I can’t believe that only 9 short months ago I was standing in the bathroom, little plastic stick in hand, finding out the life-changing news. I was going to become a Mother. Each week since then, I have embarked on a photo journey chronicling my blossoming belly bump. I have to say that in all honesty, despite the photographic evidence, and no matter how many times or ways I tried to imagine the life within me, that I never fully grasped the reality that the bulge would someday become a baby.

But before the baby, there was the birth. This is that story.

EARLY LABOR

December 1st
By about 6pm, I noticed that the general discomfort I’d been feeling all day was in fact quantifiable. It dawned on me slowly that I was likely having contractions and began to keep track of how long the discomforts lasted and how long there was in between discomforts. I took a bath, built a fire, and read a book in front of the fireplace. I ate a bowl of soup and I went to bed. The contractions were mild enough that I was able to sleep fitfully waking up once or twice an hour and then dozing off again.

December 2nd
I got up around 7am determined to clean my house. I had been putting it off, trying to wait until the last possible moment knowing the horror I would feel bringing a new baby from the hospital to a less than spotless house.

There was about a 2 hour period where I felt virtually nothing in the way of cramps or contractions. Having been thoroughly warned about false labor by my former L&D RN Mama, I began to think that perhaps I did have another week or two to wait. I felt a brief wash of disappointment and commenced with the cleaning. Craig was an amazing help as usual, and between the two of us we had the house sparkling within a few hours.

I started noticing the contractions, which felt like extreme menstrual cramps, coming regularly in the very early afternoon and determined them to be around 10 minutes apart 30s-50s long, but I still didn’t get my hopes up, even though by this point I would say the discomfort had progressed to from a little more than an annoyance to something determinedly unpleasant. I called my mom and told her I wanted to get out of the house. She was going to Palm Springs to go shopping. I shrugged and thought, “What the heck? The hospital is only about 20 minutes away from the mall, worst case scenario.” She picked me up around noon and we headed down the hill.

By the time we got to Palm Springs 40 minutes later I was wondering just how daft I was. Why was I going shopping? Was I insane? I was in pain. But I was also hungry and I didn’t want my Mom to think that I couldn’t handle a little false labor so I played it off and did my best to ignore it. We decided on lunch as the Cheesecake Factory where we split a salad and a pizza and I did my best to participate in the conversation without giving her too many clues how uncomfortable I really was. By the time we left the restaurant, walking was becoming difficult. The jaunt back to the car may have been the first time in my pregnancy I actually waddled. We passed by Borders on the way and stopped for the world’s best Mochas to go. When we were in the entryway is the first time I had to stop walking during a contraction. I surreptitiously leaned over the bargain books and blindly flipped through one until it passed.

Mochas in hand, we made it to the car where I discovered I didn’t really want to drink a Mocha and ended up leaving it mostly untouched. My mom started to notice my silence and asked if I still wanted to go the mall which I thankfully answered in the negative. But before heading home, we stopped at The Alley because she wanted to try and find a fan to take with us to the hospital in case I got hot during labor, the labor that was still at some undetermined -and perhaps distant-future point in time.

I was not into shopping anymore. The only reason I got out of the car at that point was that I had to use the facilities. Inside The Alley I asked where the bathroom was. The cashier pointed vaguely with a spaghetti arm to some remote corner of the store. Five minutes later I was lost and almost in tears when I finally found another employee to redirect me in the direction of the toilets. Now, I just plain wanted to be home with my husband. I used the facilities and waddled my way back to the front of the store, doing my best not to grimace at the other patrons as I passed them. My mom had found her fan and we were out the door.

I timed the contractions all the way home and found them to be consistently 5 minutes apart, 60s long. I told my mom such and she sounded surprised. “Hmm,” she said. She dropped me off at home around 2pm with instructions to call her if I progressed. I gratefully changed out of my jeans into some sweats and parked myself on the couch on top of a heating pad, relieved to not be forced to walk any longer. By that point I was feeling very crampy, but the pain was also in my lower back and the heating pad helped.

Around that time, I remember telling Craig, “You have to help me. I can’t do this on my own anymore.” At that point, Craig started rubbing my back during contractions, and he didn’t stop for the rest of the night. I have no idea how his hands and arms held out as long as they did, but it’s a good thing they did. A lot of women say that they couldn’t stand to be touched during labor. I couldn’t stand NOT being touched. Going through contractions without his hands on me left me feeling panicky and abandoned.

Over the next 7 long hours we tried a little bit of everything we had learned from our Bradley classes and books. We walked. We did the birthing ball. We did the side lying position. Craig helped me concentrate on relaxation and breathing while several more movies played softly in the background, although by 9pm I was no longer paying attention to the TV. Craig recorded every contraction, the duration and the space between each. It’s interesting to look at his notes now and see specifically how I progressed. He made all kinds of notes about things I said and about the emotional signposts he was picking up on. I had warned him thoroughly not to let me go to the hospital too soon. So he was doing his homework like a good coach should. Good job, Craig!

