Well here it is: long-winded, long overdue, but saved in detail for posterity. Our birth story. I’ll remember this as the birth where no one believed me, specifically, my husband and mother. I was already 4 centimeters dilated at 38 weeks. Yet they figured I went 40 weeks with my first two babies, so I couldn’t be ready. But I was.
~~~
The weekend I hit 38 weeks, we had a heat wave. On Saturday, Brian wanted to work on the house with his dad but I told him no way. Instead, we walked around the air-conditioned mall. I made two friends in the children’s play area. Seems everyone loves an ultra-ripe pregnant woman.
Sunday brought our local park’s annual family festival, symbolic for me since, at the end of the festival last year I had the pit of doom in my stomach. We were about to start trying again after a miscarriage. But I so wanted to just go home, have a few beers and forget the whole thing. At least that’s how I felt that day.
This year, though, as I trudged along in the hot, soggy air, my belly hung low enough that strangers kept meeting my eye. “You know you’re close to giving birth when everyone keeps smiling at you,” I told Brian and, later on the phone, my mom.
~~~
She had planned to come ahead of time, so she could stay with the boys and I wouldn’t have to worry about waiting for someone to show up. She’d be with me.
I called her Sunday evening, when I realized that, she still wasn’t here! And, could she drive in the dark if I went into labor tonight?
She told me she could if she had to, but I knew her eyes gave her trouble. Why hadn’t I thought of this before?
“I’ll be there on Tuesday,” she said. I glanced outside at the persistent daylight, and set about persuading her.
“The last four nights, I couldn’t fall asleep,” I began. “Everything feels like the start of labor.”
I listed off other evidence: the nesting, pelvic pressure, swelling, tearfulness, weight loss. I mentioned the 25 loads of laundry I’d done in the last five days, how I reorganized all the kids’ clothes and set up John and Ava’s new closets.
I’d procrastinated these projects but now they quieted my mind and my body, both of which buzzed with anxiety, especially surrounding the birth. The main tenet of
hypnobirthing is to let go of fear so you can relax and accept labor. But here I was, in the final days, having anxiety attacks every other minute. Now that the laundry was done, I wanted my mommy.
~~~
I had reason to be concerned. When I had John, I dilated to 10 centimeters in just three hours. This time, I didn’t want to labor lying on the couch by myself, making phone calls while Brian flew about the house readying our exit. I didn’t want a car ride during transition.
Plus, at my 38-week appointment, the midwife told me I had group B strep, which I’d had with John, too. During his birth, there was some panic about getting the antibiotic in me before his delivery. Without it, John could have contracted the illness and possibly died from a resulting systemic infection. They wanted me to hold off on pushing for at least an hour, which I did.
So I told my mom on the phone Sunday evening all of my symptoms and anxieties, that I needed to leave for the hospital the moment I felt a contraction, not just for my comfort, but for the baby’s health. And, hello! I was 4 centimeters
four days ago!
“I don’t think you’ll go before Tuesday,” she said finally, slightly exasperated with me.
“Well, good,” I snapped. “If that makes you sleep soundly tonight, I’m happy.”
Yes, I said that to my mom. Yes, I can be a bitch.
We hung up. I cried. I recognized it as another sign of impending labor. I talked to Brian, and he said, “Don’t worry, when labor starts, we’ll just start calling people until we find someone to come.” We did have three candidates within half a mile, so I decided to trust in that and just relax.
Then my mom called back. “I’ll be there tomorrow.” I just had to make it through one more night.
~~~
We settled in to watch Hell’s Kitchen at about 10 pm. I tried to relax, but Ava kept kicking my abdomen. Despite several days of watching my posture and doing exercises to make her turn, it seemed she still sat facing my front, which meant back labor.
I had back labor with my first birth and I dreaded a repeat, especially a fast, intense one experienced in the passenger seat of my minivan. So while watching the angry chef I began doing what, along with laundry, occupied my entire last week of pregnancy: crawling around the parameter of my family room on my hands and knees.
When I stood up 20 minutes later, I felt Ava sitting differently, lower or just repositioned -- something. Then,
pop! A small splash of liquid came down.
