Just kidding. It's only one story, and it's graphic and exhaustingly detailed. You might want to stop reading now, to be honest. Because I'm feeling nostalgic now that my "baby" is about to be seven, and because I love telling the story of her birth, I'm going to go all out and tell the no-holds-barred, every-detail-I-can-remember story. I normally edit it a little for brevity and fake modesty but not today; please buckle your safety belts and stay in your seats, because this ride may get bumpy. It also may get gross. And it's likely to be really long and incredibly dull for anyone who's not me; people who often say things like "Good god, I don't want to see a million pictures of your stupid kid!" should DEFINITELY exit now. Sorry. (*I'm not sorry.)
Just chewin' on a flower, enjoying my newly huge rack
I was one of those weirdos (so I'm told) that loved being pregnant. Even at the end when my lungs were crushed and I couldn't sleep and I had strange stabbing pains in my vagina, I didn't mind. I waited tables in a busy restaurant until two weeks before Noa was born and even though there were nights that I sat down at midnight to count my money and wept because my back hurt so much, I STILL didn't mind. Sure, I complained some. But what was happening to my body-- IN my body-- was fascinating to me. I read a dozen childbirth books because I found every single detail interesting, even the same details over and over. I especially loved the concentric circles showing different stages of dilation and would repeatedly marvel "Ten centimeters is a LOT! Like, LOOK at that! That's HUGE! My body is freaking amazing!"
In childbirth class I couldn't get enough of the thing the instructor would do with the fake pelvis and baby to show the how the head moves down during birth. (Note: the head doesn't just fall out. There's a lot of magical bones in babies' heads that smoosh and fold just right to fit through the magical bones in mom's pelvis that happen to be made to move around that head.) I was amazed by the different stages of labor and the odd things that could happen with each; burping and farting during some parts, uncontrollable shivering during transition when labor is almost complete and delivery is about to begin. My midwife Susan told me once that she can usually tell how far into labor someone is by how unabashedly nude they are. She said "Earlier in labor women tend to keep themselves clothed and covered up but often suddenly their inhibitions disappear and they end up topless and don't want blankets on them or near them." This was impressive to me. And also ended up being true.
The day before Noa's November 9th "due date" (which, as a reminder, is a due MONTH-- two weeks before to two weeks after that magic date is normal for a single gestation pregnancy) her bureau/changing table got to the apartment and even though I figured I'd be pregnant for another few days or weeks I suddenly was compelled to fold and put away every single little item of baby clothing. I arranged and re-arranged it all until I was satisfied; I fastened the little foam changing pad to the top and put a soft little terry cloth cover on it. I packed my hospital bag. I checked to make sure the crib was perfectly made up (which is hilarious, because I didn't end up using it for six months). Late that night, exhausted and with my lower back howling in pain that I assumed was from puttering around all day, I decided I MUST take a shower and found that there was no hot water (because my landlord was a bit negligent with paying the oil bill...every single month). I drove to my mother's at 10pm and took a long shower, so hot that my skin turned bright pink and I felt the pain in my lower back melting a bit.
I got home after midnight and finally started to doze off around 2am, my hands on my belly and a pillow under it, and then SHAZAM-- a major contraction shook me awake. And then another one came shortly after. And another one. And then another one.
I grabbed my watch and timed them-- three minutes apart. Consistently. I'd been told to hang out and relax at home when labor began until contractions were five minutes apart, but apparently my body likes to skip the dull parts of things and go straight to the good stuff. I putzed around for a while, waiting to make sure the contractions weren't stopping. I got dressed, brushed my teeth, and marvelled at my mucous plug and "bloody show" in the toilet when I peed. (Look it up. I'll spare you.)
After awhile I called Noa's dad and told him I was havin' a baby. He asked "Are you sure this is it? You know they said you could have false labor, right?" Normal me would have snarked back something smartassy, but early in-labor me was super chill and didn't give a shit about anything really, so I casually told him my contractions were three minutes apart and he was like "OH. WHOA" then asked if there was time to stop at the gas station on his way over. I shrugged and told him "Yeah, get a coffee, whatever you want to do."
