I was terrified. I kept thinking that over the nine months I would get a grip, come to terms that I would have to birth this baby through my very own vagina. I read, researched, took classes, got a doula. The time had come, and I was still terrified. I kept thinking, “I’ve been through the hardest thing in life when my mom died, I can do this. This has a happy ending.”
Isabel’s due date came and went. Four days later, I’m sitting on the uncomfortable futon, watching TV with my husband when I felt the first contraction. It felt just like menstrual cramps. I paid no mind, then a few minutes later another. I mentioned it to my husband, very calmly. Another one. Well, this is it. We were both very calm about my labor beginning. It was about 10pm on Saturday when it started. The cramps got closer together and hurt more. I kept saying it felt like my uterus was in a vise. I walked around our small house, drank some Gatorade and took a bath. We got out the birth ball; I sat on it and bounced. I was getting annoyed. The contractions were so annoying! They hurt and nothing I did helped. We stayed up the entire night doing the same things over and over. Bath, walking, bouncing, sitting, lying down, rubbing my big belly…no sleep for either of us. My husband started timing the contractions and they were close, very close, every 3-5 minutes. We thought, okay, it’s going to progress fast. My husband and I were so tired around 3am, we were lying on the bed breathing together, and closing our eyes in between contractions. Once, as I breathed through a contraction, I hear him start the breath with me and ended in a snore! Poor guy, I wouldn’t let him sleep. I was too scared to go at it alone.
The next day in the mid-morning, my husband wanted to go to the hospital. I didn’t want to go, I wanted to stay at home as long as I could. He asked me to at least call, so I did. The nurse asked me what I wanted to do, I said, “stay at home for a while”, she said that was perfectly fine and she was ready for me whenever I felt like coming in. My husband had the football game on mute while I labored. I didn’t mind, except for one time when I was in the bedroom, while he was checking the score. A contraction started and I called out his name. He answers “yeah?” I screamed “what do you mean yeah?!!!” About six hours later I said, okay, lets do this, I have been in labor for a long time and I bet I am dilated, I should be in the active phase now, right? I mean, I’ve been laboring for over 15 hours now. So, my husband made the phone calls to my family. We’re going in, put a white light around us.
It was late afternoon. We show up, the car is packed, we are ready. I was shown to a room to be examined before being admitted. My husband and I are giddy with excitement. My contractions are going strong, every 3 minutes. The nurse comes in, straps a fetal monitor around my belly and leaves. We listen to our baby’s heartbeat and chat. This is it! I have to pee. I go to the tiny bathroom and as I wipe I notice my mucous plug on the toilet paper. I yell for my husband all excited to come look. He comes in and I show him the tissue. “Isn’t there supposed to be more?’ he asks. I wipe again, a huge glob of mucous this time. Laughing I say “is this enough for you?” We are beside ourselves with excitement coupled with lack of sleep. We make jokes about how it looks like the stuff on top of wet cat food or the gel on top of glazed ham. As we are joking around, the doctor comes in to inspect me. “You are tight”, he says “barely enough room for the tip of my finger”. We were crushed. I couldn’t believe it. “But I’ve been in labor for so long” The nurse explains that she will give me a pill to either stop my contractions so I could get some sleep and I would wake up in the middle of labor, or the contractions would stop completely. Either way, I would be able to get some rest. Well, that sounded nice to me. I fantasized about going home, drawing the shades and drifting to sleep. She gave me a tiny red capsule, watched me swallow it and we left. Went home, crawled into bed and waited. And waited, and waited. The stupid pill did absolutely nothing, and my contractions were still 3 minutes apart. We were so tired. I lay in the bathtub as my husband poured warm water over my belly. I kept getting mad at the contractions. Damnit, they hurt. I started saying “I can’t do this anymore.”
Afternoon faded into night and there we were again, 2 in the morning, lying on the bed, trying to breath through the contractions. I had been in labor for over 24 hours now. I hadn’t eaten a thing since my labor started and I was bone tired. I got up to take yet another hot shower and just had enough. I walked out and said, “let’s go, I have to get some sleep. They have to give me something so I can sleep!” I was afraid I would be too tired to push. I was exhausted. We went to the hospital, carrying pillows. The nurse asked about the pill they had given me. I told her it was placebo, didn’t work in the slightest. She asked if I took both pills. Both? I only got one! The nurse checked me and I was still only dilated 2 cms! I couldn’t believe it, what the Hell has my body been doing for the last 31 hours? She admitted me and reassured me that I would get some sleep.
