House o' Birth: A Journal on Becoming an Ama

By Joan Logghe
Issue 115, November–December 2002

I dreamed a baby was picketing the produce department. I don't know what she was protesting--maybe she was boycotting grapes. People are shocked that we don't know if the baby will be a boy or a girl. I tell the handsome Fed-Ex driver "No ultrasound," and you'd think I said, "No prenatal care." What I didn't say was, "Not even a wedding." My daughter Corina was named for the song "Corina, Corina" and the poem by Herrick, "Corinna's Going A-Maying." I went into labor on May Day, which used to be celebrated by taking a perfectly respectable tumble in the hay with a village lad. Corina met Chace two years ago on the main street of Madrid, New Mexico. She liked his looks and his sweetness and gave him her number. After my mom's death, when I told her friend, Libby, about the unwed pregnancy, Libby pronounced, "The baby will be a bastard!" She's 95. A few heartbeats later Libby added, "But people don't think that way anymore."

My Aunt Chuty calls during the baby shower. Her real name is Ida. She's the only one left. She says I am the mother and should tell Corina to get married. I think this is a novel thought, me telling a 28 year old what to do. My 17 year old, Hope, says, "Mom, I was going to come to that conclusion myself." I am all about family values but, like the times, they are a'changing. They live together, two neo-hippies, like "someone" and "no one" from the e. e. cummings poem, living in the "pretty how town" of Glorieta.

I am clear with Corina that this is her time to be in control, and that though she's invited me to the birth, if she doesn't want me there, at any time, she must let me know. One of her midwives, Ginny Erdley, was my midwife at Hope's birth. I run into her in town, and she says, "This is getting to be second generation homebirthers." I tell Corina, "You may lose your sense of humor during childbirth." That is code for how worried I am.

I think about the handing over of power in a woman's life. Just think of Snow White. The Old Queen has some major postmenopausal Mom issues about the beauty of the rising daughter. Who is the fairest of them all? My mother was so powerful, a beautician of movie star beauty. It took my father's death for her to hand over the scepter to me, though with the arrival of my kids her respect increased. This year, my mother has died.

Dream scene: a party at Corina's house. The midwife is demonstrating childbirth graphically with a doll. Corina is squatting as Ginny sings a song, "Hush a bye/don't you cry/go to sleep little baby./When you wake/you shall have/all the pretty little horses." For me, the times around a baby make a justifiable bubble of peace. All times should be this way, family as hotbed of peace. This week my husband, Mike, left his job. Not the best timing, as we may have to help out a bit--but hey, hey. We wind our way over to see Chace and Corina. Mike wants to see her again "before she pops." I deliver a Moses basket I bought and sewed bedding for. I sewed. Me--the one who used to sew on a treadle machine. This event is reuniting me with my feminine side, the old crafty side that my husband's Wisconsin people respected. As opposed to the artsy-fartsy side, which was always suspect.

Corina spoke to a friend who channeled the baby. This is New Mexico: we channel everything--dolphins, the Virgin of Guadalupe, and our unborn children. She told Corina the baby would be a healer and a visionary. I do an internal yawn. They never tell you your future child will be a mediocre algebra teacher.

My mother went to a fortune-teller who told her I would be a girl and a ballet dancer. She sent me to ballet lessons. When I was too clumsy to be in the recital she gave up, and I took tap. As an adult I studied belly dancing, and she laughed, "I thought she said ballet dancer, not belly." I wish we could laugh together now. I am laughing for two.

We go out to celebrate Hope's birthday, Mother's Day, and Corina's due date at India Palace. I'm not sure about past lives, but if so, mine was in India. The food feels just right. Corina says that spicy food may induce labor. I'm sure she knows that orgasm does also. My family is so beautiful. We all hang by a thread, and I have been learning to thank God for the thread. Maybe that thread is the line that people see when they have near-death experiences, an etheric umbilical cord.

I have a restless night after the spicy food. I fall asleep only as it gets light and dream the phone rings while I am balancing checkbooks all over the bed. It's Corina, water leaking. I sleep more and dream again that the phone rings and she's crying on the other end. Then the real and confusing daylight phone wakes me up. She asks me how to count when labor begins; she's been up half the night with light contractions. It occurs to me that being a grandmother has an aspect of tourism. I am taking the trip to the mother realms but I don't have to rent the apartment and live there.

I drive down to Glorieta, a nice place for a child to be born. An obstetrician I met recently reacted positively about the homebirth but said, "You won't enjoy the experience. A mother can't stand to see her child suffer." I teach my kids that you can't rely on another person's wisdom. Maybe I will enjoy. I arrive and they have things shipshape in their quirky little house, a super-duper vibe. My other two kids are there--Matt stayed over last night, and Hope arrived to do acupressure points. In my day we didn't know from acupressure points for childbirth; Lamaze class was the sine qua non.