penelope's birth story
Nov. 6th, 2009 01:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aslanti've been writing this for a while, and now it seems mostly done. should i add something? did i leave out something important? let me know, if you read through it.
bonus: never before seen pic at the very end, first picture i have of her.
The story of Penelope’s birth has to begin with the waiting for her birth. Everyone had an idea of what she was waiting for. The full moon, a change in the weather, a beautiful day so I could take a long walk around the neighborhood. She was waiting for us to get one last good night’s sleep, for date night, for us to swing together on the playground swings at midday. She was waiting for me to get a last massage, to go to acupuncture, to take an herbal tincture, to drink my labor tea. To drink half a celebratory glass of wine. To sleep in, to dream, to hold still and cherish the calm before the storm. She was waiting for me to eat my mother’s famous lasagna, for us to clean the kitchen, for me to meditate in a hot bath. She was waiting for me to ask her to come, for me to let go of my fear, to figure out my anxiety, for me to jump in with both feet. For me to listen to dramatic music and feel labor take over like a symphony. For me to have a flash of intuition, for me to give up hope and be surprised. She was waiting for me to stop waiting. She was just plain waiting.
…
At 41 weeks and 3 days, the midwives asked me to get a nonstress test at the hospital where they also practiced. I spent the morning crying. I spent a lot of time crying in those last two weeks of my pregnancy, filled with dread and fear and doubt, and no matter how cathartic it felt, it didn’t bring on labor and there were more tears waiting. At the hospital my spirits were up but the nurse was worried; my amniotic fluid was low and the baby’s heart was decelerating after small contractions, a sign of distress. She wouldn’t let us leave until she gave the results to our midwife over the phone and got permission to let us go, because otherwise the neonatologist on their unit would see my results and ask why we hadn’t been induced right away. We spoke to the midwives later ourselves, and they told me to go home, spend the next day drinking as much water as possible and take the pressure off of labor starting that day. I did as they told, and repeated to myself like a mantra how the water would fill my belly and bring on labor, tomorrow. Notably, I did not specify how labor would start, I just knew that it would, somehow. Kirk and I went out to dinner (Mexican) and a movie (The Informant) and I carried my water bottle everywhere. On Sunday we were to go back to the clinic for another nonstress test, hoping that my fluid levels would improve.
Linda, the most senior midwife from the practice and a certified nurse midwife also on staff at the hospital, met us in the parking garage. It was a somewhat clandestine appointment, as the fetal monitoring unit was closed and she was going to use her keys to sneak us in. She has kind eyes set in a no-nonsense face, and I hadn’t felt as close to her during our prenatal visits as I had to the other, younger midwives, but I had instant, complete confidence in her at the hospital. As she led us into the deserted women’s health wing and into an exam room, I don’t remember much except feeling mostly calm with a slight undercurrent of tension. This was our last appeal, as it were. If Linda didn’t like what she found, we would be having our birth in the hospital, a fate that seemed determined to find me after I had so carefully worked to avoid it.
I sat on the paper-covered table and Linda swabbed me with jelly and worked the ultrasound wand. The room was too small for Kirk to stand next to me, so he stood where he could hold my feet and keep them warm against the chill of the room. Linda looked and looked, and I could see the concern on her face. I’m not seeing a lot of fluid here, she said. She continued to look for another several minutes, and took a few measurements of the amniotic pools she could find, but there were hardly any, that was clear. She reached over and touched my arm, and looked me in the eyes and said, regretfully but kindly, I’m afraid you’re not going to get your homebirth. Tears welled up as I heard this; she wiped me clean of the jelly and moved to put away the machine, saying, You should grieve now, it’s good to grieve. Kirk came up next to me and we hugged while I cried, fearing for myself and for our baby, for the experience that was coming to us that I felt utterly unprepared for. And yet, after days and days of crying, it seemed that maybe I was less sad about this than I thought I would be. Kirk reassured me that all would be fine, he would keep me safe no matter what. Though it was still a very abstract idea, we told each other that soon we would get to meet our baby, who we had waited so long for, and at least we knew for sure she was coming now. No more waiting.
I sat at the end of the exam table and held Kirk’s hand while Linda laid out our options. She wanted to admit us right away to Labor & Delivery and start me on Pitocin, and there was some urgency to it all because L&D was nearly full, and if we didn’t get a room right away we would have to go to another hospital where Linda would not be able to attend us. Linda also wanted us to prepare for the very real possibility that I would have a cesarean, since we had several risk factors to deal with. My gestational diabetes meant that the baby’s head or shoulders could get stuck; my low fluid level meant she might not tolerate contractions very well; as a late baby it was possible there was meconium in the waters, meaning they wouldn’t let me labor indefinitely on my own. She walked us through the whole cesarean procedure. Inserting the epidural. The blue sheet shielding me from the surgery itself. Who would be in the room, and where, and what they would be doing.
When we were done talking about all of this, Linda escorted us through a maze of hallways and elevators into the next building over, to the Labor & Delivery floor. Along the way we met several nurses and midwives and interns who knew Linda, smiled and greeted her happily; she introduced us along the way and told a shortened version of our story. Low fluids, time for induction, no homebirth. Everyone who heard this gave us great sympathy for the loss of the homebirth we had planned, which felt so supportive. Instead of being scolded for being overdue, everything seemed to signal we would be treated very well. She shared with us that tomorrow, October 5, was her birthday, and that she would be honored to delivery our baby for us on that day.
While Linda went to secure us the last available L&D room, we were put into a smaller room for more monitoring, and I was given my hospital gowns and asked to pee in a cup. Meanwhile, Kirk called our families and gave them the news, and asked my mom to come join us. We had always planned for her to be one of our birth partners, whether it happened at home or in the hospital. I felt extra safe knowing she would join us in the hospital, since she was a nurse herself and familiar with how the hospital worked. I remember sitting in the bed, attached to monitors, trying to be calm, drink my water, anything not to think about the expensive birthing pool sitting abandoned in our living room, or the box of homebirth supplies languishing under a table in the corner. I told myself we had tried everything to make labor come on its own, we couldn’t have known it would come to this. I was still teary, but trying to be brave and awake to everything that was happening, not slip into self-pity or fear.