Not many women were in Labor and Delivery, so the nurse decided to set us up in a big, private delivery room, so I wouldn’t have to change rooms when the time came. That’s when it hit me. I’m not leaving this hospital until I give birth. Oh shit. I was petrified. Mostly I was still thinking about sleep, though. I knew I needed some rest to continue this journey. I got changed into a hospital gown and lie down on the bed. The doctor came in and introduced herself. Seemed like a very pleasant woman. She strapped me with the fetal monitor and ordered the nurse to give me an IV. My husband and I were wide eyed; scared at how the interventions so quickly started the moment I was on the bed. We were left alone for a few minutes while the nurses monitored my baby’s heartbeat from their station.
My husband and I talked about what I wanted and how he should help me get it. I was so scared I couldn’t stop shaking. My chin was shivering and my teeth were clacking together. The doctor came back in, sat down on the edge of my bed and told me she was concerned about the baby’s high heartbeat. She wanted to break my water. I didn’t want to; knowing I’d be on the clock to give birth once my water was broken. She told me that the baby was in stress and this would relieve it, and she could check for meconium. I agreed to it, after asking, well what if the baby’s heartbeat doesn’t go down? Oh please, I was praying, I don’t want a caesarian. She told me we would cross that bridge when we came to it. She breaks my water, I feel the instrument go in, it’s uncomfortable, I feel the sac pop and feel the warm water. I ask if there is meconium. They say yes and my heart sank. It’s okay, I’m assured, we are going to flush it out. They run saline into me over my baby, giving her, her first bath, the nurse says. The doctor then informs me she wants to put an internal monitor in. Oh God, no. I don’t want that. She calmly says it is the very best way to make sure my child is okay and her heartbeat is down. I agree and start shaking violently. She puts in the wires and I yelp in pain. I can feel them scratching. I can feel the length of them. I am lying there saying “oo,ow,ouch,oh” . She puts the monitor in and suggests I have an epidural. She says that the epidural would help me sleep and she didn’t feel comfortable giving me anything else. I wanted it. I didn’t want to want it and I was scared to get it. I asked my husband what he thought. He said he thought it was a good idea; I was so tired and upset. I hesitated for a few minutes then agreed to it. This was at 4 am.
Around 4:05 I got the epidural. They wouldn’t let my husband be present for it, which I found very weird and disturbing. I was alone with the anesthesiologist and the nurse. They had me sit up and round my back. My hair was in my face, I was sweating and shaking and having contractions. The nurse offered me her hand to hold which I grabbed at. Then as the anesthesiologist was inserting the needle, the nurse turns away and starts on her paper work, absentmindly holding my hand. At one point she says something about needing that hand and pulls it from me and replaces it with her index finger of her other hand. It was upsetting and I desperately wanted my husband. Finally, it’s done and I feel a thousand times better. I am relaxed, my contractions are gone, and I am a little giddy and euphoric. My husband had fallen asleep in the waiting room and it was about 15 minutes before someone told him it was okay to some back. I am all smiles when he comes in and I can see the relief on his face.
The nurse tells us, she will have to insert a catheter now that I am numb. I don’t care, I am enjoying the feeling of relief and being pain free. I watched my husband watching the insertion with a look of pure horror on his face. He told me later that he couldn’t believe how huge the tube was. I didn’t feel a thing. The nurse puts a blood pressure cuff on my arm that inflated every 15 minutes or so. I laughed at how many devices I was wearing. An ET finger thing, a blood pressure cuff, an IV, the epidural with a yellow tag stuck on the front of my gown to inform the medical staff of the catheter, the urine catheter, and an oxygen mask that smelled like old plastic, which I promptly took off. The nurse then informs us that I would have to have pitocion to help the contractions, now that I have the epidural. I didn’t care. She puts the IV in and shows my husband how to track the contractions on the paper printout.
The nurse finally leaves us alone; to get some much needed sleep. We dim the lights and I have my husband move the little fold out cot from the left side of my bed to the right, so I could see him better. Though I was relaxed, I was still scared. I wanted him on the hospital bed with me. He kisses me, collapses on the cot and was snoring like a chainsaw about half a second later. I drifted in and out of sleep, my mind working too much too fall into a deep sleep. I kept looking at the baby warmer in the corner, that’s were my baby is going to be soon. I was hot, so damn hot. I switched to side laying, trying to get more comfortable. Oops, my leg slipped off the bed. I couldn’t get it back up, it was too heavy. I am finding this amusing. I call to my husband, but he is too far into REM sleep to hear me. I struggle with trying to get my leg back on the bed and somehow make something on my body beep; I think it was the blood pressure cuff. The nurse comes in to check what is beeping and helps me put my leg back on the bed. She comments on how loudly my husband is snoring. I’m still so hot. I finally wake my husband and ask him to turn down the heat. He does, puts a cold washcloth on my forehead and goes back to sleep. I drift off, awakened twice by a nurse coming in to check one thing or another.
The doctor comes in to tell me she is leaving her shift and to ask if I am okay. I am, but am sad to see her go; I liked how she explained everything to me before she did anything. I finally sleep. Around 9 am the nurse comes to check how far I am dilated. 9 cms. She tells me I should start pushing in about an hour. I am taken aback. I was enjoying not doing anything and not feeling any pain. It seemed too soon. My husband and I talk. I am starting to get more scared. I am still so hot, and am tired of wearing a soggy washcloth. My husband checks the thermostat again and realizes that instead of turning it down, he had turned it all the way up!
We discuss the fact that we didn’t call our doula, that maybe now is the time and we hope she can get here before I start pushing. My husband makes the call and comes back. We talk and kiss and wonder. He watches my contraction on the printouts and informs me that I am in transition. Our doula arrives quickly, within a half an hour.
I am starting to feel the strangest sensation in my rectum. It feels like my butthole is huge. Like it is opening up to the size of a platter. I am laughing about this, I had no idea it would feel like this. The sensation gets stronger and I tell the nurse, who assures me this is a good thing, I am getting ready to push. My doula is talking to us and I just close my eyes, the butt sensation is so intense, it is taking my breath away. My doula tells me to blow through it, which helps. I can tell it is time to push.
The morning nurse gets me into a half squatting position and tells my husband to look; he would be able to see the head.
The nurse settles herself onto a stool right between my legs and opens a folder of paperwork. She starts humming and doing paperwork. My husband and I look at each other like “what the Hell is she doing?”. I start pushing, my doula is holding onto one knee and my husband the other. The first push didn’t feel right, I was pushing half heartdly. I am determined to do this right. I grab my knees, put my chin to my chest , close my eyes and PUSH. It felt good. Again and again.
I get into the rhythm of it, the epidural is wearing off, I can feel the contractions, mostly in my butt, and I know to push at the peak of them. I wear the oxygen mask and close my eyes, breathing deeply , let the contractions build, then snatch the mask off, pull myself in and PUSH.
My doula is soft spoken and has the lighest of touch on my leg. She and my husband are counting together. She is calm, counting and saying “bring it down, down” I loved to hear her say this, it was very inspiring. My husband was my cheerleader. “you are doing great, almost there, good job!” His voice is so excited and it makes me happy to hear how emotional he is.
My doula was wearing a hand lotion that smelled simply wonderful to me. I would push and then gasp for a breath, and as I did I would smell the lotion on her hand. It was a delicate scent of green apples and a hint of gardenia. It made me happy to smell it each time I breathed in.
I can feel my child traveling through my body. I am no longer afraid. The fear has melted away. I was fiercely determined. I wanted her out. The nurse told me sometimes it takes a first time mom hours to push the baby out. I didn’t want to push for hours. Each time I pushed, it was with every fiber of my being. Hard and strong and fierce.
40 minutes later I heard the nurse call the doctor and I knew the time was near. The nurse broke down the hospital bed so it ended right where I was sitting. The doctor came in and sat between my legs. He was cold and I instantly did not like him. He watched me push, then picked up a syringe. I knew that meant he was going to numb me so he could give me a very much-unwanted episotomy. I looked at my husband pleadingly, and he told the doctor I didn’t want to be cut and would rather tear. My doula asked if we could try first without the episotomy. I spoke up and said I didn’t want an episomtomy. The doctor frowned and said, okay, but I don’t think you are going to stretch that much. He roughly fingers my perineum. I push again and with the next push, I have my eyes closed and am concentrating so hard. This is when the doctor picks up the scissors and says, “Okay, with this next push I am going to cut” And with that I feel a huge snap and my baby comes rushing out, all at once. I take a breath, and ask if I should stop, asking if her head is out.
