gearhead mama

M turned 9 months old today.

She has now been outside my body for as long as she was in it. I had a miscarriage a few months before getting pregnant with M, so my doctor did an early ultrasound. Although it feels like it was in a different lifetime, I still remember seeing the tiny flicker of her heartbeat on the monitor, and the joy that washed over me as I nearly cried with relief.

Not surprisingly, the last 18 months have transformed my life in ways I never could have imagined. The first months of my pregnancy were filled with the terror I would miscarry again, as well as near-constant nausea and intense fatigue like I’ve never felt before in my life. The second trimester brought a reprieve from the nausea (but not stretch marks!), although I still felt tired and run down. The last trimester brought huge-ness and back pain and Braxton-Hicks. Elevated blood pressure, and the sweet relief of being on disability and not having to drag myself to work every day. Then the marathon birth and the early hell-filled months (that I have not covered here yet). And then finally some equilibrium … nursing smoothed out, and except for our sleeping problems, our life developed a more comfortable rhythm. I grew into my role as a mother, and M’s personality bloomed.

And the teeth! How my daughter can grow teeth. I read a rule of thumb for teeth recently – subtract six from their age in months, and that’s how many teeth they should have. Let’s see, nine minus six equals three. Yet, M is cutting her eighth tooth right now. With no muss, no fuss – as usual.

The teeth come with a price, however. I recently developed nipple pain on the left side, and as I’ve never had any problems like a blocked duct, mastitis, etc., I started to panic that perhaps, after all this time, my luck was ending. A close inspection, however, revealed an enormous slash on the lower side – right where the nipple meets the areola. My general rule of thumb is “no sharp objects allowed in the vicinity of the nipples,” and M’s teeth are permitted access only out of necessity. A privilege she hardly respects, as she bites me with abandon whenever she’s cutting a new tooth. At some point she must have inflicted this gory wound, which resulted in several days of pumping (a hopeless endeavor) that was quickly abandoned in favor of nursing M in a variety of gymnastic positions in an attempt to keep her bottom teeth away from the very tender area. I’m pleased to report that it seems to have worked, and the cut is nearly healed. Here’s hoping I never have to go through that again.

She is tentatively starting to practice standing on her own, sometimes balancing for 10 seconds or so, and I’ve seen her carefully lower to a squat from a balanced standing position. She is into anything and everything. We have one room in the house that’s carpeted and babyproofed. Unfortunately, it also contains the computer. M is perfectly content to play on her own, crawling around, playing with toys, pulling up on furniture, pulling on the cat’s tail, but as soon as I sit down at the computer, she is all over me and the desk. She tries to grab the keyboard and mouse, and crawls into the CPU storage area (we moved the CPU on top of the desk so she couldn’t push any buttons) – which is always a disaster because she gets stuck and hits her head. She crawls beneath my feet and goes after the keyboard and mouse cords (although she ignores them if I’m not seated at the computer). Gah. If I sit in a chair and do nothing, she’s not interested in me. Sit at the computer and start to type, and there’s no peace.

I’ve been busily populating M’s summer wardrobe, and have shown a remarkable lack of restraint. I frequent thrift shops, resale shops and rummage sales, but still manage to find a plethora of adorable summer outfits. Far more than any child would ever need. Imagine my horror when I tried on one of my recent 12 month purchases, only to find she just barely fits in it now (helped in part by her cloth diaper). And it isn’t hot enough for her to even be wearing the stuff yet. The many beautiful outfits I’ve recently purchased flashed before my eyes, accompanied by the conviction that they will all be worn once – or less. I thought I was smart enough to avoid this problem (which occurred frequently during the explosive growth of the early months), but apparently I’m not.

M is still exclusively breastfed. Her pooping continues to be erratic enough (as in, 5 times in 4 days, and then a week of nothing) that I’m keeping her away from solids. She doesn’t seem to really care, although I did give her a small piece of bread to munch on the other day and she was quite delighted. Her reaction, coupled with a fairly well-developed pincer grasp, has led me to consider giving her the occasional finger food. Perhaps we’ll be able to skip over the whole pureed baby food thing. I can’t say I would be sorry.

She loves her books. Eating them, that is.

Note the damage (which she is so kindly pointing out).

Daddy Kisses is her favorite by far. She has always loved munching on it, and now she loves reading it too. R makes it a regular part of her bedtime routine, and when he picks it up she lets out a squeal of delight. She turns the pages and giggles as R mimics the animals on the page – kissing her neck, head, hand, etc.

We recently splurged on an Ergo, and it was money incredibly well-spent. Having M on my back changes everything – I’m much more comfortable, and there’s no grabby kid trying to get into everything within reach. I can now accomplish laundry, cooking and other chores that were nearly impossible before. I was worried she wouldn’t like being behind me, but she’s perfectly content, patting me on the back, reaching up to pull my hair, and gnawing on the straps.

We also bought a trailer for my bike (very cool side-car style, take a look). After some initial trepidation (especially about bumps), she seems to be making the adjustment and thoroughly enjoyed an hour ride with her papa yesterday. If I can make it through the gargantuan hill that stands between me and our subdivision exit, I may actually be able to get some exercise now.

She still loves the cats and harasses them mercilessly. Remarkably, two of them are quite tolerant, allowing her to pull on their ears, fur and even whiskers occasionally. They’re so tolerant that I have to remind myself to keep an eye on things … one of these days their limit will be reached and they’ll scratch her. A good lesson for her to learn, I suppose, but something I’d prefer to avoid if possible.

I am looking forward to the summer weather, taking walks, getting outside, swimming (and all those cute clothes). As we see signs of finally getting our sleep issues in hand, I am really looking forward to feeling more rested, and better able to enjoy our time together. I continue to be amazed by how hard a job this is, by how heart-breaking the difficult decisions are, and by how glad I am that I’m doing it. I love you M.

We reached the sleep breaking point last Monday. I slept for 3 hours while R had M in the sling. He brought her to me at 2 AM, and as soon as she finished nursing she started kicking. And did not stop. Every few minutes there would be a kick and a writhe, and when I pushed her knees to her chest at 5 AM in a desperate attempt to help her pass gas, she peed and it ran out the back of her diaper into a puddle on my bed. I carried her to her room to change her and stood there sobbing. I could not go on like this. It was a physical impossibility. That night we started putting M in her crib.

M is not exactly happy about this development, and frankly, neither am I. I believe co-sleeping is good for her, and it obviously makes her feel safe and loved. But it is not working for us as a family … I’m not getting any sleep, and R has been banned to a different room. It saddens me that we can’t make this work for us, but we simply can’t.

I’ve been struggling for weeks (months?), trying to find a solution that would work for all of us and traumatize none of us. Unfortunately, I’m not sure one exists. I was still foundering, searching for a solution, when I arrived at the breaking point. So we didn’t start putting M in her crib necessarily because we thought it was the right solution, we did it because there were no other options – I physically could not keep her in my bed any longer. I dislike feeling like I’ve been forced into a certain action, but it is how I feel here.

