It’s shaping up to be a good year:

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1. The Barefoot Sisters: Southbound, by Lucy and Susan Letcher

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2. Sacred Influence, by Gary Thomas

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3. The Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley

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4. In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor’s Journey in the Saudi Kingdom, by Qanta Ahmed

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5. The Eve Tree: A Novel, by Rachel Devenish Ford

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6. Family Friendly Farming, by Joel Salatin

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7. Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins

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8. Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins

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9. The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin

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10. Emma, by Jane Austen

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11. Bringing It to the Table, by Wendell Berry

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12. The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears, by Dinaw Mingestu

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13. Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese

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14. The Eternal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot

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15. The Connected Child, by Karyn Purvis, et al.

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16. Anthem, by Ayn Rand

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17. When Helping Hurts, by Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett

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18. Leadership Education: The Phases of Learning, by Oliver DeMille, et al.

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19. Every Body Matters, by Gary Thomas

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20. The Power of Positive Thinking, by Norman Vincent Peale

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21. Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Creativity and Writing, by and/or others by L.L. Barkat

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22. Doctrine, by Mark Driscoll

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23. Hinds’ Feet on High Places, by Hannah Hurnard

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What books will shape your year?  My list is already long, but if I had to add just one more book, what do you think it should be?

2011 was a year of pregnancy and birth, with two bigger boys rollicking through the house.  That considered, I am very happy with what all books fell into my hands this past year.  Here is the complete list:

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1. The Glass Castle: A Memoir, by Jeanette Walls.  Raw and disturbing, and a beautiful read nonetheless.  Walls reflects on her years growing up under the (non)supervision of her parents.  The parents end up homeless; she ends up a writer for MSNBC.

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2. Creative Connection, by Linda Dillow.  Kind of made me yawn for the most part, with little kicks in the pants here and there in helping me remember how to value my husband.

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3. The Emotionally Healthy Church: A Strategy for Discipleship that Actually Changes Lives, by Peter Scazzero.  Good.  A church that’s vulnerable and transparent?  Who’d-a thought it?

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4. In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, by Michael Pollan.  Not as memorable as The Omnivore’s Dilemma, but definitely another log to the fire in the category of responsible eating.

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5. The Hunger Games, Book 1, by Suzanne Collins.  Okay, it really made me mad, to tell you to the truth.  I was completely hooked to the story (Good job, Collins.), but it didn’t resolve.  At the time, I believe I said Collins has bowed to the sick government of marketing, just as the characters in her story have bowed to Panem.  I vowed not to buy any of the books (but I’m not sure I can keep from reading them).

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6. Labor of Love: A Midwife’s Memoir, by Cara Muhlhahn. Not a literary masterpiece, by any stretch of the imagination. Maybe worth the free Kindle download.

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7. The Witches, by Roald Dahl.  I listened to the audio on the sneak because I knew my then-4-year-old Isaiah would be entranced.  It was fascinating, spooky, exciting.  I never liked hearing about witches until Roald Dahl tackled them.

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8. Organic Disciplemaking, by Dennis McCallum and Jessica Lowery.  There’s a lot here for a baby disciplemaker such as I am.  It wasn’t the most riveting read, but it gave me good things to chew on.

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9. Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering, by Sarah Buckley.  Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.  This book is filled with research regarding common pregnancy and birth issues such as gestational diabetes, cord clamping, ultrasounds, cosleeping, and more.  Buckley treats you like someone with a brain.  An important book.

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10. Memoirs of a Woman Doctor, by Nawal El Saadawi.  A short, worthwhile story of a female doctor in a male-dominated Egyptian society.

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11. Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back, by Todd Burpo.  Although I had my suspicions, it was hard to argue with this boy’s account.  Read it for no other reason than to join in a discussion with the scads of people who have already read the book.  It actually came at a timely moment for me, in helping shape my view of Jesus as warm and relatable.

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12. The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver.   You know how it is when really good novels just seem to scream with life, their stories just bursting to be told?  This is one of those.  It made me good and angry.

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13. Till We Have Faces, by C.S. Lewis.  My favorite novel of the year.  The characters are so entrancing, and the story so complex, you may want to start the book over as soon as you’ve finished.  I’m pretty sure I’ll have to reread it in the next couple years.  This novel — a retelling of a Greek myth — is much different than Lewis’s other works.

