Home Birth: Sam's Story

[kctrommer]

By the third week in October, I was a bit more than a week past my estimated due date. My mother had told me about her labors, two of which were fast—but I tried not to expect that my experience would echo hers. I had read that first babies tended to arrive later and often were born after longer labors. Hard as it was for me, I spent most of October trying to be patient.

Every morning before he went to work Justin would say, “Don’t have the baby while I’m gone.” On Friday, October 22, I had been planning to go into the city to see the MoMA’s Abstract New York, but just before I was planning to leave I reconsidered, noting that I had less energy this week than I had the previous week. I’d been pretty mobile up until then despite my burgeoning ankles and complete inability to pick up anything I had the misfortune of dropping. I’d grown weary of being pregnant, especially during the summer, and was ready to meet the boy. I had been going for long walks, eating spicy Thai and doing other things to encourage the baby to join us, but he seemed content to order in and stay cozy. During my last appointment with my midwife, we talked about the possibility of my having acupuncture done to encourage labor. Justin and I discussed it and decided to wait through the weekend and to go to an acupuncturist together on Monday if the baby was still was hanging out in utero. We needn’t have worried.

I moved slothfully around the apartment, bored enough to welcome labor just for some excitement. A few days earlier, I had woken up with the feeling that the baby had dropped; I felt as if I were carrying a cantaloupe between my legs and wondered if Justin had stuck one there while I was sleeping.

At some point in the middle of the day, I felt as if a zipper was being pulled open inside me from the top of my uterus down. That’s new, I thought, waddling around the apartment and puzzling over it. Then I made the mistake of watching the end of Studio 360 on the Sunset Strip, in which one of the characters is rushed to the hospital, undergoes an emergency C-section, and almost dies. She was fine of course as was the baby, but I was a crying wreck by the time I finished the episode.

Justin came home and we had dinner. Around nine, I got ready for bed while he took a shower. When I lay down in bed, I felt a sudden rush of water between my legs and jumped out of bed. The sensation was so odd, because I knew I wasn’t peeing and yet water was issuing out of me. When I stood up, the gushing stopped. I yelled to Justin that my water had broken and over his What? I went into the bathroom, straddling a towel, and joined him in the shower, clothes and all. The gushing stopped and I wasn’t sure if I’d imagined it, but when I calmed down and went to lay back down in bed, there was more water. I stood up and it stopped. I called our midwife, Joan, and she asked if I was having contractions. Since I wasn’t, she said we should get some sleep. I was freaked out and a bit worried, but fell asleep all the same.

I woke up in the middle of the night, around two, to take some antibiotics and went back to sleep until 7 when I started feeling the first contractions. The sensation was more disorienting and scary than I had anticipated. After I had the baby, I tried to articulate what I felt the contractions were like, especially when they were close together. Pain is the wrong word. I felt as if I were possessed. It seemed that something was reaching up my birth canal, grabbing my uterus, shaking me from inside, and then releasing me. I kept waiting to feel the gradual peak that I’d heard described, but this felt more like an internal earthquake. The only thing it had in common with the descriptions I’d heard and read about was that each contraction had a beginning and (mercifully) an end.

I was lying down in the bedroom when Justin called Joan to let her know that the contractions had started. I talked to her for a bit between contractions and we called the doula, Lana, to let her know that things were happening in Queens. I took the next dose of antibiotics. I was keenly aware of the clock, since I knew that it would be dangerous for the baby if I didn’t have him within 18 hours after the time my water broke. By 7 a.m. we were at the 10-hour mark. This stressed me out, because I didn’t want to have to go to the hospital, even though I knew I would if it would be best for the baby. I was already upset about having to take the antibiotics, since I’d managed to be careful about everything I put in my body during the pregnancy.

After I tried to focus and breathe through the first contractions on my own, Justin took my hand and told me to look at him. We breathed through the contraction together and I was rescued from the feeling of being at sea. Until I had his help, the energy of the contractions was scattered. My contractions and my labor would have been much longer if I hadn’t had Justin to keep me focused. We kept breathing together, Justin holding my hand and keeping his eyes locked with mine.

Unfortunately, the antibiotics started to make me sick and I began to vomit as I was contracting. I have a phobia of vomiting, and before I went into labor the prospect of vomiting seemed to me worse than the contractions, since vomiting was less an abstraction to me than were contractions. I was in the bedroom and lying down for most of this part of the labor. Justin was amazing. He anticipated everything I needed. He brought me what seemed like gallons of coconut water to keep me hydrated, while I filled up receptacle after receptacle, undoing his hard work. At this point the contractions were speeding up, but Joan and Lana weren’t on the scene yet so Justin couldn’t pump up the pool. I needed him with me. I only remember one contraction that I had when he wasn’t there, likely because he was switching out the many, many bowls into which I was voiding everything I had eaten and thought about eating for the past week. His absence that one time made me know how much I needed him and how much I was relying on him.

I remembered, erroneously, that being in water would help slow the labor, so I got up from the bed and headed toward the bathroom. As I stood up, a contraction hit and the intensity of it shot up and down my legs. I remember saying out loud, Why did I think this was a good idea?