So we have been proceeding with great ambivalence, but proceeding nonetheless. R is deployed at regular intervals to soothe her, because my greatest fear is that she’ll feel rejected and abandoned, or that we’re ignoring (and therefore dismissing) her feelings of anger and fear (at least that’s what I assume she’s feeling). I’ve spent my life feeling dismissed and invalidated by my parents, and I’m terrified of doing the same to M. My only comfort is that getting her to sleep is only one of many things we do in a 24 hour period. Not to mention that if I actually get some sleep, I may be a better parent during the rest of those 24 hours. I can only hope that if there are any negative effects to what we’re doing, they will be offset by the rest of our parenting.

In addition to my fears about how this will affect her, I’ve also had to deal with the loss I feel. Despite the difficulties of co-sleeping (including back and hip pain, being kept awake for hours on end by the kicking, and feeling like a straight-jacketed prisoner in my own bed), there were wonderful things too. M is not a very cuddly baby – she rarely leans on me or rests her head on my shoulder. But at night she pressed her body against me, and I could experience her incredible softness and warmth. The way she would root and latch on without opening her eyes or waking, and the obvious comfort she found from nursing would melt my heart, even as my body ached. This is particularly powerful for me, given the nursing difficulties we had in the beginning (which I have not yet covered here). And watching her wake up every morning was an act of pure bliss. She would stir for a while, moving her head from side to side. Then an arm would shoot up, her fingers slowly curling and uncurling. It would sink leisurely to her side, only to shoot up again, only to sink down again. Then she would open her eyes and tip her head back to look up at me, rewarding me with a huge grin that crinkled her eyes into new moons. I’ve cried over this loss – and the fear that I’m making a mistake – many times the last few days. But I proceed because having her in my bed for even just a few hours is a potent reminder of why we can’t continue that way.

And amongst all this fear and grief, there is also hope. This is how things went last night:

7:00 PM nurse
7:30 PM in crib
7:50 PM asleep
1:15 AM nurse and fall back asleep immediately
8:05 AM nurse and up for the day (with a big smile on her face)

Yes, you read that correctly. M slept for 12 hours, waking to nurse only once. I slept longer and deeper than I have in a very long time (although I still wake every 2-4 hours, from habit I suppose). We both got more sleep, and are both better rested. And she is showing no ill effects – happily playing and babbling and smiling like she does every day.

I know every night is different, and there’s no guarantee the rest of our nights will look like this – although that doesn’t stop me from hoping. As I lie in bed at night, comfortably wrapped around my body pillow, and able to toss and turn at will to ease the throbbing in my back and hips, I ponder the impossibility of perfection and the necessity of compromise. I am groping my way forward, uncertain that my choices are “right”. It’s a feeling I’m not comfortable with, but I’m sure will be faced with many times. In fact, I already know the next problem I get to agonize my way through: naps.

Wise Woman Sling: $40
Lumber and hooks: $7
An hour of M sleeping by herself: Priceless

< Part 7 (A New Life Begins) / Part 9 (Epilogue, for my daughter) >

Although it didn’t take long for me to start painting M’s birth as a heroic tale, in truth, it left both my body and mind stunned. And not in a good way. They say you forget the pain and agony of birth, and it’s true – I no longer feel it in the visceral way I did in the beginning. But for weeks I was left with strong memories of the searing pain and emotional despair that consumed me for much of my labor. Not that I regret my decisions in any way. I’m surprised by the number of women I’ve met since M’s birth who describe stories similar to mine – posterior and acynclitic baby leading to long, “failure to progress” labors – and they all opted for epidurals, and nearly all ended in c-sections. I continue to believe a c-section would have been the outcome if I’d opted for an epidural, and while that is by no means the end of the world, I’m glad I didn’t have one.

But as the weeks passed and the intensity of the experience diminished, I tried to focus instead on the amazing thing I had done – I had found the strength to endure what seemed unendurable. I survived 3 days of labor, and over 36 hours of active labor without any form of pain relief. I never felt the urge to push, and after only 10 hours of sleep over 4 days, I still found the strength to push my baby out in 21 minutes. And don’t forget stopping while her head was halfway out so they could suction her nose. Against the odds, I persevered and had the natural birth I wanted. By all accounts, it was a triumph. … Or was it?

About 5 months after M was born, I decided to treat myself to a massage for my birthday. The woman I saw combined massage with craniosacral therapy, and for the first time I started peeling back the layers of M’s birth. And I realized there was a lot more to it than I was admitting to myself. It finally dawned on me that I felt betrayed by my body – that it was broken, defective, wrong. The days I spent struggling through my labor drove home the point that I was a failure, and I didn’t know how to give birth. Why else did so many things go wrong? Why else did it take so long? Why else was it so utterly miserable?

It was a shock to uncover these feelings, lying concealed in my subconscious. You have to understand, though, that they’re not really that surprising when set in the context of my life. My parents were capricious in how they bestowed their love, so I grew up believing there was something wrong with me – I was a failure, flawed to the core and unworthy. In fact, I’ve spent the better part my life trying to earn their love – an A student and National Merit Scholar, I even earned a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering with a 4.0 grade point average. Even when perfect, however, I was never good enough. I realize now that it doesn’t have anything to do with me, but as a child I didn’t understand it was about them. And it’s hard to undo those messages, driven into me, day in and day out, by the two people on this planet who are supposed to love me most. So it’s not a surprise that my subconscious twisted M’s birth around, and turned it into yet another condemnation of who I am.

In a way, every minute of every day is like being on trial. Every action and thought unconsciously examined, evaluated and weighed – does this prove I’m good? Or bad? The despair I felt during my labor was about more than just the pain and failure to progress. It also spoke to the feelings I had about myself. It was a giant, accumulating mass on the “bad” side of the scale of my life.

I think that’s why the even effacement was such a turning point. It meant my body was working “properly” and maybe I was “okay” after all. With the burden of my “badness” lifted, I found the strength to continue without pain relief.

It makes me so sad to realize I have these feelings about myself. That I can take such an amazing event and use it as a denunciation. I’ve spent years in therapy trying to rewrite these indoctrinated messages. And, despite evidence to the contrary, I’ve actually had a fair amount of success. I am a much healthier and happier person now, but it seems like every time I scrape off a layer of shit, I find another one beneath it. My greatest fear as a parent is perpetuating the legacy of my family. I am determined to break the pattern, and raise M in an atmosphere of unconditional love. But it’s sometimes hard to give her that when I’ve hardly known it myself. In fact, my first experience of truly unconditional love is the love I receive from M.

I knew going into this that M would be my teacher as well as my child, and I am grateful for this even though I sometimes curse the lessons I’m forced to struggle through. The fact is, the gauntlet has been thrown and it’s up to me to meet the challenge. Can I get my head and heart straight enough to love and cherish my daughter AND myself the way we deserve? The answer is yes. It must be yes. There is no alternative.

