By Wednesday night, I was worried that the baby was going to prove my prediction wrong that he'd come 1-2 weeks early. Can't have that!! He only had one day left! So I went for a walk and did what you do to request that baby come out now. I even asked the baby directly. Baby, I love you, and it's time now. I'm ready and I want you to come.
At 4a.m., Thursday the 11th, I woke up to pee. Things were a little... shall we say... moist. Then in the bathroom, there was a... um... gush. And when I stood up, another, and tried to walk out, another... I made it over to George, woke him and quickly asked him to call our midwife before I ran back to the bathroom in time for several more gushes. I guess that would be my water breaking! (It didn't break until baby came out the first time.)
George handed me the phone and Sena, my midwife, asked all sorts of detailed questions before asking me if I was having any contractions.
"No," I sighed.
I knew what that meant. The clock was ticking now. I had 24 hours to make serious progress or I'd have to transfer to the hospital. Sigh. She told me to go back to bed and sleep as much as I could. I went and laid down and popped on the hypnobabies tracks on my iPhone. Within minutes I was having a contraction. Then... another. I knew it could be a while till I was in 'real' labor, so I tried to relax through them and sleep. But I didn't sleep and they kept coming. I finally woke George up again at 6 to time them. Yep. One minute long, five minutes apart. Things were rolling!
We called Sena, we texted my sister JoAnn who we'd asked to be present to handle food prep for all of us, and to entertain and possibly remove Regin if needed. George went and woke my mom up and told her the haps. And guess what? I decided I no longer cared about the number of people in the house, and we asked my mom to stay. Funny how things change when you're in the moment but I knew that was a possibility and I felt strong in my right to make that decision.
The timeline after that was a blur. We have no clock in our room, and I was in full labor, so I never left the room. In the first hours, it was manageable. I would walk and walk and then when another contraction hit, I would drape myself over George and we'd stand there together as he coached me through relaxation.
I tried listening to the Hypnobabies tracks, but there was enough commotion and distraction that I didn't really hear or listen to them. I couldn't really put myself into hypnosis every time because I hadn't practiced the unguided hypnosis enough. And what I had practiced was mostly with me being totally alone, fully reclined, in total silence with hardly any sensory input. I couldn't get myself in that state in the throes of labor, so I relied solely on George's ability to help me relax, which we had practiced several times during the Hypnobabies course. And it really worked. Unlike my friend Teddi, who had managed to get all the practices in, I would absolutely describe it as pain, but the pain with George's relaxation cues was manageable, without them I thought I was going to die. He had a script he recited, and he'd begin reading it every time I indicated that a contraction hit. If he delayed even by a few seconds, it wouldn't really work and I'd be in tremendous, earth-shattering pain again. For some reason, if I lay down, I was in the worst pain of all, and if I sat, it was pretty darned uncomfortable too. So I, the woman who had spent most of her pregnancy sick in bed with various colds and flus, the one who'd had trouble eating for months, the girl who was terribly weak and generally out of shape, walked miles in a circuit around our bedroom for hours and hours, stopping every few minutes for an intense workout called a "contraction".
You know, in hypnobabies, you avoid use of the word contraction because of the fear and pain pregnant women associate with the word. But when you look at the word after having birthed, it doesn't seem strong enough. It sounds like little squeezes, like the painless, prelabor contractions I had that I called "The Squeezies" or like a bicep you're flexing and then releasing. It doesn't remotely convey the pain, the sweat, the grunting, the moaning, the crying out, the howling, the begging, the pleading that it induces when you have one. But that came later. In the early hours, I was able to face each contraction, with George's help, calmly, quietly, internally, and relaxed. It was intimate and graceful, though still painful. My mom downstairs thought we were sleeping that whole time because it was so unbelievably quiet.
When my midwife, Sena, arrived, labor changed. That happens.
As hands off as midwives can be, there is still a kind of performance pressure a birthing woman feels, or at least this birthing woman felt, when someone shows up to watch you and make sure things are happening as they should.
The way a midwife makes sure is very different from how a doctor would make sure, or so I've been told as I've never birthed with a doctor's assistance. A doctor will make you undress and put on the infamous and barely there gown (and why they should call something so ugly a 'gown' I'll never know, some marketing spin there I think), then you'll be connected to machines, monitored with boops, beeps, and moving graphs, and your feet put up in stirrups while the doctor looks at you and gives you internal exams to see where the baby is and how dilated your cervix is. I think in most cases during labor you're not allowed to eat or drink. The doctor also has a lot of other patients to see, so he's off checking on other moms a lot, or if there's some other conflict, you have a different doctor.
Your midwife, is your midwife. Obviously conflicts can occur, but she schedules very few births per month to try and eliminate the possibility. And you've been seeing this woman, and not her nurse practitioner or other assistant (in typical US, assembly-line medical care), for 1+ hours once a month, then twice a month, then once a week throughout the pregnancy. You know each other so well, she's almost like family by the time baby comes.
At that time, the midwife comes in (to your home) when you've told her you'd like her to come (or the birth seems imminent), sets up her equipment around your room, puts her oxygen tank over there, rearranges your nest to include her bag of tools in easy to reach places over here, makes sure she knows where you have put the towels and basket of birthing goodies you've gathered, and then asks you how you are doing. Actually that's not true. She asks how you're doing before setting up. Then she leaves you alone as needed, because she knows you will labor better without someone hovering, or she stays in the room if you need it. She's there 100% for you and only you. She gives emotional and comforting support, she gets you food and drink to keep your energy up, and does her best to encourage you. Occasionally she will request to listen to the baby with her little device, and she'll check your dilation and whatnot, if you request. It's all on your terms. Plus, you're in whatever clothes you want, whatever position you want, in whatever place you want... you can even deliver in your edenic backyard garden pool if you want. It's your birth, your way.
