[What did it take to bond with that kid?]
I don’t think I ever did. I don’t think we ever did. And I can say that reflecting back now because I’ve had a child that I have bonded with so deeply. Because I really believe that we all have our path, and it’s not good or bad or, you know, whatever it is. That boy who ended up in prison, we don’t have a relationship now. We’re just on totally different tracks. And I felt like we always were. I always knew that – that I hadn’t bonded with him. After he was about five, I think, it became more apparent that it was a split.
And then his father was paralyzed. A year later, he was paralyzed in a car accident, and all the focus was on his father. I took care of him for six years, and after he died, I became a nurse for 21 years. And I think he ended up bonding more with his father. And then his father started abusing drugs during those six years and it just got ugly, and I didn’t know what I was doing. I mean, I didn’t know. Yeah.
Anyway, I went on to be a nurse and a psychotherapist. I’ve got my masters in psychology. And I became a hypnobirther and worked with women that had a lot of fear about giving birth – women that were having V backs after having a C section. I think these things turn our lives. Like when my husband was paralyzed, it turned my life because I was a poor little farm girl. I wasn’t that well educated. I had no direction of my own. All I knew was to be a wife and mother, and when that happened, it’s like “okay, you’re gonna be a nurse.” And I helped many people for over 20 years and that’s fulfilling to me. That’s what matters to me, is that I’ve fulfilled something in me; that I’ve given back for this amazing opportunity to be here in this world.
After my husband passed away, I was in relationships, but I never got married again until, 22 years later. So I was like an old hippie. I’m an old hippie now. At that time, I was a young hippie, but you know. I’d go to Led Zeppelin concerts, and I had the peace sign on my ass, and the bell bottom hip huggers, and you know, we’d dress up, and we’d go to these concerts, and you know, just get high. Did LSD, did psilocybin mushrooms.
My girlfriend and I had horses and we’d go out in the woods and it’s like, “Oh, let’s be lady Godiva!” “Okay!” Take off our clothes and ride around on our horses, you know, just the two of us laughing, just having a good time.
And I had a couple of abortions because I really believed. The best thing I could do for my unborn child was not to have it. I think I had three abortions, and each time I felt the same way. I don’t want to bring a child into this world. I’m not prepared in my life at this point in time to care for a child, you know.
So fast forward. I met my second husband in graduate school. I was in a psychology program, and I realized that I wanted to specialize working with children, that I wanted to learn how to care for children. And that whole thing was reparenting myself, learning how to parent, really. And he had never had children. He really wanted children. His wife had died. She was a brittle diabetic and she died. And we met about five years after she passed away. So we had that kind of similar thing in common.
So, the first time we tried, and did the pregnancy test, it was negative, and I felt disappointed. And that’s when I knew I was ready. Because I wasn’t sure that I really wanted to do it for myself. But when I was disappointed, I knew. You know, my life is stable. I have a loving partner, and, you know, I have a heart of a mother – nurturing.
At the time I worked at Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation as a nurse. I was an infertility specialist. And I decided to get an OBGYN. But I really wanted to have a midwife. I would have liked to have a natural birth. But I didn’t know how this was going to go. And so I got each. And I met this wonderful woman, this midwife, and we would see her, I think it was like every two weeks to start, and then every week as we got closer, and I’d see the OB GYN. Similarly, they have a schedule that you go to. And I’d go to the OB GYN and they’d weigh me. Take my urine, take my blood pressure. “How you feeling?” “Okay, fine.” I’d be out of there in 20 minutes. All right, they’d write it down. I go to her, my husband and I – she wanted him to come too – and we’d spend two hours. She’d be like, well, tell me about the women in your family. How did they give birth? Tell me the stories that you learned as a girl from the women in your life. Because those, those are in you. And that’s what you know to be true. So I told her my first birth story. So I think she spent extra time with me.
I learned so much, so, so much from her. She is a very dedicated midwife. The delivery after mine was a VBAC that she agreed to do. The baby died. And the hospital who came and got the mother sued her – not the mother and husband – the hospital did.
