gearhead mama

To my second daughter,

This is the story of your birth, but to really understand it you have to know about your older sister’s birth, too. M was born 2 years and 9 months ago, and it was sadly not an entirely pleasant experience. I was committed to a natural birth - and I got one - but it was very long and difficult for both of us (you can read all the details here, if you so desire). M’s birth taught me a lot about myself … lessons that were slowly revealed over time, that brought understanding and deep healing. I learned that it was okay to love and trust myself, to have faith in my body and heart instead of just my mind. Your sister taught me so many things, as did my journey through pregnancy with you, and I was determined to use this knowledge to make this birth better … for me and for you. I worked hard to ferret out, process and release any hidden fears or traumas that might interfere with things.

I was also determined to make the physical circumstances of your birth different. I made your experience of this pregnancy and birth my first priority. There were no ultrasounds or doppler waves to disturb the sanctity of your home. I hired a midwife and planned a home waterbirth. There would be no strangers, no bright lights, no injections or ointments. Just my hands, my arms, my chest. I wanted to make your transition from the womb to this world as peaceful as possible.

As the time drew near, I felt I had done everything I could; that I was so ready to welcome you into my arms. And then … I waited. Sometimes not very patiently, because my body was tired and my back hurt, but I knew you would come when you were ready.

My midwife had assured me that one thing we could know for sure was that this birth would be different. We didn’t know how it would be different, but it would definitely be different. And she was right. At around 12:15 PM on Wednesday April 30th, 2008 (2 days before your due date), I was lying in the recliner trying to take a nap when I felt a small gush. A tiny gush. Tiny enough that I convinced myself it was just a bit of pee, and there was no need to get up. I closed my eyes and tried to fall back asleep, but to no avail. About 45 minutes later I was still in the chair, talking on the phone, when I felt another small gush. And another. I knew I would have to investigate, and as I stood the floodgates opened, and your water poured down my legs, drenching my clothing. I was startled, as this was not at all what I had expected. Breaking M’s water was the one and only intervention I had in her birth, and it occurred when I stalled at 8 cm. I had always assumed your bag would stay intact until well into our labor, but I was wrong.

I quickly learned that this is a difficult way to begin a birth. There were no contractions, yet I knew they were coming sometime soon … but when? Minutes? Hours? Days? It was like hearing the starting gun go off, but being told I couldn’t run yet. My midwife advised me to continue about my day as normally as possible, to get rest if I could. But the constant leaking made it hard to do anything, and I quickly felt irritated and unsettled. I called your father home from work so he could set up the birth tub and finish with last minute preparations. Then I sat in a chair and tried not to soak the few remaining clothes I owned that still fit me. And I wondered about what was coming.

Finally, around 2 PM, I felt a teeny, tiny contraction. I continued to have very mild contractions, but very sporadically … every half hour, or longer. Around 6:00 PM, I had several in a row that were closer together; maybe 7 minutes apart. Finally! We were getting somewhere. I even called my midwife. But then they petered out again and spaced back out to every half hour or so, with an occasional run at 5 or 10 minutes apart. They were still laughably easy (and finally the leaking had stopped) … I could walk and talk through them, play with your sister, carry on with my life.

I started to wonder if that was part of the problem, if it was time for me to turn my focus inward to really get things going. I spent some time with your sister before she went to bed, giving her my undivided attention as a mother of one for the last time. At 8:30 PM I retreated to our birth space in the basement, lit some candles, turned on some music, and turned my attention to the matter at hand. I sank deep into my body with each contraction, welcoming it, imagining your head and my uterus working in concert to soften, stretch and open my cervix, your portal to this world. I relaxed myself completely, let my tongue fall from the roof of my mouth, let my throat be loose, swiveled on the birth ball, stood and rotated my hips in figure eights. I felt no fear and no pain. I was ready to do this work. And still the contractions stayed short and sporadic. The work I was doing felt good, but I couldn’t be sure it was productive - it felt too easy. I started to fear that I was going through prodromal labor again, like I did with your sister. I had slept terribly the night before, and exhaustion was starting to set in. I didn’t sleep for many days during your sister’s birth, and repeating that was one of my greatest fears. I was starting to think I would be up all night with these piddly contractions, going nowhere. How could I know if they were even doing anything? Despite my best efforts, I was feeling discouraged … beginning to doubt. I read through the beautiful cards and poems my friends had gifted me during my mother blessing and felt some renewed faith, but it was hard to maintain. I called some friends, seeking encouragement. They told me to rest and relax, to try to sleep, maybe even have a glass of wine. That I had to let go and stop being afraid.

I dragged myself upstairs and poured a glass of wine. I would drink it and lie down in the recliner to see if I could sleep. I wasn’t hopeful - my experience with your sister told me these contractions were just irritating enough to keep me awake - but I felt I had to at least try. I settled into the chair around 10:30 PM, and as expected, being in a reclined position made the contractions more difficult to deal with. I desperately wanted to lie on my side in the bed, but I knew my hip and back pain made that impossible. I decided to stick with the recliner and tough it out for a bit to see if I could rest. After a few contractions, I realized they were coming closer together. I had steadfastly refused to do anything more than guess at the frequency of contractions up to this point, but I finally relented and started looking at my watch. I needed to prove to myself that something was actually happening. For an hour, contractions came every 10 minutes on the nose. Perhaps the wine relaxed me just enough to let go and allow things to proceed. But as predicted, sleep was impossible, and at about 11:45 PM I finally threw in the towel. I would return to the basement, return to my focus, and make the best of the situation. If that meant being up all night with easy, short contractions spaced at 10 minutes, well so be it. There was nothing I could do about it. I sat and talked with your father for a while, and then he went downstairs with me to help get me settled. At 12:30 AM, I sent him back upstairs to get some sleep.

