For awhile now, I have wanted to write down the girls’ birth stories. I am a bit addicted to people’s stories of birth, and I think it would be nice for the girls to have a written record of how they came into the world. Luckily, I wrote pretty detailed journal entries about their births shortly after they were born, so I have a lot to jog my memory.
The Saturday before I went into labor (35 weeks,) I started to have regular contractions. TJ, myself, and Magoo went out to lunch, and I figured if they lasted throughout the entire lunch, then I would take them seriously. Some of them were strong enough to actually stop me from talking — and that doesn’t happen easily!
I was a bit nervous because almost my whole family was out of town at a wedding, but I had plans in place in case I would, indeed, go into labor. We ate our food, and about ten minutes before we were about to leave, the contractions got less regular and I figured it was false labor.
While the contractions had become irregular overall, they still continued for most of the day most every day for the next week. Some were not very noticeable and I couldn’t even walk through others. For an hour or two, they would stay regular (maybe five minutes apart) and then they would become more irregular.
We had our last Bradley class that Tuesday. After sitting there for a couple of hours, the coach looked at me and said she would be really surprised if I were pregnant much longer. Apparently, everyone knew I was close to delivery… everyone except me. I couldn’t get myself to believe that this was actually the beginning of labor. It was so early. And I’m prone to overreacting.
I had problems with my blood pressure throughout the whole pregnancy. Every time I would stand up for more than thirty seconds or so, my blood pressure would drop dangerously low, and it would feel like someone was squeezing my chest. It would be extremely difficult to breathe and everything would turn black. (It turns out the Goose was sitting on some artery or vein or something that caused this.) It wasn’t fun. Needless to say, I didn’t do much of anything throughout the entire second half of my pregnancy. I wasn’t technically on bed rest, but I was supposed to do anything that would drop my blood pressure, which was basically anything that involved me moving.
And then all of a sudden that Wednesday, my blood pressure went back to normal. Looking back on it, my guess is that she dropped at that point, relieving the problem. I got a sudden and huge burst of energy. Magoo had dance class that afternoon, but I spent her entire nap time, deep cleaning our couches and scouring every inch of our living room. I then went up and cleaned the washer and dryer. It’s textbook typical nesting, but I wouldn’t believe that at the time.
And then that Friday (two days later) my blood sugars suddenly dropped. I wasn’t having too hard of a time keeping them in line, but then that day, they dropped by about 20-30 points at each reading. I ended up calling my doctor because I was concerned about decreased placental function. Once again, looking back I see this was a clear sign of impending labor, but once again — didn’t believe it.
Since my blood pressures were back to normal, I took Magoo to garage sales that Friday morning. I had fun with her. I bought her a Snow White dress (which she still wears near daily) and a little car to ride in outside.
When TJ got home, we had blt’s for dinner, and then we all sat in the backyard while Magoo played with her new car. I kept thinking how this would be the perfect last night as a family of three. We then went inside and right before we were about to put Magoo to bed, I started panicking. I felt like I needed to immediately prepare her for the birth of her sister. It was almost manic.
While TJ was upstairs getting her tucked in, I started to have a full blown panic attack about the mess in our house. How could I bring a baby into our house when TJ’s car hadn’t been fully detailed?? (We had just gotten mine back from detailing!) And all of the stuff was still in the attic. TJ was going to spend the whole next day getting all of that ready, but as of this night, the car seat base hadn’t even been installed in the car.
When TJ got down, he calmed me down. He reminded me that the baby wasn’t due for over three more weeks and that we would be fine. 24 hours from then, everything would be ready.
We decided to watch The Business of Being Born. TJ sat there trying to figure out how to hook my laptop up to the television, and then I had two very mild contractions very close together. I wanted to tell TJ I thought it was happening now, but I had no real reason to believe that. On the one hand, I knew with every ounce of my being that this baby was coming, but on the other hand, I did not have any physical reason to believe that. And then it happened — my water broke.
It felt like the baby kicked really hard. I actually heart a “pop” sound, and there it was. I told TJ and he looked at me in shock. “Are you sure?” he said. I have never been more sure of anything. It was an unmistakeable feeling.
We sat there staring at each other for a minute or so, and then I said I would call my mom. It makes sense for me to call her because she had to come over to watch Magoo, but the real reason I was calling her was because I didn’t know what else to do. What do you do when your water breaks? You call your mom.
TJ spent the next hour or so running around getting all the last minute stuff packed up. I took a shower because what else do you do during times like that? (I’ll spare the details.) I did talk to my sister on the phone for awhile which was nice because I was excited and jittery and couldn’t concentrate on anything. Luckily, we got the house to a state where I at least felt moderately comfortable bringing a newborn into it, and then labor really started.
