Liz’s Birth Story, Part One

My birth started on Sunday September 10, when I was 40 weeks and two days. While my husband Andrew and I were at his friends’ house for lunch I got my first contractions. About once an hour I got a mild pressure wave that wasn’t painful, but it required my attention. Even though they were so light, like the whisper of a contraction, I thought, “this is the beginning.”

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The mild pressure waves continued about once an hour until I went to bed at 10pm. I awoke at 12am with much stronger contractions – less than a minute long, but intense. I had a few about five minutes apart. The strength took me by surprise and I panicked a little and started crying. Andrew hadn’t come to bed yet, so I called him to the room to be with me. All the pain was in the front of my hips – it felt more like my psoases or my round ligaments were contracting as opposed to my uterus, which isn’t what I was expecting. I doubled over with every wave, pressing my fingers into the front of my hips to decrease the pain there, while Andrew’s hands were warm and strong on the sides of my hips. There were sensations in my abdomen too, but all I could feel were my hips – starting in the front and wrapping around to the sides. During those early pressure waves I remember pacing back and forth in our bedroom, soft light coming from the lamp on the dresser and Andrew squeezing my hips.

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The next 22 hours are blurry. I tried to lie down between contractions to get some sleep, but every pressure wave brought me to my feet. Around 10am, I called our birth center, Baby+CO, because I was tired and frustrated. I wanted the midwives to tell me it was time to come in, though I knew they wouldn’t because my pressure waves, though very intense, were still less than a minute long and hanging steady at 5-7 minutes apart. Instead I was told to take a bath and eat, try to get some sleep – all the things I tell my doula clients, but it was still annoying to hear. I really wanted this to be OVER.

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Laura was the midwife I spoke to on the phone; I was crying and miserable and she calmed me down. I took her advice and got in the bath and I ate some yogurt. At some point I vomited, which I took as a good sign, although Andrew wasn’t too excited about it. I got out of the tub and sat backwards on the toilet for a while, Andrew behind me always, with his hands on my hips. I was able to get a little rest between contractions by leaning forward on the back of the toilet. After a while, we went downstairs to try to sleep on the couch between pressure waves – which of course didn’t happen. But eventually I resigned myself to the pain in my lower abdomen, and the front and sides of my hips. I got into a weird seated position on the couch and we put on New Girl for a distraction. My pressure waves spaced out, although never decreased in intensity, and I was relatively comfortable when I wasn’t contracting. I knew the peak was the worst but shortest part. I didn’t move and became very tense during pressure waves – I needed to soften and relax, but just couldn’t manage it.

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Phoenix, my 10 year old step-daughter, came home around 6pm, and joined us downstairs. At first I wasn’t sure about her being there, because I didn’t know if I could let go in front of her – I thought it would scare her or her energy would affect me. But she just sat quietly on the couch and watched New Girl with us, didn’t say or do anything during contractions. I could just let them happen and breathe and moan and do what I needed to do.

Around 9pm she went to bed, and we decided to turn off the TV and most of the lights, while I sat on the birth ball. The pressure waves still weren’t much closer together, but they felt more intense and I was starting to feel frustrated again.

Around 11pm I decided I needed a change of scenery and that I wanted to go to Baby+CO. I wanted my cervix checked and to see what the midwives thought. I needed their female energy, calm voices and warm hands, their quiet and patient reassurance. Andrew went to load the car and get Phoenix ready. I was alone downstairs, swaying in front of the open window, feeling the cool air, tensing my body and moaning loudly with each pressure wave.

I remember getting to the car, dreading the ride. It took 15 minutes to get to the birth center; I sat on my left side, closed my eyes, and through each pressure wave I whispered out loud to myself, “it’s okay,” over and over again.

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Gaither and Ellen were the midwives that greeted us. I got ready for the cervical exam, and I was sure they were going to tell me I was 2cm and send us home. But Gaither checked and I was 6/7cm! Thank God!! I smiled for the first time in 24 hours. I felt such relief because I knew the majority of my birth was behind me. Phew!