I was trying to trust the process of this birth, but I couldn’t help but worry about your posterior position because I knew it could contribute to a pokey labor. My back was bothering me a little during contractions but not between, so I didn’t have classic back labor. But I decided maybe I should encourage you to turn anyway. I kneeled on some pillows and leaned forward on the birth ball, rocking lightly through contractions, which seemed to help a little with the back pain. It also dawned on me that they seemed to be more frequent, maybe lasting longer. Again I consulted my watch, and many of them were now 5 minutes apart, some lasting as long as a minute. But they were still very manageable. More intense than earlier, yes, but I was still able to relax and welcome them, sink into them and work with them. I did not feel that dealing with them was particularly challenging. Earlier, my midwife had told me that she would come whenever I felt I needed support, but that she definitely needed to know when the contractions became hard enough that I was having to “recover” in between them. I was feeling neither of these things, so I decided to just continue on, knowing this could last a long time. I didn’t want to bother anyone, and I was doing fine.

A little after 1 AM, things kicked up another notch. The contractions were getting longer, although they were still mostly manageable except at the very peak. For those few seconds I started having thoughts like, “I think I’d like to get in the tub,” or “maybe I should get your father down here.” But then I would slide off the peak, feel immediate relief, and tell myself I would work through a few more before doing anything. He needed his sleep, and I was afraid I would slow things down by getting in the tub too early. I was still not convinced that things were really happening. I was making low, humming vocalizations and smelling my lavender oil to stay centered, but it still seemed too easy, especially compared to your sister’s birth. This couldn’t possibly be “real labor.” (Apparently, my benchmark was not a good one.)

By 1:30 AM, I still felt that I was handling things well, but I knew it would take your father a little while to top off the tub and I wanted to make sure it was ready by the time I needed it. I called him and asked him to come down and help me.

By 2 AM the tub was ready, and I made a final trip to the bathroom for a Hibiclens wash (I was GBS+). I was supposed to do them every 4 hours, and I wanted to make sure I could stay in the tub for as long as possible. I asked your father to note the time so I could tell the midwife when the last wash had been. I gingerly got one leg into the tub, and realized that it was far too hot. It was so hard for me to get in and out, though, that I went ahead and pulled my other leg in and stood in the scalding water, knowing I didn’t dare lower my body into it. I urged your father to hurry up and drain some water out and get things cooled down. I was definitely feeling the need for the water now. As he scurried about trying to get a siphon going, I leaned my hands on the side of the tub and swiveled my hips through contractions. They were starting to challenge me now, although I still felt like I was coping well.

The cold water was coming into the tub at a trickle, and I was mad at how long this was taking. I yelled at your father to turn it on full blast and he ran off to comply. It was still too hot, but I didn’t care. I lowered myself into the water and felt instant relief (this was most welcome, since the water had not helped me much during your sister’s birth). The contractions were still hard, but it took the edge off and I felt that I was handling things again. I was beginning to wonder if it was time to call the midwife, though. I still felt that I was coping well and not feeling that I had to “recover” in between contractions, but things were definitely picking up. I continued to be uncertain, so I asked your father to time contractions so that we could provide her with some additional information that would help us determine if it was time yet. I was hoping to get a good 20-30 minute stretch timed to make sure we were in a good pattern. But your father was still running around, trying to get hot water out of the tub, cold water into the tub, cold washclothes to place on my neck, and timing contractions on top of that proved to be too much. The few that he managed to get down told me they were now 3 minutes apart, and anywhere from 40 seconds to a minute and a half long. I was still coping well and not yet feeling like I had to recover in between. At 2:30 AM I asked him to call the midwife anyway, even though his sporadic timing meant I wasn’t satisfied that we had managed to show there was a consistent pattern. It would have to be good enough.

As he was dialing, I was suddenly gripped by a strong contraction, stronger than I had felt all labor. It left me panting and gasping, exactly the sort of “recovery” my midwife had spoken of earlier. I could hear him answering her questions, and was rocked by another hard contraction. I yelled out for him to tell her the last two were “doozies” … I was no longer wondering if it was too soon to call. He hung up. She was on her way.

Another contraction rolled over me. I was staying on top of things, but just barely. I moaned loudly and smelled my lavender. It dawned on me that this was finally the real deal, and it could still last for a very long time. I did not believe that the hours leading up to this had done much, and was sure that at best there were still hours of this ahead of me. I started to get afraid.

I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my stomach, and grabbed it with my hands. I was in between contractions, so that wasn’t it. I felt like I was being poked, kicked, and I wondered if you were changing position. In hindsight, I realize that whatever it is you did, it was in preparation for launch.

The next contraction was stronger still, and I felt that I was losing my ability to cope. My mouth opened and I started groaning, still trying to maintain a low pitch. I gasped out that if I had another one like that he was to call the midwife back and tell her to hurry. Another contraction came on, and did I? Was that downward pressure? Was I imagining things? My mind still questioned, but I opened my mouth anyway, “Call her back. Tell her to hurry.” I didn’t mention the pressure, afraid that I might be wrong. Your father secretly rolled his eyes, wondering how often our midwife must hear this line.

