James was born!!! Right on his due date, April 20th. Way to go, baby!
In the days leading up to April 20, I kept wondering what labor would feel like and what our “birth story” would be. I had read multiple stories online, ranging from easy, short labors to difficult ones lasting more than 24 hours… natural, epidural, c-section stories… early, on-time, late & induced deliveries… complications, contractions, pain level, etc… it was information overload and with such a wide range of possibilities, the unknown plus the waiting just about drove me nuts. I wanted to get it over with already! If only I’d known that the baby would be so punctual.
Without further ado, here is James’ birth story…
Tuesday, April 19th: I busied myself all day with errands, going to Home Depot and Walmart, cleaning house, cooking a huge thing of spam fried rice, talking on the phone to friends who were wondering if the baby had arrived yet. As a side note, my conversation with Janice included her telling me about her friend whose baby had to stay in the NICU for a month because he had ingested some meconium (baby’s poop) inside the water bag… which then made me extra paranoid about the yellowish discharge I was experiencing, especially in light of my “false alarm” a couple weeks ago. Could it be my water bag leaking? If so, isn’t the water supposed to be clear? What if…?? Anyway, in retrospect, I realized I must’ve been “nesting” that day because that was a whole lot of activity for someone 9 months pregnant…
That night, I started experiencing a lot of back pain. I attributed it to my 7 pound belly (center of mass, go physics!), plus the awkward position I stood in doing dishes that night. No big deal, I thought… it hurt, but no big deal…
I didn’t sleep well that night, but then again, I hadn’t been sleeping well all week. I couldn’t get comfortable, woke up multiple times to pee, and even had an occasional urge to poo, but nothing came out (I didn’t realize this was a sign!).
Wednesday, April 20th: By about 6:30 am I started complaining to Eric. Forget trying to sleep, I just wanted to find a comfortable position to ease the back pain. I squirmed and turned and bent over and tried everything, with very little relief. I didn’t think the pain could be contractions, though, because 1) all the pain was in my back, not in the front of my body like I expected, and 2) my doctor and everything I had read made it seem like contractions would be obvious and I’d know when I was having them. So I dismissed the idea that I might be in labor. Eric, however, thought we should try “timing” my pain… which I wasn’t sure how to do because the pain was pretty constant, not in waves like contractions are depicted. Nonetheless, I told him moments when the pain seemed to spike a bit and he recorded them… later on, he said that the pattern was pretty obvious. They were about 5 minutes apart.
I actually had a doctor’s appointment scheduled for 8:30 am that morning, which is why Eric was home and hadn’t gone to work yet. We got ready for the appointment… or rather, Eric got ready and pulled our hospital suitcase out while I was barely able to make it to the door, down the elevator and to the car, I was in so much pain. When we got to the hospital, rather than going to the doctor’s office, he dropped me off at the ER cause I could barely walk. At this point, I still wasn’t sure I was having contractions. I thought how disappointing it would be if I got examined and sent home because there was nothing happening. ”Are you in labor?” asked the nurse who wheeled me over to the Triage room. ”I don’t know,” I whimpered.
They connected two monitors to me, one to track baby’s heart rate and another to monitor my contractions. After checking blood pressure, the nurse checked my cervix and a surprised look came across her face… you’re seven-and-a-half-centimeters! My jaw dropped in disbelief… I couldn’t believe this was really happening and that it had already been happening without me realizing it!! She asked about my pain level and if I wanted an epidural, and I opted to wait, thinking that the pain was tolerable thus far… let me see how long I can go without one. She then left to check if there were any rooms available, since they were full the night before. Luckily, she came back and let us know there was a private one available, and off we went to room 304. Thank God.
The next few hours are kind of a blur. My nurse, Jovie, was great and her encouragement kept me going. Eric was wonderful and let me squeeze his fingers to death with every contraction. By now, I finally understood what a contraction felt like and the peaks and valleys did become well defined. The pain was intense but bearable. All I wanted at that point (beside relief!) was silence… no TV, no music, no conversation, nothing, just quiet. I even hushed Eric a couple times he tried to sing or say something encouraging! Just give me your hand and let me breathe, was my coping technique.
Around 10:30 am, they checked my cervix again and to my dismay, I had only dilated one additional centimeter in those 2 hours. They also said baby was facing up (OP), which would mean back labor and which explained all the back pain. (To clarify, he was head down, but facing up toward the ceiling which meant the back of his head was against my spine. Ideal position is facing down towards my spine.) So more waiting and more pain… epidural? asked Jovie… Not yet, I’m OK, I replied.
Around 12:30 pm, my OBGYN finally showed up and checked my cervix again. 9.5 cm, she said, and bulging water bag. She decided to break my water bag and this is when the action really started to pick up. I felt a gush of warm water, then with a wrinkled brow she told me that there was meconium in my water, i.e. baby poo-ed inside there. In light of my conversation with Janice the day before, I started to worry and think bad thoughts… is he OK?? I asked. He’s fine right now, but we want to make sure doesn’t ingest any of it when he comes out. And he’s still OP. Let’s start a bit of pitocin [to speed up the contractions]. At this point, I didn’t care what drugs they used or what they had to do, I just wanted to make sure the baby was safe.