My husband says, “She’s out! She’s out! Look at what you did! Look!” His voice sounds strange and later I find out he wanted to tackle the doctor and was furious that he cut me.
My husband had to restrain himself from punching him. I don’t believe the doctor had any intention of letting me tear on my own. I look at my baby; she is facing the floor and is gray. My husband cuts the cord. I am saying “oh oh oh! I DID IT!!” I hear the nurses laugh when I said that. I know they did not want her to cry, in case she swallows the meconium, but she does cry and I am glad.
They whisk her away to be inspected and I am straining to see where she is. I see a nurse pull a long thin black what looked like string out of her mouth. I want to hold her and feel trapped on the bed. Go to her, go to her, I tell my husband. I ask the doctor if I need to push the placenta out. He laughs at me and says no, he’ll do all the work. I hated him. He tugs a little and out comes the placenta. I look at it and find that it resembles a jellyfish.
He tells me he is going to sew me up. I don’t care, I just want my baby. I am asking the nurses to give her to me. “Why won’t they give her to me?” I ask my husband. Over and over I say give her to me. They have had her for too long, I tell my husband. The doctor starts sewing me up without so much as a warning. The pain takes my breath away. It hurts. I can feel everything he is doing. I am yelping in pain. It is taking so long and I still don’t have my baby. I ask the doctor, “are you almost done?” He laughs again and says, “I’ll let you know”. But he didn’t let me know. He sewed for a while and then just stands up, looks at me and says congratulations. He turns to my husband, shakes his hand and leaves.
My baby is finally given to me. I had told the nurse to delay the eye drops. I stare and stare and stare at her eyes. My husband is beaming. I actually asked the nurse if it was okay to unswaddle her so I could breastfeed! As if she wasn’t my daughter. My doula helps me get situated and my daughter, Isabel, starts sucking. I am in love. My doula takes our first family picture and quietly exits. I did it!
Isabel Rose was born on 1/14 at 1:41pm. Which is wonderful, as I had always associated the number 14 with how old I was when my own mother died. Now the number has a beautiful meaning. I am no longer a motherless daughter, but rather a mother with a daughter!
Isabel’s due date came and went. Four days later, I’m sitting on the uncomfortable futon, watching TV with my husband when I felt the first contraction. It felt just like menstrual cramps. I paid no mind, then a few minutes later another. I mentioned it to my husband, very calmly. Another one. Well, this is it. We were both very calm about my labor beginning. It was about 10pm on Saturday when it started. The cramps got closer together and hurt more. I kept saying it felt like my uterus was in a vise. I walked around our small house, drank some Gatorade and took a bath. We got out the birth ball; I sat on it and bounced. I was getting annoyed. The contractions were so annoying! They hurt and nothing I did helped. We stayed up the entire night doing the same things over and over. Bath, walking, bouncing, sitting, lying down, rubbing my big belly…no sleep for either of us. My husband started timing the contractions and they were close, very close, every 3-5 minutes. We thought, okay, it’s going to progress fast. My husband and I were so tired around 3am, we were lying on the bed breathing together, and closing our eyes in between contractions. Once, as I breathed through a contraction, I hear him start the breath with me and ended in a snore! Poor guy, I wouldn’t let him sleep. I was too scared to go at it alone.
The next day in the mid-morning, my husband wanted to go to the hospital. I didn’t want to go, I wanted to stay at home as long as I could. He asked me to at least call, so I did. The nurse asked me what I wanted to do, I said, “stay at home for a while”, she said that was perfectly fine and she was ready for me whenever I felt like coming in. My husband had the football game on mute while I labored. I didn’t mind, except for one time when I was in the bedroom, while he was checking the score. A contraction started and I called out his name. He answers “yeah?” I screamed “what do you mean yeah?!!!” About six hours later I said, okay, lets do this, I have been in labor for a long time and I bet I am dilated, I should be in the active phase now, right? I mean, I’ve been laboring for over 15 hours now. So, my husband made the phone calls to my family. We’re going in, put a white light around us.
