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I’m still at a loss for words regarding all that has transpired this week. One word alone fairly sums up the experience: AMAZING. I still sit here looking at this beautiful baby and am in awe that he’s ours and we get to keep him. Ten years I’ve been waiting to be a mother and now I finally am. Three losses, and several moments during this pregnancy when I thought all was lost or at least in jeopardy, but now he’s here and sleeping on my husband’s chest and all seems mostly right in the world… at least at the moment while they’re both sleeping, but that’s another story for another time. Right now I just need to put down the story so I don’t forget.
Monday, 14 December was just another day in the life. I had two more days of work until vacation was to begin, and the baby wasn’t due for another six days. I hadn’t really given any thought to whether I’d go to my due date or over because there really hadn’t been any signs of a change other than losing part of my mucous plug, which I knew could happen even weeks before labor actually starts so I certainly wasn’t hanging my hopes on that one little sign. I hadn’t had any stronger contractions, just a little achy feeling in my pelvic bones which I figured was just the awkward way I was carrying all this weight. Honestly, I really hadn’t had any of the practice contractions in a day or so that I could feel, so in my mind, it was all good to go. I was going to work two days and have three days vacation, maybe a baby over the weekend, two more days of vacation, then maternity leave. It really was a good plan. It seems however that my plan and God’s plan were not written on the same piece of post-it note or the same calendar.
Monday morning passed uneventfully. I went about my routine at work with hardly any interruptions other than the occasional run to the bathroom (which I have my 32 oz mug to thank for getting such great exercise these last few months). I did my daily paperwork, answered phones, answered questions from curious folk who wanted to know when I was due. I ate lunch like every day, checking email at my desk and looking up a few things while I ate… still not a single contraction. Not a hint of anything. I even started making my post-it note list of things I needed to do after work: Go to Y to swim, finish dishes from weekend, lay out birth supplies, label boxes, clean bathroom upstairs, prep half.com items to ship out Tues morning (yay! Sales!).
At 1:00 I came back from lunch and went back to entering teller offages into the offage file for the day, and all was well until around 1:35 or so, when upon returning from a pee break I was suddenly hit by a weird wave of nausea and a HUGE cramp. “Different.” I thought, but figured that different didn’t amount to anything and kept entering numbers. Five minutes later another one hit harder than the first (while I was on the phone with one of the branch folk) and rattled me a little. I sent a text out to one of my friends to not count today out as a possibility after all. After about the fourth one I finally made the trek across the aisle to let a supervisor know that I needed to go home. Something was different, definitely different. I was having trouble concentrating on work because I was trying to mentally prepare to ride the next wave. I still didn’t totally believe that this was ‘it’, but luckily instinct is stronger than ego sometimes and I made the call for Barry to come get me. Fortunately I did that when I did… because after the walk from the back of the building to the car, I was struggling through another one and on the verge of tears.
As I lowered myself into the car, face white and trying not to cry, Barry asked if I was okay. “Relative
to what?” I responded. “Let’s just go home. I need to be in the shower or something.”
“Oh, crap. We need gas. Are you okay enough that we can stop for gas on the way home?” Barry asked.
“For the moment.”
“Okay, we’ll stop for gas, then go home.”
While Barry put gas in the car I dialed our midwife to let her know what was going on. She said it sounded like things were still early but to keep her posted if there were any changes and to try to time the contractions for an hour to see where we were. It sounded good to me, so that was the plan. The first one I timed came five minutes after the last one ended, and lasted a full 57 seconds. That is also about the time I began to lose track of time and the world around me a bit. As we came off the bypass and were a few blocks from home, Barry thought it might be wise to make one more stop for a source of caffeine for himself, just in case, and maybe some Gatorade for me. I was still doing okay, so I decided to stay in the car while he stopped at the convenience store near our house.