I called the midwife and told her I'd be on my way. I made myself a bowl of soup, sat down at the kitchen table, and called my mom while I slurped chicken broth. She was impressively alarmed when she asked what I was doing and my answer was "Eating soup." There was a barrage of questions-- should I be eating? Was I okay? When would Adam be there?-- and I was basically like "It's all good. I'm fine," similar to the way a suuuuuuper stoned person would say she was fine. An odd calm had taken me over and I felt light and giddy. I laid down on the living room floor and when Adam got there I was flipping through my CDs trying to decide what I wanted to listen to. I don't even think any of it was registering; I was just flipping the pages mindlessly with my hand on my belly, feeling each contraction come and go in regular waves. They weren't too painful yet, but tight and uncomfortable. I lay in the dark for awhile and then Adam finally nervously said "Shouldn't we go?" and I figured, yeah, I think so. I guess that's what we do now.
It was just starting to get light out as we left, a little after 5am. That time during dawn when night turns to day is always a little surreal, but in labor it seemed that everything was happening in slow motion. I was stoned on endorphins. Dopamine. SOMETHING. It was a 30 minute ride to the hospital and things picked up a little on the way there; the contractions were getting painful and I stopped talking and closed my eyes during them, lifting myself off the seat a bit until they passed. At some point Adam said again "Don't be upset if this isn't it. They might send us home" and this time I told him in no uncertain terms that I was 100% positive that I was having a goddamn baby fricking TODAY.
As I got out of the car at the hospital I had a brief semi-psychotic moment where I laughed and cried hysterically at the same time and repeated "I'm having a baby! Oh my god!" a few times. And then I wiped my tears off my face and managed to stop laughing and walked stoically into the hospital. Totally casually, as though I hadn't just been cackling like a weirdo outside the ER. They brought me straight up to the birthing center and for some reason when they offered me a wheelchair I said yes. I certainly didn't need it; I'm just lazy, I guess. I felt silly while they wheeled me up to the fourth floor like a sick person who couldn't walk, but at that point it would have been worse to say "Ummm, I don't know, I changed my mind, can we get rid of this now?" so I just went with it.
We got into the Mom's Place (adorable, right?) and there were NO ROOMS OPEN. None. Nada. Granted, it was exactly 40 weeks after Valentine's Day, but Jesus Christ-- how does a maternity center run out of rooms?! There were about a million ladies poppin' babies out that day, no joke. They put me in a long triage room with a half dozen or so tiny curtained off areas, each one filled with a laboring mama. They briefly hooked me up to some neat contraction monitoring thingie where I watched lines spike and drop in rhythm, and someone checked my dilation (by jamming her fingers into me, party!) and was like "Yeah, we have a live one over here." DUH. Geezus, people. When I say "I'm having a baby right now" I mean I'M HAVING A FUCKING BABY RIGHT NOW YOU GUYS UGH.
(I TOLD YOU THIS WOULD BE LOOOOOOOONG! Feel free to take a bathroom break and get a beverage.)
I was 3cm at 6am when they first checked me. I asked if I could get the hell out of that little curtain prison and go for a walk and they gladly unhooked the seismograph (*not the actual name of the thingie). We roamed the hall of the baby birthin' floor, and I stopped to hold the railings during contractions. I was moaning now, not like a crazed screaming television woman in labor, just a low keening that felt right. Every time I reached the end of the hall I paused and looked out the giant window at the gorgeous, sunny, seventy degree day outside. In November. While I wasn't allowed to go outside. HORSESHIT! I kept needing to pee, little bits at a time, and sitting on the toilet made the contractions much more intense. That's the idea behind a birthing ball-- that sitting with your legs open helps open the birth canal, but I couldn't handle how much it hurt to sit so I kept roaming.