Being a parent is hard work. Hell, being a person is hard work. It’s a lifelong journey, and I will never arrive at my destination. And that’s okay. I am working on forgiving my body for not being “perfect” during M’s birth. And I’m working on forgiving myself for not being a “perfect” parent, while still striving to do the very best I can. An exercise I will have to repeat every day for the rest of my life.

So M’s birth was really about so many things … the birth of my daughter, the birth of myself as a mother, the birth of a teacher and a student. Like all momentous events in life, there are many things to be learned from the experience. And I have no regrets – it was a test of my will, my strength, my belief in myself. And a testament to those things as well. It was a triumph indeed.

Part 1 (Preparation)
Part 2 (Warming Up)
Part 3 (Ready! Set! Wait!)
Part 4 (Ready! Set! Wait Some More!)
Part 5 (Are We There Yet?)
Part 6 (I Think I Can, I Think I Can, I Think I can)
Part 7 (A New Life Begins)
Part 8 (Epilogue, For Me)
Part 9 (Epilogue, for my daughter)

Little did I know the havoc such a tiny thing could wreak. Apparently, it is the source of the bug that was screwing up the formatting of the birth story pages, as well as eliminating the comments section. So everything has been changed from “M’s Birth Story” to just “Birth Story”. The crazy thing? It was the very first fix I tried. I’m guessing that’s my lifetime allotment of good computer karma. It’s all downhill from here.

The really crazy thing? The birth story isn’t done. I still want to write about how the birth impacted me, as well as M. Stay tuned …

< Part 6 (I Think I Can, I Think I Can, I Think I Can) / Part 8 (Epilogue, For Me) >

Recap: It was just before midnight on Friday and I was at the birth center. I’d been having contractions off and on since Wednesday morning, and steadily since Thursday evening. My effacement was finally even and I was dilated to 5 cm. Since Tuesday, I’d slept roughly 10 hours (most of which was regularly interrupted with contractions). I was exhausted, but news of the even effacement had given me new hope and strength.

I sat in the shower spraying my belly, while the nurse filled the hot tub. There was a hum of quiet activity in the room, nurses and Gloria in and out, but I was oblivious. I had struggled with what to pack for wearing in the hot tub, unsure of how modest I would feel. But there was no modesty left at this point, and I heaved my naked body into the tub when it was full. I don’t know how M was positioned or if the nurse checked during the exam, although I can only assume she did. Looking back, it seems curious that my effacement would have evened out if she had remained posterior and acynclitic. Yet Gloria proceeded as if things remained unchanged. I was ordered to lie on my left side in the tub to encourage her to turn.

From this point on, my labor progressed fairly normally. I don’t know the frequency of my contractions – we never really timed them, although perhaps the nurses did. I laid in the tub, R poured water over my belly and talked me through contractions, I lifted myself occasionally so they could check M’s heartbeat, and minutes blurred into hours. The water was cooled several times, as her heart rate was slightly elevated, but other than that, the nurses mostly left me alone. The pain of the contractions was intense and unrelenting, and I dreaded each one, but there was nothing to do but keep going. After a while I got out of the tub and sat on the birth ball. R sat across from me in the recliner, supporting me with his hands, talking me through the contractions. Suddenly I felt nauseous, and managed to yell out, “Feeling pukey! Feeling pukey!” There was a mad scramble in the room as Gloria charged towards us, fumbling the little pan. She got it into R’s hands just in time, and I leaned forward and emptied the contents of my stomach. Several times. After the contraction ended, I joked that I didn’t care if I threw up, as long as it helped me dilate.

At 3:40 AM, the nurse checked me again and pronounced me 8-9 cm and 100% effaced, baby at zero station. I was in the home stretch, and intensely relieved. At 5:15 AM the on-call doctor arrived. Unfortunately it was not my doctor, but according to Gloria, he was the next best doctor in the practice. I found him to be incredibly kind and considerate – his checks were even gentler than the nurses. He informed me that I was still at 8 cm (after an hour and a half), and perhaps I might want to consider having my waters broken to see if that would speed things up. I was adamantly opposed to interventions of any kind, but I also knew I couldn’t take this for much longer. I looked from R to Gloria, indecision in my eyes, the haze of pain and fatigue hindering my ability to think. I asked for Gloria’s opinion, and she said she didn’t think it was a bad idea. She told me days later that they lied to me. The doctor’s check showed I was at seven cm, not eight. I know determining dilation is not an exact science, as everyone has different sized fingers. Also, dilation can increase (or decrease) during a contraction, so the timing of the check can change things. And feeling stressed, anxious or unsafe can cause the cervix to close down, only to open up again once those feelings pass. However, in the heat of the moment, Gloria was afraid that hearing I had regressed would devastate me. She huddled with the nurses and doctor, and they decided to tell me I was still at 8 cm, in the hopes I wouldn’t be too discouraged. I think they made the right decision.

With the green light from Gloria, I consented to the membrane rupture. The doctor was so gentle, that despite the enormity of the hook he inserted into me, I didn’t feel a thing. A small amount of amniotic fluid came out and the doctor told me it was stained with meconium (typically a sign of fetal distress), but lightly, so he wasn’t worried. I climbed back into the tub. There was one bit of really good news from the check – M was no longer posterior and had rotated into the ideal position for birth. After so many days of struggling, it had finally happened (and I have no idea when or how). I told Gloria I was going to lie however I damn well pleased, and flopped onto my right side. She sighed and looked worried, but didn’t say anything.

Shortly after 6 AM, I started making “uh-uh-uh” noises involuntarily during my contractions and I elatedly announced that I was feeling “pushy”. Gloria made me stay in the tub a bit longer until the grunts became stronger and more consistent. I was ecstatic to know that things were almost over, but also terrified about the next stage. They helped me out of the tub and toweled me off as I shivered uncontrollably. Gloria tried to get me to direct my energy into the contractions instead of shivering, but I wasn’t able to maintain my focus. I leaned on her and told her I was afraid. She asked why, and I said I didn’t know how to push. It seems silly, but it was the truth. I had no idea what to expect and I was suddenly gripped with fear.

At 6:15 AM I climbed shivering onto the bed, only to be told a lip of cervix remained (I had zoomed from 7 cm to almost complete in an hour). Despite my fear, I was crestfallen. I wanted the contractions to END. After a brief discussion, the nurse told me she would try to hold the lip aside while I pushed gently, hoping to move M’s head past the lip. I’ve read stories of women screaming in pain during this type of procedure, but I honestly don’t remember it hurting any more than a contraction (which was plenty bad enough). Perhaps I’ve blocked out the memory. We tried several times, but were unsuccessful. Also, now that I was out of the tub, the grunts and pushiness were gone. It wasn’t time yet.