“Uh, oh. There it is.”
“What?”
“I think my water broke.”
I had just handed Brian the hypnobirthing scripts he’d been putting off reading, and he was sitting Indian-style on the floor, cramming. In the bathroom, I saw that a tablespoon or so of clear liquid had come out.
~~~
“I should call the midwife.”
“Why?”
“I think my water did break.”
“You’re not having contractions, though.”
“But it says on the paper they gave me that if my water breaks they want to know about it.”
“Right.”
“And I have group B strep. They need to give me antibiotics so the baby doesn’t get it. It could cause systemic infection and she could die.”
“Oh.”
“So I’ll just call her.”
Pause. “You’re gonna call her?”
~~~
“How soon can you make it to the hospital?” asked Beth, the one midwife I hadn’t met yet.
“Why do I have to come in?” I asked, apparently in denial myself.
“I’ll do a culture to see if you’re water really broke, then we’ll take it from there.”
It was quarter to 11. “We’re going to the hospital,” I told Brian, then I called my niece, Dee, who lives around the corner but had told me of her plans to attend Irish Night downtown. She was probably still out, or buzzed.
“Hello!” she exclaimed, seeing my name on her caller I.D. Thankfully I didn’t have to convince her that I really needed to go to the hospital.
I told Brian that Dee was on her way, and began pulling my stuff together: overnight bag, camcorder, camera, CD player.
“Are we bringing all your stuff now?” Brian asked, totally serious.
Dee came in and I chatted her up and down, full of nervous energy. She kept saying, “Yeah, mm-hmm,” as in, “Shouldn’t you be going to the hospital now?”
Then we got into the car, and Brian looked at me and said, “So, we get to make a dry run this time!” Again, clearly missing the whole impending-birth aspect of the moment.
“Honey,” I said, “I don’t think this is a ‘dry run.’”
“Well, your not having contractions,” he rationalized. “You’re not in labor. So they’ll just send you home. Right?”
“We’ll see,” I said, tired of explaining. (Group B strep, water broke, 4 centimeters four days ago ... Ah, fuh-
gettit.)
~~~
Driving to the hospital, I remembered seeing in the hypnosis material the question “What do you want your contractions to feel like? Pressure? Numb?” So right then I decided on pressure, since I knew numbness probably wouldn’t happen. I also psyched myself up by thinking about what I didn’t have to face: back surgery, a spinal tap, third-degree burns over 90 percent of my body. Those things were painful. Labor? Nah.
Once there, my nurse, Joanne, got me onto the labor and delivery bed and hooked up the monitor. Ava began her usual bedtime gymnastics routine.
When Beth, the midwife, came in, I immediately liked her. Even though she seemed younger than me, she had a calming air about her. She took the culture and left the room, reappearing 10 minutes later.
“Your water did break. So I’m going to admit you,” she said.
I shot Brian a look. “Ha!”
Because of the group B strep and my history, Beth wanted me to relax at the hospital for the night. If labor didn’t start by 8 am, they would induce me.
The other nurse who came in to set up my IV – my brother’s goofy neighbor whom I was glad didn’t recognize me – forgot to attach something and didn’t notice until gallons of my blood had pooled onto the floor. “Hey, she needs that!” my nurse said, half kidding.
Beth asked me all kind of questions that made me glad I ditched the doctors at the last minute: Was I ok? Are my other children all set? Was there anything I needed?
“What kind of midwife do you like?” she asked.
“Maternal,” I told her. “Basically I want my mommy.”
Then I had to ask the dreaded question: "Can you check the baby's position?"
I held my breath as she checked. "She's perfect! Anterior, ready to come out."
What a relief.
~~~
After every thing was settled and Dee had agreed to stay until my mom arrived at 6 a.m., I remembered Ben, my five year old. He’d gotten into the habit of coming into my room at 4 am or so, frightened. He had just started going pee in the middle of the night by himself, and he’d run to wake us, wanting reassurance and someone to tuck him back in.
