My Birth Story

This is the story of how Evelyn Mae was came in to the world, at 5:20pm on Tuesday, October 1, 2013. Please remember this is a birth story, so it is the story of a birth and it isn't pretty or pleasant until it's over.

The birth of this little ladybug went exactly the opposite of the way I expected it to. I really gave myself props in the months leading up to giving birth because I considered myself to be very realistic, knowing that a birth "plan" was silly and "hopes and dreams" were better. Also, I was in good shape! I was so healthy! I was going to have such an easy, short birth without anything going wrong! Here is a list of things that didn't go the way I thought they would:

1. I was going to watch Friends in the early stages of labor. Know what is not fun when you're having contractions? Laughing.
2. I was going to text people during the early stages of labor. I remember saying to Julia, "I mean, what do people even do in between contractions when they're coming every 10 minutes? I'm totally going to be texting and facebooking up a storm". Turns out, you spend the time in between contractions recovering from the previous one and preparing for the next one. Also, going into labor late at night is not the ideal time to start texting people.
3. I was going to shave my legs, because, for real, unshaven legs are gross. As it turned out, I hadn't shaved my legs for two days before I went into labor, so. I had hairy legs.
4. I was going to be so calm and relaxed and lay on my side and have Michael rub my back and breathe, breathe, breathe, and I would probably end up having one of those "pain free" birth experiences about which I had read so many lovely and heartwarming stories. I ended up hating laying on my side and the most "comfortable" position (for 21 hours) was on my hands and knees, preferably on some kind of firm surface. And the back rubbing thing was SO painful - and I had been so looking forward to it! I have also come to the conclusion that "pain free births" probably occur to women with extremely high pain tolerances who have 30 minute labors and 6 pound children.
5. I wasn't going to take a shower or a bath because the idea of it seemed so icky to me. My hair would be all wet, I would be all wet, it just didn't sound comfortable or relaxing. I ended up spending a lot of time in the tub on my hands and knees. Every time a contraction came, Michael would run warm water on my back and that would feel good. I mean, as good as things can feel when you're having contractions.
6. I was going to eat during labor because it's so important to keep up your energy! Turns out, I couldn't bring myself to put anything in my stomach. My mom kept trying to get me to eat yogurt and granola bars and vitamin water but the idea of eating made me feel gnarly, and not in a cool way. At some point in the morning (after like 10 hours of labor) my stomach finally started feeling a little different and I was able to drink some fluids without feeling horrible.
7. Upon delivery, baby was going to get popped right onto my chest and Michael was going to cut the cord. These things didn't happen as, upon her entrance, she was blue and was whisked over to the table to get un-blued. More on that later.
8. I was going to wear clothes, specifically my leopard print labor dress!, the whole time. Ha. ha. ha.

So, here's the story:

Monday, September 30, 8:30pm
Michael, my mom, and I were watching tv. It was probably football because it was Monday, ew. I was feeling uncomfortable and was sitting in the recliner behind the couch. I was having odd feelings in my belly and was secretly timing these odd feelings. I didn't want to say anything because I really didn't know if anything was going on and I didn't want to stir up anticipation just for me to end up sleeping all night and have nothing happen - this had happened the night before, I was having some more-serious-than-usual braxton hicks and Michael and I timed them for several hours before they ended up trailing off and I feel asleep.

11:00/11:30 pm
Michael and I go to bed and at some point I finally let him know that the braxton hicks are getting pretty serious and maybe something is going on and he should go upstairs and let my mom know. I pooped a few times, which I was pretty excited about because I knew that meant things were definitely happening. We switched sides of the bed so I could be closer to the bathroom but I only stayed there for a short time. I found the side lying thing to be horrible, and hands-and-knees to be incredibly difficult on our pillow-top mattress so we went downstairs so I could be on the carpeted floor. 30 minutes into that I realized I was really far from the bathroom so we went up into the nursery to sleep on the rug on that floor.

I was trying to sleep in between contractions but that just never really happened. Very quickly the contractions became so intense that I was kneeling and holding onto the dresser drawer handles. Later on, I realized that one of the reasons that my 22 hours of labor was so incredibly difficult was because I never really had that first stage easy labor. I went very quickly from not being sure what was happening to having intense contractions. Anyways, probably around 2am I decided that laying down in general was just really awful and went out into the dining room, sat on a chair, and rested my head and arms on pillows on the table - that worked out very well because I was able to stay in the same position during and between contractions.

My mom had set up camp on the kitchen floor (literally, she was laying on a blanket on the tile) so that she could hear me in the other room and watch the kitchen clock at the same time. When I moved out to the dining room table, she took over for a bit and told Michael to try and get some sleep.

