Ollie turned ONE on April 12th, and I'm just now getting around to posting. Even more tardy is the birth story I'm about to post. (This is why I have been so late in posting about the little dude's birthday; posting his birth story was just too overwhelming for me).
On Tuesday, 4/10/07, around 9 or 10pm or so, we were at some random store (Bed Bath and Beyond? Macy's? Or somewhere else that I would prefer didn't make an appearance in my birth story) looking for organic sheets and mattress pads. Oh yes, it was Macy's. We were standing around looking at pillows and expensive sheets when I felt my first contraction. At that point, I was 2 days overdue so this was all very exciting. We hurried home and kept vigil by the clipboard and stop watch. Hindsight: hahaha.
That night, the contractions were coming anywhere from 6 to 19 minutes apart up until around 1 am, when I stopped writing them down until after 4 am. I did remember seeing times on the bedside clock between 1 and 4, but I assume I fell asleep right after the contraction peaked so never wrote anything down. The next contraction I recorded was at 4:10 am, and was strong (I had a column for "notes" *eyeroll* but excellent for the 1 year later story telling. Hindsight: type A pays off!) and that contraction was longer than any previous contraction - 90 seconds. I woke Erik up then and we had our little cliche "this is it!" - slash - "nobody's going to work today!" happy dance.
At around 5:30 am or so, I must have gotten in the bath for a little while. Baths were woefully inadequate for me while pregnant. The water never covered enough of me, even with a washcloth jammed around this little overflow drain, and it always got cold too quickly. I think I got out of the bath at around 6 am, even though I had envisioned myself spending the entire labor in the bath. Contractions ranged from 2 minutes to 8 minutes apart with the occasional 12 minute wait every so often, until around 9 am when they were consistently less than 8 minutes apart. I even wrote down when I pooed! (8:15 am). One day Ollie will read this and cry.
Sarah arrived just before 11 am, because her handwriting takes over in the notebook for the 10:57 contraction (1 minute long, 8 minutes after the last one, and strong). We were just randomly lulling about the house until my water broke at 2. We were listening to This American Life podcasts, snacking, and Sarah (who was 5 weeks pregnant at the time) started devouring my Ina May Gaskin library. Sarah at one point left to go pick up lunch for us (yet another excellent reason to have a doula, in my opinion), and during this time, Erik must have written "!Best one yet!" in the contraction log, including whatever you call the spanish language upside down exclamation point. I couldn't talk through any of these contractions (and really hadn't been able to since they started Tuesday night), but I wasn't exactly moaning or blaspheming reproduction or anything. Yet.
At 2:09, lying on the couch, I had the strongest contraction yet, and I literally feared for my intestines and bones. I thought I was going to blast apart at the seams. At the peak of that contraction, my water broke! Luckily, I was wrapped up in a robe and a blanket, so nothing got on the couch. When undressing and surveying the water damage, it was actually way less water than I had expected based on what I heard and felt.
From then on, the contraction pain really, really stepped up. We retreated to the bathroom where I camped out in the shower on my hands and knees with a constant flow of hot water to my back. Ollie was still posterior/sunny-side up, so the back labor was starting to be unbearable. Erik spoon fed me and we didn't really log the timing of the contractions. Sarah wrote "serious face" in the book, though. I was making lots of low groaning noises and trying to relax everything everywhere in the hopes that my cervix would catch on and comply.
When we started timing the contractions again, we realized they were about 2-3 minutes apart, all lasting over a minute. We called Best Start again at 5 or so, and they told us to get ready to come in and they'd meet us there. Kel, the midwife I'd been communicating with during my entire labor, was now going off-call, so she said that Roberta would be there for the birth. After spending most of my prenatal visits with Kel and not liking her as much as Roberta, I was surprised to be disappointed that she wouldn't be with us at the birth. I guess I had just gotten comfortable with her. This would definitely be reaffirmed later. The last contraction we recorded was at 5:22 pm. So you can rest assured that this will be the last dorky data fact I'll include in here. No wait! I just realized that they gave me a copy of my entire labor chart.
We packed everything up for the birth center and arrived just after 6pm. Nobody was answering the door, so we assumed Roberta the midwife wasn't there yet. It was a windy, cool, storms-a-brewing sort of evening, and I kind of rolled around on the grass out front of the birth center trying to battle some contractions for about a half hour. Some random construction worked just walked right up past us and opened the door, inviting us in. Roberta and the nurses had been there the whole time, but I guess nobody heard the doorbell. Oy. Roberta didn't want us settling into the room until she checked me, which was surprising to hear, and Kel had never even suggested any of it - just sort of nodded along with me when I told her what I envisioned. But, checked! On an exam bed! I had planned on not being checked until I wanted to get in the tub. And! She also wanted me to pee in a cup! And! You can't get in the tub anyway until you're 5 centimeters! If you listened closely enough you could hear the iron gates of my cervix slamming shut. Needless to say, I was only 2 centimeters. This was quite disappointing but according to Erik and Sarah, they had no idea I was feeling that way. Awesome - I was just bottling it up inside. Ina May, I'm sorry. Anyway, I was 100% effaced. "Paper thin," I remember Roberta saying.
They let us into the room, even though they gave us the option of going home. I really didn't want to go home and do the transition again; it was hard enough doing it once. Note to self: birth at home next time. Before we could even sit down, they whisked away all the pretty linens and pillows, leaving behind boring hospitally waterproofy white sheets. You can't blame them, but it was just one more thing that didn't mesh with what I had envisioned for my birth.
