after several days of stop and start contractions and an increasingly depressing sense that i couldn’t trust my body to do what it was supposed to do, i woke up at 2 a.m. on july 14, one week past my due date, with contractions that felt different. not wanting to get my hopes up once again that this was finally ‘it,’ i went back to sleep, and when i woke up in the morning the contractions were still there, albeit irregular and not too strong. i told josh this might be the day, but that he should go to work and i’d call him if things started progressing. i spent the morning trying not to focus too much on my body – i picked up around the house, baked some cookies, and put on a movie (“Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”). around noon the sensations became more intense, and i began needing to focus on breathing through them. i called our doula, sarafina, and described to her what was going on. she and i agreed that this was it – i was in labor! i called josh and told him to come home.
(we took one last belly shot, and josh shaved the beard he'd been growing since new year's.)
josh and i had prepared for our birth by practicing hypnobirthing, a childbirth preparation philosophy that believes that by learning to deeply relax oneself, one can avoid tensing up against the anticipated pain of labor, so that the uterine muscles can more quickly go about their work of dilating the cervix and moving the baby down through the birth path. by 2 pm my contractions were pretty intense, and i laid on the bed with my pregnancy pillow as josh sat next to me, reminding me with each one to relax and to breathe deeply. sarafina arrived at 3, and she brought me cold washcloths for my forehead and neck, rubbed my feet with lavender oil, and suggested that i keep my voice pitched low and deep as i moaned through the peak of each contraction (because low tones help open your cervix while high ones keep it tight). i moved to the exercise ball for a while, leaning back into josh between contractions, as we talked about how excited we were to finally, finally meet our baby.
at 6 p.m. we left for the hospital, once i decided that i wouldn’t be able to stand a car ride when the contractions got any more intense. this was the worst part – having to get down the stairs, spend 15 minutes in the car, and then get from the car to OB admitting was really tough. josh did a wonderful job supporting me, continuing to remind me to breathe and to relax even while he was driving. after 20 minutes in triage to monitor the baby’s heart rate and my contractions, we were admitted to our labor and delivery room. it was about 7 pm.
i labored on my side on the bed for a short time, until sarafina suggested getting in the shower. josh got in with me and aimed the hand-held showerhead at the small of my back while i alternated between sitting on a stool and standing/squatting, holding onto the bar attached to the wall. the warm water felt amazing, and i dilated from 4 cm to 10 cm in about 90 minutes. sarafina stood outside and she and josh continued to remind me to relax, to breathe, and to keep my voice pitched low. periodically our wonderful nurse mary ann would wheel the portable doppler into the bathroom to check on the baby’s heart rate. each time it was even and steady and each time i heard it i was reassured that my body and my baby were doing just what they needed to do.
soon it was time to push – i never felt an ‘urge’ to push, exactly, my body simply started pushing on its own. i didn’t want to leave the shower so tarcia, the midwife who was attending us, brought the birthing ball in for me to lean forward on and folded up some towels to put under my knees. i pushed for a while there, on my hands and knees, while she sat on the floor right outside the shower, ready to catch my baby right there because it was what felt best for me. eventually, though, the floor got too hard and josh, sarafina, tarcia and mary ann helped me move to the bed, where i got back on my hands and knees and kept pushing.
pushing was the best part of labor for me. while the contractions dilating my cervix had been very uncomfortable, the sensation of pushing was totally different. with every contraction now came a feeling of intense pressure, of a force inside my body moving unstoppably downward, and i began yelling and screaming with every push. channeling all my energy into my voice allowed me to expel the tension that otherwise would have gotten in the way of the pushes and made it harder for my body to open up. the power i felt in my body was so strong and so undeniable that it was almost scary, and the easiest and best thing for me was to let it rush right through me and out my throat in a scream. tarcia and sarafina suggested that i try a low growl rather than a high-pitched scream and this worked well to keep me open and relaxed. i’m sure i wouldn’t have looked relaxed to anyone who saw me then, but the intense screaming on the outside was allowing my insides to open fully.
once i was on the bed, josh stood beside me, telling me what an amazing job i was doing, and sarafina offered me sips of water and put cold cloths on my neck between contractions. pretty soon i started feeling the baby’s head moving down with each contraction, and then moving back up again in between. i reminded myself what sarafina had told me before, that this pattern shouldn’t make me discouraged because it meant that the baby’s head was slowly stretching my perineum out so that it wouldn’t tear. with each push i could feel it move a little bit farther down and soon tarcia and josh were telling me that they could see the baby’s head. “just a few more pushes,” josh told me, “you’re so close now.” it really started to burn when the head was coming out and i remembered the phrase “ring of fire.” while i pushed i had my face buried in the pillows, screaming and growling, and in between pushes i took sips of water and asked the baby to please come out now. during one push josh touched the top of the head as it emerged partway.
tarcia told me that when the head was halfway out i should stop pushing so hard and use little tiny pushes to push it the rest of the way out. at this point i felt like the head was never going to come out but just a few pushes later it did. the burning got so intense that it was the only thing in the world, and with everyone encouraging me i gave the biggest push yet and felt the pressure build to its highest peak and then the head started to emerge. “ok,” tarcia said, “little pushes.” i tried my best to rein in the power i felt and to push with small bursts instead. then – a feeling of being stretched wider than ever – the head was out! i took a deep breath and said something, i don’t remember what, but something along the lines of “thank you.” tarcia told me I’d feel her hands, and she reached in and rotated the baby’s shoulders a bit. then she told me to give one more big push and i felt the baby’s body slide out of me.
the feeling of shoulders, arms, hips, legs, feet emerging from my body in one slippery rush was the greatest relief i have ever experienced. josh said something in an awestruck voice but i could hardly even hear him because the power of my body was still rushing through my ears.
the baby started to make noise and tarcia told me to carefully lift my leg over the cord and lie back. she placed the baby on my chest and covered us both with a sheet. she and mary ann were rubbing the baby and josh came up by my head. “oh my god, is this my baby,” i said, and then “holy shit.” i just could not believe that it had finally happened, that i had labored and delivered my baby who was now in my arms. i looked down at the baby’s face and just couldn’t make the connection that this was who had been inside my belly all those months.
josh and i kissed and kissed and looked at our baby together.
tarcia asked if he wanted to look to see what we had here and he went down and stood next to her as she lifted the sheet. “it’s a girl!” they both said together. after josh and i looked at her some more, mary ann helped me put her to my breast. she instantly latched on and began nursing and we all marveled at her proficiency.
all in all, my labor lasted about nine hours, and beatrix was born at 9:38 p.m., after only half an hour of pushing. once i found out what time it was i couldn’t believe how quickly it had happened. the support of josh and sarafina and all the work josh and i had done practicing relaxation worked. my conscious mind got out of the way and allowed my body to do just what it was designed to do: birth an eight pound, twelve ounce baby without any medical interventions whatsoever. there was never one single moment when i felt like i couldn’t do it.
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i don’t know how to end this story. i can’t find words that aren’t trite to try to sum up the nine hours that forever changed my life – not just because they brought me my baby girl, but because they gave me new insight into my own strength and the strength of my partnership with josh. i am so grateful to my daughter for making me a mom and to her father for agreeing to undertake this amazing journey with me.