My mom showed up within an hour of us getting to the birth center. She was sweet and excited, and took over squeezing my hips when Andrew needed a rest. She said when she first arrived at the birth center, she told the midwife who greeted her she was looking for me, but then heard me screaming from my room and knew exactly where to go.

I was able to get in the tub and it felt so comforting and relieving. My pressure waves were still intense and it was hard to find a comfortable position, but the water felt great. At one point Ellen put her thumb on my third eye, told me to relax and soften and I did. I remember feeling a pressure wave actually dissolve away into blissful nothingness. I got rest. My pressure waves continued to decrease in intensity and spaced out – which was completely fine with me – but Ellen made me get out. Apparently for the baby to come, they couldn’t space out. Whatever. Boo.

I sat on the birth ball, used the Swedish bars, the sling that hung from the ceiling. I walked, took a shower, sat backwards on the toilet. I was feeling so much pressure in my pelvis, which was unpleasant but I knew it was a good sign that things were progressing. I got back in the tub for a while until my pressure waves slowed down again. Why was this taking forever? Ellen had me get out of the tub, take some herbs and use a breast pump. She had me sit on the birth stool, which was hell. It created an intensity that I wanted to run from. I would get up with every contraction and bring my legs together. Bring my shoulders up by my ears. All the pain was in the front and sides of my hips, with a lot of downward pressure into my pelvis. Everything was going the way it was supposed to, but it was hard for me to sink into that; I just wanted to run away from that sensation.

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I took a shower and that helped me relax between pressure waves. I sat backwards on the toilet again and that was the most intense. The only way I kept my sanity was between contractions I almost fell into a trance and completely forgot what each previous contraction felt like; I knew that after the next one came and went I would forget again. The intensity would build then melt away. At the peak, though, I screamed and hit the wall and said “fuck” and “no” and “I hate this” and “I can’t do this.” Andrew and the midwives and my mom would say I was strong and I could do this; every negative thought was met with a chorus of support and positivity. It kept my sanity, but I just wanted it to end.

Phoenix slept through most of the birth, which was an achievement because I got LOUD. She was quite unfazed by the sound of my birth roar, each of the hundred times I said fuck, the nudity, blood, amniotic fluid. Hilariously unfazed.

Laura checked my cervix a couple more times – I was 9cm and then about an hour later I still had an anterior lip. It didn’t seem possible – how was it not time to push yet? Saying “I felt the urge to push” feels like the blandest way to express the downward power rushing through my body. I needed to push, the desire to push was coming through me and my conscious mind had no will or control over the situation. My body was doing this and I just had to let it happen, there was no stopping it. There was nothing in my life but the singular act of pushing. Even though I had the anterior lip, Laura told me to push if that’s what my body was telling me to do, sensing that the lip would disappear on its own.

It was 8am, about 8 hours since I had arrived at the birth center. By 8:31am, Harrison would be born. Since my body was telling me it was time to push, I got on my hands and knees on the bed and someone put the peanut ball on the bed for me to lean on. The downward pressure of pushing got more intense in this position. I had to push, had to allow my body to split in two. I felt panic and tension and it seemed absolutely impossible that this was happening to me or that I could do it. How do people do this? It gave me even more appreciation for my doula clients who do this in environments with strangers in and out, bright lights, loud noises, monitors strapped to their bellies, IVs in their arms and sometimes confined to their beds. It seemed impossible with none of those things, my best-case scenario. People are the strongest, bravest humans on the planet when they give birth, when they are confronted with this impossible situation. After being a doula for a few years, mine was the 66^th birth I attended. All the strength I witnessed in the clients I worked with before were part of the reason I knew I could do this.

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I remember Amanda, the nurse, in front of me, holding my hand, looking me in the eye, so calm with the biggest smile on her face. How could she be so fucking happy right now? But I remembered all the births where I was that person for my client; they are feeling this impossible feeling, and the rest of us are so excited and happy – I was doing everything right! Andrew was to my right, his hand on my arm; my midwife Laura behind me massaging my lower back with her strong and confident hands.

