sight isn’t always necessary

Me and Elly, 8 minutes after she was born

Just for my own recollection, really, I’m writing down here what happened on November 20th, 2008, the day my beautiful daughter Elly was born.

At 4am, I awoke suddenly to the feeling that I had started to pee in my bed.  This is honestly not too uncommon for pregnant women as they approach the due date of their unborn children, because there is almost no space to accumulate urine anymore and a simple kick from the baby can cause little accidents.  I started to get up, making note of the time first, and then I felt a sudden gush of fluid; this was no little pee accident.  I hopped into the bathroom, calling out to Craig – my water had broken.  It was time for Elly to come out!

Having worked in Labor and Delivery for quite some time, I knew that a few things could happen when a woman’s water breaks – either they go into immediate labor and a baby is born soon after, or nothing happens and the doctors are forced to induce labor, or they slowly start to contract and eventually a baby is born.  Because of this, I didn’t rush to the hospital right away when my water broke, instead I took a leisurely shower, dried my hair, put on makeup, called a few people, had some breakfast… paced around a bit.  I called Rachel and Amanda at around 5:30, and they arrived soon after to take care of Connor until my parents arrived.  I did want to leave to go to the hospital before Connor woke up, because at that point my biggest concern was that my beautiful little boy would be seriously distressed at the whole situation.

When we got to the hospital, we had a lot of waiting to do.  We waited for the nurses.  We waited for the midwife.  We waited to be admitted, to be moved to a room, for my IV to be placed, to be cleared to walk around the hospital.  We waited for my mom to come in.  We waited to call Connor and ask how he was doing.  In all of that waiting, I was not having any contractions, and I wasn’t really feeling anxious about what was to soon happen.  It was a blur really, a blur of boring waiting.

Then we were finally allowed to walk.  My midwife told me that they’d just let me do my own thing until 4pm, at which time they’d have to start me on Pitocin because I couldn’t go too long with a ruptured bag of waters; this acts as a protective barrier for both the mother and the baby and invites infection if exposed for too long.  The midwife and a few nurses all suggested that I do a bunch of “nipple stimulation” – this may sound like a fun pasttime but it’s actually pretty stressful for a woman that is about to push out a watermelon.  Nipples are very sensitive areas, and it’s hard to approach that kind of suggestion with a serious tone; after all it does feel good!  And in my head, I couldn’t get over that – I was about to potentially go through some serious pain, and the strange ticklish feeling of nipple stimulation was definitely more stressful than helpful.  So we ignored their suggestions, and we did about a thousand laps around the University of Michigan hospital.  It was a blast.  Actually, it was ridiculous – there were doctors and nurses and fancy schmancy people of all shapes and colors all over the place, and then there was me in my little delivery outfit and hospital socks shuffling around the hospital with mom and Craig at my sides.  They’d look at me with concerned eyes every time I took a deep breath or made a face that indicated any amount of discomfort.  I constantly asked if they were bored or needed anything, because I honestly wasn’t feeling much at all, and I felt bad for having put them both out with my silly hospital walking.  A few times we stopped at this out-of-the-way door for mom to step out and have a cigarette.  Twice we passed by the Great American Smoke-Out stand and stole donuts.  They were free.

Ugh.  Then it was 3pm.  We were quickly approaching the dreaded Pitocin hour, and I wanted to have some food before I was forced to be on that awful crap, regardless of the fact that I’d probably throw it up once real contractions started.  I asked my midwife, she said yes, and I ordered a grilled cheese sandwich from “room service”, as the UofM has so elegantly put it.

Then I retried nipple stimulation.  I hopped into the shower, hoping the warmth of the water would help me to relax while I rolled my nipples around in my fingers.  How weird.  The shower didn’t help; I still felt strange and perverted and stressed out because all of that nipple playing wasn’t getting me any closer to getting the big lump out of my belly!  I gave up and started to use the breastpump.  With mom and Craig both in the room, pretending to have idle conversation about Barack Obama and politics and the Fox News Network, I hooked up an industrial strength breastpump to my boobs and flicked the thing on.  About a minute later, I felt a very very strong contraction building up, so I turned the pump off and pretended like nothing was happening.  Mom and Craig both looked at me with those concerned eyes, and I changed the topic of the conversation to John McCain.

