Posted July 20, 2006 ~ A Powerful Brokenness: Birthing Grove
Letter written December 23, 2005:
Grove ~
As I sat down this evening to write your birth story, you slept bundled at my feet. You were dreaming of nursing, your jaw making those small contented movements that always make me smile. Out the picture window next to us the sun had just set. The December sky was a dark royal blue with an intense orange glow along the western horizon, and the stars were coming out. Suddenly, a shooting star blazed across the sky and fell south over the silhouette of Jones Mountain.
Over seven years ago, some falling stars changed my life. I left behind everything I knew to follow those shooting stars across a continent, where I found a fairytale love with your father that leaves me breathless still. From our love came you, and now I find myself watching yet another falling star and feeling unbelievably blessed. Shooting stars have always signaled incredible good fortune in my life.
Over two years ago, your father and I took a late-afternoon drive up the Blue Ridge Parkway. As sunset neared, we stopped at Graveyard Fields. It was late autumn, and the valley surrounding the waterfalls was tall dry grass as far as we could see. We were happy, and your father took my hand as we went off the trail and explored the valley. Strange underground streams burbled under our feet, and icy drafts rose from them. We made our way to a grove of rhododendrons and mountain laurels, and there we decided with few words but many caresses that we were ready to meet you. The sun fell behind the mountains, Venus came out, and we started down a long road that would eventually lead to you.
It was a year and a half before you finally came to us, so the seed planted in that grove was not tangible nor physical. It was a seed of hope, however, a seed of faith and striving and surrendering to destiny. And it is the hope and love that we shared in that grove for which you were named. You were desperately wanted and greatly loved long before you ever came to be.
The following is the story of your birth, little Grove.
With fierce love,
Mommy
PS ~ You'll have to ask your Daddy where your pet name "Toad" came from, though, because I've not a clue.
Me, that evening at Graveyard Fields
The Birth of Grove
Monday, December 12, 2005, Day One
On Monday, December 12, around 2:30 in the afternoon, I had my first real contractions. I'd been having "practice" Braxton-Hicks contractions for the past two weeks, but these felt different. Stronger. They weren't yet very long, but they were regular, three to four minutes apart. I rocked through the surges with Morgan, watching out the picture windows as the trees swayed in the wind.
Evening came, and with it a problem. My mother was arriving at the airport, forty minutes away. She had planned her arrival to be after the birth, but of course one can never really plan anything around a birth--I was a week past due, so she would be here before our baby after all. Who would pick her up? Our friends were busy.
Morgan would have to go. Instant nerves. In labor alone was not something I had considered before. "I'll have my phone with me," he said. "If things speed up, call me, and I'll turn around and come back no matter what."
We needn't have worried. Almost immediately, the contractions spaced out, probably thanks to stress. Night fell over the misty mountains shrouded in clouds. Rain was falling, and the gentle winter storm passed through as contractions rolled over me. Monty snuggled up next to me, and I ran my hands through his fur. No, not alone in labor after all.
When Morgan and my mother returned two hours later, the contractions had become sporadic, sometimes five minutes in between, sometimes twenty. Around eleven, we went to bed, knowing that it could be hours before labor picked back up. Morgan held me as I slept between sporadic contractions.
Tuesday, December 13, 2005, Day Two
At three a.m., I jolted awake to a strong contraction that had me standing and walking through it, a painful tightening ache throughout my midsection and a heavy feeling down low. As they continued, I sank into the rocking chair for some and paced through others.
Around five a.m., Morgan woke up and convinced me to come back to bed. I tried very hard to sleep, but every seven minutes I was climbing to my hands and knees for a contraction or sitting up and rocking through it. After each, I would lie back against Morgan and start to drift off, only to jump up again with the next.
As dawn's golden light fell across the bed I thought, "Today I will meet my child." I wanted to be moving, so we climbed out of bed. The morning passed slowly.
After lunch, I went out to the porch. It was a beautiful sunny day. Cold--upper forties with a slight breeze, but the sun felt great on my face. I stood on the porch in my stocking feet and rocked from side to side, eyes closed and face to the sun, letting my concern for how irregularly this labor was progressing melt into patience for the birth to unfold as it would. Chickadees called from the trees as I breathed the chill air and soaked up the sun's warmth.
I decided to hike up Suicide Ridge and out to Dogwood Pasture with Morgan and my mom, hoping that exercise would help labor intensify. The woods were beautiful, winter grays, browns, and greens against the bright blue of the sky. We followed the ridge, Morgan holding me through contractions, which were getting stronger with the exercise.