I struggled through the next hour, trying to visualize the lip melting away. It was hard. To know I was so close, and once again hitting a brick wall. I was so overwhelmed with exhaustion, that I actually started to not care as much about the contractions. That realization made me laugh. A little.

Shortly after 7 AM, the grunting returned. At 7:07 AM, the nurse checked me again. I was complete. No, wait, there was still a lip. Oh, the horror. She said she would check me again in 20 minutes.

I gritted my teeth and cursed as wave after wave of contractions hit me. Unbelievably, the pain had reached a new level, and was radiating around my sides and into my back. I don’t know why I started having back pain after all this time, although I’m guessing it’s somehow related to my surgery. I voiced the new pain, but no one offered to apply counterpressure, and I was too dazed to request it. I started to panic, my pitch moving higher and higher, and I needed constant reminders to keep it low. Twenty minutes hadn’t seemed that long, but as new contractions started before the previous one had faded away, and my back felt like it was being rent at the seams, it became an eternity. I whined and moaned and breathed. But with constant reminders and support from R and Gloria, I managed to hold myself together.

At 7:30 AM I was complete. It was time to push. My fear returned, but the pushiness did not. I had read about pushing – how the body is seized by the desire, the will, the force. It sweeps through you, consumes you, takes you over and carries you along. The pain of dilating contractions is replaced by the relief of pushing. None of that happened. The contractions continued to pound my body, but there was no relief, no overwhelming urge. I didn’t know what to do.

I looked pleadingly at Gloria, trying to find the words to ask her how to proceed. I couldn’t take the pain of the contractions. I wanted them to end. But I didn’t feel the urge to push. Did I wait for it to come? Or not? I couldn’t bear the thought of waiting, but I was terrified pushing would make the contractions hurt even more. Gloria said to try pushing. I was still lying on the bed from the final check, and although I was opposed to giving birth on my back, Gloria assured me there was plenty of room in my pelvis (I believe the exact words were “Your pelvis is HUGE!!”), and I could try it if I wanted. I gave a few pushes, but Gloria told me I was putting more energy into pulling on her and R than pushing. I sat up on the side of the bed, and Gloria said we could feel M’s head if we wanted to. I put my hand down, and it was right there, so close to the opening. It was wrinkly and soft. After some encouragement, R felt too.

Gloria sat me on the birth stool, but I was intensely uncomfortable there. Despite the opening that made room for the baby, it still felt like sitting in a chair and trying to poop. I refused to push there.

Not having the urge to push really complicated things, and there was an air of uncertainty in the room. Gloria suggested that R should stimulate my nipples (a technique we’d used earlier to strengthen contractions), hoping it would bring on the urge to push. I couldn’t bear the thought of making the contractions even stronger and more painful, and I refused. She asked me if I wanted to get this baby out. I still refused. I had followed her lead, listened to her suggestions and taken her advice and she had served me well. But I could not do this. She sighed and shook her head. I didn’t care.

It was now 8 AM. Gloria helped me onto the bed, and I leaned forward on the birth ball, gripping R’s hands for balance. I had known from the beginning that I would birth on hands and knees (and had told Gloria so during a pre-natal visit), so I don’t know why we bothered with the other positions. Although I made the “uh-uh-uh” sound occasionally during my contractions, it was sporadic, and there was still no real urge to push. Nonetheless, I soldiered on, and it was clear I had finally found the right position.

Gloria instructed me to roll back on my haunches while pushing, as if I were squatting (except on my knees). And she used her hands and said push here. I arched my back slightly, like a stretching cat, squeezed R’s hands with a strength I didn’t know I possessed, grunted mightily, and bore down. “YES! That’s it! You’re doing great!” But I was still uncertain as to when to push. The contractions continued to grind through my body and they hurt like hell, but they didn’t tell me to push. Gloria said to try to get three pushes in per contraction, but I didn’t know when to start. Sometimes I’d push as soon as the contraction started, other times I’d wait to see if it would guide me. But as the minutes ticked by, I started pushing 2-3 times with almost every contraction. It was clear I wasn’t going to get the pushing sensation, and I wanted the pain to end.

Gloria and the nurse were cheering me on, telling me I was a great pusher. The doctor was summoned, and he came around to my head to talk. He knew we didn’t want to cut the cord until it stopped pulsing, but there was a lot more meconium than he originally thought, and they were going to have to cut the cord immediately and take M to suction the fluid out. I nodded my head numbly. He apologized, and said she would never leave our room, and after everything we’d been through, cutting the cord immediately seemed like such a minor thing. Once again I was amazed by his respect and consideration, and so thankful he was the doctor attending my birth.

I grunted furiously while I pushed, and the noise drowned out everything around me. The doctor was soft-spoken, and I had my back (okay, my butt) to him. I couldn’t hear a thing he was saying, didn’t even know he was talking to me, to this day still have no idea what I missed. Suddenly Gloria realized I couldn’t hear him, and yelled for me to stop pushing. I had moved M down without feeling a thing (thanks again to that HUGE pelvis), but now her head was crowning, and the ring of fire was raging. Her nose was out, and the doctor wanted me to stop pushing so he could suction her before she started breathing. Stop pushing. While her head was halfway out of me. I automatically obeyed Gloria, and whimpered in pain while they tended to M. I got the okay to push again, and gave a mighty shove, feeling the relief of her head coming free. Gloria ran to my head and announced, “Her head is out!” “I KNOW!” I growled. I was tired, but not that tired. The cord was around her neck, but they looped it off. I started to ask if I should wait for another contraction before pushing again, and then thought why the fuck would I willingly subject myself to another contraction when I didn’t have to. I gave a push, and the rest of her body slithered out, her arms and legs leaving a faint impression on my memory as they departed my body forever. It was 8:21 AM, and my daughter was finally born.

I twisted to the left and saw M lying on the bed behind me, but she wasn’t crying. I was seized with terror, and frantically asked if she was okay. Gloria assured me she was fine, and she started crying shortly thereafter (I realized later they didn’t want her to cry, in the hopes she wouldn’t aspirate the meconium). They cut the cord and moved her to a table on the other side of the room. The nurse helped me turn over so I could sit down, and I was giddy with relief. No more contractions. No more pain.

The doctor worked on M until the neo-natal doc arrived and took over, and then he came to tend to me. He started to inform me that it was time to birth the placenta, then said, “Oh, it’s right here”. Unbeknownst to me, it was already almost all the way out. He gave a gentle pull and it was out. He looked it over, and I was shocked at how large it was. He said everything looked okay. The nurses started cleaning me up, and the doctor said I had two tears – one was minor and needed no attention, the other was 2nd degree and would require stitches.

It was at this point that the lack of sleep (about 10 hours over the previous 4 days) really hit me. I felt like I was underwater. Everything was surreal and in slow motion. I would say something, then desperately try to remember what I’d just said because I wasn’t sure the words were in the right order or made any sense. I was confused and foggy, and felt my grip on reality sliding away. At the same time I was excited to meet my daughter, thrilled the birth was over, and amazed that I had DONE IT. I was also curious as to why my throat felt so sore, and it took a while before I realized it was from all the grunting while I pushed. This made me laugh.

