I did it. I gave birth. I cannot believe it. The experience was intense. It was horrible. It was incredible. I cannot believe I actually did it. I cannot believe it's actually over. There is this huge gap between feeling blissfully pregnant and blissfully holding my baby where I was living from one contraction to the next. It's hard to explain. A 12 hour window where I was completely in every second of every moment, and nowhere at the same time. I stopped existing, and yet I was every part of the world of pain.
It's been 5 months since I started writing this blog post, and I have thought about it every so often, wanting to get back to it, to finish it. Now that the wounds aren't so fresh. Now that the trauma has begun to heal. And believe me, I know some women have suffered far worse Trauma. But let's be clear... labor. Is. TRAUMATIC. I wanted to talk about it. I wanted to explain it. But no one really wants to hear about it. I mean, after I labored, I was like, "Nope. That's it. I'm having one baby. I'm done now." And my mother... my lovely, wonderful, perfect mother, who very rarely disappoints my need for support and reliability... she was the first to dismiss my trauma. With words like, "You'll forget." Or, "The second one is easier." Or, "It was worth it. Look at your baby. It was worth it."
It was worth it. I can say totally, and completely, I am so glad to have this beautiful baby girl in my life. She's perfection. She's easy and sweet and smiley and totally mine. But it wasn't worth it at the time. And it wasn't ANYONE ELSE'S JOB to dismiss the horrors of MY labor and act like it was worth it. For them, they get to sit at home, happily pain free, and enjoy photos of my newborn. I LIVED it. I get to say whether or not it was worth it.
3 days of labor. 2 days of intermittent pain. And one day of intense, bone deep discomfort... a level of pain that deserves a new name... Because it wasn't PAIN. It was INTENSE. It was on-going. There was no respite. It was all useful and productive and important and moving the baby down, down, down and out. It was all supposed to be exactly how it was and it was all so awful and wrong and completely right. It's so hard to explain.
On Monday we had this huge hail storm. We couldn't hear each other talking, it was so loud. Hail the size of golf-balls. we found out later it destroyed our roof. Mom and I did a pregnancy photoshoot in the finished baby's room.
On Tuesday we randomly decided to rearrange the livingroom to see how we could fit the birthing tub in there, and set about getting the proper parts to attach a hose to the bathtub faucet to fill the tub up. That evening I went out to clean up some of the debris from the hail storm. I threw myself into it, bending low, doing deep squats, really pushing myself. I was hot and sweaty. I chatted with our neighbor and she told me to try walking up the steps at Dinosaur park and then do a deep tissue massage on my feet. I said I thought that was great idea. And then I went into the house and I started some braxton hicks. They were gentle. Just my stomach tightening. But they kept happening. My mom started timing them as we sat at the kitchen table talking. It was 9 and I called the midwife just to check in with her, let her know what was happening. Then we decided to go to bed. Just in case they developed into something more where we needed our energy. I let the dogs out and as I stood outside I felt this weird warmth seep into my underwear. I checked it out, it was a clear liquid. But it wasn't a lot. It was just a steady dripping. So I put in a pad and went to bed. I woke up in the early morning with cramps. Petal got up with me and timed them (Duckie is sitting on my lap as I type one-handed, and she keeps giggling. I think she likes the tapping sound). Eventually I got into the bath. The warm water slowed things down. We went back to bed, Petal called in to let them know I was in labor and he couldn't come in.
That day, Wednesday, is sort of a blur of napping, eating, watching shows, and a walk to bring on more contractions. The midwife came and tested to see that yes, the goosh of water was indeed my water breaking a little, or on the side of the birth sack and slooooowly leaking out. She was actually at another woman's house just up the road who had been in labor all day. So we just took it easy for the rest of that day.
Then I woke up early on Thursday morning with big contractions. That's when I knew this was it. The real deal. Lots of pain, really close together. I labored in the living room as Petal and my mom filled up the tub. At 6, Petal insisted we call the midwife. I didn't really want to. I knew we weren't close to pushing the baby out. I knew she was tired from helping that other woman labor all night. But she came and was cheerful and upbeat. I got into the tub. We put on dinner party music. And I lip synced "My girl" And joked that it was a sign. It was peaceful. It was fun. I was so content. The contractions ebbed... slowed down... My mom said she was going to go take a nap. The midwife asked if she could check my cervix so I let her, and she said the sentence that changed my attitude completely. She said, "Well, you're only two centimeters dilated, but you're completely effaced!" She was very positive. But 2 centimeters?? TWO??? That meant this nightmare was going to continue for hours. HOURS. Petal (my dear and thoughtful husband) says, "So is it going to be a while longer?" And the midwife shrugged, but her face sort of said, "Yes. Get ready for the long-haul." And so... My dear. And THOUGHTFUL. Husband. (not bitter about it, not at ALL). Goes, "Oh, well I'm tired, so I'm gonna go back to bed for a little while. He took his phone (that was playing my lovely music), and buggered off to bed. I was livid. But I said nothing. HE WAS tired? I was exhausted. And I just got news that I was going to be exhausted for a lot longer. I was so upset, but I was trying to hold it together. I wanted to tell the midwife to go home, get some rest, take it easy. I could do this waiting game by myself. Alone... with my "support team" blissfuly snoozing in their beds. But I couldn't figure out the words. I couldn't tell her to just go rest. And then she said, "You know, it seems like your labor has slowed down. What do you think about getting out of the tub for a little while?"