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14. Generous Justice, by Timothy Keller.  A worthwhile discussion of the theology and practice behind extending justice.  Effective and fairly short.  Chapters five and six are my favorites.

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15. Better Birthing with Hypnosis, by Michelle LeClaire O’Neill.  Meh.  The book includes some valuable exercises for preparing for labor, but the method seems too stringent to warrant its own book.

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16.  Birthing from Within, by Pam England and Rob Horowitz.  So beautiful and versatile, this childbirth preparatory book helped me more fully enjoy my pregnancy through rest, meditation, and especially artwork.

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17. Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, by Anne Lamott.  A refreshing re-read for me, but not as surprising or funny the second time around.  Maybe I’m getting used to her.  But still, Anne Lamott and I — we’re soul sisters.

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18. A Mother’s Heart, by Jean Fleming.  A slightly inspiring read on how to dream God-sized dreams for your children.  Was it about that?  That’s what it made me think I probably ought to do, but my brain is a little fuzzy, as I read this in bed in the days after Ray was born.  I think it could be good, but I didn’t put much energy into reading it.

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19. The Help, by Kathryn Stockett.  What can I say?  It was a good read, with dynamic characters, but mostly it made me mad.  Not because of the racism that happens throughout the story (though it is maddening), but because, in 2009, this book still had to be written by a white woman.  Really?

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20. Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for WomenWorldwide, by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. Could this be required reading for every American?  Please?  In raising awareness and inspiring action concerning injustices toward women, this book is a gold mine.

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21. Possessing the Secret of Joy, by Alice Walker.  An intense novel, and an appropriate follow-on to issues raised in Half the Sky.  It is not for the faint of heart.

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22. Love in the Driest Season, by Neely Tucker.  Not a book I could fall in love with, this account chronicles a Washington Post journalist’s adoption of a girl from Zimbabwe.  Accidentally(?) raises questions about the international adoption scene.

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23. One Bite at a Time, by Tsh Oxenrider.  Good as a list of ways to organize your house; not good as a “book.”  Do e-books give themselves the license to be sub-par in quality?

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24. How Children Learn, by John Holt.  Holt’s personal case studies create their own argument for valuing the natural intelligence of children.  I recommend this for all parents and teachers of young children.

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25. One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp.  Although I failed to savor the second half, this New York Times bestseller is climbing the charts for a reason: it really is a good book.  Beautifully written.  Life-changing.

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26. A Modern Girl’s Guide to Bible Study, by Jen Hatmaker. If you’ve seen the cover of this baby, you know why I was suspicious.  Although I could ditch her spicy, girly tales with which she tries to draw you, Hatmaker’s application tips for studying the Bible are the real deal.  Empowering.

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If you’ve recorded your reads for 2011, post a link in the comments.  I’d love to have a peek at your bookshelves!

Coming soon… the list of books vying for my attention in 2012!

Though the logistical side became my little pet, my waiting for people at a peopleless meeting pointed me to the reason for it all: life.  And the meeting was empty.  My stab at life came up empty.  Well, not entirely; there was Baby Ray, squirming in his wrap.  Ray cried in the coffee shop, and I found myself outside rocking him.  I couldn’t find any anger for him because rocking him is my purpose.  A friend happened to come by my table, and we connected over one commonality: we both had spent our morning glued to the blog posts we were writing while our children needed us, grew frustrated without our attention.  Life was happening, and I was stretching for more, more, more, as if  three noisy, beautiful-eyed boys weren’t enough.

So after the coffee shop — a ladies’ night where I was the only lady — I went home again and pondered over what the purpose of an organization is without people to organize.  It’s a grasping in the dark, really — grasping for more glamorous substitutes than the real people with real stories who sit on my couch.   People who don’t need more events.  I can send all the emails in the world, create a Mosaic logo, create a personal “Carrie Beyer” logo, for crying out loud, and never come up with an ounce of real connection.  My husband encouraged me to take a break from the computer for the evening.

In the aftermath, I peeled myself away from my Facebook account, permanently.  It sounds drastic, doesn’t it?  Why would I…?  I mean, Facebook?  (Apparently, Facebook thinks it’s drastic, too.  They don’t actually erase your account for another two weeks just in case you change your mind.)

I just couldn’t shake the image of my boys and how much they need me right now.  There’s barely enough of me to go around, and if I’m filling my time with cheap substitutes for real life, there most certainly isn’t enough.  Cloning may sound appealing, but until I am made superhuman, I only have one face.  I have one pair of eyes to lock with someone dear to me.  I have two arms for holding, one set of lips to press against another’s.  My brain cannot process the depth of everyone’s stories.  If I were to track all the lives of all the people I have ever known (read: Facebook), there would not be space in me to contain them.

