The websites I find consistently describe an energy that begins in the base of the spine and shoots upward. They say the symptoms of Kundalini include sweating, trembling, sensations of heat and cold, rushes of energy through the body or up and down the spine, fear, and anxiety—the list exactly mirrors my own. I follow different links, finding many divergent views on the subject. Some say Kundalini energy is a sought-after experience leading to awakening and bliss, while others warn it is not to be toyed with. I decide I was lucky to get the icy version. I am not surprised to read warnings. Apparently many yogic seekers try to cultivate Kundalini experiences and often end up with physical or emotional troubles. I have no doubt about this possibility if what I felt was indeed Kundalini energy, and I certainly am not planning to go looking for any more.
Reading all this alarms me but also reassures me somehow. For whatever reason, maybe because pregnancy makes me more open, I’m experiencing something real and powerful. I now know I’m not making this up; I’m not being histrionic or melodramatic, as I so often tell myself. I am sensitive, I always have been, and I might as well accept that and go gently with myself in this strange world. Fortunately, I’ve been blessed with a companion who is there for me, who shows up when things like this happen. I can accept this grace and let in all the seen and unseen support that holds me.
Feeling stronger and less fearful, I’m actually fascinated by what I find on the web and copy quotes in my journal. One sentence will stand out to me: These experiences are often triggered by meditation, prayer, psychedelic drugs, or being in the presence of an illumined being or spiritual master.
Months later, I will reread this and feel an intense electric charge at the words “illumined being.” I will also note the timing, that my first Kundalini-like encounter was in August, four months into the pregnancy. According to Sufism and other spiritual traditions, this is right around the time the soul enters a fetus.
CHAPTER 12
November 2005
Nine weeks to due date
At the next prenatal, Rhione, our senior midwife, measures my fundal height as usual, but this time she frowns, and repeats the measurement.
“You’re a little low this time,” she says. She checks my chart to make sure and nods, saying this is the first time I’ve come in under normal.
I immediately assume it’s my cautious eating. I’ve been watching the scale hit record highs, and I’m dreading the post-pregnancy weight battle. I figure I can preempt it by starting the steady decline now, or at least prevent any further gain. Since I’m fairly nauseous anyway, this hasn’t been difficult. But now I feel subversive, because the midwives have been urging me to eat well, and I’ve been feigning utter compliance.
“Is this a problem?” I ask Rhione.
She explains the possible implications, but I’m so convinced I know what’s causing this, I don’t listen very carefully. I’m trying to decide if I should continue avoiding weight gain, if there’s any danger to the baby. But nothing Rhione says alarms me. She offers me the option of an ultrasound to check on things, but I am sure I don’t want one. And Rhione seems relieved when I say so. She palpates my belly and smiles as she finds the baby with her experienced hands. “I just love this little one,” she says.
*
As I undress for bed that night, Dicken gazes at my naked body for longer than usual and says, “You are so beautiful.” I can tell he means it. He hasn’t said this often during the pregnancy and hasn’t been initiating sex.
“It’s funny,” I tell him, “for some reason I’m no longer scared of having another shivering episode, or going through labor.”
“You seem really different. You’re in your pregnant power now.”
He’s right. Everything is shifting. I’m happy to be in my body. I look down at my swollen belly and feel tender toward myself and the baby, proud of how far we’ve come in this long pregnancy. After all these months of struggling, my body is finally an ally. Having to slow down has been a gift, preventing me from escaping into my usual distractions. My belly keeps bringing me back, forcing me to practice being with myself.
*
One evening just before Thanksgiving, Dicken and I attend a chocolate-making class in Ashland. Our instructor, the owner of a local organic chocolate company, begins the class by writing the word theobromine on a white board.
“This is the scientific name for the principle chemical in chocolate,” he says. “Theo means god, bromine means food. So chocolate really is the food of the gods.” He hands out samples from his company’s line. I eat so many I feel my heart begin to beat like a rabbit’s.
“Dicken,” I whisper, “how ’bout the name Theobromine for the baby?”
Dicken smiles, licks melted chocolate from his lower lip, and gives me a thumbs-up.
Silently, I note the name Theodore, which means “gift from God.” And it’s close in sound to the magic substance in my favorite food. I stick it in the back of my mind.
December 2005
Five weeks to due date
I can only eat small meals as the baby fills up more and more of my abdomen. Heartburn is unavoidable when I eat. I always have a snack just before bed, hoping it will carry me through the night, but it rarely works. I wake to pee, then can’t get back to sleep because of growling hunger pains. I fight it for a few minutes, urging myself to overcome the sensation and sleep, but at some point I realize I’ve lost the battle. I roll out of bed sideways, shivering a little in the chilly air, and lumber down to the kitchen. I rummage through every shelf and corner of the refrigerator until I find something acceptable. Toast, a grapefruit, an apple, some nuts. I sit in the dimly lit kitchen, the big room’s corners swallowed up in darkness, chewing my food and counting the days until our due date.
*
In hypnobirthing class with Rhione, Dicken is a surprisingly disappointing partner.
“Your voice sounds insincere,” I say after a relaxation exercise. “You don’t want to be here, do you?”
