In the early hours after Henry was born, a midwife attending us asked what we’d be doing about birth control–as if I were a baby-crazy addict who couldn’t wait to go through that painful labor again, as if it were her job to stop me. She had no idea who we were. He’s an IVF baby, I said. She said Oh in this way that seemed emotional and shut her up quickly. I need to find a better way to word it without labeling my baby. He’s a product of IVF doesn’t sound right, either.

At a five-week follow-up visit, I saw the first midwife I saw after finally getting pregnant. At that point so many months ago, I was emotional — a train wreck, perhaps. She marked on my file that I was depressed and I was talked to a little more cautiously than was probably necessary after that. We had just been through a war to get to zero, to get to this point where most people are just beginning their baby journey. When I talked about IVF then it was with gruffness in my voice and tears in my eyes. So at this recent visit it was her again, and she asked me what I was doing about birth control. I looked at her quizzically. We had to do IVF, I told her quietly.

Then at an eight-week follow-up visit, she asked me again. Henry had just been crying in the car and crying in the waiting room. When they called my name in the waiting room, I was nursing him and had to unlatch him and hold him, now crying, while also holding the car seat, his hat, my hat, my winter coat, his blanket, and the diaper bag — and the nurse just stared at me while I gathered all this stuff with my baby crying in my left ear. So when the midwife asked me what I was doing about birth control this time, after all the other times, after all this, I started crying. Not so much because it’s an emotional topic, though obviously it is, but because, despite my trumpeting the midwives vs. the doctors in this whole fight about how best to deliver my baby, the service has been, from the very beginning right to the end, anything but personal.

Rosie was born with a midwife at home fifteen years ago in the tiny apartment that Steve and Rosie’s mom shared so long ago. Her midwife goes to our church so we see her from time to time. When Henry was born, Rosie’s midwife came to our door with soup — one jar to eat that night, and a jar to freeze for later. She came to fawn over Rosie’s brother, to welcome a new family member, to give her blessings after all these years. Now that’s service.

March 9th, 2010 | Category: the baby thing | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL