The long version, from Mama Bea’s perspective

You really don’t have to read this. Really. It’s mad long, and I’m trying to record every single detail so I can remember it later.

After a fun night having some friends over, I woke up at around 1 or 1:30 because I felt a gush of liquid coming out. I’d been having similar feeling but smaller gushes for about a week (most memorably when we had just parked the car to go into the grocery store), so I didn’t think much of it. I cleaned myself off and got back in bed, only to have a contraction. I thought it might be labor starting, but I wasn’t sure, so I decided not to wake up Mama Jae quite yet. Mild contractions came about every ten minutes in the hour that followed, during which time I composed the following haiku in my head, because clearly, what else would one spend their time doing in early labor?

Gushes of water
Could this be labor starting?
Contractions follow

It is 2 a.m.
Do I wake J up or not?
That is the question

So after the hour of 10-minute-apart contractions, I did decide to wake her up. I cuddled up to her and tried to wake her up sweetly, but then a stronger contraction came and I told her I was in labor. We spent the next little bit of time with Jae rubbing my back through each contraction and resting in between. My memories and sense of time during this part of labor are pretty vague—I remember Jae saying she was texting the doula and we discussed whether or not she should come, and whether or not we should call my parents yet. I also remember thinking that as soon as it was an appropriate hour, I had to tell Jae to call my boss, because I was supposed to be overseeeing a deinstallation of a show on Monday and that clearly was not going to happen, so my boss was going to have to come in and do it on her day off.

Anyway, Jae was timing my contractions and trying to soothe me at the same time. The contractions were getting stronger, and I began rolling over onto all fours and rocking through them and moaning, then flopping over onto my side between them to rest. It was pretty exhausting getting myself in and out of that position, but I remember thinking after each contraction that although it was strong, it wasn’t un-doable. At one point I told Jae I thought I needed a bucket, and good thing she brought it when she did because I yakked up the cereal she had tried to get me to eat and some of the dinner from the night before.

At some point the doula showed up, and she and Jae found a good rhythm of taking me through the contractions. Eventually she suggested getting me on the birth ball, which was fantastic, because I could be in a similar position to all fours but rest my head on the bed between contractions. She talked me through the breathing and she noticed when I was tensing muscles in my body and helped me relax them. And she somehow always had a cool washcloth to put on the back of my neck.

The contractions got closer together, and seemed to be progressing a lot more quickly than our class had lead us to believe was possible. The doula asked us if we felt like we should get ready to go to the hospital, and it was only a couple of hours after she’d arrived, so we said no, that we’d wait a bit longer, because it couldn’t possibly be time already. She suggested we give it another half-hour. Shortly thereafter, though, she asked me about the pressure, and I told her that the last contraction made me feel like I had to poop. In her calm and serene way, she made it clear that we had to go ahead and go to the hospital. She instructed me on how to breathe so I wouldn’t push. A few contractions later, I think, we were getting me into the car and I was panting or blowing so that I could resist the urge to push.

The contractions were really strong and really close together in the car ride. I had my eyes closed the entire time and was resting on my hip with my head thrown back, concentrating on not pushing. It was hard, and sometimes even the breathing strategies didn’t work and my body worked on pushing anyway. Eventually we got to the hospital—this was around 5 in the morning, maybe?—and this lady brought us a wheelchair. I thought she was associated with the hospital, but no—just out having her early-morning cigarette after having had her baby a couple of days before. Whatever: she seemed like an angel to me, because she gave us the wheelchair and we were on our way inside.

I still was keeping my eyes closed for the most part, so I don’t remember much of how we got to the triage floor, but suddenly there we were, along with a ton of nurses and a doctor and whoever else. I had a brief moment of panic because I thought the doctor was that same doctor we’d seen last time we were in the ER there, the one who patted Jae on the head, but it turns out he wasn’t. Anyway, everyone was trying to get me into a hospital gown and get an IV in and check my dilation etc etc, little of which I actually remember because of my focus on not pushing. Apparently I announced that I was having the baby in triage, not on the L&D floor. I also remember the nurse announcing that I was completely dilated and the doctor saying that he could deliver the baby in the next two contractions if I wanted. I did not want, and kept panting and blowing through contractions so as not to push.

