The Birth Story, Part II: Donuts and Music and Scarfy Things, Oh My!

Note: You can find part I and its associated warnings here.

So now we’ll start to fast forward through some of this day, hitting just the “good parts.” (And yet still in excruciating, four-part detail!)

* Around 9 a.m., I realized I had never put together a playlist of music to listen to while in labor. So I tossed about seven songs into a group and put it on repeat. Because I had exactly enough brain power to come up with about seven songs. Actually, I had less brain power than that because I had actually come up with most of them in my head previously and had just never done anything about it. These songs were on repeat for many hours of the day, but I barely noticed them. I was probably the only one. At one point, Meghan (who I assume was going crazy from having to listen to “A Thousand Years” or “Little Wonders” for the seven thousandth time) casually asked, “So, do you just have this playlist on repeat?” Um, yes. Yes, I did. (I think I turned it off after that, thereby saving my birth team from the edge of madness.)

* I brought in the whole crew around 10 a.m. Susan, our wonderful midwife. Laurie, the birth assistant. Meghan, friend, photographer, and bring of donuts. There was the checking of the heartbeat (but the absolutely-not-on-your-life-no-checking of the dilation). There was some friendly chitchat, and everyone settled in to my living room to give me some space to sleep or whatever I wanted in my room.

* I was still laughing, still totally relaxed, still capable of carrying on conversations. If you’ve gone through the Bradley method of training for birth, you’re thinking, “Oh, Jeanna, you’re not even close to ready to give birth.” And you’re right. This was early labor, folks. Really early labor.

See? Still totally in early labor.

* I spent inordinate amounts of time worrying about the people in my household. They were all there, waiting on me. Waiting on me. Egad, the nerves. The performance anxiety. Laurie had a test to study for—I was keeping her from it. (I really wasn’t; she studied at my house.) Meghan had her very own newborn—I was keeping her from him. (I really was, but she was terribly gracious about it, and she left to take care of him a time or two.) In retrospect, the best plan would have been to send them all home. I could have called them back again when things picked up. But the paranoia, remember—this baby could pop, right? That’s what everyone was always saying about third babies. “They just pop out!” “Shorter and shorter labors!” (And since my second labor was really only active for about four hours, I felt justifiably concerned.)

We must be ready!

* Brice read to me for a while from some excessively cheesy romance novel I had on my kindle at the moment. That was embarrassing, largely because it involved cringing at the plotline. (I think there may have been time travel involved. Or past lives? Or both? I don’t remember; I think I blocked it.)

Apparently the scarf is called a rebozo.
Also, I think I spent about twenty minutes
total on that ball. But at least it was fun
for the girls to play with!

* At one point in the meltingly hot afternoon, I tossed a t-shirt over my tank top and headed outside to walk (waddle) up and down our street. While I did this . . . not a single contraction. Not one. I came back from the walk and stated casually, when asked, that I didn’t think the walk had helped much. I was lying, desperately trying to pretend that things were further along than they were.

* Laurie suggested some sort of homeopathic hoo-ha to try to nudge labor along (“See! I knew they were getting impatient,” I thought to myself), and I said, “Why not?” I have no idea if it worked, but let’s just say it did. Laurie also suggested, when the contractions finally started picking up, a neato scarfy-wrappy thingie around my belly. It helped for some contractions, and I wanted to rip it off and burn it to oblivion for others. Ah, labor.

Still, over the hours it slowly became obviously that labor was finally picking up.

Stay tuned for part III, in which things get hairy.

Update: A friend asked me about the purpose of a rebozo. Here's how I saw it: You know how when you're pregnant and you sneeze, you think your whole abdomen is about to explode into fiery shreds of what used to be muscles and ligaments and such? So when you feel a sneeze coming, you bend over and wrap your arms around your belly? To me, the rebozo was kind of like that. However, if you ask the internet, they don't talk about that. Instead it's about positioning and relaxing and whatnot. Sooo . . . I hope you feel enlightened now.