“Ugh!” he groans. “I’m just tired, okay?”
“Well, you better not be tired at the birth if this is the best you can do.”
“Maybe you should have Maud be your hypnobirthing coach,” he says.
“I hate you,” I hiss at him quietly, so none of the other blissed-out couples will hear.
“Boy, your hormones are out of control today.”
“This is me talking, not hormones,” I seethe. “And right now me and my hormones hate you.”
“Then I quit,” Dicken says, lying down and burying his face in a pillow.
The baby kicks. Rhione is talking about being extremely calm and quiet during labor.
“Well, it might just be you and me at this birth,” I tell the baby, looking at Dicken still collapsed in a heap.
*
Back at home, I have a phone conversation with Paul, our friend who teaches energetic seeing. Mom has been studying with him for a number of years, and Dicken and I take a class or get a reading from him once in a while. He is always full of fascinating insights from his unusual view of people and events. I ask him what he sees about the baby and the birth.
“You know, if I were you, I’d consider not having the boys there—it might be too distracting for you.”
He says this baby is Dicken’s and mine, so the presence of other family members would somehow dilute the experience for us. This is the direction I’ve been going in anyway, seeing the birth as very quiet and dark, occurring at night. Paul says the baby seems creative, feminine, speaks my language; is very well-suited to the family, unselfish, forward-thinking. He sees a happy couple of years for us, not a hard adjustment. The one challenge he sees is getting my strength back: this pregnancy has taken a lot out of me. He suggests no more kids. I laugh.
Four weeks to due date
Christmas is hectic and exhausting. My Grinchiness seems as magnified as my midsection. The boys tear open present after present and sulk when they run out. I expect this from Jasper b
ut am surprised and disappointed that Kevin is behaving this way on his first American Christmas. According to him, he never received any presents in Costa Rica, other than a pair of shoes one year.
A large family group gathers at our house. Ben and Paula come from New York and announce their first pregnancy. They look anxious and excited and stay close to each other all day.
“This is the only time we’ll overlap pregnancies,” I tell them, looking from my protruding belly to Paula’s flat one.
Dicken cooks a feast; Maud and I debrief and gossip while we do mounds of dishes. Afterward, I lie on the couch and Maud asks if she can feel the baby.
“Sure,” I say.
She kneels down next to me and begins to press gently on my belly. “You’re so lucky you have a baby inside you,” she gushes.
I roll my eyes.
“You are,” she insists. “I miss being pregnant so much, and Tom is firm that we’re not having any more kids.”
“I can’t wait for this pregnancy to end. I’m so over it.”
*
A few days after Christmas, as I’m lying in bed reading birth stories, I have a few crampy contractions. At first I’m just curious about them, but when they start to come fairly regularly, I get alarmed, afraid I’ll end up in the hospital because I’m not quite far enough along to have a home birth.
I call Dicken upstairs and let him know what’s happening. He looks wide-eyed with concern and immediately says, “I’ll get Maud.”
Maud, who trained as a midwife for a year or so, feels my belly, times the surges, and checks in her midwifery manual. Dicken calls Rhione, who shows up within half an hour and checks me—all seems fine. Just Post-Traumatic Christmas Syndrome, we joke. Rhione prescribes bed rest until the contractions stop.
It seems that everything keeps telling me to slow down and go inward. It’s hard not to be able to get up and feed myself, tidy up, do a little writing. But at this point I’m willing to do whatever it takes to last five more days, when I’ll be thirty-seven weeks along, technically full-term and able to have a home birth.
January 1, 2006
With three weeks to go, things are calm until this afternoon, when I notice brown-stained watery discharge on the toilet paper after I pee. I immediately think, Meconium, the thick tar-like excrement a baby poops during the first few days of life. When it shows up prenatally, it can be a sign that the baby is in distress.
I start to feel agitated and call Dicken, who gets the midwives on the phone. They come over and check me and the baby.
“You seem fine,” Rhione says, her voice soothing. “But the discharge looks suspicious, especially considering your fundal height has been low the last few weeks. I think we need to carefully monitor the situation.”
When I see her concerned expression, I begin to shake and cry, stroking my belly and saying, “Baby, I hope you’re okay. You’re okay, aren’t you? Please, please be okay.”
“We should think about getting an ultrasound, and maybe having you closer to a hospital, just in case,” Rhione says. “But it’s up to you, Lucinda. Why don’t you check in with your deepest self and see what you want to do.”
I cry some more. I want my baby to be okay, and I’m now very nervous that something is wrong. I don’t want to ignore warning signs. I also don’t want to be fear-based and end up in the hospital with a high-intervention situation that turns out to be unnecessary. I want a straightforward, uncomplicated home birth. I want all the faith I have in the process of birth to shine through for me and this baby. But I am spooked now, and afraid I won’t be able to relax and trust what’s happening. I can’t see a good option right now.
“I feel so trapped,” I say.
I look to Dicken, but he just looks right back at me, his expression uncertain.
I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and search inside for guidance, for a hunch, for anything. There is nothing but blankness, fear, confusion.