At 8am or so I wanted my little space back, so we wandered back into our teeny triage area. A nurse checked my cervix again-- and this time it HURT-- and she praised me like a toddler who'd taken her first steps. "Good job!" she crowed. "You're at six centimeters!"
My midwife popped in and cheerfully told me she figured I'd be having a baby by noon. I got a little panicky and said "What if I'm not in a room then?!" and she chirped "Then you'll have that baby right here! You'll be fine!"
I wasn't fine. I wanted my big room with a kitchenette and paintings on the walls that hid all the medical equipment and made the room feel like hotel instead of a hospital. I wanted my fancy tub; I wanted to get on my hands and knees in hot water until my baby was ready to come out.
The slight panic I felt intensified the pain I was in and suddenly I hit a huge wall-- I didn't feel so in control anymore. I didn't feel calm and collected; I was scared and confused. I was going to have a baby on a fucking gurney with a room full of people on the other side of a curtain?!
I told the nurse I needed something for the pain. Totally not what I'd planned, at all, but as things got more intense I got more and more anxious, and the pain got worse and worse. My mind was cloudy and I wanted things I didn't really want. My mom called around that time and I was moaning and contracting and barely able to speak. Someone gave me a shot of Nubain-- which I think is pretty much heroin, but safe for babies?-- and I called my mom back, stoned and still in pain but just not caring. "Heeeyyyyy, mom," I cooed. She was impressed at the difference three minutes had made in my demeanor. "Yeahhhh," I said. "They gave me a shot, and it's like...ummm... I feel a little better now." She asked if I wanted her to come to the hospital and I insisted that I wanted everyone to stay away until Noa came; I'd told everyone this beforehand, because the idea of a bunch of people sitting around waiting for my vagina to be big enough for a human head to fit through felt hugely intimidating, like I'd be putting on a show and had to try to impress them with my speed. Jump through a few flaming hoops and then hand them all a cute freshly baked baby bundled in swaths of flannel.
This part gets a little foggy. A friend claims that we spoke on the phone and I cried about not having a room but I have no recollection of that. I spent a long time standing by the bed, rocking my hips back and forth and getting louder and louder. At 10am someone wanted to check my cervix again and I dreaded it--- don't touch the ouchy part!-- but allowed it. This time I was 8cm, and this time I started to cry. "I want an epidural. I can't do this. I can't." My midwife reminded me how close I was, that I had sworn through my entire pregnancy that I didn't want an epidural, but I was insistent. I begged. Everything was blurring together and I had no rational understanding of why I was suddenly on the edge of a meltdown, but I couldn't stop pleading and finally the midwife said she'd get the anesthesiologist up as soon as she could.
A few minutes later she came back. "We have a room for you! We're filling the tub up right now!" Yeah, woooooo! NOT. I was so over the goddamn tub by now and said so. I'd made my mind up that I wanted a giant needle in my spine to numb me from the waist down, and I wouldn't be deterred. Then suddenly I was in a room, sitting on the edge of the bed with the anesthesiologist behind me. This part was like magic; I have no idea how I got from triage to the room. Maybe they beamed me there. Maybe I crawled. Who knows, really?
I decided I had to pee and called off the epidural for a minute. I sat on the toilet and had the most intense contraction of my entire labor-- this time instead of moaning I was kind of yelling "Auuuuggghhhh!" When I was done funning in the bathroom I sat back down and commanded the needle guy to make with the spinal drugs. I don't remember it, whether it was painful or not. I don't remember being "put to bed." Maybe it was the Nubain or maybe it was because I was in transition, so close to being wide open like a turkey waiting to be un-stuffed. (Don't act appalled. If you've read this far it's way too late to feign disgust.)
The next couple hours were dull. Adam dozed in a chair and I glared at him resentfully. A nurse came in every now and then and turned me from one side to the other, and every single time she flipped me I farted. Swear to god. She told me this was totally typical. I decided I had bad breath and said "ADAM. Adam. ADAM," until he finally woke up and I demanded my toothbrush, toothpaste, and one of those pink plastic kidney-shaped vomit pans to spit in. Bad breath being the worst of my bizarre concerns at that point is proof that things were a total snooze for awhile.