It was late afternoon. We show up, the car is packed, we are ready. I was shown to a room to be examined before being admitted. My husband and I are giddy with excitement. My contractions are going strong, every 3 minutes. The nurse comes in, straps a fetal monitor around my belly and leaves. We listen to our baby’s heartbeat and chat. This is it! I have to pee. I go to the tiny bathroom and as I wipe I notice my mucous plug on the toilet paper. I yell for my husband all excited to come look. He comes in and I show him the tissue. “Isn’t there supposed to be more?’ he asks. I wipe again, a huge glob of mucous this time. Laughing I say “is this enough for you?” We are beside ourselves with excitement coupled with lack of sleep. We make jokes about how it looks like the stuff on top of wet cat food or the gel on top of glazed ham. As we are joking around, the doctor comes in to inspect me. “You are tight”, he says “barely enough room for the tip of my finger”. We were crushed. I couldn’t believe it. “But I’ve been in labor for so long” The nurse explains that she will give me a pill to either stop my contractions so I could get some sleep and I would wake up in the middle of labor, or the contractions would stop completely. Either way, I would be able to get some rest. Well, that sounded nice to me. I fantasized about going home, drawing the shades and drifting to sleep. She gave me a tiny red capsule, watched me swallow it and we left. Went home, crawled into bed and waited. And waited, and waited. The stupid pill did absolutely nothing, and my contractions were still 3 minutes apart. We were so tired. I lay in the bathtub as my husband poured warm water over my belly. I kept getting mad at the contractions. Damnit, they hurt. I started saying “I can’t do this anymore.”
Afternoon faded into night and there we were again, 2 in the morning, lying on the bed, trying to breath through the contractions. I had been in labor for over 24 hours now. I hadn’t eaten a thing since my labor started and I was bone tired. I got up to take yet another hot shower and just had enough. I walked out and said, “let’s go, I have to get some sleep. They have to give me something so I can sleep!” I was afraid I would be too tired to push. I was exhausted. We went to the hospital, carrying pillows. The nurse asked about the pill they had given me. I told her it was placebo, didn’t work in the slightest. She asked if I took both pills. Both? I only got one! The nurse checked me and I was still only dilated 2 cms! I couldn’t believe it, what the Hell has my body been doing for the last 31 hours? She admitted me and reassured me that I would get some sleep.
Not many women were in Labor and Delivery, so the nurse decided to set us up in a big, private delivery room, so I wouldn’t have to change rooms when the time came. That’s when it hit me. I’m not leaving this hospital until I give birth. Oh shit. I was petrified. Mostly I was still thinking about sleep, though. I knew I needed some rest to continue this journey. I got changed into a hospital gown and lie down on the bed. The doctor came in and introduced herself. Seemed like a very pleasant woman. She strapped me with the fetal monitor and ordered the nurse to give me an IV. My husband and I were wide eyed; scared at how the interventions so quickly started the moment I was on the bed. We were left alone for a few minutes while the nurses monitored my baby’s heartbeat from their station.
My husband and I talked about what I wanted and how he should help me get it. I was so scared I couldn’t stop shaking. My chin was shivering and my teeth were clacking together. The doctor came back in, sat down on the edge of my bed and told me she was concerned about the baby’s high heartbeat. She wanted to break my water. I didn’t want to; knowing I’d be on the clock to give birth once my water was broken. She told me that the baby was in stress and this would relieve it, and she could check for meconium. I agreed to it, after asking, well what if the baby’s heartbeat doesn’t go down? Oh please, I was praying, I don’t want a caesarian. She told me we would cross that bridge when we came to it. She breaks my water, I feel the instrument go in, it’s uncomfortable, I feel the sac pop and feel the warm water. I ask if there is meconium. They say yes and my heart sank. It’s okay, I’m assured, we are going to flush it out. They run saline into me over my baby, giving her, her first bath, the nurse says. The doctor then informs me she wants to put an internal monitor in. Oh God, no. I don’t want that. She calmly says it is the very best way to make sure my child is okay and her heartbeat is down. I agree and start shaking violently. She puts in the wires and I yelp in pain. I can feel them scratching. I can feel the length of them. I am lying there saying “oo,ow,ouch,oh” . She puts the monitor in and suggests I have an epidural. She says that the epidural would help me sleep and she didn’t feel comfortable giving me anything else. I wanted it. I didn’t want to want it and I was scared to get it. I asked my husband what he thought. He said he thought it was a good idea; I was so tired and upset. I hesitated for a few minutes then agreed to it. This was at 4 am.
