Keep Calm and Carry--Well, Just--Okay, There's Nothing You Can Do About This.

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awesome, babies, baby, birth story, childbirth, epidural, funny, hospital, katharine thorpe, labor and delivery, life-changing, littleinkblot, midwife, mom, mommy, moms, natural, nurse, pain meds, silly, Sophie, Tessa

Yesterday, my lovely friend Jo gave birth to her and her husband’s first child, a daughter named Hadessa. In between stifled, inward squealings of delight, stifled tears, and stupid giggling (that’s how I process joy, okay?) I realized this: I have never written a blog post about childbirth.

This is bizarre. Childbirth is the topic of mom-bloggers everywhere. It’s the one death-defying, life-altering experience we all share and that pretty much never gets old. Of course, some of us only want sketchy outlines of what happened (me!), while others want all the gory details (urgh), but still. Unless you can’t stand the woman, you are interested in her story(ies) of labor and delivery.

How have I not taken advantage of this in the million moments of writer’s block I’ve battled?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Okay, that’s enough question marks. I feel cleansed.

Anyway.

So. Once upon a time, there I was, a naive, impressionable, stubborn pregnant girl.

I joined a pregnancy forum and kinda-sorta talked about various stages and symptoms of my pregnancy with strangers. I read the pregnancy books. I endured (before I had my baby, it was an endurance thing) birth-stories from well-meaning ladies at church, in grocery stores, at work, and pretty much everywhere. I had an irrational sense of capableness and everything-is-going-to-be-simply-great-ness. I was petrified of needles. I was also petrified of doing anything that could hurt the baby.

So naturally, I was anti-epidural. (This is, by the way, a position I still understand and respect, regardless of what you’re about to read.)

My mom, on the other hand, was decidedly pro. After having her first four children without, she had her fifth with. And became an astounded, ecstatic promoter of epidurals.

“It’s wonderful,” she would say forcefully. “You will have your fair share of labor pains before it kicks in, trust me. But after it does, you feel so much better. I was crunching crackers and slurping juice without a care in the world, right before Lucy was born. It was great.”

But although I wanted to be on that side, I just couldn’t. First, and despite the reassurances of medical professionals, I had the terrible suspicion that somehow, it would hurt the baby (there are plenty of rabid women threatening you with this if you even talk about epidurals in front of them. Don’t judge me). Then, there was my own personal dread of the IV, the IV being actually inserted, the shots to numb the epidural placement area (at the base of your spine), and then the huge, scary, life-altering epidural needle itself, in your SPINE. Your SPINE!

*shudder*

The mere thought of it is reducing me to a jelly of fear and loathing.

So. I pretty much decided I would tough out the labor pains. I kept coaching myself. “Women all over the world do this without even a hospital. I can do this. I can do this. I will do this.”

That was how things went on, until…

I went into labor.

There is a stage in pregnancy, right at the end, during which you lose your pregnancy glow, your spring in your step/waddle, and your complacency. You become cranky, frustrated, and heartily sick of being so huge. Your back hurts. You feel like you’re sleeping with a watermelon glued to your body. Your ankles start to swell so then you put your feet up but that puts pressure on your enormous, enormous, good-gracious-how-can-it-be-so-big-and-you-not-explode stomach. And in all of this, you’re cleaning. Relentlessly. Driven to get the **** house in order before IT’S TOO LATE, CAN’T YOU UNDERSTAND, IT COULD BE TOO LATE TOMORROW!!!

I was in that stage. One morning, two weeks before my due date, I went to church. I was in a foul mood. I couldn’t breathe very well and my back hurt. I also thought I was coming down with a cold. And I was certain that not only would the baby not be early, the baby would be late, dang it, which would mean that I would be big as a house that much longer. Sulking in my pew, I suddenly decided I’d had enough. I gave my husband and everyone around me the stink-eye for daring to have a church service when obviously it should have been canceled to spare my pregnant feelings and fat ankles.

“I can’t do this.” I hissed angrily.

“What?” whispered Jon, surprised.

“I can’t do this. I feel like crap. I’m going home.” I whispered pointedly. How could he not have known?

“Okay,” he said, a sweet concern flitting over his features.

I hoisted myself up from the pew and shuffled out. He followed courteously, drove me home, and didn’t ask questions as I huffed off to the bedroom large-ly, and lay down with my pillow.

That night, the contractions began.

“Pfuh.” I thought, as I realized it was happening. “Here we go again. More false alarms.”

The “false alarms” continued, growing stronger and closer together quickly, rather than fading out as they had in the weeks prior. I hunkered down for about half an hour, testing them, seeing if they had the guts to stay with me this time and see the thing through.

They didn’t take that challenge well. Spitefully, they began to flex their figurative (and my literal) muscles until I found myself wincing.

Then I sat up and smiled hugely, adrenaline and delight racing through my veins, replacing my sluggish pouting.

Baby Time!

Between winces, I told Jon what was happening, called Mom to let her know, and grabbed my hospital bag (incomplete, of course). Baby time! Baby time!

We rode to the hospital, me thrilled with every contraction and gabbling nervously between them about how I was dealing with them. It was all quite exciting.