Thing is, though I absolutely adore my midwife, I was laboring better and more comfortably before she arrived. And though she was mostly out of the room and out of the way and she spoke in whispers to keep the quiet and make her presence less intrusive, the pain became much more difficult to bear once someone interrupted the calm, came into my space, and began to take note of what was happening. So, for this reason, even though Sena was UHmazing and I'd recommend her to anyone, I do think I'd reconsider unassisted birth in the unlikely case that I ever had another.
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Things were progressing quickly this time. It was only a couple of hours from the water breaking that contractions were regular and quite close together. But then, after a few more hours, it became apparent to me that nothing was changing. It continued at the same intensity, and I even felt a little, almost "pushy" but the giant lump inside me was staying exactly in the same place. I began to ask Sena to check to see where the baby was and what was going on. There was a lip of cervix in the way. Ugh, that again. She tried to help pull it aside, but that was painful and I hated it. I began to feel defeated. Sena reassured me that things were moving quickly and efficiently but I felt like something was stalling the process and I was becoming angry about it since I'd worked so hard to make sure I wouldn't have the same obstacles this time as I had with Regin's birth. I was shaking with fatigue, but I kept walking and walking. I spent some time in the bath. I tried different positions and sat a little on the birthing ball otherwise known as my exercise ball. But mostly I walked. I went back to the bath, I cried out, I screamed, I moaned and wailed. I got angrier and angrier every time George delayed when beginning to recite his relaxation script as he had been doing every few minutes for who knows how many (15) hours. I began pushing in the bath. I pushed and screamed so hard, my throat quickly became raw. And then... I wanted out. I wanted to get on the birthing stool, which I hate, because I wanted this to be done. I wanted rest for my trembling legs, and I wanted the position that would expedite birth. We put it in almost the same spot that it had been put for Regin's birth, the spot where Regin had then taken his first breaths.
I still had no idea how long this had been going on. No clocks were around to tell me, but I saw the light in the windows change from morning to midday, from afternoon to evening. Sena kept telling me things were moving along and his head was just there. But I still felt like I wasn't getting anywhere.
During all this time, I never once asked to go to the hospital. I never asked to be knocked out. Outwardly I was in screaming pain, but somewhat in control and just working. Inwardly I was having an entirely different dialog with myself:
"What the f**k is wrong with me?"
"What do you mean? You're in labor!"
"Why the heck do I insist on doing this the hard way?"
"It's better for you and the baby..."
"Pah! F**k that! I'm done with this s**t. So done. Sc**w home birth, natural birth. Give me the fecking drugs. Hell... next time around, if I do this again... Not only will I go to a hospital like a normal person, but I'll probably deliver the baby in my sleep with a planned c-section. This s**t is for the birds."
I was saying all of that to myself up until the very last moment, when on the birthing stool, again in the same place, I birthed my second child. I squeezed and pushed so hard I was actually worried about popping blood vessels in my brain. I screamed and screamed and pushed and felt the ring of fire as he crowned, and with all that remained of my might, I pushed some more, and I felt him pour out of my body. And then the most amazing thing happened: I held him.
Everything melted away when I held him. He was beautiful and I was strong, and I immediately felt, "Oh that? That wasn't that hard. I could do that again." His head was squooshed and badly mishapen, but I didn't see it. He was beautiful and I instantly loved him. He cried and my voice immediately changed to sooth him. Ohhh it's ok Baby, that was hard, huh? It hurt a lot and it was scary. Poor baby, I know... it was hard for me too.
It was hard. It turns out it was a lot harder than it usually is. There was a reason my fast-progessing labor had taken so long. Turns out, not only was he posterior, but my baby had decided to present his brow first. That's the rarest of presentations and the most difficult. Hmmm... rare and difficult, he's like his mamma already. Most literature will tell you that the brow presentation is not even feasible. Unless baby's head is very small or Mamma's hips are very wide, baby just CANNOT come out that way. I don't think either of us is unusually proportioned and he's definitely not small. But somehow, we did it. And we loved each other right away.
My mom and sister came in, and with joyful tears I told them it was a boy. And then I told them I had gotten just what I wanted: that rush of hormones, that instant love, that connection with my baby. Everything I hadn't had the first time, everything I had grieved the loss of with my first birth, I had now. And I wept, and everyone else did too.
After a short while I birthed the placenta, which is relatively uncomfortable in itself. I had hoped to let the baby crawl to my breast by himself as I'd seen babies do in videos. But after more than an hour, I decided to give him a little help. I lifted him to my breast, he opened his mouth, and clamped it onto me. Ouch! I forgot what that was like! But I was thrilled that I didn't have to wrestle a nipple into his mouth, he latched himself on.
I was still on such a high when Sena was examining my war wounds that as vulnerable as I could have felt with my legs draped over chairs, and someone sitting right between them, looking, checking, etc., I was chipper and chatting away and laughing.
That's how it was; with happy tears and laughter, Baby and I began a new life together and a family of four was born.
To be continued.
Part 4 -- Babymoon, coming tomorrow...
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