The Birth Story

Lexi's story

It's hard to believe that just a week ago I was in labor. It seems impossible that it's been that long, and yet, I have a hard time remembering what life was like around here without a little one. Even right after the birth, everything just merged into a fog.

So I guess the story begins on Thursday morning. It was finally cool enough to get some work done outside, so I spent the morning mowing the lawn with our neighbor Georgia's electric mower. I had quite a bit of energy, but not enough to use our push mower. I weeded the garden and generally cleaned things up outside. Periodically, I went inside for updates on the Tour de France. And witnessed as Floyd Landis made a phenomenal (and now apparently drug assisted … even our idols must fall) comeback on the last mountain stage. Around noon I was pretty exhausted and I stopped for a break. I was feeling a little crampy. It was nothing dramatic, just a notice from my body that perhaps I had done a little too much. Dave went out to do some errands and go to the shop. I told him that I wasn't sure what was going on with me, and that he should call in soon.

After lunch I gathered a little more energy and walked over to the store. Somewhere about this time, the crampiness became more pronounced, and I started having what I thought were distinct contractions. They didn't feel all that different from the Braxton Hicks contractions that I had been having, and they certainly didn't feel like much. I still wasn't sure what, exactly to think. Somehow, I assumed that I would know exactly when labor began, but it seemed like it got started so slowly. At the store, I saw Martha, another neighbor, who offered me a ride home, for which I was extremely grateful. Getting back up the hill would have taken me a long time.

Once home, I laid down to see if the contractions would subside, but lying down seemed to make them more intense. Or perhaps, they just seemed more intense because I was paying attention to them more. I timed them for about 45 minutes, and although they were relatively close together, about 4.5 minutes apart, they were still quite short and mild. I called Katherine, our doula or labor assistant, at this point. I wanted to let her know that it seemed like things might be getting started, but also to get her opinion as to whether this was the real thing or not. She was in town, so she said she'd stop by just see how I was doing. Dave called, and I told him what was going on and asked him to come home relatively soon. When Katherine came by, we chatted for while. I was still easily able to talk during a contraction, and she clearly thought I had a long time still to go. She left, giving me strict instructions to eat a good dinner and go to bed.

The afternoon progressed into evening; Dave came home and continued his work around the house; I made us dinner (a goat cheese tomato tart); and the contractions gradually became stronger. Around 8 pm, I timed them again for a while. They were now about 4 minutes apart, some longer, and about 45 seconds long. I definitely had to stop and concentrate on them while they were happening, but still managed to get dinner made and cleaned up. I was beginning to get the feeling that things might happen soon, and Dave still was going gang busters trying to get stuff done. For some reason this made me extremely nervous. I think I was worried that he would expend all his energy on the house and not have any left for me over what could be a long night. Eventually I told him that I needed him to wrap up what he was working on, and he did so. (The amount that he accomplished in that time was excellent!)

Around 9 pm, we crawled into bed to try to get some rest. The concept of actually sleeping at this point was laughable. Every 4 minutes, I was having pretty strong contractions, that I was definitely NOT sleeping or even talking through. I relaxed as long as possible. Finally, around 10, I started timing the contractions again. We seemed to have reached the magic number (4 minutes apart, 1 minute long for an hour.) I procrastinated a little while longer, and then decided that we should probably be going. I called Gifford and got Amy, the midwife on call, on the phone. I described to her where I was at, and she encouraged me to come in. I then called Katherine and told here that we would be going. Katherine clearly thought that I was still in very early labor, and that I should stay at home a while longer. It seemed obvious to me that we'd be making the trek some time during the night, and I kind of wanted to get it over with. We told Katherine that we'd call her again after we got to Gifford and they had checked me out.

Around 11 pm, we gathered our things, and began the car ride. The car ride was quite surreal, and felt very much like an alpine start to some great adventure. For the last couple of hours, I had been having sporadic pain from my sciatic nerve that shot from my left hip down into the outside of my calf. When I got into the car, the sciatica intensified. I wiggled around, tried to reposition myself, lay on my side, sat up, lay down… all to no avail. The car ride was pretty torturous. I think the contractions eased up a little during the car ride, but I was so focused on the sciatica that I'm not entirely sure.