Once we were in the labor and delivery room Kirk went to get us some food from the cafeteria, since by then we’d missed lunch by several hours. Our plan was to wait for my Mom to arrive (with a few supplies from home), then she would stay with me while the nurse put in my IV line and Kirk went home to get the rest of our things. Only when he returned would I allow them to start the Pitocin drip. But while we waited for my Mom to arrive, Linda wanted to check my cervix for dilation and try sweeping my membranes, which might have the effect of bringing on labor by itself. I was completely unprepared for how painful this would be. I held Kirk’s hand tightly and Linda had me scoot down onto her fingers, so I could feel a little more in control, but mainly what I felt was crazy pain, like I was being opened up way, way too wide. I squeezed my eyes shut and found myself sort of chanting, I’m right here, this is where I am, here I am, this is where I am, all these nonsense half-sentences that made me focus on saying words and not screaming or crying, trying to stay in my head and not panic. When Linda finally pulled out, she congratulated me, saying I was at three centimeters already, and to expect some bloody show from the membrane sweep. I felt like this was the first trial, and I had passed, shaky and smiling.
My mom arrived and Kirk left to go home and get the rest of our things. Our nurse prepped me for the IV insertion, another trial I was scared to face. She first tried to insert it on the back of my arm, but she ran into a valve and the IV backed up, so she had to try again in the back of my hand, but I tried to breathe and relax through the whole thing just the same, telling myself this was good preparation for labor pains. When it was finally in she and my mom congratulated me on being brave, and she taped my wrist up firmly so I wouldn’t accidentally jar the line during labor.
By the time Kirk returned, it was already dark, the nursing shift changed, and I was started on a very low dose of Pitocin and told to try to get some rest. My mom went home for the night and we settled in, me on the ridiculously uncomfortable hospital bed, Kirk in one of those ridiculous fold-out armchair beds. As anyone knows, it is near impossible to sleep in a hospital, with nurses coming in to check on you constantly, random beeping noises out in the hall, the added discomfort of the baby monitor strapped to my enormous belly. The contractions on Pitocin were noticeable but still really, really faint, only once becoming strong enough that I had to breathe through it; they had started me on a super low dose and came to turn it up every thirty minutes. I caught a few catnaps, but around 3 or 4am I started to hear another woman through the wall of our room, gulping for air and groaning in her labor. It sounded like she was drowning. Her noises kept me awake, I was rooting for her and desperately wanted her to give birth so the drowning noises would stop. Finally she did give birth, around 5am I think, and when I heard the baby’s first cries I started crying myself and woke Kirk up to tell him. I never really slept after that. Eventually dawn came over the city view outside our window, gray and quiet.
As morning came, a nurse mentioned that Linda had left orders for me to get a break from the Pitocin for a shower and breakfast, around 8am. I was excited, I knew it would never have happened under the care of an obstetrician. Eventually I was freed from my IV lines, so I no longer had to pull the IV tower with me when I went to the bathroom, and Linda walked me down to the cafeteria so we could order fresh omelets. I could barely fit into my sandals, since they were also pumping me full of saline for hydration, and I was swathed in my gown and a robe, my huge belly underneath. As we walked we chatted about other labors she had helped on, about swine flu at the hospital; I brought up a hot muffin and coffee for Kirk, and ate my enormous omelet and took a shower, which felt glorious after my long night of insomnia and restlessness.
Once we were done with breakfast and showers, Linda wanted to check my cervix again and break my bag of waters, but this time she came prepared with a numbing gel, so it wasn’t as painful as the last time. When she checked me, I was at 4.5 centimeters, which was progress but not spectacular, since I had been on pitocin for a full twelve hours overnight. Whatever drip rate I was on, I was told they would start at 3 and gradually work up, and that I would really start to feel it at 12 or 13. When they had turned me off before breakfast, I had been somewhere around 17 or 18, and still feeling nothing. But progress was progress, so it was time to break my waters. I didn’t even feel the hook as she inserted it, all I felt was the warm rush of fluids as they came out of me onto the bed, a joyful moment that I still remember vividly. Linda was happy as she told me my fluids were clear, no sign of meconium, meaning I was one step closer to a vaginal birth.
Soon after my waters were broken, Kirk and I were left alone in the room. Linda had instructed me to do lots of walking -- I could walk a whole circuit around the unit wearing my wireless fetal monitors, though as it turned out I only wanted to pace back and forth in our room, because things started moving quickly. I was also supposed to lift my belly and let it roll down, a motion that would help the baby move down and flex her neck so her head would be in the best position for a swift labor. I paced back and forth, rolling my belly, and my contractions started to get surprisingly strong. I told Kirk to call my mother to join us. I don’t know what I had expected, but my waters were broken around 9am and labor came on strong almost immediately.
I started making low moans and singing sounds deep in my throat with each contraction, and I was drawn to a pile of pillows that had been left on the deep windowsill. As the contractions got stronger, I would lean my elbows into the pillows and place my head in my hands while Kirk massaged my back and worked pressure points at the base of my spine meant to help alleviate the pain. When my mom arrived, she and Kirk started trading turns on the pressure points, since it took a lot of force to lean into me and have any effect. For the first hour or two of my labor, I was still able to talk between contractions and walk, though I was totally in labor land during the contractions, unable to speak or open my eyes or do anything other than focus on the sounds coming out of my throat and the gripping, tightening pain in my uterus. It’s true that there is nothing in the world that can prepare you for labor pains, nothing that compares to that inescapable feeling of pressure bearing down from inside. Childbirthing class techniques seemed worlds away, as did most of the poetry and metaphors I had read and internalized about labor. It was exactly what it was. It was labor, there was no escape, and the only thing to do was to endure each wave as it came, and to breathe when you came out the other side.
I got a little restless as the contractions got stronger and stronger, but was losing energy, my legs weak from supporting me. I tried leaning over the back of an armchair, doing cat and cow poses from yoga; I tried to sit on a birthing ball and it felt awful to have the pressure against my bottom, so I kept pacing and leaning into the pillows. But eventually I was so tired that I sat in the armchair and just collapsed between contractions, willing my body to rest up for the next wave. I tried to stay completely limp through a few contractions, which was nearly impossible as every muscle in you wants to find a way to escape or lessen the pain, and you can’t just sit still through it. My shoulders would tense up, I would try to lift myself from the chair without standing. Giving into the sensations seemed to be no better or worse than trying to pull away from them. I tried to dive into the center of the pain, a technique we had practiced in class, and it felt futile, more like my brain was getting overexcited by the sensations than anything else.
After only a few contractions sitting in the armchair, I think it was clear to Kirk and my mom that I needed something more to help with the pain. They helped me move into the shower. I remember taking off my robe and pulling off the wireless contraction monitors with my eyes mostly closed. The contractions were getting so strong that I was crying a little bit, needing relief. We called the nurse and Linda to ask about getting the water tub set up in our room, and meanwhile I sat in the shower under a stream of hot water trying to endure each contraction, although it seemed like the pain was getting way too intense to tolerate. I was desperate for relief at this point. Kirk stood by my side but I could hardly open my eyes to look at him. I heard my mom ask Kirk to turn down the water temperature, because I was holding the sprayer so it flowed down my back, and apparently there was a clear red mark where my skin was heating up from the constant stream of hot water. I couldn’t pay attention to much else, though, and when the next few contractions came, I knew that I either needed to get into a pool of water, or to get an epidural. It was very clear to me that this labor was too strong for me. Every pain endurance technique fled from me, it was impossible to meditate or get away from the strength of each wave. I felt I had no more reserves and that I would break if I had to endure more contractions.
There were noises in the other room as the water tub was brought in. I remember Kirk telling me it was the same one we had bought to have at home. I heard Linda’s voice, and she told us that we’d have to turn off the shower in order to fill the tub. The idea filled me with fear, as it seemed the warm water flowing down my back was the only relief I had at that moment, so gripping Kirk’s hands and crying as another contraction ripped through me, I told him I thought I needed an epidural. I think I need it. I need it. I want it. It has to be now. I need the relief. We had talked about what to do if I reached this point, but I think all we had decided was that Kirk would know if I was really asking, or if I didn’t really need it. I recall him affirming my choice to Linda, who swiftly brought in the anesthesiologist to talk to me. Linda was also worried because my contractions were slowing down in the shower, which meant they might slow even more if I got in the tub. If my labor was reversing, I was really in trouble. The tub was drained and deflated and removed from the room before I even saw it – all I remember is the green hose being removed from the shower where I sat in pain, trying my hardest to endure. Of course, this was transition, the most painful part of labor, a period that doesn’t last for long usually, but we couldn’t have known that for sure. I had been in labor only for about three hours since my water had been broken.
The nurse wanted me to get out of the shower and try to pee before my next contraction and before the epidural, so I sat on the toilet and peed even though it was so painful to be out of the shower. This point I remember very, very clearly. As I sat on the toilet, I felt a new contraction come on, and it was deep down in my bottom. Like the biggest shit of my life was trying to come out, and I couldn’t get out of the way. I cried out, oh my god I can feel it in my butt! It’s in my bottom now! I knew this information was important, I had read lots of labor stories where that was the signal that it was time to start pushing, because the baby was low enough and the cervix open enough that the pressure in the birth canal was pushing on the rectum. As soon as Linda heard me say this, I was swiftly brought back to the birthing bed and she checked my cervix, and told me I only had a small lip of cervix remaining. With that, the anesthesiologist and his team disappeared. I’d been told that it was never “too late” for an epidural, but apparently it was, at that point. I doubt they would have gotten me to hold still long enough for them to insert the needle anyway, the contractions were coming so fast and so hard. Kirk stood and held my hand on my left side, on the other was my mom holding my hand and my right leg, on the left a nurse held my left leg, and below me stood Linda. I began pushing in earnest with each contraction, but Linda told me the baby was not handling the contractions well, and I would have to try to stop pushing on every other contraction. This seemed somewhat absurd, but I tried my hardest not to push when she asked, because when you feel the need to push there is no force on earth that can stop your body from pushing. With each contraction I would make deep low sounds, grunts or moans, while pulling my legs up with the help of my mom and the nurse. Although lying on my back might be an absurd position, given all I had read about the benefits of hands and knees, or squatting, I was so tired at this point that I doubt I would have had the energy to do anything more than lie on my back and accept the help I was given.
Between waves, they would put my legs down for me and I would try to catch my breath and look into Kirk’s eyes, while the nurse used the ultrasound wand to find the baby’s heartbeat. Later my mom told me that after each contraction, the baby’s heartbeat was going down from the 140s to the 70s, and although it would gradually get back to normal, it was worrisome to the whole team that her heart was doing so poorly. Linda told me to be prepared for them to pull her out if necessary, if it seemed like she was stuck or like she might have the umbilical cord around her neck. I couldn’t see it, but the pediatric ICU team was waiting behind a partition wall, ready to resuscitate her if needed. (Later I learned my brother’s girlfriend, a NICU nurse, had personally requested that particular ICU team for me, which I thought was sweet.)
As I pushed into each contraction, Linda kept urging me to make my noises lower in pitch and tone, down from my chest and throat into my belly, way down deep into my gut. I wasn’t making high pitched noises, but I couldn’t seem to get the sounds she wanted me to make, so before the next contraction I looked up at Kirk and told him help me make the right sound, to make the sound so I could imitate him and we could do it together. We did, and it seemed to work, because only a few contractions later her head was crowning. I put my hand down to feel the top of her head, and it was wet and surprisingly soft. I was surprised that she had hair.
When a contraction came over me, I would have to find the right point to really put my concentration behind a push. If I started too early or too late in the wave I would waste my effort, unable to catch it. The pain was incredible, with such pressure in my rectum that it really did feel like she was going to come out my bottom. There were a few more contractions where I rested or pushed while she was still in the birth canal, and then Linda was urging me to make the biggest push I possibly could muster; Kirk and I made our sounds together as I pushed my hardest, feeling like I would rip into two (which I did, actually) or burst my eyes and lungs if it went any longer. But it didn’t go any longer, because with that last enormous push her entire head and body came out all at once, which was a feeling of such intense relief and giddy joy. She was put on my belly immediately, and was breathing fine without really crying that much, just tiny squalling noises, and my mom immediately remarked that she had come out with her thumb in her mouth. Her hair was dark and curly, like Kirk’s, and she was so unbelievably tiny and perfect. It was a very strange sensation, familiar and foreign, to meet her after carrying her for so long unseen. I held her to my chest and cried a little, Kirk bent over with us so we could get as close to her as possible. Her little strong hands gripped our fingers so tightly. She was wet and warm, a little bit wiggly, and her skin was soft with the last white remains of the vernix. I could feel our umbilical cord lying along my belly as I laid there. I don’t know how long it took, but at some point Linda asked me to get ready to push out the placenta, but right as she said this I felt one last contraction come over me, and in another rush of relief the entire placenta slid right out onto the table, surprising us both.