The next contraction came, and suddenly I was a tiny ship tossed into the maw of a giant hurricaine. I was lost, utterly lost. I threw the lavender to the floor, gripped the side of the tub and howled. The small part of me still controlled by my brain was consumed by utter terror. The rest of me was turned over to the primal power of birth. There was nothing to do but hold on for dear life. But the pain … oh the pain. I was rocked again, and yet again, with barely a moment to spare in between. I was upside down and inside out, I didn’t know how I could go on and didn’t know how to make it stop. A fourth contraction hit, and I knew, knew it was coming, could feel the freight train in the distance. I was completely terrified, but it didn’t matter. Halfway through the contraction my body took over and I suddenly felt my uterus turning inside out. I was screaming and growling and managed to yell out, “I’m puuuuuussssshhhhhiiiinnnngggg. CALL THE MIDWIIIIIIFE!!!!!” Your father had already dialed and had her on the phone. It was 2:38 AM. I’m fairly certain I went through transition in less than 8 minutes.

And oh, it hurt. Pushing your sister out had been a breeze compared to this. I’d had no urge to push, and while the contractions hurt like crazy, the rest was up to me. This … this was entirely different. I had another contraction and felt you barrel down my birth canal. I reached my hand down to feel your head as it landed on my perineum. “BABY IS COMING!” I yelled, and steeled myself for the next contraction. My mind was whirling, knowing the midwife would never make it, but my body told it to shut the hell up, there was work to do. I was on my knees, leaning forward onto the side of the tub. I held on for dear life with one hand, and kept my other hand on your head. The contraction hit and I felt the top of my uterus crush downward. There was no “breathing the baby out,” no panting and gentle easing to allow for stretching. You were coming. Now. I felt myself stretching, stretching, and your head grew bigger, bigger and bigger still in my hand. There was a brief pause and my uterus pressed down again. The burning was agonizing, and suddenly your head was filling my hand, my fingers were wrapping around it, and then the sweet relief of release. Your head was out, the contraction ended. I stroked your silky hair with my fingers, amazed at how soft you were. “The head is out.” There was stunned silence, and then, “Are you serious?” Your father, on the phone with the midwife, had no idea just how far things had gone. I knew you were coming on the next push. I knew how to handle a water birth, to not put you back under once your face had touched air, but your father didn’t. I was still on my knees, and worried what he would do. I had seconds until the next contraction. I screamed, “Ask her what to do! Ask her what to do!” The contraction started and I was instantly in agony. It felt like he had grabbed you and was pulling you upwards. “ARE YOU TOUCHING ME?!?! DON’T TOUCH ME! DON’T TOUCH MEEEE!!!!” He assured me he wasn’t, and I suddenly knew it was your shoulders as you spun inside me. My body pushed and you slid out. The next few seconds are a blur. I don’t know how I did it, but I must have hooked my fingers under your armpit. I pulled you down between my legs as I simultaneously came up on my knees, rotated and sat back against the wall of the pool. As a woman who has been crippled with back pain for several months, hobbling about like an invalid, I must say I admire the grace I mustered in that moment. It was 2:42 AM.

I knew you wouldn’t try to breathe until you felt the air touch your face, so it was safe to keep you under for a few moments. I wanted your transition from womb to this world to be as gentle as possible. I cradled your head in my hands and let you float under the water. I stared at your face and you opened your eyes and gazed back at me through the water. It was just for a moment, but felt like an eternity as I sank into your beautiful dark eyes. I will never forget it for the rest of my life. I slowly lifted you and let your face break through the water, letting your body stay under. You floated peacefully, but made no cry, no effort to breathe that I could tell. I lifted your limp body and realized the cord was wrapped loosely around your neck. It was a little short and I didn’t want to tug on the placenta, so your father helped me untangle it. I brought you into my arms and gently rubbed your back, saying, “Hi baby, breathe for your mama.” You finally let out a tiny cry and started to pink up. We had done it, Sophia, just you and me, our bodies entwined in an intricate, beautiful and intense dance that has been perfected over the milennia.

I could hardly believe it. It was only 12 minutes since I had decided contractions were getting hard and it was time to call the midwife. A harrowing 12 minutes to be sure, but I was in complete shock that I was actually holding you in my arms. After a few minutes, I realized we still didn’t know if you were a boy or a girl. I had been convinced even since before conception that you would be a boy. Almost every single person in my life felt the same way. I carefully moved the cord aside and could not believe my eyes when I saw you were a girl. I even called your father over for a second opinion, to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. I was absolutely thrilled that I had given M a sister.

And that is the story of your birth, little one, although it wasn’t exactly what I had planned. I have always admired women who choose to birth unassisted although I have never felt personally comfortable with what I perceive to be the risks. But I’m guessing you - the baby who didn’t even like being listened to with a fetoscope - planned it this way all along. I have learned so much on this journey through pregnancy and birth with you. You reminded me over and over to trust myself, to listen to myself, to care for myself. You had faith in me even when I didn’t. There were moments of doubt during this birth, but in the end I followed my body and my heart, and they led me straight to you. I am so proud of myself. I worked so hard to prepare for this birth, but I could not forget how brutal your sister’s birth was … could not entirely let go of the fear that birth would be like that no matter what I did. That all of my healing and preparation would be rendered useless in the face of such an overwhelming force. But now I have learned the truth - birth does not have to be brutal. Was it painful? Yes. Were there moments of fear? Yes. Was it incredible and amazing and powerful and would I do it all again in a heartbeat? Yes, yes, yes!

