Writing this is sort of like reliving it, a nice/intense thing to do as we close in on Margot's birthday. Back to it!
When the midwife made the call for us to go to the hospital, we all moved into high gear to get going. I was still in my nightgown, and was jarred and overwhelmed at the thought of having to somehow get fully clothed. Also, I had to pack a bag. That's right. I read at least nine books on giving birth, spent months in pre-natal yoga, procured a CD for birth songs and the perfect aroma therapy for the occasion -- but not once had it occurred to me to pack a bag in case we went to the hospital. Such was the scale of my optimism (tunnel vision?) about my home birth.
I have a very clear memory of standing in my closet in this moment, and staring at the stacks of t-shirts, the boxes of socks and underwear, completely unable to conceive of what any of these objects were even for. I grabbed a pair of underwear, and one long-sleeve black t-shirt and decided that was plenty.
We all hurried towards the back door. The midwife struggled to walk with me while also holding the fetal monitor to my stomach, like this birth was suddenly a scene from an Aaron Sorkin screenplay. I tried not to think too hard about her sudden urgency about keeping constant contact with the baby's heart tones.
The midwife and I crammed into the backseat of our car -- Adam and I had already installed the car seat base -- and Adam got to driving. I remember watching the night sky roll by, feeling like we were sort of floating to the hospital, sandwiched in between feelings that Adam was driving way too fast. I'd ask him to slow down and the midwife would say, "He's driving just fine. Don't worry about his driving."
A word about midwives. I didn't bond instantly with mine. I liked her right away, but throughout my pregnancy I felt a little distant from her, like we just didn't quite have one another's number. But stuffed in that backseat with her, all that melted away. I gave up on holding it all together and just handed everything over to her. My whole body leaned into hers. I felt beaten, but I also felt protected. It was an excruciating car ride; the contractions were just pure pain to me at that point. But in a weird way, it's also sort of a lovely memory.
Somewhere along the ride, I asked her, "Is it OK that I just want this to be over?" "Yes," she said. She said it solidly, certainly. So it was OK I could only barely remember there was a baby involved in this whole mess, that I was fantasizing about a c-section, or honestly, absolutely anything that would put an end to this already.
Once we were at the hospital, though, I remained strangely tied to my original birth plan. I remembered what my midwife had told me -- that a transfer did not necessarily mean a C-section. The first thing I did was refuse an IV. I read once it was good to skip it...for what reason? I couldn't remember anymore, but I just said to skip it. But either Adam or the midwife or someone convinced me it would be OK, so we went with the IV. Then the nurse (I'll get to him in a second!) asked if I wanted an epidural, and again, I said no without even thinking about it. He said OK, and then started talking to me about an internal fetal monitor, about seeing how things were progressing, about seeing if they needed to "get things going."
But all of this information was just coming out of a stranger's mouth and kind of bouncing off of my forehead. I had not downshifted to hospital time. I did not want an internal fetal monitor, or to get things going. I wanted to be at home. I had a plan.
But the contractions had really become unbearable. They were just a completely different animal at this point -- a mean one, on the attack, bringing nothing useful along with it.
As a bit of time past, and we settled a little more into the birthing suite (which was actually quite nice), I started to notice my nurse a bit. My midwife had made sure that he was on my case, because they had a solid working relationship -- he was supportive of home births. His name was Bill, and he was, no joke, a dead ringer for Mario Batali. Not your average labor and delivery nurse, he was bossy and a little brusque. Normally, this might have driven me nuts, but in my defeated, increasingly infant like state, I found it incredibly reassuring. I trusted him easily.
In relatively quick succession, they put in the internal fetal monitor, and decided my contractions weren't strong enough to keep things moving. (A mind-boggling reality, given the level of pain I was experiencing. My lower back was killing me, and I remember insisting to my midwife, "I have BACK LABOR! I have BACK LABOR!" I don't actually even know what back labor is, but it really seemed like I might be having it.) And then Nurse Bill come to tell me that they wanted to start pitocin.
So, I sat with that for a moment, scared of the pain, still leaning a bit wistfully for my initial vision of this birth, and then leaning a bit more wistfully towards some kind of pain relief. The epidural. I wanted one of those.
This wasn't an easy call for me. And I'm not sure I could have made it without my support team. I needed people I trusted to say it was OK. Which they did, without me having to ask for it, each taking a moment with me and saying, "You have done absolutely everything you could." Even my midwife, who earlier didn't really want me to take Tums, took my hand and said, "If I were you, I'd get the epidural." This is the other thing I will forever love her for.