In the hallway on the way to the bathroom, I wondered again why it is that this is the way we have babies. Why don’t we lay eggs? Why is this so fucking scary? More than once, I remember saying, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what’s happening. I made it into the tub. The contractions started coming faster and I felt that I had to push. Justin called Joan who was just getting in her car in Brooklyn. Fucking Brooklyn! I was thinking. Another annoying thing about Brooklyn! We would have to have the baby on our own because people insisted in living and working in Brooklyn. I wasn’t upset with Joan, since I knew that she probably didn’t realize how quickly the labor was progressing, but I was intensely angry with our neighboring borough. This was around 11:30 a.m. My contractions were now two minutes apart. Justin was on the phone in the bathroom and I struggled to say, “Tell. Joan. I’m in. the Tub. Should I. Be. In the tub?” It took all of my effort to say this.

When I recall the labor, I think of things that were said, but much of the event was about being an animal: howling, vomiting, shitting, and then ejecting another person from my person. The primitive part of my brain was leading the show. My grandfather has Parkinson’s and, on a recent visit, struggled to say one thing when he meant another. The effort of speaking was tremendous and I thought I had an approximate idea of how difficult it could be like from my labor experience. As the labor went on, words became less accessible. At some point early on, Justin said two of the words I had been dreading ever since I first heard them: mucous plug. When he told me, I think that’s your mucous plug, I apparently said, I don’t care and vomited some more.

I went back into the bedroom, my contractions slowing somewhat, and our doula Lana arrived. I was well past all modesty and was jaybird naked but was able to speak again and said hello to her between contractions. I remembered hearing that the mother could set the tone for the labor, and I wanted to try to be chipper even though I was scared out of my mind. Now that we had help, Justin left Lana and me in the bedroom so he could set up the pool. I remember saying to her, We’re having a baby and her laughing and saying Yes. The bedroom door was open. From the bedroom, I could hear the wheezing of the air pump under Justin’s foot which was, at that moment, the single worst sound I have ever heard: like a thousand emphysemics trying and failing to take a breath. I managed to say something about it—something like horrible, horrible as I threw an arm in the general direction of the sound—and Lana shut the door to muffle it. I was glad Lana was there, since it meant that Joan was probably close behind and perhaps we would not have the baby on our own. She massaged my arms and back and helped me through the contractions until Joan came.

At 12:30 Joan arrived, like the cavalry, and quickly turned the bedroom into a makeshift hospital. I was so reassured when I saw her. Between contractions, I was taking in everything she was setting up. I remember seeing an oxygen tank that seemed Important. I said, You’ve got a lot of stuff, Joan. Justin came in while Joan checked me and then checked the baby’s heartbeat, which she registered with a slight frown. It’s a little low, she said, and I felt her concern, which worried me, since she is solid and unflappable. I started to worry and asked Justin if the baby would be okay. He said yes, which helped even though I know he must have been worried too. The baby was low down, I could feel that, since it was hard to walk, and I wanted to squat and push. Justin told Joan that pool was ready and I heard Joan say, There’s no time for that. She’s having this baby now. Really? I thought. I’m having the baby now? Oh, I’m having the baby NOW. Later I wondered what happened to happy early labor stage I seemed to skip, the one in which I walked around Sunnyside, calling out to the neighbors I’m in labor while laughing over my Eggs Benedict.

Justin, Joan and Lana were around me and I wanted to push. I remember being told that I was being brave and strong. I took in those words as if they were bread. Everything was set up, and I was squatting next to the bed and pushing. I felt the baby go down and then draw back up after a hard push. That killed me, since I felt that I had failed and that I couldn’t get him out safely. Joan said, “Listen, you’re going to have to get this baby out,” and I said okay. Joan checked the heartbeat again and used the word episiotomy, which struck fear in my heart and made me focus. I thought to myself, Oh, no. No way. I am pushing this baby out.

Joan said I would have to get up on the bed. Justin got behind me, supporting me by holding my arms, and I was pushing and yelling. I had been howling all through the labor, thinking open mouth/open cervix, and at this point, I heard Lana in my ear. She said, “KC, try to close your mouth and channel that down.” For the next contraction, I shut my mouth and refocused my energy. I summoned all the rage I have ever felt and flexed it like a muscle. I felt the baby almost come out. Joan said, “Here’s your baby’s head,” and pulled my hand down so I could feel something mushy—mushy! and I said, “That’s the head?” in awe but also disbelief. I thought the head would be head-like, like a coconut, not so soft. I heard Justin say that he could see the head, and he said, “Keep pushing—almost there.” I slammed my eyes shut and put all of my energy and anger and focus into the next push—and whoosh! Out he came all at once. Sammy. Our sweet, messy Sam.

[sharita]

Loved your story!  So interesting and your descriptions were just hilarious.  Congrats on your precious Sammy! 

[lovelylisa]

Fantastic story! This part was hysterical... I had this vision too:
 

Originally Posted by kctrommer  Later I wondered what happened to happy early labor stage I seemed to skip, the one in which I walked around Sunnyside, calling out to the neighbors I’m in labor while laughing over my Eggs Benedict.

[Lyss]

I really loved this story too.  :)  Thanks for sharing.