Hanna Rose Modri 01/27/2004

I was excited to have this baby, as she would be born at home. I always knew that this would be possible for me. I had known this with my first child, SamKoor, however the birth attendants that I had didn't have the same faith in my body as I did. I tend to be a bit of a procrastinator and that is how my labors seem to come.

I don't remember my given due date. The date I thought my baby would be born was January 26, 2004. I started having contractions about a week before that. They would start at about 5-6pm and become very annoying by 11pm and then they would stop around 12:30am. I knew my baby would come soon and I was happy that my best friend, Mary, was coming down to be with me on Friday, January 23. She was going to stay for a week.

It was wintertime and very icy, so we were unable to go outside and walk around. I felt very happy that Mary was with me. My husband is from Morocco and in that culture men are not present when women labor and give birth. It was so nice to have someone that I was so close to with me. I wanted my son, SamKoor to be there as well. He was 10 years old at the time. His job was to make sure I had water to drink. He was very proud to have a job to help me.

In the evenings we were watching a TV series in which a friend of ours has a role. I would start having my evening contractions and Mary instinctively got up with me and rubbed my back. That was so great. I didn’t have to say anything to her. Then we would just sit back down and watch the show.

When the 26 th of January arrived and I still didn’t have my baby I decided that I would take the castor oil remedy. It didn’t work because I threw it all up. Mary and I went to the Mall that evening to walk around. She said we were going to walk the baby out. Mary doesn’t have any children yet. But she has worked with children for over half of her life. We walked around the mall for about 2 hours. I should mention that Mary is very fond of junk. Sooo, we split a cookie and some ice cream. I think we had a frappacino. Too much junk. I am not used to that. That night the contractions were extremely annoying I wanted to go to sleep but my body wasn’t quite letting me. I went to sleep at about midnight. I woke up at 6:00am to get SamKoor ready for the school bus. The contractions were still annoying and I felt that I wanted to see my midwife. I cot SamKoor on the bus at 7:00am and Jeannette arrived shortly after that. I don’t recall her saying what dilation was but she did say that I was going to have this baby soon. Everyone had their role. Mary called my mother at work, my mother picked up my son at school and my friend Sharon was called to come as soon as possible. Contractions started to come stronger and sitting on the rocking chair and walking, which had been good with my second labor, was no good at all. I just wanted to sit on the toilet and rock back and forth with this labor. We prepared SamKoor’s room for the birth room. It is the coolest room in the house and I was very warm. Jeannette wanted to give me an enema. The first time I had ever had one in my life and probably the only one. I agreed to it because of all the junk Mary and I had eaten the night before. If we hadn’t eaten so much junk I would have said no. I labored in the shower on all fours for a while. Mary came in the bathroom wearing a bathing suit and my 20-month-old, Josephine, wanted to wear a bathing suit too. Next time I saw her she was wearing one. Josa stayed in the bathroom with Mary while I was laboring. My husband tried to persuade the little girl to come out, again cultural difference. I wanted her to stay if she wanted to. Jeanette told him it was ok and Josa stayed. I will forever remember her beautiful little hand rubbing my back while I was laboring. It was just golden. Contractions continued stronger, and then seemed to stop. That also happened with my second labor. Then I remembered that I hadn’t eaten real food since lunch the day before. I had some macaroni and broth. That was good. Labor started up again, this time extremely intense. I wanted to sit on the toilet. Jeanette suggested that I come and sit on the birth stool. The birth stool was lower that the toilet and my feet really hurt while I was sitting on it. I had wanted to be on all fours to give birth because I always knew that that was the way my body needed to give birth. I just couldn’t talk. Then everyone, Jeannette, Mary and Sharon said to push. But I didn’t feel any urge to push. Jeannette said the baby is right there but I didn’t feel like the baby was yet. I had a lib of cervix that still needed to go back over the baby’s head. The ladies said to push again. But I still didn’t have the urge to push. Then my water broke. I did some directed pushing and the ladies said and I felt like Jeannette was pinching me. I told her she was hurting me. Actually I was tearing a bit in the front. I think that might have been because of the birth stool. Who knows? Hanna Rose Modri was born 11 minutes after my water broke. She was lavender and beautiful. I couldn’t believe that she looked exactly like Mohammed, my husband’s nephew.

Then I got into my bed with my Hanna, my Josa and my SamKoor, and my husband Khalid came into the bedroom. Mary had made a chocolate birthday cake. We all sang “Happy Birthday” and then I took a nap with Hanna.