Laboring for Liesel: Part IV

So, I surrendered my preferences and laid down in the bed...it was awful. The pain increased so much and I was miserable. Lest I risk sounding completely negative, there were two good things about the bed: I hadn't laid down in about 12 hours, so even though I was hurting worse, I was able to rest my body a little. And taking on this position caused me to progress. 

I'm not sure how long I was on the bed, because I really went outside of my mind at this point. I remember hearing my midwife say "Happy New Year!", which caused me to see a picture in my head of the final scene of 'When Harry Met Sally', when they finally get together at the New Year's party. I thought about people celebrating all over the world and how very, very far removed I was from all my previous New Year's celebrating at that moment.

Contractions--previously slowed by my time in the shower--started coming faster together again, and eventually I had no breaks between them. They all rolled together with only slight dips between the peaks. I couldn't talk, I could only moan. Tim was rubbing my back with heat packs and my mom was rubbing my feet. I would have been lost without them. Having those other sensations gave my brain something else to process besides the pain, which helped so much. 

I laid there and thought about an epidural, and how badly I wanted one. I thought about an anesthesiologist coming in and performing the procedure on my back. Maybe I was so outside my mind that I thought it was actually happening. If I had been able to process those thoughts into words, I would have begged for one, but I was so deep inside myself that I couldn't communicate with the people around me. Eventually I heard my mom on the phone, talking with someone at the nurse's station. She was asking for them to send my midwife back to check my progress, because I'd "been having a continuous contraction for the last 25 minutes."

What?! That sounded so bad. My midwife arrived immediately to check me.

"You're at least 7 cm!! You're doing so great, Bethany!" 

A chorus of praises rose up from Tim and Mom as well. I didn't hear their words but I remember their joy and pride and encouragement over me. And then I heard the very sound of salvation: running water. Someone was readying the birthing tub! I was going to be allowed off the bed and back into the water! This was my first glimpse of the light of possible release from labor. Laying there with a flurry of activity going on around me, I suddenly felt the need to fold myself over my next contraction and bear down through it.

"that can't be right..." I thought I wouldn't feel an urge to push unless I was a complete 10cm, and I had just been told I was only at 7cm.

I don't remember how I went from not being able to even speak to leaving the bed on my own strength and climbing in the tub. I just got in there somehow, and slowly sank into the water. 

The water was hot, way too hot, and it was pure wonder. Everything went still and my body stopped screaming at me as soon as each part was submerged. My mom tested the water and worried out loud to the midwife that it would be dangerously hot for the baby. They asked me if I wanted some cold in there, and I could only reply "I just love it." Everyone snickered and left it alone. My midwife knew it would be a long time before any baby would be in that water. 

The doppler heartbeat checks continued to show that the baby was fine. I was so grateful. 

After experiencing a few more contractions, I admitted to my midwife that I thought I felt the urge to push but I was afraid to if I was only 7cm. She checked me for the last time and informed us that I was complete and the baby's head was at a -2 station. Such great news! All I had to do was push the baby's head under my pelvic bone and we'd be so close to being done.

So I pushed.

I always fancied that I would be a delicate, silent woman in labor. That was not the case. I was a yeller, and my midwife seemed to love it. With every contraction, I pushed with everything I had and "vocalized" to keep from holding my breath and turning purple.

"Goooooood, Bethany! That's so good!" 

I must have been desperate for any positive affirmation that I was doing the right thing. If yelling while pushing was right and good, then fine.

Tim told me later that he didn't know I was capable of making such ungodly sounds. 

The nice thing about pushing was that it replaced the pain of contractions with pressure. Not that it felt easy, but it was awesome to not have the terrible pain anymore. 

This went on for two and a half hours (I found out later). I ran myself completely out of energy to the point where my best efforts were obviously more feeble. Contractions had slowed down so much that I was waiting and waiting for the next one to come so I could push with them. I felt stuck. I stopped hearing positive feedback from my mom and my midwife, and finally asked them what they thought I should do.

