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

The Longest Birth Story Of All Time, Part One

Now that our sweet blizzard baby is a smiling, cooing 8 week old whose 0-3 month clothes are already packed away in storage...it's probably time to document her birth story, yes? Yes.

I had to laugh when I re-read this post because after writing a long-winded and self-pitying rant about still being pregnant, I promptly stood up from the computer and went into labor. On my due date.

Labor was in some ways exactly what I expected and in other ways, an entirely different experience than what I had imagined. I had my first contraction the minute Joshua came home from an exceptionally long work day at 10:30pm, covered in snow and looking slightly stunned to find me hunched over the counter. I did not say hello and instead just blurted out, "IjusthadmyfirstpainfulcontractionandIthinkI'minlabor". I think at the time, Joshua said something sweet like "that's great!", and then we had a relatively mundane conversation about how his day went (good) and how mine went (self-pitying, see above) and whether or not we should plan on keeping our reservation at a hotel close to the hospital the next night (there was an epic blizzard on the way, and I was terrified of giving birth in a snowdrift). But for some reason, in the past few weeks, the memory of him walking in the door that night has become intensely meaningful to me. It feels like the counterpart moment to when I blew off yet another 'negative' pregnancy test, only to hear Joshua calling from the bathroom, "Um...I can see a second line?" It would have been just as real if I had taken the positive test alone (but thanks for letting me know Joshua!), or if I had gone into labor when he wasn't around, but for me those crisp memories of the two of us, realizing something life-changing together, define the beginning and end of our pregnancy. Everything before that crazy morning last May was just us hoping to get pregnant, and everything after that snowy minute in the kitchen is the story of Matilda. The in-between, the 40 week rush of growing our daughter, ends in my memory when Joshua walked in that door.

My contractions started coming faster, stronger, harder, longer overnight. Joshua slept for a few hours, and I tried as well but gave up when the contractions sent me repeatedly lumbering out of bed. I did all the cliched labor things - took a shower, bounced on the birth ball, paced our halls to make sure this was real labor - and some of the lesser known early labor activities, like obsessively painting my nails, watching all the episodes of How I Met Your Mother left on my DVR, and tracking the snowstorm that was threatening to force me into an unwanted home birth. It was the quietest and only solitary part of my labor, overnight by myself, and I didn't do all the frantic and excited texting I thought I would. I actually didn't do all the thinking I thought I would. I'm a person who usually needs other people in painful and emotional situations, and because I literally have a career due to all the things that can go wrong in pregnancy and birth, I assumed I would need constant reassurance during labor. Instead I felt oddly serene, sitting alone on my birth ball in the dark, feeling the baby move and kick after every contraction. (I could have turned on some Enya and really embraced the primal experience of labor, but that is seriously not my style so I chose to share these intimate moments with Neil Patrick Harris and Alyson Hannigan instead. I do not regret The Funny over The Granola).

I woke Joshua up for good around 5am when my contractions were close to 5 minutes apart and almost a minute long. We knew our midwives would want us to stay at home as long as possible so we waited until 6am to call (I feel like this birth story is exceptionally long and so possibly you are thinking, I have been reading this for 20 minutes and she has not even called the hospital yet? Brace yourselves). The midwife on call listened to me describe how I felt and then said sweetly, "Well, I do think you're in labor. And your contractions don't really need to come any more frequently, but I'd like them to be a little longer, and just call back when you can't walk or talk through them, ok?"

Ok. I kept bouncing on the ball, walking up and down the stairs, and finished packing my bags. I ate. As soon as it was light out and the blizzard forecast started looking absolutely deadly, I sort of snapped out of my nighttime fog and decided I wanted company. My best friend Jessica, who was going to drive me to a non-stress test appointment that morning, came over to help us get ready and pass the time until my contractions got stronger.


At 9am, a different midwife (my favorite) told me (again,sweetly) to stay home until I lost my appetite. At 10am, with my contractions 4 minutes apart, at least a minute long, unable to walk and talk during them, and no desire to eat anymore, she said she would meet me at the hospital in an hour. In the meantime, Jessica had grabbed our camera and started taking pictures of Joshua letting me hang off his neck helping me through a contraction. I will pause this story to say that the pictures we have of our labor are something I treasure more than words can express. I never really expected to have any photographs of this particular life experience, and now I am overwhelmingly grateful for every gorgeous, intimate image. Thank you, Jessica (and Joshua, who is also an excellent photographer and later in the day, captured the fact that Jessica also let me hang off her).



It's hard to describe the jumble of emotions I felt as we left for the hospital. I was so thankful that Jessica was coming with us, slightly terrified for the drive because I hadn't managed to stay sitting during a contraction once, and unexpectedly weepy. As I was walking out the door I noticed our confused pup Helo sitting alone in the middle of the kitchen and I felt one brief moment of sadness for him and for the simple, almost responsibilty-free life we were leaving behind. Sappy? I know. I blame the hormones and the pelvis-rattling pain I was experiencing.

To be honest, the slow drive through the snow to the hospital while I jumped off the seat during every contraction was truly sucky. But we made it almost without incident. I say almost because Jessica was literally almost killed by a truck during a car-switching maneuver in the snow, but thank God, I remained the only person who ended up hospitalized that day.



Once we got into our delivery room and let our families know we were at the hospital, the midwife checked me and announced I was 4cm dilated. I remember being so happy that I was making decent progress, and also shocked at how uncomfortable I was laboring on my back in bed. As soon as I stood back up and started pacing, leaning over the bed, the counters, the birth ball, whatever I could find during a contraction, it felt like all of us - me, Joshua, Jessica, and our midwife - slid into the hazy experience of hard labor together. I'm sure the afternoon passed much differently for them than for me, but I never felt like I was doing anything alone.





