My birth map may be winding, but it was also specific. Based on a Birthing from Within suggestion to make a visual birth plan, Neal and I made this one-pager with ALL THE THINGS to manage my labor. I told myself from day one that I was going to prepare myself for a 22-hour labor (the length of my first). Since subsequent labors are almost always shorter, I would then be pleasantly surprised if it didn’t drag out nearly as long!
Knowing my propensity for eating too little (I didn’t feel much like eating the whole day I was in labor with Addison and I think not forcing myself to eat did factor into lots of fatigue by the end), food reminders figured prominently at the top. My doula Meliza recommended that when I knew I was in early labor, we head out to eat a big restaurant meal — anything that sounded good to me. Besides the baby, that was probably the part I was most looking forward to! But when I woke up to some bloody show on Sunday morning, December 24th, I knew my restaurant plans might be foiled (since one way we observe the Sabbath is by not eating out). While Meliza and Justine (my midwife) both said that it could still be several days before I actually went into labor since I was having very few mild contractions, they encouraged me to eat as much as I could and rest often just in case. I had Neal stay home from church to wait on me while my parents took Addison. I texted back and forth with Meliza much of the day, updating her on my continued bloody show but no contractions through the afternoon. In the meantime, I wrote.
If I had known that I was in fact in early labor and our baby girl would be here in less than 24 hours, Addison and I might have done one of the “labor projects” we had discussed — baking a cake, playing Catan, or an epic game of Star Wars Monopoly. But since I wasn’t really contracting, I thought I probably needed to store up energy in case the process dragged out for several more days. But Addison was plenty occupied anyway, playing with her cousins until I also went over to my brother and sister-in-law’s house for Christmas Eve dinner around 5:00 p.m. I stuffed myself with French Dip sandwiches, loading up with protein, and then spent a little time holding my 2-month-old nephew before I felt a little gush of fluid around 6:30 and decided to head home. Even though we only live a block away, I felt two more little gushes while I drove home.
I got in touch with Justine immediately upon my arrival, letting her know that I thought my water might have broken. She had already told me that it’s common to think your water has broken when it hasn’t, so I certainly wasn’t sure about any of it. But she gave me instructions to open up the birth kit I would bring to the Birth Center, walk around for 10 minutes, and then use a specific swab from the kit to see if amniotic fluid was present. Sure enough, my water had broken and the birth “clock” was officially ticking on Christmas Eve.
Because I tested positive for Group B Strep, I opted for antibiotic treatment, which meant the goal was to get two rounds of IV antibiotics into me before baby girl arrived. We met Justine at the Birth Center around 9:00pm to get the IV placed and first round in. Of course, true to form, my veins were NOT cooperative. (I pray my girls don’t inherit this trait from me!) Two hours, several pricks, and one blown vein later, we were headed home to try and get some sleep before contractions started.
At 11:05pm, just minutes after we walked in the door, I had my first legit hard contraction — the kind you can only moan or grunt through. Still it was just one and we were hoping for some sleep first. Neal went to bed, but my contractions came more regularly, crowding out any chance for sleep. I called Neal a little before 1:00am because coping was getting progressively more difficult. By the time he started timing my contractions, they were already 4 minutes apart so we called Meliza to let her know it was time.
For all my mapped out coping techniques and positions, all I remember doing in the hour until Meliza arrived at our house was side-lying in bed, peanut ball between my knees, while Neal occasionally gave me counterpressure on my back. We had about 15 other “stations” set up around the house — exercise ball, rebozo, pads to kneel on in the shower, etc. — but in the middle of the night all I wanted to do was sleep or rest!
When Meliza got to our house around 2:00am, I was still lying in bed and my contractions had slowed a little. She came to the side of the bed and suggested I get up to labor for awhile to keep things moving, but I really didn’t want to. I just wanted to go to sleep. So she made me a little deal: how about two more contractions lying down and then we get up and try another position? I agreed and headed for the toilet when they helped me up after a couple more contractions. The movement really kicked things into gear! With contractions coming hard and only about 3 minutes apart, Meliza suggested we head back to the Birth Center.