Our little Penelope Jane, we said, and the nurses repeated her name while Kirk and I held her and someone gave her time of birth from the clock, 1:39pm. I figured out how quickly my labor had gone, which gave me a bit of a surprise. I seem to recall various medical things going on around us – sheets being changed, my blood pressure being taken. The labor nurse kept pressing hard down into my stomach, which was painful but helped small floods of blood clots come out of me. My mom took some pictures and Kirk and I took a short video of her as she nuzzled into my chest. At some point the cord stopped pulsing (was this before the placenta came out?) and Linda clamped it and brought Kirk the scissors to cut it. I think he wasn’t that excited for this part, but if someone had to do it I’m glad it was him. Eventually they took her briefly to be weighed, and she was wrapped into a blanket and Kirk got to hold her for the first time. His face, as he looked into hers, was so beautiful and filled with love.
Throughout all this, I was still sitting sprawl-legged on the delivery bed and feeling like I was gapingly exposed. Not in a prudish way, but in the sense that there was this massive opening into my body for the moment and it felt weird. Linda kept evaluating things and eventually we were told that it looked like I had a pretty deep tear in my vagina. They had the option of stitching me up in the room, using a pudendal nerve block, but it was likely that it wouldn’t reach far enough to totally numb me to the pain. I was a little scared of that, so eventually we settled on the option of having the tear repaired in the operating room down the hall, with a spinal anesthetic. I talked with the anesthesiologist beforehand because I wanted to be given some kind of sedative that would keep me calm but not cause me to completely pass out for the surgery.
When I was finally wheeled into the OR, we left Penelope with my Mom so Kirk could get into a ‘bunny suit’ and come to keep me company, though as it turned out by the time he was outfitted they were nearly done with the surgery, and I’m not sure he would have wanted to see the operation anyway (you had to pass by my feet to enter the room). I remember slumping over my midwife’s shoulder as they numbed my back and gave me the sedative, just before inserting the spinal catheter, but after that I only remember a few details. I felt pretty calm despite the intensive surgery going on, though I remember towards the end talking with the anesthesiologist because I was so cold, my teeth wouldn’t stop chattering. This was from the massive amount of IV fluids they were pumping into me, cold as can be. I kept trying to breathe and relax, thinking that I was chattering my teeth from nerves rather than from the temperature. All I could see was a blue sheet around my waist and the curious articulated arm of the surgical lamps extending from the ceiling toward my nether regions. The operation seemed to take a long time, though later I learned it was only about an hour. When we were done they wheeled me into the recovery room, where Kirk came to stay with me and hold my hand. It was strange to be without Penelope, but I was happy knowing she was with my mom and Kirk’s mom, and that we would join them soon. The nurse kept checking my pulse (which was quite weak) for about twenty minutes before they would consent to wheel me up to our room in the Mother-Baby unit, where we were promised the beds were much more comfortable than on the labor and delivery floor. (They were right about that, though I wasn’t able to tell until the spinal wore off and I could move my legs again, which took another couple hours.)
When we arrived in our room upstairs, we found a sweet scene: Kirk’s mom in the rocking chair with Penelope fast asleep on her shoulder, and Kirk’s dad and my mom sitting happily nearby. Being separated from Penelope was not our first choice, but surgery was serious and necessary and I kind of liked the fact that she was taken care of by grandparents for that sleepy hour after her first wakeful bit of time with us after the delivery. Later my mom told the funny story of how, once we had been wheeled down to surgery, everyone had left the room and my mom was alone with Penny, who promptly peed on her and forced my mom to ransack the room looking for a diaper.
While we had been waiting in the recovery room after my surgery, I remarked to Kirk that I kept thinking back over the entire experience and I couldn’t think of a single thing that was traumatic or that made me regret any of our decisions. We were tremendously grateful to have given birth safely in the hospital, after all our plans, given the serious risks to Penelope during contractions and the surgery I had needed afterward. If we had given birth at home, I suppose there is no way to know if I would have suffered such a serious tear, but it would have necessitated me being transported to the hospital, perhaps by ambulance, where we would have gone through a whirlwind of unfamiliarity and I would have been stitched up by a stranger rather than my immensely capable midwife and her assistants. And the birth could have gone in a completely different direction, too. If I had not been so far along in labor when I requested the epidural, I would have gotten it, and pushing would have lasted much longer since I wouldn’t be able to feel the contractions; with a longer labor PJ’s heart would have been in more danger, and it’s highly likely they would have stopped my labor and given me an emergency cesarean to keep her safe. The entire thing felt like a cascade of miracles, once it got going. My waters were miraculously meconium-free, and my three hours of hard labor miraculously got me right to the edge of pushing, and somehow I was able to get through the last hour without any pain medications even though I desperately wanted them. And at the end, we got our beautiful daughter, healthy as can be, our beautiful dark-haired Penelope Jane, and I felt safe and protected and supported by everyone we met.
As I reread this, Penny is now one month old, and already it seems I can hardly remember the pain of labor. I suppose that is because it is so utterly unlike anything else I’ve ever felt. It’s not a pain like the intensity of a broken bone, or the sharpness of needles or stitches, or anything else. You can’t move away from it, or move in any way that really lessens its force, and that is how it is so intense. Eventually there is no relief, except to get the baby out, and that is the tipping point at which I wanted an epidural so badly. If I got there again, I would gladly ask for it. If we have another baby, I’m not certain I would want to try for a homebirth, especially as I would be at greater risk of rupturing the scar tissue along the repair. I’d be much more likely to go to a midwife unit of a hospital, and labor there. The hospital was not an alienating place, after all, because we felt protected by Linda, and because no one thought we were strange or out of place for wanting to do it naturally. And when it came down to it, they had lactation specialists on call, a steady stream of fresh sheets and towels, blankets, pillows, gloves. Their floor was not carpeted, like our living room, so I felt completely free to move around no matter what fluids were leaking out of me. I’m not certain what it would have been like at home, even though it was something we wanted; all I know is that it seemed to go so smoothly and perfectly at the hospital, and I am so grateful for that.
bonus: never before seen pic at the very end, first picture i have of her.
The story of Penelope’s birth has to begin with the waiting for her birth. Everyone had an idea of what she was waiting for. The full moon, a change in the weather, a beautiful day so I could take a long walk around the neighborhood. She was waiting for us to get one last good night’s sleep, for date night, for us to swing together on the playground swings at midday. She was waiting for me to get a last massage, to go to acupuncture, to take an herbal tincture, to drink my labor tea. To drink half a celebratory glass of wine. To sleep in, to dream, to hold still and cherish the calm before the storm. She was waiting for me to eat my mother’s famous lasagna, for us to clean the kitchen, for me to meditate in a hot bath. She was waiting for me to ask her to come, for me to let go of my fear, to figure out my anxiety, for me to jump in with both feet. For me to listen to dramatic music and feel labor take over like a symphony. For me to have a flash of intuition, for me to give up hope and be surprised. She was waiting for me to stop waiting. She was just plain waiting.
