Birth Story – Part 3 (Get it over with already)
Have you ever gotten into the tub to soak away some pain from overworking your legs or to ease some back pain and it pretty much takes away all of it? Well, water does not do that to contractions. A dear friend who recently delivered a baby commented that ‘water is not nature’s epidural’ and indeed it is not. Although I was in the water, the pain was still getting worse, but only when the contraction actually hit. The rest of the time, I felt pretty much normal and had a really nice conversation with my midwife about her daughter and her son-in-law and the military and moving. It was really a lovely talk, but it only occurred in between the pain. When the pain hit the weightlessness I felt in the water just took the edge off.
Maybe thirty minutes in the tub and I felt like pushing. Water births (this one’s for you Jenn) aren’t exactly my thing and aren’t okay with the hospital where I was delivering so out I climbed and into the bed I went. Okay, so maybe that water was doing a little more than I thought it was because at this point I thought I wasn’t going to make it. I’d lost the bike and I was worried.
The midwife reminded me “Ride it up and coast down.” I focused again and made it through three more contractions before she said I was going to go ahead and push. This contraction was, of course, accompanied by the Ring of Fire and unfortunately Johnny Cash was not resurrected and singing to me by the side of the bed (Side Note: If you are one of those people who plan music to birth by, I would highly suggest that song for this part). And the burn continued while I pushed for that contraction and her head was delivered.
The midwife told me to hold up and wait for the next one. I didn’t know that she was unwrapping the cord from around the baby’s neck, where it was loosely hanging (FACT: one of my biggest fears has always been to strangle my own baby while delivering him/her. I am so very very thankful that 1) I didn’t know the cord was wrapped around her neck before I went into labor (like they are for 1 in 4 babies) and 2) that I didn’t know this until after she was on my belly and looked just like my other two non-strangled babies). The next contraction came quickly and I pushed one more time to deliver her shoulders and body.
The fire was still burning. I screamed during the pushing like a crazy person on TLC’s the Baby Story. It was completely involuntary and even while I was doing it, I was thinking that I should stop. No way to keep that kind of sound inside my throat, though. They put Greer on my belly and she was the bluish white of brand new baby, squinty and mad. The burning kept going (it lasts for an hour, peeps. I HAD NO IDEA.) and I felt lightheaded and tired in a not so great way.
They asked me if I wanted to cut the cord and that kind of wigged me out. They asked my dad, who had been holding my hand while I pushed and he was taken off guard by it, but he did it happily. Placenta delivered and then the midwife started barking orders to the nurse. There was a lot of bleeding and my uterus wasn’t clamping down.Some Pitocin on board and all calmed down, I still felt a little out of it and bad so they gave me a little narcotic of some kind. I was thankful for it and held Greer again.
She looked a whole lot like Gideon when he first “popped out”, as Piper likes to say, but with Piper’s chin and slightly more delicate in the face. Her feet looked like his. Her hair line matched my father’s. She has Jud’s frame and my features. I think she’ll be a good mix like the other two. Her eyes are still dark blue and sometimes I think they are getting lighter and other times they look darker. Time will tell.
She is here and she is wonderful. I am tremendously happy about not being pregnant anymore and everyone else is tremendously happy to get to hold her too.