R was moving between me and M, taking pictures with our digital camera so I could see her. She was so beautiful. When they finished with the suctioning, the nurse went about cleaning her up, weighing and measuring her (7 lb 10 oz, 20.5” long), etc. We had declined the Hep B shot, and requested that the eye drops and vitamin K be delayed. It had been an hour since her birth, and I was growing increasingly anxious to have her in my arms. Gloria informed the nurse that I hadn’t held my daughter yet, and she apologized and brought her to me immediately.

My first thought was to get her to my breast. We had already lost an hour, and I didn’t want to waste anymore time. I unwrapped her so her skin was against mine, and set her on my chest. She nuzzled me gently, and after a while she latched on and sucked once or twice, then pulled away. Gloria said that was actually very good, considering what she had just been through. And for the first time, it hit me that the deep suctioning (tubes shoved repeatedly down her nose and throat) may have been a difficult thing for her. But she had latched on, however brief, and that seemed like a good sign.

The next hours were a blur of sleeping, holding my beautiful girl, and visitors. M continued to show little interest in nursing, so that afternoon I pumped some colostrum, and we fed it to her in a little cup. By evening I was able to get her latched on and she started nursing. I was a little tentative, and we had a few kinks to work out, but things seemed to be going pretty well.

Two had become three, and we headed home the next morning to begin our new life together.

Part 1 (Preparation)
Part 2 (Warming Up)
Part 3 (Ready! Set! Wait!)
Part 4 (Ready! Set! Wait Some More!)
Part 5 (Are We There Yet?)
Part 6 (I Think I Can, I Think I Can, I Think I can)
Part 7 (A New Life Begins)
Part 8 (Epilogue, For Me)
Part 9 (Epilogue, for my daughter)

< Part 5 (Are We There Yet?) / Part 7 (A New Life Begins) >

Recap:
Baby dropped Tuesday night, keeping me up until 1:30 AM
Contractions started Wednesday morning at 5:30 AM
(Four hours of sleep on Tuesday night)

Contractions continued steadily throughout Friday, but labor progressed very slowly
Realized that M’s head was acynclitic, which explained the uneven effacement and slow dilation
6:15 PM, 3-4 cm and 80% effaced (unevenly)
As the evening wore on, desperation set in
11:00 PM a decision was made to go to the birth center for Stadol, and hopefully, sleep

Gloria left for the birth center while we were still gathering our things, saying she would pick up some coffee on the way. I asked if she had any tips for dealing with contractions in the car, and she assured me that they almost always stopped during the ride to the hospital. I looked forward to the respite, however brief.

As we prepared to leave, I was overcome with a sense of the surreal. I knew when we returned it would be with our daughter, our lives changed forever. I’d known this all along of course, but it had always seemed so far away. Now, with the contractions pushing me relentlessly forward, the realization seemed so startling. I wanted to take time to let it all sink in, but I was too busy worrying about forgetting something important. Did we have my x-rays? Were the cats fed? Should I bring a pillow? What did I need to get me through the coming hours? I didn’t know the answer, so we quickly grabbed whatever our tired brains could think of. The birth center permitted me to eat and drink whatever I wanted, but despite my best intentions, we hadn’t put anything together. R hastily threw some fruit popsicles into an insulated lunch bag and grabbed some waters.

We stepped out of the house to find a beautiful night. It was cool and clear, and so unbelievably quiet. Staring up at the sky sprinkled with stars, my perspective suddenly snapped wide open. I’d been so consumed with my labor, I’d forgotten anything else existed. My head cleared a little, and I looked back with a tinge of regret as I walked to the car, closing the door on my old life forever.

We glided down the empty highway, while the world slept quietly, obliviously, around us. Unfortunately, Gloria’s assurances about contractions in the car did not apply to me (what a surprise). I had three contractions during the 20 minute ride, and I somehow found the words to explain to R that even though I knew I was supposed to stay relaxed, keep my tone low and breathe, I needed someone to hold my hand and remind me – every time. He’d been watching Gloria for almost 12 hours, and he stepped smoothly into her place without missing a beat. From that moment he became my coach, and helped me through every contraction, right up to the last one. I breathed through the contractions, and clung tenuously to the idea of the birth center, of a change, of something new.

At the hospital, R volunteered to drop me at the emergency entrance, but the parking lot was nearly empty and the spots seemed, well, so close. And I was afraid to be without R. I told him to go ahead and park – I would walk. A few minutes later I was wondering if I should regret this decision, but I managed to make it to the entry, where they insisted on putting me in a wheelchair. As much as I hated walking, I hated sitting even more, but they were adamant – it was for our safety. A call was made, and I was told a nurse would come down to take me to the Alternative Birthing Center (ABC). In the meantime, I fought through contraction after contraction. I sat and moaned, while people in the waiting room tried not to stare. In hindsight, I don’t know why I didn’t just get up and do what I needed to do. What were they going to do? Tackle a laboring woman, and wrestle her back into the chair? But I sat and suffered and cursed the nurse who was taking forever. At long last she arrived and started wheeling me down the hall. I assured her I was nowhere near delivering my baby, so R was dispatched with my insurance card to get me admitted.

At 11:45 PM I arrived at my room with a sigh of relief – at last I could get out of that damn chair. The room was dim and quiet – a big queen sized bed, recliner, mini-fridge and hot tub. I climbed onto the bed and got settled so the nurse could check me, expecting disappointing news. Unaware that I’d already been subjected to countless cervical checks, the nurse laughed and commented on how I knew exactly what to do, then withdrew her hand and said 5 cm, 90% effaced. There was no mention of uneven effacement, so I asked. She checked again, and declared I was 90% effaced, all the way around. I couldn’t believe it. The bars of my cage dissolved into thin air, and I was free. I rolled off the bed and lumbered towards the shower to see if it would help me cope with the pain. All thoughts of Stadol and epidurals vanished like fog dissipating on a sunny morning. My effacement was even, and it was time to get down to business.

Part 1 (Preparation)
Part 2 (Warming Up)
Part 3 (Ready! Set! Wait!)
Part 4 (Ready! Set! Wait Some More!)
Part 5 (Are We There Yet?)
Part 6 (I Think I Can, I Think I Can, I Think I can)
Part 7 (A New Life Begins)
Part 8 (Epilogue, For Me)
Part 9 (Epilogue, for my daughter)

< Part 4 (Ready! Set! Wait Some More!) / Part 6 (I Think I Can, I Think I Can, I Think I Can)>

Recap:
Baby dropped Tuesday night, keeping me up until 1:30 AM
Contractions started Wednesday morning at 5:30 AM
(Four hours of sleep on Tuesday night)

Contractions started and stopped all day Thursday, starting with regularity in the evening
Diagnosed as prodromal labor, likely due to M’s posterior position
(Thursday night, sleep eludes me)

I vented online until after midnight, then decided it was time to get serious. I was going to get this baby to turn. I started an aggressive regime of knees-chest and downward dog for as long as I could stand it (which was not long, since throwing around that much pregnancy weight – 60 extra pounds in my case – is no easy task). I then leaned on the birth ball, and tried to lift and jiggle my belly, in the hopes that it would encourage her to turn. I repeated this so often I began to fear I would actually hurt her, and still I didn’t think it had done any good. Defeated, I gave up.