…
At 41 weeks and 3 days, the midwives asked me to get a nonstress test at the hospital where they also practiced. I spent the morning crying. I spent a lot of time crying in those last two weeks of my pregnancy, filled with dread and fear and doubt, and no matter how cathartic it felt, it didn’t bring on labor and there were more tears waiting. At the hospital my spirits were up but the nurse was worried; my amniotic fluid was low and the baby’s heart was decelerating after small contractions, a sign of distress. She wouldn’t let us leave until she gave the results to our midwife over the phone and got permission to let us go, because otherwise the neonatologist on their unit would see my results and ask why we hadn’t been induced right away. We spoke to the midwives later ourselves, and they told me to go home, spend the next day drinking as much water as possible and take the pressure off of labor starting that day. I did as they told, and repeated to myself like a mantra how the water would fill my belly and bring on labor, tomorrow. Notably, I did not specify how labor would start, I just knew that it would, somehow. Kirk and I went out to dinner (Mexican) and a movie (The Informant) and I carried my water bottle everywhere. On Sunday we were to go back to the clinic for another nonstress test, hoping that my fluid levels would improve.
Linda, the most senior midwife from the practice and a certified nurse midwife also on staff at the hospital, met us in the parking garage. It was a somewhat clandestine appointment, as the fetal monitoring unit was closed and she was going to use her keys to sneak us in. She has kind eyes set in a no-nonsense face, and I hadn’t felt as close to her during our prenatal visits as I had to the other, younger midwives, but I had instant, complete confidence in her at the hospital. As she led us into the deserted women’s health wing and into an exam room, I don’t remember much except feeling mostly calm with a slight undercurrent of tension. This was our last appeal, as it were. If Linda didn’t like what she found, we would be having our birth in the hospital, a fate that seemed determined to find me after I had so carefully worked to avoid it.
I sat on the paper-covered table and Linda swabbed me with jelly and worked the ultrasound wand. The room was too small for Kirk to stand next to me, so he stood where he could hold my feet and keep them warm against the chill of the room. Linda looked and looked, and I could see the concern on her face. I’m not seeing a lot of fluid here, she said. She continued to look for another several minutes, and took a few measurements of the amniotic pools she could find, but there were hardly any, that was clear. She reached over and touched my arm, and looked me in the eyes and said, regretfully but kindly, I’m afraid you’re not going to get your homebirth. Tears welled up as I heard this; she wiped me clean of the jelly and moved to put away the machine, saying, You should grieve now, it’s good to grieve. Kirk came up next to me and we hugged while I cried, fearing for myself and for our baby, for the experience that was coming to us that I felt utterly unprepared for. And yet, after days and days of crying, it seemed that maybe I was less sad about this than I thought I would be. Kirk reassured me that all would be fine, he would keep me safe no matter what. Though it was still a very abstract idea, we told each other that soon we would get to meet our baby, who we had waited so long for, and at least we knew for sure she was coming now. No more waiting.
I sat at the end of the exam table and held Kirk’s hand while Linda laid out our options. She wanted to admit us right away to Labor & Delivery and start me on Pitocin, and there was some urgency to it all because L&D was nearly full, and if we didn’t get a room right away we would have to go to another hospital where Linda would not be able to attend us. Linda also wanted us to prepare for the very real possibility that I would have a cesarean, since we had several risk factors to deal with. My gestational diabetes meant that the baby’s head or shoulders could get stuck; my low fluid level meant she might not tolerate contractions very well; as a late baby it was possible there was meconium in the waters, meaning they wouldn’t let me labor indefinitely on my own. She walked us through the whole cesarean procedure. Inserting the epidural. The blue sheet shielding me from the surgery itself. Who would be in the room, and where, and what they would be doing.
When we were done talking about all of this, Linda escorted us through a maze of hallways and elevators into the next building over, to the Labor & Delivery floor. Along the way we met several nurses and midwives and interns who knew Linda, smiled and greeted her happily; she introduced us along the way and told a shortened version of our story. Low fluids, time for induction, no homebirth. Everyone who heard this gave us great sympathy for the loss of the homebirth we had planned, which felt so supportive. Instead of being scolded for being overdue, everything seemed to signal we would be treated very well. She shared with us that tomorrow, October 5, was her birthday, and that she would be honored to delivery our baby for us on that day.
While Linda went to secure us the last available L&D room, we were put into a smaller room for more monitoring, and I was given my hospital gowns and asked to pee in a cup. Meanwhile, Kirk called our families and gave them the news, and asked my mom to come join us. We had always planned for her to be one of our birth partners, whether it happened at home or in the hospital. I felt extra safe knowing she would join us in the hospital, since she was a nurse herself and familiar with how the hospital worked. I remember sitting in the bed, attached to monitors, trying to be calm, drink my water, anything not to think about the expensive birthing pool sitting abandoned in our living room, or the box of homebirth supplies languishing under a table in the corner. I told myself we had tried everything to make labor come on its own, we couldn’t have known it would come to this. I was still teary, but trying to be brave and awake to everything that was happening, not slip into self-pity or fear.
Once we were in the labor and delivery room Kirk went to get us some food from the cafeteria, since by then we’d missed lunch by several hours. Our plan was to wait for my Mom to arrive (with a few supplies from home), then she would stay with me while the nurse put in my IV line and Kirk went home to get the rest of our things. Only when he returned would I allow them to start the Pitocin drip. But while we waited for my Mom to arrive, Linda wanted to check my cervix for dilation and try sweeping my membranes, which might have the effect of bringing on labor by itself. I was completely unprepared for how painful this would be. I held Kirk’s hand tightly and Linda had me scoot down onto her fingers, so I could feel a little more in control, but mainly what I felt was crazy pain, like I was being opened up way, way too wide. I squeezed my eyes shut and found myself sort of chanting, I’m right here, this is where I am, here I am, this is where I am, all these nonsense half-sentences that made me focus on saying words and not screaming or crying, trying to stay in my head and not panic. When Linda finally pulled out, she congratulated me, saying I was at three centimeters already, and to expect some bloody show from the membrane sweep. I felt like this was the first trial, and I had passed, shaky and smiling.