"I think we need to get you out of the tub and get this baby out."

"Ok. How about the birthing stool?"

I never thought I would use that thing, but I sure didn't want to lay back down on the bed again. I climbed out of the tub, spent one contraction leaning over the bed, and got settled on the stool. Immediately, everything changed. Gravity and instinct took over, and I had no control over my body anymore. I went from straining as hard as I could to move the baby, to feeling like an unstoppable force was pushing the head farther and farther down, and within about two minutes I felt the ring of fire. Tim was sitting behind me and I was gripping his hands for dear life. The extreme pressure, burning, and speed of everything was pretty scary to me, and I was trying to slow it all down with deep breathing. Everyone encouraged both of us to "Look! Look down and see the head!" but neither Tim nor I were interested in that sight. I kept my eyes tightly shut and told them absolutely not. 

This part hurt so bad, but it was over so quick. I remember finally feeling relief and saying, "Oh, that feels better!", and my midwife replied "that's because the head is out." I still didn't open my eyes until I felt someone lift my baby into my arms. It was all finally over.

The relief was indescribable. I looked down to see the bloodiest baby I've ever seen in my life lying limp in my arms. Tim was beside himself with excitement and I just stared at our blinking, quiet baby. 

"Look what you have! What do you have? Is it a boy or a girl?!"

"Why does that even matter right now?!" I couldn't have cared less. I was completely in shock that a human being had just been born out of my body. It was so surreal, but everyone wanted me to get on with it and announce the gender. I peeled back the blankets.

"You're a GIRL?! You're my Liesel??" I had wanted her to be a girl so badly. 

Once the announcement was made, it was back to business. I was bleeding a lot and I had to change positions quickly to slow it down. Still holding Liesel, I was lifted up onto the bed and laid flat.

Someone in the room said: "Time of birth: 5:08am."

"THAT'S what time it is?!!" I thought it was maybe around 1 or 2am. She was born 23 hours after my water broke.

All too soon, the umbilical cord stopped pulsing, Tim cut the cord, and they took her away from me because she still wasn't crying or breathing as deeply as she needed to. The nurses went to work to deep suction her and I sent Tim over with them so he could talk to her while that was happening. She had always been so responsive to his voice while I was pregnant, I wanted her to at least be able to hear him if she had to be away from me. 

My midwife had a lot of work to do on me to put me back together. More than once I asked her how many stitches she was doing, but she coyly replied "well, it's a running stitch, so....". It's probably better that I don't know, really. I just know it took her an hour to stitch me up. By then Liesel had her lungs clear and I could hear her big healthy cries as she was being weighed and measured, which was a great relief. 

She was 7 pounds, 9 ounces, and 18 inches short with a full head of long dark hair.

The stitches finally ended and I got to change out of my bloody clothes and get her back in my arms. 

And then the sun came up. The longest night of our lives was finally over. My mom and Tim took long naps but I couldn't sleep at all, I was too energized by the birth and generally excited about her.

I had thought that she (or he, whoever our baby would prove to be) would be a little stranger to me when they were born. That wasn't the case. Looking at her was like looking at a familiar face. She looks just like Tim's baby pictures.

There it is. The end. Thanks for reading this very long (longer than I intended) account or our birth.

Laboring for Liesel: Part III

By 6pm, I had lost all motivation to be conversational. Contractions were coming in double peaks, I was shaky and nauseated, and I had started having deep pain in my lower back during every contraction. Mom and Tim were feeling doubtful that we should stay home much longer, so Tim called our midwife to update her on my labor's progress. 

By then I was "vocalizing" through contractions and she overheard me go through a couple and gave us the choice to head to the hospital immediately or wait another couple of hours at home. We decided to go on in right away.