The afternoon passed with slow progress.
We began to accept that the birth would not be happening that evening, so, around seven, Morgan and I retired to the bedroom to rest. This time, true sleep was not possible, for the contractions had become much stronger throughout the day, and I really had to concentrate on relaxing through them.
I found myself feeling a little thankful for my experiences with endometriosis pains. One wouldn't think that a chronic, painful disorder could ever be useful, but it was a very similar sort of pain. Years with endo had taught me how to relax and breathe through pain to make it easier to bear. I had a bag of mental tricks at my disposal.
I forced my body to go limp, letting my only thoughts be the release of any thoughts. I let the tightening pain pass through me, mindful of the feeling but letting it slip away, searching out tension and releasing it. Morgan helped by putting pressure on my lower back.
I ate crackers and drank honey-sweetened red raspberry leaf tea, trying to keep my energy up. I got up several times to empty my bladder or bowels. Morgan logged my contractions in the margins of a Monty-chewed book that he had by the bed.
Those dazed hours of half-sleep and pain are a blur, with faint memories of Morgan's touch, the want for sleep, and the click click click of Monty's nails pacing the floor. Finally, Morgan couldn't stand the constant pacing, so he took Monty and Rose out to the pen.
After a particularly strong contraction that had me moaning through it, I wondered out loud if we should be calling the midwives. I wasn't consistently at the four minutes apart point that they wanted me to hold to for an hour before they came, but the contractions were very long and intense, and I could feel my cervix dilating. "I'm obviously not having a textbook labor. I don't want to wait and wait to call them and then have waited too long..."
Morgan pointed out that my contractions came much more frequently and stronger when I got up to go to the bathroom. He suggested that we stay up for an hour and see if they stayed at every four minutes and a minute long. Sure enough, after an hour I'd had strong contractions consistently every four minutes, usually a minute to a minute and thirty seconds long. We called Jan, the midwife on duty. She was on her way.
Wednesday, December 14, 2005, Day Three
Shortly after 1:00am, Jan arrived, and did an internal check to see if she should stay. The contractions had yet to feel like more than I could handle, but once she had her hand in there I wanted to squirm in agony.
Jan looked surprised. I was four centimeters dilated, 100% effaced, and the baby was at zero station. "Well, I'm staying! You weren't carrying on much at all through contractions, so I didn't expect you to be that far along, but you are." She smiled. "You're handling labor wonderfully. But I'd like you to rest, as it'll probably be sometime tomorrow morning before the baby gets here."
Morgan and I resumed our resting positions on the bed, he massaging my lower back through the contractions. Every half hour, Jan came in to check the baby's heartbeat. Because I had tested positive for Group B Strep weeks before, around 2:45 she administered a slow injection of Clindamycin over a half-hour period. Oddly, I've always had a very high tolerance for blood and pain and gore, but a very low tolerance for the feel of a needle entering a vein. I tried not to tense up, tried to ignore it. Jan was very gentle and calming.
Through the night, we continued on. Time melted away. Sometimes, I managed to doze a little between contractions as I worked my way into deeper and deeper relaxation. At one point I went to the toilet and found a large clump of mucus and blood when I wiped. "Bloody show." I was surprised that it hadn't come earlier.
At 5:30, I came out to the couch for another painful check. I was between five and six centimeters, and the contractions were steady and growing much more intense. Morgan drew me a bath and kept me company, trying not to fall asleep. Candlelight. Floating.
Slowly, dawn's light began to filter through the bathroom window. Morgan, whispering, drew my attention to it, "Look, it's dawn. Our baby will come today."
I smiled. "I hope so. I'd thought the same at dawn yesterday..."
Around that time, Nancy, the secondary midwife, arrived. She was our childbirth class instructor, and her presence was a comfort. I got out of the tub, dried off, labored a little on the toilet, and asked the midwives and mom to make a nest for me on the loveseat.
I crouched on the loveseat, rocking through contractions, Nancy assuring me that I was doing incredibly well, Morgan holding me through. I felt strong and beautiful, then, in control. We were burning the birth candle (which will be burned once a year on every birthday for this child). I felt as if my body were nearly there, these contractions were so strong, great huge waves crashing over me. I moved and moaned through them, looking into Morgan's eyes and feeling a great passion--for him, for life, for striving and loving. This was hard work, but not more than I could handle.
Time for another painful check. Between seven and eight centimeters. It was 10:00; I'd progressed two centimeters in about four and a half hours. I thought this was great progress, though much slower than "average." They gave me another injection of Clindamycin over the next half hour, and I tried very hard to ignore it, not to let the discomfort slow the work that my body was doing.
