Amena's Birthday, Revisited

I was so not excited to be pregnant again. In many ways, I had hoped that Daniel might be the last one. I generally didn’t mind being pregnant but things were not good at home and there were no midwives near us. We moved from Bloomfield to Escrito near the beginning of the pregnancy which I hoped would be a good move. We did find and visit a midwife in Albuquerque but she wasn’t comfortable with our distance from her AND she was from Vermont or New Hampshire or Maine and would be gone for a week or two visiting family right when we were due. It didn’t help that I didn’t really try to find anyone until well after five months into the pregnancy; having had four babies already, I foolishly believed that I knew enough to know if something felt wrong. Nothing did go wrong during the pregnancy but had I it to live over, I would have done things differently.

On October 25, 1999, I wrote: “Now we are about 8 ½ weeks from baby’s due date. I feel very fat. I’d like for this baby to be here so that I can get back to normal but I’m really not sure about the added stress of having a new baby to care for. Life has been so stressful lately I wonder if it will ever regain any semblance of normalcy.”

December 5, 1999, seventeen days before she was due: “I found a midwife in Farmington. She just moved from Alaska a couple months ago. At first I thought she was really strange but the longer I was there, the more she sounded okay. . . She favors water births and has a Jacuzzi. Getting to use a Jacuzzi might be worth going to town to have this baby.”

On Christmas morning at 2:31, I wrote: “About 12:15 this morning my water broke and contractions started about half an hour later. They’re the real thing but very inconsistent and currently far apart. I think if I were to get up and move around things might kick in. I don’t want to yet though because for some reason I want to have the baby in town and we can’t get to town until we can get gas. That won’t happen until the 44 Store opens—if it does, being Christmas.

“I probably am about ready to get up and get something done. If we do go to town, I need to finish getting things ready to go. Since I finally have everything washed, I was going to do that this afternoon. That’s what I get for putting it off.”

Two days later: “On Christmas morning, after the initial few contractions, nothing happened other than a few Braxton Hicks during the morning. Sherri called and we decided to go into town around 1.”

Once at Sherri’s, “I took some castor oil with orange juice and baking soda to get contractions going again and was sent to bed to get some rest.

“Over the next couple of hours, contractions started, diarrhea started, snow started, and Sherri came and gave me some herbs to help contractions mean business. Between 5 and 9:30, I got up and walked around when I felt like it and sat on the futon trying to visualize my way through contractions (just a note—visualization makes an incredible difference).

“Around 10, I think, Sherri had me go to the bed for an examination which revealed that I was at 9 cm and just about ready to push. With the next contraction—which was the worst because I was closer to laying on my back than I had been—I decided I wanted more pillows but not to move.”

“Amena Bronwen was born at 11:08 pm on Christmas Day weighing 6 pounds, 13 ounces and measuring 20 inches long. As usual, having a baby is such an indescribable thing. It’s hard work—sometimes I just wanted to stop and give up—but so worth it once the baby is born.”

I did not write much in my journal about being pregnant. Had I to do this all over again, I would have been actively looking for someone to see for prenatal care. Even a doctor until I could find a midwife maybe. Had I been looking, I might have found Sherri sooner than I did. She attended births even before she had her office or even a house for her family to live in so that wouldn’t have been a huge problem. In the few weeks that we knew her, I learned more about birth I think than I had with all four previous pregnancies.

During our first meeting, she asked me what I would like to do. I answered that I would like to continue care with her as if we’d been going to her the whole time. That is pretty much how it happened and it was good. I really liked Sherri and I think that if it weren’t for the influence of certain others, we might still be friends today.

Amena’s name came from one of the books of baby names that Sherri had. The deal with naming babies was that Dan would name the boys and I would name the girls. I did indeed choose Laura’s first name, but not her second. I did indeed choose Joanna’s first name, but not her second. This time, I was going to choose both names and they were going to be names I liked. Amena is a Celtic name meaning ‘heather on the hills’ and Bronwen (which I wish I’d have spelled Bronwyn) is Welsh for ‘fair and white’. Very fitting.

This was taken sometime in January.

January 1, 2000.
Amena was one week old and still had her 'bonnet.'
This picture was taken by Rhonda, one of the nurses in GPU.

Isn't she cute? This was taken sometime in the fall of 2000.

Cedric's Birthday, revisited

Life was very stressful between the time Amena was born and the time Cedric was born. After a fairly brief journal entry on March 17, 2001, in which I mention a visit from Daniel Vaniman, I did not write again until August 2 and then only three lines; after that not for another month on September 2. That was a bad month. Then we experienced 9/11. Life across the country mirrored my personal life: STRESS.

Thus, it isn’t until September 12, that I mention anything about a new baby on the way. “The baby seems to be doing fine.”

Marie was going to get married. Finally they set a date and were married Wednesday, October 3. I’d wanted to go but things didn’t work out. We were planning on moving to Idaho though, and since we’d only be about twelve to fourteen hours from Portland, I thought surely we’d be able to visit, “Certainly before this baby comes.”

