I had only been in America for about 1 year or less, actually about 9
months, and I was actually contemplating returning. But um I found out. I
was pregnant. I had lived in Iceland for 9 years because I was married, so
I had a life there, um, and then things changed. I noticed that my art was
suffering when I was in Iceland because of the extreme isolation. I never
really met anybody for 9 years, and I think that it was affecting the
marriage that I had there and my art slowly started to In a way, vanish,
so there's a lot of synchronicity. Um, meeting my future husband. Who was
a local Arizonan. His art was so impressive and he kind of rejuvenated me
. I thought maybe I should just do an experiment and visit him and see
what would come of it. um, it was difficult because, you know, Not meeting
beforehand. But of course I was pregnant about 9 months, 9 months later
after visiting him, so we did get along in the most essential ways. I
wasn't upset when I found out I was pregnant. I was a little shocked. He
was shocked likewise. It's interesting because I think people have an
innate knowledge of wanting to reproduce. I had it less than my future
husband. And so he really, he wanted to have a child.
Even if it was on a borderline subconscious level. This was not my first
birth, so I did expect my body to react a certain way when being pregnant.
It didn't turn out that way, and that surprised me. I never had the The
time really to take any classes to prepare me for the birth. Um, what I
did is read, I did read some books about it because I was really
determined to have not only a vaginal birth, but one that didn't involve
any epidural because with my previous birth in a foreign country, I didn't
have any medication, which I was actually very proud of, so I thought
maybe I could do this again. When I first started to feel my body was
preparing to give birth, I believe it was about 3 in the morning. And I
had gone to the bathroom. And I noticed some blood. I just felt, OK, well
, it's time. I'm not really experiencing any major contractions, but my my
due date is right around the corner. So I, I tried to be calm. I didn't
want to become too nervous with this situation. It's his first experience
as a father, so he was very excited. He drove me to the hospital and we
were very tired because we went to bed quite late. I was actually painting
that night. I still had paint on my body. It was really fascinating,
interesting when I was giving birth and I, you see paint, oil paint on
your leg, on your thigh. It was very surreal. You can't exactly give birth
the way you want here in Phoenix. Uh, when I was in a foreign country, I
proceeded, I could say more natural. That could be because of the
environment. The environment was different and I do believe the
environment does affect your mindset. My previous birth, it was in a very
dim, small room, very comfortable, very few people, just midwife keeping
an eye on you. Whereas here in Arizona it wasn't as comfortable. I didn't
have that home environment. I didn't know it was going to be different,
but it was here. So what I did is surround myself with the females because
the females are in tune with that. I actually requested that my
mother-in-law show up and be there. She had 4 children. I knew she would
know exactly what that was like, so. Since it was his first child, he was.
Like a deer in headlights, he thought being the eldest in the family and
seeing his siblings arrive at the house and seeing his mother pregnant
that he would know how to react. It turned out he did not know how to
react, and he was very useless at that time. I almost felt sorry for him
as I was giving birth, so I had to tell him to leave and allow me to be
with the women. And it did help. I really have my mind set on helping my
son without an epidural, so I endured for hours. I had reached 8
centimeters. I needed 2 more centimeters. My body was beginning to tense
up. It was actually interfering in the birth. I felt vulnerable to the
processes of the body. Cause it wasn't listening to me, you know, you're
telling it what to do, it's not listening, so you're flirting with that
powerlessness. You know, even though you're trying to focus, make things
go as you, as you intended. So I did take the epidural after all, but I am
still proud of those, those 8 centimeters. My husband was there at the
birth. I requested, please do not look at the child come out. I didn't
want him to see that because it's beautiful, yes, but there's also, it's
very brutal to see the body morph and change like that. He really wanted
to see it anyway and he didn't tell me, and he watched the whole. The
whole process. At first when he saw the head, he thought, Oh, that's
nothing. The head is so small. Oh, I don't know what all the fuss is about
, but then all of a sudden he saw the rest of the head emerge and he
almost jumped back. He was so shocked at the size of the child's head
emerging out of the female body. It was, it's amazing and he's very, he
was actually quite fascinated by it, and it's something he you know,
remembers to this day.