the birth of vivienne claire
by emily ankeney, david ankeney, mia ankeney, and jan verhaege

the mama:
Early on the morning of January 22nd, I sensed that labor was imminent. Light cramps were pulsing through my abdomen and lower back. I had this giddy feeling, an odd mixture of elation and nervousness. I assured myself that this birth would be different, free from the complications and disappointments of my first. Over and over, I told myself to surrender to the moment. It became my mantra. I thought about my grandmother who gave birth years before me, unassisted and all alone in the German countryside. This innate wisdom was in my bones and I needed only trust my body. My mild contractions brought a feeling of deep satisfaction. Many times over I would visualize my baby, nudging her way through my cervix and down the birth canal. By noon, the intensity was rising and I knew for certain that I was in labor. I kept myself busy addressing birth announcement envelopes, and encouraged David to drop off Mom and Mia (our three-year-old) at the park as he left to run errands. I was craving solitude and quiet.

Chanting music echoed through the house and the repetitive drones calmed my mind. I remembered reading a birth story where the woman eased herself through heavy labor with a belly dancer’s thrusts, and so I tried to move my body through my contractions. The waves of discomfort crashed again and again. They were feeling stronger but inconsistent, sometimes three minutes apart, then ten minutes, then six. I kept waiting for them to be spaced in even intervals. After a while, I noticed that I couldn’t write more than one envelope without pausing. I’d stop during my contraction and walk around, gently thrusting and rotating my hips. I called the midwives and impatiently waited for David, Mom and Mia to return. I had no idea how far labor had progressed, but I anticipated a long haul. By the time they got home, our hospital bag was packed and I was pacing like mad. David and I kissed our sweet Mia and hurried off.

The twenty miles to Park Ridge seemed to take eons. For the first few miles, we were talking and laughing one minute, and the next minute I was shouting for him to just shut up. David watched my moans turn to bellows and went heavy on the gas. He started driving like a madman, beeping and flashing cars out of the passing lane. But I was so eager to get out of my seatbelt, I didn’t object for long. David kept telling me to hang tight; we were almost there. His voice was gentle and affirming. As we approached the exit, my contractions came flooding one on top of the other. I could feel my baby’s head pressing down. Breathe; keep calm, I told myself. I really didn’t know how I was going to make it to the second floor. As David raced ahead to find a wheelchair, I waddled in behind him. I tried to get as far as possible before the next contraction. Despite my urge to leap up the stairwell, I was coaxed into the chair. The wait for the elevator was torture and I pleaded with the doors to open.

We asked if the room with the large tub was available, (later we laughed about the ridiculous timing of this request). A courteous young nurse asked me for a urine sample. I walked toward the bathroom, fell to me knees, and flung the cup across the floor. More nurses came in and began rushing around me as I threw on my hospital gown and climbed onto the bed. Thankfully, Jan was already at the hospital and quickly checked me. She told me as soon as my bulging water bag breaks, that my baby was coming. The next minute, I felt a huge gush. I felt it flood over my thighs, across the bed and splash onto the cold floor. Jan said to listen to my body and I starting pushing. It was intense and exhilarating to feel my baby’s body shifting with every push. I could hardly believe it how fast she was coming down. These strange sounds were coming from deep within my gut, helping me to move her out. I was terrified of tearing as she crowned, but warm compresses and Jan’s words of encouragement helped immensely. I felt the strength of a warrior woman, proud and raging with love.

Before I knew it she was squirming on my chest. This perfect, beautiful little person who I waited for so many months to meet had finally arrived—my Vivienne Claire. Her hair was thick and damp, her skin smelled sweet and earthy. I was in awe. I recognized her cry as kin, the voice of my own heart. She squinted and blinked her eyes and I draped a sheet to guard her from the bright hospital lights. The nurses rushed around us for hours, catching up on the admittance papers. David returned home to bring Mia to see her new baby sister. I could not take my eyes off this fresh nursling, holding her skin to mine as I breathed her in. It was as if the world fell away and there was only her and me, basking in sweet surrender of that moment.

the papa:
“When is your wife going to have the baby?” asked the fireman, attempting to wrestle the new infant seat into the back of our car. I looked at my watch in jest. “Sometime today, maybe tomorrow, possibly an hour,” I said, slightly embarrassed by my obvious last minute preparations. No sooner had I finished the sentence than the cell phone in my coat pocket rang. It was Emily; we were going to have a baby. And from the tone of her voice, an hour didn’t really seem that unrealistic anymore. I thanked the fireman for his help and sped away from the station.

After a time-consuming en route stop by the park, I pulled into our driveway with our daughter Mia and Emily’s mother now in the back seat. Em was pacing around the sunroom impatiently. I hastily orchestrated an exchange of passengers and after a frenzy of good-byes, Emily and I were on our way to Park Ridge Hospital.
The fifteen-minute ride to the hospital was virtually a blur, not just because I drove a wee bit faster than usual, but also due to the rapid pace at which Emily’s contractions were advancing. Just beyond the approximate halfway mark during the ride, they consistently started coming every two minutes, then every minute. Then one sneaked in just under forty-five seconds. “Why are you driving so fast?!” Em continuously asked. And though I feebly replied “It just seems like we’re going fast” each time, I couldn’t stop thinking to myself I am going to deliver our baby on an off ramp.

Our car lurched into the ER drop-off and I ran in to get a wheelchair. Emily had her own plan and continued to amble in behind me, like a very pregnant Frankenstein with a bad back. “I don’t want to ride in a wheel chair!” she protested breathlessly, advancing down the long hall in three-foot increments. Luckily, an attendant insisted that she take the ride and we zipped down the hall and into the elevator.

