Two hours old
Jacob Eli
May 4th 2009, 2:52 am
8# 9 oz, 22 inches
I asked A, the midwife, to check me and to do a membrane sweep on Thursday, which was the day before my “official” due date, but 3 days before my real due date, which I was positive was really Sunday. I was 2.5 cm and 50% effaced. I was worried about having another postpartum hemorrhage, with all the painful and scary things that had entailed, such as manual removal of the placenta. A had mentioned a membrane sweep to encourage the baby to come out smaller/earlier/shorter labor than my daughter (41.5-wker w/ 3-day labor), and help prevent a repeat hemorrhage. The sweep involved 30 seconds of pain and then was over. A showed me the blood on her glove and said blood was a sign that it likely would be successful, and that if it worked, it was usually within 24-48 hours.
I had bloody show and cramps on and off all weekend starting Friday afternoon, when I lost the mucus plug. Saturday morning, I said a prayer for labor to start soon, and also had a little talk with the baby about being born that weekend.
I had cramps all night Saturday night, which eventually spaced apart so that I was able to sleep. Sunday morning, I was still having cramps 5-10 minutes apart, lasting around 40 seconds. I spent most of Sunday following Jubilee, my 3-year-old daughter, around the yard while she played with my nephew.
Around 4-pm, I realized things were getting intense enough that I wouldn’t be able to hide from my in-laws that I was in labor for much longer. I was having quite a bit of bloody show by this time, enough that it was obviously not just the plug. I got my husband away from his family long enough to let him know that things seemed to be getting more serious.
We went inside and watched a funny movie. It hurt to laugh, but it felt healthy since I could feel the laughter stretching my cervix open. All through the labor, I felt really strong cramps across my lower belly and hips, nowhere else. When I sat on the toilet, they got stronger, but I was still able to think of them as “interesting sensations that required all of my attention” as Ina May put it. I washed and folded some laundry, not wanting to come home to a messy house if this was it.
The birth center won’t admit you until you’re at least 5 cm, and last time I was sent home twice before being admitted, so I wanted to be good and sure that I was really, truly in labor before making the 45-minute drive up there. I tried checking my cervix, but all I could tell was that it was partly open and that the inside of it felt weirdly grainy. By 8 pm, contractions were every 4-5 minutes and lasting over a minute. M asked when I was going to call, and I decided to first take a bath and lie down to see if those things lessened the contractions.
During my 20-minute bath, I had 5 or 6 strong contractions. The moment I got out, they became much more intense, and I couldn’t talk through them anymore. When I walked around, they started coming on back-to-back.
I remained in denial for a while longer that this was really labor, but finally gave A a call around 9:30 pm. She said it was unusual for a membrane sweep to take 3 days to jumpstart things. She didn’t seem too convinced that I was really in labor after I admitted to talking through a contraction while on the phone, but said she was going to nap and to call her when they were 2-3 minutes apart and stayed intense regardless of my activity level.
After we hung up, M hurried around packing the truck and getting J ready to go. I constantly had to pee, even though sitting on the toilet made me miserable, since it was impossible to get off the toilet without going through 2 or 3 intense contractions. Then walking back to the rocking chair would take forever, since walking brought them on back-to-back. Rocking in the chair really fast made things bearable, as did standing and bouncing on my toes.
Around 10:30 pm, M decided he wanted to get a quick shower before we left, and I tried lying on my side on the bed. By now my labor mantra was, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh sh**, oh sh**, oh my God, Oh my God,” and then, “Okay, okaaaaayyyy….,” as it faded away. I was glad M took a short shower, because J was really wound up and jumping all over the bed and me, and I was lying there slapping myself, swearing, and praying. J kept piping up, “We forgot to go to the midwife place!” M asked if I was sure I wanted to go through this again (I want a big family), and I responded with a less-than-ladylike retort.
For a while I was thinking, Screw this, I’m going to ask them to transfer me to the hospital for an epidural, one unmedicated birth was enough for me. Who cares if our insurance doesn’t cover squat. But I was also dimly aware that the contractions were still more than 3 minutes apart, so I thought I was being a wuss, and I refused to call the midwife back until 11:30 pm. My need to hand the phone over to M during every contraction convinced her, and she told us that she would be waiting for us at the birth center with a full water tub.
We pulled out of the driveway at 11:59 pm. M was very sweet about taking the corners very slowly so as not to torture me. He flipped the radio to a country station, which was the last thing I wanted to hear. I mustered the energy between contractions to ask him to put on Erykah Badu. Ah, that was better laboring-in-the-car music.