I realized he would enter my pitch black room and we wouldn’t be there and he’d be traumatized and horrified standing in the middle of this pitch black room. Of course this made me want to bawl.
So when Beth looked at me and asked “Are you OK?” tears welled in my eyes and I realized I had to call Dee again at 1:15 in the morning. Thankfully, she was still awake, and she agreed to turn the light on in my room to prevent scarring Ben for life. (Of course, he never got up that night.)
I also almost had a panic attack when I realized that the teeny tiny room I sat in would be mine for the duration. “This is it?” I asked. “I feel claustrophobic in here.”
Beth and Joanne pulled open the curtain that surrounding the incubator and other equipment, and assured me that this was as big as the rooms got. I’d have to deal.
~~~
Brian left to go call my mother (Ha! again) and Beth returned with two Ambien, “So you can get some rest.”
Since we had just discussed that I didn’t want pain medication, I assumed that this was a mild sleep aid. Wrong. I swallowed the pill, went to the bathroom, put on my Johnny, got back into bed and picked up my
People magazine, only to find it too complicated for my Ambien-riddled brain to comprehend. I gave up and closed my eyes. A huge green field appeared, on which red flowers began blooming until the whole thing was covered.
“Whoa,” I said to Brian. “This stuff is heavy duty.”
Then I passed out.
~~~
It started as a dull ache across my low back, no edge to it at all. I glanced up at the clock: 4 a.m.
Right on schedule, Joanne came in to refill my antibiotic I.V. We chatted, and she left.
I laid there, dozing in and out, watching the clock, until about 5 a.m. By this time, the contractions had gone from 10 minutes apart to 5 minutes, so I buzzed Joanne.
“Can you ask the midwife to check me?”
“Really?” she asked.
Really.
~~
Beth came in a few minutes later to take a look. “Seven centimeters,” she declared. “You know what this means? You’re having your baby this morning!”
The next hour and 45 minutes felt like a half hour. I was very “in my head” during this labor. For the first time, I had no doula to help. But my mind stayed hyper-focused on all the hypnobirthing suggestions I’d practiced, and I’m sure the Ambien didn’t hurt either. Between the two, I had no problem staying relaxed.
A big part of the hypnobirthing practice is to picture yourself floating on a bed of mist, then breathing it in. The color of the mist changes depending on which body part you want to numb or relax. For the first time, I used this imagery throughout my labor, most of the time envisioning red mist with back pain and orange mist for abdominal pain. Also for the first time I did the slow breath part of hypnobirthing, breathing in for 20 counts and out for 20 with each contraction.
So I laid in bed in the silent and dim room, breathing in and out, telling myself, “pressure, gentle pressure, breathe through it, relax into it, breathe in the red mist ...”
From what I recall, this is how I spent the 5-to-6 hour. Brian claims that he put on my Desert Flower CD and that he read scripts with me, but I don’t remember it and he could be covering his ass.
~~~
Somewhere around 6:15 am I got up and headed to the bathroom. “Just to warn you,” I told Beth, “I tend to camp out on the toilet when I’m in labor.”
“That’s OK!” she chirped.
On the toilet, I realized that the contractions, praise be to God, didn't hurt. It did feel more like pressure. I was intensely focused on the breathing and the colored mist. The sensations moved freely from my back to my abdomen.
At about 6:30 I looked at the clock and said, “I want to be ordering breakfast by 7:30.”
A few minutes later I felt like bearing down. I kind of panicked because Beth hadn’t given me the go ahead to push. I grimaced through it and then said “Am I fully dilated?”
Beth said, “Oh yeah.”
“Then, shall we?”
~~~
We moved to the birthing stool, which resembled bicycle handlebars much more than I’d remembered. I think the other midwives had taped towels around it, but this time? Cold hard metal.
By now I felt very trippy. I’d blame it on the Ambien, but the third stage of labor always feels this way to me. A moment after I sat down, as Joanne and Beth buzzed about making last-minute preparations, I realized I had to pee. Yes, I sat on the toilet for 30 minutes yet I forgot to pee.
