Thursday night at about 5:30 p.m., it begins. The contractions are not strong, maybe 12-15 minutes apart. I don’t sleep well that night -- the contractions are, as expected, harder to take lying down. Friday morning I feel that they have gone on long enough that I probably really am in labor, but they are still spaced so widely apart that I tell my husband to go ahead and drive into town (40 minutes each way) to get his paycheck. When he gets back he decides he needs to drive to another town to pick up another check. That town is 90 minutes away, so that means a minimum of three hours that he will be gone. I’m feeling a little put out that he doesn’t have an overwhelming urge to be with me right now, to just focus on loving me like we had talked about, but I’m not worried about his absence -- I have no qualms about doing this alone. And I don’t think that he has even witnessed me have a contraction yet, so for him, it probably just appears that nothing is really happening, that there is nothing for him to do. Just me wandering the house, lying on the couch, making the bed. Calm. Ordinary.
It does seem perfectly ordinary -- as every-day and matter-of-fact as you can get. I have throughout the pregnancy had romantic visions of laboring in the garden with the breeze flowing and the sun shining and my husband making love to me -- but birth is a reflection of who I am, and that is not the way I live, so that is not what this labor is turning out to be. It is a little sad that our culture, our lives, are so devoid of ritual and magic. I wish I had worked harder on creating it for this birth, but I suppose that if it were to be an effort to do so, instead of just happening naturally and spontaneously, it would be somewhat like a staged production, and that would have been wrong. For me to spend my labor wandering the house, lying on the couch, making the bed... this is the way it needs to be, the only way it honestly can be.
There are now no twinges of fear as I have felt during the pregnancy; absolutely no desire to call a midwife friend who offered to come sit on the porch. No sense of need for back-up. I watch the unassisted birth video again, lose interest. I am realizing that as inspirational as these scenes are, this is about me now. I’m unable to focus on or appreciate anything else. But the influence of having watched these beautiful births countless times before lingers: I am hoping this time to breathe the baby out, really savor her emergence. I imagine myself like one of the women on this video, sitting upright and ecstatically watching as the baby slides out into my husband’s hands. Every time I pass by the recliner, though, I see myself birthing while leaning over it, on my knees. Strange how this thought keeps coming to me.
My mom calls, then I call a friend. I tell them wearily that it’s another slow labor, that I probably won’t give birth ‘til tomorrow. Maybe even Sunday, who knows. My mom thinks I am the all-knowing earth mother when it comes to birth. My friend is not sure I know what I’m talking about -- she thinks it is happening, she is excited, wants to come down. No, no, I say, don’t get excited, nothing is really happening. After I get off the phone with them, it occurs to me that we need more towels, so I call my in-laws next to ask them to bring some over. I leave a short, concise message on their answering machine: “Well, I’m in labor, but it’s going slow. Do you have any towels I can borrow?”
Slow and steady. I am bored. Why is this dragging on? And where is my husband to save me from this boredom? The contractions are stronger now, harder to deal with. I am concentrating, breathing slow and deep. I am tired, and try lying down for the contractions, but find that I need to stay vertical. Dancing, that’s what I need. Music; the only thing that feels appropriate is Santana. I get into a sensuous groove, swaying, singing, wishing my husband were here to dance with me, hold me. Definitely this helps, I feel briefly filled with a good, happy energy. But eventually the good feeling starts to fade with the repetition of my favorite song, and I start feeling tired again. I put on some Sarah MacLachlan, but she is too ethereal for my needs. I give up and go back to handling the contractions with slow, deep breathing.
What can I do to make this more bearable? I don’t want to even be in this state of mind where I feel I have to make it more bearable. Just let it happen. I don’t know how to just let it happen. I am still in my head. BE the pain, let it wash over me, I don’t have to accept this sensation as painful. Fuck it. It is too late to be attempting some yogi-like transcendence of my earthly perceptions. This is going to be painful. Just maintain, that’s all I am going to be able to expect of myself.