Sydney left New Mexico to live with her aunt and we dropped Alisha off at the airport in Albuquerque on our way to California for Richard’s funeral as he passed away on November 2. Life was crazy.

On Sunday, December 30, 2001, I wrote: “Last Saturday we had a very interesting experience. I started having contractions about 5am but had no breaking of the water so didn’t worry about it. At 6, I took my usual morning dose of Uterine Toner and contractions kept happening but nothing else. It seemed to me around 9 they began to slow down so close to 10 I took my usual second dose of Uterine Toner.

“Family and McKelvey’s are here so I’ll be back later.”

Finishing the story on January 6, 2002, I wrote: “. . .back to the 22^nd of December. After that second dose of Uterine Toner, contractions were regular and hard. I called Sherri and Sandy who agreed to watch Laura, Joanna, Daniel and Amena. I kept doing things—making beds, getting a suitcase ready, fixing lunch, etc.—until I knew we needed to go NOW. I had a feeling we’d probably waited too long and thought briefly about calling Sherri back to say I wasn’t going anywhere but I really wanted that water birth.

“[We] called Sandy to tell her we might take some of the others but then contractions were really strong ad I said, ‘we’ve got to go NOW. Can she come pick them up?’ She said okay, we went out and Brother McDaniel and his wife arrived with some hay for Freckles.

“We left and I [said] to drive fast but not on the dirt road. [We went] faster on that than I’d’ve liked but plenty fast on the highway.

“Contractions were really hard and very serious. [We] pulled over once to see if I wanted to get in the back which I didn’t so [we] continued. Then I made a loud noise, groan, and [said] if I did it again to pull over. I could feel something bulging between my legs—it was the water bag. [We] pulled over [and I got] in the middle seat and then drove on.

“I’d felt the burning sensation that is associated with the head crowning just before moving back and knew that we’d never make it to town. When we stopped next we were about 8 miles beyond DZ (north) and that’s where we were going to have a baby. I felt something come out. I asked. . . ‘what was that?’ [It was the head.] Next push and out came baby. [I managed to get him under my jumper] and we covered him with two blankets after checking to be sure he was indeed a ‘him.’

“. . .Sherri was waiting for us when we got to her office and got us looked at and in bed.

“Baby’s name is Cedric Jacob.

“Cedric and I are both doing well. He is currently asleep on the couch. He was 7# 4 oz when born (same weight as Laura) and 19 3/4” long. He has dark brown hair and is, of course, terribly cute.

What an experience that was! I need to rest just thinking about it.

Life was incredibly difficult during the time I was pregnant with Cedric. Dan had decided the previous February that he didn’t want to be married to me any longer. He gave me permission to take some of the children, I don’t remember which ones, and leave. He would keep the others. Well, this didn’t set well with me. I’d have been perfectly happy to go but for one thing, if I was, I was going to have all the children with me and I really thought that our marriage was salvageable. Somehow we got through that.

In August, when I was five months pregnant, “Dan took Joanna, Daniel and Amena to pick Laura up from the George’s. To make a long story short, he’d decided he’d had enough and was planning on not coming back. He didn’t until late the next day and that was the worst hell I have ever lived through—much worse than what happened in February.”

It was also around this time that Alicia Chapman told me that someone had told her that I was planning on doing something that could potential hurt her family. She’d heard it from a ‘reliable’ source but refused to tell me who it was. Well, for one thing, I hadn’t said exactly what she had heard I did. For another thing, the only person I had mentioned anything remotely like what she’d heard was to Dan. Who was her source? Dan. I was so angry. I’d heard that extreme emotions have an effect on an unborn child and now I knew it to be true. My baby was affected by my anger and did not move for a full 24 hours.

On a happier note, I had used visualizing during Amena’s birth. I used it during Cedric’s as well, but it didn’t work. I’d been visualizing getting to Sherri’s office and giving birth in the water. Obviously, that didn’t work out. Interestingly, and this is something I just only realized, had we stayed home, the chances of having a water birth would have been greater as we had a garden tub in the master bath. It certainly would have been large enough for laboring in, perhaps giving birth as well.

Cedric was a happy baby and when he was just a few months old, we finally were able to leave New Mexico and move to Idaho.

This picture was taken in late March of 2003 at about the place where Cedric was born. He was born in this van.

This was taken in January of 2002.
For some reason (probably because it was taken before we moved and developed after) it never got dated more specifically.

This was taken in early March of 2002 while we were still in Escrito.

This was taken in March or April of 2002 at Grandma Davis' house in Fort Jones.

 This was taken in the spring of 2002 after our arrival in Idaho.



This is in the summer of 2002 with Blackie.

He loved to snuggle up with Cedric.

Also taken in the summer of 2002.

And this is us in the spring of 2002 at Mt. Hall.