Getting out of the house, down the stairs, up the sidewalk, in the car, across town, through the hospital, and up the elevator to Triage was an ordeal. I cried the whole way through it. It's hard enough to be in the throws of labor, but to have to travel to a new location in the dead of winter just made it worse. We were shown to the same Triage room where we had our external version procedure.

I had to be monitored for about twenty minutes while lying flat on my back, and that was not fun because contractions were worse when I could not sit up and lean forward. My midwife arrived and we had our moment of truth: the first cervix check that would finally tell me for sure how far along in labor I was. I was desperately hoping to be at least 7cm.

"You're about 3.5cm, but I could stretch it to a 4...we won't send you home."
I didn't cry in front of her, but she soon left and I couldn't stop the tears. I wasn't even allowed to be admitted to the hospital unless I was at least 4cm. She was fudging the rules for me out of pity. All that work at home had barely gotten me started. They showed me to my alternative birth center room, and then I threw up.

At first I just sat in a chair, defeated. It was around 7:30pm.

Tim and I had worked really hard to get the opportunity to deliver our baby in that room. A birthing center within a hospital, we felt it was the best kind of environment for us to be. To qualify for access to this room, we had to complete a 6 week birth education course, be willing to try to have an unmedicated birth, undergo an external cephalic version, and attend an orientation meeting held by the hospital. It was a big, comfortable, homey room with a birthing tub and plenty of different options for natural labor and delivery. A no-stirrups kind of environment. Eventually, I worked up the motivation to put this awesome place and its resources to good use.

So we labored on the birthing ball and sitting up on the bed. My midwife got us all set up with everything we needed and then left us alone to do the work. I needed Tim in a desperate way. I only remember him stepping away from me once, I called out for him and my mom explained that he desperately needed a bathroom break. He had been massaging my back through every single contraction for almost four hours. I found out later that his hands were killing him.

The baby's spine was laying against my spine, which was causing all my painful back labor and probably my slow progression. My midwife suggested lunges, squats, and lying on my left side to turn the baby's position. It was then that I realized that simply enduring labor was an entirely different thing from actually working through labor to make it more effective...and by "more effective" I could also say "more painful". All of her suggestions would increase my pain level by a lot, and I just wasn't ready or willing to step into that yet.

At about 9:30pm I got in the shower and sat with the steaming hot water directed at my lower back. It was glorious. I almost felt the pain go away entirely at first. Tim was there with me too, sitting on the outside of the tub, holding my hand through the curtain. I had lost all awareness of time by this point and soon I was encouraged to get out of the shower because I'd been in there for an hour and a half. I knew all this sitting still in the same position probably wasn't helping me progress very much, but I really needed the break in pain and rest that the hot shower offered.

I was getting monitored with the doppler every hour to check the baby's heart-rate, and I was also getting my temperature taken regularly to watch me for a fever. Every time the nurse performed one of these checks, I heard the same quick and regular rhythm come out of the doppler, 135 beats per minute. The baby was handling the contractions like a champ, showing no signs of stress, and I was staying infection-free even though it had been 17 hours since my water broke.

All this time, Tim had been quietly supportive of every little thing I wanted to do, every position I wanted to assume, every time I asked him to stop massaging my back this way or that way and do it another way. As we were getting settled back in the room after my time in the shower, he made his first suggestion as to what he thought I should do next. He wanted me to lay on my side as the midwife had suggested earlier to try to get the baby to turn. The last thing I wanted to do was lie down because it made the pain worse, but I knew he was right. It was time for me to take more action to get myself and our baby out of forever labor-land and I preferred hearing it from him than anyone else.

finish reading Part IV

Laboring for Liesel: Part II

I called my midwife again, and she suggested we come to the office for monitoring at 9am. In the time between when my water broke and when we got out the door, contractions had started coming again, and this time they were shorter (about 30 seconds) and much sharper than they had ever been in early labor. I found it helpful to lean over whatever countertop, table, or person I could find first when they would come. Tim was worried about me getting down the three flights of stairs of our apartment building, so I waited until I finished one contraction, then practically ran down the stairs as fast as I could and made it all the way outside before another one hit. We were getting savvy at this whole labor thing.