It was so hot. So hot. Everyone kept turning up the thermostat; they were cold. But I was burning--sweaty and flushed. We hadn't had the heat above 55 degrees yet all winter (gas prices were too high, and I was hot all through my third trimester anyway), and suddenly it was at sixty-five and I was miserable. But my guests were freezing.
As time slipped past noon, the midwives wanted to check again. Firmly at eight centimeters and +2 station. This was progress, though slow. I was officially in transition.
I started to realize, however, that the midwives were beginning to worry. Not about me--I was doing fine--and not about the baby's health--heart tones were still very good, and the baby had recently been quite active. An ice storm was expected to start that evening. They have certain rules they must follow, under North Carolina law and their supervising obstetrician, and one of those rules is that a homebirth can only take place in optimal safety conditions. If the weather turned bad, we would have to transport to the hospital. "We still have a few hours before we have to make that decision, though," said Jan.
So we tried to speed things up. We didn't want to break my water just yet, so we tried a few homeopathic remedies and herbal treatments. Morgan did some acupressure on me to speed labor. We tried several different positions to encourage stronger contractions. Walking. Squatting. On the toilet.
I ended up on the loveseat on my hands and knees, Morgan sitting next to me on the birth ball, holding my hands. The contractions were now monstrous waves, me a tiny boat in a storm, riding over them. We held each other's eyes through each, me breathing through them as if trying to keep my head above water. Between each one, I would lean forward on the couch and Morgan and I both would fall into an exhausted doze, trying desperately to sleep in little two to three minute snatches, our heads resting together, hands entwined. These three days with very little food, very little sleep, and my whole body engaged in such consuming work were starting to show their toll.
At two, they checked again. 9 centimeters, +2 station. Getting so close, but not fast enough. Storm coming. "Shall we try to break your water?" If they broke my water and found meconium, it would mean we had to go to the hospital, as that can be a sign of fetal distress. There was a high chance of meconium anyway because this baby was so overdue. If there were no meconium, however, the midwives would feel much better about staying at home longer. And breaking my water would speed things up.
Morgan and I looked at each other. It was becoming clear that we were in danger of losing our homebirth. We didn't want this, but... "Yes, yes, break my water."
Jan put on a glove with a sharp point attached to the tip of the index finger. I laid back on the bed. Ow ow ow ow ow! I tried not to scream as she tried and tried to break the bag, twisting her hand this way and that. "The baby's head is so well engaged. There is no forebag. I don't think I'm going to be able to do it. You have a very strong sac!" After a few more attempts, she gave up.
I returned to the living room, laboring on hands and knees again. "Come on baby. Please come." I was so exhausted and so determined and so emotional. I remember looking at Morgan and saying, "I'm so tired. Please, I'm so tired." He gave me the most tender and despairing look that said, "I want so badly to help you." We both knew that this was transition, and any doubts at this point meant that we really were almost there. "But oh, I'm so tired. It's been so long..."
Holding each other in our living room, clouds growing thicker outside, such intensity in his eyes, both of our heads nodding between contractions.
At three, I laid back on the couch to let Jan try to break my water again. I gritted my teeth, trying not to squirm against the pain. Contractions are rather easy to deal with, once you get used to them--a dull spreading ache getting more intense until they peak and then drop off, often with sharp nerve pain where the baby's head was pressing against my cervix. I was actually surprised at how easy labor pains were to deal with, once I had become accustomed to them. But the internal checks and especially the attempts at breaking my water, these were sharp discomfort, something where it shouldn't be, something interfering with birth; it was almost instinctual, my aversion to it.
Jan shook her head. "Still no forebag. I can't find anything to poke. You're a little over nine centimeters dilated."
I was very frustrated. I knew in my heart, instinctively, that everything was fine, that this birth was just slow, for whatever reason. Groaning, I tried whichever positions made the baby's head press hardest against the nerves in my cervix. I knelt, I sat on the toilet, I squatted. I moaned through the surges, nerves exploding, my whole body feeling completely drained, yet I felt energized at the same time, determined. My will was a juggernaut. "Come on, baby, please come."
The midwives started gently talking about transfer. "You've been at nine centimeters for a while, now. We don't want to be stuck here in the storm if we need pitocin."