This. Was EXACTLY. What I didn't want to happen. Her, encourage me to do the hard stuff... to get the ball rolling because everyone was tired. I was so mad. I was so alone. I was so tired. So I got out of the tub. And labor got harder. And eveything hurt more. And she made me sit on the toilet which was so awful. Sitting on the toilet felt like everything wanted to escape, my pelvis, my ribs, my whole uterus. It was intense. I hated it so much. She made me walk around. She made me put my leg up and rock through a contraction. I was wondering around my house in a giant fluffy blue Tardis robe, feeling like I wanted to send her home, that I was sad. So sad that I wasn't further along. That I had to be doing this without them because they were asleep. So I went to find my glasses, but I couldn't. I couldn't see to find them. I woke my mom up, and she gracefully got out of bed and helped me look until we found them. She then started walking around with me. She seemed tired. I wanted to cry into her arms. I wanted to bawl and tell her to send the midwife home and just make it all stop... or start. I'm not sure which. I got her alone and finally was able to tell her I was only two centimeters dilated. I sobbed. She held me. At some point Petal got up. Contractions were rolling into each other. Petal and I took a shower together.
I labored in bed. That was the worst. I felt like even between contractions, I couldn't get comfortable. The midwife made me put my leg over a big inflatable ball thing. I hated that. The first contraction in a new position was the most intense and uncomfortable. I labored on my hands and knees a lot, moving, moving moving. So much moving. I couldn't stay still. I had to move. And then the baby got to my hips. And OOOOH how that hurt. My bones ached. It felt like I was being stretched apart. I wanted everyone to squeeeeeeze my hips. To relieve some of the pressure. But no one could push hard enough. I remember saying over and over again, "My hips! My spine! Oh my spine!" And no one knew what to do with this information. The midwife must have been checking my dilation, but I don't remember how many times. I don't remember how often she checked the baby's heartbeat either, I know it was a lot. Everything was good though. The baby's heartbeat was strong, my dilation was slowly ticking on.
I'm not sure when they told me I could get back in the tub. There is a blur of napping and contracting in bed, there might have been a cervix check and then getting the tub ready for me again, but I remember this time, I was all naked, no modesty anymore. Just grateful to be back in my tub....
I am a water creature. I am happiest in the water. I was so at peace back in the tub. It was the only place I wanted to be. Floating between contractions in the lovely, perfectly warm water... I was finally comfortable. Some of my good attitude came back. I no longer hated the midwife. At some point, the pastor's wife showed up, a midwife in training, a sweet lady. And through a painful back contraction, she asked me, "Would you like some counter-pressure?" I said, "YES. YES. Yes please!" And there it was... the perfect squeeze. Hands like iron. Gripping me and pushing me through the pain. She was my salvation in the intensity.
I don't know how long I was in the tub, I don't know when contractions became pushing, but I do remember the midwife gently breaking into the fog of my mind and saying, "Sarah, it seems like you're pushing. Would it be alright if I checked you again?" A few contractions may have passed between that and when she was able to check me, but she said, "Ok, you're only Nine and a little bit, so you need to either stop pushing or let me hold it back as you push."
Neither of those sounded doable, but we tried her holding my cervix back and it was awful. And I couldn't not push. The urge was stronger than me, and in the back of my head, all I could think was, "Pushing is the only way of making this end." So I reached up inside myself, and as contractions swept over me, I held back my own mostly dilated cervix back until I felt the baby's head slip through . That squishy, fuzzy head. It was so hard to identify as a head, since I wasn't expecting any hair, and it was so soft to the touch. But the midwife assured me that that was what it was.
I breathed like I have never breathed before, deep intake and loud wooshes. My groaning pushing the hair from my lungs and my gasps pulling it back in. My lungs had never worked so hard in all my life. Sweat dripped from my face in giant drops, and someone kept prompting me between contractions, "Drink, drink, drink." This was so close. When they started seeing her head, suddenly my mother and my husband were saying, "You're so close. It's right there. Just push. Just a little longer. Just a little harder. It's almost here." And I was pushing between contractions, and before and after... I was pushing so hard during contractions, I was so tired, but I pushed with all my might, and just when I thought, "There's no way the baby's moving." I'd reach down and feel a little more of that weird squishy thing that they claimed was a head.