Five o’clock, the latest I am expecting my husband and the boys, comes and goes. At 7:30 that evening they finally roll in. My husband looks exhausted, anxious. Traffic, apparently, was hell. Not surprising. I am past being annoyed, and only happy that they are home, safe, with me. The contractions have now been coming closer together -- 5 to 6 minutes apart, maybe? I’m not timing them, purposely, but damn if I don’t sabotage my own efforts to not reduce birth to a mechanical process, to not expect it to follow some arbitrary standard -- because as I listen to the music, I am thinking to myself, each song is approximately four minutes long, and I am having a contraction half-way through every second song. Why am I doing this? Why can’t I get out of my head? Annoyed with myself. Glad my husband is home, even though there is really nothing for him to do. Earlier that morning, we had sex, though I wasn’t particularly interested in it for any reason other than the relaxin he could provide. Funny that it wasn’t already obvious to me that, despite my good intention not to interfere with the natural process, I am drawn to do it over and over again anyway. This is not fun, so let’s just see what we can do to get it over with faster. It’s not hard to imagine that if I were in the hospital, I would be prime bait for the drug-pushers. And now, though I know that sex and affection would help open me up, I have long ago lost all patience for everything, so I am certainly not in the frame of mind to initiate anything myself. And, again, my husband (as he knows I want him to do) is simply following my lead.
Nine o’clock. I am writhing a bit through contractions now. I tell my husband, “I think this may be happening tonight.” He doesn’t buy it. I guess I am still not in enough pain to make it seem to him like it’s really happening. Truthfully, I’m just handling the contractions very well. I think to myself that I am learning, or rather, my body is learning. I am good at this. It’s not very much fun, but I am good at it.
It is indeed happening, though. The kids run through the room; I yell at them. “Get them OUT of here.” My husband understands that this is serious. He quietly ushers them into the TV room. “Come on, you guys.” My son wanders in and out, quiet now, asking over and over when I am going to get in the tub. I tell him over and over, “not yet.” He wants to get in, too. “No sweetie, the tub is just for mama and the baby.” Contractions are stronger, 3 to 4 minutes apart? Tired of this. Just tired. I am sighing a lot. Remembering to sip water, eat. I nibble on hard-boiled eggs -- my stomach is empty but I have no appetite. I have to pee with every single contraction. Where is all this pee coming from? Starting to worry about my bowels -- I want to empty them, can’t. This is what enemas are for? Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.
About midnight I decide to get in the water. Contractions are not unbearable, but they are intense and painful. My younger son is asleep. My older boy, four years old, is telling me I’m doing a good job. He puts his arms around my neck and I lean my head on his little chest. He asks me over and over if the baby is here yet. I tell him, don’t worry, I’ll let you know when the baby comes. My husband sits on the couch, hunched forward, watchful, expectant, waiting. Waiting for me to give a sign, a direction, anything.
Around 12:30 a.m., a soft knock comes on the door. It is my mother-in-law with the towels. She is excitement personified, grinning crazily, energy pouring off her. I’m acutely aware of my nudity. Past caring on one level, feeling odd on another -- considering to myself that no one else in the room would even think of baring themselves in the presence of each other. The laboring woman, however, is assumed to be beyond modesty.
My mother-in-law sits gingerly, happily, on the couch and asks with barely contained glee in her voice, “how are you doing?” “Good,” I say, smiling. And it’s true, for the moment. I have a few more contractions that I am able to breathe through, and between them I am talking to my husband and my mother-in-law, but then they begin to concentrate in my back, and I am moaning softly through them, rubbing my back. Not able to get comfortable, I switch positions in mid-contraction: sitting to kneeling to hands-and-knees to sitting again, all in rapid succession, then my body slumping in complete exhaustion as I wait for the next one. My mother-in-law is silent now, and I am wondering when she is going to go check on my boys. (My older boy has by now fallen asleep also.) I can’t seem to form the words to tell her it’s time to leave. Looking at my husband, he is trying to guess what I want, can’t you tell? I tell myself it doesn’t matter if she is here, I am not feeling self-conscious, but still... still, I would just rather be alone. I begin to vocalize loudly, moaning, groaning. I’m aware that these are very sexual noises. My mother-in-law slips quietly out of the room, no doubt feeling that the sudden intensity of the labor warrants privacy.