I was confused. But I've dilated more in the last few hours than I did for the first two days of labor. I thought I was making such progress. I don't want drugs, please I don't want drugs, if there is any way... I was nearing full dilation, with huge contractions, in transition--being strapped into a car for an hour in near-rush hour traffic sounded like just about the worst idea in the world. I was at the most vulnerable point of the entire labor. I burst into tears. Suddenly, I wasn't sure about anything, I looked at Morgan in desperation. "I don't know what to do."
"Melissa, what about the hospital bothers you so much?" Nancy's eyes meeting mine.
I thought about the time we visited and took a tour, how uncaring the nurse had been, what a bad feeling we'd had about the place. But that wasn't the heart of it. "If I go to the hospital, it could lead to more and more unneeded interventions... I will be nervous and worried, and that could slow things down even more... I really don't want drugs. I want what's best for this baby. After all I read..." I paused to deal with a contraction. "I've heard such horrible things about pitocin contractions... I don't want to give up, but I fear I will, against all that, in a place that will make me scared and nervous. I'm afraid that I will lose it all, one slip after another." I started crying again, feeling something inside of me giving up already. Morgan held my hands, his eyes tearing up too.
"Oh Melissa," said Nancy. "Jan will be with you, and the nurses will have to follow her lead. It's very different with a Nurse-Midwife. Even pitocin, managed by a Nurse-Midwife is different. You can trust Jan, she won't let them do anything unless it is absolutely necessary." They talked of how incredible I'd been so far, it was okay, I had nothing to be ashamed of, I couldn't help that it had gone too slowly, that the storm was coming. "Most women would have given up by now, such a long, hard labor."
I looked at Morgan, wishing he could make the decision for me. My brain and body and heart were a cloud of pain and intense emotion. But he would not take my choices from me. I sighed, knowing that soon there would be no choice anyway. The midwives had to follow their rules, the law. And if we did end up stuck here in an ice storm needing pitocin... "All right. Okay. We'll go."
Suddenly, all around me was a flurry of activity. The midwives packed up all of their equipment. Morgan threw some chicken to Monty and Rose who were still out in the pen, and lined their houses with blankets. He called our friend Joel and asked him to please come over and check on the dogs periodically while we were gone. He started the car to warm it up. He ran through the house with my mother throwing my things into a bag. (It turned out that in his haste to get everything that I would need, Morgan forgot to pack anything for himself.)
I sat on the loveseat and cried, everything draining from me, trying to get a hold on myself. I was completely spent.
Morgan took my hands. "We had two beautiful days of labor here at home. We haven't wholly lost what we set out to do. And we did everything possible to try to bring the baby before the storm. You have been incredible."
My mother came to me then, sympathy and concern all over her face. "Is there anything you can think of... anything that will help you to be comfortable? Anything that would help you relax?" My mind was blank. I wanted not to be leaving. I wanted my house, my home, my dogs, my bed... Then inspiration, "The Piano Man." We'd already played his CD a few times during the long labor. She smiled, "perfect."
There was a sense of the surreal. I am over nine centimeters dilated, in transition, and we are driving to a hospital that is an hour away? The midwives had practicing rights there and not at the hospital that is ten minutes from our house, but... I hoped desperately that we were not making a mistake, that the lawful "safe option" wouldn't prove to be quite the opposite.
Someone put my shoes on for me. Someone else helped me into a robe. "Do you need a coat?" "No, please, it's too hot in here, I want the cold."
(No one told me until later, but when I stood up and started for the car, the midwives noticed on the pad I'd been sitting on that my water had broken after all, but just slowly leaked out because the baby's head was so well engaged. There was no meconium, rather surprising considering how late our baby was. If I had known, I probably would have decided to stay home, since labor tends to accelerate after the water breaks.)
Morgan and my mother helped me out to the car between contractions. The cold, cold December air felt so, so good. But then I looked over at Rose and Monty watching me from the pen and burst into tears. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Oh Morgan, they're going to be so cold." I felt wretched for them. "They'll be fine, they have thick coats," my mother said, rubbing my shoulders from the back seat.
I felt as if I were being swept up into something beyond my control. I was strapped into the front seat, a bottle of juice in my hands. I felt defeated and no longer in control, extremely uncomfortable being unable to move. I started thinking, "I'm so tired. I've failed anyway. They're going to have to give me pitocin. I've failed. I may as well get an epidural when we get there. So tired..." I went limp, stared out the window, and an odd feeling of disconnection came over me. Contraction after contraction seized my body, but my mind just let go, left the pain and discomfort there in the car and walked among the forests slipping past my window. I was moaning but in remembering it don't have a sense of being the one moaning. I remember trees, and cold.