This is where different once again changed… so while he was making his purchase, I suddenly couldn’t handle sitting through the contraction. I had to get out of the car. I even considered walking the rest of the way home, but figured that would only hurt more and decided instead to get out of the car and walk around in circles and move my hips to deal with it. I may have looked weird to passers-by (but in our neighborhood, weird is also a relative term), I really didn’t care much. Things were spinning out of control and I was quite positive by this point that this was indeed ‘it’. Not just ‘it’, but OHMYGODITSMOVINGTOOFASTICA
A little background here. I was born in about four hours from water breaking to screaming infant according to my mom. I did not learn of this until the day before all of this happened, so I was prepared for the endurance race. I had mentally prepared myself for days of contractions before labor officially happened. I was ready to be walking for hours up and down the stairs at home, laboring on my ball, taking naps between contractions in the early stages, sitting back and enjoying relaxing to the playlist I had created. The present scenario had never presented itself in my thought process since the first baby is usually the one who takes its time to arrive, seeing as the first baby is the one who has to pretty much blaze a new trail and move the bones and muscles around. It’s supposed to be a slow process! Of course, if I’ve learned anything this year it might be that ‘supposed to be’ and ‘is’ are two totally different realms of existence and they rarely run parallel, and even more rarely do they intersect in my life.
As I was saying… while Barry picked up his version of birth supplies- four large bottles of Pepsi, Cherry Pepsi, Coke, Cherry Coke, as well as some Gatorade for myself, I was quickly beginning to understand why everyone I asked said the same thing: “when it’s the real thing, you’ll just know.” I was still trying to cognitively grasp what was going on and attempting to think my way through the process (like you can think your way through an instinct-driven process… ha ha ha) and behave like a civilized human even though as I stood moving around next to the car I had an overwhelming urge to start vocalizing through the contractions. Luckily Barry came out just about that time and we quickly continued our epic journey of two blocks to home. I kept asking if he’d just let me out of the car to walk the last block because I didn’t like sitting. I even distinctly remember telling him that I hated chairs. As soon as he pulled to a stop in front of our house I hopped out yelling “it’s okay, I have keys too. You can meet me in the house eventually. Need in the shower NOW.”
I bounced into the house and up the stairs to the bathtub leaving behind a trail of clothes and accessories, quite certain that I was still in the ‘early stages’ and would be fine as soon as I got my body into water. In the early stage, contractions can slow down if you get into the tub or shower, which I felt confident would work and give me the opportunity to mentally catch up to what was going on and be able to relax through things a little better. It would allow me to prepare better and get through it better. No such luck. I filled the tub halfway and settled in. Momentary relief- followed by things picking up speed.
Barry came in to see how I was doing, and I’m sure hoping that his kinder, gentler wife had been restored from the short tempered and pain wracked beast he’d dropped off in front of the house not ten minutes previously. I was sitting in the bathtub and attempting to relax to the playlist on my laptop which was giving me the red battery icon of death.
“are you okay?”
“Okay is a relative term. I’m okay, but relative to what, I don’t know.”
“Should I fill the birth pool?”
“I think things are still early. Maybe we should call the midwife.” *contraction hits, I try to climb the tub walls*
“Call her now?”
“Yes. Tellherweneedhernow. Now. Please, now.”
Then I entered another time warp. I heard Barry in the other room on the phone with our midwife, then I heard him scurrying around to set up the birthing room- putting the hose in place for the pool, stretching out plastic on the floor, running downstairs to get my water mug and a new straw, changing out of his nice clothes into something he could stand to get a little messy, coming into the bathroom to rub my back and give me a hug. At some point the music died off when my battery croaked. I felt like I left my body for a bit but always returned just in time to experience the next wave of a contraction rising. It seemed like an eternity until our midwife walked through our front door, at which point I was clutching the countertop in our bathroom in a full-on moaning, writhing, shivering, sweating, dancing spectacle of a woman in labor. Hearing my moans from the front door prompted our midwife to call her birth assistant before even coming up to check on me because she could tell from that that things were progressing well and fast. She checked me quickly to see how far I was dilated… 4 cm and a VERY thin cervix by 3:30 (notice, this all began around quarter to two in the afternoon). Our midwife took over helping to hold me together so Barry could continue the manly work of finding things when the birth assistant came in.