She ended up going to prison for three years.
For my pregnancy, I was 42. Wonderful, easy pregnancy, never any problems,
very active, happy, healthy, so sexual. The most sexual that– well…. The hormones just sort of, whoo, that was fun anyway. So the plan was to do a water birth. And so we ordered a horse trough. A round one, and had it in our living room. We were living communally, so two of the housemates were there, so I had assistance. And the midwife, even though we had chosen what day we thought the baby was gonna be born (she chose that day), she also chose to go to a conference in LA, and we were in San Diego. So she said, “if anything happens, just gimme a call.” My husband’s like, “okay.” Well something started happening. She called me, she’s like, “okay, well call me back in an hour.” So I think this was around one in the afternoon. I had lower back pain. It was unusual, and I felt like I was going to have diarrhea, so I had some diarrhea. He called her back. She says, “okay, I’m leaving. I’m on my way.” So, I don’t know what time that was. It was later in the afternoon. He filled up the horse trough with the 99 degree water temperature. He covered it in some plastic to keep it warm. And, I’m on the couch, about, I don’t know, five o’clock pm. And I think I want to get by the water. And so as I was lifting my leg over to get into the tub, instead of my water breaking, as I lifted my, my leg up, my bag of waters dropped out of my vagina halfway to my knee, which is about eight or 10 inches down. And I put my hand there and grabbed it. I knew what it was. It didn’t scare me. I just threw my leg over, got in the birthing tub and, uh, yeah, proceeded from there. It was like a grey, big grey water balloon that didn’t break. I was like, “Okay, alright.”
I get in, and I had a cough, which I often have because of my respiratory stuff. I had a cough, and a couple contractions later, I coughed, and it, pfft, under the water, it burst. And so then, um, I said, okay, turn on Palchelbell. I had the music going, and, because I had a couple people in there, “Is the video camera ready now?” Had pretty intense contractions. It’s like, “I can do this, just open and let, let your body do it.” It’s what I learned from the midwife. Just surrender to it, you know, breathe, like it’s a big bowel movement, just let it happen, open up to it. So, pretty soon, his head comes out, and after his head came out, I had no more pain. No more. “Oh, can you see him in there? Do you see him?” He’s underwater. He gets out. He’s up to here and his arms and he’s underwater and he’s like this. So he was like that for six minutes under the water.
And then at one point I coughed again and he fluttered his feet and came out, kept him under the water for, I don’t know, another minute or so because he’s still connected to the umbilical cord. I knew he’s still got all that good oxygenated blood. He’s under there, let him experience the freedom of not being squeezed in this space. In my own therapy and stuff, I had done some rebirthing. And I believe I experienced some of my birth – hearing the instruments as I came out, I heard this ting ting ting ting instrument stuff. I wanted to allow whatever could happen in that expanse underwater before the noise of the world set in.
So then, I brought him up, put him in my arms, looked to check, to make sure he was a boy. He was, and he didn’t cry, he just kind of batted his eyes. And I had a bulb syringe because I knew they can get meconium, and just different kinds of things that might need to be suctioned. He didn’t. He was just laying there, and then I put water on his head, and I was just talking to him a little bit. And then, pretty soon, he just belted out this big, RAAH! I said, “his head is cold.” So they went and got one of those little hats and I gave it to my husband. My husband put it on and he said, “Oh, it’s a little sailor cap.” It’s kind of cute, you know. And so we stayed in the birthing tub for 10, 15 minutes probably. And then I thought, oh, it’s time to get out. There was a futon next to the tub. Got out onto the futon. My husband sat behind me. I leaned up against him. Put a lot of covers and stuff over Luke, and he had his little cap on, and he breastfed for the first time, after about 20 minutes, and then on the other side. And about 45 minutes later, the midwife comes charging in. “How is everything, what’s the, where’s the-? “Oh you, you know. It’s okay, Pachelbel’s playing, it’s all good.” Just, the placenta was still inside. So we talked a little bit, and she said, “well it’s probably time for the placenta to come out.”