I came back to myself when we slowed to a crawl. Traffic jam. Uh oh. We crawled on for a few miles. I remember thinking, "We should have stayed home." Morgan said at one point, "Huh. Your contractions have sped up to every two to three minutes." Great.
After a time, we were through the jam. Morgan merged onto I-26. Traffic was very heavy; it was nearly rush hour. I slipped back into that strange disconnected state. Before I knew it, we had pulled up in front of the hospital (though the drive had taken well over an hour). My mother helped me out while Morgan parked the car.
I knew from the tour months before where the maternity ward was, and the midwives had called ahead, so I headed straight for the elevator. But Mom stopped me. "Huh?" Oh, the lady at the reception desk was calling us back.
"I need you to check in, and please give me your insurance cards."
"I... but... I think they're in the car..." Lady, do I look like I've got my insurance card on me? I thought, looking down at the short robe covering a flimsy night gown and my bare legs underneath.
"Well, we need..." She continued talking, but by then another contraction hit, and I moaned and leaned against the counter.
That seemed to be a far more successful tact, for people were suddenly apologetic and a nurse appeared out of nowhere with a wheelchair. "Oh, I don't need..." But she had me sit down and we were in the elevator. I saw a glimpse of Jan dealing with the receptionist. The nurse was talking and talking, something about "You poor thing, such a long labor," but I ignored her and my mother answered any questions for me. The nurse wheeled me through the maternity ward and into the birthing room with the large tub.
She handed me a hospital gown and pointed to the bathroom. "You'll have to change into this, and you'll want to empty your bladder while you're at it."
"Oh, I have my gown," I said vaguely.
"But we can't put a monitor on you with that gown, it doesn't open in the back."
My heart sank. I was a patient, now, required to follow hospital procedures. A monitor. I sighed.
While I was in the bathroom, I heard Morgan's voice outside the door. "Girly, I'm here, but they are making me go down to the front desk to fill out a bunch of paperwork. I love you. I'll be right back!" I heard the worry in his voice, and my heart broke. He'd not taken a single moment for himself during that entire days-long labor, never sleeping, hardly eating, always at my side. And now when we needed each other most...
The nurse asked me to get up on the bed, and I hesitated. I knew that lying down this late in labor could only hurt my progress, not help it, and would make these huge contractions even more painful. "We have to monitor you. You have to lay down."
"Can I at least lie on my side?"
They consented, and I crawled onto the bed. The nurse wound two straps around my belly and tightened them. The sound of the baby's heartbeat filled the room, still strong and steady. "Don't move, or they'll fall off."
I felt myself sinking back into that disconnected place that I'd fallen into in the car. My will sapped out of me. I felt like a rag doll that the nurse was having her way with. Everything was unfamiliar and frightening. I retreated within, trying to calm myself.
Morgan rushed into the room, came to me, and took my hand. He searched my eyes, worried, knowing with a glance that I was having trouble coping. The nurse came over, however, and said, "You have to move. I need to be there to insert her IV. She needs to be hydrated and get another course of antibiotics." Looking about to cry, Morgan caught my eyes one last time and slipped away. He came to the other side of the bed, behind me, brushed back my hair and whispered encouragement into my ear.
I glared at the nurse. Morgan was all I wanted, and she was taking him from me.
She ignored me and prepared the IV. Where is Jan? Paperwork. Dammit. The nurse grabbed my arm, cleaned it, and picked up her needle. Morgan, realizing she wasn't even going to warn me, said quickly, "Okay, love, here's the needle," as she jabbed it in. A spike of adrenaline and anger at how rough she was. She taped it down, still not saying a word to me, turned it on, and cleaned up after herself. I closed my eyes and tried to get my breath back to normal, pushing down the panic.
Jan had returned. The nurse made a concerned noise while looking at the readout from the monitor. "Hmmm. Some decels in heart tones. Look at that, there." Jan looked at the readout, worried. "Looks like the baby is stressed," explained the nurse.
Morgan was trying very hard not to let his anger show in his voice as he said, "Yes, those happened right as she was jabbing Melissa with the needle. Melissa hates needles--that was no doubt the baby picking up on her stress and adrenaline spike. Our baby's heart tones have been steady all through this long labor up until then."
"Oh, of course," Jan agreed.
