On July 4th, we had a sort of last minute shindig at our house. 13 people came over and we grilled, drank beer, chatted. Everyone was gone by 9:30 or so, and Mama Bea and I went to bed early; she was tired from a long day at work, and I was tired from mowing, cleaning, and cooking. The next day I was going to get up early for a day on the lake (we had gone in with our friends on a pontoon boat rental), and Bea was going to work in the morning, and try to join us in the afternoon. Except, at 2:30 in the morning, Mama Bea woke me up and said, “I think I’m in labor.”
It was sort of surreal, to be honest. I’d had a few beers the night before, so I woke up groggier than even a normal person would be at 2:30. I asked Bea some questions about what she felt like and how long she’d been up, when suddenly she sort of gasped and started a contraction. She got on her hands and knees right away, and I tried to rub her back until it went away. I asked her if I should call the doula, and she said maybe, maybe not yet. I knew this was the time when I was supposed to be making decisions instead of giving her lots of options, but I didn’t know what she was feeling like, and from everything we’d learned, calling the doula the second you go into labor is totally unnecessary. At the next contraction though, it seemed like Bea was in some pain, and I texted the doula:
Me: Bea is in labor, maybe since 1:30. I’ve only timed 3 contractions, they seem to be about a minute long and btw 5 to 7 min apart.
Doula: U guys ready for me? It’ll take me about an hour + a few to get dressed and over there.
Me: We’re not sure. I guess we’ll wait a little
Doula: I’ll go ahead and get dressed. u just say the word and I’ll be there. Can she talk through them?
Me: Ok. Not really. Does that mean something?
Doula: Means she’s probably in active labor. If you’re cool with it, I’m going to get ready and head over.
Me (on the verge of panicking): Sounds great
Doula: See u in about an hour. Let’s have us a baby!
Me: Let’s have a baby!
That’s from my text messaging logs. I was grateful that she texted me right back, even though it was 2:50am. Mind you, I was only a little panicked when she said “active labor.” It still seemed so impossible that, after an hour of labor, Bea was already in active labor. Everything in our class and our books said we’d be putting around for like 12 hours before anything like this could possibly happen. But, the doula was on her way, Bea was in some pain with the contractions but handling them beautifully, and we were going to have a baby!
Between contractions we started to think about all the things we needed to do still. Print out the birth plan, get last minute things in the bag, make sure all our legal paperwork was ready. I was trying to get Bea to eat and drink, since we knew it was important to keep her energy up.
Around 3:45 we decided it was time to call Bea’s parents. I don’t have a log of that conversation, but it went something like this:
Bea’s Dad: Hello?
Me: Good morning!
Dad: What?
Me: Good morning! It’s Jae.
Dad: It’s what?
Me: IT’S JAE!
Dad: Oh. Hi.
Me: It’s time!
Dad: OH! It’s time?
Me (suddenly a little choked up): Yep, I think it’s time!
Dad: Ok, we’re coming!
I was a little surprised that I got emotional then. I thought for sure I’d cry when the baby was born (I didn’t), but not so soon. But, there it is. It went away after I hung up the phone though, and went back to tending to Bea.
The doula got there in good time, and was fantastic in helping us through contractions. She could see things like when Bea was clenching her shoulders or her feet, and had this amazing calming voice. While I rubbed Bea’s back and said encouraging things, she was very instructive and authoritative in saying things like “Relax your feet” and ”long, slow breaths.” Bea is really responsive to things like that, and I think it helped both of us feel like this was under control, and it helped Bea physically get through contractions. She also suggested different positions to help us conserve energy.
Once the doula got there I completely lost track of timing contractions. I was feeling a little frantic about not having things ready and fetching things in between contractions. It was amazing to have her there to take care of Bea while I got water, or vice versa. I also discovered that I was reluctant to tell Bea things like “long slow breaths” because I didn’t know what it felt like, and I didn’t know if it was helpful, or irritating, or if she did what I said it would make it worse.
