Birth: Waiting to Exhale

Madeus came two weeks late or rather, Madeus was asked kindly at first and then rather sternly to leave starting on November 8, 2007. My pregnancy and birth experience with Madeus has been a lesson in relinquishing the false control and expectations that I have. I thought I would have the ideal experience because I was made to do this. After all, I started my own Babysitter's Club at 11 and made more money from babysitting than I made from my first real job. Heck, who is able to buy their mom a microwave at 11? (I digress, I know). So after a pregnancy filled with fears and sickness, I still had it in my head I would deliver early and without medical intervention. My brother-in-law said I would be early because I was small and had no where for the baby to go. For some reason, that sounded scientific enough, and I took his premonition to heart.

After giving a lot of thought to who we would do my prenatal care and delivery with, Michael and I decided on the UNC midwives. They consisted of six women, who I alternated my prenatal care with and who were responsible for my delivery at UNC hospital. They were all so intriguing and different that Mike and I were constantly changing who would be our favorite for delivery. Because of their philosophy, they allowed for me to wait two weeks instead of the routine one in order to be induced. This was important to us since we felt I was not as far along as my official due date. During that added time Michael and I tried everything, I drank gallons of raspberry tea and we even went back and forth over speed bumps in our car. My desired natural experience became more and more medical as I was required to go in for stress tests and fluid checks. It was clear on November 7 that I would be going in for my induction on the 8th because the boy had made no change.

Every way this was going was a disruption of our vision. In my mind, Michael and I were going to get to five centimeters dilated at home with classical music and our natural birth plan. Then we were going to have that wonderful frantic movie moment where we scramble around for our bags and he accidentally forgets me at the door (thank you She's Having a Baby). Once at the hospital we would call our moms and they would fly out right in time for the first baby picture. Instead, with both moms in tow as they had already arrived to take care of a baby that was not there to take care of, we went to the hospital as scheduled, very over prepared, and already tired. It is a strange thing to try to sleep when you know you are going to be having a baby the next day and you have never done it before. When I can't conceptualize something I believe it is not going to happen so I was quite fearful in those last weeks. When I did picture an actual baby being birthed it brought up imagery of a SNL skit in which Rachel Dratch has an arm coming out of her head. I just couldn't imagine everything being in the right place. The one visualization that kept me going was the thought o holding my baby in that way where their little tooshie(my grandma's word) sticks out and they are pressed against you, it was the only thing I could remotely picture that would calm me down.

Back at the hospital, I was no more dialated then a fingernail (my midwife's language) of a centimeter so a slow pitocin drip was started at 9:30am. The midwives believe in a slow induction process so they had already warned me it could be days. A catheter was also put in my cervix to try for manual dilation. At around 3:30 the contractions started coming stronger and the catheter fell out. I stood from that point on because I was too uncomfortable sitting down. Michael and I managed the pain with yoga breathing and visualization of Cosby Show births (yep that was my happy place). At 9:30pm during a crucial scene on Grey's Anatomy, my midwife and I decided on an epidural. My legs were shaking from standing and the contractions were on top of each other and she confirmed that once you have that level of pitocin some kind of pain medication is usually needed. I resigned my idea of unmedicated child birth after finding out I was five centimeters dialated which was my minimum goal for pain intervention. The anesthesiologist came in and took us through a laundry list of complications that may happen. I think it was at this point that I was most afraid during labor. I kept imagining that I would be paralyzed. After several attempts, she kept hitting my bone is what I was told, I received an epidural. While sitting still for the needle I had two three minute contractions with only 30 second intervals which was a lot of fun!

I obviously had a different plan and my prejudgments about epidurals but I will have to say that its intervention made the pregnancy a whole different ball game. I received an epidural light because of my sensitivity to medication so I could still feel everything but my legs have never felt so warm and wonderful in my life. The biggest downfall was that this was becoming more and more a medical procedure, I now had the epidural, an IV, and a catheter. Plus, Madeus' heart rate would fluctuate every time I got comfortable so there was no sleep to be had. At 2 am the midwives broke my water hoping to ignite a fire under Madeus. They did mention that we may have to discuss other options if this did not provoke change since my cervix was still very deep in my back. This fear must have done the trick and I started to feel a lot of pressure again. I was checked at 4:30 am and I was at 9 centimeters. We called our moms back to the hospital and I was allowed to give a few pushes to relieve some pressure. I was then told to stop and that it would probably be several hours so I needed to rest for a while. I started pushing again at around 5:30 and I pushed every contraction for an hour and a half. This is when I thought I would have to have a c section because I have never done something so hard in my entire life. I fell asleep in between pushes, I vomited every push because I guess my delivery wanted symmetry with my pregnancy, and Madeus was stuck under my pelvic bone. My midwife finally suggest this bar apparatus that they wrapped a sheet around so that I would make a pull up motion instead of a crunch. This was the most amazing tool and he was out two pushes later. We heard the cry right away, he was put on my stomach and then taken away because he was struggling a bit with his breathing but then he was given right back to Mike who brought him to me and when I looked up at Michael, he started to cry.

A few lasting thoughts and memories:
The coolest thing about my delivery was that I had nine medical personale in the room. Now I know that doesn't seem so cool but since my labor was a full 24 hours I had two hospital shifts of personale and since I delivered at 7am they were in the midst of a shift change again. The last shift stayed late and the new shift came in to help along with two more of my midwives who were at the hospital doing rounds. My entire experience came full circle with all people involved present.

Everything happened the way it needed to be. I believe that in my case if I was induced earlier I would have had to have a c section because we almost got to that point anyway. I also think the standing and rocking pose helped gravity to its thing to help make Madeus move down a bit. I also think, that in my case, without the epidural, I may not have had the endurance for pushing after the 24 hours of no sleep. Finally, I was unhappy at first with who my delivering midwife was but she had with her the most amazing student midwife plus she was the one to suggest the bar apparatus which as I said before, was amazing.

I wore my own nightgown, slippers, and had my toe nails done. It really made a big difference for me especially because everything else felt so clinical.

The epidural was wonderful but unmedicated child birth would be wonderful as well. Without the complications I did feel capable of managing my pain through breathing and with the help of Michael, who was so good at being there for me.

I was in complete awe of my body's endurance. I hope to honor it as a vessel and take better care of it after seeing what it could do.

My hair was really shiny after I delivered, thoughts on this?

When your birth plan is altered there are still many ways to incorporate what you want. The baby still was put directly on me, I still had my music playing, the baby in room, breast feeding right away, etc. In a sense it was a bit like how Michael and I viewed our wedding. We picked out the few things that were most important to us and made them happen and let go of the rest. In this case, it was having a healthy baby boy on November 9, 2007 at 7:11 am weighing 7lbs 11 oz.