The contraction subsided, I waited a few seconds, and then I turned the machine back on.  About a minute passed, and another strong contraction started.  I turned of the machine, the contraction subsided, and just as I was about to turn it back on, another contraction started, startled me.  I breathed through that one, then turned on the pump again a minute or two later.

This continued for about… 10 minutes.  I turned on the pump probably only 4 times in that period.  Either my body was ready to start real labor, or the pump actually started to do its job – but I was finally in real labor.  Strangely though, and unexpectedly, every contraction wasn’t like the end of the world; it definitely wasn’t anything like labor with Connor.  I’d be in a conversation with whomever, a contraction would start and I would have to stop talking, and then it would go away and we’d pick up the conversation as if nothing had happened.  I wasn’t feeling pain in between, I was really just feeling good and energetic and happy.  Mom and Craig were confused because they’d want to just be rubbing my feet or neck or whatever, and having the silent stillness that we had with my labor with Connor, but I’d be interrupting the silence with babbling about soap operas or birding in the Bahamas or whatever.

The nurse (Mary Ellen?) gave me a birthing ball to sit on to help make me more comfortable.  This wasn’t really a ball, it was more of an egg shaped thing, and it was fun to sit on.  I rocked on it, I bounced on it, I was having fun.  And then it popped.  Popped!  I was in the middle of a really strong contraction, so in an effort to find a place to feel comfortable, I jumped up onto the bed and started to rock back and forth on my hands and knees.  Mom and Craig were looking around to see what had made me hop to my feet so quickly; I think they were both sure that the baby fell out.  As it turned out, their suspicions weren’t too far off; no sooner than the ball popped, I started to feel some serious pressure, the “I’ve gotta push” kind.  Mom asked how my pain was, and I guess stupidly I said that it was about an eight – when going by this “scale of one to ten” thing, an eight is really low to a labor nurse.  They only really do things quickly when you say your pain is a ten.

So, because I was only an eight, nobody called my midwife.  They wanted to wait a bit, to give me a chance to get truly ready to push or whatever was the logic in their minds.  I think I probably went through five contractions, so about ten minutes, before I suddenly seriously needed to push.  The nurses made me “breathe through” two contractions, and that was maybe the longest two minutes of the whole ordeal, because I was sure I was going to give in and let a little push out and end up having the baby on the bed.  Somehow, I managed to contain myself.

As soon as someone said “Holly is here!”, I started to push.  Once.  Then someone said to wait a second (the order is head first, wait a second to make sure the cord isn’t around the neck, then the body), so I waited, then someone said to push again, and then I heard a baby cry.  I delivered her on my hands and knees, so when I heard her cry I had to turn over, sit down, and a second later I had this hot, wet, sticky mess of a little girl up on my half naked torso, screaming and crying and looking as blue as ever!  I had no pain, no exhaustion, just pure joy at finally being able to meet the little being that had been growing inside me.  After a minute or two, Holly asked me to push again to deliver the placenta (oh yes, that is another stage of labor that many women don’t even realize exists), and so a little grunt later, the placenta was out.  Hardly any blood though.  Holly and my mom discussed the placenta for a few minutes (I heard it only faintly, as I was totally engrossed in Elly, but it was entertaining to hear my mom’s great interest in that weird looking organ that had nourished Elly for so long).  Someone started taking pictures.

In all of that, I think I made three noises – one yelp for the first contraction I had to breathe through, another yelp for the second, and a third yelp when I was allowed to finally push.  Throughout the rest of the labor it was enough to take long, deep breaths, concentrating on how cool my belly looked when contracting (it turned into a pointy belly, rather than round, and it was fun to stare at and focus on).  My mom said it was the most natural and calm labor she had ever witnessed, and it must be the way labor is intended to be.  I don’t know; it was amazing and surreal and graceful, but I’ve been in the room for women who yelled and screamed and threw stuff, and the babies come out looking innocent and pure anyway.  It’s all the same outcome – a new little life to shape and help grow.

Anyway.  That’s the story.  Probably could use a little editing, but I’m hungry for some ice cream.