I thank you for sharing this journey with me, my beautiful Sophia, and for all that you have taught me along the way. I am honored you have chosen me to be your mother, and I am so excited about the life we are starting together. Oh, and you were 8 lb 4 oz, and 20 3/4 inches long. Absolutely perfect.

Love,
mama

+++++

Some final notes …

Due to the speed of the birth, I had a decent tear and am on bedrest trying to get that healing started. I wanted to do a lying in period anyway, so this has forced me to take it easy and just spend my time falling in love with my new girl. Overall I am feeling really good, though, and more than 48 hours later still feeling an intense birth high. What an incredible difference compared to M’s birth, when all I could think was, “I don’t ever want to go through that again.” I cannot say how ecstatic I am that this birth was an enjoyable, empowering experience. It is very healing.

My milk came in last night and Sophia is nursing like a pro (no nipple pain either!). This is such a departure from my experience with M, and it’s a true pleasure to nurse a baby and not feel like I’m torturing her. I am feeling so much more confident this time around too … I didn’t realize until now that I lived in a certain amount of terror after having M (no doubt exacerbated by her birth trauma issues). It is the early days still, so all she does is eat and sleep, but that is fine with me. I love watching her face while she dreams … she purses her lips, wrinkles her forehead and smiles. I can’t tell for sure, but it looks like she might have dimples. She already holds my heart in her hands.

M is a bit unsettled, which is to be expected, but she seems to be making the adjustment well. She loves to hug and kiss her little sister, but she’s not so keen on all the attention we give her. She insists that I put Sophia down and hold her instead, and whoever is slinging Sophia should be slinging her instead. I try to see beyond her behavior and focus on the feelings that are driving it. I put words to those feelings for her, asking her if she feels replaced, and talking about how hard it is to see her mama giving all her attention to someone else. I reassure her that we both still love her very much, but I know it will just take time for her to grow into her role as an older sister.

It melts my heart to watch Mr. Gearhead with his new daughter. He makes faces at her and tickles her nose. He whisks her away for diaper changes and I can hear him talking to her in the other room. I can practically see the love oozing out of his pores.

I look at Sophia and simply cannot believe she was inside my body just a few days ago. What a radical transformation for all of us, but I welcome this new stage of my life with open arms. I was sitting in the recliner with her yesterday and M crawled in to be with us. They laid, one on each side of me, and gazed at each other across my chest, M leaning over to kiss Sophia on the forehead, nose and eyes, and offering her a toy. I wrapped my arms around them and held my girls. My two girls. A new adventure has begun.

< Part 8 (Epilogue, For Me)

This is the final installment of M’s birth story, and also the most difficult to write. Although I will never forget the big picture of events, time has blurred some of the details. I also have a strong desire to put it behind me, allowing it to sink into the seas of an amnesiac mind.

But it is important to tell this story, even though it may be an imperfect rendering. It has had a profound impact on M, as well as me, and led to many discoveries we would not have had otherwise. It is not possible to understand where we are now, if you don’t understand where we came from.

The first few days after M’s birth were idyllic. She slept most of the time, and if she cried it was because she was either hungry or needed to burp. I was just beginning to not-so-secretly exult in the knowledge that I had one of those “easy” babies, when my milk came in and the shit hit the fan.

I had a very powerful letdown, and M had a hard time with this, choking and gagging while nursing. With some help from me, she seemed to handle it okay during the day, but as evening approached – the traditional newborn witching hour – things got worse and worse. I would put her to my breast, she would suck a few times, choke and splutter, and start screaming with rage. I would get her calmed down, and then she would scream because she was hungry.

We would repeat this cycle, over and over and over, for three, four, sometimes six hours. She would finally become so exhausted that she would nurse and pass out sometime around 3 or 4 AM. Once she fell asleep, it was like the spell was broken and the nighttime feedings went off without a hitch – she rarely even opened her eyes. The next morning she would nurse fine, and then things would slowly deteriorate throughout the day. As evening drew near, the knot of dread in my stomach would tighten and churn, and the screaming would begin anew.

This was not simply “newborn-baby-evening-fussiness”. This was all-out, inconsolable screaming. And it was not colic – even the pediatrician said it wasn’t colic. She was screaming because she was hungry, and yet she refused to nurse. Why? Why? WHY?!?!?!

I cannot tell you how many times I broke down and cried. How many times I screamed in frustration. How many times R held a screaming M in one arm, and tried to comfort his screaming wife with the other. Her behavior was all the more confusing because it was so inconsistent. Half the time she nursed with no problem, the other half it was a total nightmare. I can’t even recall all the lengths we went to comfort her – hour upon hour of walking, slinging, bouncing, pacing from one end of the house to the other.

I struggle to find words to accurately convey the misery, because to do that means I have to dig down, turn back, immerse myself in it … experience it again to try to translate it onto the page. I am not willing to do that. The despair, helplessness and hopelessness were just too intense. I don’t want to go there again. So I don’t know if I’m giving an accurate rendition of our experience, but trust me when I say it was really, truly awful.

I was desperate to figure out what was going on. The inconsistency of her behavior made it seem unlikely that it was a physical problem – from the very beginning, my instinct told me it was something else. It seemed directly connected to nursing – her mouth, swallowing, breathing – and I couldn’t help wondering if it was somehow related to the deep-suctioning she underwent just after birth. But that just didn’t make sense – at least not from the normal, mainstream, adult perspective of babies. She didn’t have the mental capacity to “remember” the deep suctioning, and surely she wasn’t emotionally mature enough to be traumatized by it. Right?