The nurse went to the other side of the room where two other nurses were standing and started muttering to them. She said something about, "Such a long labor," and "I just don't know..." and "too tired" and "failure to progress," and "heart monitor." That nurse was everything I disliked about the hospital personified. I tried to ignore her. But then a few minutes later she said, "Gonna be a 'section" and the panic rose up in me again. Surely she's talking about someone else. Everything is fine! I know I don't need a c-section! I'm so close... Despair was welling up inside and I felt myself retreating even further into that disconnected place where I hardly noticed the contractions and everything around me was shut off. This was probably a form of shock, retreat from trauma. My will was slowly slipping away.
Morgan had heard her words too and was holding my hands, back in front of me now, whispering encouragement past a lump in his throat.
Jan appeared. "I'm going to do an internal check, okay?" I nodded. Morgan held my eyes with his. We waited.
"Ten centimeters, with only a slight lip!" Jan announced with a grin. "You've done it! We didn't need the pitocin after all."
Joy surged through me. I started laughing, and Morgan started crying in relief. "You did it!" he said smiling and crying and locking eyes with me. "We're there. You did it." All of the tension and worry melted out of me as my will and my strength surged back.
Jan started issuing orders to the nurses. "Get these monitors off of her. Take that IV out. Turn down the lights." All tethers were off, and I could sit up again. The mood of the entire room instantly changed. I got the distinct impression that Jan had been waiting that half hour of all the required hospital procedures before taking charge and pushing the hospital out as much as possible.
"Would you like to relax in the tub while we wait for your urge to push?" Jan asked. Yes.
I noticed movement in the room. Shift change. The nurses were changing shifts. Thank God. Good riddance, I thought as the nurse who had been so rude and mean was leaving.
I slipped into the water, trying to focus on letting the tension from the last two hours melt away. The new nurse softly introduced herself, Angie, and gave me some apple juice to sip. I liked her calm, quiet manner.
The water didn't do a lot to ease the intensity of the contractions, but it did help me relax. I was very thankful for the Piano Man's music, something familiar and soothing in this unfamiliar and disturbing environment. My mother stroked my forehead with a wet washcloth.
Morgan held my hand, pushed back my hair, whispered encouragement to me. They had darkened the room. A small lamp cast a pool of light around the birthing pool. I was in a warm bubble, and I felt my strength returning.
After a fairly long restful period in the tub, I started feeling slight urges to push that increased with each new contraction. Once they became fairly strong, I went ahead and started pushing a little. I could feel my baby's head moving down into the birth canal. Angie periodically monitored the heart rate, and all was still as steady and healthy as ever. My mother held one hand and Morgan the other through each push.
They brought a mirror over, and during each push I could see my baby's head peek and then recede when I stopped pushing. With some encouragement from Jan, I reached down and touched the head. So close. We're so close. I felt exhilarated. The weariness of the past three days was gone. I was excited to meet my baby. The water felt good, the heartbeat was very healthy, I could see and feel my baby's head.
I pushed and pushed and pushed, contraction after contraction. For two hours I pushed in the tub, I couldn't believe it, for the time had flown by once I started actively pushing.
But the baby's head hadn't made much progress for a while, and Jan was saying something about calling the supervising obstetrician to buy more time for me. Time? Don't we have plenty? The baby has healthy heart tones--oh. Hospital regulations. Right. I hadn't realized. All of my preparation had been for a homebirth, where things aren't rushed and go at a natural pace. Most of the things I'd read about the pushing stage in a homebirth said to relax and to go slowly. Time in the birth canal is good for the baby, gives the lungs a good massage, preparing them to breathe. And the baby's passage through the birth canal triggers all sorts of beneficial hormones in the mother... Plus, the slower the baby comes out, the more time the perineum has to stretch, the less likely it is to tear.
But we weren't at home, we were at the hospital, and I realized, too late, that there must be a time limit for pushing before a doctor came to intervene, and it was probably two hours. I had been approaching the pushing stage in completely the wrong mindset for a hospital birth. I had wasted my two hours. The tub had been so relaxing, and I hadn't had anything to brace against...
"You're not going to like this..." said Jan, coming back. "But I think the baby is a little stuck behind the pelvic bone, and you're going to need to change positions so that your pelvis can open wider." Morgan and Angie the nurse helped me out of the tub and onto the bed. Following Jan's instructions, Morgan, my mother, and Angie held my body into a squat position, but on my back.
With all of those people holding my body in such a braced position, I felt my pushing doing a lot more than it had been. With each contraction, I could feel the baby pressing hard against my bones as I grunted and strained and pushed with all of my strength.
But the baby was still stuck under my pelvic bone. Jan called the doctor yet again to ask for more time, muttering under her breath that it would be ridiculous to start pitocin during the pushing stage. My contractions had once again slowed. She returned. "Melissa, you need to push even harder. You don't want the doctor to have to come in with the vacuum, after all you've been through. We're running out of time."