When I attend an unmedicated birth, I almost always get to hear the birth roar. This loud, deep roar from the center of my client’s being that reverberates through the room. It vibrates my skin, gives me goosebumps, brings tears to my eyes. I was so grateful that I got to feel where the roar comes from. Totally involuntary, a force both from deep within and from some unknowable force outside myself. Otherworldly. I feel so grateful I was able to feel that power in all its wildness. With every push that birth power pulsed through me. Ferocious and uncontrollable, I felt an earthquake of muscle contractions that stretched and opened my body for my baby to enter this world. Our bodies do what they need to do. Uninterrupted, my body was allowed to do what it needed to do. Our bodies have unfathomable power.

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My water broke during pushing, a pop and gush that took me by surprise. Through every push my husband, mom, stepdaughter and midwives cheered me on. Someone came in front of me to say they could see an inch of head with each contraction – was that all? That seemed ridiculous to me because it felt like my body was splitting 10 feet apart with every push. Andrew said he could see hair. Each push burned and split and was impossible. And then all the excited midwives and then holy shit the head is out! And the body is out and “THANK GOD!” The relief, that sweet delicious relief was the best feeling of my life.

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And then the peanut ball was gone, and I bent down to look at my baby on the bed beneath me. His eyes were open, he was alert and perfect and sweet and beautiful. My mom says the first thing I said when I saw him was, “he’s so cute!” I touched his face and lifted his warm slippery body into my arms and I felt my baby for the first time – the second greatest feeling of my life. Holy shit! I did it!

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During the hardest moments when what I was feeling seemed so impossible, I was surrounded by cheers and love and unwavering support and people who knew I could do it. And for that I am truly grateful.

I had about five blissful minutes of holding my baby against my chest, looking at his sweet little face and basking in the relief that my birth was over. But then my placenta was born and I started bleeding.

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Even though Laura maintained her calm “midwife voice,” I could tell she was concerned by the way she started directing the other midwives and nurses around me. In a very swift manner I was given an IV and pitocin and cytotec to help slow down my bleeding. Since the medication was effective and my bleeding started to slow, I was hoping I didn’t need to be transferred to the hospital. But an ambulance was called and a few minutes later I was whisked away on a gurney.

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Harrison was given to Andrew – they would join me at the hospital after Harrison was discharged in four hours. I had been there when doula clients had to be transferred from a birth center to a hospital so I felt I knew what to expect. But it was still heartbreaking to leave my baby and my husband behind, and to know I wasn’t going to hold Harrison for his first hour of life. But he was healthy and Andrew could hold him, and from my years as a doula I knew that mamas are resilient and babies are resilient. For that knowledge, I was grateful.

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During the ambulance ride, Laura had to climb on top of me on the gurney and put her hand inside my uterus to help stop the bleeding. But she was calm, so I was calm. At one point, to break the awkwardness, I told her I couldn’t wait for her hand to no longer be inside me, and she said “me, too” which made me laugh out loud. At least we still had our sense of humor.

Once I arrived at the Labor and Delivery floor at the hospital, the nurses and midwives moved about like a well-oiled machine, doing things to me that I don’t remember. The blood loss was making me disoriented and shaky; through it all, Laura was beside me, looking me in the eye and holding my hand. She was calm, so I was calm.

My mom soon arrived, and the activity around me subsided so Laura went back to the birth center. Even though I had lost a third of my blood, I didn’t need a transfusion. They even let me eat, which was difficult since my whole body was violently shaking – a side effect of birth hormones and blood loss.

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I slept for a couple hours, and only awoke when I heard Andrew’s voice. He had arrived with Phoenix and our sweet Harrison! As soon as I woke up, I felt normal again – no shaking or disorientation. I just wanted my baby on me, and we immediately did some skin to skin. It was a little difficult because I had so many wires and tubes attached to me, but we made it work. And I finally got to latch him to my breast to try nursing. His warm, squishy body against me was so delicious and sweet. I finally got to cuddle and snuggle him and for that I was grateful.

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You can read Part 2 of my birth story here – it’s about my first week postpartum, which didn’t go at all as I expected…