Happy Birthday Paloma!

Today Paloma turned 6 years old. It doesn't seem that long ago that my little doodle was born. My pregnancy with Paloma was such a blur, but I do remember it as the time when Steve and Giulia bonded. I weaned Giulia during those first few months of my pregnancy as it was too fatiguing for me to continue and she was ready anyway. Steve used to take her out a lot to get her mind off of breastfeeding as well as giving me time to myself - to sleep and take it easy. During this period, I would often catch my reflection or a glimpse in a mirror and then suddenly remember I was pregnant. The first pregnancy is the most self-indulgent - after that, you just don't have the time.

I could have easily had a home birth with Paloma (and Viola as well), but I was still shell-shocked from my attempt with Giulia so I never considered it again. When I discovered I was pregnant with #2, I called my midwife, Valeria, to tell her the news and instead of telling me congratulations, she was actually quite negative about it and said she couldn't believe it since I had been so adamant against repeating the birth experience. Well what woman in the throes of labor doesn't say she will never ever do it again??? Because of her attitude - my hormones raging and feeling rebuffed, I decided to choose someone else to help me.

An acquaintance highly recommended Evelina Alpi, an Italian gynecologist, who had a practice in San Giovanni which was conveniently located near Celio our former neighborhood. I would take the bus down once a month, wait in the waiting room for at least one hour (she was always late), be told that I was gaining too much weight (very typical thing to say here in Italy to pregnant women), but told more or less that everything was fine. After several months I found out that she smoked. Being an ex-smoker, I find smoking by anyone in the health profession to be an intolerable hypocrisy, but at that point, we were too far along for me to consider finding someone else.

On the morning of 13 July 2002, it had been an entire night of slowly losing my water. With all three pregnancies my water has broken in a drip, drip, drip, drip manner that lasts overnight. I went to see my midwife, Oriana, who worked for Dr. Alpi. It turns out I was already 3cm dilated and didn't even know it. She told me to go home, have a light lunch and come back around 2pm, but that if I started to have contractions at anytime in between to come as quickly as possible to the clinic. I went home, had spaghetti alla carbonara (so much for light), relaxed a bit and then headed to the clinic.

We met Dr. Alpi and Oriana in the delivery room. Dr. Alpi checked me and I was already 5cm without feeling so much as a twinge. She suggested putting me on oxytocin to get the ball rolling - in retrospect, I'm sure so she could have the night off. They put the IV in and then both my doctor and midwife decided to go downstairs (we were on the 4th floor) for a coffee and cigarette in the bar. They even asked Steve he wanted to come. As Steve and I sat there, chatting and making jokes, I had a slight contraction and felt that I had to urinate so I asked if he could help me with the IV to the bathroom. After a minute or two, I stood up and as I stood up, I felt a contraction like I have never had before - it literally felt as if I had been thrown through the ceiling. I sat back down and yelled to Steve that the baby was coming, but I was in such pain and such shock I couldn't move. Unknown to me, he was looking around in the hallway and there might as well have been tumbleweeds rolling past - no one was around. Finally, he found a nurse and told her to call Dr. Alpi down at the bar.

Steve and another nurse managed to get me to the bed and Steve tried to put me in one of the many more natural birthing positions like I had used for Giulia, but I literally could not move. The baby's head was crowning and they had to throw me on the bed and I sat there like a bug that's rolled over on it's back - my entire body was stiff, in a state of shock. In less than 15 minutes, Paloma arrived and unknown to me at the time was born blue as she had the cord wrapped a couple of times around her neck. Also unknown at the time was that the IV drip had not been locked so when I moved to the bathroom, the oxytocin came out in a full rush - so essentially I was overdosed on it.

My first full glimpse of Paloma's face made such an impression on me - her little brows knitted together in a look that said - "Why am I here? What's going on?" - a look that has lasted to this day. She's my quiet girl - those still waters run deep - and these past 6 years have unfortunately gone by so quickly and I guiltily cannot remember a lot that passed when she was a baby. Looking back, I think I suffered a bit from post-partum depression although I didn't know it at the time. It was a confusing period for me and I wasted a lot of time on worthless projects.

But not anymore. Steve and I are homeschooling Paloma this coming school year. We have many reasons we want to do it, but one of them is in hopes of really getting to know her better. Paloma is so free, so sweet and so alive - I am excited about exploring her world together.