By a little after 4PM the birthing tub was full of warm enough water to just add a very uncomfortable me and it was magic. After two hours of laboring on land, to suddenly be surrounded in the warm embrace of the water was pure heaven. It was also a very nice distraction from the fact that every muscle seemed to be tensing without my help. I could float. I could stretch out. I could change positions without my very cumbersome 39 weeks pregnant body getting in the way of itself. Even more awesome- I could rest my head on the soft inflatable sides between contractions and let myself fall into a sort of trance.
I was telling myself over and over again that this wasn’t ‘pain’. This was merely discomfort and would pass. It would pass quickly and bring me a beautiful baby. I kept asking out loud why it had to be like this, and how much longer. My awesome midwife just kept reminding me that my body is doing something beautiful that it was meant to do, and that I just needed to let it do this… and that it would be over as soon as I had that baby… so I just needed to let go and let it happen. Again things got fuzzy. Around 4:30 my water broke. She checked me at around five and I was fully dilated and starting to involuntarily push. Sometime after that I reached down and felt the baby’s head starting to peek out. Then the discomfort of ‘crowning’ began. Shortly thereafter I felt the head come out the rest of the way and felt him start to move around. Then came shoulders, and a whole baby. The huge relief of the pushing stage ending was unbelievable. Almost euphoric.
At 6:30, I was holding my very own child. I was amazed that this tiny squealing thing had come from me, which is mine and I get to keep. The next few hours were a blur again as vitals were taken on both of us, Barry began the post-birth cleanup of the pool and contacted the agency we’d donated the placenta to, and I sat in my newly rearranged body trying to come out of the trance from birthing a nine-pound baby into the world. My main focus was the most beautiful baby I’d ever seen, my little Elijah.
I’m not sharing this out of some need to gloat about having a natural home birth. I feel strongly that every woman should have the right to choose whether to have children, but where and how to have them without criticism or insult. I also don’t feel it’s a badge of honor of some sort…but it is the single most amazing, powerful, stunning, and life changing thing I’ve ever done, and I can look back on this moment ten or so years and say “Well, I might have been crazy while I was giving birth, but at least I got to be my own kind of crazy.” Maybe somewhere, somehow, it’ll help another woman in choosing her own kind of crazy.
L.
Monday, 14 December was just another day in the life. I had two more days of work until vacation was to begin, and the baby wasn’t due for another six days. I hadn’t really given any thought to whether I’d go to my due date or over because there really hadn’t been any signs of a change other than losing part of my mucous plug, which I knew could happen even weeks before labor actually starts so I certainly wasn’t hanging my hopes on that one little sign. I hadn’t had any stronger contractions, just a little achy feeling in my pelvic bones which I figured was just the awkward way I was carrying all this weight. Honestly, I really hadn’t had any of the practice contractions in a day or so that I could feel, so in my mind, it was all good to go. I was going to work two days and have three days vacation, maybe a baby over the weekend, two more days of vacation, then maternity leave. It really was a good plan. It seems however that my plan and God’s plan were not written on the same piece of post-it note or the same calendar.
Monday morning passed uneventfully. I went about my routine at work with hardly any interruptions other than the occasional run to the bathroom (which I have my 32 oz mug to thank for getting such great exercise these last few months). I did my daily paperwork, answered phones, answered questions from curious folk who wanted to know when I was due. I ate lunch like every day, checking email at my desk and looking up a few things while I ate… still not a single contraction. Not a hint of anything. I even started making my post-it note list of things I needed to do after work: Go to Y to swim, finish dishes from weekend, lay out birth supplies, label boxes, clean bathroom upstairs, prep half.com items to ship out Tues morning (yay! Sales!).
At 1:00 I came back from lunch and went back to entering teller offages into the offage file for the day, and all was well until around 1:35 or so, when upon returning from a pee break I was suddenly hit by a weird wave of nausea and a HUGE cramp. “Different.” I thought, but figured that different didn’t amount to anything and kept entering numbers. Five minutes later another one hit harder than the first (while I was on the phone with one of the branch folk) and rattled me a little. I sent a text out to one of my friends to not count today out as a possibility after all. After about the fourth one I finally made the trek across the aisle to let a supervisor know that I needed to go home. Something was different, definitely different. I was having trouble concentrating on work because I was trying to mentally prepare to ride the next wave. I still didn’t totally believe that this was ‘it’, but luckily instinct is stronger than ego sometimes and I made the call for Barry to come get me. Fortunately I did that when I did… because after the walk from the back of the building to the car, I was struggling through another one and on the verge of tears.
