40 Days
he's here
I’ve just hit 40 days postpartum. Hayes arrived in early April, a few days late, but exactly on time. We spent the final days with our mothers, organizing the house, preparing food, and waiting impatiently. We baked 3 batches of cookies, hoping the final round would turn out well enough to take to the nurses at the hospital upon his arrival. Hoping that a successful batch would signify that it would be time for him to join us.
I received electro-acupuncture after my due date passed. I laid down and we joked about needing plastic sheets in case my water broke on the table. I had electrodes - miniature versions of jumper cables - attached to the needles in my hands and feet. My acupuncturist would turn dials on a little machine until the pulses were so strong the needles shook in their placements. Sometimes the pulses would be so strong the needles would jump out and we’d put them back swiftly. I returned home afterwards and continued to wait.
2 days later, the morning my water broke, Matt texted my desert women that the process had started. They commenced their prayers and candle lighting as a virtual blessingway. I labored at home for as long as I could; our drive down the hill would be about an hour. Our mothers kissed us goodbye, worried expressions on their faces as my contractions hastened, while we pulled out of the driveway. We had towels packed in the car just in case.
5 hours later, on a Monday evening at the hospital, Hayes joined us earth side.
I drifted in and out of awareness for active labor. I wanted to feel everything and I did. My doula fed me bone broth while Matt put cold rags on my head and behind my neck. In one of my lucid moments, I was able to hear and recognize only one of the songs we had on our playlist - the Ganesha chant, for the remover of obstacles. That day, I broke open. I see a beauty and strength in myself I hadn’t grasped thus far in my life. I don’t think I needed childbirth to get me there, but it expedited it.
Matt pulled Hayes out of me and placed him onto my chest. I was reunited with someone I swear I’ve already known for a long, long time. He has a little fiery soul. And I recognized him immediately.
The night of his birth, our mothers took home the placenta on ice, in a cooler bag we typically use for groceries. I texted them a few hours later to make sure they remembered to put it in the freezer.
Sometimes I’m hard on myself that I don’t have one specific dogma through which I view and for how I live my life. This is particularly challenging when I think about how we’ll raise our child. I gather spiritual practices from my lived experience which is both authentic to me but simultaneously makes me feel like an imposter. Always seeking and trialing and adopting, wondering why I never go too deep into one school of thought. I have been reading Hayes a book that a friend lent me: secret oral teachings of Tibetan sects and came across the following passage:
“Do not believe on the strength of traditions even if they have been held in honour for many generations and in many places; do not believe anything because many people speak of it; do not believe on the strength of sages of old times; do not believe that which you have yourselves imagined, thinking that a god has inspired you. Believe nothing which depends on the authority of your masters or your priest. After investigation, believe that which you have yourselves tested and found reasonable, and which is for your good and that of others.”
I am comforted by this. I have investigated the practices and tools, tested them, and I’ve found them reasonable. During labor, Matt told me how he understands that every experience in my life, all of my practices, prepared me for that moment. Maybe my school is that of women, who pass around their knowledge freely out of love. This didn’t crystalize for me until my journey through pregnancy and motherhood, the stories I’d hear and the experiences passed down orally. It is clear to me now. It is how I made it through. It’s how those after me will too.
A few mothers in my life told me of burying the placenta, which is a practice across many traditions to tie the baby to the land. Matt dug the hole. We unwrapped the placenta and examined it. We cut off some of Matt’s hair and placed it with the placenta for protection. Then, we planted an Ocotillo on top. They are native to the desert and mean “little torch,” symbolizing grace and resilience. Matt had always wanted an Ocotillo. We planted it where the century plant bloomed and died all those years ago. Next to the palo verde that houses our beloved hummingbirds.
Years before our baby was even a thought, I was in a deep shamanic journey and happened upon a figure tending a fire, a young boy. I assumed this might be my then-recently deceased uncle or my grandfather, both former boy scouts and stewards of the land. I journaled about the experience and it faded away, and I didn’t directly interact with the figure on future journeys, but I knew he was always there.
On a walk one day during my pregnancy, I remembered the figure and the fire. Was that my son? Could it have been? I asked myself. We named him Hayes for many reasons, one of them being that it’s an anglicized version of the Gaelic name Ó hAodha, which translates to “descendent of fire” or “life-giving flame.”
I write about fire frequently. My fears around it consuming our home. The wild nature of fires in the desert. They call a moment of vaginal childbirth, during crowning, the “ring of fire.” Once you feel it, birth is imminent.
Out of all things I was feeling during birth, I didn’t feel this. Not that I can remember at least. Or maybe it was because I was already fully engulfed in flames. In those moments, I didn’t fear anything. Our little torch showed us all the way.
Love,
Lily, Matt and Hayes
You’re more Lily than ever. What a privilege for Hayes and I to bear witness.
So beautiful, Lily ❤️ most heartfelt blessings to you and Matt - he's beautiful!