The Longest Birth Story of All Time, The Part with the Birth

I never intended for Matilda's birth story to turn into a two part novel, but I realized after reading through my last post that it's divided exactly the same way on the blog as it is in my mind. Although the shift was definitely not as distinct on that day as it is in hindsight, I now think of my labor with Matilda as separated into the Part Where I Coped Well and the Part Where I Just Got Through It By Screaming A Lot.

I know that my contractions hurt, and I think if I had actually written this story in the few days after Matilda was born, I would be able to more accurately find words to describe them. All I can think of now is everything surrounding the pain: I had to hold on to something or someone; I unconsciously made those low, animalistic groans ("the universal noise of childbirth') during each contraction; my midwife kept telling me not to lock my knees when I was swaying back and forth. But the memory of the contraction sensation has really faded for me. I can see the pain in the twisted, teeth-baring expressions on my face, but I can't really remember what it felt like.



Since I am standing up and Joshua looks peaceful, this picture was definitely taken in the dreamy haze before I started pushing. I made my inane comment about labor not being as bad as I thought it would be immediately after I found out I was almost (almost! this is foreshadowing) ten centimeters and my midwife said I could start to do 'light' pushes. I was riding the adrenaline rush of knowing that pushing could not possibly take as long as everything that had happened up until that point. I distinctly remember thinking I stayed lucid! I never felt like I couldn't do this! I am actually doing this! Everyone says pushing is such a relief! and other giddy thoughts.

Pushing was not a relief.

I know women have described the visceral pain of a child descending through the pelvis in far more articulate, spiritual terms than this but in summary, it totally and completely sucked. Really, words fail me.

Because my body was pushing through every contraction whether or not I helped, the midwives started checking me more often to make sure I was that I was completely dilating to ten centimeters. I don't know how many times they checked, and I have a vague memory of being told to just blow through some contractions. I couldn't find as many positions that were comfortable to push, or not push, as I had when I was just contracting. The nurses changed shifts, the midwives were suddenly both there to stay, and the room was louder, brighter, and busier than it had been when just Joshua and Jessica were supporting me through labor. For the first time all day, I started to feel bad - annoyed, distracted, tired, dehydrated.

Within an hour, the part of my cervix which hadn't fully dilated and moved out of the way of the baby's head started to get swollen. Since too much swelling could block her head from descending, the midwives really wanted to get that cervical 'lip' out of the way. This the part of Matilda's birth story where I start to get foggy on the chronological details - at some point, the midwife used her hands to manually push the lip of cervix around Matilda's head, at another point she broke my water (we had two midwives and the less experienced one did this - oh my god, if I am ever in this circumstance again and find myself repeatedly stabbed in my unmedicated lady bits with a sharp hook by someone who doesn't seem entirely sure of where to stab...I may just do it myself. The look on Joshua's face was horrific), there was a lot of flipping me from my hands and knees to my back, I was constantly asking if the baby was ok and was always reassured that she was fine.



It was...hellish. I really don't know how long it took for that small part of cervix to dissipate, but every contraction and push was absolutely agonizing. I had my eyes shut so often during this part of my labor that I have almost no memories of anything but the pain. At one point, I was hanging off the head of the bed, the midwife was stretching my cervix away from the baby's head, and the only insane thought running through my head was how I could be somewhere or someone else. I started having surreal swings between thinking rationally (you have to push through this, it's too late for pain meds anyways, if you want to avoid a C-section she needs to get your cervix out of the way) and totally irrationally (maybe I'll just go home instead of having the baby). Even though the room was full of people encouraging me, I have never felt so desperate and removed in my entire life.

At some point the cervical lip finally moved out of the way of Matilda's head. Given the excruciating experience of getting past it, you might think I would remember the moment the midwife told me it was gone and I could just push. I don't. There are actually whole chunks of time that have just disappeared in my mind. I remember crying into my blanket because it smelled like home and I so badly wanted to be out of pain and in a comfortable place. My next distinct memory is laying on my back holding my legs up to push and everything starting to seem too bright. I looked at the clock and it was nine, I pushed a lot and as I so eloquently mentioned, it sucked a lot, and then it was ten. And then eleven.



I think my face really says it all.

I was so exhausted that in between contractions I literally fell completely asleep. I would wake up when I felt a contraction start and I would just croak out, "Now" and try to get as many pushes out of it as I could. Usually three, sometimes four, always ending in this horrible, uncontrollable yell. The room was almost silent when I was passed out between contractions, and then I would start to push and everyone would cheer and hooray and tell me how much more of her head they could see. Someone brought in a huge mirror and I would sometimes remember to look at the progress I was making. It didn't even occur to me until afterwards that we never counted during pushing - my urge to push was so overwhelming that I really had no choice about how long I could do it for.

