I love this photo. I love all the hands. I count nine, not counting Jack's. I felt so supported, in such good care. One of Danny's favorite authors, Michael Lewis, described the Berkeley birth experience as: "along one side of the birthing mother, a wall of doulas, wailing a folk song; along the other, all the people she had ever known; at her feet, a full length mirror, in which she watched her baby emerging; at her head, a mother wolf, licking and suckling. Incense-filled urns released meaningful, carbon-free odors. The placenta was saved, and, if not grilled, recycled." Berkeley deserves to be made fun of, true enough, but it also made for a pretty amazing birthing experience. If I had to sum it up with just a photo, this would be it.
If I had to sum it up with words, it would go like this:
8:35 am - standing at the stove, making tea, my water breaks. I don't realize it's my water breaking and think I just peed my pants. I think, "Great. I guess I'll be going through the rest of this pregnancy with no bladder control."
8:40 - sitting on the toilet, I start to wonder, could that have been my water breaking?
8:45 - call the doula: "What's the "water" of your water breaking actually like? How would I tell it apart from urine? What does it look like?" Doula: "urine."
8:46 - Danny calls work to tell them he won't be in today.
8:50 - I start freaking out that my contractions haven't started yet and they're going to have to induce me and then it's going to be one of those awful long protracted labors where I don't advance because I'm in too much pain and then they give me drugs and I can't feel anything so I don't advance so then I have a c-section. Jump to conclusions? No thank you, I'm already there.
9:00 - contractions start
9:05 - call parents, sister
9:23 - send a few emails to friends re: water breaking and contractions starting
9:45 - doula calls to find out if I'm really in labor because oops, her only other client for the month has already gone into labor and in the doula world it's first come- first served. Good news is the other client is same hospital, same OB group, so she can just run back and forth and I'll never know she's missing. And there will be a back-up doula! Two for the price of one!
9:50 - regroup after this minor set-back
10:10 - still cheering the contractions, ask Danny, "how much longer do you think I'll be cheering the contractions?"
10:30 - we realize that this may be my last chance to eat for a very long time, so Danny makes me what my little heart desires most in the world right then: a grilled cheese sandwich
10:40 - Danny burns the grilled cheese sandwich
10:42 - I turn up my nose and ask him to make me another; because I am the pregnant one about to bring his first child into the world, he complies
10:45 - in the intervening three minutes it takes for Danny to put the second grilled cheese sandwich on the stove, I am suddenly no longer cheering the contractions, no longer hungry, on the bed on all fours trying to find my pain cave
11:00 - my parents and Grandma arrive... my parents mysteriously leave to go do I'm not sure what, while Danny gives my abandoned grilled cheese sandwich to my Grandma, who happily munches away and tells me I'm doing a good job
11:05 - having not been allowed to pack up anything for this big day ahead of time because his superstitious wife was convinced that like a watched pot that never boils, a packed bag would keep the baby from ever coming, Danny now madly scrambles to try to find the list of items we were supposed to have packed weeks ago
11:15 - having located said list, Danny, in a packing frenzy, puts everything we own into one of three bags: labor, day-after, and baby
11:20 - I continue moaning on the bed, rolling around as though I might find a position where it doesn't hurt quite as bad
11:45 - Danny confers with doula on the phone, who asks him to ask me how far apart the contractions are and I give him the non-verbal equivalent of "There is no Becky, only Zuul!"
11:50 - Danny confers with the advice nurse, who asks him to ask me how far apart the contractions are and he makes up a number: three minutes! "Three minutes??!" the advice nurse exclaims. "Get her in here!"
11:55 - Danny grabs all of our bags, the stereo, the carseat, and the burned grilled cheese sandwich off the stove, steers me down the stairs and out the door and into the car, and drives as quickly as he can to the hospital without going over the speedbumps in a way that will cause me to howl (more than I already am)
12:05 pm - the doula meets us at the entrance to the hospital; the other client may have gone into labor sooner but is evidently toughing it out at home longer than me and the doula guides me into triage while Danny parks the car
12:15 - check in to the hospital, receive gown, tell them I want to wear the t-shirt I made at my shower, put on t-shirt, realize I forgot to make any pants; doesn't matter, I seem to remember I spent most of the time in triage in the bathroom, trying to pee
12:35 - triage nurse determines I am 4 cm and ready to move to my own room
12:50 - we are greeted by a very surly nurse; she does not care for our funny t-shirts that say things like "do it for the booze!" and "my swimmers are stronger than Michael Phelps." She goes off shift shortly thereafter and we do not mind. Favorite Nurse arrives soon after that. We love her.
1:00 - Doula suggests some music. Danny puts on Bright Eyes. Danny tries to get me to look at all the things I made him pack; photos, maps of desolation, things I thought would inspire me, but all I can do is bow my head and let my eyes glaze over
1:15 - Doula suggests birthing ball. It is so much bouncier and more fun when you're not birthing on it.
1:30 - Other Nurse tries to get me to sit still so I can wear the heart rate monitor. It is extremely uncomfortable and makes the contractions worse, I don't know how that's possible, but it does. I complain a lot.
1:45 - Favorite Nurse gets them to take the monitor off, uses the one that she has to hold instead, which is more work for her, but she does it anyway. That is why she is Favorite Nurse.
2:45 - Favorite Nurse does an exam and says 5+ cm dilated. This does not seem like much progress since the last check. Doula suggests going to the shower.