Ollie was still backwards, and stayed that way until I was halfway through pushing. We labored in the room a bit, and I kept asking for them to check me whenever they'd come in the room, just because I wanted to get in that hot water so badly. Finally, I was "4 going on 5" and I hollered to have someone start filling up the giant bath tub right then. It was amazing to get in the water. It certainly wasn't painless, not by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it was still quite painful. But there was something about being surrounded by hot water that just calmed my spirits and relaxed my body enough. I felt light (well, light-er) and floaty in the water, my skin smooth and slippery, and the steam invigorating my senses.
Just before getting in the tub, I started having really strong trembly contractions where my whole torso area convulsed in the middle of the surge. We realized later on that this was when the pushing contractions started. Yes, at 5 centimeters. This probably had to do with the fact that he was backwards - his body was low and engaged, but the front side of his head was opening my cervix much differently than if he were facing the right way. I labored in the water for a while, with everyone applying counterpressure with whatever hands or limbs nearby. During one harrowing contraction in the water, I had a lot of bloody show, so they wanted me to get out to clean the tub and check me. This was when things got much, much worse for me. This was most likely transition. I couldn't move. I lay there, slightly writhing in pain, and completely tense on the bed. I started throwing up ridiculous amounts of purple vomit but couldn't even move enough to puke in a bucket. Sarah had just wipe the puke away from me with towels. I love her. When they checked me next, I was 10 centimeters dilated with just a little lip of cervix still stuck in the way. Roberta had me push with the next contraction while she manually moved that lip of cervix out of the way. I remembered reading about that in many of the birth stories at The Farm in Ina May Gaskin's books, so that comforted me a little.
In my mind, pushing meant that the baby would be there any minute. I expected to have just a handful of pushes and be done with it. Hindsight: hahahaha. I rushed everyone to get back into the tub because I was so set on a water birth and didn't want him accidentally coming while I squatted on the toilet. Again, hindsight: haha. During one push, Roberta helped turn Ollie around to face the right way, with me still in the tub. It was one of a handful of moments I was thankful for having a ridiculously experienced Midwifery Legend around. Anyway, that was a massive movement. I felt him move with every inch of my body. I remember hoping that the contractions would hurt less now that he had turned around, but they just kept getting worse. After that, he probably got comfortable in there and I'm pretty sure I started passing out between the pushing contractions. My face got all tingly, and I'd "fall asleep." Contractions spaced themselves out 6 or so minutes apart, and were relatively puny, clocking in at a mere 45 seconds or so each. My pushing was also relatively puny, no doubt related to my overall weakness. I tried to eat some mashed potatoes and drink some Gookinaid or water, but was just repulsed by everything. After about two hours of pushing, Roberta asked me to get out and try pushing on the birth stool or squatting to see if dry land would help speed things up. Oliver had started crowning in the water already. I knew that I could get back in the water again eventually, so I agreed to spending some time on dry land. Getting out of the tub right then? Oh holy hell. Oh, that was crazy intense.
4 dry-land pushes later, Oliver arrived at 1:56 am on Thursday, April 12th. I remember Roberta telling me to reach down to catch him, but I was white knuckling the birthing stool. I laughed when she suggested that, although I'm sure I probably could have let go. Erik was supporting me from behind, with his arms under my armpits. I had my feet on Roberta's knees who was sitting right in front of me. I think Roberta caught him but in almost one swift movement I grabbed him, too, and uttered the first worlds my child heard in the real world: "he's all slippery! I'm going to drop him!"
I didn't drop him. I didn't even realize that I had forgotten to get back into the water until much, much later that day. Ollie emerged into the world wailing away. Delivering the placenta and being stitched up was awful, but we survived. I eventually had to give the baby to Erik to hold while we finished taking care of me, and he then stopped crying for the first time, in his father's arms. Oh, my heart. After that, still just minutes after he was born, we laid him on my chest and he started rooting around, moving his whole body to try to find food. While he didn't exactly latch on, he did eventually get there and try to get started. It was amazing to watch something so biological, so natural. Oh, again, my heart. We all fell asleep for a little while until the nurse came back in to give him a once-over and weigh him. 7 lbs, 7 oz (just like his mama), and 19.5 inches long. Stunning Apgar scores :-). Very little hair. Very very cute.
We left the birth center at around 9 am that morning with our 7 hour old son. The birth center was filling up with pregnant women for their prenatal visits. I remember the strange, empty feeling I had when I saw them. Despite the fact that I was holding my sweet, peaceful baby, the joy and sunshine of my life, I wanted to stand there and tell them DON'T DO IT. Don't have a baby. Don't. Or, at the very least, go somewhere where they'll knock you out first. I had a really hard time reconciling the pain and everything in my mind right after the birth, but within a few days, I quickly snapped out of it and can barely remember what contractions feel like. Typical.
Childbirth was the hardest thing I've ever done, but ever since then, I've had so many moments where I thought to myself, "why did I focus so much energy and pre-baby reading time on the birth? When I should have been learning about XYZ random difficult newborn/parenting subject matter?!" Every day we're faced with new challenges as parents, you would think that the powerful birth story would leave our minds, forever replaced with how to remove poo stains or how to change a prefold diaper when holding your climbing-away baby upside down by one ankle. But I'll never forget that day. Day(s). My life changed forever. Life is so much sweeter with the little dude.
Oliver is the happiest person I know, and it's contagious. My sunshine, my sweetness, my little man: I don't know what I did to deserve you, but I am so lucky to get to be your mama. You're the best thing I've ever done.