Around an hour after the doula arrived I told her I’d forgotten to be timing, and she said that she’d been paying attention (duh) and that we were progressing pretty fast. We were like 5 minutes between contractions. A little while later she said that, anytime we felt like going to the hospital, just let her know. Because our instructor had told us so many horror stories about getting to the hospital too early, we both said we’d wait. In retrospect, I don’t know what we thought we were waiting for. The contractions were hard, and pretty close together. But it had just been so fast, and a lot of signs that we’d been told to look for hadn’t shown up yet (puking, pooping, etc). The doula said we could wait another 30 minutes and see how we felt.
Around 5:15 the contractions started getting worse. Bea is very vocal, and groaned through all of the contractions. But some of these were clearly much harder, and once she said she didn’t think she could do it. The doula asked her if she was feeling pressure, and she said she felt like she had to poop. That’s when the doula said we should go. We started grabbing everything we needed, and on the next contraction Bea said she wanted to push. The doula reminded her to blow instead of push, and pretty much after that we threw everything in the car and got on the road. Just before I got in the car, the doula whispered to me, “we’re kind of in a hurry now.”
It was 5:30 the morning after July 4, and I knew there would be cops. But the hospital is 20 minutes away with no traffic assuming you don’t chose a stupid route by accident (we’re still figuring out how to get places from our new house), and Bea wanted to push. So I sort of stepped on it, slowing down when I saw cops and once when an emergency vehicle was going the other way (later the doula said she couldn’t believe I’d pulled over). The whole way I was trying to help Bea concentrate on her not-pushing (she had her head thrown back on the side of the seat, and kept declaring that she was going to push), and also trying to remember what we’re supposed to do once we get to the hospital. It was flooded out in the storm back in May, so the whole first floor is a construction zone, and registration is in a weird place. Plus, if the baby is about to fall out, do you still go to registration?
It turns out, no, you don’t. We pull up to the hospital, and a nice lady who was sitting in a wheelchair (turned out she had had a baby 2 days ago and was just chillin in the wheelchair having a cigarette) gave us the wheelchair. We went to registration on the 3rd floor, where some nurses and I stared at each other until a nurse said, “are you having a baby?” and I said, “she is” (I know, duh), and she told us to go to the 8th floor. So we got back in the elevator to go to triage. Thank goodness the doula was there, because it gets blurry for me here.
From what I remember, the nurses there saw Bea panting, and directed us straight to a room. I remembering hearing a nurse ask our doula about how far along Bea was, and she said, “She’s not pushing, but pushy.” I tried giving the birth plan to a nurse, and she gave it back to me, saying to save it for labor and delivery. I think it was around this point when Bea declared, “I’m going to have the baby here.” One nurse was trying to get a gown on Bea, and wanted her to lie down because she needed to check her. Bea was in the middle of a contraction, standing but leaning forward with her arms on the bed, and desperately trying not to push, and the nurse says, all exasperated, ”I really need to check you.” I was almost pissy at her, but I sort of took the doula’s cues and just helped Bea through the contraction, ignoring the nurse, and helped her take off her bottoms and lie down (sans hospital gown). The nurse checked her, and declared that she was “complete.”
At this point it felt like there were a million people in the room. Someone asked me Bea’s social security number, which I don’t know (we were supposed to have filled out a piece of paper with all that info on it so that it would be ready for just this situation, but of course we hadn’t done that yet). Luckily Bea was between contractions, so she told them. They pulled up her info right away. I assume this was when our OB was called, but I never actually saw or heard that happening. The on-call doctor came in, and I saw nurse that I showed the birth plan to scoop it up and show it to him, then to all the other nurses. He was really nice, but we’re glad he didn’t deliver the baby. He said that he Bea could lie down and he could deliver the baby in the next two contractions, or we could wait on the OB, who was en route. He also told me that the birth plan was all fine, except that he couldn’t not put an IV on Bea because women lose blah blah units of blood and blah blah medical mumbo jumbo so he had to put one in. Which is fine with me, but I feel like the way he said it was kind of like a power move and/or paternalistic. The nurses blew two veins trying to put the IV in anyway, and gave up.