The Birth Story, Part I: In the Beginning...

Yes! I have finally started writing this down and posting it here. Please do not die of shock.

Be ye hereby warned: There are details in here, people. Potentially gross and/or awkward details. Because childbirth is awesome . . . and also filled with blood, goo, and lots of skin. So enter at your own risk.

Be ye hereby also warned: This is only part I of the exceptionally long, unedited version. If you want the shorter, less exciting, and significantly less snarky version, wait for the summary instead.

It began with a pop and a gush of hot fluid. It was a bit past midnight and I’d been sleeping when my amniotic sac decided it had had enough. I’d often wondered what water breaking felt like, since I hadn’t even noticed it happening with either of my other two children’s births. The answer: it feels like Weird.

My words to Brice: “I think my water just broke.” (Brilliant observation, yes?)

Probably the cleanest this room has ever been.

Excitement pulsed through me as I hobbled quickly to the bathroom, trying not to leave a river in my wake. Here’s what Brice had done by the time I came back: Sat up. Stared at his phone.

Clearly the rush of adrenaline I felt had not extended to him.

So we called Susan, our midwife, just to let her know. I was trying not to squeal in happiness that finally pregnancy would be over! But there was definitely a little bit of internal celebration going on. Susan said to try to rest and let her know if I started having contractions. Just the thought of not having contractions for a while was daunting, but I realized it was a possibility. So I took a deep breath and tried to sleep.

Ho hum, nothing to see here. Just a woman pretending
she's farther along in labor than she really is.

Let me state for the record that trying to sleep while you’re also trying to record your contractions—this is not a good formula for getting much rest.

Five hours later, it was clear that I was in labor but not by much. (If you want to be all boring and technical about it, I will tell you that contractions were about a minute long and ten minutes apart.) I was happy and antsy, crazily nervous that this labor would be so speedy that no one would show up on time (midwife, birth assistant, or birth photographer). While I was pretty sure I could do this without any helpers if I had to, I didn’t really want to. When Addra was born, I had no idea I was as far progressed through labor as I was—right up until the very contraction that was obviously a push. (At which point I observed, “That was a push!” I am apparently brilliant and witty while in labor.) Susan was only at our house for about half an hour before Addra was born. The birth assistant didn’t arrive until after the fact.* So this time around I was understandably paranoid that people weren’t going to make it on time. Far too paranoid, it turns out.

I'm so glad I have this picture. The painting hanging on
the wall is one given to us by Brice's mom. The one on the shelf
was a card my mom wrote to us for our wedding. She died
about four months before we got married, so receiving it and
the afghan she'd crocheted for us was a beautiful gift from her.
Anyway, it was nice to have that reminder there. (Also, you can't
see it, but the painting is of a woman holding up her child
to the sky. Mom and I saw it together many moons ago, and
she saved it for years to give it to me on the right occasion,
which just ended up being my wedding. I kind of love it a lot.)

We kept in touch with both Susan and my friend and birth photographer, Meghan. Time passed. Boredom interlaced with nerves interlaced with intermittent ouchiness. There should have been a point in here when I realized that labor was going to be slow. Every time I got up to move around, contractions slowed. When I sat, they sped up. This is not the usual way of things. It’s funny that the thing that served me so well in labor with Addra—religiously timing contractions—became a bit of a problem here. It made me hyperaware when I should have just taken a deep breath and quit freaking out. Hind sight is brilliant, yes?

Stay tuned for part II, in which donuts are eaten.

* Please note: This is not an argument against birthing at home. Had I been planning to go to the hospital, I still would have stayed home most of the time, since I misjudged how far along I was. The difference is that I would probably have been on the road to the hospital when suddenly I realized my body was ready to push!**

** Please also note: This is not an argument against birthing at the hospital. This post is completely argument-less. Even though I do think homebirth is awesome. 

These kids of ours were excellent at entertaining themselves.