My Birth Story. 5.13.2016

I wake up. I look through the window. It’s dark. I have to pee…again. Another trip to the bathroom. I don’t even look at the clock anymore. My belly feels tight. I get back to bed. It's eighteen days before my due date. I can’t find a comfortable position... again. I now look at the clock and it’s 5 am. I turn from one side to the other. I tell Mauricio I feel weird. It's 18 days before my due date. I breathe. We try to sleep for a while. Mau offers to make breakfast. I get out of bed and walk around. I see my unfinished hospital bag in the bedroom. I take things in and out. Breakfast is ready. We sit down in the breakfast bar. On the menu: eggs and arepa with cheese. I start eating. I stop. I breathe. I stand up. My half eaten arepa with cheese tells me I am in labor...  it’s my favorite and I don’t want to eat it. I walk some more. I drink water. I go to the bathroom. I am bleeding. I know it’s normal. I am glad that I know that it’s normal. Contractions are starting. We time them. They are 1-minute long and 5 minutes apart. Mau calls Suzanne, my OBGYN. She is not in yet.  It’s 10 am now. She calls back. We talk. She confirms I am in early labor.  She knows I want to labor at home for as long as I can, and tells me to go to the hospital when I am ready. We take a shower. The warm water feels good and distracts me from the contractions. I breathe. When I get out of the shower I lay on the floor. I repeat my pregnancy mantra in my mind “My body is perfect, my body is wise, my body is beautiful”. Child’s pose. I ask Mau to bring me a bench. I lay on my hands and knees while I breathe. The red balloon exercise (Hypnobirthing) comes to mind. I count. I breathe. The contractions move down. I think of them as waves. I ride them. I feel them more into my pelvis. I get dressed. Comfy pants and tank top. I walk. I get in my “to do” mode in between contractions. I tell Mau several things at once. He breathes. I breathe. I kneel on the sofa and rest my chest on the back rest. I feel more comfortable in this position. I stay there. I ask Mau to put pressure on my back in the next contraction ( the childbirth education classes at Bini Birth come to mind). It helps. He gives me a kiss on the shoulder. “No kiss please”. We laugh… kind of. He reminds me to drink water. I do. Here comes another one. I try to not label what I feel as pain. It’s hard. A technique called pain meditation comes to mind. My friend Nicole told me about it long time ago. It helps.  I focus on my body changing, expanding. On the next contraction I remember a story from InaMay’s Guide to Childbirth about a woman who birthed a 10 pound child while visualizing a grapefruit. I visualize a grapefruit. I walk around again. I think of Georgina (my prenatal yoga teacher from Two Hearts Yoga): “You can do anything for one minute”, so I count. She is right.

It’s noon. Mau offers to make lunch. I don’t feel like eating. He makes a fruit and vegetable smoothie. I drink half. I sit in the rocking chair. Not for long. “It’s time to go”, I say. Mau packs the car. It takes 40 minutes to get to Cedar's Sinai Hospital from my house. It’s 1:30. I bring the pillows. I sit on the back seat. It hurts when I sit down. I kneel facing the back window. Much better. I breathe more. I loose track of time. I feel the car turning on the road. I breathe and sweat. I try to let each contraction go and relax completely without thinking another one is coming. I focus of the resting periods instead of the contractions. I just count during each contraction thinking, “My body is perfect, my body is wise my body is beautiful.” Even when in doubt, I repeat the words in my mind. It’s intense. I try not to tense anything. I breathe. I relax my jaw. We get to the parking lot and time the contractions. They last a minute and they are 3 minutes apart. I walk through the dark parking lot applying pressure on my lower back. I stop when I need to.  I am sweating. When we get to the sign-in counter I lean on it while I breathe. “First time?” they ask. When we confirm they say it will be a few minutes before we can go into the room. It feels like an eternity and I am lost in time.

We walk in the room. There is a sofa in there. I sit down and a minute later I am on my knees again looking at the beautiful hills of Southern California. I lay my head on the back of the sofa. I sign some papers. I kneel on the sofa again. POP! My water breaks. I go to the bathroom. My mucus plug went out when my water broke. The nurse arrives. I put on the hospital gown. It feels rough, but I pay no attention to it. She goes through the preference list with Mau while I change. She asks if we are Jehovah Witnesses. I want as little interventions as possible. As I am sitting in the toilet my body pushes. The nurse tells me is too early to push. “Just blow the candle”, she says. I breathe blowing the candle but my body pushes again. I lay on the bed and I want to stand up. It hurts. Claudia (the nurse) tells me I have to lie down so she can monitor the baby. I turn sideways. Still in pain but much better. Mau is next to me. He is smiling nervously but calmly. I go inward again. I close my eyes. I hear the nurse say she can’t hear the baby’s heart beat very well. I am scared. But I wait for the next one. She says: “The baby is not liking this contraction”. What does that mean? I know it's normal for the baby’s heart rate to slow down at the end of each contraction. I am glad that I know. I start to smile at the end of each contraction as a signal for Lucas that everything is ok. Where did I get that from? No idea. Crazy thoughts that come to mind when you are in labor. But I go with the crazy thought and try to let go of what the nurse is saying. I breathe and smile, breathe and smile. Trust.