Around 4:05 I got the epidural. They wouldn’t let my husband be present for it, which I found very weird and disturbing. I was alone with the anesthesiologist and the nurse. They had me sit up and round my back. My hair was in my face, I was sweating and shaking and having contractions. The nurse offered me her hand to hold which I grabbed at. Then as the anesthesiologist was inserting the needle, the nurse turns away and starts on her paper work, absentmindly holding my hand. At one point she says something about needing that hand and pulls it from me and replaces it with her index finger of her other hand. It was upsetting and I desperately wanted my husband. Finally, it’s done and I feel a thousand times better. I am relaxed, my contractions are gone, and I am a little giddy and euphoric. My husband had fallen asleep in the waiting room and it was about 15 minutes before someone told him it was okay to some back. I am all smiles when he comes in and I can see the relief on his face.
The nurse tells us, she will have to insert a catheter now that I am numb. I don’t care, I am enjoying the feeling of relief and being pain free. I watched my husband watching the insertion with a look of pure horror on his face. He told me later that he couldn’t believe how huge the tube was. I didn’t feel a thing. The nurse puts a blood pressure cuff on my arm that inflated every 15 minutes or so. I laughed at how many devices I was wearing. An ET finger thing, a blood pressure cuff, an IV, the epidural with a yellow tag stuck on the front of my gown to inform the medical staff of the catheter, the urine catheter, and an oxygen mask that smelled like old plastic, which I promptly took off. The nurse then informs us that I would have to have pitocion to help the contractions, now that I have the epidural. I didn’t care. She puts the IV in and shows my husband how to track the contractions on the paper printout.
The nurse finally leaves us alone; to get some much needed sleep. We dim the lights and I have my husband move the little fold out cot from the left side of my bed to the right, so I could see him better. Though I was relaxed, I was still scared. I wanted him on the hospital bed with me. He kisses me, collapses on the cot and was snoring like a chainsaw about half a second later. I drifted in and out of sleep, my mind working too much too fall into a deep sleep. I kept looking at the baby warmer in the corner, that’s were my baby is going to be soon. I was hot, so damn hot. I switched to side laying, trying to get more comfortable. Oops, my leg slipped off the bed. I couldn’t get it back up, it was too heavy. I am finding this amusing. I call to my husband, but he is too far into REM sleep to hear me. I struggle with trying to get my leg back on the bed and somehow make something on my body beep; I think it was the blood pressure cuff. The nurse comes in to check what is beeping and helps me put my leg back on the bed. She comments on how loudly my husband is snoring. I’m still so hot. I finally wake my husband and ask him to turn down the heat. He does, puts a cold washcloth on my forehead and goes back to sleep. I drift off, awakened twice by a nurse coming in to check one thing or another.
The doctor comes in to tell me she is leaving her shift and to ask if I am okay. I am, but am sad to see her go; I liked how she explained everything to me before she did anything. I finally sleep. Around 9 am the nurse comes to check how far I am dilated. 9 cms. She tells me I should start pushing in about an hour. I am taken aback. I was enjoying not doing anything and not feeling any pain. It seemed too soon. My husband and I talk. I am starting to get more scared. I am still so hot, and am tired of wearing a soggy washcloth. My husband checks the thermostat again and realizes that instead of turning it down, he had turned it all the way up!
We discuss the fact that we didn’t call our doula, that maybe now is the time and we hope she can get here before I start pushing. My husband makes the call and comes back. We talk and kiss and wonder. He watches my contraction on the printouts and informs me that I am in transition. Our doula arrives quickly, within a half an hour.
I am starting to feel the strangest sensation in my rectum. It feels like my butthole is huge. Like it is opening up to the size of a platter. I am laughing about this, I had no idea it would feel like this. The sensation gets stronger and I tell the nurse, who assures me this is a good thing, I am getting ready to push. My doula is talking to us and I just close my eyes, the butt sensation is so intense, it is taking my breath away. My doula tells me to blow through it, which helps. I can tell it is time to push.
The morning nurse gets me into a half squatting position and tells my husband to look; he would be able to see the head.
The nurse settles herself onto a stool right between my legs and opens a folder of paperwork. She starts humming and doing paperwork. My husband and I look at each other like “what the Hell is she doing?”. I start pushing, my doula is holding onto one knee and my husband the other. The first push didn’t feel right, I was pushing half heartdly. I am determined to do this right. I grab my knees, put my chin to my chest , close my eyes and PUSH. It felt good. Again and again.
