Looking back at the birth

hindsight is not 20/20

Birth has a sort of rhythm, even a melody, and so before I unravel the story of my son’s birth, I’d like to offer a sort of chorus that would sum up the experience: I need a break; if things are this intense now, will I be able to push at the end?

I thought I had chosen some good affirmations to carry me through the pain, but when it came down to it, I didn’t seem to believe them. Anxiety and fatigue caught up with me; now and then, the story of my daughter’s birth crept in and I fell into comparing it with my son’s birth. Hers was a 5-day prodromal labor that ended in a Cesarean.

June 17, 2020

My womb was speaking to me with more Braxton Hicks than usual. I was buzzing around the house ‘getting things done.’ For the past several days I felt urgent about getting things ready for the birth and yet felt so unfocused about getting them done. My husband, Tony, seemed very lax about it, like he didn’t expect the baby to come anytime soon. But I knew he would come early, I just didn’t know how early.

As I was making dinner, I started to feel more tired. Usually come dinner time, I’m sort of a tyrant about the timing of things: dinner, Ariana’s bath, play time, brush teeth, story time and then her bedtime. But that evening I felt a release, like I didn’t care about any of that. My attention was spiraling inward and the Braxton Hicks kept coming. 

After dinner, I told Tony I needed to lie down. I had texted my sister and the doula that maybe labor was starting, though I wasn’t sure. Tony brought Ariana outdoors to play while I laid in bed propped with pillows to do the Miles Circuit.

I could hear Tony and our daughter, Ariana, playing out front, but in the foreground of my attention was the rhythm of the contractions and my breath swelling with each one. Tony had given me a glass of wine as our doula had suggested for the beginning of labor and I sipped from it now and then. I knew I needed rest, but I had a streak of anxiety and urgency; knowing what was ahead of me made me anxious to rest because I had no idea how long labor would last this time around.

Tony did Ariana’s bath and bedtime as I lay there and we texted my sister and the doulas to let them know things were picking up. The contractions were getting more uncomfortable, so they advised me to get in the bath. Tony filled up our big jet tub, set up some electric candles around it and turned on some music (I don’t even remember what music he put on...something yoga related, maybe Jai Uttal). He asked me if I wanted any essential oils. I told him frankincense, so he got it for me and I dabbed some on my wrists.

 I began using my voice to deal with the pain as it built. Oooooh...ahhhhh….eeeee. Sometimes it felt a little bit like crying, or sobbing. I tried to use the sound of my voice to send the tension out, but sometimes it felt like I was fighting it. My sister had been on her way and eventually she arrived while I was in the bath. Soon after, we called the doula and I heard her telling me over the phone, “I’d be happy to join your birthday party whenever you’re ready.” So I asked her to come.

It felt like a long time before she made it to the house, but everything seemed to last a long time. I can’t remember if I got out of the bath before or after she came, but we ended up on the couch, me side-lying facing away from her as she placed her hands on my back. We put the TENS unit in place on my lower back, where I felt the contractions the most. I was still using my voice to deal with the pain. Oooooh….ahhhh….eeeee. Sometimes my legs straightened or my toes curled with the contractions. The pain was building. I noticed we didn’t put any music on, but I somehow didn’t have it in me to ask for it. I felt my sister’s presence in the room and occasionally heard her clear her throat; now and then I heard her ask the doula a question.

June 18, 2020

That phase of lying on my side on the couch seemed to last forever but somehow time didn’t seem to be passing at all. All I knew was it was late, dark out, and sometime in the middle of the night. Occasionally my voice would break into a cry or wail, and doula would say, “It’s okay, it’s okay.” Then I felt moisture and said, “I think my water broke.” She checked and said, “Yes, maybe it did a little.” She went downstairs to tell Tony, who was resting in bed. He came up to get the car. The doula asked me if I had used the bathroom. I hadn’t, so she helped me stand up and walk over to the toilet. The pain in my sacrum and hips was magnified as I walked to the bathroom and I cried out, “It hurts to stand!” I sat and went pee, then wiped and saw bright red blood.