I roared with each push, my entire body fully engaged in the effort. Morgan later told me that my face was a deep red and my lips had turned purple from the pressure. "I honestly thought you were going to pass out. I didn't think that anyone could stay conscious under such force and strain."
During one push, Jan started forcing my pelvic bones apart with her hands, and I hadn't been expecting it. I screamed in surprise from the sharp pain, feeling my bones move. "I'm sorry! I should have warned you, but the timing... I didn't have time," she said. With the next contraction, though, I was prepared for the pain, roaring my way through it, and I could feel that my baby was coming unstuck, was starting to pass under the pelvic bone. An electric excitement was starting to zap between the people in the room, "Oh, Melissa, you're doing great, we're almost there, the baby's right there, that was a great push..."
But now that the baby was passing through the pelvic outlet, the heart tones started to decelerate (which is normal). They put an oxygen mask over my face so that I could get the most out of every breath. I wanted to breath fast, but there was Morgan's face before mine, "No, Melissa, you need to breath slowly and deeply, okay? Slow, deep. See, the baby's heart rate gets faster. Slow, deep. Baby needs that oxygen."
It took every ounce of concentration I had just to breathe properly. I was delirious with pain and exhaustion. Between contractions, I just wanted to slip off into sleep. I struggled to focus on each breath, in, deep, out. Deep, deep, in then out.
And then a contraction would build like a tidal wave, and I'd push with all of my being, feeling the lower half of my body opening and breaking apart with an incredible force. Clench and strain and roar. I could hardly see all the faces around me, could hardly hear anything but the rushing in my ears. I felt like I was dying, but that didn't worry me--for the first time in my life I did not care the merest speck what happened to me. All of my will and strength was bent on getting that baby out and safe. Someone, somewhere was screaming a battle cry, and I vaguely realized that it was me. Morgan was looking at me like I was a Goddess and like I was dying, all at once. He was unconsciously clenching his jaw and straining with each push, forgetting to breathe.
Jan was speaking to me as if through a tunnel, "I know you are giving this all that you have, but you need to push even harder. Go deep within, Melissa, find the strength you don't even know you have. Don't even scream, use that energy to push too."
Everything else in the world faded and every ounce of my being poured into my baby. I pushed and pushed and knew that the baby's head had cleared my bones, and in an instant the head was crowning, burning and stinging all around, and (they said I wouldn't feel it because of all of the numbing pressure but) I felt my flesh tearing with a sharp burning pain, but I didn't care, and Jan's hands were shooting out to catch, and the contraction was over, but I kept pushing anyway and the head was out and one more push and the shoulders too, and I was grabbing and pulling onto my belly my slippery, bloody baby, hands clutching, and I felt something smooshy between the baby's legs and realized I had a son who was crying and breathing already. I was laughing and crying tears of joy, and Morgan was smiling in relief with his heart shattered all around us. I tried to pull my baby up, but the cord was too short, so I just held him there on my belly.
It was 10:45 Wednesday night, December 14th. Fifty-six hours after labor really started. I'd been pushing for over three hours. Outside, everything was coated in ice.
Jan asked Morgan what the gender was and I whispered "A boy, a boy" but no one heard me for I'd lost my voice. "A boy," Morgan said, looking. "Do we have a name?" she asked. "Grove," we murmured together, and they made Morgan sit down, for he was looking faint, not from the sight of blood, but from forgetting to breathe and straining himself trying to push for me. The cord had already stopped pulsing, so Morgan cut it as they covered Grove (and me) in warm blankets.
Grove calmly looked up at me. He was already pink, except for his fingernails, which were blue. Morgan and I talked softly to him. He latched on to nurse without any problem and continued to look up at me with dark, curious eyes as he sucked.
I had a vague sense that there was activity all around me. Someone was saying there was too much blood. The cord was too short; they thought the placenta may have been pulled loose too soon as he came out, ripped away instead of gently detaching. Someone was pressing on my uterus, massaging it, and I felt the contractions coming one after another, things were clamping down. The blood would stop.
But I didn't care about any of that, barely noticed. I was in a small world, where only Grove, Morgan, and I existed. I clutched Grove to me, whispering to him as he nursed, looking up at me with those huge, curious eyes.
I pushed out the placenta, scarcely noticing. They put it in a tub on ice, since we wanted to save it to bury.