I was really hoping that I would get checked at the midwife's office, be found to be significantly dilated, and sent straight on to the hospital...that wasn't the case.
First of all I had to prove that my water had actually broken. My story about all the soaked towels wasn't enough. They needed a sample of residual amniotic fluid, which was hard to provide because I had taken a shower and gotten all cleaned up. I also didn't appear to my midwife to be in established labor, since I wasn't grimacing or vocalizing through contractions. At that point I was just closing my eyes and breathing deeply through them. And lastly...I wasn't going to be able to find out how dilated I was. She said she could check me if I really wanted, but most women develop a fever about 18 hours after their first cervix exam if their water has broken, and I needed as much time as possible to labor and deliver without showing any signs of infection, or I would be transferred out of her care.  I opted to not get the exam. And we went back home.

The next nine hours were pretty static. I just had to labor. There were no shortcuts, no ameliorations, nothing to do but wait and breathe. I labored all over the house. Once I got tired of seeing the four walls in one room, I'd move to another. My mom made soup and did my laundry. Tim sat with me wherever I was. I timed contractions.

In the beginning of the day I tried to rest, knowing I wouldn't be able to later. Contractions were about five minutes apart so I was able to doze off during the breaks. After a while they progressed to where it hurt worse to lie back while I was having one, so I had to sit up and lean forward for every one from then on.

For the most part of the day, I had good breaks between contractions where I could talk and laugh. At 2pm I even texted my sister once to tell her that labor wasn't that bad, I could handle it.

Even though I was initially peeved that our office visit had provided less good news than I hoped, later on I was so glad that I could spend the day laboring at home in my comfort zone.

I gradually started to need Tim more and more. At first I could breathe through the contractions on my own, but then I started to need to squeeze his hand through them, to lean on him, to rest back against him when they ended. My mom hung back and let him be my support and help.

The sun started to set around 4pm, and I looked out the window and saw a couple on a walk with a baby in a stroller. That sight encouraged me to think beyond the moment, beyond the pain and the unknowns of the rest of my labor. I had a clear, if not short-lived, vision that my momentary trouble was achieving a great outcome for us that outweighed the difficulty. That bit of inspiration was well-timed, because I hit an emotional slump as it got dark outside. I knew there would be no sleep for me that night, and I wondered if I would still be laboring by the time I saw sunlight again.

continue reading Part III

Laboring for Liesel: Part I

On the night of December 29th, I went to bed exasperated. I'd been having regular, slightly painful contractions all evening, and I knew they weren't going to amount to anything. For my entire pregnancy, I had tried so hard to not hold on to my due date of January 4th as my "pregnancy expiration date". I knew it was very likely that I would go overdue by as late as January 18th and I wanted to be ok with that...but on the night of December 29th, I ran out of patience. I had been living with contractions all day every day since the week before Thanksgiving, and I could no longer imagine going another three weeks with them. I called my Mom and spilled my frustrations, and she replied by saying "I'm coming early".

I told her not to, that I was sure nothing was going to happen soon and I didn't want her to waste the money on changing her ticket. She didn't listen, and made plans to arrive the next evening. I went to sleep and woke up again with regular, mildly painful contractions on the morning of December 30th. After timing them for an hour, they were about 2 minutes apart and lasted for 1 minute each. I started to think this was real so I called my midwife.

After listening to me talk through a few contractions, she said to just relax and try to get some rest, that I was probably in early labor but it could take a few days. This made me feel a little better about my mom arriving sooner, like something was really happening. Then I got very tired and decided to try to take a nap. I slept for about three hours and woke up with no contractions. None whatsoever. We ordered spicy Thai takeout and cleaned our apartment all day, and still, no contractions. My mom arrived that night and I felt silly again for her coming early, but she didn't care. We took her out to dinner and went home. She had brought some baby boy clothes--convinced she was about to meet her grandson--and a new pair of pajama pants for me that I immediately put on. We all went to bed.