4:30 am
He only ended up sleeping for about 30 mins, because within that time I went from contractions every 6 or 7 minutes to every 4 or 5 minutes. We called the birth center and told them we were coming in. I went dressed in my embarrassing pink palazzo pants, fluffy blue slippers with pom poms, and a green blanket wrapped around me. I was looking amaze!

5:11 am 
For posterity, here is the text conversation between Julia and myself while I was en route to the Birth Center:
Me: Baby Ev is on her way. I've been in labor since like 11. It is the opposite of a fun time!
Julia: Oh shit. I'm so excited!!!!!
Me: My thoughts exactly. We are on our way to the birth center.
Julia: I've been laying in bed for an hour thinking about carpenter ants so this is a welcome distraction. Omg have you slept?
Me: Not really, trying to rest between
Julia: Are they a lot worse than menstrual cramps? The contractions? I'm so curious
Me: Omg so much worse
Julia: Oh noooooo!!!! I just go to Paolo "someone's having a baby!" and he goes "oh, who" hahaha and I was like "um the only pregnant person we know?"
Me: Isn't that just like a man

The drive to the birth center was not as bad as I thought it would be, and awful at the same time. My contractions slowed down a little bit on the way there, which greatly irked me because it was 30 mins away and I was going to be super pissed if we got all the way there only to be back to like 7 mins apart. But after the initial 10 or 15 minutes in the truck, the contractions were back to 4 or 5 minutes. I kept telling Michael to slow down because when I was having a contraction it felt like he was going SO fast. A few times he slowed down so much the truck was almost stopped. Also, the roads in Bryn Mawr are not condusive to laboring women. You'd think that given the average bank account size of the residents in this town that they'd pay more attention to their roads. I digress.

At some point during the drive I realized I had been in true labor for 6 hours. I said something about it and my mom was like "I know, it's been a long time" and I said "no, I mean, I can't believe it's been 6 hours already" - in my mind, 6 hours meant I was at least halfway there, if not even closer. I'm such a silly lady.

5:30 am
We get to the birth center. Wrapped in my green blanket,  I slowly waddle-shuffled across the driveway in my pom pom slippers...and realized for a brief second how hilariously ridiculous I looked. That was the last time I had that thought for another 12 hours...which is silly because I got a lot more ridiculous really quick.

On the drive there, I had been trying to remember which room it was that I wanted to be in, and as we were walking in I started panicking because I couldn't remember...but then it didn't matter because there was only one room (the yellow one) open. Imagine my RELIEF, and horror at the thought that there might not have been a room for me. Apparently as the day went on, there were women in labor who were waiting for a room. I'm sorry for them but phew! for me.

So the midwife checks me and says I'm fully effaced and 4cm dilated. I had hoped to be more dilated, but "fully effaced" sounded excellent. 

6:00 am - 9:30 am
First, the midwife had to put an IV in my arm so that I could get penicillin since I was GBS positive. I hate needles to begin with and was already incredibly distressed that I was going to have an IV in my arm all through labor. I had also recently heard a story from one my friends - she went to the hospital to have something done and needed an IV. The nurse put the IV in wrong and my friends arm swelled up like a balloon and she had to stay at the hospital and some really bad things could have happened (but fortunately didn't). So as the woman is putting this IV in my arm, I am already pain from labor, and then this IV just feels really painful. And I remember my friend saying "when she put it in my arm, it just didn't feel right and it hurt really bad". And so then I immediately think "omg, the same thing is happening to me and I am going to swell up and die". I finally convinced the nurse that it really didn't feel right, so she took it out and put it in my other arm. Once it was switched over I literally couldn't feel it at all, so I was really glad that I got her to do so - and glad, of course, that I didn't end up dying.

Labor, labor, labor. It is not fun. I had a really hard time relaxing. As a matter of fact, I'm not sure I ever really did relax most of that morning. I remember Michael reminding me to breathe and things like that but I was so overwhelmed at the pain and discomfort that there was literally nothing I was thinking about other than that. I never cried, I didn't swear (not yet, anyways), I forgot to care that I didn't have clothes on, I didn't wonder where my phone was or remember that my mother-in-law had been there for hours and I hadn't asked to see her. I literally had no sense of time - you could have told me 2 minutes, 2 hours, or 2 days had passed and I would have believed you.

I went back and forth between the shower and hands-and-knees on the bed. I really wanted to just lay in the jacuzzi tub but it wasn't big enough and was more uncomfortable than anything. Every time I had a contraction in the tub I had to roll over and that was just really difficult. Standing in the shower was exhausting, so they gave me a chair to sit on - but I was so cold being out of the water and it was painful to sit on the chair so that didn't work out either.