My mom arrived and Kirk left to go home and get the rest of our things. Our nurse prepped me for the IV insertion, another trial I was scared to face. She first tried to insert it on the back of my arm, but she ran into a valve and the IV backed up, so she had to try again in the back of my hand, but I tried to breathe and relax through the whole thing just the same, telling myself this was good preparation for labor pains. When it was finally in she and my mom congratulated me on being brave, and she taped my wrist up firmly so I wouldn’t accidentally jar the line during labor.
By the time Kirk returned, it was already dark, the nursing shift changed, and I was started on a very low dose of Pitocin and told to try to get some rest. My mom went home for the night and we settled in, me on the ridiculously uncomfortable hospital bed, Kirk in one of those ridiculous fold-out armchair beds. As anyone knows, it is near impossible to sleep in a hospital, with nurses coming in to check on you constantly, random beeping noises out in the hall, the added discomfort of the baby monitor strapped to my enormous belly. The contractions on Pitocin were noticeable but still really, really faint, only once becoming strong enough that I had to breathe through it; they had started me on a super low dose and came to turn it up every thirty minutes. I caught a few catnaps, but around 3 or 4am I started to hear another woman through the wall of our room, gulping for air and groaning in her labor. It sounded like she was drowning. Her noises kept me awake, I was rooting for her and desperately wanted her to give birth so the drowning noises would stop. Finally she did give birth, around 5am I think, and when I heard the baby’s first cries I started crying myself and woke Kirk up to tell him. I never really slept after that. Eventually dawn came over the city view outside our window, gray and quiet.
As morning came, a nurse mentioned that Linda had left orders for me to get a break from the Pitocin for a shower and breakfast, around 8am. I was excited, I knew it would never have happened under the care of an obstetrician. Eventually I was freed from my IV lines, so I no longer had to pull the IV tower with me when I went to the bathroom, and Linda walked me down to the cafeteria so we could order fresh omelets. I could barely fit into my sandals, since they were also pumping me full of saline for hydration, and I was swathed in my gown and a robe, my huge belly underneath. As we walked we chatted about other labors she had helped on, about swine flu at the hospital; I brought up a hot muffin and coffee for Kirk, and ate my enormous omelet and took a shower, which felt glorious after my long night of insomnia and restlessness.
Once we were done with breakfast and showers, Linda wanted to check my cervix again and break my bag of waters, but this time she came prepared with a numbing gel, so it wasn’t as painful as the last time. When she checked me, I was at 4.5 centimeters, which was progress but not spectacular, since I had been on pitocin for a full twelve hours overnight. Whatever drip rate I was on, I was told they would start at 3 and gradually work up, and that I would really start to feel it at 12 or 13. When they had turned me off before breakfast, I had been somewhere around 17 or 18, and still feeling nothing. But progress was progress, so it was time to break my waters. I didn’t even feel the hook as she inserted it, all I felt was the warm rush of fluids as they came out of me onto the bed, a joyful moment that I still remember vividly. Linda was happy as she told me my fluids were clear, no sign of meconium, meaning I was one step closer to a vaginal birth.
Soon after my waters were broken, Kirk and I were left alone in the room. Linda had instructed me to do lots of walking -- I could walk a whole circuit around the unit wearing my wireless fetal monitors, though as it turned out I only wanted to pace back and forth in our room, because things started moving quickly. I was also supposed to lift my belly and let it roll down, a motion that would help the baby move down and flex her neck so her head would be in the best position for a swift labor. I paced back and forth, rolling my belly, and my contractions started to get surprisingly strong. I told Kirk to call my mother to join us. I don’t know what I had expected, but my waters were broken around 9am and labor came on strong almost immediately.
I started making low moans and singing sounds deep in my throat with each contraction, and I was drawn to a pile of pillows that had been left on the deep windowsill. As the contractions got stronger, I would lean my elbows into the pillows and place my head in my hands while Kirk massaged my back and worked pressure points at the base of my spine meant to help alleviate the pain. When my mom arrived, she and Kirk started trading turns on the pressure points, since it took a lot of force to lean into me and have any effect. For the first hour or two of my labor, I was still able to talk between contractions and walk, though I was totally in labor land during the contractions, unable to speak or open my eyes or do anything other than focus on the sounds coming out of my throat and the gripping, tightening pain in my uterus. It’s true that there is nothing in the world that can prepare you for labor pains, nothing that compares to that inescapable feeling of pressure bearing down from inside. Childbirthing class techniques seemed worlds away, as did most of the poetry and metaphors I had read and internalized about labor. It was exactly what it was. It was labor, there was no escape, and the only thing to do was to endure each wave as it came, and to breathe when you came out the other side.
I got a little restless as the contractions got stronger and stronger, but was losing energy, my legs weak from supporting me. I tried leaning over the back of an armchair, doing cat and cow poses from yoga; I tried to sit on a birthing ball and it felt awful to have the pressure against my bottom, so I kept pacing and leaning into the pillows. But eventually I was so tired that I sat in the armchair and just collapsed between contractions, willing my body to rest up for the next wave. I tried to stay completely limp through a few contractions, which was nearly impossible as every muscle in you wants to find a way to escape or lessen the pain, and you can’t just sit still through it. My shoulders would tense up, I would try to lift myself from the chair without standing. Giving into the sensations seemed to be no better or worse than trying to pull away from them. I tried to dive into the center of the pain, a technique we had practiced in class, and it felt futile, more like my brain was getting overexcited by the sensations than anything else.
After only a few contractions sitting in the armchair, I think it was clear to Kirk and my mom that I needed something more to help with the pain. They helped me move into the shower. I remember taking off my robe and pulling off the wireless contraction monitors with my eyes mostly closed. The contractions were getting so strong that I was crying a little bit, needing relief. We called the nurse and Linda to ask about getting the water tub set up in our room, and meanwhile I sat in the shower under a stream of hot water trying to endure each contraction, although it seemed like the pain was getting way too intense to tolerate. I was desperate for relief at this point. Kirk stood by my side but I could hardly open my eyes to look at him. I heard my mom ask Kirk to turn down the water temperature, because I was holding the sprayer so it flowed down my back, and apparently there was a clear red mark where my skin was heating up from the constant stream of hot water. I couldn’t pay attention to much else, though, and when the next few contractions came, I knew that I either needed to get into a pool of water, or to get an epidural. It was very clear to me that this labor was too strong for me. Every pain endurance technique fled from me, it was impossible to meditate or get away from the strength of each wave. I felt I had no more reserves and that I would break if I had to endure more contractions.
