So here it is: The birth Story… Now you might not like hearing women talk for hours on end about how they got a baby out of their body. If you are thinking “GET OVER YOURSELF LADY!” I don’t blame you. Just skip ahead a little ways and read a little post about how the big kids are adjusting to the new baby. I think it is pretty fun and there are some cute pictures there. A little further down you can read a post about how gaga I am over this new baby. That one is really entertaining—to me.
But if you like birth stories jump right in!
I’ve already told this story to a few friends and family. On Monday, I think I told the story four different times and I finished writing it down in my journal (complete with run-on sentences and gory personal details). Not surprisingly, Monday night I had a vivid dream about being in labor again. When I told Will about the dream the next morning he told me he had heard the birth story enough times and wondered how I could keep telling it. This conversation led to some serious thought and reflection. Almost any woman who has been through the process of birthing a child will agree with me here: I NEVER get tired of telling my delivery stories…never. Get a group of women together who have given birth and it will take about 11 ½ seconds for birth stories to start flying around the circle like deranged bats. The other women in the group laugh or cry and make loads of womanly-sympathetic-vocal-noises: “Mmmmmm, OHHHH! Ugh.” It is probably enough to drive men and women who have not had children into a sever state of psychosis.
Birth is intense…there is a lot of joy in the process—no small amount of pain—and so much wonder. I still cannot believe (and I’ve done this four times now) that I’ve grown a baby inside me and pushed a baby out of me…
Crazy talk I tell you, crazy talk.
With all that joy, pain and wonder it takes a lot of telling to understand and come to terms with the miracle that is child birth. Every time I tell my stories I accept them more and more. Every time I hear another woman tell her story I understand and accept her more and more. It is bonding. I also like to tell my birth stories a lot because I know I am going to forget them—or at least forget small aspects of the stories. I am not sure if this forgetting is an evolutionary result: “Forget the crazy pain lady so you’ll be willing to do it again.” Or maybe it is more a function of life in general. My mind is too full of school schedules, meal lists and the names of my children to keep space for how many times I had to push old “what’s his name?” out. What ever the reason, as years go by I forget bits and part of each birth story…hey maybe that is me just coming to terms with each story so I can let it go.
What ever…enough thinking about why I like to tell the story and on to the story itself:
It was a dark and stormy night…
Kidding…
I guess it all started the weekend before Adell was born. I had been feeling crummy all weekend. My back hurt and I was pretty tired of being inhabited by another human being—especially a human being who liked to stick her feet into my ribs and rub her fists on my bladder. I skipped church that Sunday staying home to put my feet up and avoid trying to find a dress that didn’t make me feel like a circus tent or squeeze my swollen feet in to shoes that were not sneakers.
Monday I went to school with Will and the kids to help him teach a Chemistry lesson in Lorien and Wyatt’s classroom. I talked with a few parents at school telling them I hoped the baby would wait until December but if the baby came sooner I would not complain. That night, I went to bed at about 11:00 pm and woke up at 1:00 am with a contraction. I waited in bed for two more contractions to come (about every 30 minutes) before getting up to tell Will I was in labor. The poor guy had been pulling an all-nighter to prep for an investment pitch he had Tuesday morning. We sat on the couch together and timed contractions for a while. By 4:00 am we were both delirious with the need for sleep. The contractions were still only coming every 20 minutes so I suggested we go back to bed and try to get some rest. Will zonked out pretty quickly and I dozed off and on until about 6:00 am when I fell fully asleep. At 7:00 my alarm went off and I got up to get the kids ready for school.
Tuesday was a pretty regular day. My contractions nearly stopped and I went into the doctors for a check up. I was not in active labor but the doctor thought I would be later that night. On his advice I planned to head to the hospital when contractions were coming regularly and less than ten minutes apart.
I had a plan for this labor. I was not worried or scared of labor and delivery at all. I’d been through this three times already and I felt confident about the process. I even entertained hopes of having another natural delivery. I planned to labor at home for a while arriving at the hospital dilated to an eight and just a few hours away from pushing. I planned to have an easy delivery and be resting in a hospital bed cuddling a new born with out trouble or incident.
