Labor day

Labor

So, first, let me get the long awaited labor story out. Having had two weeks to fully reflect on the experience, I feel ready to share it with the world and know that it will not be a tale based only on the emotional experience but also a story crafted by drawing on my doula training.

I was nervous, going in. For weeks and weeks while I waited to hit 37, I was inwardly quaking.
First because this has been the single most difficult and painful pregnancy I have had thusfar, and second because, like always, this had been a high risk pregnancy, which makes for high risk deliveries. At the same time, I was excited-- I knew that I was becoming an "old pro" so to speak, and I couldn't WAIT to finally meet her. The bassinet by the bedside seemed so empty and the tiny cloth diapers all lined up in the closet were begging to be used.

37 weeks came and went, and I despaired. My body felt like there was just NO WAY she could keep remaining in there and allow me to survive. I suffered from terrible sciatica that left me unable to walk, heartburn like nothing else, and a variety of other pregnancy problems that are embarrassing and threatening to say the least. My kids went nuts without me to keep them in line. I was definitely ready and I assumed that, like my other two, she would appear at 37.
38 went by, and then 39, and I began to despair. My emotions completely took over as I tried to remind myself that I "couldn't stay pregnant forever... at some point, she was going to HAVE to come out." When I hit 40 weeks, I cried. Most of the day.
Three days later, having rehearsed every possible labor scenario in my head every time I had three consecutive contractions, I felt... funny. It was evening, and I had just finished watching our nightly House episode. Around 11 pm, I felt something happen down there and thought-- OH! I rushed to the bathroom and decided my bag of waters was leaking, as it had with Ishod. Remembering that my active Labor had been 78 hours with Annika and over 36 with Ishod, and fully prepared with my Bradley course and with my doula training, I was in NO rush to get admitted to the hospital just to be stuck flat on my back and poked with an IV and a Catheter.

I informed Wayne that my bag of waters was leaking and I was going to try and get some sleep before the contractions started. I had been having contractions regularly until then, so I felt prepared to handle them with ease and was psyched up.
At six am, though, when I felt the first contractions, I realized with what I would describe as horror that I had forgotten just how BAD labor pains really are. Needless to say, it had begun.

I spent the morning getting the kids ready to take off, checking and rechecking my hospital bag, and excitedly facebooking. Finally, at around 9:30 am, my friend Jen came to take the kids and told me to walk the cul de sac and labor peacefully at home for as long as possible. So pleased that God had given me such an amazing gift as to allow me to labor "on my own" for a while, I went in the house to get started. Sadly, my husband and Father in Law, neither of whom know the first thing about the childbirth experience other than "my wife gets pregnant, a baby comes out," met me at every contraction with resounding, bellowing cries that I needed to "go to the hospital right away." After two hours ,I caved in, mostly because they were annoying me so much I didn't think I was going to be able to handle laboring at home after all.. I absolutely could not relax.

The OBGYN and midwife said that I should come to the office, where the staff greeted us and placed us first in line to be seen.
"You're so CALM!" said one receptionist. Wayne and I laughed.

The midwife checked me, and said that my bag of waters had not actually broken but was, as I suspected, leaking. She said I was about 4 cm and that she would go ahead and admit me so that I could labor in peace in a hospital room with a hep lock and walking rights, orders to be checked every hour, and a smile. Our priest came and annointed me as I was checking in to the hospital, and they bypassed triage and put me straight in the room.

My sister in law, Jessica, rapidly showed up at the hospital while Wayne and his brother went and got some lunch. She was AMAZING.
She had had a doula and learned a lot of techniques to help speed up the labor and move it along, and like me, she is a person who is uncannily aware of her own body and able to pinpoint certain aspects of the mind/body/spirit connection that so many people often miss.

I was thrilled to have her, particularly because she knew techniques which I had never had the opportunity to use because, as you probably know, I have always been bed-ridden during my labors in the past. I felt so happy and proud as we prepared to walk the halls. She was also very calm and very encouraging, which helped me to get "excited" about what was happening instead of dreading it.