And so I pushed some more. Drops of sweat. Sips of water. Wanting to be the she-warrior that got this baby out into the warm water. but things seemed to stop all of a sudden. I felt it. The midwife and the midwife in training both felt it. They let me try for a few more contractions... contractions that rolled into more contractions, one ending as soon as another one began. But it was clear the baby wasn't moving down the way she should have been. So the soft voice of my midwife cut into my fog and gently said, "Sarah, we're thinking the baby is hung up, so we're gonna need you to get out of the tub." I immediately protested... she was crowned, stretching me to the widest I would ever need to be, tightly hung up right at the entrance of my body. Her strong, soft, dark-haired head, making me feel every inch of the ring of fire. "NO. I can do this." I claimed, as sweat dripped from my lip. The next contraction rolled over me, and I pushed as hard as I could while the strong, sure voice of my midwife said, "We're worried about the baby. After this contraction, we need you to stand up, and step over the edge of the tub and sit on this stool." I pushed with every ounce of my being, but the baby didn't move and my contraction ebbed. So by a power that was not my own, I stood. I think I took someone's hands, possible two different people's, I can't remember, and stood with the widest part of my baby's head squarely secured between my legs.
I sat on the stool, and I don't remember it very well. It was just a wooden birthing stool. I breathed and breathed and breathed and before my next contraction I heard the midwife in training say, "(Petal), would you like to catch the baby?" And his response (which I believe was a yes) was lost as the contraction rolled over me, and in one great push, the whole baby came shooting out of me, all at once. The assistant midwife had pushed my husband to catch the baby just in time and he started sobbing as he pressed the little damp body of my child into my naked chest, some one wrapping a towel around us both as I tried to come to terms with what just happened. I babbled. But I didn't cry. My husband was a mess. And I loved him for it.
I remember feeling cheated. I remember just wanting to bask in the glow of motherhood. But I hurt. I hurt so much. I couldn't catch my breath and I didn't want to sit on the birthing stool any longer. The midwife voiced concern about how much I was bleeding, so with the placenta still inside me and the umbilical cord connecting us, we waddled into the bedroom on a pathway of towels and newspapers. I laid in bed on a "Puppy Pad" to save my sheets from being stained. I hurt. I hurt so much. I felt like my downstairs was on fire. Where was that blissful peace? Where was that "Forgetting the pain as soon as I laid eyes on my baby"? I thought that once labor was over, I got to go right back to being my happy self. But I was in so much pain. I couldn't concentrate. I wanted to be in awe, but instead I was in agony. I voiced these complaints and everyone sort of chuckled, like, "DUH. You just pushed out a baby. That hurts." But I was so sure that immediately after getting the baby out, I'd be in a baby-bubble of bliss. I couldn't wrap my head around it.
The midwife inspected me and said that I was torn and it was bad enough that I had to go to the hospital to have it stitched. This wasn't what I wanted to hear. But we had prepared for this possibility. Chris would stay here with the baby, and my mother would take me to the hospital. She gave me lidocaine. And ice. And some ibuprofen. So I could enjoy these few hours with the baby before I went to the hospital. I let my husband hold her while I was soothed and injected and medicated. We let people know what was going on, texting and calling to announce the good news. An hour went by before we looked to see what the gender was. I looked and got to announce it to the room. A girl. A beautiful baby girl. A squishy, dark-haired, purple, cone-headed baby girl who was so delightfully lovely. I was so happy. Petal was so happy. He said, as tears poured down his face, "I wanted it to be a girl!" And we called everyone again to tell them her gender. We didn't have a name though. Which would make announcing it on facebook a little difficult.
I pushed her out at 2:40 pm. It was now 6:00. We needed to get to the hospital, since we were risking infection with my open wound. My husband called his friend to come be with him, barely getting two words out before he broke into sobs again, to which his friend replied, "I'll be there in 5 minutes." The midwife busied everyone to help me, corralling us all to do what needed to be done. My mother slipped a dress over my nakedness... my now deflated belly. They helped me pull on a huge pair of underwear with an even bigger pad in it. I tried to stand up, but it felt like I had been double punched in the guts. I couldn't breath. I felt light-headed and dizzy. I shook so badly. It was awful. I couldn't believe how awful. It was like my lungs were being pulled in by gravity. Like my whole body was caving in on itself. I had to sit back down. We took a moment, then up I went again, struggling to pull air into my concaved body.