But I have my strong husband to lie with at night.  I have two boys bursting with ideas and words and energy, and another who prefers to stay cuddled against my breasts.  In our open spaces in life, we swing wide our doors to new friends and old ones, while they widen our world with their stories.  And so I have to let substitutes go.  There is only me.  There is only here.  There is only now.

Me, here and now, is good.  (Me is good.  How do you like that for a sentence?)  Me, here and now, is a house in a college neighborhood, sidewalks adorned with chalk and newly fallen leaves.  It is shelves of books, but only one at a time.  It is blonde, black, and brown haired boys, superhero underwear, and pee-soaked diapers.  Me, here and now, is supper in our kitchen when we can; it is always dishes, always laundry, and always traversing the obstacle course of toys.

The routines of cooking, feeding, cleaning, talking, digging, swinging, and making love sustain our lives and bring health.  It is in stirring pancake batter with Ari that I fall deeply in love with him through warnings, laughter, and flour.  I watch Isaiah wield a plastic sword and claim his knighthood and am drawn to his boy-man courage.  And my breasts let down milk and out pours my heart all over Ray.

Listen to Wendell Berry’s words from his necessary cultural epistle The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture:

Connection is health.  And what our society does its best to disguise from us is how ordinary, how commonly attainable, health is.  We lose our health—and create profitable diseases and dependences—by failing to see the direct connections between living and eating, eating and working, working and loving.  In gardening, for instance, one works with the body to feed the body.  The work, if it is knowledgeable, makes for excellent food.  And it makes one hungry.  The work thus makes eating both nourishing and joyful, not consumptive, and keeps the eater from getting fat and weak.  This is health, wholeness, a source of delight.  And such a solution, unlike the typical industrial solution, does not cause new problems.

The ‘drudgery’ of growing one’s own food, then is not drudgery at all.  (If we make the growing of food a drudgery, which is what ‘agribusiness’ does make of it, then we also make a drudgery of eating and of living.)  It is—in addition to being the appropriate fulfillment of a practical need—a sacrament, as eating is also, by which we enact and understand our oneness with the Creation, the conviviality of one body with all bodies.  This is what we learn from the hunting and farming rituals of tribal cultures.

As the connections have been broken by the fragmentation and isolation of work, they can be restored by restoring the wholeness of work.  There is work that is isolating, harsh, destructive, specialized or trivialized into meaninglessness.  And there is work that is restorative, convivial, dignified and dignifying, and pleasing.  Good work is not just the maintenance of connections—as one is not said to work ‘for a living’ or ‘to support a family’—but the enactment of connections.  It is living, and a way of living; it is not support for a family in the sense of an exterior brace or prop, but is one of the forms and acts of love.

So, drudgery: begone!  It exists, to be sure, but not in the hanging of laundry on the line and not in the jumble of forks and spoons in my dishwasher.  Work and sweat, people — elbows, toenails, and all — these are the ingredients of life, the very fabric of the heart, and the resurrectors of passion and purpose.

Shoot.  I’m losing my edge.  It must have something to do with it being 10.30 at night while two audio tracks are playing at once in the living room and I’m a wee bit tired from breastfeeding at regular intervals at night for eight weeks running.  I am not complaining, I promise you: I love it.  Well, all except the two audio tracks playing at once.  And maybe being tired isn’t what I’d order off a menu, but I am a happy mama.  Ready to hear my secrets?

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1. Encapsulated happiness

Soooo…  I’m eating my placenta.  Yes, I just said that.  I haven’t had the guts to tell many people about my secret to postpartum happiness.  I didn’t want to gross anybody out, you know.  But then I figured, hey, the gross-out factor for things is always highest the first time, right?  If I’m willing to be the bearer of this news, then every time you hear of placenta use from here on out, the more mainstream it’ll sound.  Doesn’t that just make you feel better already?

To be honest,  placenta ingestion is on an upward trend, according to my bit of  personal research anyway.  My midwife estimated that last year, ten percent of her clients took their placentas in pill form; this year, it’s 50 percent.  This isn’t a new thing, by the way.  Dig around the web and read articles like this and you’ll learn how other cultures have been honoring and using the placenta for centuries.  It’s fascinating.