It was as hot as crap in there, and I was sweating sweating sweating. The doula was still talking me through the breathing and working her magic with the cool cloths. Jae was holding my hand. I was just focusing, focusing.

We were so happy to see our OB when she came in. I remember watching her put on her scrubs and getting her stool situated and being so, so grateful that she was going to deliver our baby, and being happy that I could stop resisting the pushing. Once she was set up, I started pushing with some of the contractions, and it was such a relief.

I pushed for a long, long time. Pushing was hard, but not really because the contractions hurt. It was more because I was having a hard time figuring out how to push effectively. The doctor and the doula were encouraging me to push in a J shape and push toward the ceiling, which I would do, but I didn’t seem to be making much progress. The baby’s head was stuck at the widest part, so half of her head was inside and half out. The nurses and doctor kept marveling that her heartbeat indicated that she was taking it in stride.

A nurse had brought a mirror, so I could see the baby’s head as it began to emerge, complete with a shock of black hair. It was flopping all over the place, and I remember thinking at one point that I had torn, but it was just the shape of a lock of her hair resting on me.

In between contractions, the tone of the room was amazing. Everyone was quiet if I was quiet, and kind of joking around if that’s what I was doing. Some of the most wonderful moments for me during the whole experience were between pushes, when I felt these waves of serenity and euphoria wash over my body and everything was so quiet, except for the sound of the baby’s heart beating on the monitor. It was an incredible feeling. At other times the mood was light and happy, and we were all laughing. Jae was on my left side, holding my hand and my leg somehow, and a nurse was on my right side, holding that leg. The doula was still there with the magic cool washcloths.

Eventually our OB started encouraging me to use each contraction more, and telling me when to push. They still weren’t super effective, and I began to think that there was just no way the baby could come out of my tiny hoo-ha—I just wasn’t big enough to fit her through. It didn’t feel like any progress was being made. The OB said to me that she thought I might be a good candidate for an episiotomy, and I would have said yes if it weren’t for Jae, who told me I could say no. I asked if we could try without an episiotomy for a couple more contractions, and apparently the threat was just the motivation I needed, because at the end of the second or third contraction after that conversation, on a push that I had been indecisive about taking, I felt a huge whoosh of baby body parts slide out of me, and our daughter was born.

Most of what happened after is a little blurry and I don’t remember the order of things happening. I watched Jae cut the cord. Someone passed me the baby and I put her warm little body on my chest. Someone put an IV in my arm. The placenta was delivered. The doctor was going back and forth between massaging my abdomen and stitching up my tear (I had a partial 3rd degree tear in my perineum, almost to the rectum, and during the stitching, one of the nurses said something to our OB about her new role as a plastic surgeon. I have not looked to see what she was talking about. Obviously). That part of the process was definitely the worst. I think there was some pitocin in the IV along with the fluids to help me deliver the placenta or maybe whatever clots were still inside me—I’m not sure what it was for—and the stitching hurt and the abdominal massages were pure misery. I had also lost 600 cc’s of blood, and was pretty woozy. I’m sad that I remember that time as being about the pain, not about the baby on my chest.

However, when I think about the birth, I am overwhelmed with how wonderful and positive an experience it was. I had some fears about whether I’d be able to go natural, but for me, labor was never hard enough for me to wish I had pain relief. I was nervous about how long it was going to take and whether I would have the necessary endurance, but I was lucky enough to have a super quick labor—between 6 and 6 1/2 hours from when it started to when the baby was born. Although a huge part of it was luck, I am really proud of myself for doing it, and doing it naturally and without intervention. I am amazed at what my body was capable of doing, and at how my brain and emotions cooperated. I am thrilled and a little shocked that I experienced feelings of calm and happiness during the labor and delivery, and that I didn’t make the experience hard for anyone involved—myself, the baby, Jae, the doctor, the hospital staff. I really like knowing that.

And now we have this…

…and nothing could be sweeter.