This long stretch of afternoon was the most enjoyable part of my labor. One of our midwives left to see patients at their office, and the other drifted in and out of the room frequently to check on me and put pressure on my back when I needed it. Our nurse came in every hour to check the baby's heartbeat, and other than that we were left to ourselves. I wish I had other words to describe it besides all the natural birth 'catchphrases', but it truly was a primal, instinctual experience. When I had a contraction, I just did whatever I felt like I was supposed to do. The awful, guttural birth moan. Squeezing the hands of whoever was unlucky enough to be sitting right in front of me. Swayed, bounced in the water, rearranged all the pillows and blankets to support me in whatever position seemed marginally more comfortable. I have strange sensory memories of the afternoon - when I was in the tub during contractions I wanted to rest my chin on Joshua or Jessica's palms because the cold tile bothered me. For the first half of the afternoon I remember laughing and talking with everyone, and during contractions I would drift around in my mind. I kept saying that it felt like a dream.



I also said it looked like a Vegas strip club when I came out of the tub to find that our thoughtful midwife had turned on the heat lamps above the bed.



I have no memories of actually looking out the window at the snowstorm, but I remember feeling less talkative as the day went on and the room slowly get darker and quieter. My water stayed intact while I progressed from 4cm to 6cm to 8cm by 6pm. I started to run out of new positions to labor in, and instead of reaching out for whoever was closest, I wanted Joshua to be the one with me as much as possible. I ended up figuring out that I was most comfortable just sitting on the toilet. The bathroom was just a tiny rectangle and there was only room for Joshua to hunch over on a small chair facing me. Everyone else had to stand in the doorway to talk to me and I remember feeling like he was protecting me in my small, questionably hygienic safe place. My contractions really weren't getting any more painful, but I felt myself switching from talking between them to resting and even sleeping when I wasn't feeling any pain. I got a sudden burst of energy around 7pm and along with it I had the sudden realization that I was pushing during a contraction.

The midwife checked me and I was 9.5cm dilated. After I was standing back up and had recovered from the excruciating pain of lying down during a contraction, during a cervical check,(honestly, I do not know how people labor in bed)I actually said to the midwife, "This really isn't as bad as I thought I would be." And let me just say, whether you are laboring without pain meds or not, that is a really stupid thing to throw out there. I mean, I'm a nurse. We never say things like, "It's going to be a slow night!" or "My patient hasn't coded in a week!" because that means you will be pushing the code button within 15 minutes. My midwife, who obviously has the benefit of giving birth herself, not to mention the experience of catching hundreds of babies, said something noncommittal like, "Hmmm!" or "Oh really?" And I was feeling all proud and I-am-woman-ish, and within 5 minutes ohmygod it was not as bad as I thought it would be, it was much worse.

The worst is obviously followed by the best:



Spoiler alert! There will eventually be a birth at the end of this remarkably way too long story, but that is going to be described (at length, obviously I am not big on condensing) in Part Two.

The end is the beginning...

Howie Day was right when he sang, "The end is the beginning and every point in between."



I've had a lot of ends, and beginnings, and points in between in my life—graduations, new jobs, moves, my wedding—but none of those really compares to Matilda. When Kirsten and I left for the hospital I knew it was the end of "just us" and the start of something new. What I couldn't have known, however, was how beautiful the journey would be. What I witnessed over twelve hours was my wife, my hero, my baby momma deliver our daughter into our lives; what I experienced was art.

I was listening to NPR the other day and there was a feature on the photographer Sally Mann. I'm not familiar with her work, but the way that she described a photo shoot she did with her husband encapsulates how I felt as I labored with Kirsten: "It's almost dreamlike, the way we move. You know, each one of us knew what we had to do and we weren't talking, but there was something very quiet and very loving about the whole process." Of course, those that know us, have to know that we weren't perfectly quiet—we cracked jokes, we laughed, we cried—but we were quieter and more instinctual than I think we have ever been. In my mind's eye it's less chronological, less "memory" in the traditional sense. It's moments, it's feelings, it's snapshots, it's art. I am blessed to have been a part of it.

So that was the end.

And this is the beginning.



My heart is full.

Matilda

Matilda Claire arrived one week ago today, on February 1 at 11:30pm weighing 7 lbs 8 oz and measuring 21 inches long. She was born at the height of the biggest blizzard of the year, the third worst snowstorm in Chicago history. A week later the city is still digging out from under all the snow, and I am watching our gorgeous daughter sleeping soundly on Joshua's chest.

Her birth was amazing, and her first week of life has been busy and has flown by incredibly quickly. I think Joshua and I have cried more than she has - not because we are tired or frustrated, but because she is so lovely and healthy and the experience of becoming parents is a kind of excruciating joy that can't be put into words.

I'm writing her birth story to share here and for her to have when she's old enough. I started it tonight hoping to be able to post it here on her one week birthday, but I should have known it's going to take me longer to write down everything I want to say about such a wonderful and transformative day.

Matilda may have been born in a frenzy of winter weather, but so far she is a dreamy, sleepy and calm baby. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and find her with laying in the co-sleeper with her eyes wide open, just staring and drinking in the little world of our bedroom. I know this newborn phase will be over soon and I am trying to soak up every second of her little life so far. She is by far the greatest gift that I have ever been given, and I'm still in awe of that fact that she is finally here, and real, and so beautiful that it hurts.