We walked for one hour, with her coaching me through contractions. I walked, sat on the toilet, and walked some more. We squatted and knelt like crazy people... and the more we moved, the more insane the contractions got. Every time I felt unable to continue, she reminded me: "This is good! This means it's WORKING. This means baby is coming." etc etc.

It hardly seemed like any time had passed at all when I found myself bent over in deep concentrated agony, suddenly realizing with a panic in my throat that I wasn't sure that I COULD handle the coming contraction-- the pain was getting so much stronger and I felt I had lost control since they were coming virtually every minute. At that point, a nurse or doctor who happened to be passing noticed that I was extremely distressed, and recommended we go back to get checked. In my head, I thought-- this must be that "third sign" we are looking for in the Bradley Method--- it's at this point that I should have arrived at the Hospital. We went back to the room and the nurse checked me in. In an hour of walking, I had gone from 4 to 8 and was right around Transition. No wonder I felt so out of control! I had wanted a completely natural childbirth, and here it was. Jessica kept reassuring me that this was all "good," and yet I had begun to feel afraid and was slipping in my concentration into panic mode.

Wayne arrived at this point, and I was so thankful to see his gorgeous face. Jessica gave him some tips to help him help me-- telling him to persist in reminding me that it was vital that I stay calm, centered, focused and relaxed. I kept trying to remember what I had learned in my Bradley book- that I needed to achieve DEEP relaxation in order to make it through each contraction. By nine centimeters, I was sleeping for the minute before each contraction, a deep, profound, relaxed sleep, and then awakening to the beginnings of the next pain cycle. But by the time I reached the crest of the wave of the contraction, I would begin to panic, recognizing that they were longer and longer and that I felt such tremendous pressure, particularly in my backside, that I would not survive the pain and just burst all over the LDR bed. It was at this point that a nurse came in to tell me that if I wanted anesthesia, I had to act quickly because they were very busy.

Jess was leaving, and Wayne was praying over me, and I KNEW in that instant that I wanted it-- I had lost control of myself and felt that I would literally die if I experienced one more contraction. I said yes, and proceeded to beg for the anesthesiologist to appear. I remember nothing about this period except looking deep into Wayne's eyes and begging him to "help me." He was powerless to do so.

By the time the anesthesiologist arrived, he was irritated with me. I was nine cm, and there was, quite honestly, no reason for him to be giving me an epidural. Looking back, I'm surprised he agreed. And even more surprised-- and frustrated-- that the Nurse asked me at that time! I'm quite certain that had no one MENTIONED anesthesia to me, I would have simply progressed and birthed the baby completely naturally on my own. That panic was simply a part of the process.
However, the nurse and doctor, in a really pissy mood, harshly reprimanded me in this way:

"Now, you have ONE chance to get this epidural. If you move AT ALL, you will not get it, and you might get very, seriously hurt. We are not going to stop when you have a contraction. You are going to have to be still. Do you understand?" I nodded, although I felt completely incapable of controlling myself through another contraction. I didn't care, I just wanted the pain to stop.
I leaned over a pillow into the nurse's lap, and he began the procedure. No sooner had we begun than I felt a contraction coming on. Amazingly enough, knowing that I had to "just get through" this contraction, go deep within myself and find calm.... this idea alone completely calmed me. In fact, I hadn't had such a calm contraction since that morning at 6 am. It was followed rapidly by two others before he was done, and instantly I knew that the key to labor was, is, and ever will be your frame of mind when in the midst of it. I was SO disappointed that I now had an epidural.

Resigned to just finish up slowly (I still hadn't realized just how far along in the process I was yet) I lay back and began to work with the contractions, expecting, at any moment, to feel relief. Of course, by then, I was nearing ten cm, and amazingly enough, the epidural didn't take. I still felt every contraction, every muscle, every pang. I still felt panicked, but also began to internalize the lesson I had just learned with my epidural, that my brain was the key to this whole experience.
By this time, my other labor helpers had arrived-- Annie, Cherry and eventually, Jen.
I don't remember much from this period except how soothing it was to be surrounded by people who loved the Lord, particularly since my nurse wasn't very verbal if she was, in fact, a Christian at all. At one point, Cherry led us in a song. I had felt, up until then, that God had simply abandoned me. The pain was so severe that I thought I would just die-- in fact, I wished that I would rather than keep feeling it! I couldn't imagine that a God who loved me would allow me to experience such incredible, devastating pain. And yet-- as soon as her sweet voice began to rise towards heaven-- I FELT Him, in a tangible, knock-you-flat sort of way. I started crying, and I KNEW that Labor was teaching me about sanctification, and that it was OK, and that He was there.