The placenta is loaded with nutrition and healthy hormones, and it’s especially known for helping combating postpartum depression as well as helping the body heal after childbirth.   But I wasn’t really craving it prepared as a steak, you know?Instead Rachel prepared the placenta similarly to the technique described on the peaceful parenting blog:  she steamed it, dehydrated it, and then Kyle and I packed placenta powder into empty capsules.  Taking two capsules a day for the first three weeks, and one capsule every day for the three weeks after that, I don’t think it was coincidental that my postpartum season has been so blissful.  I love how Lindsay from Passionate Homemaking describes how bonded she has felt with her newborn in her blog article this week about the benefits of placenta encapsulation.  Like Lindsay, I had a few weepy days, all on days when I had forgotten to take my placenta pill.  I’m telling you, ladies: sometimes being crazy pays off…

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2. Open hands

Accept help. Period.

If people offer to bring meals, let them.  If someone asks to come visit and hang out with your boys so you can take a nap, say yes.  If your husband tells you should hire someone to help around the house, bite your tongue and, um… strongly consider it.  You may want to be a superwoman — all blissed out on your postpartum happy pills — but superwoman just isn’t your role in the domestic duties department.

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3. Freezer meals

Of all the nesting activities that claimed my time, food preparation was the most worthwhile.  I’ve decided that when you’ve got three little boys to love on, cooking goes way down on the list of priorities.  But you want to feed your family well, you know?  So I started packing the freezer during the summer, and I got serious about it.  We actually had to buy a deep freeze after I got everything made.  Curious what we’ve been eating?

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Chicken noodle soup

Chicken pot pie with homemade biscuits

Black bean burgers

Black bean-quinoa burgers

Beef enchiladas

Lasagna

Chicken and brown rice casserole

Falafel, pitas, and hummus

Spinach quiche

Spelt-raisin bread

Zucchini bread

Chocolate chip cookies

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Food.  It speaks to my nursing-mama heart.  Food with little to no preparation time?  Now we’re talking.

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4. Cloth diapering

Well, I wouldn’t say washing out poopy diapers is one of my favorite pasttimes, but you may as well save a load of money and a chunk of landfill by using some cute cloth diapers.  Face it: doing laundry isn’t the worst thing in the world, especially if you can have a positive attitude about it.  We started out with prefolds and Thirsties diaper covers, followed by an older used model of the BumGenius one-size pocket diapers, but there are plenty of viable options out there these days.  And while I’m doing diaper laundry, it’s no more work to use squares of old colorful t-shirts (edges don’t fray so they don’t need hemming), sprayed with water laced with lavendar and tea tree oils.

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5. Activity packs

I haven’t had much of a creative brain since the birth, so I’m happy I spent the time packing up an array of projects for my bigger boys.  I did much of the supply preparation before the birth, and now it’s easy to pull out projects like these:

Pinwheels

Funny face pots

A blend of dry beans or colored rice

Kaleidoscopes

Sponge toys

Hot rocks

Funnels and hoses

Orange birdfeeders

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6. Baby-wearing

While I was waiting for our son Ari to join us from Ethiopia, I read all I could about attachment in childhood.  I discovered so much research on how holding a baby, especially with skin-to-skin contact, is crucial in bonding.  And that year, I fell in love with the Moby wrap, and I fell in even deeper love with Ari.  Ergonomical and comfortable, this baby carrier is a must-have for me now.  Newborn children need their mamas, want their mamas, change so fast.  I think Amber from The Run-a-Muck would agree; she recently posted a heart-wrenching but sweet article on baby-wearing.  Why lug around a car seat, more than double the weight of a baby, when you can keep your hands free and your baby nurtured?  Ray is a beautiful person; I’d rather keep him close.

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This post is the last in a series on my experience with home birth.  Other posts in the series:

When life happens, hold it closely.

Home Birth: Some Natural, Everyday Miracles (Part 1)

Home Birth: Some Natural, Everyday Miracles (Part 2)

Home Birth: My Favorites in Pregnancy

On the other hand, birthing at home, in the way that I experienced it, could not have happened without some serious preparation during pregnancy.  I’m not saying it could not have happened at all, or even that it could not have been a fulfilling experience.  However, I do believe the absorption of reliable information, good nutrition, and healthy activities played a huge part in how birth played out for our family.