The contractions got to the point where I couldn’t talk through them. I needed to get out of the house. And so I went outside and paced our driveway for awhile waiting for my parents to get here. At the time I called her, I told my mom not to hurry, but I was now beginning to see that labor was progressing a bit more quickly than I had expected.
I went upstairs, and gave Magoo a big kiss. I told her that tomorrow she would meet her baby sister. She was asleep and didn’t hear me. I kept thinking how she went to bed in one world and she would wake up in a whole new one.
When my parents got here, I tried to talk to them for a moment, but it was just too painful, so we hopped in the car. It’s about 25 minutes to the hospital, but it was late down country roads, and it didn’t take us that long. At one point, we had a car going ten under in front of us. We passed him, and he got angry about this and messed with us for awhile. But when you are in labor, you are incredibly vulnerable, and this scared me to death. I imagined him cutting us off and slamming on the breaks in the middle of a contraction. I thought that would kill me. Luckily, he never did that.
We got to the hospital, and they brought me straight to a room. I believe I was three cm when I got there. The contractions were pretty bearable for awhile. When they got bad, I would lean on TJ and rock back and forth. The rocking helped the most. I think it gave me something to concentrate on. Poor TJ was sore for days after basically supporting all of my weight and pain for over an hour in there. I couldn’t do anything that would bring my arms together in front of me — for whatever reason, it made it very difficult to breathe. Unfortunately, this limited us to very few labor positions.
They had put a portable baby monitor on me, but they couldn’t get her to stay on the monitor for long enough, so the nurse spent almost my entire labor holding that thing on my belly. And no, I still haven’t forgiven her for that. Finally, she said I would either have to lay down on the bed on my back (the worst birthing position for pain management) or she would have to do more invasive monitoring. I agreed to lay down. Unfortunately, this did not do the trick, and I had to have the further monitoring anyway, and this involved three nurses and a doctor all hovering over me. They got it in and I could have moved around again, but at this point, there wasn’t space between contractions to move. I was stuck on my bad until she decided to come out.
When they put the monitor on, they told me I was at 5 cm. Fifteen minutes later, I was at 8, and they told me to hold it for two more contractions and then I could push.
This was the crazy part. The contractions were so close together that I couldn’t even speak a complete sentence in between them. Pain like that is more than an experience — it’s a place you go. And while I don’t remember what the physical feelings were exactly (I guess we forget them for a reason,) I remember feeling like my body was completely out of my control and it was doing its own thing, and I was just along for the ride.
As the doctor said, two more contractions and I could push. And it only took two pushes, and out she came.
My only regret about her birth is that I was so overwhelmed with pain and sensation that it took me a few minutes to even really fully realize that she was here. But then it was amazing. She nursed well from the very beginning, and she was perfect. I don’t remember much from those first few minutes, but I remember the exact angle and exactly what she looked like when the doctor said, “here is your baby.” And I remember how soft she was. There’s something about newborn skin — it’s like touching a cloud. It’s so soft, it’s as if you aren’t really touching anything at all, and you have to look to make sure your hand is actually there.
Her birth was an experience. At one point, I had asked for an epidural, but they were spending so much time trying to find the heartbeat that she couldn’t get me the fluids necessary for an epidural. Finally she had time, but there was no way I wasn’t going to finish this after having gone this far. I had the benefit of knowing I wouldn’t have to push much because that’s how my first labor was.
Her whole birth changed the way I saw myself and my body. Ever since we had started trying to conceive, I saw my body as broken. It couldn’t do what other people’s could do. It was broken and damaged and defective. But here I had proof to the contrary. It went into labor on its own and delivered a baby on its own. I did it.
I got really bad postpartum depression after Magoo was born, but I didn’t with the Goose. I attribute that to multiple factors — I was on medication after the Goose was born, nursing hormones gave me a huge psychological lift, but mainly, I saw myself differently. That confidence boost did more for me than I could ever imagine.
So now, I am looking at birth number three and trying to decide whether to go medicated or natural. While I would like to avoid the pain and I would like the peaceful birth experience I had with Magoo, I think I need that experience again. I felt so connected with women throughout history. They did it, and now I proved that I was every bit as capable. It was a natural, almost feral experience. And I am grateful I was able to experience it.
After all, childbirth is where your child separates from you in the most dramatic way. She is making her way from the safety of all she has ever known into a cold, harsh world. Shouldn’t that be dramatic? Shouldn’t that be painful?