Before noon I was 9cm but my contractions had slowed down and my midwife made the discovery that Noa was face-up, with her back to mine. Those magic bones I mentioned earlier that make it possible for baby's head to maneuver through the pelvis? They're only reeeeally magic when baby follows directions well and is face-down. A face-up (posterior) baby doesn't quite fit the right way, and can get stuck for a while or sometimes ends up being delivered via cesarean. Most babies in that position end up twisting into the face-down position at some point during labor; only about 5% of babies are actually born sunny side up, and Noa was one of them.
My baby wasn't following directions well. So far my baby sucked. Or I sucked. One or both of us sucked.
There was more hanging out and yada yada-ing, and since my water hadn't broken yet we decided to use some giant hook thing to break it and hopefully get contractions started again. Knowing what I do now I wish I'd resisted; once my water was broken Noa's head was pulled down with less chance of turning.
I peeked at all the stuff that leaked out of me onto a cloth pad and was alarmed to note that it was forest green. "We've got meconium," Susan mumbled. This meant that Noa had taken her first crap INSIDE ME and we had to be careful that she didn't breathe any of it in, because that can make babies really sick. I was starting to get upset with my baby. She was making me nervous.
They catheterized me after a while and about a gallon of pee came out into a little container. The nurse's eyes widened; I was the Austin Powers of catheter urination.
Someone came in and told me my mom and sister wanted to say hello and I was super confused and didn't know when or how they had gotten there, but I vaguely remember them coming in for a minute. I think.
We waited a little while longer and at 2pm I was still at 9cm and my contractions had gone on vacation. I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open. I agreed numbly to what the midwife and nurse called "just a whiff" of pitocin-- basically steroids for the uterus. That stuff makes your womb contract so hard it actually puts some babies into distress; suddenly my "natural" intervention free birth was full of augmentation. Stalled labor is typical when babies are bratty and refuse to be face-down, so when I look back I try to remind myself that if I hadn't gotten the epidural I may have been so exhausted from being awake for over 24 hours and feeling every contraction that I may not have had the energy to push her out. Stalled labor is also typical with an epidural, though, so sometimes I wonder if I'd kept roaming and yelling that maybe Noa would have spun around and been born hours sooner. I'll never know, and while I try not to have regrets I often wish I'd climbed over that damn "wall" when I first hit it instead of just freaking out and tearfully yelling at it.
The "whiff" of pitocin pumped my uterus up and it started pretty much lifting weights. The contractions were coming one after the other and I was quickly 10cm dilated. They turned the epidural down and told me that I could start pushing whenever I wanted. "Yeah, let's do that now," I decided, so at 3pm I began THE MOST CHALLENGING TWO AND A HALF HOURS OF MY LIFE. A vaginal marathon.
(Do you need another break? I'm sorry this is so difficult to get through. Just kidding, BOO HOO, get over it.)
I was pushing and pushing aaaaaaaand pushing and not making progress. We tried everything; the midwife held a rope and I pulled on it as hard as I could while pushing. She sat the bed up more and put a bar over my head for me to hold to give myself leverage. Nothing. Laying on your back? Not the way babies are meant to be born. That's a thing doctors started doing way back when they realized it was easiest to sit on a stool between a woman's legs and catch her baby and slap it's ass without having to do too much bending or leaning. But babies are much more cooperative when mom is on her hands and knees (like my instincts had told me earlier in the day to do, when the stupid tub wasn't available because four hundred thousand people were stealing my room), standing, or squatting. Having an epidural means you have no choice but to lie on your back, so while Adam held one leg back and a nurse held the other I pushed and pushed and fucking pushed some more, and poor Noa was stuck. Her forehead was pretty much jammed against my pubic bone. Shit was sucking.
