Birth Story Number Two

This is the story of an unmedicated, vaginal delivery, which capped off a planned and wanted pregnancy. I feel so grateful and fortunate to be telling this tale. I know many friends who have struggled/are struggling to get pregnant, are searching for a partner for the parenting journey, and who have had the heartbreaking experience of losing fetuses through miscarriages and babies during labor. I know my story won’t be for everyone to read. I want to share it because I love talking about pregnancy and labor and want to share my experience of unmedicated labor as it continues to constitute only about ~27% of births in this country. I feel immensely privileged to have had bodily autonomy in planning this pregnancy, that my partner and I were able to conceive, and that I was able to gestate and deliver a healthy baby. I know none of these are to be taken for granted. 

My doula shared a belief that labor and birth teach you what you need to know to be the parent you need to be for your child. Aylan, my first son, arrived one week early, where I’d been counting on him to be late as many first babies are. He taught me to give up my need to always feel in control and to learn to adapt to changing plans. Oren, my second son, taught me to trust the deep wisdom and intuition of my body. I learned that my mind-body connection is profound and I hope to trust it more now that I’ve had this experience. My mind worked hard to take care of all the logistics and wrap up loose ends, so that I could create space and a sense of peace for my body to do its part in this process. 

For the month leading up to my due date, I had this strong feeling that the baby would come a week early. (At the end, I share 3 separate occasions in which I accurately predicted his date and time of arrival.) Not knowing when labor would begin was hard for me and provoked a lot of anticipatory anxiety. Given my intuition that this baby was going to come one week early, I did my best to plan accordingly and worked hard to check everything off my list before the date I predicted he’d arrive. I knew it was silly to try to plan it all out, but it gave me some sense of control over something where I knew I had none.

At therapy on Wednesday, September 28, I focused on preparing for labor and delivery. With my first labor, I associated some trauma with the experience. My doula’s interpretation, which I accepted, was that the trauma was the result of the battle between my thinking brain and my body vying for control. Once my body took control, I had very fond memories of labor and delivery. So as I approached my due date, I worried more and more about if I’d be able to get my mind out of the way so my body could do its thing. I wrote three takeaways in my journal from therapy:

1. I can do this. 

2. When the time is right, I will be ready. 

3. My body has been growing this human without any help from or intervention from my thinking brain. Labor and delivery is the grand finale. My body is totally capable.  I just need to let it do its thing and turn off my thinking/control center.

I worked late into the evening finishing up major projects for work. That night, I didn’t sleep well. I wasn’t sleeping well most nights at that point, always anxious labor would begin every time I got up to pee because that’s what happened with Aylan. But early Thursday morning, September 29th, I recorded a shift in my mentality in my journal. I was no longer feeling anxious. I was feeling excited for labor and delivery. That day at my weekly visit with the midwives, my midwife noted that the baby’s head felt lower than the week before and that my bump had not grown the typical centimeter, another sign that the baby was starting to get lower. I also noticed that my right hip felt extremely loosey goosey and my pelvis had been achy all week, signs of a widening pelvis.

I wrapped everything up at work by September 30th, so I wouldn’t have loose ends hanging should this baby arrive early. I arranged to have Aylan and our dog, Nessie, sleep at my parents house on September 30 so I wouldn’t have to worry about someone getting there to care for them before I could leave for the hospital. We packed our “go bag” and put the car seat in the car on the 30th when I got home from work. Charles and I had a relaxing, kid-free evening. We shared our worries and our excitements as we anticipated the arrival of our 2nd child. We even lit a candle, instead of lighting a fire, in case I went into labor and didn’t want to have to worry about leaving a fire in the hearth. My gratitude that night before bed was “feeling ready.” But I went to bed, fully aware that I had no idea when this baby would actually arrive. I feared that I may have jinxed it by telling several people that day that I thought my baby would be coming over the weekend. I thought perhaps that fate would then have it that my 2nd baby would arrive two weeks late, to prove to me that I could not plan to the tee something as magical and radical as childbirth. 