December 3rd
At 2am, I told Craig that maybe we should think about loading the car. He told me to go lay down in bed and give it another hour while he timed contractions. A few 90-second-2-minute-apart contractions later, he changed his mind and realized I wasn’t kidding. It was time to go. I looked around the living room at all the pillows and blankets and water glasses and movie cases strewn everywhere and refused to leave until it was picked up. While Craig loaded the car, I put the living room back together, stopping every two minutes to lean on whatever was closest to me while the contractions peaked and subsided.

The ride to the hospital was unpleasant. The jostling was horrible. I don’t think there is anything more essential to dealing with contractions than being still, something that isn’t entirely possible driving 70mph down the freeway. Oddly enough, I remember being starving on that ride down the hospital even though eating sounded gross and like a very bad idea considering how far along I thought I probably was into my labor. I settled for a honey stick to give me a little boost of sugar and maybe settle my stomach.

It was a long walk from the front door to the maternity ward with several stops for contractions. We checked in at the front desk where we were directed to the triage room. I gowned up, got settled on a bed and the nurse told me there was going to be a bit of a wait because two other laboring women had shown up just ahead of me. I can’t lie. I was irritated. I had waited all this time—hours and hours—to get here to find out how far dilated I was, and now I had to wait more?

Finally, the nurse came in, checked me and informed us that I was 4.5 centimeters. Oh My Goodness. I was so disappointed. I remember Craig looking at me like, “Hm, that’s all?” He didn’t *say* anything, but I could tell that both of had thought that I was further along than that. I had a brief moment of doubt. If I was only 4.5cm and in that much pain, how was I ever going to make it to 10cm? She asked me if I wanted an epidural. Craig and I said, “no,” in unison.

Luckily, the nurse moved right on to hooking up the monitors so we could hear how Adela was doing and that distracted me from my moment of despair. They left me hooked up for about 10 minutes during which time my Mom and Dad showed up, and Mom traded places with Craig to check in on me. It was very comforting to have my mom there reading the monitor explaining what it meant and telling me how great Adela looked and sounded. Then, the nurse asked if I wanted to get up and walk around until my room was ready. I didn’t really want to, but I’d been thoroughly indoctrinated. Walking makes labor go faster. So, we walked, the four of us—Craig, Mom, Dad and me—around and around until my room was ready.

Two of the unknowns that had very much worried me for months before this moment were that the nursing staff would make me hook up to an IV immediately, restricting my movement, and that they would want to monitor the baby constantly, restricting my movement. Without any prompting from me, they offered a saline lock (just the needle, so that I’m ready in case of emergency IV is needed, without actually hooking me up to a bag) and told me that they baby looked great so they would only monitor her occasionally whenever I wasn’t walking around. Those were two battles I thought I’d have to fight that were complete non-issues. I got exactly what I wanted without having to ask. Awesome.

After all that worry, I got exactly what I wanted then realized that I had no desire to walk around any more. Irony. I sat myself on that bed and I didn’t get off again until after Adela was born. Moving at this point was impossible during contractions. I felt the contractions almost entirely in my back. The pain isn’t at all what I had expected. It was hard to envision my uterine muscles pulling at my cervix as the cause of the pain I was feeling in my back. It didn’t make sense based on all the physiology I had learned in preparation for childbirth. The pain was in the wrong place.

I continued to demand hands on me at all times. Craig was on the left side of my bed rubbing my lower back where the pain was. My mom was on the right side of the bed massaging my shoulders and upper back, the part of my body I could not manage to keep relaxed. All that relaxation training became very difficult to implement at that point. My shoulders would automatically go up and my arms would tense, with every contraction. My mom would massage me and gently remind me to drop my shoulders and breath. Craig kept telling me how great I was doing and how much he loves me. My mom continued to watch the monitors and spoke in a positive light about the contractions, saying things like, “Oh, that was a *good* strong one.” She also was the one who remembered to take pictures. Thank you, Mom! Craig was great about remembering to offer me sips of water and chapstick. At one point he offered me gum, which I accepted and then nearly choked on it during the next contraction while I was having a hard time calming my breathing. I remember Craig and my Mom chuckling at me trying to spit the stupid gum out as I’m choking on it, contracting my butt off. I must have looked funny. I wasn’t laughing.

I don’t know how long after my water broke I began noticing the contractions weren’t stopping. I would peak, anticipate a rest and then I would peak again. I wheezed to my mom in a bit of a panic, “They’re not stopping anymore.” She looked at the monitor, and said, “Yep, honey, you’re coupling. You’re having two contractions at a time. It’s very common. It means you’re close.” It was very hard to keep breathing through those contractions. It was miserable. I had been counting on my little respites. Now, I was getting half as many.