Although I couldn’t shake the feeling that my instinct was right, my rational mind told me I was being silly. Babies aren’t traumatized by their birth experiences. They’re just little lumps of squalling, hungry, tired, wet flesh. They don’t have the sophisticated level of consciousness required to suffer trauma. And so I went in search of other causes.

Perhaps she was upset by something in my diet, so I embarked on a total elimination diet – eating nothing but turkey, lamb, squash, pears, rice and potatoes for months on end. It didn’t work, but hey, I lost 60 pounds in three months. I took her to the doctor to see if it was reflux, and even put her on Zantac for a few weeks, although I hesitated every time I gave it to her … it just felt so wrong. I wondered if it was thrush, but nothing seemed to point in that direction.

I found no answers, the situation was not improving, and I felt utterly helpless. Despite my doubts, I returned over and over to the idea of the suctioning. I thought about what it must have been like for her, moments after birth, thrust into this world of bright lights, cold air, loud sounds, learning to breathe. And when she should have been held lovingly in her mama’s arms, instead she was on a table, surrounded by strangers, her arms and legs restrained, a hand clamping her head, tubes thrust over and over down her nose and throat. This would be an unpleasant experience for an adult, someone able to at least understand what was happening and why. But imagine what it must have been like for her. I would hold my screaming, hungry daughter in my arms, and weep for her.

As time passed, I became more and more convinced that this was the source of our problems. I felt that nursing and the powerful letdown were triggering her – reminding her in some way of the suctioning. Perhaps she didn’t remember it in the way that we as adults remember, but it happened to her and the experience was stored somewhere in her body and mind.

To make matters worse, I felt horrible guilt for my obliviousness to her experience. When the suctioning was happening, I was sitting on the bed, celebrating the end of the pain, congratulating myself on my natural birth, and thinking about taking a nap. It didn’t even occur to me to consider what she was going through, that maybe she was suffering. Rationally, I don’t believe I should castigate myself for this. M is my first baby, and I had never spent prolonged amounts of time with newborns before her birth. And they’re certainly not portrayed in our culture as sentient, conscious beings, capable of reacting to and being affected by their experiences. But emotionally, the knowledge that she was suffering and I wasn’t there for her, was blind to her pain, tore me to shreds. And so I wept for myself as well – the guilt worming into my heart, the drumbeat of failure beating in my head, my daughter’s screams an endless accusation.

And what to do? I couldn’t go back in time and undo the suctioning, although I cried and cried about it, and mentally flogged myself for not researching meconium staining, for not knowing if the suctioning was really necessary. Me, the person who prepares for everything … I had let her down.

I teetered on the edge of depression, surviving on hardly any sleep, stretched to the breaking point physically and emotionally. I would watch the hands of the clock drag by, knowing she would be hungry again soon, and dreaded the thought of nursing her. Nursing was supposed to be this amazing, loving, comforting, bonding experience, but instead it felt like I was torturing her every time I put my nipple to her mouth. But what could I do? She needed to eat, and I was committed to breastfeeding. A few times I tried pumping and giving her a bottle, but she just screamed through that too. I became a prisoner in my own home – needing to nurse frequently enough that I couldn’t go out without facing the prospect of doing it in public. But I was terrified of the screaming, so it was easier to just stay home and deal with it there, dreading the feedings as they marched towards me, one after the other, no relief, no end in sight. Days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into months.

The pediatrician dismissed my concerns. She was gaining weight and seemed the picture of health. I could see his assessment of me – new mom who was all freaked out over nothing. This infuriated me, and I refused to see him anymore. Finally, out of desperation and after much urging, I took her to a pediatric chiropractor. The woman we saw did chiropractic adjustments, in addition to craniosacral therapy (CST). I had never heard of CST before, and viewed it simply as an adjunct to the chiro care. Sometimes M would cry, and the doctor assured me that was normal – the CST was releasing her emotions.

I also read an article about crying in arms. I was thunderstruck by this concept – that sometimes babies need to cry, to release trauma, frustration, emotions. It was like a giant puzzle piece clicked into place, and for the first time, I gave myself permission to fully believe that the suctioning traumatized M. I also stopped trying to constantly silence her. When she cried, I ran down the list of possible causes: wet, hungry, gassy, tired, pain. If the answer to all these was no, I took a deep breath, held her in my arms, and just let her cry. This is one of the most gut-wrenching things I’ve ever done. The fury contained in her tiny body took my breath away. It was like she sensed that I was finally okay with her letting go, and she flailed her arms, hitting and kicking me, and screamed. I felt so helpless, worried that I was doing the wrong thing, and tried to comfort her, but she didn’t want it, pushed me away. I touched her head and she screamed like I had never heard before. I thought of the doctor, restraining her head, and touched it again, gently, so gently. She arched her back, took a deep breath, and raged. My eyes filled with tears as I thought of how much pain she had experienced in her short life, and how badly I wanted to take it away. I tried not to take her anger personally, but it was hard. Every few minutes I would notice my hunched, defensive shoulders, and remind myself to relax my body, take deep breaths, create a safe space for her.

And here I am, in that place again. I tried to avoid it, but I can’t, and am crying even now. I never understood until I became a mother, the depth of the connection to your child, how heart-wrenching their suffering is. I would give anything to go back and take it myself, spare her, keep her whole and untouched. I want to put a spell on her, protect her from harm forever, but I know I can’t. How will my heart survive the bumps and bruises, slights and insults, broken hearts and mistakes that are to come? How?