I get into the rhythm of it, the epidural is wearing off, I can feel the contractions, mostly in my butt, and I know to push at the peak of them. I wear the oxygen mask and close my eyes, breathing deeply , let the contractions build, then snatch the mask off, pull myself in and PUSH.
My doula is soft spoken and has the lighest of touch on my leg. She and my husband are counting together. She is calm, counting and saying “bring it down, down” I loved to hear her say this, it was very inspiring. My husband was my cheerleader. “you are doing great, almost there, good job!” His voice is so excited and it makes me happy to hear how emotional he is.
My doula was wearing a hand lotion that smelled simply wonderful to me. I would push and then gasp for a breath, and as I did I would smell the lotion on her hand. It was a delicate scent of green apples and a hint of gardenia. It made me happy to smell it each time I breathed in.
I can feel my child traveling through my body. I am no longer afraid. The fear has melted away. I was fiercely determined. I wanted her out. The nurse told me sometimes it takes a first time mom hours to push the baby out. I didn’t want to push for hours. Each time I pushed, it was with every fiber of my being. Hard and strong and fierce.
40 minutes later I heard the nurse call the doctor and I knew the time was near. The nurse broke down the hospital bed so it ended right where I was sitting. The doctor came in and sat between my legs. He was cold and I instantly did not like him. He watched me push, then picked up a syringe. I knew that meant he was going to numb me so he could give me a very much-unwanted episotomy. I looked at my husband pleadingly, and he told the doctor I didn’t want to be cut and would rather tear. My doula asked if we could try first without the episotomy. I spoke up and said I didn’t want an episomtomy. The doctor frowned and said, okay, but I don’t think you are going to stretch that much. He roughly fingers my perineum. I push again and with the next push, I have my eyes closed and am concentrating so hard. This is when the doctor picks up the scissors and says, “Okay, with this next push I am going to cut” And with that I feel a huge snap and my baby comes rushing out, all at once. I take a breath, and ask if I should stop, asking if her head is out.
My husband says, “She’s out! She’s out! Look at what you did! Look!” His voice sounds strange and later I find out he wanted to tackle the doctor and was furious that he cut me.
My husband had to restrain himself from punching him. I don’t believe the doctor had any intention of letting me tear on my own. I look at my baby; she is facing the floor and is gray. My husband cuts the cord. I am saying “oh oh oh! I DID IT!!” I hear the nurses laugh when I said that. I know they did not want her to cry, in case she swallows the meconium, but she does cry and I am glad.
They whisk her away to be inspected and I am straining to see where she is. I see a nurse pull a long thin black what looked like string out of her mouth. I want to hold her and feel trapped on the bed. Go to her, go to her, I tell my husband. I ask the doctor if I need to push the placenta out. He laughs at me and says no, he’ll do all the work. I hated him. He tugs a little and out comes the placenta. I look at it and find that it resembles a jellyfish.
He tells me he is going to sew me up. I don’t care, I just want my baby. I am asking the nurses to give her to me. “Why won’t they give her to me?” I ask my husband. Over and over I say give her to me. They have had her for too long, I tell my husband. The doctor starts sewing me up without so much as a warning. The pain takes my breath away. It hurts. I can feel everything he is doing. I am yelping in pain. It is taking so long and I still don’t have my baby. I ask the doctor, “are you almost done?” He laughs again and says, “I’ll let you know”. But he didn’t let me know. He sewed for a while and then just stands up, looks at me and says congratulations. He turns to my husband, shakes his hand and leaves.
My baby is finally given to me. I had told the nurse to delay the eye drops. I stare and stare and stare at her eyes. My husband is beaming. I actually asked the nurse if it was okay to unswaddle her so I could breastfeed! As if she wasn’t my daughter. My doula helps me get situated and my daughter, Isabel, starts sucking. I am in love. My doula takes our first family picture and quietly exits. I did it!
Isabel Rose was born on 1/14 at 1:41pm. Which is wonderful, as I had always associated the number 14 with how old I was when my own mother died. Now the number has a beautiful meaning. I am no longer a motherless daughter, but rather a mother with a daughter!
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How rude! I'm sorry you went through that and the condescending doctor...but glad it turned out okay!