At some point that hour I said, “I can’t do this much longer,” just as the nurse came in the room. She offered to check me. I was 9cm. That was the ultimate moment of despair. I Could Not do it anymore and I still had another centimeter to go. That is the first time the thought of an epidural crossed my mind. It didn’t take me long to realize that even if I really wanted give up after 9cm drug free—something I would never forgive myself for—it wasn’t even an option. I only had 1cm left. There was no time for any drugs. That whole process lasted less than 20 seconds in mind, and it’s the only thought of drugs I had during my entire labor. I never asked for them or had to be convinced that I didn’t want them. I truly never did want them. Somehow I had the grace to keep going with a renewed resolve.

I heard Craig ask the nurse where the Doctor was. We could all sense that it was getting close. She said that she would page her after I was complete (10cm dilated) and had been pushing for awhile because, “first-timers always have to push for awhile.” Craig looked worried. I was too distracted to care. I figured baby would come when she was ready, Doctor or no Doctor.

My mom instructed me in a very firm voice that I needed to breath through my mouth and not push, then she left to get the nurse to check me again. I was 10cm, complete, and Adela was in +1 position (+3 is crowning, meaning her head is coming out). The nurse looked completely panicked at that point. My mom asked loudly again, “Where is the Doctor?” The nurse replied, “Forty minutes away.” I just knew that I was going to pop that kid out on the floor when I heard that. I was not waiting 40 minutes. My mom rolled her eyes, put some gloves on and said, “I’ve caught babies before.” Even in my state, I could tell that irritated the nurse. I remember thinking it was funny in a very detached and not-at-all humorous way.

The nurse left and came back in the room a minute later, telling us that she paged the other Doctor not on call that night and that she would arrive in 10 minutes. I tried my best to follow my mom’s instruction to not push, to breathe through my mouth, but I Could Not Help It. They helped me flip over onto my back again.

It seemed like Dr. Pacini and a whole herd of other people showed up instantaneously. It could only have been about 5 minutes. I still don’t know who all the people were. It seemed like there were a dozen people in the room although I’m sure it wasn’t nearly that many. I was so focused on trying to not end up with a baby on the floor. Before I knew it Dr. Pacini, the *other* Doctor at the practice (my Doctor, Dr. Sehwani, was on vacation until the next day) who I had never met, introduced herself, checked me and said, “There’s the head.” I remember an intake of breath from my Mom and Craig as they saw whatever was going on down there. They offered me a mirror. I was already on overload and didn’t think I could handle seeing what was happening, so I declined.

They told me to push. Once I was really allowed to, I pushed for 10 minutes—10 of the most disconcerting minutes of my life. Pushing a baby out is the weirdest physical experience I have ever had. It is so unnatural for something *that* big to come out of *that* hole. The pain was significantly less during pushing than during first stage. It still hurt, but it was really the weirdness factor that made it difficult. I felt like it was impossible for her to fit. But at the same time, I knew she couldn’t stay in. It seemed like she was half-way out forever. Her head came out. I heard another intake of breath from my coaches and a few squeals from my mom. Craig started crying—not sobbing, he just had tears silently streaming down his face.

I was not excited yet. I remember telling the Doctor, ‘Pull her out!” And then, screams. Not mine. Adela’s. She came out squealing, pink, wide-eyed and almost entirely clean—the most beautiful baby in the world—at 7:15am, weighing 6lbs 13oz. I felt so much relief. It was over. We had done it.

NATURAL CHILDBIRTH

There are a couple more things I wanted to mention. My sister asked me about the natural childbirth experience last night and it got me thinking about how I got through it. This is what I told her.

First, all the knowledge I had was really empowering. Because of everything I read and the understanding I had about what was going on in my body, because I knew the processes and the possible timeline, because I knew the “emotional signposts” to look for to tell me at what stage in labor I was likely in, because I knew not to count early labor as part of the real, working part of labor, because I was able to envision the uterine muscles contracting and my cervix dilating, because of all the research I had done, I wasn’t *fearful*. Yes, it hurt, but I knew what to expect and understood the natural processes that were taking place. The knowledge was key to being able to let my body do what it’s designed to do. Without that perspective, I would have been afraid and been watching the clock and fighting labor instead of surrendering to it. I was able to surrender to it because I understood and expected the natural physical and emotional progression of labor. Thank you, Dr. Bradley, Darlene (our Bradley instructor), and Craig for agreeing to take the classes, listening to me read, and practicing relaxation with me.

Those two things, along with having knowledgeable, supportive coaches and being physically fit (good nutrition, doing my kegels, walking, etc. every day) were, I think, the main reasons I got through it. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but seeing that baby come out screaming, ready and eager to nurse, pink and healthy, with no respiratory (or other) problems, and all the pain and hard work was instantaneously worth it. Not to mention, I was up walking around, and showering within a couple hours of giving birth.