So they brought in the anesthesiologist, a guy my age who was wearing a Saints t-shirt, and kicked most everyone out of the room. (They mercifully let Adam stay, as long as he was sitting down and unable to see the shot take place.) Nurse Bill, quickly becoming my new labor rock, held my hand during the contractions that continued even during the shot in my back. He looked at me and said, "Don't tell anybody I'm being so nice to you." That was the best thing ever. For the rest of the time at the hospital, I felt like I was his special patient, the one he genuinely liked. Good old nurse Bill knew just what I needed.
Epidurals kick in fast. Awesomely, beautifully fast. My team all started to relax now. My parents, who had just arrived in town, came in for a brief hello. Adam and my midwife prepared themselves for a bit of sleep in the delivery suite. Nurse Bill came in and told me not to sleep on my left side. "The baby doesn't like that." I blinked, and was out.
The next thing I was even remotely conscious of was a wave of people coming into the room, the lights coming on, and Bill saying, "It's time!" So fast (4 hours), so easy (sleep!), those last three centimeters. It was time to push. I was, it seemed, going to have a baby after all.
So , my OB was the only one in town who is willing to partner with midwives. I had visited her office a handful of times during my pregnancy, and she had OK'ed me for home birth. It was 4 in the morning and she waltzed in, clearly irritated and grumpy and started talking to everyone in the room about Jazzfest. Jazzfest? It was so strange; I just tuned her out almost completely. This is that birth superpower I mentioned a million years ago when I started writing this: the ability to just turn off anything that isn't helpful. I was about to make full use of this temporary ability.
Pushing required every bit muscle memory I could muster, because I couldn't feel a thing. There were suddenly about 15 people at my bedside, urgently cheering me on. Many, many nurses. In the case of my OB, by cheering I actually mean scolding. There is the person who says, "C'mon, you can do it!" And then there is the person who says, "Come ON! Can't you do this?!" My OB was the latter. She was a little scary, and in hindsight, I think it was because she was a little scared.
After several contractions, she told me, "I'm going to give you one more push, but if you can't get the baby moving, then I'm going to have to use the forceps." And that, for me, was it. That was just one intervention I could not stomach, in a last straw kind of way. No forceps. No way. During the next contraction I pushed with everything I had. The OB was impressed with my work. "Nice one!" she said. And then she made a joke how the forceps threat always worked on getting moms to push more effectively. Relief!
But then, behind her, I was watching the nurse prepare the forceps!! So I was completely confused, and asked her if she was still going to use them. Then she was confused, asking me didn't I hear her? It was just a ploy to get me to push harder! No forceps! Wasn't I paying attention?
I am only getting into this confusing level of detail because then she just got totally wrapped up in this tangent, going on and on about how I didn't get her joke. She seemed genuinely irritated by the whole thing and seriously could not stop rehashing how we'd gotten there. On TV, this is where I would have screamed my head off at her: CAN WE MOVE THE F--- ON?!? But in real life, even women in the throes of labor don't really do that. Not me, anyway. I just tuned her out, pushed her again into what was becoming a very crowded background.
The background was this: Margot's heart rate was decelerating severely during contractions, and was not coming up again in between. The urgency in the room about my pushing was not just for kicks, and Adam was living and dying by the beeps on that internal monitor. But all I could function for was that pushing. I focused in on Nurse Bill, who had me in his sights, who told me this could absolutely be done.
And then there was that final push. Margot was actually born! It was 4:50AM on May 1st, and she was kicking and screaming and pink. My OB laid her on my stomach and I immediately drew her in closer to my chest -- which, oops! No one had cut the cord yet and everyone freaked out that I was going to yank my uterus out of my body. That is one moment that always makes me feel great. I was stupid tired, and stupid excited. It was the best moment ever. Nurse Bill and Adam took her to the little alcove for some quick tests, and all the nurses commented on how strong she was, fighting against everything they tried to do to her. Bill told me her apgar (a quick test of baby's vitals) was a 9.999 out of 10.
So after all of that, 32 hours and 36 panic attacks, she was so healthy and strong -- born, I see now, as much on the go as she is today. We had to make a final call on her name. I just looked at Adam and asked, "Margot?" "Margot," he nodded. She was all swaddled up in my arms. We tried nursing for a bit. We brought in grandparents. Everyone cried. And then Margot and I fell into a coma-like sleep together, worn out and wasted and not yet ready for all that was on the way.
Friday, July 15, 2011 at 11:15AM 