Finally she started to drop down a bit and I felt more pressure. I insisted multiple times "It feels like she's coming out of my butt!" and thought nobody was listening until a nurse finally got right up in my face and soothingly/possibly irritably said "I PROMISE you she's not coming out of your butt." My brain believed her; my butt did not. More pushing. They checked Noa's heart rate a few times to make sure she was doing well and I remember a nurse declaring her heartbeat was "Like galloping horses!" Now I was reassured and secretly proud; maybe my baby didn't suck. Maybe she was just a badass!
A nursing student from a local college wandered in and because I was gripping the rails of the bed so hard that my fingers were numb she shyly offered me a hand massage. I remember her clearly but wasn't really paying attention to what she SAID and mumbled "Okay," but the second she touched me I snapped "NO, I don't want to be touched right now," and pulled my hand away. It made my skin crawl. I'm sorry I was crabby, nursing student. I hope your nursing career is going well and you don't take anything personally when lassies are pushing out babies.
The midwife said gently "Do you need to cry for a minute?" and I howled "YEEEESSSS!" and sobbed hysterically for a couple minutes, which actually felt terrific. It got me breathing and snapped me back into what was happening, and I sucked in my breath and said "Okay, I want to push again!"
I meant fucking BUSINESS this time.
But business was HARD. Impossible. Everyone kept telling me I was doing "so good!" blah blah etc. I believed none of it. I thought they were lying to me so I wouldn't give up, and I was terrified that I'd need a cesarean to pull my stuck baby out of me, but soon the midwife was telling me she could see the top of Noa's head. I put my hand down and felt it and no doubt-- a tiny bit of head! She asked if I wanted to look, and OF COURSE I WANTED TO LOOK. She held a mirror for me and I was startled to see that my baby's head was squashed and wrinkly like a brain cactus.
I pushed, and pushed some more. And when I was done pushing I pushed MORE. It was two steps forward, one step back. Babycakes would drop down a little and then creep back up like a sneaky crab trying to sidle away from a predator. I don't know what kinds of sounds I was making at this point but I bet they were scary. I bet if you'd been walking by you'd have said "Whoa, let's not go in THERE" and crossed to the other side of the hall and walked a little faster.
You may have guessed that it all eventually ended, or else I'd be be pregnant with a four foot tall kid who loves fart jokes right now. At 5:30pm Noa's head made it's way completely out into Susan's hands, and then her little body slid out easily behind it. She was held up to me for a moment and then whisked across the room to have her lungs suctioned and checked for meconium aspiration (aka: poop that could have been breathed in.) I sobbed again, a combination of utter exhaustion, a typhoon of emotion, and intense worry, but I was quickly assured that she was fine. I could hear her wailing, long healthy yowls like I imagine a fishercat makes, and I saw her scrawny legs kicking while she fought against the brand new air around her. The people surrounding her spoke to me as they worked and lo-- my babe was healthy! Adam had run over and was taking photos as he gave the play by play; she looked like his dad, he declared. She was covered in yellow stuff, he said. He accidentally looked at me "down there" from across the room and turned a little pale.
"I don't know what's happening right now but I haaaaate iiiiiiit!"
While they worked on cleaning Noa up and finished making sure she was okay I "birthed" the placenta and Susan held it up proudly for me to see-- an ENTIRE organ, like a liver or a kidney, huge and covered in veins. My body had invented a brand new organ to help Noa grow, and then disposed of it when she no longer needed it. Seriously, MAGIC. After that the midwife sat and did reconstructive surgery on my labia.
I kid. She put some stitches in. NBFD at that point, really. I asked for some juice and was given an apple juice box from the fridge; I squeezed it down my throat in one gulp and demanded another. I'd never been so thirsty in my life, why were they giving me four oz. servings of kid beverages?! I gulped down the second juice box as Adam held Noa out to me so I could hold her for the first time.
And then I shrieked "NO, WAIT!" and projectile vomited everywhere. Yep. That happened.
