Jackie's Birth

Hello Dear Readers!

This is a totally unapologetic, no goo censored version of my birthing of my daughter. Uncensored. Meaning don't read it while you are eating. And I've sort of barely proofread it because I need to go pee before my little blessing wants to nurse again! But I wanted to get it written before more time had passed.

Much Love,
Suzi


I woke up with more frequent practice surges, and they felt more like menstrual cramps than their predecessors. After some standard morning routine stuff, I called my doula, Carissa, and described what was going on. She thought they were early labor, but of course that could go on for a while. I said what I wanted to do was go to the grocery store and then have a quiet afternoon, maybe watch a movie. Carissa thought that sounded good, it was a nice morning, and we could check in later.

The surges got a bit more intense while I was grocery shopping, which kept me focused, which is good because I am usually a grocery store dawdler. Not this time, boy howdy. By the time I reached the checkout counter I was needing to belly dance through the surges (subtly, I hope). I of course got the slowest checker in Oregon. By the time I got home I was glad I didn't have to drive anymore. I came in the door (with only the two lightest grocery bags) and said, "I think this baby's coming." Matt leapt into action. I asked him to call Erick to come get Robert, then go get the rest of the groceries (he very wisely put the meat straight into the freezer), and I went off to call Carissa again. Then I called Melissa, my lead midwife. She agreed that it was early labor but pointed out that it could go on for days or even stop. I felt skeptical.

I went to the bathroom, needing to poop, but not able to sit still enough on the toilet to accomplish this task. Cloth diaper mamas are not afraid to poop on a bathmat! Thank heaven. Carissa was getting ready to come check on me, and thankfully I had suggested that she call before actually getting in the car, because by the time she did, I had decided to go to the birth center. Katherine, assistant midwife, asked if we could give them half an hour - "Probably?" the idea horrified me but it probably took that long to get clothes on and get me and the stuff down to the car. A slightly bewildered neighbor held the elevator for us and let us go ahead, probably not wanting to see my water break in the elevator (fair enough!), wishing us good luck. Walking was hard but sort of felt good, in fact moving around felt better than not. The car ride was challenging. I rolled down the window a bit for the air, and Matt got us there in less than ten minutes (LOVE Portland). Apparently I was screaming through surges (well I'll say moaning really loudly) on the ride, too, with said window open. (Um, Hi Portland! We love you…) We pulled up to the birth center and Carissa opened the door. I yelled through another surge and Carissa took my hand and said, "That's the last one you have to do in the car." Hallelujah!

Getting up the stairs to the front door was interesting. We were in a downstairs room, for which I was grateful. I don't remember a lot of the sequence of events from this point. I know I was leaning on the tub, listening to it fill. I remember crawling into the tub. The water was pleasant, but not the Nirvana of Comfort I had built up in my mind (apparently for some mamas it is) and I couldn't really find a position that felt good. I tried a couple, sitting cross legged and leaning on the edge of the tub, laying back on Matt. The surges were very powerful by this point, and I was trying to keep my tone low as I moan/screamed through them. I also did a lot of squeezing Matt's extremities, apparently cutting off circulation to his hand a couple times but mostly favoring forearms and calves. I remember asking if my body could do this without my brain, and being reassured that in fact it would do so better. "Can we take my brain out and put it in the fridge?" I think I asked. Because really, it wasn't that the surges hurt, so much as that they were so powerful and overwhelming that I just wanted to let them happen without having to be present for them mentally. This, of course, is the point of hypnobirthing, but having spent the first five centimeters in Fred Meyer, I missed my chance to really establish that great hypnotic state in which I would be able to let the surges wash over and past me like an ocean wave. But who knew this would go so fast!

So at some point we got out of the tub and tried the toilet, sitting forwards and backwards. Not comfy. So we moved to a birth stool. I don't remember when we started pushing, I think in the tub, but on the birth stool we were PUSHING. I was instructed to pull down with my arms and push through the surges. This felt counter intuitive - I wanted to push up with my arms. Neither way was doing the trick. I felt the baby's head, and then again a while later, and it hadn't progressed since moving to the birth stool. "She's stuck!" I wailed. "She's not stuck." Katherine assured me. "She hasn't moved down any." "Then it's time to change position." They put me in the bed on my back with my knees in the air. This felt MUCH BETTER. it helped the pressure on my back (not like back labor but not yummy), it slowed down the surges a little bit for a while, which was a pleasant rest, and my pushing felt different.