At last we got to Gifford. They have been doing construction, so the normal entrance to the birthing center was not open. We circumnavigated the building, and realized that we had to go into the main entrance, which would mean a long (at least in my current state) walk down the length of the hospital. We entered the building, which was dead silent except for one person at the reception desk, and one fat dude reading a newspaper in the waiting area. As I entered the lobby, another contraction hit, and I draped myself across a chair for its duration. The receptionist came out. "Let me guess, this must be Alexandra". She offered me a wheel chair, but I declined. I hoped that walking to the birth center would help the sciatica some, but it didn't seem to make much difference.

Once at the birth center, they checked me out and said that I was 5.5 cm dilated. I was delighted! This was much further along than I expected. Next, they hooked me up to the fetal monitor to check on the baby. Soon after lying down I vomited up all my dinner, but promptly felt much better. Dave and I were alone at the time, and no appropriate piece of equipment presented itself, so Dave grabbed the garbage can! Later the nurse showed him where the approved puke bags were. At some point Amy came in (though I can't remember whether it was she or Mary, the nurse, who did the internal exam.) I was very glad that Amy was on duty. Of all the midwives she was definitely the one that I most hoped would catch the baby.

The fetal monitor strip took a little longer than usual as the baby was asleep, and they wanted to see two periods of activity and elevated heart rate. I had some juice and moved around a little to try to wake her up. How she could have been sleeping through the contractions was totally beyond me. Eventually, however, they got what they wanted and took me off. Dave called Katherine to let her know my progress. She was pretty surprised, and said she'd be right over.

By this point, the contractions definitely felt pretty serious. They asked if I wanted to be in the tub, and I said definitely yes. I hoped that being in the water would help the sciatica as well as the contractions.

The hours that I spent in the tub were all a blur. I had no idea how long I had been there. Random thoughts drifted through my head. At first, Dave and I continued to joke and chat between contractions. I don't remember exactly what we said, but I remember other folks in the room laughing at some of the things we said. Later, as the night got later, I remember looking around the room, and everyone seemed to be nodding off. I thought how boring this must be for everyone but me! The sciatica continued to be extremely painful, in fact sometimes it was more painful than the contractions. Labor would have been a piece of cake if it hadn't been for the sciatica. It really prevented me from relaxing and regrouping the way "they" say one is "supposed" to. I kept shifting my position around the tub, but nothing really helped. At some point, I think I took some Advil, but that didn't really help either.

The night continued in timeless blur. My only measure of progress was that contractions at the beginning of the night took five big breaths to get through the worst of the pain. Towards the end of the night, it took many more breaths. I stopped counting. With each breath, I groaned. Somehow making the noise seemed to help. Somewhere in that time, I puked again. How I had anything in me to puke, I wasn't sure. I tried to keep drinking juice and ginger-ale, but I really had to force myself to drink.

Eventually, the sciatica became overwhelming. I hoped that getting out of the tub and walking around would help. Dave and Katherine helped me out of the tub. At first, I was freezing, which seemed odd, since just a minute before, I had been way too hot. They put a warm blanket over me, which felt great, and slowly, I made my way to the bed. Amy examined me again and said I was at 9.5 cm. I was very relieved and quite surprised to be so far along. I had heard that "transition" was supposed to be so difficult, and yet here I was almost all the way through it. I tried various positions on the bed, on the birth ball, over the back of the bed… nothing really seemed to help the sciatica, and the contractions seemed about the same no matter what.

At some point, I ended up on the toilet to labor. As soon as I sat down, I felt the overwhelming desire to push. I wasn't sure if I should try to push or not, was I really fully dilated yet? I frantically asked if it was OK. But didn't get much answer. Then I felts something come down through my vagina, and just hang there. Good lord, I'm going to give birth to this baby right now and drop it in the toilet! I thought. Then after pushing I reached down and felt a floppy bag hanging out of me. I couldn't figure out what it was and was a little scared. Amy came over with a flashlight, and reassured me that it was just my bag of waters… it was OK. Then the bag broke. I didn't have a sense of losing a lot of fluid, but I suppose I must have. I looked down and saw the bits of membrane at the bottom of the toilet.