I laughed on the inside, since my laugh muscles had apparently become paralyzed. Then, rather than asking for a bedpan, I just started peeing, and what I thought would be a trickle became this never-ending stream.
“Um, I’m peeing.”
“That’s OK,” Joanne said, “we expect a mess.”
Later Brian laughed as he confirmed, “It was
a lot of pee.”
~~
The first two times I used a birthing stool, I leaned backward onto Brian. This time, I leaned forward, with my forearms along the bars. This allowed a clear view of the goings on down below.
I breathed through the contractions as Ava made her way down. Within a few minutes, Beth said, “I can see her head, she’s right there.”
When her head came out I could see it, and for a second I felt that rush of relief – she’s out! But then Beth said, “The cord’s around her neck,” in this breathy, urgent voice, and she began pushing Ava back into me.
Another contraction came. “Don’t push!” Joanne and Beth yelled together.
“O.K., don’t push,” I told myself as I looked over my shoulder, not wanting to see the commotion between my legs. Just then a contraction came and I guess I pushed because Ava came flying out. (Beth later said, “The only time you pushed was when I told you not to!” I blame gravity.) I looked down and there she lay, arms startling, eyes wide, head moving left to right and back again, as Beth worked to get the cord off her neck.
Next thing I knew Ava was sitting bundled, in my arms. She looked up at me, her bottom lip sticking out in a pout. “You are very white,” I said to her, still feeling trippy, “and you are very sad.”
With that, Joanne whisked her out my arms and moved me to the bed.
Then Beth approached me. “I know you didn’t want her sent to the nursery, but where the cord was around her neck, the doctors would like her to go upstairs for a physical, to make sure she’s ok.”
“Of course,” I said. “But don’t let them bathe her.”
~~~
After Ava went upstairs, Beth began pressing on my uterus. With Ben and John’s birth, the pain of this part rivaled the worst pains of labor, causing me to say things like “What the
hell?!” and “Nooooo!!!”
But Beth and Joanne were so gentle, it didn’t hurt much. They kept apologizing as they did it, but I kept thinking, “This is nothing.”
~~~
Beth assured me that Ava was OK (her oxygen levels were 100 percent, and her heart rate never dipped), then told me the on-call doctor had ordered Cytotec to prevent bleeding. This confused me since my OB insisted he couldn’t use anti-bleeding drugs preventatively, so I asked Beth to double check. She did and returned with the suppositories.
Yes, suppositories.
“Remember, hemorrhoids,” I told her.
She laughed. “I’ll be careful.”
“Phew, that wasn’t so bad!”
“Just two more.”
“Oh.”
~~~
With that taken care of, I ordered some breakfast. It was about 7:10 a.m.
Beth came in and further displayed her cord-removal prowess by presenting us with a good amount of saved cord blood. I ate a cheese omelet and drank some gross coffee, read
People magazine and made a few phone calls.
Joanne came in and said, “I was very impressed with you. You just did your thing. I’ve never seen anything like it!”
Beth said I swayed her opinion of hypnobirthing. “You looked just like the women in the videos!”
I took a moment to pat myself on the back for all the times I didn’t skip listening to that darned CD.
~~~
Then I realized something was missing from this joyous post-birth scene: my baby. This hospital has a habit of keeping babies in the nursery for 11 hours once they get hold of them. Two hours had passed since she went, so I sent Brian to kidnap her.
When he brought her to me, she looked like a gorilla. Not exactly, but her upper lip and forehead were purplish black. Her eyes swelled like a boxer’s, enlarging before my eyes. Her waxy, matted black hair didn’t hurt either. I called Joanne.
She lifted the pink cardboard sign on her bassinet: “My face is bruised,” written in black marker. She showed me her pink tongue then explained how fast labors cause trauma to the baby, something I’m glad I didn’t know. She assured me the bruising would fade fast; it did, within 36 hours.
Ava had a deep scratch on her neck from where the midwife cut the cord, which was “very tight.” The large blood-red area on her eye healed within six weeks, though the pediatrician said it would last a very long time. She still has a small blood dot/hematoma on her cheek.
Other than that? Perfection.