Although it felt like hours, I don’t think she ever cried longer than 30 minutes. She would start to calm, the sobs coming slower, her chest heaving, and she would finally turn her head to me and nurse. And then sleep – deep, healing sleep. And I would hold her in my arms, not sure where we were going next, but fierce in my determination to help her.

As the weeks passed, we continued seeing the chiropractor and doing crying in arms as needed, and I noticed slow, subtle improvement. The intensity of crying while nursing lessened, but oddly, the frequency increased. Now she fussed at every feeding (except nights), although it wasn’t the inconsolable screaming from before. I became an expert at nursing on the move – walking, bouncing, rocking – anything to keep M eating and not fussing. And that was as good as it got. We just didn’t seem to be making any further progress.

When M was about 4 months old, my yoga teacher recommended a different chiropractor, and I decided it was worth a try. Anything was worth trying at this point. She was different from any chiropractor I’d ever worked with, focusing on upper cervical correction, believing that the rest of the body would fall into alignment on its own from there. She also did CST. And she resolved our nursing problems in one visit. One visit. I was stunned, to say the least, as well as overjoyed.

I was finally able to sit down and nurse my daughter. I could go places and nurse without creating a scene. I no longer felt like my breast was some sort of medieval torture device. I didn’t wish for time to stand still, or dread nursing anymore. Our lives were changed.

Around this time, M’s gassiness reached new heights, and I was spending the nights being kicked, instead of sleeping. A friend had taken her son to a massage therapist (Kelly) who specialized in CST and SomatoEmotional Release (SER), and I decided to make an appointment to see if she could help with the gassiness.

To make a long story very short, Kelly did help with M’s digestive issues (although they’re not entirely gone), but even more importantly, she furthered the work started by the two chiropractors. I took M to see Kelly regularly (and still do), and in those early days she had numerous emotional “releases”. Again, I am at a loss as to how to describe these experiences – this time because I simply don’t know the words to explain what happened. But I felt so incredibly connected to M during those sessions, and also felt her pain and rage viscerally. I remember one session when I got the very clear feeling that she was angry with me – angry because I hadn’t been there for her, hadn’t protected her. She was sobbing and thrashing, and I held her to me and cried, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry … I’m so sorry I didn’t protect you.” And she took a few deep, shuddering breaths, looked up at me through tear-filled eyes, and smiled.

Somehow, in ways that I don’t fully understand, those sessions allowed both of us to work through the trauma of M’s birth, to process and release it, and draw ourselves close together in healing. The last time M had a big emotional release, I sensed a difference. Instead of anger and rage, there was intense grief – so powerful that I was overcome by the depth of her sadness, and found myself crying with her. Again, I was seized by the thought of how unfair it was for my daughter to feel so much pain at such a young age. Thankfully, I think this was the last stage in her mourning, the final letting go, as there have been no more emotional releases since then.

Even though there are still times when I rail against what happened to us, the unfairness and cruelty, I stop and remind myself that without this, we might never have stumbled upon CST. And I have come to believe that CST is a truly amazing thing – a gift, a lesson. It is the reason M and I suffered through all that pain, so we could learn about CST, bring it into our lives, and have it forever as a tool.

I have been so profoundly touched by this experience that I feel the need to somehow give back, repay the universe, and am considering a career change that would allow me to use CST to help mothers and babies. But above all I’m grateful. I look at my extraordinarily content baby, who has a joy and happiness to her that is so beautiful it’s sometimes hard for me to comprehend. And I know that she is not carrying that pain around inside her anymore, to rot and fester, weighing her down physically and emotionally. She is finally free and full of light.

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 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)

< 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)

< Part 2 (Warming Up) / Part 4 (Ready! Set! Wait Some More!) >

As you’ll recall, we left off with M dropping lower in my pelvis, and me drifting off to sleep at 1:30 AM, certain it would be a goodly while (as in a week or more) before labor started. That was Tuesday night.

Wednesday morning, contractions started at 5:30 AM. As usual, I have to be different. Surprisingly, what I’d read about contractions was actually correct – they felt like really strong menstrual cramps. (In the beginning at least.) It started with a sensation in my cervix, then radiated upward around my uterus with a tightening and cramping feeling. Not exactly pleasant, but not unbearable either. I was exhausted and determined to get more sleep, but found the contractions to be frequent and strong enough that this wasn’t possible. Around 6:30 AM I finally got up and leaned on the birth ball for a while. I was excited at this development, but very, very tired (we’ll start counting hours of sleep now: 4). I wanted sleep more than anything, but it was not to be.

At 7:30 AM I woke R. I lay in the bed briefly, but that didn’t help. Clearly, something was going on, but we couldn’t decide how serious it was. The contractions were coming pretty rapidly (often 5 minutes apart), and lasting 30-40 seconds. But I could easily talk through them, so I was pretty sure things couldn’t be that serious. Still, should he stay home from work? He got in the shower at 8 AM, and I called Gloria. She said things sounded promising, but I should try getting in the bathtub. If the contractions persisted while in the tub, then it was likely the “real thing”. By the time Rich got out of the shower, I was struggling a little (ha! ha! ha! – that’s “hindsight S” laughing), and decided I wanted him to stay home. He started heating the hot tub, and I started packing my bag (finally!). I figured I would just wait for the hot tub to heat up (less than 2 hours, as indicated by our trial runs) instead of bothering with the bathtub. I was really excited. Was I going to meet my baby today? Around 9 AM, I sat down at the computer and logged onto my pregnancy forum. I was afraid to believe this was real, but couldn’t resist the desire to let some people know what was going on. But as I was typing, I could feel the contractions starting to fade away. I felt like I was shining a light on a shy animal, and it slowly retreated back into its cave. By 9:30 AM, the contractions had subsided to few and far between. At 11:30 AM, I told R to go to work. I continued to have contractions sporadically throughout the day, but there was no established pattern to them, and they didn’t increase in frequency or strength. I did, however, have some bleeding, which is indicative of “cervical change”, so at least something was going on. By the end of the day, I was also getting little bits of what had to be my mucous plug – another good sign. I talked to Gloria several times, and we joked that things would surely start picking up in the middle of the night. We agreed that if the contractions came back at 5 minutes apart, I should call her – regardless of the time of night, or strength of contractions.

