Maya's Birth Story

I was 37 years old when I conceived. And 36 when I stumbled upon Corinna and Peter's website one afternoon while surfing for 'natural birth in India'. For 12 months I visited the website almost daily, sighing tearily while reading the birth stories over and over again. Three months into my ante-natal visits at a highly recommended maternity hospital, I was already bristling at being referred to as a 'patient' and alternately panicking at the thought of the busy Obstetrician running out of patience during my labour and rushing me off for a C-section. Not many mothers I met socially had pleasant memories to share about their hospital births; while a few had opted for Caesareans, most had been induced, had their membranes ruptured, undergone cervical stripping, a routine episiotomy and an epidural thrown. All under the guise of a 'normal delivery'. And every single one told me horror stories about their breast-feeding experiences. All of which made the women who delivered at Corinna's birthing centre seem like aliens. They wrote of 'bliss' and 'powerful emotions' and the 'beauty of staring into their newborn's eyes as they suckled'. The women around me shuddered and spoke of 'hellish, torturous labour pains' and 'the agony of cracked, painful nipples'. It appeared to me there were two distinctly different planets for giving birth. By the fourth month of my fairly straight forward pregnancy, I knew which planet I didn't want to be on.

Deciding to have our baby with Corinna meant that Hari, my husband would have to take leave from his job for two months, we would have to lock our home, move across states and bear the expenses of renting and running another apartment while in Goa. There often were days when I did wonder if I was being a bit of a lunatic but Hari's matching belief that babies ought to be treated with love and respect while they were being born, more than evened out my dithering mind. And so it was that Hari and I, two bags in tow, found ourselves shaking hands with a tanned, grinning Corinna outside the Mapusa market on the 3rd of March 2007. By evening, Corinna had helped us move into a house at Paara village, move out of it because of the landlady's unethical terms, identified another nicer, happier apartment near the Baga river which would be vacant after five days, and driven us around Calangute's narrow lanes in her jeep looking for a temporary guest house till then.

We settled down bit by bit; the long wait till 31st March punctuated by Corinna's house visits, preparation classes at the centre, long walks on the beach, candlelit dinners, impromptu trips on the local buses, catching up with friends, movies at Panjim and endlessly rearranging the baby stuff in the bedroom drawers. Finally my waters broke around the midnight of 28th March and we called up Corinna who said well, that's good. Now go back to bed and sleep. But sleep wouldn't come; I spent the night wide awake bracing myself for the contractions which never came. Instead a cheerful Corinna walked in at 8 the next morning with a homeopathic remedy to jump-start the contractions. By 9.30 am, I was on the phone again to Corinna whispering excitedly, the contractions are here, the contractions are here. That's good, said Corinna, now practice your breathing exercises till they start coming long and strong. Then come over to the centre. But call us before you leave, ok? For two and a half hours, I walked around the bedroom, sat astride a chair and breathed. Hari too walked around the bedroom and breathed. The contractions still weren't close apart but by 12.30 p.m., I was on the phone again. Corinna, I think I would like to come to the centre now. Yeah? Well, come then. Hari raced around, cooking us a meal (which I refused to eat; big,big mistake in hindsight!), taking a shower, packing our bag, calling up the taxi...

In the fifteen minutes that it took to drive to the birthing centre, I blew noisily through two contractions and was grinning as I walked into Corinna's porch. It was finally going to happen. Once inside the birthing room, I changed into my favorite old, soft, grey T-shirt and walked around, circling my hips when the contraction arrived and grinning after it subsided. I was incredibly excited. Every birthing book that I had read, each breathing pattern that had been described...oh, I just couldn't wait to put it into practice. If Corinna was amused by my naive enthusiasm, she hid it well, suggesting after a while that I could get into the water birth pool if I wanted to. Of course, I wanted to. So in I went and lay there languorously holding court with Hari, Corinna and Julia, breaking off my animated chatter to chase a strong contraction with an equally strong 'OOOMMMMM'. After a while Corinna examined me and announced, it shouldn't be too long now. The time was 2.30 p.m. and I remember thinking that oh great, we should be back home with the baby in time for evening tea, then.