2:50 - Danny realizes he left his swim trunks in bag 4, Other Miscellaneous Stuff, in the car. He asks Favorite Nurse and Doula if they will be offended by his tighty whities. They look at him like, "you have no idea what's coming later today if you think that's going to scandalize us." They are right. He doesn't.
3:00 - for the next hour, I use more water for one shower than should be legal in the state of California. It's probably not as good as a bath would've been but I wasn't allowed in the bath because my water had already broken and anyway we didn't get a room with a tub. But it is peaceful in there. Danny helps me breathe and I am able to forget for a little while that there is a small person inside me thrashing around to get out.
4:30 - doc does an exam and says now 5 cm dilated. Apparently I have regressed or Favorite Nurse was a little generous in her estimation earlier on.
---- this is where time starts to get a little (a lot) hazy, and I'm just trying to wedge stuff we remember in between the timeline my wonderful thoughtful doula sent me after the birth
- Danny catches a glimpse through the window of a dusky pink sky to the east over some of the key route palm trees toward the Berkeley hills, which for some reason creates a very vivid memory for him
- several trips to the bathroom; they tell me if I don't pee soon they'll have to put in a catheter. Nothing motivates like a deadline, but somebody's head seems to be blocking the way.
- Doula mentions that doc thought the baby was facing upside down, which will make it harder to deliver, but she has this special trick for turning it around. black magic ensues. baby turns around.
- Doula brings Danny a sandwich so he doesn't have to keep eating the burnt grilled cheese (he did eat half of it)
- back to the shower; the peacefulness is gone, it doesn't help this time. Nothing is helping. I start to wonder if I can really do this.
- they tell me the doctor is coming back to check my progress
- I tell Danny if I'm still stuck at 5cm, I might need to consider tapping out. "Tapping out" is our code word for drugs. The birth class told us to think of a code word because if a woman says "I need drugs" what she really means is "I need your support and encouragement, I need you to help me remember I can do this" but sometimes what she really means is "I need drugs" and it's understandably hard for the partner to tell the difference. Danny is thrown for a loop because he had expected a few bouts of "I need drugs" before I skipped to "I need to tap out."
6:42 - Back-up Doula arrives.
6:50 - doc does an exam and finds 7.5 cm dilation - WOOHOO! NOW WE'RE GETTING SOMEWHERE!
- back to the shower: Danny isn't sure this happened, but who knows what was going on at this point. It sounds right to me. I remember Back-up Doula sitting against the bathroom door telling me to "moan it out" and "go with it" and thinking what does that even mean? Also thinking she is probably amused by the fact that Danny is wearing only my after-birth panties because the tighty-whities are already wet. (It did not occur to me at the time, though it does now, that he was going into the shower, so why couldn't he wear something that was already wet?)
7:02 - Doula steps out to triage to meet other family. They had spent all that time laboring at home. Way to go other family.
- out of the shower at some point, and onto the bed. On all fours. Gripping the headrest, which is elevated all the way up. There is no end or beginning to the contractions now, just one big constant swell. Back-up Doula tells me to start pushing into them. I can't imagine a worse idea in the whole world. I start to wonder if I'm strong enough to push. What if the baby just gets stuck in there, halfway down and I can't push it the rest of the way out? I don't realize it right now but I'm going through transition. The birth class told me I was going to be in "labor land" or some such nonsense, that by the time I hit transition I would be riding a wave of adrenaline. I wanted my money back.
- somewhere in there, and I can't remember the transition, which is funny because that's what they call it, I went from being terrified of pushing to absolutely needing to push, to having no other purpose in life but to push, to the sole focus of the very core of my being centered on the desire to push
- then they tell me oops- the doc is delivering the other woman right now, you know the one who stole your doula? the one who only got here two hours ago and is already having her baby? so hang on just a minute on that whole pushing thing, you need to wait for the doctor
9:15 - doc finishes up the other delivery
9:42 - I can start pushing. Shockingly, even though I feel like I am harnessing the power of the whole world, nothing happens at first. Except I do make a tremendous sound. Favorite Nurse suggests that I expend less energy on sound-making and more on baby-pushing, to just hold my breath so I can really push. That totally works.
9:47 - Doula returns, whips out her camera even though I think I thought I didn't want pictures, but man am I glad she didn't ask because after the fact it turns out I totally wanted pictures
- somebody slaps an oxygen mask on me. I heard breathing straight oxygen makes you high, but I don't think I can tell the difference, because I'm already pretty high.
- they are worried about the baby's pulse because they can't read it well on the monitor anymore; doc sticks an internal monitor on, which attaches to the baby's scalp and looks like a torture instrument when he comes out, but it tells her the baby's pulse is fine so she doesn't have to hurry things along, for which I am grateful
10:14 - the baby is crowning! Somebody gets out a mirror because it is Berkeley and they tell me to "look, look! Can you see your baby?" I nod even though I am not wearing my glasses and I can't see anything and even though I want to scream "MOVE THE DAMN MIRROR AND FOCUS ON GETTING THIS THING OUT OF ME!!!!"
- somebody tells Danny to breathe, because he is holding his breath with me during each push. Danny doesn't faint, which is impressive, because he has been holding his breath like that and is getting no canned oxygen.
10:23 - out pops Jack! It's a BOY! We made a baby! And he's here! In the world! With us!
3 comments:
WOW -- great commentary, and how the heck did you remember all that, down to the minute? It must have been written down somewhere. I never realized taking a shower would help anything, but I do believe in the power of running water (over one's body). I've solved many a problem that way.
I loved this. I love birth stories. Thank you so much for sharing.
Oh, B. You are amazing.
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