Saturday, Three/Seventeen

Good-bye for now...

I waited to see your lifeless body…

for four days following the visit to the hospital.

Your life began on a Sunday night

out of passion two became one.

You were confused and you were on your own

and mommy could not show you the way,

A part of you went the wrong direction

And I’m really sorry that I could not change that.

We loved you - your father and I and all of your brothers and sisters,

and one day we will be together again

souls reunited,

and you can find comfort with your mommy again.

Saturday morning…

Pain woke me up... now holding my breath and rocking, hurts... I am picturing the scene from the ‘Blue Lagoon’ when she is alone in the woods giving birth, screaming “RICHARD”, only it’d be in Spanish of course and switched to Ricardo. The pain is very intense, alone, not knowing...

Not sure what to expect right now. Is this labor, and it all just happens at once? Should I get a bucket or something? Or is this just the beginning of a drawn out painful period? Oh God it hurts like hell. If he were here he would be making me hot tea. His look would be comforting and strong. I would hide inside his arms up against his chest and cry, nice and safe and warm.

Is this that private of a moment that I should be alone? I am confused. I guess logically, it is nothing more than a really bad day on my part. That is if it is only a day. I am hoping a few hours tops because in a few hours everyone will be awake, then what? The kids will want breakfast.

Its slightly worse than cramps, close to a contraction. It is in my stomach and stretching around like a belt into my lower back. Yes same but different. It is coming and going…

I chose to do this instead of the DNC, they did offer. I am not one who likes intervention. I rarely take aspirin for pain, etc. My past 5 out of 6 births were without any intervention. I like to do it myself and no one messing with me. If it were up to me, which I guess it always has been I would have had all of them at home… there is some kind of illusion that we are not to do that though.

Even still I wish Ricardo was with me right now. I don’t know what we would get out of this memory or anything like that, but as far as how I feel right now, I need him.

I figured the DNC sounded damaging, scarring, all of that… the word scraping and “we’ll go in” turned me off right away. I told them I would just wait to have things take care of themselves.

I was not told what to expect and I did not think to ask. I will say that surprisingly it is turning into a round of contractions with breaks in between, and they are getting worse. The first one woke me out of a deep sleep. Yup - having one right now it is building up and intense and the same, a contraction – helps to rock. Okay over… lasted about a minute, two in between….

Okay had enough, I’m waking up my 12 year old daughter. I cannot do this alone. It is way too overboard on the physical pain level…

Sunday morning…

That was around 8am… it first started at 6am.

I continued this labor of contractions lasting a minute with roughly 2 or 3 minutes break in between. Each contraction would start small and tighten and build up strength to a peak in intensity, then hold there for a bit, then die back down… I did this for 7 hours drifting off to sleep between these contractions, with my 13 yr old son Julian checking on me. I remained in the bed staring at a photo of Ricardo and I with our arms around each other standing in front of a volcano in Puebla Mexico, and fell asleep for a few hours bringing my day into the afternoon and I got out of bed for the first time about 3pm. Awaking somewhat refreshed and decided to take a bath, as I had passed a lot of blood… also thinking it would make me feel better.

It is no surprise. When it is bath-time for mommy, Catherine usually jumps in… then Eliott will come in to the bathroom to check out what is going on, get a smirk, and strip down and jump in too - throwing the pile of toys in before his own body. Accustomed to the crowd during my own bath, I have learned to let go of the ideal of that relaxing bath moment. This bath was no surprise for that reason. Bath-time with mommy did not escape the “birth” of my labor’s efforts throughout the morning. I had my privacy this time, and in that private moment I met the handful of what my growing baby once was… a little mango-sized pod that held a sleeping baby inside.

I put her in one of my pair less socks, and buried him under the chestnut tree with flowers planted on top.

That was the end of our romantic conception on January eighth followed by my flight at Christmas to Mexico. That was the end of the name choices and the small effort to gather up maternity shirts as I sold what I had previous in my front yard and out of my van in Mexico for extra money two years ago. That was the end of the October Halloween baby that we welcomed with a smile.

She will always be loved by her mom and papa. We will never forget him…

My husband was told over the phone about my experience after the fact. He said sorry, I love you.

I need him for closure. I physically need him to emotionally move on.

But for now, until then, a temporary wall will be there.

I am getting to be quite the wall builder.