In the reception area at the hospital though, the excitement began to wear off. What had been surprisingly uncomfortable but bearable pains now fogged my brain and rendered me unable to do much but hang on while they came and went. I remember looking blankly at the forms I was given to fill out, wondering in a not-really-caring kind of way why the ones I’d already filled out online were lost. After writing my name and Social Security number, I gave up and shoved the clipboard at Jon. “I can’t do this.”

Those words were to become my motto.

Into triage we went, and then into a wheelchair, and then into labor and delivery. Each new nurse who came my way met me with a delighted observation about how far along I was already. I could not understand their enthusiasm. This was awful.

In L&R, a well-meaning nurse advanced with an IV needle, but, having drilled this one thing into my own brain over the past nine months, I waved her away feebly. Surprised, she protested and made to take my arm, but I doggedly and stupidly insisted that she call my midwife. I had permission to go IV-less. I wasn’t having the epidural anyway. “Okay,” she shrugged doubtfully.

Then my own L&R nurse came, a sweet girl who stayed by me calmly and supportively as I wearily staggered around (lying down hurt), tried the warm shower thing (warm water hurt) got out of the shower and lay back down again (standing up hurt) and finally gave up. Everything hurt. By this time, they were telling me not to push and I was agreeing but in my mind I was thinking “I can’t do this. To heck with it, I’m pushing.”

Maybe that was a mistake. Either way, it seemed impossible not to, so I went ahead.

At some point I hollered that the baby was coming, and the nurse didn’t believe me. “No, I don’t think you’re quite that far along yet,” she said soothingly, “but I’ll check you and see how you are doing. Oh. OH. Never mind, I better get your midwife!” A blinding smile, out she ran, and in charged the midwife.

It was at this point that I realized, with blinding clarity, that the only thing in the world that would save me from the ever-increasing, searing, world-without-end physical torment I was in was an epidural. I requested one, but was told the horrifying news: it was too late.

At this phase in the proceedings, I only remember doing a lot of screaming (embarrassing, but hey. I felt like I was being tortured) and kind of thinking that all of these calm, smiling, enthusiastic people around me were flippin’ insane. There I was writhing in torment of hades and they’re all like, “It’s going great! Good job, Mom!”

My reply? “I can’t DOOOOOOO THIS!“

Finally, after much destruction of everything I ever was, Sophie was born.

The immense feeling of relief at the ending of the pains was unlike anything I’d ever imagined. In fact, the only thing that’s ever topped it on my list of “bliss” was when they let me hold Sophie (and later, Tessa) for the first time.

That right there is an indescribable moment. I won’t even try.

Okay.

I’ll say this. Up until labor, I was pretty happy, as a rule. During labor, I went from extremely happy to “if death is a way out of this agony, I’ll take it.” At the worst moment of labor, I gave up on everything. And then, suddenly, the pain was gone, and they put this tiny, tiny baby in my arms, and… the entire world swung into focus, as gently and irrevocably as a clock hand moving from eleven to midnight, as vibrantly and beautifully as dark curtains flung wide for dawn to flood the room. Nothing would ever be the same and I wouldn’t ever want it to be.

Then, of course, they took her away to be weighed, bathed, yada yada, and suddenly I was dipped back into the muddy puddle of despair for a last visit while they pushed (pushed, not funny, not cool) down hard on my abdomen to make sure I was not going to have some kind of hemorrhage or whatever and took care of various other issues.

Then it was back to bliss, back to holding the baby, back to another hospital room that was quiet and fairly peaceful in which I could recover.

I think one of the neatest things was that– well, a lot of pregnant women say “I can’t wait to meet the baby!” but, when I held Sophie, I didn’t feel like I was meeting a stranger at all. I felt like I’d known her forever. From before she existed. If anything, as she’s grown, she’s surprised me with her developing personality… but then, no. Only recognition and joy and great contentment.

And that’s it. That’s the story of Sophie’s birth, a rollercoaster ride that lasted a mere four hours, start to finish.

Prologue: Not Making the Same Mistake Twice

Two and a half years later, I was headed to the emergency room once more. Tessa was on her way.

The first thing I asked for when we got there was to have an IV inserted and get the epidural going. You can imagine my horror when the nurses warned me that we might not have enough time. Still, they began the fluid drip thing that you have to do first. It is a testament to my fear of labor that I allowed and encouraged them to use a giant needle for it so that it would go faster.

It is a further testament to my fear of labor that I was more afraid of not getting the epidural than I was when the pre-epidural meds  interfered with my blood pressure and made me go faint and had the doctors and nurses rushing to intervene, strap an oxygen mask on me, and inject me with more meds to start my heart beating right again.

It is a final testament to my fear of labor that I still think that Tessa’s birth–complete with crazy internal and external heart monitors, a technician who meant well but had to try THREE TIMES before the epidural line was inserted properly (each time hurting very, very badly as it went in crookedly), crazy ER low-blood-pressure incident, not being able to feel my legs, being yelled at to “PUSH! PUSH!” just like on TV, and final “The baby’s heart monitor is not responding properly. Get the vacuum forceps. Go. GO!” drama just before she was born– with all of that, I still remember her birth as less traumatic than Sophie’s.

Wow.

Doesn’t this make you want to have kids?