By then our OB came, and it seems like everyone forgot about the IV. At this point I think it must have been around 6:45. She set up, and Bea started pushing in earnest. This part was also a blur, even though it seemed to last forever at the time. Bea was sort of sitting up in the bed, with me at her side and the doula at the head of the bed. We all (me, doula, and OB) coached her through each contraction, encouraging her and the doula helping her breathe. After a few pushes the OB suggested that Bea pull her knees up to help open up her pelvis. We could see the baby’s head, but it would retreat after the pushing stopped. So I helped hold up one leg while a nurse held another. Meanwhile, the OB was massaging Bea’s perineum with her finger, while a nurse poured sweet oil in and around. Another nurse was sort of standing there. I don’t know what for, but at one point she rolled in a mirror and angled it so that Bea could see the head coming out. This pushing/head coming out/going back in routine lasted a while. Bea was working so hard on each contraction that she was purple with the exertion. But in between, she was calm as can be, resting with her eyes closed. In between contractions it was so quiet and everyone was watching the monitor (on which you could see the contractions) so carefully that it felt a little like Jurassic Park to me, where everyone was all quiet and alert waiting for all hell to break loose. And the little lines on the monitor going up was like the water in the glass trembling when dinosaurs were approaching. It wasn’t scary, but more suspenseful.
Probably around 7:30 the OB said quietly to the nurse, “she doesn’t want an episiotomy” with this sort of half laughing half resigned voice. After another push, she gently said, “Hey Bea? This might be one of those few situations where an episiotomy would help the baby come.” At this point, by the way, the baby’s head had been at least an inch out (not enough to see forehead yet, but enough that the OB could get her fingers on either side to pull a little during pushes) for about half an hour. It was just sort of stuck there, with all this dark black hair flopping around. The OB kept using her index finger to rub it between contractions. Later, she said that she’d never seen a mom talking and laughing when the head was stuck there, like Bea was. Anyway, Bea was ready to just do the episiotomy, “if it would help the baby come out.” The one part of the Bradley class that I think really helped: I knew what to say in this situation. So, I said to Bea, “Ok, but you don’t have to, you know.” And she said, “ok, can we try one more contraction?” So the OB handed her scissors back to the nurse, and after two or three more hard hard pushes, the baby FLEW out. In all the videos we’d seen (and there were A LOT), the baby’s head would come out, then in the next contraction or so the rest of the body followed. Not here. The whole effing baby squirted out. I really think the OB had to literally catch her.
It was totally amazing. Suddenly the OB was holding up this screaming baby girl, whose face (and scream) is already familiar and family to us. One nurse was sucking fluid out of her mouth and nose, while another wiped her a little before plopping her on Bea’s chest. They clamped the cord, and the doctor said, “Jae, it’s all you” (or something like that). I hadn’t really wanted to cut the cord, but in that half second I decided I’d probably regret not doing it. FYI it is rubbery and tendony, and I had to sort of saw at it to get through it. Not quite what I’d expected.
And that was it. Our baby was born. Delivering the placenta was pretty painful for Bea, and there was a lot of blood. She also had a pretty bad tear, and the doctor was stitching her up for quite a while. At one point I heard her say to the nurse, “Ah, that’s starting to look familiar now.” They also made jokes about her being a vagina plastic surgeon. So I knew it was pretty bad.
Bea has been a real trouper though, and I think that she will heal up great in no time. She was really woozy for a while after delivery, and I thought she was going to faint on the way to the recovery room. Luckily we had a fantastic nurse who was paying good attention and taking good care of us.
I have to say, we definitely chose the right hospital. Everyone was totally respectful about me being the partner from delivery through recovery, and about Bea wanting natural childbirth, rooming in, and breast feeding only. Our OB was amazing and we are both completely in love with her now.
It’s an amazing feeling to have been through that together, and to have this gorgeous bundle as a result. We keep saying how lucky we are, and we continue to know that day after day.
I can’t think of any graceful way to end this tome, so I’ll give you all this:
