For years I have had a benign nebothian cyst on my cervix, about the size of a nickel. I bleed briefly but heavily from routine internal procedures, including pap smears and the cervical check my obstetrician had performed in early June. Both my obstetrician and midwife had warned me that the beginning of labor might be somewhat messy as my cervix began its dilation, bothering both the normal tissue that produces a regular bloody show and the cyst that would bleed more insistently. What I found in the toilet that morning confirmed their suspicion. It was scary looking, but not dangerous. My midwife advised me to go back to bed, try to get some rest in preparation for a potentially long first-baby labor, and call her either when the contractions become too intense to sleep through or when I finally got out of bed.
Around 6:30 that morning, I tired of being in bed. I had been relaxing, sleeping intermittently, growing more and more excited as the contractions increased in intensity. Earlier that week I had had contractions for three or four hours, keeping me awake with excitement in the middle of the night but never increasing in duration or intensity and eventually fading away altogether. Although still not strong, my contractions on the morning of June 17 were strong and regular enough to finally convince me that this time was different: 25 seconds long, about 10 minutes apart for three hours and getting stronger.
Outside, the weather was dramatic. Thunderstorms were rolling through and the rain was driving against the south side of the house, beating on the skylight. I woke Jay and we went downstairs to get some breakfast and coffee, call my mom and the midwife again, and think about what Jay should buy at the store in preparation for feeding ourselves and our midwives over the next several hours. My contractions were gaining in intensity and were suddenly growing quite close together, though not any longer in duration. By 9:00, they were still about 30 seconds long, but more intense and only about five minutes apart. This pattern continued, with the contractions growing stronger and occasionally longer, until about noon. The rain had moved on and the sky had emerged bright and blue. Jay had returned from the store and stocked up the kitchen, and we sat down to play a game of Boggle. We had always thought to make fun use of early labor, either by taking on a project or playing a game or baking a cake. We only made it through one round. By 12:30 PM, my contractions had become strong enough to remove me mentally from everything else. They were ranging between 30 seconds to one minute in duration; some were five full minutes apart, and some were double-headers, hitting me within thirty seconds of the previous contraction. It was erratic but intense. It was time to call the midwives.
By the time our first midwife arrived around 1 PM, I had moved to sitting on the exercise ball, rolling my hips back and forth. When a contraction came over me, I stood up and started to walk – I had a tremendous aversion to sitting still during contractions. Between 12:30 and 2:30, I was on my feet almost continuously, leaning against Jay when a contraction rushed over me, pacing between the kitchen and the living room during the rest periods. We had begun a sort of slow dance, facing each other, each with our arms around the other’s waist, rocking back and forth during each wave. Eventually I turned my back into him, leaning into his chest, hanging onto his hands. I remember saying at this point that the contractions were painful, but manageable. I could no longer talk or think during a contraction and I had started to moan and breathe deeply. I had the wishful thought that perhaps this was as bad as it was going to get. But I was getting tired of the standing, walking, leaning, and rocking, and decided to get into the tub. A warm birthing tub was set up in the baby’s nursery upstairs. It sounded good.
I was in the birthing tub for the next hour and a half, but time at that point was an abstraction that I couldn’t process. There was no time. Just me, Jay, a glass of water, and the tub. With each contraction I turned toward Jay and leaned my upper body on his chest, hanging on, swaying my body around in the water. This stage of labor feels like tunnel vision – I could only see Jay, I could only feel my body. I didn’t speak aside from the vocalizations that seemed to claw their way out of my body with each wave. I hit the high and the low register, screaming and grunting and moaning. All of the noises I was making felt good, felt necessary. I was completely naked and yet I have never felt such a lack of self-consciousness.
At one point our senior midwife broke through to me: “I think I hear some fear in your voice. Move into the center of the contraction. Don’t try to get away from it.” Invaluable advice. Looking back, I know that towards the end of my time in the tub I was entering transition. I remember clearly thinking at one point that I didn’t think I could continue, the pain was so tremendous. There is nothing any woman can do to prepare for the sensations of childbirth. Nothing. The feeling is surreally intense. There is nothing to do except to accept the pain and try to roll through it, try to relax and open the body to allow the baby to descend.
Around 4:15, our midwives suggested that I get out of the tub to try to pee. They suggested that I could stay in the tub and pee if I wanted to, but something made me want to get up and move again. With Jay’s help, I climbed out of the tub and slowly made my way to the bathroom, stopping for a contraction midway. I sat on the toilet for perhaps twenty minutes and the pushing sensations began. With Jay standing in front of me, I hung on to his arms and felt the rolling involuntary pushing come over me. This felt different from the contractions I had just been feeling. It was a sensation that welled up inside and demanded to be let out. My voice changed from moaning to a long series of primal, throaty groans. So difficult to describe, but whatever I was doing damaged my bronchial tubes and left me with deep cough for two days postpartum. Amazing.
