Dear Byrd,
When I was in my hometown I saw a college friend and we shared our birth stories. I was excited to hear her's, and I was excited to tell mine. Her baby was running around and we chased him, you were asleep upstairs. Her son was ready to leave and go to bed, but we both wanted to let these stories run their course. When she left I realized my whole lower back and hips ached. As if telling the story had brought back the muscle memory of stress and pain and tense muscles. I had told this story before, but more as pure catharsis, almost throwing up the details to lay them out in front of me. Language makes us who we are, I know that how I tell the story will shape the memory, and I want to hold onto the parts where I felt beautiful and empowered. I want to hold onto how wonderful Dad was, how strong I know I was, and the real terror of the birth.
I had several grant applications due and my braxton-hicks practice contractions were intense, I would talk hot showers to calm the strange sensations in my belly, I could not wear anything around my waist one day. I was unable to go to my office, I worked at home, I was overwhelmed by the world and at the same time I missed watching people on the bus, I missed seeing things and hearing things and joking with colleagues. I could not take anymore stimulus. I worked at home, I left the house only to swim at the local YWCA. I kept rubbing you in my belly and saying, just give me until Friday. I had heard so much about first time mom's being late that I was convinced I had a couple more weeks. But you were moving and my body was moving too, so I kept reassuring you, just a couple more days. On thursday night I knew things were in a place where I could just send them in if I had to, I was going to meet Dad at the store. On my way out of the house I stopped and held my belly with both hands and said, I am ready for you Byrd. We called our good friends and asked if they wanted to have dinner, we were playing an old hip hop CD and everyone was bopping through dinner, joking, we asked them if we could call them in for help if we needed during the birth, of course they told us, we joked that we might have the baby before they got back from a weekend away. I went to bed exhausted. Dad got an email that night notifying him that he had been awarded a postdoc. I was excited for him, glad to know we had a salary lined up, and I felt utterly lost and sad about how I would also find something in the same place. I was angry at Dad for checking his email before bed. I needed sleep and this news, though great, brought up a lot of difficult emotions. We stayed up late talking, whispering, reassuring each other.
Dad was going in very early, I kept my eyes closed while he got up and showered, I wanted to keep sleeping. I felt a wetness on my legs, I tried to ignore it, I felt more wetness. I got up and liquid fell from my legs. Clear liquid with a faint smell of smoke. I went into the bathroom. A puddle of liquid formed around me, "I think my water broke." I told Dad and I started to cry, I felt shocked, it was a week early, it was the first moment it was going to be OK to have the baby. I wanted a break from intensity. We walked down to the lake, I did not have pads and the liquid kept falling from me. It felt good this hot liquid, like I was releasing something pent up. Large dogs tugged on leashes feeling my energy or smelling the amniotic fluid. It was an unseasonably warm day. We came home sent off our fellowship applications, I put on my emerald green birthing dress and we went to the clinic. They gave us until 3pm to go into labor. I felt nothing. We went out for Thai food, I craved the hot tangy soup. We walked back to the lake. I listened to Beirut and rubbed my nipples. I felt very little movement in me.
At the hospital they gave me ripening agents and we waited for labor to start. We spent the night, I would breathe in four counts and out four counts, I was focused on staying calm and relaxed. At about 4 am I felt contractions rip through me, I had to get up on all fours. I would lay down and sleep between them. I was proud and excited. In the morning they gave me another ripening agent and we walked and walked the halls. I would lunge on a chair, watch downtown, a beautiful church, the pedestrians, and then a contraction would come and I would lean on Dad. I put my hands around his neck and looked down at my feet, eyes closed, breathing. Sometimes I leaned against a wall with my arms against the wall, pushing back on the pain. I got in the shower and asked Dad to leave the bathroom, we left the door slightly ajar so I could call out for help. I have heard to never leave a laboring woman alone, but this felt great. I did nipple stimulation, I did clitoral stimulation, I chanted "the pain is with me the pain is part of me." I chanted other things, mantras. My focus was on my breathe and on bringing the labor out, bringing you out. Since my water had been broken for twenty-four hours there was a threat of being forced into a c-section. I did not want to be induced, I wanted to birth you without ivs, interventions, operations.