It sounds strange, but for almost the entire time I was pushing, nothing was farther from my mind than the thought of the baby actually being born. During my early labor at home, and actually up until the late afternoon, I was intensely excited to meet our daughter. Then my baby-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel mentality was completely swept up in the pain of the cervical lip and pushing debacle, and it wasn't until her head and shoulders completely slipped under my pubic bone that I snapped back into the moment and realized she was coming out. She had been moving reassuringly throughout my entire labor, but I suddenly felt her whole body for the first time - completely different from a roll or a kick, just a long swift movement that left my upper abdomen empty and soft.

There was more pushing, my legs started cramping, and then her head was just there. There were more people in the room getting everything ready for the baby's arrival, and I suddenly had a huge rush of adrenaline. I definitely wasn't falling asleep, because there wasn't really an in-between-contractions anymore. Everyone was talking excitedly about the blizzard that was peaking in intensity outside the window - no one was going to be able to leave the hospital that night. The midwives were pouring olive oil over the baby's head and putting counter-pressure on my skin as I pushed. Although crowning was the only part of labor that felt exactly like how I had always heard it described - fire - I didn't anticipate her crowning through so many pushes. The midwives kept saying, just one more! One more push! and then I would do five more. I've heard some people describe giving birth as feeling like they are splitting down the middle. I felt more like a bomb that could explode all over the room. I was terrified to actually push her out because it didn't seem possible that my body could stretch one millimeter farther. My midwife was incredibly encouraging - she just said, "This is horrible. This is the part where you just scream. It's the worst part, and it's unbelievable pressure, and you don't have to hold it in, just scream."

So I screamed.

And then, shockingly, in the midst of all the pressure and fire and olive oil and screaming and the frenzy of snow outside the windows, Matilda was just out. There was literally no more pain, just the feel of her warm sticky skin and her little bones sinking into my deflated belly.



This is the very first picture that was ever taken of Matilda, and she is approximately 2 seconds old - thank you again, Jessica. She was born with the cord around her neck, quite stunned, and very blue. The nurses whisked her off to the warmer (I helped by pushing her at them and yelping, "Take her! Take her!", as every NICU nurse out there will understand) and Matilda was hollering within seconds. It happened so fast that I never felt even a twinge of the panic I would have expected when my baby was born blue and not breathing.

I didn't get to see her face until they brought her back to me pink and screaming and wrapped in a blanket and a little cap. And while words fail me to describe the pain of labor, they cannot even touch the emotions of holding Matilda for the first time. This baby, with her big feet and puffy lips and long fingers, was the child we prayed for and loved when she was just a second pink line on a cheap pregnancy test.



Her birth was without a doubt, the most joyful experience of my life. The pain that proceeded her arrival really only heightened the exuberance that I felt afterwards. It sounds absolutely crazy, but I found myself saying less than 24 hours later that I would do it all again. I meant it then, although I was probably riding an endorphin high and sounded a little psychotic, and I mean it now with all the benefits that hindsight brings. Yes, the pain of natural childbirth is horrible (perhaps you feel like getting an epidural after just reading this?) and yet I am actually looking forward to experiencing it again someday - not that soon, I'm not completely insane. I do cherish the fact that I was able to feel everything, all the tiny, excruciating movements that brought her out into the world. And I appreciate every opportunity that it gave me to rely on Joshua during the most physically and emotionally draining hours of my life. Since getting pregnant was a struggle and made me feel like a failure so many times, giving birth to Matilda was an incredibly redeeming experience.



This is obviously, the worst picture of me that has ever happened, and if it wasn't the first picture of the three of us together I definitely would not be sharing it here with the world. Four and a half hours of pushing left me wrecked - my face was hugely puffy, my eyelids were swollen halfway shut and I had huge burst blood vessels in both eyes. Let's be serious, I looked like my six chins and I had lost a bar fight.



It was also, obviously, worth it.



This is the last picture of Matilda and I in labor and delivery. I'm getting wheeled up to the postpartum floor where we spent a quiet, sleepy, snowed-in two days with Jessica and the other wonderful nurses on her floor who are really more our friends than anything else. This is where Matilda's birth story ends and becomes just her story, the sweet unfolding of her life that Joshua and I are privileged to be responsible for right now.

It may have taken me eight weeks to finish this and it may be more of a short novel than a blog post, (and it is possible that no one will ever make it to the end and I would completely understand!) but I hope Matilda will appreciate it when she's older. I know I absolutely cherish having all this down here to remember myself.

One more picture of our baby girl...



"What a wonder it is - this miracle of birth that happens
Every day and every hour!
Only the unusual strikes us more.
God is always doing wonders."
George MacDonald