There were noises in the other room as the water tub was brought in. I remember Kirk telling me it was the same one we had bought to have at home. I heard Linda’s voice, and she told us that we’d have to turn off the shower in order to fill the tub. The idea filled me with fear, as it seemed the warm water flowing down my back was the only relief I had at that moment, so gripping Kirk’s hands and crying as another contraction ripped through me, I told him I thought I needed an epidural. I think I need it. I need it. I want it. It has to be now. I need the relief. We had talked about what to do if I reached this point, but I think all we had decided was that Kirk would know if I was really asking, or if I didn’t really need it. I recall him affirming my choice to Linda, who swiftly brought in the anesthesiologist to talk to me. Linda was also worried because my contractions were slowing down in the shower, which meant they might slow even more if I got in the tub. If my labor was reversing, I was really in trouble. The tub was drained and deflated and removed from the room before I even saw it – all I remember is the green hose being removed from the shower where I sat in pain, trying my hardest to endure. Of course, this was transition, the most painful part of labor, a period that doesn’t last for long usually, but we couldn’t have known that for sure. I had been in labor only for about three hours since my water had been broken.
The nurse wanted me to get out of the shower and try to pee before my next contraction and before the epidural, so I sat on the toilet and peed even though it was so painful to be out of the shower. This point I remember very, very clearly. As I sat on the toilet, I felt a new contraction come on, and it was deep down in my bottom. Like the biggest shit of my life was trying to come out, and I couldn’t get out of the way. I cried out, oh my god I can feel it in my butt! It’s in my bottom now! I knew this information was important, I had read lots of labor stories where that was the signal that it was time to start pushing, because the baby was low enough and the cervix open enough that the pressure in the birth canal was pushing on the rectum. As soon as Linda heard me say this, I was swiftly brought back to the birthing bed and she checked my cervix, and told me I only had a small lip of cervix remaining. With that, the anesthesiologist and his team disappeared. I’d been told that it was never “too late” for an epidural, but apparently it was, at that point. I doubt they would have gotten me to hold still long enough for them to insert the needle anyway, the contractions were coming so fast and so hard. Kirk stood and held my hand on my left side, on the other was my mom holding my hand and my right leg, on the left a nurse held my left leg, and below me stood Linda. I began pushing in earnest with each contraction, but Linda told me the baby was not handling the contractions well, and I would have to try to stop pushing on every other contraction. This seemed somewhat absurd, but I tried my hardest not to push when she asked, because when you feel the need to push there is no force on earth that can stop your body from pushing. With each contraction I would make deep low sounds, grunts or moans, while pulling my legs up with the help of my mom and the nurse. Although lying on my back might be an absurd position, given all I had read about the benefits of hands and knees, or squatting, I was so tired at this point that I doubt I would have had the energy to do anything more than lie on my back and accept the help I was given.
Between waves, they would put my legs down for me and I would try to catch my breath and look into Kirk’s eyes, while the nurse used the ultrasound wand to find the baby’s heartbeat. Later my mom told me that after each contraction, the baby’s heartbeat was going down from the 140s to the 70s, and although it would gradually get back to normal, it was worrisome to the whole team that her heart was doing so poorly. Linda told me to be prepared for them to pull her out if necessary, if it seemed like she was stuck or like she might have the umbilical cord around her neck. I couldn’t see it, but the pediatric ICU team was waiting behind a partition wall, ready to resuscitate her if needed. (Later I learned my brother’s girlfriend, a NICU nurse, had personally requested that particular ICU team for me, which I thought was sweet.)
As I pushed into each contraction, Linda kept urging me to make my noises lower in pitch and tone, down from my chest and throat into my belly, way down deep into my gut. I wasn’t making high pitched noises, but I couldn’t seem to get the sounds she wanted me to make, so before the next contraction I looked up at Kirk and told him help me make the right sound, to make the sound so I could imitate him and we could do it together. We did, and it seemed to work, because only a few contractions later her head was crowning. I put my hand down to feel the top of her head, and it was wet and surprisingly soft. I was surprised that she had hair.
When a contraction came over me, I would have to find the right point to really put my concentration behind a push. If I started too early or too late in the wave I would waste my effort, unable to catch it. The pain was incredible, with such pressure in my rectum that it really did feel like she was going to come out my bottom. There were a few more contractions where I rested or pushed while she was still in the birth canal, and then Linda was urging me to make the biggest push I possibly could muster; Kirk and I made our sounds together as I pushed my hardest, feeling like I would rip into two (which I did, actually) or burst my eyes and lungs if it went any longer. But it didn’t go any longer, because with that last enormous push her entire head and body came out all at once, which was a feeling of such intense relief and giddy joy. She was put on my belly immediately, and was breathing fine without really crying that much, just tiny squalling noises, and my mom immediately remarked that she had come out with her thumb in her mouth. Her hair was dark and curly, like Kirk’s, and she was so unbelievably tiny and perfect. It was a very strange sensation, familiar and foreign, to meet her after carrying her for so long unseen. I held her to my chest and cried a little, Kirk bent over with us so we could get as close to her as possible. Her little strong hands gripped our fingers so tightly. She was wet and warm, a little bit wiggly, and her skin was soft with the last white remains of the vernix. I could feel our umbilical cord lying along my belly as I laid there. I don’t know how long it took, but at some point Linda asked me to get ready to push out the placenta, but right as she said this I felt one last contraction come over me, and in another rush of relief the entire placenta slid right out onto the table, surprising us both.
Our little Penelope Jane, we said, and the nurses repeated her name while Kirk and I held her and someone gave her time of birth from the clock, 1:39pm. I figured out how quickly my labor had gone, which gave me a bit of a surprise. I seem to recall various medical things going on around us – sheets being changed, my blood pressure being taken. The labor nurse kept pressing hard down into my stomach, which was painful but helped small floods of blood clots come out of me. My mom took some pictures and Kirk and I took a short video of her as she nuzzled into my chest. At some point the cord stopped pulsing (was this before the placenta came out?) and Linda clamped it and brought Kirk the scissors to cut it. I think he wasn’t that excited for this part, but if someone had to do it I’m glad it was him. Eventually they took her briefly to be weighed, and she was wrapped into a blanket and Kirk got to hold her for the first time. His face, as he looked into hers, was so beautiful and filled with love.
