Sunday, July 31, 2011

Maya Grace Anderson


Sunday July 31, 2011     

The week started out with a bang, or a blast, or a series of screams and into the void arrived Maya Grace Anderson, born Sunday morning July 24th.  She came into the world beautiful, and graceful, and with an appetite to fuel her eight pound six ounce frame.   I had just finished watching the Askals, (national football team),  play Kuwait in round two of the world cup live from Kuwait, (meaning it ended about 2:30am Sunday morning), proceeded by my quick lapse into sleep; proceeded by my  return to consciousness about twenty minutes later with an unmistakable plea for aid from the other side of the bed.  

The moment the impending event switches from the abstract to the actual is indeed a surreal moment in what will be many surreal and sublime and anxiety inducing moments over the next few hours.  Dylan took thirty hours to arrive from the time it was apparent, “that it was time,” so I vacillated about going too soon but my gut, (and Marilyns), suggested it may not be thirty hours this time.  There are virtually no taxis in Angeles, and the closest taxi stand is kilometers away but the ever ubiquitous trike could be flagged as easily as swatting at a fly in the dark early morning heat of central Luzon.  Off we sailed, leaving Dylan in the care of Marilyn’s cousin, whom we took on a few weeks back as a nanny in anticipation of the big event.  There we were - tearing through the tropical night, me on the back of the motorcycle, hanging off the side, with one hand on the roof of the sidecar, while ducking my head inside to make certain Maya was not arriving in anything other than a delivery room.   The glorious absurdity of it all never ceases to leave me totally gobsmacked.

Our midwife runs a clean and well maintained birthing home and has delivered over eight thousand babies in her career, including Dylan, and I felt safer there than a large hospital.  Also, as is the habit of birthing homes in the republic I was allowed to be present and actually helped with the delivery, which is totally verboten in the hospitals.  It was great!  Hospitals are so institutional and often they can’t even compare in terms of sanitary standards.  But I digress.  We arrived about 5:30 a.m. to find Grace, (our midwife), already up and one look told me she had already been busy doing what she does best.  Marilyn was dilated but being only one centimeter we got her to bed and waited in the recovery / pre delivery area, which is a nice white tiled room with four private beds each separated by a series of optional hospital pull curtains for privacy and a facing wall of windows that looks onto a courtyard with an aviary and all manner of flora and a few renegade fauna.  It’s all very organic and simple but we really like it. 

At 10:00a.m. Marilyn was only two dilated two centimeters, (tens something of a goal, for the uninitiated).  Grace was not too concerned and suggested we ‘bed down’ as it could be six hours at the rate of dilation.  Every birth, as Grace is fond of saying, “is quite different,” and Maya proved the adage true.  Two good pushes, a lot of coaxing, and a mere thirty eight minutes later Maya entered the world!  One of the truly profound moments in a person’s life, for parties both within and without the womb.  The burden and blessings of her birth are great as will be the task to rise to the occasion.  Here’s to life! 

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