Esther has granted me the gift of reliving the experience of giving birth through her. It’s so much easier as a grandmother, but the joy and the love and all the overwhelming feelings are just as wonderful as they were each of the six times I birthed my own children. Tears and smiles come so easily this week and I feel like I’m glowing with happiness. I love little Michael (Esther calls him Misha) more than I knew I could love anyone, and I long to hold him with all my might.
I hoped for pictures of a newborn baby on the Monday after I left Ohio, but all they sent were pictures of Esther and John Ben watching the total eclipse with special glasses. As Esther’s original due date passed, anytime I went anywhere my friends asked me if there was a baby. I thought about Esther showing up to classes and having everyone exclaiming over her and asking her when the baby would come.
I answered as I imagined Esther would, “Any day now.”
Esther woke up Wednesday morning April 10 with a lot of contractions, but she had had false starts before, so she focused on her work and tried to ignore them. By midmorning, her contractions were about thirty seconds long and ten minutes apart and she was entering everything into the app on her phone. I had to use a stopwatch back in my day. When I was out with her, we took some walks along a nature trail near her house where she watched me play on a maze of downed tree trunks. On Wednesday she and John Ben followed our footsteps down and back up the three stories of cement stairs. She took a nap and then had John Ben drive with her over the potholes behind Walmart to get things moving.
We had a Lenten presanctified liturgy on Wednesday evening. Before the service, Esther called to tell me her contractions were regular and strong. She thought it was the real deal. I told Mike, his mom, and our friends at the service, and we all lit candles for them. While we were in church praying for her, she called the birthing team, her doula Kateri, midwife Donna, and Donna’s student midwife Hannah. Esther warned me in a text that she would maintain radio silence until the morning, but I took my phone off of silent to be ready to hear news at any time.
A call came in at ten that wasn’t her, but I woke up and prayed for her some more. I woke up again at two and again at five. It was a sort of prayer vigil.
Kateri arrived first since she lived nearby. She helped them set up the pack-and-play bassinet and played Skip-Bo at the dining room table. The midwives arrived an hour later and set up the birthing tub in the living room. The contractions were getting stronger, and Esther had to stop in her tracks and sway in a hug with John Ben with every contraction. Around midnight they headed up to bed so Esther could try to sleep between contractions. The contractions were easier to surf there.
Esther thought to herself, “It’s my own body-it’s not going to hurt me.”
After an hour or so Esther wasn’t sleeping and felt too restless to lay there. She let John Ben sleep while her doula took her back downstairs to the birthing tub. The contractions didn’t slow down, and she didn’t find relief there.
As labor intensified, she went back upstairs to the comfort of her bed and labored on her side. John Ben woke up and helped her through the contractions. At first, the doula insisted that she change her position every few minutes, but she could only get through the contractions lying on her left side. Every time she turned to the right side, the contractions turned into painful back labor. She stayed on her left side with one knee up until the baby was born.
She became nauseous, and for two hours she thought for sure she would throw up with every contraction. John Ben applied pressure to her hip and held a barf bowl for her. Then she felt pelvic pressure and asked them to see if she was dilated. After all that work, she felt there should have been progress, but she was only at a three. The midwife didn’t give her the exact number, but Esther was discouraged.
A couple of minutes later, Esther threw up and her water broke. She couldn’t move her body and only responded to John Ben. Her midwife noticed that she was lying on her arm at a bad angle. Her arm had gone completely numb. It took three people to move her to a better position, but some damage had been done. Her arm muscles were sore for days after the birth. John Ben dozed between contractions but woke up to apply pressure to her hip for every contraction. After her water broke, the contractions came in pairs, a severe contraction followed by a milder contraction with no break between them. John Ben stayed at his station until both contractions had passed and then dozed again for the break between them.
As the sun came up, Esther felt the pressure to push. They wanted her to go downstairs to the tub or get up and move to a different position to push but moving felt impossible. They wedged her knees up for leverage and let her push away. Compared to the contractions that came before, pushing was a breeze. John Ben even noticed that she smiled while pushing. The baby crowned over the first four or five contractions and then Esther pushed his head and body out in one go. She felt him flying out.
He was a boy!
John Ben said, “Keep pushing!”
Esther laughed and said, “There’s no more to push!”
Then the baby began to cry, and John Ben burst into tears too.
They laid the baby on Esther’s chest for about thirty minutes until Esther was sure that he was okay. She handed him over to John Ben so the midwives could clean her up, stitch her up, and help her move so the bed could be remade. Once she was settled back down, she and John Ben called their mothers and then took turns napping and holding the baby.
They named him Michael Joseph Alosius Berry after Mike and Pope Benedict. He was eight pounds and two ounces and twenty-one inches long.
Esther sounded happy when she called, “I’m so tired. I labored all night, but the baby is out.”
“Is it a boy or a girl?”
“It’s a boy.”
“What’s his name?”
“Michael”
As soon as she hung up, she texted me a couple of pictures. I was teaching Basil Calculus at the time, so he was the first sibling to know. Then I called Mike and Coryn and texted my friends. As soon as the period ended I ran down the stairs to find Justin and Xenia.
Along the way, I shouted, “It’s a boy!” to everyone who could hear and showed everyone the pictures. I felt like I was glowing with the love I have for my grandson. The love for a grandchild is different than the love of spouse and children, so huge and wonderful and truly grand! All my beautiful memories of giving birth the joy and the relief and the wonder flooded through my brain and were magnified and were so much better for not being the one who labored. Being a grandmother is all that my friends and relatives have told me and more.
My fellow teachers exclaimed and congratulated me and hugged me. So much joy this little guy brought into the world with him. My phone texts blew up my phone, and I had to put it away for my last class.
Then I went home and celebrated with Mike before joining Esther in napping for the rest of the afternoon.
Breastfeeding has been challenging. It’s a learning curve for both baby and mama, but there’s so much help to be had. Esther consulted the local lactation specialist and called in another specialist a few days later. The baby is tongue-tied and lip-tied and is scheduled for laser surgery in May. He can bottle feed until then.
I miss John Ben and Esther and have such a longing for my grandson that I’ve never felt before. I miss my mom too which makes me so thankful for Coryn’s motherly presence in my life. Esther’s mother-in-law is with them now. I’m willing to wait a few weeks. We celebrate Pascha late this year on May fifth and a week and a half later our school ends. If Esther, John Ben, and Michael aren’t on a plane by then, I may have to jump on one myself.
Come baby Misha come to me, I yearn to hold you.
Please continue to keep them in your prayers.
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