Around 2 AM, I finally decided to get in the hot tub, hoping it would relax me and provide some pain relief. Imagine my dismay when I found that “nature’s epidural” actually intensified the contractions. This was a horribly unexpected development, as I was really counting on using water to help get me through this. At least it allowed me to relax in between contractions – something I was having difficulty doing in any other position – so I reluctantly stayed in the tub. I leaned forward on the little raft R had picked up for me, still hoping that keeping my belly down would encourage M to flip anterior. The contractions seemed very regular, and although I knew this could happen with prodromal labor, I was desperately hoping Gloria’s diagnosis was wrong. Things were starting to hurt a lot, and the thought that I wasn’t even in “real” labor was too much to bear. So I decided to time them. They started at 8 minutes apart. After a while, they moved to 5 minutes apart. I decided if they stayed at 5 minutes for 30 minutes, I would wake R and have him call Gloria. That time limit came and went, and they were still at 5 minutes. And they hurt. It was now almost 4 AM. It was time to wake R, but the hot tub was in the basement, and I couldn’t bear the thought of hoisting my whale-like, contracting body out of the water and finding my way – dripping wet – up the steps, so I started screaming at the top of my lungs. After several minutes of loud and increasingly frantic screaming, R finally came stumbling down the stairs to find a very distraught and tearful wife. The contractions were now coming at 3 minutes apart, and were really painful. After a few barked instructions on where to find Gloria’s number and what to say, he made the call. He eventually put me on the phone with her. She was very calm, and told me she would come over, but first she was going to take a shower and have some coffee. WHAT??? I’m having contractions every 3 minutes, and you’re going to take a fucking SHOWER??? This is NOT what I paid almost a thousand dollars for! In my exhausted and incoherent state, I tried to explain that I was worried it would be time to go to the hospital before she even got to my house, but she reassured me that everything was fine, and to just wait for her. I was skeptical, but she obviously wasn’t going to budge and I was in no position to argue, so I hung up the phone.

I honestly don’t remember how I got through the next hour and a half. I was falling apart and not managing the pain well. My anxiety levels were through the roof, and poor R was at a loss as to how to help. I was immensely relieved when Gloria finally arrived at 5:30 AM (Friday). She and R got me out of the tub, and after a quick bathroom break (one of the nice things about being submerged in the tub was the buoyancy, but stepping out of the water – and the accompanying rude return of gravity – would bring the baby crashing down on my bladder and invariably resulted in a bathroom emergency), she checked me again. The news was good and bad. Although the effacement hadn’t really changed, I’d gone from marginally fingertip dilated to definitely fingertip dilated. Progress, however slight. Cervical change meant this was not prodromal labor – it was the real thing. But hello – I’d been having regular contractions for roughly 12 hours, and had gone from marginally fingertip to full fingertip, with no change in effacement. This was not what I wanted to hear, especially with the contractions coming fast and furious. I was clearly still in the very early stages of labor, and after two nights of little sleep, and one night of no sleep, there was still a very long way to go. But there was no turning back and no rest to be found, no matter how I felt about the situation.

Once out of the tub, I found I wanted to constantly move during contractions. Gloria directed my movements to ones that would help labor progress, reminded me to keep my body relaxed (shoulders, forehead, hands, toes), then gave me the best advice I’d gotten so far – she said, “get out of your head”. She didn’t explain this further, but I immediately sensed what she was getting at. With each contraction, I visualized a scene to go with my body’s motion. Sometimes I was gently rocking on a raft or in a boat; other times I was dipping and rolling in a small plane, or simply floating through the air; other times I was pedaling through twisting single-track on my mountain bike. As each contraction rolled to a peak, I would focus instead on the motion and visualization – leaving the contraction far behind. Suddenly, the contractions slowed down, spaced out and hurt a whole hell of a lot less. I looked at Gloria with amazement, and she told me this was how early labor was supposed to be; the contractions had been fast and painful because I was tense and anxious. She said not to worry about labor slowing down … I was simply taking it where it was supposed to be.

Gloria stayed until about 10 AM when it was obvious I had things well in hand. She said to call her when things “changed” – that I would know when that time came. She also encouraged me to eat and drink to keep up my strength. Ever the dutiful husband, R made some scrambled eggs, which he fork-fed to me throughout the rest of the day.

I continued working with the contractions and staying out of my head. I even took a shower – in part to see how it worked for pain relief, but also because I felt the need to get clean. It seemed to dull the pain of the contractions, while at the same time making them more frequent. I stood in the streaming water, and dreamily rocked and swayed. I emerged after a while, feeling clean and refreshed, and continued to deal with each contraction as it came.

I cannot remember exactly how or why we decided it was time to bring Gloria back, but I think it happened when “getting out of my head” started being less effective. She arrived back at our house around 1:30 PM. She checked me again and I was dilated to 2 cm, and 70% effaced. Disappointing news, but at least I was getting there, slowly but surely. She was concerned about one thing, however – my effacement wasn’t “even”. The anterior portion of my cervix was much thicker than the rest (Gloria referred to it as “swollen”). As a first time mom, Gloria said I wouldn’t be able to dilate fully until effacement was complete. Somehow we had to get the effacement back on track. She started using arnica oil during checks to try to bring down the swelling.

The contractions were strong enough now that I was starting to use sound to get through them. Gloria would rub my back, tell me to lower the pitch of my sound, and remind me to relax and breathe. I knew all of these things, of course, but stubbornly refused to use them, preferring to fight the contractions. Gloria would remind me – contraction after contraction – and I would make a petulant face, but I followed her instructions.

At 3:45 PM, I was 2-3 cm and 80% effaced (at the thinnest spot), but the effacement was still uneven. After a prolonged exam, Gloria finally determined that M’s head was acynclitic (tipped slightly) due to her posterior positioning. This meant her head was not applying even pressure to the cervix, and we finally understood the source of the uneven effacement. Until then, we believed the posterior positioning was no more than an inconvenience, and since I wasn’t experiencing back labor it wasn’t that big a deal. But now we realized the effect it was having on my cervix, and just how badly it was slowing labor. And thus began our quest to get M to turn. Until she turned and straightened out her head, I would not efface fully, and until I effaced fully I would not dilate, and until I dilated … well, you know the rest.