Now I had reached the pushing stage. I had heard from many sources that this would be a relief, and knew that the end was close. At first, I wasn't sure exactly how to push. It felt like my body was pushing for itself, so I didn't really understand that I had to help it. In addition, I was tired, and really wanted a break, so I was pretty wimpy about pushing. That went on for a little while, until Amy made it clear, that I really had to push harder if I was going to get anywhere. I started to push with the contractions as best I could. I continued to change positions… from the birth stool to the bed, back to the toilet… I felt like I was in my own universe. Occasionally suggestions and support, mostly those from Dave, filtered in. I was willing to try anything anyone suggested. Still the sciatica was incredibly distracting, and the contractions not really progressing. I could feel her head move down a little with the contraction and then slide back up again and again. After a while of this, the contractions were beginning to slow down, and I was becoming exhausted and discouraged.

As I sat on the birthing stool (which was extremely uncomfortable as it cut off circulation in my leg) Amy suggested that Dave stimulate my nipples to try to make the contractions progress. Something in her voice broke through my haze and I realized that she was beginning to get concerned about my lack of progress. Suddenly the realization came over me that I had to get this over with soon, or they might need to do more serious interventions. With the start of each contraction, I pushed as hard as I could whether my body wanted to or not. That usually caused the second push to be hard and spontaneous. Two or three breaths, and push again as hard as I could. Every muscle in my body straining. Two of three more breaths, do it again. I could get about four pushes per contraction. Then I went limp from the exertion. The sciatica still hurt, but it faded to the background. I talked to the baby, "come on baby, we've got to get you out of here." In the distant background, Dave, Amy, and Katherine cheered me on. Her head crept closer and closer to the opening. Amy held up a mirror, so I could seen the top of head, but I confess it was hard for me to make out anything. Everyone commented on how much hair there was. I was lost in a timelessness of the most intense physical exertion I have ever experienced. I felt that I couldn't keep it up much longer, but each contraction came and each time I pushed with every ounce of strength that I had.

On one push, I could feel the top of her head come part of the way out and stay out. But then after a few seconds it slid back in again. I was so disappointed. Amy had me move to the bed. At the time, I had no idea why, I just trusted what she said. Afterwards, she explained that I would have torn if I had been squatting or on the birth stool. On the bed, she could control the delivery much more easily. I lay half on my side and half on back and continued to push as hard as I could with every contraction. There was meconium in the fluid, so they had a pediatrician on call and wheeled in a warming table. I suppose there must have been quite a lot of commotion, but it all happened on the edge of my consciousness. Then, finally, it happened: one big push and the head was out for real. I couldn't see what was going on, but it felt so good to have it out. One more big push and out came her shoulders. The rest of her body kind of slithered out afterwards. I felt as though I was loosing all of my insides.

Then she was out, and Dave cut the cord, and she was whisked to the warming table to have the fluid suctioned out of her. From where I lay, her skin seemed to blue, and I was worried for a moment. Then she let out a good cry, and I breathed a sigh of relief. What sex was she? Dave went over and pronounced her a girl, and in a moment, she was in my arms. The two of us covered in sweat, blood, fluid just lay there looking at each other. My first reaction was one of relief… the labor was over! That gave way slowly to amazement: how is it possible that this little creature came out of my body?

The moment she was out, my mental haze cleared and the sciatica vanished. The placenta was slow in coming, so they gave me a shot of pitocin to speed it up. Out it came looking like a large hunk of bloody meat. Then it seemed as though they removed blood soaked pad after blood soaked pad out from under me. Amy examined me, and said that I had three very small tears that weren't worth stitching up. Two of them may have come from the baby's hand, which was up by her face when she was born. At this point, none of the medical stuff really mattered any more. I had a beautiful, healthy, little girl in my arms and that was all that mattered. I felt an overwhelming sense of giddy amazement at the child, my child, that I held in my arms.