So whether it’s for the purpose of celebrating life or cultivating life through educated choices, pregnancy deserves special attention.  It’s an excuse to live life differently — more fully, more beautifully.

I won’t write you an exhaustive list, but here are some of my favorite ways to do just that:

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Read books (and watch movies)

• Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth, by Ina May Gaskin — Half birth stories and half information from one of the most seasoned midwives around, this book is a great, safe place to start exploring home birth.
• Birthing From Within, by Pam England, CNM and Rob Horowitz, PhD — Wandering from the common how-to guide, the authors help mamas (and dads) prepare for birth through art, journaling, meditation, and other creative means.
• Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering, by Sarah J. Buckley, MD — Written by an Australian OB who chose to have her own children at home, this research-loaded volume is priceless.

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Documentaries:

• The Business of Being Born – This documentary exploring the dichotomy between America’s birthing styles started my journey in thinking about home birth, and was significant in opening Kyle’s mind to it, too.
• Orgasmic Birth – I enjoyed this inspiring look into how birth can be an enjoyable and fulfilling experience, rather than a notoriously agonizing one.

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Drink red raspberry leaf tea

Red raspberry leaf tea strengthens and tones the uterus for labor, so by the third trimester, I was drinking a quart a day.  It’s so refreshing over ice — my summertime pregnancy staple.  I ordered a whole pound of the loose-leaf tea from the Bulk Herb Store.

(In general, food was my medicine during pregnancy, so much so that I ditched prenatal vitamins.  I listened to my cravings for protein and calcium in particular and felt whole and healthy as I approached birth.)

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Take time for life-giving activities

• Nature walks — We have this wonderful wooded area in Manhattan that I call The Stone Tables, as it’s scattered with nearly century-old slabs of stone set up for tables and benches.  This forest was the place I went to talk to God and inhale His grace during my pregnancy.  I recommend finding a favorite outdoor place and making it into a temple or retreat.
• Prenatal yoga — Yoga stretched and balanced my body and made me feel lovely, even into to the last week of my pregnancy.
• Birth art — Whether I was visualizing and illustrating the birth itself or processing heart issues, birth art became so helpful to my inner life during pregnancy.  It doesn’t have to be good; it’s just amazing what comes out of a pencil or paintbrush when you give yourself a creative means by which to express it.
• Meditation — This was a new one to me, so I just started simply — closing my eyes and focusing on the thought “Jesus loves me” or something similar.  Meditation gave me quietness in which to hear God and also gave me an appreciation for the calmness in between labor contractions.

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Get henna tattoos on your belly!

A week before Ray was born, some of my favorite people came to my home, spoke gracious words of vision over me, and helped paint my ripe and pregnant belly with henna.  We were inspired by these amazing henna designs.  It was so fun and beautiful — no ceremony or huge agenda.  The henna belly party was really just an expression of all the ways I had hoped to celebrate pregnancy and honor God for the ways He was working in my life during that season.  It was a party with wonderful, nurturing people; there was a spread of perfect food and good music; and I pulled out my big round belly pulsing with baby kicks from a little boy about to see the light of day.

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Now it’s your turn:

What are your favorite ways to celebrate pregnancy and prepare for childbirth?

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This post is part of a series on my experience with home birth.  You’re welcome to check out my other posts:

When life happens, hold it closely.

Home Birth: Some Natural, Everyday Miracles (Part 1)

Home Birth: Some Natural, Everyday Miracles (Part 2)

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4. The breast crawl

Two years ago, I read Rachel’s blog post on something called the breast crawl, saw the video of a baby independently searching out her mother’s breast, and was in awe.  My response, which you can see in her comments, was that I’d like to witness the breast crawl someday.  I thought it was beautiful, but to be honest, I wasn’t really meaning me and my baby.  (Why do we tell ourselves these lies?  As if we can’t experience something beautiful and normal?  As if we are the exception?)

As I envisioned our post-birth meeting, I knew I wanted slow, sweet, quiet time with our baby.  I knew I wanted to take my time birthing the placenta and cutting the umbilical cord.  My midwife’s practices assured me that Ray wasn’t going to be whisked away to be examined or weighed.  I knew I wanted to breastfeed him in the early moments of his life, and though the images from the breast crawl video were still fresh in my mind, I think I still didn’t have the guts to claim it for ourselves.