In hindsight, I now recognize how incredibly valuable Gloria’s monitrice skills were. If I had hired a “normal” doula, we would not have known my dilation or effacement. We would not have known how slowly things were progressing, or been able to determine the cause. It’s likely I would have gone to the hospital much sooner than needed, and once on their timetable, the interventions would have been inevitable.

So now Gloria truly started to earn her money, and the real torture began. She had me lay on my left side on the bed, and piled pillows around me in an attempt to get me as comfortable as possible (uh, right). My right leg was bent and pulled up so it rested on my belly (supported by pillows). The idea was that the weight of my leg would encourage M to rotate. Although lying in bed brought the pain in my hips and pelvis to an excruciating level (as if the contractions weren’t bad enough), Gloria encouraged me to stay for as long as I could stand it, and also try to rest. She massaged my back and hips, which helped somewhat, and I was able to stay like this for close to an hour. I even dozed lightly between some of the contractions.

After that, she had me doing lunges during contractions. With my right foot on the footboard of the bed, I would lean forward and pull my knee against my belly. Again, hoping the pressure would make M turn.

And she administered copious doses of pulsatilla (for turning the baby) and arnica (for pain). I’m not sure if they had any effect.

And so things went – for hours. I tried various positions, I got in and out of the hot tub, I leaned on the birth ball, I stood, and I even went for a short walk, after much encouragement from Gloria. In fact, she ordered me to do so, insisting that I needed a change of scenery. The weather was lovely, as it had been for the last three days – finally a break from the blistering heat we’d been having. Even though we had air conditioning (thank god thank god thank god), I was grateful the weather had been so nice during my little labor adventure. So R and I took a walk, me leaning on him and insisting on walking through the contractions, even though they hurt like hell. We ran into a neighbor who exclaimed she didn’t even know I was pregnant, and when was I going to have the baby? Through gritted teeth I managed to grunt “Today!!” (I was so optimistic) and staggered off. She wished us luck.

Back in the tub, it dawned on both R and I that it was dinnertime, and we were unprepared to feed ourselves, let alone a guest. Thankfully, we had a big pile of leftovers (R’s famous grilled pork chops), so he scrambled upstairs and put a few plates together. Gloria thoroughly enjoyed her meal, and I grudgingly accepted a few bites here and there.

As darkness fell, Gloria checked me again. I was 4 cm and 80% effaced, but it was still uneven. I was crestfallen, and began to come apart at the seams. I had been having contractions steadily for 24 hours. How much longer would this go on? I was beginning to believe there would be no end, that I would never efface, that I couldn’t do it. Exhaustion was setting in, and I felt desperate. We talked things over, and Gloria suggested going to the birth center. They would admit me at 4 cm, and I could get an IM shot of Stadol, and perhaps this would allow me to rest and sleep. We all believed I would be better equipped to deal with the situation at hand if I was more rested, although I was dubious that I could keep going for much longer. So Gloria made a call, only to find that all 3 rooms were full. I couldn’t believe it. A thin strand of hope, and now it was gone. They said to call back later, as a room might be opening up, but I was terrified. What if they stayed full, and I had to go to labor and delivery to have my baby? This wasn’t at all what I had imagined, and it felt like everything was falling apart.

Gloria did her best to keep me together, and said we would devise our own method for getting me some rest. She ordered Rich to open the one bottle of wine we had, and handed me a glass. After all these many months of abstaining, I finally had the chance to enjoy a glass of wine. After a few sips, however, I realized there was no pleasure to be had, and gulped the rest of it down. We then set about devising a way to get me semi-comfortable. Due to my hip and pelvic pain, the bed was out. Leaning back made the contractions unbearable, so no recliner. I ended up sitting on the birth ball, leaning forward on pillows piled into a chair. She sat on a footstool behind me, rubbing my back during contractions. Rich was ordered to lie down and get some rest.

As the wine coursed through my veins, I felt the full brunt of my exhaustion. I leaned forward on the pillows and thought maybe, just maybe, I’d be able to sleep. But the contractions were relentless, painful, and a few minutes apart at best. I would feel the beginning of each one and cry “Nooooooo”. But they were inexorable and inescapable. The pain would come crashing in, and I would start my low-pitched, open-mouthed moaning because there was simply nothing else to do. The sound would jolt Gloria from her sleep, and she would rub my back, but it was a small comfort.

As time crawled by, and I realized there would be no true rest for me, I became increasingly agitated. The contractions were unyielding, yet I was not progressing. It was never going to end. There were walls in every direction, and no way out. But I wanted out. I needed out. The hopelessness was intense. I wanted the pain to end, I wanted an epidural. “NO!” I screamed to myself. I would have to go to L&D, and they would insert a catheter in my back – a thought that made my skin crawl. And there was no guarantee it would even work, due to the complications brought about by my surgery. But it was a possible escape, and I longed for it, yearned for it, fantasized about it. And again my brain screamed “NO!”. I knew if I had an epidural I would be confined to bed. If I was confined to bed, M would never turn. If she stayed posterior, my cervix would never efface. The nightmare scenario of epidural, followed by pitocin, followed by a c-section for lack of progress rolled out before my eyes. I couldn’t do it. An epidural simply wasn’t an option. I felt like a caged animal, clawing at the walls, desperately looking for a way out, even though I knew there was none. My thoughts swirled, frantically searching for an overlooked option, thrumming to a fever pitch. But there was nothing. I sat in the darkness, contractions rolling over me, and silently cried out in despair.

I knew Gloria and R were exhausted, and tried to leave them alone so they could rest. But my desperation quickly spiraled out of control, and my whimpers grew until I was insisting I couldn’t do this anymore. I knew I had no choice but to continue, yet I was also convinced I couldn’t go on. I was exhausted and couldn’t think straight. I needed my team to help me. Surely they could figure out a way to extract me from this mess. I insisted that everyone get up.

It was now 11 PM, and Gloria and R decided to call the birth center again. Perhaps a room had opened up, and I could get the Stadol. I was still doubtful about this, but I was desperate, and my team didn’t have any other ideas.

Amazingly a room was available, and suddenly it felt like a door had opened, a ray of light illuminating my cage. We were doing something, going somewhere, changing something. Anything was better than this.