She and Tony guided me to the car. The neighbors were out on the porch and as I walked by, they said, “Good luck!” It was somewhere around 2:00am. Heather helped me into the back seat where I laid down on my side. As I began to lower myself onto my side, pain shot through me and I felt a rush of water coming down through the birth canal and onto the towel Tony had laid over the backseat. If my water hadn’t broken on the couch earlier, it definitely did then and I told the doula that a ton of fluid just came out. The pain kept coursing through my back and hips as I kept lowering myself down. It felt as if the act of lowering myself was what was hurting me most. “I need help, I need help,” I sobbed. It seemed that I couldn’t lower myself down and I paused, like a leaning tower of Pisa but I was more of a monument to pain, self doubt, and helplessness. None of the affirmations or breathing practices I had practiced in pregnancy came to mind; instead, I was pure, primal energy, a mixture of fear and resistance. My mind wasn’t working. Heather prompted me to breath with a ‘puh’ sound out in short little puffs to dissipate the pain.

The car ride to Evanston was swift enough, though it probably took the usual 30 minutes. As we arrived, I must have made some different sounds, because Heather asked me, “Are you feeling some pushing sensations?”

“Yes,” I told her. As one of the midwives came out to meet us, Heather reported to her that I felt the urge to push. They helped me into a wheelchair and brought me to the concierge and I believe I completely bypassed triage and went straight to my delivery room.

Much of the details of what passed there are a blur. I do know that I got into the tub at some point even though all I wanted to do was lie in the bed on my side. I also know that I tried some different positions on the bed with the peanut ball. They had checked my cervix at one point and told me I was 3 centimeters dilated. In my mind, I thought, “Oh no, this is what happened last time. I stalled at 4 centimeters and that was that, I ended up with a Cesarean.” I tried to put it out of my mind, and I did but what overshadowed it was a growing exhaustion. It began to expand into a sense that “I can’t do this. I am too tired.”

The contractions continued, though, and I felt them mostly in my back, especially the sacrum. It felt as if my sacrum might fly off and I began to panic. If I was feeling this much pain now at 3 centimeters, then what did I have ahead of me?

At one point, I told Tony that I was afraid of the intensity that was to come. He tried to encourage me: “You can do this. You’re strong.” But his words didn’t make it through to my heart. I couldn’t make myself believe that in spite of my exhaustion, I would find some reserves somewhere. At that point I had probably been in labor somewhere around 20 hours.

When the nurse came in, I told her I was afraid. “Tell me about it. What are you afraid of?” I told her what I told Tony, that I feared the intensity to come and that if I felt the way I felt in that moment, I didn’t know if I could handle what was to come. I didn’t know if I’d have the energy to push. She encouraged me to try some different positions. We texted back and forth with the doulas, who recommended some standing Spinning Babies positions. We tried: one of my feet up on a chair, the other on the ground as I held hands with Tony. With each contraction, sway forward and back. Do 10 on each side, or until you get tired. A few times, and I was wiped out. I wanted nothing more than to just lie on my side in the bed, so I did that and they put the peanut ball back between my legs to keep my hips open.

After a while, I got on all fours in the bed, if anything just to change positions. I started bawling and told Tony that I needed a break. He asked what kind of break and I said, “I’m gonna get an epidural. I need a break. I’m tired.”

He reminded me that if I got an epidural, they would have to use pitocin to keep the contractions going. We both knew that might make the VBAC less likely, but I said, “But why let myself suffer? I need a break! Why won’t anyone believe me??” I cried some more and he cried with me. Then he went to tell the nurse what I wanted.

She came in. I was still bawling. Her tone was sympathetic and said, “Of course you can get an epidural. Of course,” even though she had been strongly urging me to hold off. 

They prepped me for the epidural. The anesthesiologist came in and brought a lighter tone to things with small talk. I felt relief more than regret or resignation. I knew that I had put in a lot of sweat into the labor process, but I didn’t realize there would still be so much more to come. With the epidural, a familiar numbness infused the lower half of my body, I laid down on my side with the peanut ball between my legs and rested.

