Warning: This post is
not for the faint of heart. First, it’s
really long. For many of you, it may
seem like too much information, for others, like myself when I was pregnant,
you will appreciate all the gory details.
Reading stories of natural births, rather through one of Ina May Gaskins
books, online, or hearing them from other women, was empowering for me. Knowing what was to come helped me gain
strength throughout my pregnancy, and I hope telling this story will do the
same for someone.
That night and off and on for the next few days I had
times of much more painful contractions.
In between contractions I would feel nauseated and began to think, “this
is it!” but the contractions never sustained longer than 45 minutes. I didn’t want her to come too soon, but I
jokingly asked the little baby in my belly to arrive Wednesday evening (the 12th)
after John’s last final. That would give
us eleven days together before John had to go back to school. Apparently, I have a very obliging child.
The night of the twelfth I began having some contractions
around 10:15. I didn’t think anything of
it, because I’d been having contractions almost every night at that time for a
week and a half. I started timing them;
they were lasting 2 minutes, which was unusual, but they were six minutes apart.
We headed to bed at 10:45 and the minute my head hit the pillow I felt (and I
swear I heard) a POP! It felt like punch, and it was painful. To the point that I may have possibly said a
swear word. I jumped up and water
started pouring down my leg as I ran to the bathroom. John followed me asking what was wrong and I
told him to call Michelle (our doula) because my water had just broke. That’s when things started getting tough. Instantly the contractions were stronger,
faster, and harder. John told Michelle
the timing of my contractions and asked her if we should go to the
hospital. She asked him if I was
crying. We both found this to be an odd
question, but told her that I wasn’t crying, but that it was getting real at this point. She instructed him to call the hospital. When he got off the phone I told him that we had
to leave now, no matter what the nurse at the hospital said.
It took me a little while to be able to walk down the stairs
and outside to the car as John scrambled to get the last minute essentials.
Between contractions I talked to all the necessary people on the
phone. I’m pretty sure my mom and sister
got the wrath of my pain when they both asked me if was doing my Lamaze
breathing. (I apologized later).
By the time we hit Moss Landing, which is about half way to
Santa Cruz, John was slowing down for the intense fog and I was getting pretty
panicky. The contractions were only two
minutes apart and with each contraction I was gripping the dash and leaking
more fluid. That really freaked me
out. I didn’t know that your water could
just keep breaking, so I started
thinking something was wrong. By the
time we got back on the freeway stretch of hwy 1, John was passing a
construction zone and slowed down even
more! I was losing my mind. I kept
telling him something wasn’t right. At
this point my contractions were ZERO minutes apart. It was just one wave rushing into
another. Honestly, it made me think of
surfing. Like when you are out and some huge
set is coming through and you keep trying to swim back out to catch one, but
you’re losing ground every time. I felt
like the waves were overtaking me, as if I were going to drown in pain.
John seemed to think I was handling it all pretty well. He told me later that he knew I was in pain,
but figured we had a few hours to go. I
was thinking that I couldn’t see how this could get worse, and wondering if I
could handle six or seven more hours of it until I got to 10 cm. Oh, little did I know.
We pulled up to the hospital and stopped in front (where the
sign said “No parking”) and I slowly got out of the car while John grabbed the
bag. It was dark inside and when I
walked up to the automatic doors they didn’t open. I was beyond sanity and just started banging
on the glass doors. A nurse came up from
behind me and explained that we’d have to go to the emergency entrance, as this
entrance closed at 8:30. I’m pretty sure
the look I gave her explained that wasn’t going to happen. She used the intercom to ask for someone to
bring a wheelchair and she told me to sit down to wait. I tried to sit down on the bench outside, but
that’s when the burning sensation began.
I had read enough about birth to know that this meant it was time to
push. I’m pretty sure my eyes were
bugging out of my head as I was thinking I was going to have my baby in the
parking lot!! I started telling the
nurse, in a very audible tone, that
we had to go; this baby was coming! I
told her it was burning and that the head was coming. Then she said the absolute wrong thing: “Is this your first baby? No, honey, that baby is not coming right
now.”
Why do people do that?