And then some nurse was trying to take my baby. I tightened my grip, confused, thinking he would fall. It felt like I'd only held him for seconds, why were they already taking him? He's beautiful, he's fine, I need him.
"We have to check him, and you have to be sewn up. You have a second-degree tear."
"But..." I was disoriented. I couldn't make my arms let go.
My mother was there, calming me. "Melissa, it's okay, this will just take a few minutes, then you can have him back. Let go, sweetheart."
I reluctantly loosened my grip on my son (my son!) and turned to Morgan, slightly panicked. "Go with him! Be with him, talk to him, touch him."
Morgan nodded and went. I heard him talking to Grove. I relaxed a little. Everything hurt, and the contractions kept coming. My mother took my hand. Jan warned me that she was going to inject a local anesthetic so that she could stitch me up. Despite the numbing agent, the stitches still hurt, probably because everything hurt. I asked them to hold my legs because they were shaking so badly, and I felt as if I could not hold them up.
Across the room, Grove was crying from the vitamin K shot and all of the poking and prodding, and Morgan was comforting him, touching him and talking to him. I watched as a new father emerged. His gentle voice and the care he took with every movement brought tears to my eyes. Awe, protection, and love were pouring from him. He carefully bathed and dressed his son.
The nurses reported that Grove weighed eight pounds and eight ounces. He was twenty-one inches long. His head was fourteen inches around. He scored 9/9 on his apgar test. Healthy in every way, a thin, strong baby.
When the stitches were done, they put Grove back in my arms and he nursed some more. Angie brought me a warmed plate of food that she had snatched for me earlier, before the kitchen closed for the night. The smell overwhelmed me as I realized how hungry I was. I ate with one hand and held Grove with the other as he nursed.
A wave of thankfulness swept over me, and my throat became tight with happy tears. Just moments before I had thought that I might be dying, and I was pouring the very last of my will and my strength and my love into my child's birth and life. But now, I had made it through to the other side, the long hard labor was over, I was holding a healthy, thriving baby. I was very tired, but triumphant.
Grove kept his hands right up next to his cheeks, no matter how I held him. "I think that may have been part of why you had such a long, hard labor," Jan said softly. "Looks like he had his hands up next to his head the whole time. That probably made things go much harder and slower. That and the short umbilical cord."
After a time, they gently hinted that we'd need to move out of the birthing room and into a recovery room whenever we were ready. Morgan took Grove so that I could go to the bathroom.
I gingerly stood up, and Angie took my hand to steady me as we crossed the room. She showed me how to use a washcloth and the peri-bottle instead of wiping, then left me on my own.
I was shaking, and my legs felt all wobbly. Contractions were still coming pretty regularly, and every muscle in my body ached and throbbed, even my arms, and I realized that I had been clenching them pretty hard during the pushing. I was a little dizzy, probably from lack of sleep. Because I was no longer carrying a baby out front, my center of balance was off and my abdominal muscles (which I hadn't used in months) kept overcompensating. I felt as if I couldn't stand up straight if I tried.
So I sat on the toilet and started to go but gasped and stopped, tears stinging at my eyes. Oh! Burning, searing pain of a thousand tiny tears. I tried again but had to stop, cringing. I looked up to see Morgan watching me from across the room, his face crestfallen in sympathy. Holding his eyes with my own, I steeled myself, clutched at the toilet seat, and forced myself to let go all in one burst, gasping and shaking when I was finally done.
I was broken. So broken. I wondered if I'd ever feel normal again. I couldn't even pee or walk across a room!
I went about cleaning up. In the bright light, I stared, surprised, at the blood under my fingernails from pulling Grove onto my belly.
Birthing was the hardest work that I have ever done. It took every reserve of energy and strength that I didn't even know I had. I have never known a task or activity that so fully used every single part of my body and mind. Three days of that intense work with very little sleep or food to keep me going. It had been painful, though pain is much easier to accept when it works toward a goal. And in the end, total surrender of self.
I was struck by the strangest emotion that I have ever experienced. I felt completely and utterly broken. More broken than I had ever been in all my life. Nothing would ever be the same again; I would never fully heal. Yet at the same time, I felt stronger and more powerful than ever before, awed by the incredible feat that I had just accomplished. I knew now that I could do anything.
I'd always told myself that, if I had to, I would surrender my life for love. But how often does love actually have such a crucible in which to test itself? Now I knew. I knew that at the crisis point, when love was asked, "Would you give up everything, even your life, so that another may live?" I had said yes.
My old self died, and Grove was born. This was a love more tangible than I'd ever dreamed.
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