It turned out to be one of the last few coherent thoughts I would have during the nine hours it actually took for the baby to arrive. By 3.30 p.m., I was beginning to tire of holding myself up in the tub and Corinna astutely asked me if I wanted to walk about the room a bit. Soon, sweat was pouring down my face as I moved around the room, squatting, crouching and kneeling on all fours while I rode each contraction on its way out. At the other end of my claw-like grip were Hari and Julia, valiantly trying not to grimace at the pain I was inflicting on them. Unlike them, Corinna refused to be a martyr. Each time I would grip her wrist with my nails, she would calmly remind me, You are hurting me. If you are in pain, come let's try another position. And yet, looking back, it wasn't the pain that was getting me into such a tizzy. In fact, on an aside, the pain was really very manageable. At no point was it intolerable enough to make me want to cry or scream or thrash about like all the about-to-deliver-women are wont to do in the movies. What turned out to be my achilles' heel was lack of energy. Giving birth is hard work. But zero sleep the night before, no breakfast and no lunch took its toll on my body so that by evening when I needed energy the most, I was completely drained out. I have never, ever known tiredness like that. So exhausted was I that at some point I remember cutting through Corinna's instructions to 'breathe' the baby out and asking her plaintively, can't we do this tomorrow; I really want to go home and sleep now.

At around 8 p.m. or so, Corinna decided to put an end to my routine of squatting and whining (How much longer now? Why isn't the baby coming out? Is something wrong? What is happening? No, I'm not scared - I'm 'fed up'. How much longer now? Why isn't the baby coming out?) by asking Hari to sit on the bed and then getting me to lean back into him, my spine and bottom supported comfortably by his chest. Ok, now listen to me Shilpa. Everything's going fine; all you have to do is follow my instructions to push properly. Will you do that? I nodded glumly. Behind me I could hear Hari's comforting breathing and felt his fingers kneading into my knotted shoulders, silently urging me to relax. And much to my surprise, I really was able to relax in this new position. The red, muggy haze that had settled around my head seemed to float away and I began to focus better on what Corinna was asking me to do. Push. Breathe. Push. Breathe. Push. Breathe. Even then it was around 10.45 p.m. before Corinna called out, your baby's here. I can see the top of the head. Now push. And so I pushed and pushed and pushed. And still no baby. As I lay spent on Hari's chest after yet another marathon bout of pushing, it was all beginning to seem extremely unfair to me. Corinna suddenly looked at the clock and said in an almost undertone,You know Shilpa, in another 20 minutes, the day will be over. I don't know why, but I had a strong feeling your baby will be born on the 29th.

Ah, the 29th. The 29th? The 29th was getting over?!!! In 20 minutes? My baby won't be sharing my birth date? God, how perfect it would have been! Mine on the 29th of September and my baby's on the 29th of March...No, no, wait, let me try one more time...with these over-the-top thoughts racing through my head, I pushed with every bit of guttural strength I could summon and out shot the baby; head down, shoulders, upper back, right till the waist. I remember looking down and feeling quite unnerved. Despite the kicks and bumps in the last few months, I think it only registered in that split second, that my four feet eleven inches body had been sheltering another living, growing, flesh, blood and bones person.

But after that everything was a bit of a blur.I can recall Corinna saying, It's a girl and placing a wailing baby on my chest and me trying to calm the baby and announcing to nobody in particular, Maya, her name is Maya. After Maya had stopped crying and was snuggled into my chest, Corinna guided a stunned looking Hari into cutting the cord. I expelled the placenta and Corinna tried to draw my attention to its shape and size but I had eyes only for my brand new daughter who by now, wrapped in a towel, was staring intently into her father's eyes. After I was cleaned up and my three tiny rips were stitched, I was suddenly desperate for a shower. I tried to get up from the bed and almost passed out with the effort. Shower's not a good idea, said Corinna, rest a bit, then we will see. So Hari, Maya and I got back into bed and after Maya had her first feed, I too ate a cheese sandwich and all three of us fell fast asleep.

Early morning, at 6 a.m, Peter kindly drove us to our guesthouse. At 6.30, I had my shower. And by 7, Hari and I were full-fledged parents figuring out how to change Maya's first diaper. During the day Corinna dropped in for the first of her postnatal visits and both Hari and I can vouch that we owe our relaxed state of parenthood today entirely to those visits. Her calm and unflappable manner in dealing with our questions, her daily review of my breast-feeding technique (net result: never had sore nipples or latching problems. Truly, breast-feeding has been a breeze!), her sense of humor, our long discussions on the pros and cons of vaccinations and her refrain of 'listen to your baby. she knows what she needs' were invaluable lessons in grounding us and shaping our notions of parenting.

Hari, Maya and I will always be grateful to you, Corinna. You are the best beginning we have had on our journey as a family.