Just pick a direction and go with it, see how it feels. I can take a little step one way, backtrack if it seems necessary. I decide to go to Mom’s, which is closer to a hospital, for the time being, and have an ultrasound the next day. Rhione will come with us for the test.
We drop Kevin off at a friend’s house, then drive to Mom’s, where our midwife friend Jennifer comes to take my blood, do a culture, and feel the baby. She seems very positive, which is hugely reassuring. I’m also glad to be close to my mom, who is always a trooper in a crisis.
January 2
I sleep okay, and we get ready to head to the hospital for the ultrasound.
On the way to the hospital in Grants Pass, I tell Dicken, “In an hour or so we’ll be driving home, thinking there was no real point in doing the ultrasound, that it was an expensive and unnecessary procedure, but at least we’ll be relieved. Then we can go home and wait for the birth.”
“Exactly,” he says.
Dicken, Rhione, and I wait awhile at the hospital before a technician comes to get us. We make our way through a maze-like hallway to the exam room. I lie on the metal table, have the cold gel applied to my belly, and get hooked up to the machine. The screen comes on, and there is the baby, its head very low down and in the right position for birth. I look at Dicken and smile, but his eyes are on the screen, staring hard at every detail.
Debbie, our ultrasonographer, is upbeat and talkative. We’ve told her we don’t want to know the baby’s gender, and she’s careful not to reveal it.
“Look, there’s a foot! I’ll take a picture of it, it’s cute.” She clicks something on the controls she’s holding. “Here are the four chambers of the heart,” she says, pointing to the screen. “Those all look in order.”
Phew, I think, normal heart.
“And there’s the baby’s head. You can see the face, there. I think it has its thumb in its mouth. I’ll take a picture of that too.”
I gasp, seeing an image of my child’s face for the first time. I look over at Dicken, whose eyes are wide.
“Look at that,” he says. “I think it’s a real baby.”
I smile, recalling how Dicken didn’t fully comprehend that Jasper was an actual human being until he held him the first time.
The head looks like it’s turned to the side, as if it’s purposely looking our way, greeting us. Sucking its thumb, head turned toward us as if posing for the camera. All must be well.
“You see those dark shadows coming and going on the screen? Those are practice breaths.”
“Wow, it’s really getting ready, huh?” The idea that this baby will be outside my body within days is still hard for me to fathom.
“Hmm, your fluid level looks a little low,” Debbie says, her eyes narrowing in concentration. She clicks on a few coordinates, then peers at the computer screen. “Yes, you’re on the low side of normal, but I can’t see any tear or leakage in the amniotic sac.”
I turn to Rhione, whose eyes are on the screen. “Is that a problem?” I ask.
“I see it quite a lot as women get close to term,” Debbie says.
“You naturally lose fluid near the end,” Rhione adds. “It’s nothing to worry about.”
Only twice does Debbie become inexplicably quiet: while she is examining the kidneys, and later the umbilical cord.
“I’ll be looking at the umbilical cord to see the three vessels,” she says. “In babies with things like Down syndrome, you only see two.”
She finds the umbilical cord, stays on it for quite a long time.
“Is it okay?” I ask.
“Um, well, I’m not supposed to say anything,” she stumbles.
I strain to see if I can detect anything about the cord myself, but it all looks like a strange Cubist painting to me, with indiscernible shapes.
I find it odd that she doesn’t say anything more after all the previous talk, her expression suddenly serious. But I’m not too nervous, considering how the heart and brain look normal, with the baby sucking away at its thumb and taking practice breaths.
&n
bsp; As we get ready to leave the room, Debbie pulls Rhione aside and says, “I’d like you to stay here, I need to talk with you.”
I go to the bathroom and relieve my very full bladder, then walk with Dicken to the waiting room. We sit in silence. Rhione comes out after about ten minutes.
“It’s so strange that the regulations allow Debbie to tell me immediate results, but not you,” she says, shaking her head. Then she tells us there were a couple of abnormalities in the ultrasound. “The right kidney seems to have some extra fluid in it, and the umbilical cord has only one artery, not the usual two. Meaning it’s a two-vessel cord, with one vein and one artery, not the usual three-vesseled. That’s all. Everything else seems perfectly normal.”
Rhione’s attitude is relaxed. She implies that these kinds of anomalies are usually nothing to be alarmed about, but I feel the beginnings of panic. I tell her about Dicken’s father’s kidney failure. “Could that be a genetic issue?” I ask.
“There’s no hard sign of any problem. I’ve seen that extra fluid on a kidney before, and it turned out to be nothing. And nowadays, with so many of these minor issues, there are incredible technological advances to deal with them.” She tells us about a friend’s daughter who was born with a cleft lip and how the surgery was so good you can’t tell at all now.
I can hardly hear her. I am in my own dark mind, praying furiously there is nothing wrong, that we aren’t heading for life with a disabled child and surgeries and a future I can’t even begin to face.
Rhione says she thinks it’s fine for us to go back to the farm and wait for the birth. That’s reassuring, but I still feel upset. Dicken is on the quiet side but insists that I relax. “There’s nothing to worry about. You know these medical types. They find minutiae to scare you with, and then it turns out to be nothing.”
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