It was hard to walk, someone on either side of me. The midwife prompting me to look up, to breath, breath breath. I felt woozy. I don't know how I got down my front steps, but I think Petal's friend helped me. I sat down gently in the car. So swollen. So sore. The drive to the hospital seemed to take forever. I called my grandmother to let her know about the baby. I don't remember most of the conversation, I was so light-headed.
The midwife and the midwife in training met us at the hospital door with a wheelchair and we got checked in while my mom parked the car. They weighed me and took my blood pressure. I think I cracked a few jokes. I was in a pretty good mood, even though I felt like I was swimming above my own head, a foggy feeling around the edges of my vision as I tried to breath through the vague wooziness. I know at some point I had to pee. I was terrified. But the midwife and the trainee took me to the bathroom and I tried as hard as I could to no avail. I was so uncomfortable. After we came back from the bathroom we were escorted into another room where I got 4 bracelets, an IV, and the same questions by 7 different people over the course of 3 hours. Sometime in those three hours I remember starting to cry because I was so uncomfortable and I couldn't breath and I had to pee so badly and I couldn't even do that. They suggested a bed pain. Or to just pee since I was basically wearing a diaper. But I already felt so gross, I didn't think I could stand peeing in a diaper in front of three people. So they took me to the bathroom, I tried peeing again and this time with success! That joy took me through those three hours. I even managed to pee several more times after that. That was a turning point and I was once again cheerful. We chatted about what to name my baby. We called other people to talk about labor and how I was doing. I called my husband to make sure he was ok. He told me his friend cleaned our house, did our dishes, helped drain and put away the tub, changed the bloody sheets, showed him how to change the baby, and bought him pizza for dinner. He was my husband's hero
And my midwife was mine. I was so touched, so impressed by my midwife. She had come straight to me from another woman's house, having just helped her give birth. And here she was, hours later, sitting and chatting with me in the hospital. She must have been exhausted, though I couldn't really tell. She was so strong. She had carried me through. Even though I had resented her during the hardest part of my labor, I know she is the only reason I had started progressing again. She probably saved my baby's life by getting me out of the tub while she was crowning. She wheeled me to the bathroom countless times as I tried to pee. She was amazing.
We finally were taken to a birth suite and eventually the midwife and the trainee left. My mother and I talked and sat, texting and relaxing, trying not to watch the clock or complain about the wait. The nurses came and went, lovely women who were so kind. The gynocologist finally showed up and got me ready to be stitched up. That was the worst. Without doubt. There is nothing like a tired, impatient doctor, used to women numb from the waist down from epidurals, yanking the raw folds of ripped skin together abruptly. I can still hear the horrible noise of the needle going through my skin... the choonk choonk choonk as I SCREAMED and sobbed, asking for alternatives, insisting I could feel everything. She didn't even wait for the lidocaine to kick in before she got right down to it. I was miserable. I had a 3rd border line 4th degree tear from clit to butthole. When she got down near my butt hole she announced that this part was tricky to numb, so I'd probably feel this, and as I said, "Then let it just heal naturally!!" With tears running down my face, she nipped in and got that sucker sewed up. It was awful. I can honestly say I hated every second of being around that horrible woman. She kept insisting that I couldn't feel it, it wasn't pain... it was just "pressure". I know PRESSURE woman... that was PAIN.
Afterwards, my mom soothed me... holding my hands and sympathizing perfectly. She made me feel so much better. They came in and said I should do some antibiotics just in case I had any sort of infection and I agreed, thinking they'd give me a shot and I could be on my way, but it was another hour before the bag arrived and another hour as it drip, drip, dripped into my arm. That hurt too. It was like hot ice running into my arm. I cried then too. And my mom was like, "Enough is enough. You've been through enough today." And she ran and got a nurse who came in an put a hot compress on my arm and gave me food and a drink and made sure that we were both comfortable while we waited for the endless bag to drain into my arm. But finally, finally finally... The unclipped me and packed me a bag and let me go home. It was 11:30 at night. Home. Beautiful, wonderful home. Home with my hubby. Home with my dogs. Home... with my brand new, beautiful baby girl. I was in heaven. My lactation consultant was there to help me latch, which we did well, and then I got to sleep. Lovely, glorious sleep. For two hours at a time, of course. But finally the end of the longest, hardest, worst, BEST day of my life.
Yes. It was worth it. Undoubtedly. Unequivicably. But it was MINE. It was awful. And terrible. And beautiful. And hard. And wonderful. It was nothing like I thought and everything that people said it was. I will never look down on someone for needing intervention. I will never doubt someone's need or desire to do this incredible thing within the walls of a hospital. I loved my experience at home. I loved the tub. I loved my midwife. The nurses were the best part of the hospital, the rest of it was awful. It's no place I would want to be. But I can understand the appeal for other people.
But no one can take away the fact that it was also traumatic. And it's gonna take me a while to ever want to do it again.