There we were, still soaking in the birth tub, me cooing sweet nothings to my newest boy.  I had bared my breasts, inviting him to show interest.  And then there they were — strong tiny feet digging into me, a nose smelling for milk, open mouth rooting around for what it knows it wants.  And breast in mouth, baby rests, happy in the fulfillment of what he was searching for.  Perfect latch.  There is a picture of me, elated and gazing at my wise suckling.

Oh, I wasn’t as patient and uninvolved as the woman in the video.  I put Ray in the area of my breasts, probably wiggled my torso around to help him a bit.  But he led the charge.  He did that lovely breast crawl, as if it’s just what he had been rehearsing for the past five months.

Seeing my baby, all bright-eyed and smart that first evening reemphasized the ideas I’d been ruminating about feeding him at his demand.  It’s hard to break schedules, hard to stop watching the clock as a breastfeeding mama.  But I think seeing the miracle of the breast crawl helped me to be a dispenser of grace when it comes to breastfeeding.  I’m no ten-minutes-here, ten-minutes-there, must-be-every-two-hours feeder anymore.  When Ray is suckling for ten second bursts and taking breaks to gaze around the room, I just have to smile down at him and let him enjoy the evening.  I’m starting to figure he may know a good bit as much as his mama.

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5. The hormone cocktail

I didn’t make up that phrase hormone cocktail, by the way.  (I think it was French surgeon and natural birth advocate Michel Odent.)  But I love it because a nice smooth drink to make me happy is a pretty great comparison to the rush of hormones that flood over a naturally birthing mother.

Labour and birth involve peak levels of the hormones oxytocin, sometimes called the hormone of love, and prolactin – the mothering hormone. These two hormones are perhaps best known for their role in breastfeeding. As well as these, beta-endorphin, the body’s natural pain-killer, and the fight-or-flight hormones adrenaline and noradrenaline (epinephrine and norepinephrine) play an important part in the birth process. There are many more hormonal influences on birth that are not well understood.

I couldn’t begin to explain the intricacies of the hormones that lead a woman to seek privacy, or that fill her with intense affection for her newly born baby.  Sarah Buckley’s article “Pain in Labour: Your hormones are your helpers”, quoted above, speaks volumes, though.

What I can attest to is that they work, and that they are in rich supply when alternative medications don’t interrupt their natural flow.  Oxytocin, prolactin, God? — something bound my heart good and tightly to Ray’s during those first few moments with him, and I’ve been a bit of a fierce mama bear since, even going on five weeks.  You want to take my baby from me, even just into the next room?  You better watch out for some claws.

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6. The amazing, transformed house

Okay, so I’m kind of just putting this one in for extra credit.  Let me tell you, though, it was pretty amazing how the towels and the birthing tub completely disappeared while Kyle and I slept in our bed with Baby Ray in those wee hours of the morning, so that all that was left was our family and a cozy house to snuggle up in.  Rachel and Brenda drained the tub, deflated it, did laundry.  Rachel cooked us the pancakes I requested as a morning gift.  Let me just say: giving birth makes you so hungry!

And then came the next shift — my beautiful mom, who stepped right into her perfect role making us more wonderful food, playing with our boys, letting us sleep, loving us to the rhythm of the washing machine.  She doesn’t know this (until now), but if we had had a baby girl, that sweet baby was going to be named after her — a woman of strength and grace.

In the days that followed, the love that spilled over from our birth families and our church family was the kind that enable miracles way bigger than the transformed house.  Because in the end, I realize giving birth isn’t just about a woman and a baby.  It’s about the village around her — the people who speak encouraging words and empower her to step out of what’s culturally accepted into something raw and real.  I had a downpour of that love, and I can only say thank you.  My people nurtured me and gave me strength, and out of that… life.  That is the biggest miracle of them all.

Before the big event, I knew home birthing for me meant preparing my body, mind, and soul to function in the amazing ways God created it to function.  It meant trusting that my body knew what it was doing.  It meant preparing — from doing yoga stretches and eating nutritionally dense food, to delving into some spiritual depths in my relationships with God and others and becoming close and completely comfortable with the few people who would attend me at the birth.

The more I absorbed information before and during my pregnancy, the more confident I grew.  I understand that I am not invincible as a human, but having had no serious complications in my previous pregnancy, I knew I had no need to fear.  I trusted my birth attendants as educated and experienced enough to know what was going on.  And as my sister said to me in the midst of a huge, pushing contraction: “Your body was made for this.”