Part 1 (Preparation)
Part 2 (Warming Up)
Part 3 (Ready! Set! Wait!)
Part 4 (Ready! Set! Wait Some More!)
Part 5 (Are We There Yet?)
Part 6 (I Think I Can, I Think I Can, I Think I can)
Part 7 (A New Life Begins)
Part 8 (Epilogue, For Me)
Part 9 (Epilogue, for my daughter)

< Part 3 (Ready! Set! Wait!) / Part 5 (Are We There Yet?) >

Recap:
M dropped Tuesday night, keeping me up until 1:30 AM
Contractions started Wednesday morning at 5:30 AM
(Four hours of sleep on Tuesday night)

Contractions started and stopped all day Wednesday
Contractions all night Wednesday night, estimated at every 20 minutes (slept between contractions)

By Thursday morning – after a night of much interrupted sleep – I was mostly just getting really annoyed. As previously mentioned, I had been sleeping in a recliner for many months. It had proven to be far more comfortable than our bed, but it was not serving me so well now. The farther I reclined the chair, the more the contractions hurt, so I was sleeping in an essentially upright position. I was uncomfortable, and sleeping in 20 minute intervals was far from rejuvenating. At 8 AM I threw in the towel and decided to get up. I’m guessing I was in the chair for maybe 8 hours, but with regular contractions so it’s hard to say how much sleep I got. We’ll be generous, and say 6 hours – although 6 hours in 20 minute intervals is a hell of a lot different than 6 solid hours of sleep. I decided to get in the hot tub – if the contractions kept coming, then I knew we were on a roll. But by the time the tub heated up and I ate some breakfast, they had again tapered off to being almost non-existent. I sent R to work.

I talked to Gloria, and she thought M was probably in a bad position. She said this type of labor pattern (start, stop, start, stop) usually meant the baby was posterior. We agreed that she would come see me in the afternoon to check. Most of the time I could tell how M was sitting, but my uterus was so hard I hadn’t been having any luck. M’s typical position was with her back to my left side. She moved around, but usually returned to that spot. The ideal position was halfway between that spot and her back to my belly. So her favorite spot (if she was still there) at least put her reasonably close to where she needed to be.

Gloria arrived around 1:30 PM and listened to her heartbeat … strong at 140. However, she felt M had now rotated almost completely posterior (her back to my back). Despite all my efforts when she was active and dropping, I had failed to keep her out of a posterior position. This was very disappointing.

From her external palpation, Gloria also guessed that M was sitting at about the zero station, which was good and bad. Good because she was nice and low, and close to where she needed to be for pushing to be effective. Bad because the lower she was, the harder it would be to get her out of my pelvis to turn her anterior.

So Gloria gave me some pulsatilla (a homeopathic remedy that is supposed to help babies turn), and prescribed the knee-chest position (to lift her out of my pelvis), followed by lots of hands and knees (to get her to turn).

The one bit of good news was that I wasn’t having back labor, and with M posterior and sitting so low, Gloria thought I’d already be feeling it if that was going to be a problem. I’d always dreaded back labor – as if contractions weren’t bad enough, the thought of not having a rest between them scared the shit out of me. There had been several tearful incidents over the fact that sleeping in the recliner was likely to make M posterior. I felt so stuck, because I couldn’t bear the pain of lying in the bed, but I was terrified of back labor. Did I want to suffer through months of hip pain, or hours (days?) of excruciating labor? So it was quite a relief to learn that back labor was looking more and more unlikely. Gloria speculated that my pelvis was roomy enough to accommodate M in a posterior position without applying the pressure to my spine that makes things so excruciating. For the first time in my life (but not the last!), I was glad I had big hips. Still, being posterior likely meant a longer labor and longer/harder pushing. And if Gloria was correct, it was also the cause of the start/stop nonsense.

After she left, I dosed myself regularly with the pulsatilla. I don’t know if I believed in it or not, but I figured it couldn’t hurt. I also spent as much time as I could tolerate in the knee-chest position (which wasn’t much). For those of you who don’t know what this is, imagine a huge pregnant woman down on her knees, with her nose on the ground, and her giant pregnant ass waving around in the air. Pleasant, no? This was followed by the downward dog position, leaning on the birth ball, and 40 minutes of scrubbing the kitchen floor on my hands and knees (note to self: don’t ever again buy a house with white tile and white grout in the kitchen). I couldn’t tell for sure, but I was fairly certain my efforts were for naught. On the plus side, all of that activity produced a few contractions and I lost a fairly sizable chunk of mucous plug (that’s a pleasant picture, isn’t it?).

At that point, I didn’t quite know what to think. I couldn’t help wondering if my emotional state, or some latent fears about labor or becoming a parent were somehow interfering with things. It was becoming increasingly difficult to avoid R’s brother and parents, and I’d suffered through several phone calls with family members where I had to pretend I wasn’t having contractions. I was really wishing that things would just get moving.

When R got home, we decided to go out for a bite to eat. I vacillated a little about what to order, thinking this might be my last real meal before having M – and potentially what I would be pooping out on the delivery table. Everyone says you don’t really care about that part when the time comes, but I still couldn’t help thinking about it. So, should the meal be light or hearty? I finally decided I was hungry, and to just eat what sounded good to me (a big ole plate of pasta). I even had dessert, and it was delicious. I was having regular contractions every 10 or 15 minutes, but they weren’t too intense. I would just stop talking so I could relax and breathe deeply through them. I kept hoping someone would ask when I was due so I could say I was in labor, but sadly it didn’t happen (for once). We had a pleasant meal, and returned home.

I talked to Gloria again, and it turned out she was at a pre-natal fairly close to our house. Since I’d been having contractions on and off for 2 days, and with regularity for 4 or 5 hours, she decided to stop by and check me to get an idea of how serious things were getting. After the check I received disappointing news – I was (marginally) fingertip dilated and 50% effaced (same effacement as at my checkup 3 weeks prior). With my permission, she continued the check during a contraction, and said M’s head was not pushing down, so there was no pressure on my cervix to make it efface. She made an official diagnosis of “prodromal labor”. It was all I could do to fight back the tears until she left. I was well aware that prodromal labor could go on for many days, and the lack of substantial cervical change (especially with respect to effacement) had me really discouraged. All those many (admittedly not too strong) contractions were having essentially no effect. Gloria advised me that the most important thing at this point was to get rest. There was no telling how many days (and nights) I might be looking at, and she was worried I’d be exhausted when “real” labor finally started. She said if the contractions kept me awake that I could have a glass of wine, which should relax me and slow them down enough for me to sleep. I nodded numbly, and Rich saw her to the door. I was devastated and incredibly discouraged.

I tried to sleep soon after Gloria left, but two contractions in the recliner had me jumping to my feet. I didn’t want to open the only bottle of wine I had in the house, so I had 2 shots of vodka in the hopes it would settle things down. It did not, and I could not get comfortable or sleep. Feeling increasingly frustrated, I logged onto my pregnancy board to vent and hopefully find some encouragement. Several other mamas were also in the early stages of labor, and we were keeping close tabs on each other. The kind words and encouragement were much needed, but I just wanted to be out of this holding pattern. And dammit, I was tired.

Part 1 (Preparation)
Part 2 (Warming Up)
Part 3 (Ready! Set! Wait!)
Part 4 (Ready! Set! Wait Some More!)
Part 5 (Are We There Yet?)
Part 6 (I Think I Can, I Think I Can, I Think I can)
Part 7 (A New Life Begins)
Part 8 (Epilogue, For Me)
Part 9 (Epilogue, for my daughter)