At some point in the tub I had complained that I didn't want to scream any more but it didn't feel voluntary. I tried singing/harmonic chanting through them, which helped some. I tried saying, "yes," to encourage my brain to accept the surges as a good thing (I got this from a home birth mama years ago, felt goofy but helped for a bit). Well, by the time we were in the bed pushing, there were wild banshee screams coming out of me and I had no say in the matter. My throat was getting tired, even though I was sipping Gatorade or water between every contraction. While I was on the birth stool I got hungry (recall I didn't get lunch after the grocery store - thank goodness for that medium decaf mocha freddo I had while shopping!) The midwives offered me food but I found it difficult to believe eating could be a good idea. Wasn't I supposed to be vomiting? So at this on the bed pushing like heck phase I said, "I'm running out of steam." "Then you need to eat." A popsicle was selected as most appealing to me - it was probably the best popsicle I ever ate. Carissa fed me bites between contractions.

The pushing was making progress at this point, and the feeling would change and the reaction of my Birth Posse (Hubby, three midwives, plus doula equals birth posse!) would change to let me know we were getting somewhere. At some point they offered me an oxygen mask, not insisting but suggesting, with which I was happy to cooperate. The decelerations in the baby's heart rate were acceptable but getting more pronounced and I wanted to do anything necessary to help her bounce back as fast as possible. The mask was hot and I didn't like to wear it during surges/pushes, but I put it back on or asked for it back between. This was when "sleep breathing" to let go of the surge became really helpful, the baby's heart rate reacted to my deep breathing fairly immediately. Soon she crowned, and I could feel her head coming out. The stretching became burning, and I felt some tearing. "OUCH!" at the end of push moans. Technique says slow down to let your perineum stretch more and I remembered this but I needed to be DONE and was okay with the discomfort.

Then her head was out! Yay! So why wasn't I done? Well, she was facing to the side. Left side, specifically, which makes sense because sleeping on my right felt best for most of my third trimester. Also, her hand was up by her cheek. So pushing out her shoulders was as hard or maybe harder than pushing out her head. Katherine took her hand and pulled her arm out (I think, I should verify with Matt) and then YAY! There's a warm, gooey baby on my tummy!!! The relief I felt from the surges being done was immense. I had spent a lot of time in the labor telling myself this was just a moment in time, it would be over soon, etc., and here it was, done! Baby! She felt just right resting on my heart where she belongs. The midwives were happy with how she looked and was sounding and everything, and I was over the moon. When the placenta came out I got another big surge (not nearly as big as the ones that got the baby out) and a gush of warm jello-like feeling and liquid, and then that was it. Done. I birthed my baby out my vagina without any meds (which is ONLY because I was in the birth center because I almost asked for them at least a dozen times but the thought of the trip to the hospital stopped me) just like I wanted. Several times during the experience I thought to myself, well if THIS is what I was missing it was silly of me to be so upset about how Robert's birth went! But now I am so grateful for this birth experience. When the midwives told me Jackie was 9 pounds 3 ounces I was astounded. I don't know how many times after that I said "Nine pounds?!?!?"

I needed stitching up, but they wanted to feed me first to get my strength up and let the swelling go down a bit. "Oh okay," I murmured skeptically, and then, "OOOooo, pasta!!!" I munched my way through half a (massive) serving of veggie lasagna from Pastini, which was delicious. Soon they got me up to go pee - I had gotten to the birth center around 2, and Jackie was born at 5:24. The labor was so lightening fast that I didn't manage to pee - even when I was laboring on the toilet I couldn't get the pee to come out. About 2/3 of the way to the toilet I got woozy, and when they sat me down I realized I was going to faint. I woke up to Melissa holding me up like a teddy bear, saying "are you with me Suzanne?" I dreamt during the faint and woke up with a song in my head that I had heard on the radio on my drive from the grocery store (dancing on the edge of the Hollywood sign…). Still no peeing accomplished. They put me in a wheelchair and got me back to and into bed. I lay there feeling like maybe I ate more lasagna than was really wise for a while, but eventually felt better, and we got me onto a bedside commode. PEEEEEE! Seriously you know that scene in the second Austen Powers movie where they get him out of cryosleep? Lots and lots of pee.

Now it was time to stitch me up. I was super apprehensive about the lydocaine, and asked Susannah (apprentice midwife) to pet my head and chat with me to distract me. It wasn't too bad, a couple of the shots in the perineum were pretty stingy but it was much better than when I was 15 and needed stitches in my face from a fall. Katherine stitched me up while Melissa watched, and Melissa praised Katherine's work, which made me feel good. They used purple thread, which amuses me because they know I like purple. Another trip to the bedside commode and it was time for sleep!

More thoughts later on the stay at the birth center, etc.