Monday, Oct. 10, 2011 4:35 p.m.

Baby C's birth; the long version

Here it is: the story I've been meaning to write for 3 and a half weeks. Baby C's birth story.

I always thought that it was kind of funny before, how women have this overwhelming need to tell people about their experiences giving birth. It seemed like such a private, personal, and perhaps gruesome experience - why would any self-respecting woman want to publicly share these details??

But now, heh heh, I find myself wanting to share them. All the details. Especially the ones people don't want to hear about too. There's something so transformative about giving birth. Something so completely and absolutely surreal that you need to re-tell it over and over and over...just to encourage its reality to sink in to your own head. A baby, an actual living person, was inside of you - and now is outside of you.

It's strange.

So here's how it happened, with all the good, way-too-TMI details:

Fri. 9/16/2011 (1 day before my due date) 6am-ish: I woke up to pee, just as I did several times a night. I was actually delighted that it wasn't just #1 this time, but #2 as well. I say delighted because a) it'd been several days, and b) I'd heard that was often a sign of approaching labor. Then I went back to bed.

6:30ish: I was still having some #2 cramps that would come and go. Not wanting to freak myself out, I got in the bath to calmly pay attention to my body and see if this was the real deal. You know how they say that "when you're in labor, you'll know"? Well, I must be on the Asperger's spectrum or something, because I always have to stop and think about what I'm feeling before I'm confident of it. But sitting in the bath, and paying attention to how the cramps were coming in little waves and how they were mostly pressure - I became confident. This was it. I had a quick chat with my belly: We were both going to have a tough day, full of adventure, but we were going to be in it together.

I went back to bed, paying attention to the cramps that were coming every 10 min. or so.

7:30ish: I woke up K and told him to not get too excited, but that I might be starting to have contractions. I got my phone and started the app that timed my contractions. Little did I know how much I would come to rely on that app!

8:15ish: The contractions had already sped up to every 5-7 min. I had assumed that, as a first time mother, that labor was going to be super long, and it was kind of freaking me out how quickly things were seeming to happen. I called my mom in Texas, since she wanted to try to fly out for the birth.

It was at this point where I started to freak out a bit. Contractions were not horrible yet, but I knew this labor thing was really happening, and that the pain was going to get way worse. I was scared, and I cried for about 1 minute. Then I sucked it up since I couldn't do anything about it.

9:45ish: The app on my phone told me that my contractions were averaging 5 minutes apart, lasting 1 minute, and for 1 hour. 5-1-1, the magic code when you're supposed to head to the hospital or call your midwife. The midwife didn't seem to take K or I as seriously as I felt things were getting and said she'd be by in a couple hours to check on me. She said that once labor was really established that I wouldn't be able to talk through contractions and this bugged me - I HADN'T been able to talk though contractions and just because I choose to be really quiet during them did not mean that I wasn't feeling them!

noonish: Contractions were 3-4min. apart. I was still using the phone app and pushing the button every time a contraction began or ended. My previous pain management method of just focusing on the pressure, rather than the pain, and repeating a little phrase was beginning to no longer work adequately. My mom called me from the Las Vegas airport on her layover and started to have me take deep breaths through contractions and count them. I kept up this counting, over and over and over again, for the next several hours. From this point, it's all I really remember of labor: counting. The peak came in breath 3 or 4 and was over by 6 or 7. But all I had to do was survive to the peak; that's all that mattered.

1:30ish: the midwife arrived. I think she talked to me about some things, but all I remember is that I was dilated to 5-6cm and that she was going to prepare a couple things at the house and then run some errands and be back later. I didn't understand how she'd have time to leave - I felt like everything was happening way faster than I had expected.

3:30ish: the midwife leaves; I beg her to check me before she leaves. I was 7cm. And she said my water still had not broken. My mom arrived right as the midwife was leaving.

Time starts to get really blurry at this point. While the midwife was there, I had been in the living room on the glider; my eyes closed the whole time. I never made noise. My only indication to others that I was in the middle of a contraction was if I had pushed the button on my cell phone. I was addicted to that app and that button. When my mom arrived, I was back in my bedroom. People say they move around in labor and try different positions - not me. I just sat and focused.

4ish: sometime after 4pm my mom told me that the birth pool was filled and ready. I got in. I didn't change. I just stripped off my pj pants and climbed in in the tank top I'd worn to bed the night before. As soon as I got in, I had one moment of slight despair. Labor was no longer moderately tolerable. Labor was absolutely not fun. Had I been at the hospital, I may have asked from drugs then. I knew I was at transition. And I knew that as sucky as it was, that I had no option but to buck up and carry on.

I asked my mom to reassure me that transition was going to be the hardest and that it would not get worse than that. She assured me that I was correct. Contractions were about 1.5 min. apart and getting closer and closer together.

4:30ish: the midwife came back. I don't remember this, but it's what I was told. I only remember holding my mom's hand while leaning over the side of the pool and breathing and counting. Over and over and over.