So creation got to work.  I was witness, and it was amazing.  I call this list “Natural, Everyday Miracles” because this is how natural birth can happen when it’s not interrupted.  Quite frankly, if we let our eyes, ears, and… uh, cervixes open, we can experience phenomena that are nothing short of miracles.

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1. The primal, instinctual woman

In my pregnancy and birth, I grew to trust my body.  But what’s more, my midwife and doula trusted my body, too.  From the moment Rachel and Brenda entered the house, they became silent servants.  After a brief check of the baby’s heart beat with a stethoscope, Brenda lay down in the next bedroom to give me privacy.

A laboring woman thrives on privacy.  For me, this may have played out by slowing down my labor during the daytime.  I had had painful contractions the night before Ray was born, only to have them taper off by morning.  Brenda said this is common of moms with additional kids in the home.  It’s almost as if the body says, I have something else to do today.  Labor can wait until nighttime.  Hmmm… is it coincidental that at the older boys’ bedtime I was finally certain that labor was in full swing again?  For some women, a hospital itself brings fear.  The environment or simply the lack of being on her own comfortable turf will keep her from relaxing into her contractions so that her cervix can open.  It’s a vulnerable thing — giving birth!  I was so thankful to be in my own bedroom, laboring with the wonderful guy with whom the pregnancy started.

Instinct for me kept me in the bedroom as long as possible.  It also allowed me to vocalize my pain throughout contractions without worrying about anyone’s reaction to my noise.  I inhaled deeply and then moaned lowly on the slow exhalations, imagining my cervix opening like a flower.  I stayed on my knees, kneeling over a chair during the contractions.  When the intensity subsided, I would relax back on my feet to massage my perineum on the soft blanket I was sitting on.

Low moaning began to slowly give way to more gutteral, throaty noises.  I didn’t feel like pushing yet, but I did feel an urge to relax more fully, so I decided to head to the birthing tub in the living room.  As it turns out, Rachel and Brenda have heard many laboring women, and the changes in my vocalizations were cluing them in that birth was drawing nearer.  Brenda once again monitored the baby’s heartbeat as I got into the tub.  Again, as long as I was doing fine, Brenda and Rachel just sat in the darkness of the living room, letting my body’s rhythms guide the night.

Intensity did increase.  The main word I had tried to focus on in labor was “release” so that I could give way to what my body wanted to do.  But it is hard to completely shut my brain off, and at one point, I asked Brenda, “When does the water break?  Before or after transition?”  ”It can happen anytime,” she replied from the calm dark.  With that, she reaffirmed that I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing, schedules be damned.

After a period of more restful, even meditative breaks between contractions, the urge to push overcame me.  I was on my knees, arms draped over the side of the tub and Kyle at my face.  Rachel joined him there.  With one huge pushing roar, I felt a pop in the tub and I knew my water had broken.  There it was, right when it was supposed to be.  The baby’s head descended through the birth canal quickly.  I had my hand at my vagina, suddenly realizing that was a slick, downy baby head I was feeling.  Roaring and pushing, resting, roaring and pushing, resting.  No instruction needed; my body knew.  Encouragement from Rachel were the only words I heard.  Head in the water, my hand caressing it.  Shoulders would be next.  And so with another great push and roar, they followed the head, and I pulled my baby up out of the water.  The midwife noted the nuchal cord (cord around the baby’s neck), but I already had him halfway out of it and then, in my arms.

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2. The healing of a wounded placenta

When I pushed Ray’s head out, some blood began flowing into the birthing tub.  Brenda was shining her flashlight into the water behind me, keeping tabs on it.  She wanted to assess the source of the blood loss (My blood? Cord blood? It was not yet obvious.) and the amount of blood loss.

After Ray was born but before the placenta had been birthed, I continued to relax in the water with him, all my happy hormones flowing right on through me.  Brenda was watching the blood in the tub and got to the point where she needed me to get out and birth the placenta so she could more accurately assess blood loss.  This was  the only time she really told me what to do, and I was still thinking, Meh… what’s the rush?  I’m happy, baby’s happy.  Who wants to push out a placenta?  But I understood Brenda was trying to figure out the whole blood loss thing, so dutiful patient that I am, I got out (much stronger on my feet than expected), leaned against Kyle beside the pool, and birthed the placenta.  And then Brenda inspected the placenta, put it in my big stainless steel kitchen bowl, and I zoned back into the Baby Ray channel.