They cleaned me up, changed my sheets, gave me some ginger ale. "It's normal, your body has a LOT going on right now," I was told. Shit, really? GIVE ME MAH BEBEH!
Her eyes were squeezed shut and her little forehead was dented from being stuck behind my pubic bone for so long. Her face was bright red and I unwrapped the flannel blanket from her body to look at her. For a moment I felt sorry for her; poor baby, so warm and safe in my belly, forced out into this bright, cold room. But it was my job to make her warm and safe again so I put her to my breast and voila... I was feeding her and rubbing her back and smelling the top of her head and whispering to her.
Sweaty, pale, exhausted, and elated.
I was in absolute awe. Yesterday she'd been rolling her knees around inside me and making waves on my belly, and today I was holding her. When she was about three years old she started telling the story of her birth and would boast "I was having a tea party in momma's belly with a crocodile and a ladybug and then the next day I came out her vagina and was sleeping at a hospital and drinking milk from her boobs!" Yes, I'd laugh. It was THAT simple. She still tells this version of her birth (even though she now knows it's not true) and thinks it's hilarious.
Lots of people came and went that evening; my mom and brother and sister, Adam's mom and brother and sister. I was exhausted and dazed and ready to fall asleep with my baby, but like a good vagina-marathon sport I let everyone hold her (after extensive handwashing! I was now a germ ninja!) and then when everyone was gone and it was time to rest everything...stopped. Silence. I held her and cooed to her and put her little naked body against mine while she dozed. She curled up against me and nursed some more. Adam passed out on the bed across the room. I was starting to drift to sleep with Noa in my arms; I still hadn't gotten out of bed yet because I kept getting dizzy so I loud-whispered for Adam a few times but he was OUT. I would have thrown a shoe but I was wearing skid-proof hospital socks. I rang for a nurse and the answer that came through the speaker apologetically said "We'll be in as soon as we can, but we have a lot going on right now."
I had no way to get Noa into her little clear crib on wheels so I put a pillow between us and the edge of the bed, rolled over on my side, and pulled her against me. She fussed for a minute and I stuck my pinky in her mouth, and she suckled away happily on my finger until we both dozed off.
That night I taught myself to breast feed laying on my side, the best favor I ever did myself. This meant that Noa and I could both sleep peacefully while she ate. This is why I didn't use her crib for six months; with a newborn nursing around the clock there's nothing better than sleeping with her and rolling her to your boob when she wakes up and demands it. In my opinion, anyway. Her dad wasn't in the house long and our family bed may have just been me and her, but it was OURS and it was cozy and safe and we grew and flourished together there. I'll skip the part where there were some nights that I sat on the kitchen floor and rocked her while I sobbed because she wouldn't stop wailing no matter what I did. Wait, oops. Anyway. Forget that part. It was all rainbows and magic, goddammit!
She nursed for fifteen months until one day she just stopped. She never asked to nurse again, although she's obsessed with my boobs now. She gapes at them in the shower; "Are mine going to be that big someday?!" And I tell her "Maybe. But maybe not." And she looks down at herself and sometimes decides she wants big, huge boobs and sometimes she declares that she doesn't want any at all. She claims to remember being a baby, snuggled up in bed with me and drinking milk when she was "thirsty." She asks questions about how she was born, and makes me promise that babies don't come out of butts. I don't tell her that for a brief few minutes I once believed that they maybe did.
As I write this my little kiddle Noa Madeline Mash, eight days away from turning seven, is asleep on my shoulder. She crawled up next to me a short while ago and watched me write for a few minutes, then her breathing slowed and her little body relaxed and went limp. It's been a long day; up at 6am for school, back to school tonight for Family Fun Night, then home again. Lately I've broken the habit of her climbing into bed with me in the middle of the night but tonight I'm tired too, so I may just roll over and fall asleep with her.
Someday she'll be too big to fall asleep on my shoulder, but tonight she's still a little big girl, and we'll rest and dream. Together.
(NOTE: Today is Noa's seventh birthday; this post was written a week ago, on 11/1/13)