I had planned the birth like this: in early labor when the contractions were hard, but bearable we would make tarts, we would go to the store to keep me moving and buy the ingredients and then we would be moving and working in the kitchen. A friend gave me the most beautiful book of tart recipes and a tin. I imagined taking the time to do each part of the recipe, to decorate, to bake, all the while labor intensifying. We wold wait until I was very far along, almost ready to deliver to go in to the hospital. I imagined working through pain, trying to ease the pain. Really what I wanted was to go to the farm in Tennessee and deliver with Ina May. But baking tarts and laboring at home was a pretty good second option.
The shower was a magical experience, my body was racked by contractions, I brought them on again and again with nipple or clitoral stimulus, the water distracted me from the pain and was part of the intense overstimulous. The chanting brought me deep into my interior, I was like an animal alone in the woods, walking around. I gripped the handicap bars, I sat in the tub, I leaned my head against the soup dispenser, and I brought on more and more contractions. I got out when I felt I needed grounding out of my own head. I was now completely effaced, soft, and only just starting to dilate. Dad led me through yoga poses and stretches, each one brought on a contraction. I wanted to rest, we started to play scrabble. The contractions stopped. We took up yoga again. Early in the afternoon the nurse came in to say that since I was not dialating they needed to start pitocin. I was deep in my breath, in my mantras, in my work to bring out these contractions, to move the labor forward. I had heard nightmare stories about the pain of pitocin. I cried, I felt deflated. I had worked so hard. The nurse held me and told me it would be a low dose, she asked my concerns. They did not start pitocin until I ate dinner, by then I was 5 cm dilated. The nurse hooked up the iv and moniter. I had a contraction and leaned my arms on the bed, my knees were on the floor. She looked at me and said, "The time has come to face the pain, you have to go into the pain now." I told her I had been working to bring out contractions. She told me to lung, yes yes, I have been doing that I said. Stay in the lung when the contraction comes. I lunged with one leg up on a table, the contraction was deep and intense, I wanted to brace myself against the wall, but I stayed. Dad held me, I held him, my leg still lunged, waves moved through my abdomen, into my back, I felt a deep splitting in my vagina and further up. It felt unbearable.
I got in the tub, the nurse held my hand, Dad went out to rest for a moment. My face was tingling, she told me to breathe with my hands over my face, I was hyperventilating. The midwife was there now, but I was focused on this nurse who could lead me into my pain, who had faith that I could go in and stay in. I hated the tub, there was nothing to hold onto, the nurse told me I had to let my body go. I was shaky. When I got out I had a huge contraction against the wall, the midwife asked if I felt the urge to push, I did not have the urge, but I wanted to have the urge, I told her I was not sure. She checked me, I was 7 and a half.
We went to the birthing tub and I got in. It was hot, I tried to let go of my body, my knees hurt to kneel. I felt tired. I wanted this to be done. I wanted the end to be in sight. I had a cold washcloth for my face, I lived for this coolness. I was naked. The midwife swept my membrane, she reached deep inside me and I screamed and screamed. It was uncontrollable pain. With each contraction I talked out loud, I never have to do that again, there is only the present, only the present is real, the pain is with me, the pain is part of me. The midwife had me lay on my back in the water and pull my knees back as far as I could. This seemed like the typical birthing position I had read about, it was uncomfortable. She told me to hold my breath when I pushed, to only push with contractions. I did not know how to work hard and hold my breath. The contractions ripped through my back, I felt like I was being struck by lightening, I would start the contractions calm and then end screaming, my body out of my control. Screaming did not lessen the pain.
They had me push on the toilet. The heartbeat dropped from 130 to 120. The nurse was worried, the midwife silenced her, said it was a new baseline. I already knew that there was a clock ticking, it had been 43 hours since my water broke. I was tired. I wished I had eaten more. I had been afraid of vomiting, they told me to eat light. I ate veggies and tortillas, broth, toast, and cake.