And so, she had me just get up on my knees and she just gave it a tug and it plopped out into a stainless steel bowl – still attached, umbilical cord was still attached to the baby – and I realized he had pooped on me. So I had green meconium all over my belly. It’s like, “okay, let’s take a bath.” So we go in the bathroom and my housemates had lit candles all around the bathroom, so it was just candle lighting and we got in this nice warm bath. I just floated Luke in the water – just kind of freely and, floated the bowl with the placenta next to him, waiting for the umbilical cord to contract, because that placenta is full of rich, rich blood, that placenta belongs to the baby. It’s part of the baby. And to wait until all that rich blood flows back into the baby is really full of immunity stuff and good, good stuff. So we waited for that and we were in there quite a good amount of time until it was time to cut the cord after it contracted down. The father cut the cord, and that thing is tough. It’s like a sole of a shoe. He’s like “Eeeeerrrrrrr. We have any better scissors here? This is, it’s really tough.” Anyway, so we did that, and got it clamped, and finished the bath, and went into our family bed, already on the floor, king size bed, and got him all changed and dressed and me changed and dressed.
Then the midwife, took the placenta and showed us and explained all of it, turned it inside out in the bowl and did all this stuff and suggested that we blend some up and eat it. I thought about it and I was, I was just, whatever, just tell me what to do. My husband’s like, “no, how about we just put it in the freezer and we’ll plant it with a tree?” So we did that instead. And I breastfed, even though I had this breast problem earlier. I had tissue removed and stuff. I didn’t know if I was going to be able to breastfeed and I really wanted to, and I successfully breastfed a nine pounds, six ounce baby for two years on demand every 45 minutes. Much of that time, I was like a human feeding machine. I made plenty of milk. It was all good. He never lost weight. A lot of babies lose weight. They give them water until the mother’s milk comes in. Well, no. He was getting stuff right off. And the bigger he got, the thinner I got. So, anyway, he got all the best of me. He’s a wonderful, wonderful boy. Person. Human. Man. He’s a man now.
He’s 30.
[Can you just describe for a second, the redemption of having a birth like that, after the first experience?]
You know, I’ve been blessed in my life to over and over have the opportunity – and I have to give myself some credit, maybe – I’ve always been a seeker. And I think I was, Seeking, seeking love, you know, love for myself, love in my life. I can only think that – my childhood – I think I got humbled really early in my life, and that set me up for Being open to learning in a different way. To me it’s just a huge gift. Huge gift. The birth, a huge gift. My son. Parenting him – I did it right. And right, wrong, I did it from love. I followed love with him. I did it right with him.
And I went on to be a marriage and family therapist. I specialized with children. I worked especially with foster children. I was the mental health therapist there in school to help them be successful in school. So I would teach them how to play chess and I would teach them how to knit and I’d have this line of boys with their Knitting needles, and they’re making scarves for Christmas, and playing chess, and they would tell me their stories about what happened. Some of them would be in 30 foster homes, and eventually, they’d tell me their stories. And I’d always apologize to them. I’d say, “I just want to apologize to you, as an adult, as a mother, as a woman in the world. I want you to know, what happened to you was wrong. They should have never done that. That was wrong. And I’m telling you, I want to apologize for them because they’re not able to.” And all of it gave back to me much more than any one person got. It’s like, if it was all in this room, it was all for me. All of it, you know. Thank you.
It’s just recently, in the last couple of days, I’m simplifying my life more and more and more as I get older. And the simple mantra right now is, “I am grateful.” I’m grateful for this opportunity. Because there’s so much that wants to turn me away, you know, worry and drama of the world and all that. It’s just like, I’m grateful for having had all of this in my life. And, you know, it keeps happening. It’s not over yet. That’s the thing. I still have another, what, quarter of my life, maybe, left. We’ll see. Miracle.