Julian's birth story

Apparently one four-hour sleep cycle is enough for me these days because every morning at around 2 a.m. is party-in-my-uterus time for little girl. Rolling, stretching, kicking, hiccuping - you name it; she'll dance it. She's having much too fine a time to even let a woman read - the babe quite literally kicked a book out of my hands during the wee hours over the weekend. One second I was enthralled by C.S. Lewis' account of his childhood at school, resting his autobiography on my bump, the next my hands are holding empty air as I suck in a sharp breath from the blow and the book is on the floor. What is it, child?! almost escapes my mouth from reactionary instinct.

I'm 32 ish weeks pregnant. I'm climbing the stairs of remembered pregnancy experiences: the heartburn, the hugeness, the insomnia...and tripping over new ones: a blue right leg thanks to something settling wrong and sending the message for all of the veins to freak out and turn purple and huge. 'Oh Mommy,' Julian says with gravity when he sees my leg, and pokes a vein sticking out. Later he picks up his favorite London double decker bus from Sam's parents and runs over to push it up my belly: 'Up the hill, up the hill, down the hill.' Children are unmercifully honest in these ways, but also unwaveringly accepting, and my basketball belly and blue leg make no difference to Julian's opinion of Mommy. How wonderful children are.

They are wonderful especially when they eat something green. The fact that I documented this occurrence will tell you about how often it actually happens.

I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that I will give birth in the not too distant future. I haven't yet published the story of Julian's birth two years ago. What a day! I was at work on a Thursday in October 2011, and I went in to my OB for my weekly checkup. My blood pressure was high; it looked like I was getting preeclampsia. 'Partial bedrest, no more working' my OB ordered. I was bummed. I had been working out! Feeling great! Why was this happening to me? Bedrest sounded like something for a weakling. But I packed up my things at work, turned on my out-of-office-on-maternity-leave email autoreply, and went home.

The next morning (Friday), I woke up to contractions. By lunch time, my Mom and brother Jesh came over, and I was bouncing on the exercise ball. I called Sam to tell him the contractions were about 7 mins apart and could he come home for lunch. He obliged and sat at the bar in the kitchen to eat Chik Fil A while I bounced on the ball. I had another contraction and opened my eyes to see my Mom looking at me with a mixture of knowingness and a bit of alarm. 'I think we should go to the hospital,' I said, and Sam and I did, leaving the exercise ball behind (big mistake - that thing made contractions much more bearable).

In the car was the first time the contractions were painful. I wanted to get. out. of. that. seat. Thankfully we left when we did because I see no way I could've traveled in a car after that point - it was...highly uncomfortable. I doubled over twice for contractions on the 5 minute walk from the car to the hospital and was taken in for monitoring to be sure this was true labor. The nurse checked my cervix and said, 'Hon, you're only two centimeters dilated. We may send you home.' I would've sobbed like a baby in protest if I wasn't in the middle of another now fairly excruciating contraction. I closed my eyes and felt like I sunk deep inside myself, far away from the voices of others. I knew no one could help me with this task - it was all mine, and it was already a kind of pain I'd never had to navigate before.

Thank God, my water broke seconds after the nurse pronounced her ominous words. That meant real labor - I was staying. Because labor normally goes on for a good while after this, the nurse felt free to let her trainee try and stick me for the IV plug (or whatever its called). Trainee stuck and stuck again. And again. I sunk deep inside for a contraction that I thought I wouldn't survive. Stick. Stick. Finally the lead nurse took over and got the thing in.

Everyone seemed very calm for the amount of pain I felt but was trying not to betray. After all, I wanted an unmedicated birth - not to start whining for an epidural right off the bat! But I did. After I simpered something about needing the epidural, the nurse said we had to get upstairs first, and did I want to ride in the wheelchair or walk. I knew what is felt like to sit and contract, so I was definitely walking, stopping every minute or so to claw the wall and try and breathe through the fire that was happening in my lower midsection. We rode the elevator with another group of people - what a sight I must've been!

As we walked into the delivery room, the nurses were still shoving forms at me to sign: endless forms about I don't even know what - I kept on asking where was the epidural permission form! There was no way I was getting on the bed - I stood gripping the sheets with my synapses exploding in mounting numbers every minute or so. The doctor came in. 'Mrs. Smith, we really need you to get in the bed; I need to see how far along you are.' God's mercy kept me from addressing that man directly because only He knows what would've come out of my mouth. Sitting/lying down HURT, and I missed my exercise ball, and where was the person I really wanted, the anesthesiologist. But by a mighty act of will I got myself into that bed. He checked me, and I could hear the surprise and urgency in his voice: 'it's time to push.'

PUSH? I thought I was only 2 cm dilated! I could barely find myself enough to breathe - let alone get my breath and muscles and mind all going the same direction to push. I was losing it.

'I know you've been through alot, Mrs. Smith,' the doctor said. 'But so has your baby, and I don't like his heart rate. It's time to get him out.'

Then, again with the mercy of God, I realized anew that no one else could do this job. No amount of screaming in pain was going to change the fact that I had to push this baby out. I had to do it - no one's sympathy or attempt to help could do it for me.

So I gathered my will and tried with all the feeble, insufficient effort I had to push. I knew it wasn't going to be enough - I felt so weak and used up. But I could at least try. I heard myself making a sound like a roar - but the sound was stronger that the effort I managed for the push. I couldn't do it - I didn't have enough strength - I was failing. But. Three times: three pushes, and I felt the release of the baby coming out. Out. Done. Alive. A boy.

My OB's notes tell the short story: 'Extremely quick delivery for a first birth. 2 cm to 10 cm in 1.5 hours, then three pushes to birth.'

Apparently, that was one fast birth, y'all. Sam says the doctor and nurses didn't even have the weighing machine and all set up yet - they thought they had time. The next day, the doctor visited my room and said that he'd never seen anyone's toes curled up as tight as mine during delivery - 'I knew you were feeling something serious,' he said.

Most people react to Julian's birth by saying how lucky I am to have had it over so quickly. I am sure they are right, but I felt every second of it. There was no break to chat with Sam or the nurses, or sip water, or try a more comfortable position. I was all out in my eyes-closed pit of pain for the duration.

But he was a beautiful baby. I was ready for him not to be as I understand I was less than attractive during my first days ex utero, but this boy - he was really something. He fought hard to come out safe after so intense a labor, and he has not stopped inspiring awe in me since.

So I am pretty sure this time around will take at least 36 hours of labor so that I pay my dues, ha.