Throughout all this, I was still sitting sprawl-legged on the delivery bed and feeling like I was gapingly exposed. Not in a prudish way, but in the sense that there was this massive opening into my body for the moment and it felt weird. Linda kept evaluating things and eventually we were told that it looked like I had a pretty deep tear in my vagina. They had the option of stitching me up in the room, using a pudendal nerve block, but it was likely that it wouldn’t reach far enough to totally numb me to the pain. I was a little scared of that, so eventually we settled on the option of having the tear repaired in the operating room down the hall, with a spinal anesthetic. I talked with the anesthesiologist beforehand because I wanted to be given some kind of sedative that would keep me calm but not cause me to completely pass out for the surgery.
When I was finally wheeled into the OR, we left Penelope with my Mom so Kirk could get into a ‘bunny suit’ and come to keep me company, though as it turned out by the time he was outfitted they were nearly done with the surgery, and I’m not sure he would have wanted to see the operation anyway (you had to pass by my feet to enter the room). I remember slumping over my midwife’s shoulder as they numbed my back and gave me the sedative, just before inserting the spinal catheter, but after that I only remember a few details. I felt pretty calm despite the intensive surgery going on, though I remember towards the end talking with the anesthesiologist because I was so cold, my teeth wouldn’t stop chattering. This was from the massive amount of IV fluids they were pumping into me, cold as can be. I kept trying to breathe and relax, thinking that I was chattering my teeth from nerves rather than from the temperature. All I could see was a blue sheet around my waist and the curious articulated arm of the surgical lamps extending from the ceiling toward my nether regions. The operation seemed to take a long time, though later I learned it was only about an hour. When we were done they wheeled me into the recovery room, where Kirk came to stay with me and hold my hand. It was strange to be without Penelope, but I was happy knowing she was with my mom and Kirk’s mom, and that we would join them soon. The nurse kept checking my pulse (which was quite weak) for about twenty minutes before they would consent to wheel me up to our room in the Mother-Baby unit, where we were promised the beds were much more comfortable than on the labor and delivery floor. (They were right about that, though I wasn’t able to tell until the spinal wore off and I could move my legs again, which took another couple hours.)
When we arrived in our room upstairs, we found a sweet scene: Kirk’s mom in the rocking chair with Penelope fast asleep on her shoulder, and Kirk’s dad and my mom sitting happily nearby. Being separated from Penelope was not our first choice, but surgery was serious and necessary and I kind of liked the fact that she was taken care of by grandparents for that sleepy hour after her first wakeful bit of time with us after the delivery. Later my mom told the funny story of how, once we had been wheeled down to surgery, everyone had left the room and my mom was alone with Penny, who promptly peed on her and forced my mom to ransack the room looking for a diaper.
While we had been waiting in the recovery room after my surgery, I remarked to Kirk that I kept thinking back over the entire experience and I couldn’t think of a single thing that was traumatic or that made me regret any of our decisions. We were tremendously grateful to have given birth safely in the hospital, after all our plans, given the serious risks to Penelope during contractions and the surgery I had needed afterward. If we had given birth at home, I suppose there is no way to know if I would have suffered such a serious tear, but it would have necessitated me being transported to the hospital, perhaps by ambulance, where we would have gone through a whirlwind of unfamiliarity and I would have been stitched up by a stranger rather than my immensely capable midwife and her assistants. And the birth could have gone in a completely different direction, too. If I had not been so far along in labor when I requested the epidural, I would have gotten it, and pushing would have lasted much longer since I wouldn’t be able to feel the contractions; with a longer labor PJ’s heart would have been in more danger, and it’s highly likely they would have stopped my labor and given me an emergency cesarean to keep her safe. The entire thing felt like a cascade of miracles, once it got going. My waters were miraculously meconium-free, and my three hours of hard labor miraculously got me right to the edge of pushing, and somehow I was able to get through the last hour without any pain medications even though I desperately wanted them. And at the end, we got our beautiful daughter, healthy as can be, our beautiful dark-haired Penelope Jane, and I felt safe and protected and supported by everyone we met.
As I reread this, Penny is now one month old, and already it seems I can hardly remember the pain of labor. I suppose that is because it is so utterly unlike anything else I’ve ever felt. It’s not a pain like the intensity of a broken bone, or the sharpness of needles or stitches, or anything else. You can’t move away from it, or move in any way that really lessens its force, and that is how it is so intense. Eventually there is no relief, except to get the baby out, and that is the tipping point at which I wanted an epidural so badly. If I got there again, I would gladly ask for it. If we have another baby, I’m not certain I would want to try for a homebirth, especially as I would be at greater risk of rupturing the scar tissue along the repair. I’d be much more likely to go to a midwife unit of a hospital, and labor there. The hospital was not an alienating place, after all, because we felt protected by Linda, and because no one thought we were strange or out of place for wanting to do it naturally. And when it came down to it, they had lactation specialists on call, a steady stream of fresh sheets and towels, blankets, pillows, gloves. Their floor was not carpeted, like our living room, so I felt completely free to move around no matter what fluids were leaking out of me. I’m not certain what it would have been like at home, even though it was something we wanted; all I know is that it seemed to go so smoothly and perfectly at the hospital, and I am so grateful for that.
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Date: 2009-11-06 10:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-07 12:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-07 03:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-07 04:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-07 04:45 pm (UTC)I want to know more about how yours went!
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Date: 2009-11-07 04:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-08 02:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-09 04:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-10 02:26 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2010-02-13 06:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-24 10:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-24 11:22 pm (UTC)I do feel incredibly lucky that it went so well -- truly a model of a 'good' hospital birth, in the sense that my wishes were respected AND things miraculously happened without complications and ALSO they had a really supportive model of care, since the midwife unit there is so well-established. Those things don't always come together like that.
It's interesting to re-read this now...I would approach a second birth so differently. Still not sure whether I'd want to homebirth, use a birthing center, or a hospital, but I know mentally it would be very, very different. And not just because I've done it before.
Ahh. And I can hardly believe that a year ago today I was fretting about the birth -- not knowing it would be another week and a half before it came!
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Date: 2010-09-24 11:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-25 08:50 pm (UTC)i think next time i will try to listen to my gut instinct...i'm leaning toward a birthing center simply because i know i will be too scared of messing up my house (we have wall to wall cream carpeting, haha) . but if my gut would rather we use a hospital, i'm willing and happy to do that again, too, as long as i have a good team to support me (my mom is a nurse and was a great defender of the room) and make sure no one gets in my face with stuff i don't want.