The pain in my back is excruciating, so I ask my husband to press on my back, and he jumps into action. I direct him: there, no, down, harder, yes, that’s good, oh yeah. For the first time he’s directly involved, but also suddenly he is peripheral in the drama, for the baby is becoming more real by the moment, and my connection to her exponentially more deep. This is between me and her now, and I cajole her, “c’mon baby, come on down. I’m waiting for you, it’s time, you can do it. Mama is here, I’m ready. Come down, baby, please come down... please, baby, please....”
The interesting thing now is that suddenly I realize that the pain is coming only from the pressure of the baby’s head on my sacrum. The contracting of my uterus does not hurt at all. Even while I am gasping from the pain in my back, I am thinking, wow, this is amazing. If the baby were not posterior I would be having a painless labor.
Between contractions, I am completely lucid. I sit up, sigh, “I don’t know if I can do this anymore.” My husband says in his best sympathy voice, “I don’t think you have any choice.” Nodding, “I know, I know.” Here it comes again. And again. And again. “I don’t like this. I don’t like this. I don’t like this.” Thinking, I will never do this again. This is crazy. The contractions are not close enough, and I can’t do this any longer. My husband tells me this is just what it was like last time. You are very close. No, no, I’m not, the contractions aren’t close together enough. Oh, an epidural would be nice. No, it’s too late, they wouldn’t give it to me now. A c-sec now. Yes, that would be fine. I want somebody else to take care of this. Here it comes again. Back is going to split apart. Shaking. I sound like I am in grief, my voice high, wailing, shrieking.
Finally, I decide to get out of the tub -- no position I can get into feels right, and the heat and buoyancy of the water aren’t helping anymore. I kneel in front of the recliner, on a foam pad. I am shaken by a huge contraction. Then another. Now I am reaching up as far as I can, but I can’t feel her head. I wail at my husband, “WHERE IS SHE?” Then I am involuntarily bearing down, and Ohhh, something is different, I look down beneath me and there is a big thick glob of clear jelly-like substance with a reddish spot in the center -- the mucous plug. Ah, now that very familiar burning, pushing with all my might, burning, stretching, oh voluptuous stretching, and her head is there in my hand. A few moments pass, I feel her turning, I am roaring, her body slides out, and I hear her cry. I sit back onto the wood floor and pick her up, cradling her. Not really seeing her, but there she is, real, red, no longer crying. She is breathing, though. My mother-in-law runs in, laughing, crying. She is witnessing the aftermath of a miracle, she knows it. I am completely calm, no tears of joy like I had expected. Again, lucid, yet still somewhere else entirely, with just my baby. She is red, she is breathing.
There is no breech of intimacy during those last minutes as she is being born -- how can I convey the importance of this? The privacy has enabled my body to function the way it was meant to. But beyond that is something else, that something that is beyond the mechanical. I guess some people would call it spirituality or soul. I don't know what it is. But it's what you feel when you're making love, or totally involved in creating a work of art. It's being fully inside something. You can't do it when distracted or self-conscious... which, with no one but my lover here, I have no compulsion to be. I am inside birth. I can't get over it. I wish I could never get over it, that I could never forget. I would relive those last few moments a thousand times over if I could.
My husband checks the time -- 1:47 a.m. -- and my mother-in-law asks, “what is it?” My husband, who got a good look at her face and saw that she looks just like her brothers, says, “it’s a boy!” I think to myself, now, that’s not right, though throughout the entire pregnancy I have myself been convinced she was a boy. I carefully turn her over, gently move her legs away from her stomach, and look, there is no penis. It’s a girl. Suddenly, it’s not a surprise, it’s just “of course.” Of course she is. Here you are, and of course it's you. We've been waiting for you, little girl.
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