I went to sleep at 11:30pm and at 12:30am on October 1st, I was awoken by my waters breaking. I knew exactly what it was, without a doubt in my mind. I flew to the bathroom and texted my doula who called me back immediately. My heart was pounding. I had a huge adrenaline rush. My doula commented, “You sound excited!” I was excited and scared and felt such a rush that this was actually happening after so much anticipation of when labor would begin. Ryan, my doula, reminded me that it can take a while for labor to kick in. With Aylan, my waters broke 11 hours before my contractions began. She encouraged me to try to go back to sleep to gather as much rest as I could. I did try to go back to bed, but I was too excited, too energized from the adrenaline to even think of sleeping. So I went back to the bathroom and sat on the toilet. I spent a lot of time on the toilet while I labored with Aylan, and I found this time too, that it was the only place I wanted to be. The toilet is an excellent place to labor my doula taught me, and Ina May wrote, because we are conditioned to relax all our sphincters when we sit on a toilet. And relaxing our sphincters is exactly what you need to have happen in order to deliver a baby from your womb.

At 12:55am my contractions began. The next ones were at 1:08am, then 1:20am. Charles asked if he could do anything, but I just wanted to be alone. He attempted to go back to sleep so he’d be rested for when I was in active labor. But he couldn’t sleep through my moans during  each contraction and was well aware that they were picking up in speed and intensity. The next contractions were at 1:28am, 1:33am, 1:36am. At this point, I asked Ryan to come. She was 30 minutes away. The next contraction was at 1:45am. I called the midwives so they knew I was in labor and had another intense contraction. My body heat began building, a sign of active labor. At this point the contractions continued coming around 4-5 minutes apart. Ryan arrived at 2:15am. 

She described me as being blissed out on oxytocin when she arrived. I proudly showed her this pattern I was focusing on in the wood grain in our bathroom door. I saw the outline of a full-bodied woman with her legs spread wide. I’d read in Ina May’s book that there are several documented cultures that have figurines of women with wide open vaginas that they think women used to focus on in childbirth to help their own bodies open up. I found my wood grain figurine and thought of my cervix opening wide for this baby to come out. And I do remember, after contractions, I distinctly felt my cervix widening. It was an incredible sensation. She sat with me through a contraction or two, and noted that they were rolling right on top of each other. She affirmed for me I was in active labor. I told her I thought we should go to the hospital. She was calm with me, but I saw her urgently mouth to Charles, “We gotta go!” and I knew I was far along. It took a while to get to the car because I had multiple contractions as I tried to get out of the house. Ryan applied hip compressions, which are a magical maneuver that take the edge off contractions and make them manageable. I began to panic and say I couldn’t make it to the hospital. But Ryan and Charles insisted that I could and got my shoes on and got me out the door. The fresh air slowed my labor down a bit. I continued to have contractions while we drove. We notified the hospital we were on our way. We got a red light ticket on the way to the hospital at 2:47am. It resulted in a $100 ticket, which I successfully contested and won(!), given Oren’s 3:11am birth time. 

Once at the hospital, I had two contractions in the ER lobby while we waited for the wheelchair tech from L&D to come to take me to OB triage. I couldn’t sit because there was too much downward pressure when she arrived, so I tried to walk. But every few steps, I had another contraction. Finally she persuaded me to sit by telling me she could get me to triage in 30 seconds if I would ride in the wheelchair. As soon as we arrived in triage, I climbed into a bed and got on my side. As they tried to attach the monitors, I announced “I have to push! I have to get this baby out of me!” They asked, you have to push? I said “Yes!” Ryan ripped my pants off me, they threw a sheet over me, and took off running. Masonic is poorly laid out, so triage in on a different floor from the labor and delivery rooms. Ryan had me do “horse lips” to slow the labor down and bring the energy up toward the top of my body. After a frantic minute running down the hallways and riding in the elevator (me lying in the bed), they parked me in a room. I yelled, “I have to get this baby out of me!” We all have different memories about the exact number of nurses who were with us, but our best guess is that as soon as they parked me, 2 of them ran out to get delivery supplies. They had put me in a room that was an OR recovery room, not a delivery room because their delivery rooms were at capacity that night. Then when I said this baby had to get out of me, and Ryan observed that the head was crowning, the last nurse ran out to get the doctor. 

But I couldn't wait any longer. In retrospect, I’d been waiting to push since we left our house. Finally I was where I needed to be and I could push. I pushed once and I felt the head come out. I pushed again and the body shot out of me, along with a rush of warm liquid. It was the most incredible feeling to feel a whole body slide through my vagina, an immense sense of relief. There was no waiting to push with each contraction this time as there had been with Aylan. As another friend’s doula told her, the first paves the way for the second. 