5ish: I said I felt like I had to go to the bathroom and asked if it was bad if I accidentally went in the pool. They said I should try to use the toilet. Someone walked me to the bathroom. I didn't have to go. I knew I had nothing in me to go, but I was feeling the pressure to go so what else was I supposed to do. It was weird though, and an intense pressure to go both #1 and #2 at once. I got back in the birth pool.

I was still feeling a pressure, and like I wanted to push. I asked my mom how I would know if I was supposed to push and if the midwife could come check me. The midwife (I never saw her, he must have been in the living room or something) answered that she'd know if I was ready to push by my "verbal cues". Considering that I had still not made ANY noise during labor, this response annoyed me, but I had intense contractions to deal with and couldn't bother with her. Contractions were now only 30 seconds apart and lasting for a minute and a half: a horrible ratio to deal with.

I was tired of the pushing sensations and of no one telling me what to do, so I just started pushing with the contractions anyway. Looking back, I probably shouldn't have done this, but again, no one was telling me what to do. At one point I commented that things were stinging and my mom tried to get the midwife's attention.

6ish: the midwife said she'd check me now and wanted me to get out of the pool and onto the bed to do so. I told her I couldn't get out of the pool and if she could check me there (um hello - my contractions were only seconds apart! I couldn't move anywhere!). She said it wouldn't be as accurate of a check, but she'd do it. She did and said that my water had broken and that she could feel the head and that I could start pushing. (It was about time I was given some direction!)

Someone yelled at K and he jumped in the pool behind me.

The head was out in two pushes, or so I've been told. I don't remember actually pushing. I remember facing the midwife in the pool and I remember the contractions. I remember the pressure in me changing as the head came out and I knew that the head must be out before anyone said anything. I remember being then told to grunt with the next push to push the body out and I did - the FIRST vocalization I'd had the entire labor!

6:16pm: a baby was laid on my chest. I think I was more in shock that the pain of labor had just stopped suddenly than the fact that I had just given birth and had a baby. I opened my eyes and this pink, wiggly thing was there laying on me. The umbilical cord was attached to the baby and draped down and inside me still. It was rubbing up against my already sore "down there" parts and I asked to move it. Someone asked what the baby was. I had forgotten that we didn't know that. K lifted the baby off my chest. The umbilical cord was in the way at first and I almost forgot what to look for to know if it's a boy or girl. But K announced "You're a girl"! and I knew that she was. A girl. I had a baby daughter.

They put a blanket around the baby. I just kept saying "Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh." This little thing was just the thing that was inside me, kicking my insides. This was the person that I had given a pep talk to earlier that morning. This was the little creature that had just gone through the life-changing experience of birth with me.

After delivering the placenta (which is completely anti-climatic and a strange, yet necessary, way of ending labor), I moved into the bedroom to be inspected for tears. Tears are one of those things that they still don't talk about a lot, especially in mixed company, because no one wants to think about them. But they happen to about half of women...and they happened to me. It's not like I noticed during actual labor though. That's how intense contractions are - you don't even notice if you're tearing part of your body tissue. Isn't that weird?

So there I am, on my bed, on a bunch of waterproof pads and being inspected. I had two decent tears. And apparently I was bleeding - a lot more than normal. I could tell that the midwife and the assistant weren't sure what they should do. Should she stitch me up there, or should I go into a hospital? I was on such a post-delivery high, the tears were of very little concern to me - which is why I can talk about them nonchalantly now. I ended up, after my nice and easy and simple homebirth having to go to the hospital that night. I wasn't admitted, thankfully, but there was an OBGYN who works out of the hospital so came in after-hours to stitch me up. Otherwise I would've been admitted and had to stay overnight and try to figure out what to do with this new baby and how to feed her and all that fun stuff. All while in the hospital. Have I mentioned that I've NEVER been a hospital patient before in my whole life?

Anyway, so I came home that night, to all the many guests staying at my house, and even though everyone kept telling me to rest - how could I? This was possibly the most exciting, albeit painful, day of my entire life! Yes, I was rather sore down there still, yes the dozen or so stitches hurt, yes I hadn't had sleep in awhile or even remembered when my last meal was (I think someone made me eat a sandwich right after the birth - I can't remember too well), but everything was still so unbelievable. And there was facebook to update and K to hang out with and a first diaper to change. Honestly, it's all just a blur right now. I wish I had taken more pictures or video.

And then the next couple weeks were just tiring and I already wrote about getting sick. But now, almost 3 1/2 weeks into this baby thing, it's staring to make sense and we're starting to figure things out.

What's weird is that I can't really remember being pregnant anymore. I still have the stretch marks on my belly, but my belly is small again, so while it looks weird, I don't care. They are my battle scars and I'm proud beyond belief that I pushed out a baby, without drugs. I feel like I can handle anything now. My body also is transforming back to my old body quicker than I thought, thank goodness. I'm almost back to pre-prengancy weight.

Ok, I need to go shower and do some other things while I can. I only seem to have enough free time each day to cross off one or two things from my to-do list and writing this entry was today's accomplishment.

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