Now that right there is the genius of a doula. In my opinion, that is why an experienced doula is priceless!! Meliza knew that I was close enough that some movement would get this baby coming. For me, I knew the contractions were hard but I was still trying to focus on the long-game . . . if labor takes 22 hours again, I need to rest right now, conserve energy. But she was absolutely right! It’s madness to try to sleep while you’re in active labor, when instead you could push the baby out and then actually SLEEP. Besides that, you can sure as heck bet that if Neal had tried to coax me out of bed like that, I probably would have been ticked. What does he know about it, right??!
Did I mention my mom was in town? Here’s where the genius of my mom comes in: she started gathering all the food I’d planned and even getting some fruit ready that I hadn’t planned. FOOD! Although I can’t recall if I even ate anything during labor, I had a wonderful steady stream of yummy snacks afterward. My mom packed up the car and Neal drove us to the Birth Center while my dad and Addison stayed home asleep. (I had planned to have Addison do some labor coaching with me as we’d practiced, but when it came time, she was a little nervous about the process when she found out my water broke and I thought sleep would be better for her in the middle of the night.)
Although our house is just about 10 minutes from the Birth Center, the car ride was excruciating, much as I remember the one before Addison’s birth being. My contractions were only a couple of minutes apart and there was nowhere to go for coping and I was feeling every little bump. Of course, it wouldn’t be directionally-challenged Neal driving if he didn’t make at least one snafu, so we passed the Birth Center originally and had to take the scenic route through the parking lot, complete with about 7 extra speed bumps. FUN! Finally, we got to the Birth Center about 3:30am.
Once there, the first order of business was to get my second round of antibiotics going. Although we’d kept the IV port in place, my veins are so small and uncooperative and the placement was so precarious that Justine thought for sure, she would have to redo the IV. It was difficult and time-consuming the first time, so I could only imagine how much harder it was going to be while I was actually in active labor and contracting every couple of minutes! This is where I think the greatest tender mercy came in as against all odds, my IV had held. She was able to get the IV hooked back up in mere minutes and checked me to find I was already 7 centimeters dilated.
I again headed to the toilet as I not only felt that I needed to go to the bathroom, but it had also been an effective place to labor. While my memory of every detail is not sharp at all, I do recall that I let out a loud, intense groan and there was kind of a “knowing” exchange on the part of Meliza, Justine, and her assistant Emily that we were getting close. For my part, I knew things were moving but I still assumed that I had hours left to get through.
The tub was just getting full and I moved into it hoping for some pain relief. (Neal hopped in with me, but have I mentioned that he actually had the flu while this was all going down? So he hung back a bit more than during Addison’s labor.) Once I was in, Justine checked me again and I was 9 centimeters. I was starting to push, but was worried about pushing prematurely (as I had the last time, involuntarily, which had caused the swollen cervix). But they all reassured me that I could just do what felt natural, so I got into a little bit of a routine where I would get on my hands and knees and push through a contraction and then immediately flip back over, sit down, and rest in between. I say a “routine” but I’m not sure how many times I actually did that before I could feel that baby girl was actually coming right then. It felt like it was all moving at the speed of light when you consider that I was still trying to steel myself for many more hours of labor! I’m not sure when I finally clued in that this was the end, but I do distinctly remember feeling the crowning and then her head coming out soon after, so hopefully I put the pieces together then!
I had not necessarily planned on a water birth. I knew that I wanted to use the tub as a coping technique, but I had always been a little nervous about giving birth in there. (That said, most of the studies I reviewed that people often use to scare about water birth really suggested that the negative outcomes could be attributed to bad practices rather than any inherent danger when you have a well-trained professional.) But things just progressed so fast, faster than I ever dared to hope, and she was born in the water at 4:47am.