Ryan and Charles were the only ones in the room. Ryan reached down and grabbed the baby off the table, deftly removed the cord which was wrapped around his neck, and brought the baby to my belly. The cord was too short for baby to be placed on my chest just yet. I asked if the baby was okay, because it looked blue to me, and Ryan told me blue was okay. At this point, the nurses and doctors all came rushing back in, only to find the baby was already here. They leaped into action wrapping baby in towels and wiping baby down. I realized we still didn’t know the sex. Charles announced it was a baby boy. The nurses predicted he was born at 3:11am. He was 6lbs 15oz and 20.5 inches. We delayed the cord clamping. And our new baby snuggled on my chest for a very long time, while I delivered the placenta and while my midwife stitched me up. 

I felt immensely relieved to have the baby out of me. I did not have the euphoric high I had after Aylan was born. My doula thinks it’s because the labor was so fast there was no time for all the hormones to build up as there had been with my first labor. 

And that’s how Oren arrived – in an incredibly intense labor that was less than 2 hours and 45 minutes from start to finish and that came exactly when I intuited it would. I am so grateful he arrived safely and that we are both healthy – it is an immense blessing I try not to take for granted. Birth is an incredibly powerful process. And I’m aware of how closely mother and baby walk to death as we work together to bring new life into the world. I am in awe of what me and Oren’s bodies did together to bring him to this side of the womb. I am grateful for the access I had to western medicine if anything had gone wrong and I am grateful my body got to labor and deliver all on its own without any interventions, that I could feel the full force of every contraction and his passage through the birth canal. 

I fully respect the choice to use medication to ease the pain. There is no medal or reward for sustaining the throes of labor. This was the route I wanted for me. I am blessed to have quick labors (they run in our family), and my midwife told me some women experience less pain than others during childbirth (perhaps I’m wired to experience less pain? I’ll never know what it’s like for anyone else). If you’re interested in an unmedicated, vaginal birth, I stand by the same advice I offered after my first birth. 1) Get yourself a doula! They are the most incredible resource and advocate for birthing people and their partners. They have techniques they use that help make the contractions manageable. They understand what’s happening in the birthing process. I wish everyone had access to one. 2) Read Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth. I was re-inspired to have an unmedicated labor after I reread it. 3) Take a birthing class, at least for your first pregnancy, so you understand what is happening in your body when you are in labor and so you can ask informed questions if doctors try to intervene. 4) If you’re able, move your body while you’re pregnant – go for walks, do a circuit of moves in the final weeks that help open your pelvis. My doula shows many of them on her instagram page. 5) TRUST YOUR BODY! And “move toward what feels best” as Ryan says. 

A few sayings that Ryan shared with me in our pre-birth meeting, that landed with me and I held onto. 

• Surrender is the key to feeling nothing.

• The pain is in the resistance.

• Be curious about my body, don’t be anxious. 

• Meditate on how I want to feel [during labor]. 

• What is the discomfort begging of me to learn to be this baby’s parent?

• Sensation vs pain

• Curiosity vs anxiety

• Tell baby I trust them and myself, communicate deliberately. 

• Labor CAN BE joyful and fun. It can be an adventure, not just something to get through. 

Some “fun facts” (as I see them) from this experience:

• His due date was October 8, 2022. On Friday, September 9, when making bets with my co-workers, I predicted that my baby would be born on October 1 at 4am. (Aylan was born at 39 weeks and caught me by surprise, so this time I decided to plan for an arrival at 39 weeks.) That weekend, I met with my doula, and I told her the same thing – that I predicted this baby was coming on October 1st and that I feared she would have to catch my baby. The night I went into labor, at 1:30am as my contractions escalated, I told myself, having forgotten the bet I made at work, this baby is going to be here by 4am and I was right! 

• As my pregnancy advanced, I continued to feel more nervous and anxious about striking the right balance of not getting to the hospital too late, but also not getting there too early, not to mention the logistics of making sure someone could get to our house to care for Aylan in time for me to get to the hospital.  My worries were spot on. The parking garage ticket says 3:03am and Oren’s birth certificate says 3:11am. I probably walked into the ER at 3am and he was probably actually born at 3:13 am, we will never know though, because no one was in the room, other than my doula and Charles, when he was born. 

• As someone who loves to find patterns and pays close attention to numbers, there are some poetic trends. October 1, 2021, I had my IUD removed. Exactly one year later, on that same date, Oren was born. January 1, 2022 was the first day of my last period before getting pregnant. Exactly one year later, I finished my fourth trimester and Oren turned 3 months old. 

Thanks for making it to the end. Reach out if you ever want to talk about pregnancy, labor and delivery.