My contractions had slowed down, they were irregular again. They wanted to guide me back to the tub, I did not want to be in water. I wanted to kneel on the floor. I got off the toilet, I was dripping wet and naked. A contraction washed over me, I grabbed the midwife, the militant and hard woman I was not sure I liked. I clutched her.
I pushed on a bed then. Again the midwife had me on my back holding my knees. Dad held one knee back, the nurse held the other. When I got it right the contraction started, I held my breath and pushed, the pain disappeared, the contraction ended and then lightening ripped through my lower back, the pain returned. It felt like I was going underwater and then coming up screaming out of control. I could not keep the calm in my response when I had back labor. You need to push harder, you need to push longer, they told me. And I tried. With all my self. I felt you hiccup inside me, I felt acid in my throat, I felt tired. I pushed and pushed. I was scared about the heartbeat. I was scared about how you were going to come out. The contractions were still irregular and infrequent. I would push you so I could feel your head between my legs and then the contraction would end and you would go back up. During each contraction Dad would yell, you can do this, you have got to push harder, longer. The nurse would say, think of your sweet sweet baby. The midwife would say, you have to do more. In between contractions i told everyone to keep talking to me, I told Dad to yell louder and harder, I told the midwife to keep a finger on my vagina so I knew where to push to. I had no image of a sweet baby, of any baby, all I knew was I needed to get you out, I was tired, I was scarred, I could not do this forever.
The midwife told me to get you out we would have to do it all in one push. I pushed you as far as I could, the tip of your head in reach of the outside world. The contraction ended, I held my knees back and bared down. We need another contraction, the midwife said. Do nipple stimulation a nurse yelled. A nurse grabbed one nipple, Dad grabbed the other, a contraction came and I pushed with all my force. I was lost in holding my breath, the yelling, the need to get out you out into this world. You came, your whole body, all at once.
The shock of tearing seared through me. They held you up said, its a boy!, I looked at your naked body and could not make sense of whether I saw a penis. I was shaking hard. They laid you on my chest. I asked Dad to keep a hand on you, I was scarred I would drop you, I did not feel a great sense of joy, only relief and shock and instability of my shaking body. You would wiggle and I would think, what is that? Then remember. Over and over. I delivered the placenta, one push. I asked about feeding you, I was holding onto very few memorized ideas, breastfeed after they are born, look at the placenta. They told me it could wait. I started to realize something was wrong, they gave me a suppository, I was bleeding, hemorrhaging from my uterus. Two nurses began massaging my abdomen with all their force, I screamed and screamed. I had nothing left. I let go of my four counts in and four counts out. I apologized, I dont have the energy to be graceful anymore. I felt I had been graceful through labor, no epidural, no fear to move forward, no begging to not go through with labor that day, no deep seated inhibition to have you, no anger or swearing. Now that you were out I had nothing left, my body was shaking, my mind confused. I tried to look at you, I counted toes and could only find four, I asked Dad, he said there were five. I forgot you were on me and then paniced when I remembered, afraid I would drop you.
They clamped the torn muscles in my crotch and waited for the doctor to come stitch me, they gave me a shot of painkiller, they pumped my uterus with pitocin. I did not see my blood spilling out, I barely knew what was happening.
I was relieved when Dad took you to weigh you. I wanted him to hold you too and I was afraid I would drop you. I continued to shake so I could not hold anything for hours. You were born at 10pm and I was still shaking at 2 in the morning.
When I put you to my breast you latched perfectly. I felt relieved. I held a nurses hand the first time I peed, she was not motherly or sweet, I grabbed her hand and did not let go. I was terrified of the torn and stitched flesh. I stared at your swaddled body at the end of my body, in a see through basinet. I wanted to hold you, but could not steady myself.
In the morning I was calmer, clearer headed. We took turns holding you. I was exhausted, famished.
For the first week I just watched you, held you, watched Dad hold you. I was utterly in love and captivated.
My body healed well, the loss of blood having the deepest effects, weakness and then when I recovered my iron stores, weakness from being weak. At five and a half months I am still building back strength. Still utterly in love.
Love,
Mom