Throughout the morning I think I probably "met" 3 or 4 different nurses and midwives. New people kept coming in and saying who they were and who they were replacing and I was like "omg whatever I don't care". I didn't say that but that's how I was feeling. At some point, a midwife named Carol and a nurse named Megan came on duty and they were with me for the rest of the day.

9:45 am - 12:00pm
Carol had me on the birthing stool, leaning on pillows on the edge of the bed, and my water finally broke. I remember feeling so relieved, and also so disgusted because it was all over the floor and all over my feet and just ew. At this point I thought ok, here we go, this is going to be done soon. But then, it wasn't. After my water broke, she checked me and I was 9cm. Hooray! Also, not hooray getting checked - it was painful and then since I had to be on my back for it I would end up having a contraction while I was on my back which was THE WORST.

But then...instead of progressing, I started digressing. Baby Ev, who had been posterior my whole pregnancy, turned anterior. My cervix swelled up and I literally un-dilated down to 7cm. These last two were discovered at some point close to noon, when nothing was happening. Reading my Birth Summary from the Birth Center, it says "Problems First Stage: Yes; Problems First Stage Details: Prolonged Transition". I kept hoping I was in transition, I kept thinking I was. I had been going so long and I was exhausted and everything was hurting and I finally started feeling like I couldn't do it anymore. And then when I felt that way I almost felt better because I had been told that as soon as you get to that point, you just have to keep going because the end is near.

Carol told me a few times to push if I felt like I needed to. I didn't know how that felt and just tried to push a few times because I wanted to get this over with so badly. I assume the combination of pushing when I really shouldn't have been and the fact that I was so tense and unrelaxed contributed to my failure to progress.

12:00pm
So, the end was not almost near. The rest of this story is why it has taken me a month to write it down, because it's really hard for me to remember all these things. I don't know how women who's births are even worse than mine don't have PTSD over it.

At noon, having discovered that my cervix was swollen and I was down to 7cm, Carol offered me stadol, a pain medication. This was supposed to help me sleep. She had barely gotten the offer out of her mouth when I said PLEASE YES (I sounded a lot sobbier and saddier than that). Michael looked at me, I remember feeling so bad for him because he looked so helpless and sad and anxious, and asked was I sure. I think this is one of the few times I did have a few tears come out and I said yes, I couldn't do it anymore. So they started getting it ready and then I cried for the first time and said, "my mom will be so disappointed in me". A couple minutes later my mom came in and told me she was not disappointed and she loved me. Having her support me and be there by my side was so important and special. So the stadol went in and I was so hoping to just be in peace for a couple hours and not feel anything. This didn't happen. I don't know if I ever went to sleep or not, but for two hours I was laying on my side (as previously stated, I hated this) and having contractions every two or three minutes. My mom, Michael, Carol, Megan, and maybe a few other nurses here and there were sitting and standing over me, holding my hands and my feet and rubbing my back while I just literally howled in pain. I remember saying "Help me", "where's michael", "why did I do this to myself", and "F***! (sorry mom)".

Suddenly, two very doped up hours had gone by and I felt just as tragic as I had before I started the stadol, except now I was really woozy on top of it. Carol checked me again, still swollen. Now she tells me that we're going to keep going for 2 more hours and if things don't get better, I'm being transported to the hospital. My two thoughts - 1, if I go to the hospital, I am GBS positive and they will make me stay there for three days. 2, how the hell am I going to get there??

Carol offers to give me some shots in my back to help with the back pain I'm having (due to Ev turning anterior, I assume). I say yes, duh. I'm on my hands and knees on the bed and I hear her and Megan discuss that they will do four injections (in my head: four?!) and do them in the points of the star on my lower back (in my head: well that tattoo turned out to be good for something). I start to have a contraction and they put those needles in my back and I thought being in labor was bad?! This was literally 100 times worse. So much worse that I literally screamed out loud, and then yelled "why would you do that while I'm having a contraction!". Carol, so calm and collected, said "oh, you don't want that while you're not having one."

Turns out these shots were nothing more than miraculous injections of plain old water and I wish I had been given them so much earlier. They eased my back pain so much and I was finally able to calm down and focus. For the next two hours, I was on my hands and knees on the bed with my head on a pile of pillows. My mom was holding my hand and rubbing my back and I somehow relaxed. Part of it was knowing I needed to relax or I was going to the hospital, and the other part was I was so exhausted I couldn't do anything else - so exhausted that I was sleeping in between contractions. I remember multiple times waking up mid snore to have a contraction, having the contraction...and then all the sudden I was waking up a couple minutes later, mid snore again, to have another one. I made a routine for myself during these two hours - the contraction would start, I would do a deep groaning/growling sound, then a couple deep breaths, and then this breathing that Carol taught me where I basically said "ho ho ho" (yes, like Santa Claus). By the time I finished those three things the contraction was over and I passed back out and drooled more on my pillow. I also didn't let myself clench my hands and physically willed myself to keep them relaxed.