As I lowered myself into the car, face white and trying not to cry, Barry asked if I was okay. “Relative
to what?” I responded. “Let’s just go home. I need to be in the shower or something.”
“Oh, crap. We need gas. Are you okay enough that we can stop for gas on the way home?” Barry asked.
“For the moment.”
“Okay, we’ll stop for gas, then go home.”
While Barry put gas in the car I dialed our midwife to let her know what was going on. She said it sounded like things were still early but to keep her posted if there were any changes and to try to time the contractions for an hour to see where we were. It sounded good to me, so that was the plan. The first one I timed came five minutes after the last one ended, and lasted a full 57 seconds. That is also about the time I began to lose track of time and the world around me a bit. As we came off the bypass and were a few blocks from home, Barry thought it might be wise to make one more stop for a source of caffeine for himself, just in case, and maybe some Gatorade for me. I was still doing okay, so I decided to stay in the car while he stopped at the convenience store near our house.
This is where different once again changed… so while he was making his purchase, I suddenly couldn’t handle sitting through the contraction. I had to get out of the car. I even considered walking the rest of the way home, but figured that would only hurt more and decided instead to get out of the car and walk around in circles and move my hips to deal with it. I may have looked weird to passers-by (but in our neighborhood, weird is also a relative term), I really didn’t care much. Things were spinning out of control and I was quite positive by this point that this was indeed ‘it’. Not just ‘it’, but OHMYGODITSMOVINGTOOFASTICA
A little background here. I was born in about four hours from water breaking to screaming infant according to my mom. I did not learn of this until the day before all of this happened, so I was prepared for the endurance race. I had mentally prepared myself for days of contractions before labor officially happened. I was ready to be walking for hours up and down the stairs at home, laboring on my ball, taking naps between contractions in the early stages, sitting back and enjoying relaxing to the playlist I had created. The present scenario had never presented itself in my thought process since the first baby is usually the one who takes its time to arrive, seeing as the first baby is the one who has to pretty much blaze a new trail and move the bones and muscles around. It’s supposed to be a slow process! Of course, if I’ve learned anything this year it might be that ‘supposed to be’ and ‘is’ are two totally different realms of existence and they rarely run parallel, and even more rarely do they intersect in my life.
As I was saying… while Barry picked up his version of birth supplies- four large bottles of Pepsi, Cherry Pepsi, Coke, Cherry Coke, as well as some Gatorade for myself, I was quickly beginning to understand why everyone I asked said the same thing: “when it’s the real thing, you’ll just know.” I was still trying to cognitively grasp what was going on and attempting to think my way through the process (like you can think your way through an instinct-driven process… ha ha ha) and behave like a civilized human even though as I stood moving around next to the car I had an overwhelming urge to start vocalizing through the contractions. Luckily Barry came out just about that time and we quickly continued our epic journey of two blocks to home. I kept asking if he’d just let me out of the car to walk the last block because I didn’t like sitting. I even distinctly remember telling him that I hated chairs. As soon as he pulled to a stop in front of our house I hopped out yelling “it’s okay, I have keys too. You can meet me in the house eventually. Need in the shower NOW.”
I bounced into the house and up the stairs to the bathtub leaving behind a trail of clothes and accessories, quite certain that I was still in the ‘early stages’ and would be fine as soon as I got my body into water. In the early stage, contractions can slow down if you get into the tub or shower, which I felt confident would work and give me the opportunity to mentally catch up to what was going on and be able to relax through things a little better. It would allow me to prepare better and get through it better. No such luck. I filled the tub halfway and settled in. Momentary relief- followed by things picking up speed.
Barry came in to see how I was doing, and I’m sure hoping that his kinder, gentler wife had been restored from the short tempered and pain wracked beast he’d dropped off in front of the house not ten minutes previously. I was sitting in the bathtub and attempting to relax to the playlist on my laptop which was giving me the red battery icon of death.