Here’s what we know now: Ray’s cord wasn’t super-long, so when his head emerged with a nuchal cord, it tugged against the placenta where the umbilical cord attaches to the placenta.  There was a slight tear in the cord right at that juncture, causing some bleeding.   Brenda couldn’t tell if the blood loss in the tub was increasing, but upon inspecting the placenta, she had her answer: it wasn’t.  Here’s why — the really amazing thing: by the time I had birthed the placenta, that tear on the placenta had already clotted over, healed itself.  And (cool thing #2) the tear was on the placenta-ward blood vessel; the two Ray-ward blood vessels were still pumping him full of his oxygen-rich blood the whole time.

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3. A baby, calm and alert

When I pulled Ray up out of the water, he didn’t cry.  There was no need to.  There were no bright lights or loud voices.  He was warm, and no one was rushing to cut his umbilical cord or get his measurements.  There was time.  Or maybe I should say there was no time.  Time didn’t exist.  We had all thrown our watches in the garbage.

And my sweet baby was pink.  He had been from the time his head had emerged into the water (Brenda had been watching that with her flashlight, too.)  His eyes were wide open as he looked at the world around him, so the whole quiet baby thing had nothing to do with his lack of responsiveness.  I blabbed to him about everything, and he only started whimpering a little while later when he started getting cold.  Kyle tied off and snipped the cord (now white and emptied of its blood) with Ray snug in my arms, and our baby didn’t mind a bit.

It was the most gentle transition for a baby coming into the world that I could ever dream of.  As I tell you these things, I am realizing there is nothing stunning to describe.  That’s the whole thing:  nothing stunning (lights, sounds, prodding, jolting) = very peaceful baby and mommy.

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Next week, I’ll unveil the second half of my Natural, Everyday Miracles list as I continue my blog series on our home birthing experience.

Ray Newman came at night when his brothers were in bed.  He came in a downpour of mama-roaring.  And after the lovely parade of midwife and family and more family and friends passed on by, it was me, Ray, Ari, Isaiah, and the boys’ daddy in our little house, living it up.

And now it’s nearly four weeks in.  I am a tired mama, but I can’t stop smiling at life. (I will eventually tell you about some tricks I’ve pulled to help with that, but they really aren’t that earth shattering or tricky.)  I am inhaling sweaty, milky baby while two very large-looking boys clamber all over me and ask for books to be read to them and cups of milk and for mommy to come look at the new towers they’ve built.

There are no fresh square meals, except what comes out of the freezer or from someone else’s kitchen.  There are a few too many movies playing in the living room while Daddy and I catch a few extra winks of sleep.  And I’m tired.  Did I mention that?

But I can’t stop laughing inside.  Ray puts his lips on mine when he’s hungry, mouth open, searching for love.   At bedtime, when my squalling baby is finally quiet and wrapped up in his blanket, I’m still flopped over on the bed, just gazing at him.  I’ve rocked, swayed, patted, juggled, stooped, hugged, explained, listened, yelled, wiped more than I ever thought I could in a day.

This is life.  My boys.  Getting up.  Tucking in.  Reading stories.  Tasting fake food.  Buckling in car seats.  Holding hands.  Getting out a breast.  Closing my eyes and trying to sleep.  I’m so tired.  But my mind keeps spinning with life, life, life and how good it all is.

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This post begins a series on home birth, specifically the gentle and beautiful one we experienced with Ray.  Although I may never post the play-by-play birth story, I hope to share some of our pregnancy and birth preferences as well as some of the amazingly natural phenomena we experienced surrounding the birth.

Ushers handed out a little paper, mapping out nearby grocery stores and a list of most needed items at the food bank.  We all huddled together and said, “Break!”  And then we were commissioned to storm the local grocery stores to shop for the people who can’t afford to shop for themselves. We’re taking food to an empty parking lot, where trucks are sitting until mid-afternoon today, being loaded up to take the food where it needs to go.

About ten area churches partnered with ours in this effort to feed the hungry.  It is not only our church, but the Church.  The hands and feet of Jesus do not keep themselves within the walls of a church building, or even within the walls of a denomination.  Tonight, we are praising Jesus together.

I just had to tell you because I had this surge of excitement to really be part of feeding the hungry right now.  Not next month, or next year, when I’ve gotten my act together and my theology on giving all straightened out.  But now, together with my brothers and sisters.

I wonder what it would look like for the Church in every city — big and small – to break out their wallets and feed the hungry, on the count of one… two… three.  Would it endanger hunger itself?