4:00 pm - 5:20 pm
The two hours of sleeping/contracting pass and Carol checks me again. My cervix is no longer swollen and at some point after this is discovered, I can start to push. She puts me back on the birthing stool and guides me through the pushing. Michael is standing behind me and in between contractions, I lay my head back on his chest. I have never in my life felt like I needed someone so much as I needed Michael through this whole experience. You always see those scenes in movies where women are giving birth and yelling at their husbands while it's happening. I could not have felt less like yelling or being angry with him, I needed him so much in every moment and I can't imagine having gone through any of it without him.

Now things happen rather horribly and wonderfully at the same time. I'm having a hard time getting this baby out. At some point, Carol can see the baby's head but now my cervix has started to close up again and I am moved to the bed, in the least expected and least desired position - on my back, so that she can literally hold my cervix back to let the baby out. I'm not giving strong enough pushes so she has Megan, the nurse, twist up a sheet. She hands me one end and takes the other and then with every push I pull on the sheet. This gives me powerful pushes for sure and the baby starts coming out...but then all the sudden more people are coming in the room and Michael and Carol start looking panicky. Everyone picks me up, and turns me over on to all fours...something is happening...Everyone picks me up, and turns me over again to my back...something is happening...Carol says "Sarah, the baby is stuck and the only way to get her out is you PUSHING". Michael looks at me so seriously and painfully and repeats, very loudly, something similar. I am feeling terrified. I push harder a few more times...and then it is 5:20 and Baby Evelyn comes into the world.

But she isn't given to me, instead Carol takes her and she is set on the little table and there are people all around her. Michael is crying and looking into my eyes and telling me that she's here, and that I did it, and that he loves me.

For a brief second I have a moment of utter and complete relief and then I have the realization that my baby is over there and I'm over here. I'm crying, finally, and saying "where's my baby? what's wrong with her? why won't you give her to me?" After what feels like a thousand years, but really is only maybe one or two minutes, my baby girl is set on my chest and I'm sobbing with relief and complete and utter love. She isn't crying, and her eyes are wide open. She wiggles around, searching, and I move her up closer where she finds just what she was looking for, and latches right on.

She was blue when she came out, and her inital APGAR test was 4. Once they got her breathing and un-blued she was at 9. Since she was coming out anterior, her shoulder got stuck, and there was concern that she had shoulder dystocia - a complication that could lead to her not being able to use her arm properly and other things that would have made me terribly sad. Hours later when the pediatrician came to check on her, we're told that her shoulder and the rest of her beautiful little baby body are healthy and well and perfect.

She stays on top of me for probably an hour, while I get two teeny tiny stitches and revel in my new found motherhood. My own mother and Michael's mother and father come in to experience a little heart-bursting of their own, and then Michael gets to hold his daughter, finally. As the rest of the hours go by I ask for pizza (which comes and everyone else devours but I immediately regret asking for it and so only have one or two bites), I shower (which is incredibly difficult and required much assistance from Michael) and Baby Evelyn gets wrapped up and we are told many, many things which we barely heard and then finally, the lights get turned off and we are left alone. I would like to say the rest of the night was peaceful and glorious but it wasn't at all. Michael immediately fell asleep and snored the rest of the night. Evelyn was placed in a bassinet next to me but I couldn't bear it and brought her to bed with me. Then I was scared of squashing her so I just held her, dozing on and off. In between the dozing, I could hear other almost-mothers going through the trials and tribulations of their own labors and this was entirely unpleasant for me.

Finally, 6am in the morning comes and we can go home. Baby Evelyn gets put in her carseat, and we realize we never actually read the directions on how to buckle her in. Oops. We figure it out and collect our things and head to the truck. As I am carefully shuffling there, Michael stops to take a picture of Baby Ev in her carseat in front of his truck, and this makes him very proud. He helps me get in and then we start driving and I say, "Michael, they let us take a baby home! What are we going to do with her??"

I'll tell you what we do with her. We love her and cuddle her and kiss her and snuggle her and I would give my life up before I would let anything hurt her. She belongs to me and I belong to her and she's my sweetheart...and all kinds of other sweet, sad, full-of-love songs.

The end.