I had contractions every 2 minutes or less the whole way there. On the interstate, 20 minutes from the birth center, I had what I thought were three with no breaks in between. M asked should he drive faster, and I said no. I later realized that this was actually a triple-peaked contraction, and that I was going through transition on the car ride in. No wonder it was such a rough ride! M was looking pretty tense over there in the driver’s seat, while I cried, prayed, swore, and slapped myself.
The lights were on in the birth center when we pulled in at 12:45 am. A came out and walked me in, while M carried J inside. I had 3 contractions between the truck and the building. A kept telling me I was doing great. When we got inside, I went and peed and then plopped myself in the rocking chair. A went back to folding blankets, saying to let her know when I felt like being checked.
I rocked for maybe 20 minutes, with J trying to talk me into sitting in the other rocker so she could have mine. The two birth assistants, one an RN and one a CNM, arrived and introduced themselves. Then I felt something bulge at the peak of a contraction, so M reported to A that I wanted to be checked.
A checked me, then looked at me and said, “What would you say”… long suspenseful pause… “if I told you you’re 9 cm with just a tiny rim of cervix all the way around?”
“Oh thank God!” I was laughing with relief.
“You can get in the water tub whenever you want, and you can start pushing whenever you feel like it!”
I was probably in the tub in two minutes flat. The very first contraction in the tub, I surprised myself by bearing down at the peak. In J’s birth, I never got the spontaneous urge to push, even after being 9.5+ cm for over 6 hours, so this was a pleasant surprise to not have to force myself to push. The next few contractions, I kneeled in the tub and lightly pushed whenever I felt like it, and found that wow, they barely hurt if I was pushing! When I started growl-pushing, they quietly set up all the emergency equipment and took their places around the tub. Everyone was low-key, and we joked and chatted between contractions.
A suggested that I try pushing while lying back for a while, with a full-length mirror in front of me, so I could see what kind of pushes worked best. M and J poured warm water over my belly. J really got into it, and they started calling her Little Midwife. “Good job, Mommy, gimme five!” And “Push harder Mommy!” which she was fond of saying even between contractions. The ‘push harder’ thing is funny, since I never heard anyone but her say it. She was also saying, “Oh cool!” whenever she saw the progress I was making with each push.
I checked myself and felt the water bag hanging down. A told me that the baby’s head would be right behind it, and offered to poke a hole in it if I wanted her to, but I opted to leave the bag alone, not wanting to give up that cushion before I had to.
A suggested trying a new position, so I got up on hands and knees. This felt just right, and within a contraction or two I felt the water bag surge and burst. I reached up and felt a fuzzy wrinkled baby head. With the next one, I felt the head surge right on down, and I became a crazy woman. “Oh my God it stings!” I never felt the ring of fire with J, but holy crap I sure did this time. I started yelling “OW!” over and over, exactly as M had warned them I would do. I was supporting myself from the front, and within a minute or so of nonstop uncontrollable pushes, I felt the head go from an inch inside, to bulging out, to mostly out. I remembered A telling me to flip onto my back when the head came out, since the water was so shallow. I somehow got myself back to a sitting position, while screaming like a banshee at the top of my lungs, and okay, there was the head, totally out. Seven minutes from bag bursting to head out, they told me later.
I needed to push again for the shoulders. I pushed and pushed, and nothing happened. I was getting nervous, so gave my biggest push ever, and out came his shoulders and body, and then A was floating him up out of the water to me. 2:52 am, two minutes from head out to baby out.“Oh my God, we have a real baby!” He was grayish and covered in vernix. He didn’t breathe right away, but after a few seconds he squinched his eyes open and looked at me and let out a squawk or two, and then he started looking around. J and M, who had gone into the next room, returned to see the baby.
I held him until the cord stopped pulsing, then the cord was cut and everyone but A went into the next room to get the baby cleaned up and wrapped. Everything was so *normal*. The placenta delivered spontaneously, I had minimal bleeding, and I did not at all feel like I had just had a baby. I had no tears, just one small scrape, and I wasn’t even swollen. I got out of the tub, nursed Eli for over an hour, and then showered. Eli was perfect and healthy, weighing 8 # 9 oz after his first feeding, and 22 inches long. One of the nurses was delighted, as she had never seen a waterbirth before, and she commented that she had never before seen a nurse have such an uncomplicated birth.
We rested a while, then packed up and left at 7 am, four hours after the birth. Beautiful, sunny spring morning. Everyone else was hurrying to drive to work, and we were driving home with our new baby. I felt so good! What a great morning.
. My husband’s grandpa, who at age 85 still works in his garden every day, gave me the ultimate compliment when he told me my garden looked better than his this year. Maybe it’s not a huge compliment- his garden isn’t immaculate this year the way it normally is since he’s slowing down a bit, but I’ll take what I can get.