Also at this point, at 9.5 cm and with the water bag broken, the pain went to an entirely new level… now it was, in my opinion, unbearable! I reasoned to myself that I had made it this far without epidural, that’s great, I’m proud enough of that, now please, give me the epidural!! The pain was INTENSE and I didn’t know how much longer I could last. But before I could verbalize any of this, my doctor pronounced me fully dilated and wanted me to try pushing. WHAT!?? I DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW TO PUSH!! And just like that, my window of opportunity for the epidural was gone! Oh God help me.
Somewhere around this point, my mom arrived. I was torn between wanting her there to witness the big moment, and wanting to be “alone” as was my coping method. No offense intended, Mom! The pain was just so intense, plus I felt so exposed (it was kind of embarrassing) that I decided to go it alone.
So back to the story, my doctor told me to try pushing with the next contraction and I gave it my best shot. I didn’t know what I was doing, but it felt kind of like going #2. Then a bit of good news… my doc said that with that push, the baby was turning a little! Now he was facing my left instead of upwards! So there was hope that he would keep turning. There was hope!
I don’t quite know what happened next, but before long I was in the all-out pushing phase. With each contraction, the nurse would grab one leg, Eric would grab the other, and they’d scrunch me into position. I was told to tuck my hands behind my knees & pull them back in order to “open up” my pelvis–this was really hard to do with the pain–and curl my chin to my chest–this was even harder, my chin was the last thing I was thinking about–and channel all my energy “down there.” It was exhausting!! It took a while for me to get the hang of, cause at first my face would get all red and puffed up, like trying unsuccessfully to blow up a balloon… this is the wrong way to push… whereas the correct way is to push “at the bottom”–which is actually possible to do without contorting your face. I felt at many times like if I pushed any harder, my body would explode or something would break. Just when I thought I’d reached my limit, the nurse and doctor told me to push even harder. Do it for James, my nurse said. It was aggravating, painful, tiring… physically, of course, but also mentally because I had no idea how close or far I was to the end! I kept asking “how much longer, how much more” and they wouldn’t give me an answer. Baby has to get past the bone, is all they would say. I felt like crying! I also remember thinking I want to take a nap. I’m so tired! So I asked my doctor if I could rest during one of the contractions instead of pushing. She said OK, but then I realized that there is no such thing as rest/relief during labor… cause breathing through the contraction and resisting the urge to push is arguably worse than pushing itself… pushing became the lesser of the 2 evils!
Anyway, the pushing continued for at least an hour and a half… possibly close to 2 hours. I can’t believe it took so long. The good news is that during the pushing, the baby turned into the right position (face down). Thank you, baby! And thank God!! Besides the pain of contractions and the difficulty pushing, there were two other very distinct, uncomfortable, distinctly uncomfortable sensations: first, an insane urge to pee and not being able to, and second, the moment when the baby’s head started to crown and everything was stretched to the MAX. It was unreal. And I had to wait like that for a few moments til the next contraction, to finish the pushing… oh my goodness it was SO CRAZY!!
By this point, my doctor had called in the neonatal team to receive the baby, and in a matter of a couple minutes the room transformed from calm to bustling, from pleasant hospital room to sterile environment. Part of my bed was disconnected and replaced with a surgical table, complete with tools and the blue tarp-like material seen on TV. It was pretty neat and I assumed it meant the end was near. Finally!!
At 2:40 pm, with a strong push, the baby’s head emerged, followed by its body, and my body felt an immediate and wonderful sense of relief. Relief in the physical sense only. Because out of the corner of my eye, I saw a bluish body and didn’t hear any crying, so then I had a moment of panic as I feared the worse and remembered the whole meconium deal. Fortunately, I suppose it was intentional that the doctors kept the baby from crying immediately, so that they would have a chance to suction him thoroughly before he drew his first breath. Within a few seconds, the baby was crying and the sense of relief flooded my heart as well. I knew he would be OK.
I’ve heard women say that when their baby was born, they felt an immediate and incredible connection to it… a whole new level of love that they didn’t know existed prior to the baby. I wondered if I would feel that. I was almost sure I would cry, as I cry anytime I see a delivery on TV or in the movies. But to my surprise, I cried not out of overwhelming joy, but out of physical relief and pent-up tension… and my dominant feeling was one of incredulous-ness, I-can’t-believe-that-just-happened, not one of deep love. Not sure if it was because of the meconium clean-up or because I needed to get stitched up (ouch), but I actually didn’t get to hold the baby until at least half an hour after he was born. I was thankful and amazed that this little person had just come out of me, but it wasn’t until the next day that my maternal instinct really kicked in and I think I began to love. That’s an entirely different story!
Today, May 2nd (12 days later): the shock of the experience has worn off a bit and while there is still pain “down there”, it is tolerable and nothing compared to being in labor! The first week at home has been a very steep learning curve, but we are slowly getting the hang of it and adjusting to the new lifestyle. Would I do it again? A week ago I would’ve said, most definitely not. But now, to witness the fruit of my labor (haha) and watch him grow and learn to smile, I don’t know. Maybe ask me in a couple years?
And so it is, that James Philip entered our world. Our little miracle from heaven.