I was a fool.
Tuesday evening we took the kids over to our friends, the McDonald’s, house to stay the night. At home and kid free Will and I took a walk trying to get my contractions to come regularly. They started coming every 20 minutes then 18, 15, 12, 8, 7 and finally every 6 minutes. They were strong and I needed to focus on breathing for every one. This was it—I needed to be in the place where I wanted this baby to be born—the hospital. Not my living room couch, not the front seat of our van and not the parking lot of the hospital.
I called my doctor.
I had a contraction.
Will gave me a blessing.
I had another contraction.
We got in the car.
It was 8:30 at night—the baby will be born by 11:30 on Tuesday November 24th—I thought. (Have I mentioned that I was a fool yet?)
Contractions slowed down on the way to the hospital after admitting they were down to one every 15 minutes or so. When the admitting nurse checked my cervix she thought I was barely dilated to a one—A ONE!!! None the less, I was having strong contractions so they did not send me home.
Two hours later the nurses changed shifts and we got an unsympathetic woman who had been a delivery nurse for a long time and had no children—my favorite kind of nurse (I wish there was a way to type in sarcasm…)
With this none-too-gentle woman at the helm my cervix was checked again—I renamed her “Nurse Ham-Hands” after that. Guess what—I was a two—A TWO!!! At this point I lost it. I waited for Nurse Ham-Hands to leave the room, put my head in my hands and started to cry. I cried…and cried…and cried…and decided to get the epidural.
Fast forward through my Doctor arriving, me pleading for him to NOT check my cervix until after the epidural was in, me sweating through IV placement, me crying with discouragement (again) and stop at the anesthesiologist pulling up on his white steed that was a hospital drug cart (Hello beautiful).
I hate needles…really I do… I tried to picture myself on a boat in the ocean rocking with the waves instead of hunched over a hospital bed with a diminutive Asian man pushing narcotics into my spinal column. My imagination was met with limited success.
Epidural placed. Cervix checked. I was a three. Really—a three? Thank the heavens above for epidurals. If not for the epidural I would have been at serious risk for jumping out of the hospital window. Thank the heavens above.
With some physical relief I fell asleep for about three hours.
I awoke when I felt a strange popping sensation inside my body. Since I was numb from the nose to my toes I could not figure out what had just happened. I thought my catheter had exploded…inside my body…I was unnerved. I paged the nurses.
When the nurses came, they peeked under my blankets and said my water had broken. My water broke—really? My water has never broken on its own. The doctor has always had to break my water so I could push. More over, when they checked things out a little more the nurses told me it was time to push!
If my legs would have supported my body, I would have jumped out of bed and started dancing. Knees up, arms waving, head banging—I would have boogied like Jennifer Beals in Flashdance. Well, my dance probably would have looked more like Chris Farley’s Flashdance in Tommy Boy rather than Jennifer Beals… At long last, it was time for this baby to be born!
Fast forward again, just a couple of pushes—cinchy. Finally, a part I planned for going exactly as planned. (At least from my perspective) Three or four pushes and the baby was born. I cried again.
Miracles these little suckers…straight up miracles.
I love that moment of first meeting. I love feeling that soft, squishy, wet baby plopped on my chest. I love hearing the babies first little cry and watching their eyes open the first few times. I love how warm a new baby is.
Adell was perfect! She was a little purple but all seemed well. Will told me later that the umbilical cord had been wrapped around her neck. If the Doctor had not been so skilled and my pushing been so fast there could have been disastrous results. Will was impressed and we were both so thankful.
That was it. Adell was here arriving on November 25th at 3:15 in the morning, seven pounds fourteen ounces and nineteen inches long. In retrospect I can see now that I actually dilated from a one to a ten in six hours. Instead of doing one through six at home and the rest at the hospital (like I expected) I did all of my labor at the hospital. It was not the labor I was expecting but all turned out well.
Happy day.