One other thing I want to mention. I was determined that none of my family be at the hospital while I gave birth (and I certainly didn’t want them at my house while I was laboring). As I’ve mentioned before, my mother is crazy and I didn’t want her anywhere near me. She has no sense of boundaries or me as an individual, and the last thing I needed in my space during labor was someone who wouldn’t respect me or my choices. My in-laws are great, but I still felt that I would want a lot of privacy. I’d read too many stories of labor stalling because the woman felt like a spotlight was on her, and everyone was standing around tapping their feet. I’d had many discussions with R, and we had agreed that no one would be told when I went into labor. I didn’t want the phone ringing off the hook with people asking how things were going, and was the baby here yet? I wanted to be left in peace to do what I needed to do, without having to think of a bunch of people anxiously waiting for me to FINISH. With R and Gloria around, I knew I’d have plenty of support. My mother had twisted my arm, trying to get me to “promise” I would call when I went into labor. I evaded this, and told her I didn’t know when I would call. She was less than pleased. My mother-in-law had mentioned to other people (but not me), that she would like to be present in the room while I gave birth. Although I was aware of her wishes (conveyed to me by others), because she chose to be passive-aggressive instead of discussing it with me outright, I didn’t think it was my job to bring it up with her. So she hadn’t been told one way or the other what our plans were. And now that contractions were starting, we had to keep everything under wraps.

This proved to be challenging for a variety of reasons. First of all, I was really excited that labor was starting, and even though I knew it was best not to, I still wanted to spread the news. It took a lot of self-control to not do that. Even harder, though, was the fact that R’s brother was in town, and all of a sudden we had to make excuses for not getting together. While I was certainly physically capable of being out and about at that point, there was no way I could hide that I was having contractions. So things started getting a little dicey, and I had to tell a few white lies.

Beyond that, I spent the day at my house, with the windows wide open, enjoying the unusually pleasant weather, excitedly wondering when things were going to really get moving. I went to bed around midnight, certain we would be getting somewhere by the next morning. I had contractions all night long – strong enough to wake me up, although I slept in between them. I wasn’t sure how far apart they were, though, because I’m blind as a bat and couldn’t see the clock without my glasses. But they didn’t seem strong or frequent enough to warrant a call to Gloria. So I dozed off and on through the night, having maybe 3 contractions an hour. Surely, the baby would arrive on Thursday. Right?

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 1 (Preparation) / Part 3 (Ready! Set! Wait!) >

I know it’s considered “normal” to give birth any time within the 38 to 42 week window. What I’ve never been sure of, is if that window is so big because the actual date of conception is so often an unknown. In my case, we were actively trying to get pregnant and I was charting my basal body temperature. I knew when I ovulated, and therefore knew the date of conception. So M’s “estimated due date” was very accurate, but only if she decided to come at 40 weeks. As I drew closer to 38 weeks, I knew I should pack my hospital bag, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I still don’t know why. I passed week 38, then 39, and there was nothing going on. I had the occasional Braxton-Hicks, but those had been around for a while.

To complicate things further, my brother-in-law and his wife were serendipitously coming into town for a wedding, and would be around for roughly the week before and after M’s due date. They live a 9 hour plane ride away, so we wouldn’t be seeing them any time soon after this visit. I desperately wanted M to arrive while they were here, so they would have a chance to meet her.

The 40 week mark was a Friday, and as I entered that week, I experienced so many emotions. I was anxious and scared, excited to finally meet my baby, desperate to not be huge and pregnant anymore, worried about what my new life would be like and how I would handle losing so much of my freedom.

I was strangely serene about the prospect of labor – most of the time. The one thing that really worried me was that M was posterior (meaning she was head down, but her back was against my back). This is the worst position for giving birth, and can also cause the dreaded back-labor, where you don’t even get relief in between contractions. My back and hip pain forced me to sleep in a recliner for months, so she was posterior with good reason. This caused me no end of anxiety, but it was physically unbearable to sleep in the bed, so I resigned myself to the recliner and all the possible complications that come with a posterior baby. (She might have been posterior anyway, but the recliner pretty much guaranteed it.)

Around 11:30 on Tuesday night, as I was getting ready for bed, M started thrashing about wildly. She’d been movin’ and groovin’ in there for a long time, but this was unlike anything I’d experienced before. It looked like she was shooting a kung-fu movie, and I jokingly referred to these spasms as “stomach-quakes”. After a while, the roiling around was accompanied by sharp jabs to my cervix, and I had the thought that maybe she was dropping. Once she dropped, it would be much harder to get her out of the posterior position, so I started leaning forward on my bed, the birth ball, staying on hands and knees – in short, doing everything I could to encourage her to turn anterior. Her gymnastics continued until about 1:30 AM, when I was finally able to get comfortable and fall asleep. For first-time moms, it’s very common for the baby to drop well in advance of labor, so as I drifted off, I was fairly certain I wasn’t going to be seeing my little baby anytime soon.

