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.