There is so much I don’t remember as I write this. I just remember them dropping the end of the table now and then so I could sit up supported and in those moments I felt the weight of the baby’s head bearing down on the birth canal. Everything down below felt like it was opening up beyond my control and I thought that I must be getting close to pushing.

But each time they checked, my cervix hadn’t opened up as much as I felt it had. There was a piercing pain in my lower right abdomen and I kept asking the nurses about it. They had me try lying on my left side, and every time I switched to the right side or upright, that pain came back. Finally when they called one of the doctors in, he did an assessment and said I had a ‘spotty epidural.’ So they cranked up the medication and the numbness turned my legs into stone.

June 19, 2020

You know, I don’t ever like to drink apple juice, but during the labor they brought me cup after cup of ice-cold apple juice and it was like a cool drink after wandering through a desert. I was parched and I needed calories, even though I didn’t feel hungry, so the juice filled those needs and I lived on that overnight. 

Now and then I glanced at my phone and saw friends and family texting me to see if I was alright. Since I was in resting mode, with a break from the pains of labor, I watched a video that some of my mom friends had made for my babyshower. Each of them spoke words of encouragement, about my strength and how I could do this. And after a while, I started to feel that no matter how things went with the birth, I would feel that I really did give birth even if not how I planned. But isn’t that life?

After more exams that showed my cervix hadn’t budged past 5 centimeters, and some amount of time with the baby’s heart tones dropping with each contraction, they suggested a Cesarean and in my tired state (and with some concern for the baby), I said, “Sure, I’m fine with that.”

We signed the paperwork and they prepared me for the Cesarean. As they got our belongings out of the delivery room, I was wheeled to the brightly-lit OR, numb from the epidural, exhausted, and ready to meet my baby. The medical team transferred me to the operating table and set up the drape that shielded my view of the lower half of my body. One of the doctors pointed at my belly and giggled. “Look!” she said. “What’s that? The baby’s kicking real hard?” one of the nurses replied. The baby was stretching his legs and on the surface of my belly it looked like a bump. He kept his legs that way as if he, too, was more than ready to see the light of day.

It was all familiar to me. With my first Cesarean, the medical staff was very casual as if the medical team were chatting over lunch; my body, despite the numbness, began to shake from the anesthesia; and from a storm of emotions too mixed up to name, tears were streaming down my face. One of the nurses asked if I was crying from pain or just from emotions. From emotions, I told her; there wasn’t much I could feel physically except that familiar tugging I also felt during the first Cesarean as they brought the baby out of the incision they made.

When Damen came out, he cried much more than Ariana did. After they swaddled him, the midwife brought him over to nurse. I was reclined on the operating table and she held him upside down over my left shoulder to let him breastfeed. I was relieved to meet him and ready to sleep!

I had given birth to my son despite the events veering from the birth ‘plan.’ Even so, my strength and endurance had been tested and I can say that after 40-some hours of labor followed by a Cesarean, I can flex my mama muscles and say that in some way, I was transformed by the process of bringing my son into the world.

November 2, 2020

         My son is just over 4 months old now and I'm emerging from our 'fourth trimester.' Already, it's tough to remember how he was as a newborn as he becomes more active and expressive: smiling and laughing, babbling, and rolling over. I'm more active, too, after 4 months of recovering from the birth and weekly physical therapy since 7 weeks postpartum.

        I'm definitely not the same woman I was before my son's birth. As they say, "Every time a baby is born, a mother is born, too." And in my mommy-brain haze, hindsight is definitely not 2020 - it's more of an impressionist view of who I was and what I've been through. That's alright, though. No need to reminisce too much - I'm too busy for that right now, and besides, I've got the most lovely little things to focus on for now:)

I had wondered during the labor if I’d be able to push at the end of the birth, but I had forgotten that the birth was just the beginning, and not even the hardest part about being a mother.

Thanks for reading! I know it’s a long story, but it was a long labor and birth! Imagine doing 40 hours of anything….and perhaps you’ll empathize with me on the weight of this experience:)