My other favorite moment came when I hit around 10 and began REALLY wanting to push. They asked me to wait because my midwife wasn't responding to her pages, so I panted, groaned, and held her in as best I could, all the while telling everyone I could find in the room in a desperate voice how much I wanted to push and how great the pressure was, particularly in my backside. Cherry began to lay hands on me and pray in tongues, which instantly soothed my fears and reminded me to call on the Holy Spirit, who desired nothing more in that moment than to fill me with His joy. At the same time, on the other side of my bed, Annie was pulling out her bible (because I had asked her to read me Psalm 91 out loud.) She held up a faded holy card, putting it right in my face, and said lovingly: "Here's a picture of the Pope."
I reveled in that moment, and will probably never forget it-- how good our God is that He gave me every part of Him that is important to me to comfort me during my darkest hour.

Somehow, finally, they allowed me to start pushing, and (to my surprise, although I could not stop to think about how I felt about this)they allowed everyone to stay in the room! So there I was, pushing, with my husband AND my friends around. :P
It was actually quite perfect.. they had been so sweet and taken time out of very busy schedules to pray me through this experience, and God allowed them to see the fruits of their labor and be present at the actual birth, to see not just the hard stuff, but the glorious stuff as well. I am so thankful for that!

Since the epidural didn't take, it took only a couple pushes for me to get her out, and I was amazed at how easy the pushing seemed when contrasted with the sharp pains of the contractions. It actually felt kind of good. She emerged a beautiful, dark haired, dark skinned baby at 4:09 pm after only 10 hours of labor! This time around I tore pretty well but didn't require stitches. (hooray!)

In the end, I had an unnaturally natural childbirth, which is one step closer to the type of birth I hope to have if there ever is a next time. I discussed it at length with my OBGYN and he made some great points that I had picked up on right away with some reflection. We both felt that it was the walking that put me out of control. Instead of coping with the contractions, and slowly easing into them, I intensified them and did everything I could to move the baby down. Since this pregnacy had been so risky and painful and since the last four weeks of it had entailed mostly me being in excruciating pain, I needed to approach my labor experience in a gentle manner, and not as a warrior on a mission. While the exercises and walking I did with Jess were VERY effective (and I mean VERY!) they may have pushed my body too far too fast, which is how I reached the state that I can only describe as "out of control" so quickly. For someone like me, who has had three births in three years and who is not so young anymore, labor needs to be approached carefully and quietly, with very little "pushing" to get my body to do what it's doing. This means my labors might be longer, but ultimately, it means that my recoveries will be shorter-- this particular recovery has been harder than any previous one and my postpartum stuff particularly intense... some of it, sadly, permanent.

One thing that I lacked during pain management was a RHYTHM... I completely forgot about the three R's of labor (Ritual, Rhythm, Relaxation) and focused solely on "trying to relax," even though the Ritual and the Rhythm are what get you there in the first place.

I also was so moved by two aspects of the experience: First, how much it meant to my husband to be a part of the labor AND birth, not just the birth. I always assumed that he was the type who would be happier in the waiting room with a pack of cigarettes, but turns out he was GREATLY concerned with being with me and helping me, which I found totally amazing. Likewise, I became aware during this labor of the necessity of having wise, praying women around-- ones who KNOW exactly what you are going through and who can do it with you.

All in all, I am, again, completely moved and overwhelmed by the spiritual nature of the hard work of labor, and God's wisdom in giving it to us women. I thank each of the very special women who, both physically and spiritually, prayed me through the difficulties of Childbirth, and especially my incredible husband, without whom I would never know the sweetness of birth or the beautiful faces of our children.