The OB was buzzing efficiently and I took a deep breath. People have babies every day, all over the world, I told myself. This basic sociological fact comforted me and while the nurses guided us into a room, I wondered how many other men in far away places were about to become fathers.

Once inside our room, I could tell from looking at Emily’s face (and from her increasingly loud groans) that she was very ready to deliver. A nurse asked Em for a urine sample, but instead she fell to the floor, releasing a wail to let everyone within a five-mile radius know that she was about to have her baby. We regrouped on the bed and Jan, who was delivering another baby just next door, strode in calmly, just in time for Emily’s water to break. The nurses’ eyes met Jan’s and then everyone, including me, moved into position.

From that point on I pretty much did, well, nothing. Of course I encouraged and comforted Emily every way I could—I coached her with each push, I gave her water and let her squeeze my hand until it was purple—but she was in another world. I could tell that she was where she needed to be and I didn’t want to break her intense focus. So instead, I decided to just be quietly supportive, a very different role from the one I had played during Mia’s rather grueling birth, nearly three years earlier.

This time, however, I knew that Emily was determined to have our baby with no intervention, as did Jan, who confidently guided Emily along. “Do what your body tells you to do,” she repeated soothingly to Emily, “just do what your body tells you.”

After one final push Vivienne Claire was lying before us, her smooth body trembling in the stark light of the hospital. I was elated to meet Vivienne at last, and so very proud of Emily for using her body and will in such a powerful way. This had been an idyllic birth experience, for her especially, and she really deserved it. We sat there for over an hour, more than twice as long as the actual delivery took, just looking at Vivienne. Though she had just come into the world so quickly, she had a tranquil look on her face as she effortlessly latched onto Emily’s breast. I cut the umbilical cord and stroked her warm, pink skin.

As I was taking care of the bypassed paperwork, Emily suddenly remembered our camera. “Where are the car keys?” she asked.

I went downstairs and walked out the front door of the ER to find our keys still in the ignition of our running car, its doors open wide, as though two people had exited with something very pressing to do. Driving back to pick up Mia from our house, I thought about how fortunate I was to have her and Emily, and now Vivienne. Our lives as a family had been so rich and this new person would merely add to our bliss. The fact that our car had not been stolen didn’t even cross my mind.

the big sister:
“What did you think when mama and daddy went to the hospital when viv was born?”

Mia: “I cried...I was sad, I missed you (mama & daddy).”

“What did you think of your new baby sister when you first got to see her?”
Mia: “Hi! I want you! You’re just right!”

“Do you remember what you told her when you first saw her?”

Mia: “I love you for always and for always.”

the midwife:
When Emily first came to New Dawn, I was impressed with her determination to have a different birth experience from her first birth which had taken place in Oregon in a hospital with an obstetrician with every intervention in the book. It had gone on for 19 hours with 3 1/2 hours of pushing. During this current pregnancy she had done a lot of work around the issues of her first birth.  Her expectations were high but tempered by that first experience. And, while I could make no promises, I knew that second births are often a lot easier and shorter than first births.  However, I cautioned there are no guarantees in birth.

Emily and David left Oregon to be closer to family in the East, and they chose Asheville because they heard midwifery  was available here.  She and David interviewed at New Dawn expressing their desire for a home birth feeling that this as their best chance to avoid unnecessary interventions and for Emily to find the space to birth naturally.  Although she brought her prenatal record with her and there were no apparent problems at seven months, she had come to us too late to qualify for a home birth.  They were disappointed but somewhat reassured when we told them they probably could have a water birth at Park Ridge Hospital and that they would like the atmosphere there which is very supportive of midwifery and of non-interventive births.

I envisioned a 5 to 6 hour labor with a beautiful birth in the water birth room with their experience being all they hoped for.  I should know that birth is unpredictable.The day Emily went into labor, I was at the hospital attending another woman and arrived in Emily’s room just as she was making her way onto the bed.  I was disappointed the water birth room was not available and that we were in the smallest birthing room and that I had been up for quite awhile.  I was afraid I could not give Emily and David what they wanted and what they had come to New Dawn to try to achieve.

As I opened the door I heard Emily making the sound a woman makes when she is in the last stages of labor and has completely surrendered to the forces of birth.  It is like the roar of a mighty storm.  I knew we would be having a baby soon.  With David at her side, Emily managed her radiant smile between contractions. I was not surprised to find her completely dilated and the baby low in the birth canal.  The nurses quickly had a delivery table ready and everyone took some deep breaths as we watched in awe as Emily calmly and confidently brought her baby to the crowning stage then followed instructions to slow down and ease the baby out.  The entire room was in tears when her perfectly beautiful infant daughter was placed skin to skin on her chest and let out that first reassuring cry.  Emily and David were radiant.  They had been in the hospital less than half an hour.

I would like to have lingered and savored the moment but I was needed back in the other room. It was only the next day that I had time to reflect on the power of birth and the fact that Emily had her ideal birth after all.  It wasn’t at home or in the water.  It had nothing to do with her attendants or where she was, but was the result of her “work” and the support of David and her willingness to go to the place of surrender that is required for natural birth.  I would think of her ecstatic smile and David’s obvious pride in her accomplishment many times in the coming months.

emily ankeney and david ankeney reside in Asheville with their two spirited girls, Mia and Vivienne. They spend most of their time outdoors, looking for secret parks and other hidden treasures. They can be reached ankeney@earthlink.net.