Unfortunately, one can only sit on a toilet for so long before one’s legs start to fall asleep. I needed to move. Reluctantly, I moved out into the hallway where the real work of pushing began. Hanging on to Jay’s arms, I fell into a deep squat, only straightening my legs for breaks between contractions. I was starting to get desperate. I remember asking how many more pushes until the baby came out. My water had not yet even broken. I was beginning to think, even though I had only been pushing for about 45 minutes, that I was never going to get the baby out. Our midwife’s apprentice asked if she could check to see if she could feel baby’s head and I, hungry for any sort of affirmation that my body was indeed moving the baby down, agreed. The bag of waters was bulging only about two inches inside, with the baby’s head just behind it. With the next two pushes, my water broke, greenish brown with meconium. I felt a bit of panic – MECONIUM! – but I don’t remember thinking too much about it. The next contraction pretty much obliterated any thoughts aside from GETTING THE BABY OUT. A little while later (again, I have no idea how much later) I asked the apprentice to check again for baby’s head. It was so close. I reached down and in and touched his head myself, felt his hair not more than an inch from my opening.
At this point, our midwives decided that they needed more room than was available on the landing at the top of the stairs. They asked me to move into the bedroom, which I did. Again assuming the squatting position, I pushed. And pushed. At one point, our senior midwife asked me to turn my vocalizations into pushes, to hold my breath and give it all I had with each contraction. I did. I was pulling on Jay for counterbalance with all my strength – he removed his wedding ring at one point because the strength of my grip was so intense. I began to feel the stretching, the dreaded “ring of fire” that I had heard about, but instead of fear I felt encouragement. The baby was almost out. THE BABY WAS ALMOST OUT. I gave it all I had, and his head emerged right at the end of a contraction. Unable to push without a contraction, I had to wait an agonizing minute before pushing once more and feeling his body slide out of me. It was an indescribable relief – the pressure was gone, the pain was gone, THE BABY WAS OUT! It was 5:31 PM.
I remember saying, “Oh my god my baby!” as the midwife helped our baby between my legs and onto my belly. He cried instantly and earned an impressive 9 on the Apgar scale. He had a short cord, so I couldn’t bring him up to my chest quite yet, but I was able to hold him close as we waited for the cord to stop pulsing. Once they cut the cord, I brought him up to my chest and everyone helped me up onto our bed to sit with Jay and hold sweet Jupiter. A few minutes later, he latched successfully onto my breast and hung on for quite a while. It was amazingly gratifying. He was so beautiful.
After we had held him for about an hour, we handed him to our midwives at the end of the bed for his initial inspection, weighing, and measuring. He weighed 8 pounds 8 ounces and was 22.5 inches long: we had a lovely long skinny baby. Everything checked out wonderfully. Our midwifes left to go clean up other areas of the house and to make us our first meal – scrambled eggs with cheese, toast with jam, and apple juice. I ate my first one-handed meal while our sweet boy continued to nurse. Actually, I had to put my plate down at one point, to change positions, and our dog Sasha ate about a third of my meal. She was hungry, as always.
I had torn in four places – none of them severe – and for that reason combined with unforeseeable and still unknown reasons deep inside of me, I had lost a lot of blood. There was a lot of blood on the floor, and now there was a lot of blood under me on the absorbent pads on the bed. I still don’t know why I lost so much blood, but even after I delivered the placenta my uterus was not contracting appropriately. Having tried an herbal remedy to no avail, our midwife finally gave me a shot of pitocin to make sure the bleeding slowed and my uterus began its descent back down into my lower abdomen. Thankfully, it worked. Later I learned that our boy had grown a rare heart-shaped placenta, from which our midwife’s apprentice made a watercolor print. Sounds strange, but it’s actually quite beautiful in blue paint.
I handed Jupiter to Jay, who took him on a tour of our home while the midwives got to work suturing my tears. The worst part was the administration of the lidocaine – lots of tiny, very painful pokes in my lady parts. But certainly better than being sutured without anesthetic. It took them about an hour, during which time Jupiter and Jay were having some quiet time – the baby was quite calm and eventually fell asleep on his chest.
Since that night, Jay and I have been learning more each day about our little man. Breastfeeding is going great and we have tried to use our ring sling – despite my conviction that I would wear him as much as possible, Jupe is not quite sure how he feels about it. I think it might be that it’s so hot outside – he likes to move when he’s in the sling, so we go for a walk and we both get too hot. Once he’s a bit older I’ll try using it front-facing – I think that’s when he’ll really enjoy it. I have begun to recover from the initial exhaustion of the first week, sleeping in chunks of two hours each night and trying (often unsuccessfully) to nap during the day. This has been a difficult but intensely rewarding time – I have never known such love. I am so grateful for my wonderful Jay, who played such a tremendous role in the birth of our son. And for our midwives, who gave me the confidence I needed to birth our baby on my own terms, in my own way.
This parenthood thing is an amazing adventure.
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