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 2 (Warming Up) >

There are two strikes against getting this birth story out in any sort of concise form. First of all, M’s birth was insanely long. I had my first contraction on a Wednesday morning, and she was born Saturday morning. So there’s a lot to cover. Second, I love to talk. You know when someone’s drunk, and they’ll just talk and talk about the stupidest stuff? That’s me. When I’m sober. I’ll blather on about stuff forever, and I like to get into all the nitty-gritty details, so there’s no way this birth can be condensed down into one nice, neat little entry. There will be multiple parts – I don’t even know how many yet. I’m writing this so I can remember it (in case I’m ever stupid enough to decide to do this again), and also so I can remember the details for M. But I’ll do my best to make it interesting, and hopefully you won’t be bored to tears.

M is my first child, and as such, I didn’t have a good idea of what to expect when it came to labor and birth. You can read about it, take classes, talk to friends, consult a psychic, but it’s kind of like riding a bike – until you’ve actually done it, you don’t know what it’s like. But I like to feel prepared, because I have this silly delusion that being “prepared” will allow me some modicum of control over my life. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Early on, I decided I would like to try to give birth naturally. I know lots of women go into labor with this idea, and most of them end up with epidurals. And whenever I mentioned my desire for natural childbirth, most moms fell to the floor, laughing hysterically. On the other hand, I was well aware that women have been giving birth for thousands of years without pain medication. Of course it hurts, but how did we survive so long without epidurals? I found these two “worlds” to be completely irreconcilable. And I would flip-flop from one to the other – one day thinking I was crazy to even consider doing this without drugs, the next believing I could handle it.

But I figured I would at least do everything I could to increase the odds that I would succeed at a natural birth. I signed up to give birth at an Alternative Birth Center (ABC) – contained within the hospital, but set up to support natural childbirth. There are hot tubs in each room (nature’s epidural, or so they say), queen size beds, birth stools, birth balls, etc. The only pain medication available in the ABC is an intramuscular shot of Stadol. They monitor the baby intermittently with a hand-held monitor (that can be used while you’re in the hot tub). I would not have an IV, and I would be allowed to move about, and eat and drink as I pleased. But it was still in the hospital, so if anything went wrong (or I realized I was completely crazy and needed drugs), I was literally a few steps from L&D and the latest and greatest in modern medicine.

I also signed up with an OB practice that’s considered “mother-friendly” – their c-section rates are low, they’re the on-call practice for the ABC, and my doctor was incredibly respectful and never dictated to me. She would educate me, give me her opinion, and then it was up to me to make a decision.

R was tasked with getting our hot tub in working condition so I could use it while laboring at home (remember – nature’s epidural). I knew the longer I stayed at home, the more control I would have over what happened to me. So anything I could do to make laboring at home more pleasant was added to our to-do list.

And lastly, I hired a doula. I’d read studies that showed epidural rates dropped dramatically when a laboring woman was attended by a doula. Yeah, R would be there to support me, but what the hell does he know about giving birth? He’s never done it, he’s never seen it, he’s never helped a woman through it, he knows nothing about the myriad pain-coping techniques, he doesn’t know what’s normal and what isn’t. He would be there to support and encourage me, to tell me he loved me and cheer me on – and I would need all that – but he wasn’t well-equipped to help me cope with the pain. After doing some research, I ended up hiring a monitrice – Gloria. Although no longer practicing, Gloria had been a midwife for many years and therefore had much more experience and many more skills than the average doula. When labor started, Gloria would come to my house and in addition to helping me with pain-coping techniques, she would be able to check my dilation, monitor the baby’s heartbeat and do various other midwife-type things. Once we moved to the ABC, she would act as a normal doula. And because my husband is the best husband in the world, he was totally on board with this. He didn’t see Gloria as competition, or fear that she would step on his toes. He was grateful to know there would be someone there to help him. Gloria didn’t come cheap, but I know now that hiring her was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

Although I did the best I could to stack the deck in favor of a natural birth, I knew I had no idea what was in store for me – and remember, I like to be prepared. If you’ll recall, I’ve had a lumbar fusion, and it just so happens that an epidural is normally inserted between L4-L5 – where I now have two plates, four bolts, and a big block of bone. So I made an appointment with an anesthesiologist at the hospital, and brought in some recent x-rays. Our conversation wasn’t exactly reassuring. The x-rays satisfied him that my back was in good shape, and he said they could insert an epidural just a little bit higher in my spine. That was the good news. The bad news was that there was no way of knowing how much scar tissue was present, so there was a possibility that it could block some or all of the medication, and the epidural would be partially or completely ineffective. And, having to place the epidural higher in my spine meant it was likely I would get less pain relief during the pushing phase (when the pain is lower).

I was less than pleased to hear this. But it only strengthened my desire to prepare for a natural childbirth, because I now understood there was a chance I would give birth without pain relief whether I wanted to or not.

I also discussed worst-case scenarios with my OB. For example, knowing that an epidural might not work, what would happen if they needed to do a c-section (which is normally done with an epidural for anesthesia)? We decided that if it wasn’t an emergency, we would place the epidural and give it a chance. But if it was an emergency, they would go straight to general anesthesia.

I can’t say how glad I am that I educated myself and actively worked to arrange the birth I wanted, while also preparing for other scenarios. Rationally, I knew none of this would give me any “control” over what my body had in store for me, but at least I was prepared to make the best decisions I could, regardless of what happened.

So everything was in order, and then I just had to wait.

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)