I woke up several times during the night feeling very uncomfortable, like no position could let me relax. At 6:35am on December 31st, somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, I felt a gush of warm water.

"Tim!"
"What?!", he sat up immediately."Are you ok?"
"I think my water just broke."
"Are you serious?"
And then it really started coming.
"Get some towels!"

So much for my new pajama pants. We filled up 4 towels before finally deciding to just wrap me up and take me to the bathroom. Mom was already up and moving and we had to walk by her open door on the way to the tub.
"Are you guys up?", she asked.
"Bethany's water just broke"
"YAAAAY!!!!" she squealed. She was so excited.

So I got in the tub and threw off my last layer of soaked clothing and just let the rest of the fluid run out. Mom and Tim were in the bathroom too and we all began to admire the healthy clear color of the fluid and discussed what great news it was that there was no meconium...and I suddenly realized that I was naked in the bathtub in the presence of my husband and mother, which was kind of awkward.

"Maybe I don't want you both staring at me anymore?"
"Oh! Sorry!" and they both ran out.

There was nothing left to do but take a shower. I've heard from a few friends whose water broke on their hospital beds that that part was the most unpleasant part of the whole birth for them because they were stuck on the bed, practically swimming in amniotic fluid. So I tried to be thankful that at least I'd been able to have my water break at home...but I knew that starting labor off with ruptured membranes was going to mean a more painful labor process than if it had happened later, and if real labor didn't start and progress very soon the baby and I would be at risk for infection. Standing in the shower, I started to get scared. There was so much ahead of me, I didn't even know exactly what, but we had a clear demarcation that it was beginning. I thought about the reality of all the work I had to do and stared at my huge belly, unable to believe how everything in there could possibly come out. I turned the water off and called Tim back into the bathroom and told him I was scared. He held me for a while and let me cry. He prayed for me and built me back up. Such would be his task for the next 23 hours.

continue reading part II

our first 2 weeks with Liesel

We are 2 weeks into parenthood! These last days are packed so full of memories, her lifetime's worth of happenings. The transition is going so well. We've had joy beyond compare at our highest, balanced by the normal physical trials of a newborn's body settling into independent life and my slow healing process. 

We had to stay at the hospital a day and night longer than expected, which was hard because I just couldn't sleep there, and I was so tired after my long labor. Liesel had to get a blood culture taken during her first day because my water was broken for almost 24 hours before her delivery. She initially had an elevated white blood cell count and then dropped 8% of her total body weight. We had trouble breastfeeding through the colostrum days, which didn't help her gain any of that back at first.

During one battle of breastfeeding attempts, the nurses helped me try to pump and we realized my supply was down to zero...and Liesel was starving. Any preconceived ideas I had about formula flew out the window instantaneously. We supplemented as much as she needed until I had enough milk for her.

Finally on the third day we headed home under the follow-up supervision of our awesome new Pediatrician and started settling in. My mom is here with us and she has helped in extraordinary ways with keeping up our household, loving on Liesel, and helping me heal.

Before she arrived, I had some trepidation about life as a parent. Did we wait long enough to enter into this? Were we ready? Could I handle the exhaustion and stress of being solely responsible for the well-being of a helpless baby? Before she was born, it had probably been about ten years since I'd changed a diaper. I knew I was clueless.

But I've figured out that changing diapers isn't that hard and being up at night isn't that bad when it's for my baby and she's hungry and needs me to feed her. I haven't really thought about all those other fears since bringing her home. We are so in love, and love covers over all the unknowns.

I am so happy. Whenever I get a quiet moment alone with my Liesel, my heart just swells up and overflows with thanksgiving that she's here, I'm not pregnant anymore, she's healthy, and we actually get to keep her, keep loving her, and watch her grow.

More on her birth story and pictures is coming soon :)

we made it