“are you okay?”
“Okay is a relative term. I’m okay, but relative to what, I don’t know.”
“Should I fill the birth pool?”
“I think things are still early. Maybe we should call the midwife.” *contraction hits, I try to climb the tub walls*
“Call her now?”
“Yes. Tellherweneedhernow. Now. Please, now.”
Then I entered another time warp. I heard Barry in the other room on the phone with our midwife, then I heard him scurrying around to set up the birthing room- putting the hose in place for the pool, stretching out plastic on the floor, running downstairs to get my water mug and a new straw, changing out of his nice clothes into something he could stand to get a little messy, coming into the bathroom to rub my back and give me a hug. At some point the music died off when my battery croaked. I felt like I left my body for a bit but always returned just in time to experience the next wave of a contraction rising. It seemed like an eternity until our midwife walked through our front door, at which point I was clutching the countertop in our bathroom in a full-on moaning, writhing, shivering, sweating, dancing spectacle of a woman in labor. Hearing my moans from the front door prompted our midwife to call her birth assistant before even coming up to check on me because she could tell from that that things were progressing well and fast. She checked me quickly to see how far I was dilated… 4 cm and a VERY thin cervix by 3:30 (notice, this all began around quarter to two in the afternoon). Our midwife took over helping to hold me together so Barry could continue the manly work of finding things when the birth assistant came in.
By a little after 4PM the birthing tub was full of warm enough water to just add a very uncomfortable me and it was magic. After two hours of laboring on land, to suddenly be surrounded in the warm embrace of the water was pure heaven. It was also a very nice distraction from the fact that every muscle seemed to be tensing without my help. I could float. I could stretch out. I could change positions without my very cumbersome 39 weeks pregnant body getting in the way of itself. Even more awesome- I could rest my head on the soft inflatable sides between contractions and let myself fall into a sort of trance.
I was telling myself over and over again that this wasn’t ‘pain’. This was merely discomfort and would pass. It would pass quickly and bring me a beautiful baby. I kept asking out loud why it had to be like this, and how much longer. My awesome midwife just kept reminding me that my body is doing something beautiful that it was meant to do, and that I just needed to let it do this… and that it would be over as soon as I had that baby… so I just needed to let go and let it happen. Again things got fuzzy. Around 4:30 my water broke. She checked me at around five and I was fully dilated and starting to involuntarily push. Sometime after that I reached down and felt the baby’s head starting to peek out. Then the discomfort of ‘crowning’ began. Shortly thereafter I felt the head come out the rest of the way and felt him start to move around. Then came shoulders, and a whole baby. The huge relief of the pushing stage ending was unbelievable. Almost euphoric.
At 6:30, I was holding my very own child. I was amazed that this tiny squealing thing had come from me, which is mine and I get to keep. The next few hours were a blur again as vitals were taken on both of us, Barry began the post-birth cleanup of the pool and contacted the agency we’d donated the placenta to, and I sat in my newly rearranged body trying to come out of the trance from birthing a nine-pound baby into the world. My main focus was the most beautiful baby I’d ever seen, my little Elijah.
I’m not sharing this out of some need to gloat about having a natural home birth. I feel strongly that every woman should have the right to choose whether to have children, but where and how to have them without criticism or insult. I also don’t feel it’s a badge of honor of some sort…but it is the single most amazing, powerful, stunning, and life changing thing I’ve ever done, and I can look back on this moment ten or so years and say “Well, I might have been crazy while I was giving birth, but at least I got to be my own kind of crazy.” Maybe somewhere, somehow, it’ll help another woman in choosing her own kind of crazy.
L.
Beautiful!!! Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteReminds me so much of my own birth story. 3 hours from my first real contraction to baby-in-arms. I too had envisioned days of contractions and had spent a good few hours creating a relaxing playlist on my iPod. LOL! Fast labors have their downsides, but still an amazing experience. Thanks so much for sharing, and Congrats! It's a whole new world.
ReplyDeleteHere's my story if you are interested: http://www.natural-pregnancy-mentor.com/piper.html