Considering how much effort I put into preparing for a posterior labor/birth, it’s amazing how little it ended up coming up in labor. She was a ridiculously active baby throughout the pregnancy — less of a kicker and puncher than Addison, but even more constant and strange in her movements — but throughout the final weeks, it seemed clear that she was posterior based on palpation and where her heartbeat was most obvious. Even as late as that night at 9:00pm, all signs pointed to her being posterior. But Justine said that she must have been working hard all night, trying to get into a better position, because at crunch time, she was in just the right position and gave me no real trouble. (I mean, beyond the whole childbirth is among the most painful thing humans ever experience thing.)
What I remember immediately following her birth was just sobbing while holding her up to my chest. SOBBING so hard. I also remember thinking how cool it was that I had been able to feel everything and knew exactly what was happening vs. Addison’s birth where although I had felt some of it because I hadn’t had the epidural for very long, it certainly felt like it was farther away from me and I couldn’t see or feel exactly when things were happening. (Of course, some part of that was just that Addison needed a lot more hands-on intervention to get out.) Almost the next thing I knew, they helped me out of the tub, got us cozy on the bed, and helped get the baby latched on because she was going to town sucking on her thumb.
Thus commenced the “golden hour” where I was so focused on looking at my baby girl and trying to get her to nurse (which seemed immediately more difficult than how it had gone with Addison — for the good reason that she had both tongue and lip ties, we later discovered) that I barely noticed what was going on below my waist, although I know I had to get a few stitches for a tear.
I’m not sure at what point I started to realize this, but eventually it started to sneak up on me: I wasn’t feeling much, if any, pain. I remembered when Justine told me that most people leave the Birth Center about 3-4 hours after giving birth, I was shocked and thought there was no way I could be ready to leave that early! But when they asked if I wanted to get up and shower around 6:30am, I was ready (it probably helped that my baby girl had already done a huge poop on me). Shortly after that, my dad brought Addison over to meet her baby sister, Neal got the car seat installed, and we were headed back home by 7:30 as a permanent family of 4. Merry Christmas to us!
When we got home, sleep was the first order of the day. I snuggled up with the baby to try and nap for a bit while Neal went to sleep in another room. But I didn’t last long before I called Neal back in. I said, “I know this is going to sound really weird, but . . . my wrist really hurts and I can’t sleep.” Yes, indeed, I had just pushed a tiny human out of my body and the only thing that was throbbing was the vein that blew the night before.
Back when I was preparing for an unmedicated birth with Addison, I was always grappling with the idea that in some ways I didn’t fit the profile. Just for starters, I kind of hate exercise and physical exertion. I certainly had never experienced anything like a “runner’s high.” I never expected to either. My reasons for wanting an unmedicated birth were quite distinct from any desire to demonstrate physical prowess. So imagine my surprise when around 11:00am, I told Neal I was feeling great and I was going over for Christmas breakfast at my brother’s house. (I always knew our annual family tradition of scones was important to me, but dang, if that’s not true love, I don’t know what is?!)
First daddy skin-to-skin (while mommy eats and eats and EATS)
At the time, heading over there seemed like a totally rational thing to do, but in hindsight, it’s a little bit crazytown to leave your 6-hour-old newborn for fried dough. Not to mention how funny it probably was for everyone else — as if I had come over for Christmas Eve dinner with a basketball under my shirt and then come back a few hours later without it like nothing had happened. They all said, however, that I was impressively peppy! (Maybe too peppy, so I had to get hit with the flu two days later. Ugh.)
So that, my friends, is the story of the most AMAZING experience of my life! When I was agonizing about the monetary side of making the switch to the Birth Center (because we more or less had to wipe out our liquid savings to pay upfront and pray the insurance would reimburse some), Neal and one of my BFFs Victoria both made the same argument: This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, your last baby; doing it in the best way possible for you is exactly what your savings are for. Even my mom, who worried about it all like only a mother can, said several times that it was REALLY impressive the way my whole team worked with me. She said, “You could never have had that experience in the hospital.” So true! What a gift to do what felt natural to me, have SO much support in the process, and get the best possible outcome!
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