After monitoring a couple of contractions she performs a pelvic exam. It’s weird to have somebody that you have never met shove her hand down there, but I try to relax. I remember the book Orgasmic Birth by Elizabeth Davis / Debra Pascali-Bonaro, which reminded me that birth is a sexual experience.  I try to relax, as in having sex. Crazy. It helps. The nurse finished the exam and immidiatly picks up the phone. She asks if my doctor is at the hospital. She asks them to call her. “Her patient is complete” she says. She hangs up the phone and informs us she felt the baby’s hair when she did the exam. I can’t believe it. Waiting for the doctor feels and eternity and not. They pinch my arm to place a heplock. I don’t like being connected to anything. The nurse pinches me several times. No blood comes out of my veins. They call another nurse. She tries several times with no luck. They call the anesthesiologist. The needles in my arm don’t bother me. They feel like nothing compared to a contraction. Breathe, breathe, breathe. Grab the bed handle. Savasana. I get lost in this sequence. Suzanne arrives. “How are you sweetie?” I smile. She performs a second pelvic exam. Looks me in the eye and says: “You are ready to have your baby.“ We wait for the anesthesiologist to catch my vein. After a while Suzanne says: “I understand this is procedure but she is ready to have her baby. If you don’t get it next time let her have her baby ok?”. Hearing these words gives me a sense of relief. He gets the vein in the last try and I sit down on the bed.

She asks me to scoot down and she pulls the stirrups. I hate those things.  I ask for the bar so I can push squatting. She tells me “It’s going to kill my back but let’s give it a try.” I squat. I push twice. “It’s hard to monitor the baby”, says the nurse. Suzanne offers another option. I lay down and place my feet on the bar. They tie a sheet on the top of the bar for me to pull as I push. The nurse holds one of my legs. Mau holds the other one. The pressure increases. My body pushes. I breathe and blow the candle. The doctor puts her finger in my vagina and tells me to direct the push towards her fingers. It works. I feel the baby moving down. More pressure. I push gently but firmly with every contraction and I completely relax on the bed when they are gone, like Savasana pose in yoga. I loose track of time even more, and stop counting the pushes. Letting everything go. I hear Suzanne’s voice far away but close. Mau tells me he can see the head. I am afraid I am going to tear. “My body is perfect, my body is wise, my body is beautiful”. I breathe with my mouth open doing horse breath. I read somewhere that it helps. The skin around my vagina burns. “The ring of fire”. It lasts 20 seconds. My baby will be born soon. Lucas! I am in the middle of the push. “Do you want to wait until the next one and take a break or you want to keep going?”, she asks. Let’s finish this. I keep going. Suzanne tells me: “ I know it hurts and you want to run away from the pain. But don’t. Push where it hurts and your baby will be out in no time. Trust me.” I do. I send my breath and my push towards the pain even though I feel like my pelvis is going to crack and split in two. I grunt. In a second he is out. He is in my chest. He is warm. The nurse is clearing his airways. His eyes are wide open. He looks at me. I melt. Nothing hurts anymore. I talk to him and explain to him what they are doing to him. I feel his warm skin on mine. I look at Mau. We cry of happiness. We are three. It’s 3:47 pm. 

If you want to keep reading here is the rest of it (I always wondered what happened after).

Lucas rests on my chest. When the umbilical cord becomes white Suzanne asks Mauricio if he wants to cut it. He does. The doctor tells me my placenta is ready if I want to push. “It’s not going to hurt”. I push. It comes out. Like Jell-O. It doesn’t hurt. Lucas rests in my arms. He moves toward the breast and nurses for the first time. He rests in my chest. I am told I tore a little bit, but it’s a first degree tear. Suzanne gives me local anesthesia before giving me some stitches. My legs shake, like after running a marathon. After an hour Mau holds Lucas and they measure and weigh him in a station across the room. The nurse tells me to drink juice and water and try to pee 3 times in the next 8 hours to avoid a urinary catheter. I am scared again. I drink everything that there is in my way. When I am ready, I ask the nurse to help. I stand up and walk to the bathroom holding her arm. As I sit on the toilet I am afraid it's going to hurt. Labor continues. “My body is perfect, my body is wise, my body is beautiful”. I relax. I breathe and let go. It stings. It’s supposed to. I just had a baby.

I am transferred to another room. They bring ice to place on my vagina. Everything goes numb. It feels good. It hurts good, like a good stretch. I just want to sleep. Lucas is sleeping in a bassinet next to me. Mau is out having dinner. They bring my medication. Wait. What medication? Motrin. I decide to wait. The pain is bad but I can handle it if I am resting in bed. I believe pain has a purpose. It asks us to slow down and rest so the body can recover and heal. I just had a baby. It’s uncomfortable, yes, but the only thing I have to do right now is lay is bed and snuggle this little being, while he adjusts to this new world and I get to know him. No rush.