Like you don’t know what’s going on with your own body??
Luckily, the security guard arrived and pushed me to the
delivery room. The nurses helped me onto
the bed and checked for dilation. I
heard her say, “Oh my God, she’s at ten.” Told
you so.
The doctor on call came in and they had me lay back and put
my feet in stirrups. I told them this
wasn’t right, this wasn’t how I was supposed to do this. The nurse explained that this is how you have
a baby and that I needed to hold my breath, put my chin to my chest, and push. I didn’t argue, but none of it felt right to
me. Shouldn’t gravity have been helping
me out in this?
I tried a few pushes, annoyed that no one was listening to
me. I didn’t have much progress. I kept trying to focus my energy, but
honestly, I didn’t know how to push from that location. Maybe that sounds silly, but, well, I’d never
done it before!
Luckily, my OB arrived in minutes and she had the nurses
raise the bed and lower the stirrups. Right again, I thought to myself. Now in a closer to seated position I began to
push with every contraction. That’s when
utter pandemonium began. I could feel
the baby’s head with every push and I was screaming. I wasn’t meaning to, by any means, but it was
like something else had just taken over.
The nurses keep telling me to stop screaming and hold my breath and
push. And I kept trying, but I wasn’t
really making much progress. It was
finally at this point that I thought, I
don’t want to do this anymore. I’ll just
stay pregnant. Why did I want to do this
naturally?! But darn logic kicked in
to remind me that there was no possible way to get relief other than to just
have the baby at this point.
I started hearing the nurses talking to the doctor, I heard
them talking about heart rates and whose was whose. Then my OB looked at me and said, “Jessica,
you have to push this baby out right now.
The heart rate has dropped and it needs to come out. If you don’t push it out with this
contraction I’ll have to do an episiotomy.”
I knew then that this was serious.
We chose this doc because she’s so adamant about natural birth. She wouldn’t suggest cutting someone if it
wasn’t serious business. I’d love to say
that this was my shining moment and that I did it then, I had my baby and
everything was perfect. But I pushed and
pushed and when I was done, she was still in there.
That push did move her around though. Her heart rate went back up! After that last
push, though, I was determined. I guess
my doctor could see determination in my eyes, because she knew. She told John to take my clothes off so the
baby could lay skin-to-skin with me immediately. He pulled my top off removing the oxygen mask
they had given me to wear between contractions.
When the next contraction came everyone around me blurred. I was so focused. I could see everyone yelling around me,
cheering me on, but the only person I heard was John telling me to push,
telling me I was doing great, that I was almost there until it happened. All at once, the baby came out- head, body,
adorable bum and all :).
The doctor put her directly on my chest
and I just looked at her, taking the whole thing in before I realized I still
didn’t know the gender! I started asking
What is it? What is it? The doctor suggested I turn the baby over on its back, when I did John told me we had a baby girl! I asked hm if he was happy, if he had secretly wanted a boy, but he said he wanted God's perfect will, and that's what we got :)
I felt like I had been in the pushing stage for hours. Turned out I only pushed for 25 minutes! I had experienced all of active labor in the
car, and all of early labor over the course of ten days at home. It was and still is hard to wrap my head
around. Maybe because I didn’t really
have the time to process what was happening with my body.
Looking back, I’m overwhelmed at God’s provisions and
blessings. I told this story to our
pediatrician at our first visit this week, and he said the same thing all my
doctors have said: “You were made to
have babies.” I don’t know really how
much I believe that, but I do believe that I was made to have this baby. In my pregnancy, delivery, and in holding my
newborn I can see how God had his hand in this entire process. I had an absolutely perfect pregnancy,
medically speaking. My delivery was
everything we’d prayed for and more. It was a natural and fast vaginal delivery with no pain medications whatsoever. And our girl is perfectly healthy, a very healthy eater (haha) and a great sleeper.
Even my silly little wishes of not wanting to be cursed with swollen
ankles in pregnancy, telling the baby to show up after John’s last final, and praying
that our baby would have John’s nose were answered.
The Lord listens to even the smallest of prayers.
And now we have a beautiful daughter that is fearfully and
wonderfully made (psalm 139).
