My firstborn's birth story

I imagined sharing my birth story many times before my baby was born. I have loved reading birth stories ever since high school, when I first became passionate about natural birth, and as my due date drew near I grew increasingly eager to know how my own first birth would unfold.

I imagined sharing that my pregnancy was mostly uneventful — with no real complications but a lot of discomfort, ranging from morning sickness to headaches to back pain, to a racing heart after meals, to daily heartburn, to insomnia. I knew that birth would be more intense than pregnancy — would require more than I thought I could give — but I was eager to experience it, to meet my baby, and to be done being pregnant. I looked forward to the challenge and having to lean on the Lord and my husband in a new way. And in the weeks leading up to birth, I reminded my husband frequently that no matter how hard it was, it would all be over in 48 hours at most, which is significantly shorter than 40 weeks of pregnancy. 

One night around 38 weeks, I was awake in the wee hours again, thirsty but unable to drink water since it would give me heartburn if I lay back down. I was about to tell myself and God once again that I did not like being pregnant, when I felt like God said to me, "You think what you need is to not be pregnant anymore, but what you actually need is me." It was a convicting moment, as I had spent an untold number of days telling my husband how hard it was to be pregnant and how excited I was for it to be over.

I was due in the middle of March, but as I reminded anyone who asked for the exact date, first-time moms go into spontaneous labor an average of eight days post–due date. So I fully expected to go to 41 weeks at least, though I'd been having various pre-labor signs since around 38 weeks, including daily Braxton Hicks contractions.

On Tuesday, March 17, at 40 + 2, I started having some cramping. After two weeks of eagerly identifying pre-labor signs without seeing any actual progress, I felt like the boy who cried wolf. I decided not to mention the cramping to my husband and assumed this was yet another sign that labor was on the horizon... someday. I also felt a cold coming on, so I felt less eager to go into labor immediately.

That night around 9:30 pm, my husband and I were sitting in bed watching a YouTube series, and I felt a contraction coming on. By this point, after having BH contractions since 27 weeks, I ignored it at first. Until I started to notice that these contractions felt different, more uncomfortable, and followed a pattern when I tried timing a few. They were coming every five minutes and lasting about a minute. I casually mentioned to my husband at this point that it seemed like labor was starting.

Like an obedient birth student, however, I recalled the advice from my midwives and birth classes to ignore early labor as much as possible and sleep if I could. So we went to bed, and I sure tried to sleep, but I soon realized that contractions are very uncomfortable for me when I'm trying to lie still, and they were increasing in both intensity and frequency. I wasn't timing them constantly (my midwife had told me not to!), but when I did they were sometimes as close as 2–3 minutes apart.

Between the growing pain and my husband's snoring, I think I slept for maybe a couple of (nonconsecutive) hours before giving up. Around 4:00 am I turned on the twinkle lights I had set up for the birth, got a snack, and bounced on my birth ball for a little bit until my husband woke up. I told him nothing had really changed and we tried to go back to sleep, with little success.

By the time we got up around 7:00 on Wednesday morning, contractions had spaced out again, ranging from five to ten minutes apart. This was a little discouraging, but I knew that early labor can drag on a while, and it's usually best to continue to rest and trust the process. I told myself that in any case, we'd surely have a baby by Friday. I texted my midwife to let her know things were happening, and that contractions were painful but I could still talk through them (which was her threshold of when to call her). She told me to keep resting, eating, hydrating, and be patient.

At this point, labor was kind of fun. The contractions were painful, but as long as I was bouncing on my ball or squeezing my husband's hand, they were manageable. I had opted not to tell anyone besides my husband and midwife that I was in labor, and there was something so fun and special about sharing that secret with my husband and keeping all our friends and family in ignorance. It was a beautiful day, so we took a walk to our neighborhood park, with me stopping or squeezing his hand whenever a contraction came on, and we laughed about how the people we crossed paths with little knew they had just seen a woman in labor.

Wednesday: Labor is fun!

Contractions continued throughout the day, sometimes increasing in frequency for a few hours, only to space out again to as much as twenty minutes apart, though never fully stopping. At dinner time, I got out some canned chicken noodle soup (for the sickness that was definitely established at this point). Our very cheap can opener was struggling with the cans, and I applied perhaps a bit too much force trying to pry open one side. 

SPLAT! Liquid exploded across the counter, I said "Oh no!" and my husband called to me, "Did your water just break?!" No, in fact it was just the top of the can bursting open, but it was a memorable moment that we agreed would be a funny part of our birth story to share later. ;)

That night, we tried to go to sleep again. Once again, my contractions started to increase in intensity and frequency, and between that and my husband's snores, it was clear that sleep was going to be impossible lying in my bed. It was easier to manage the contractions while sitting, so I relocated to the rocking chair in our nursery and managed to sleep off and on for a few hours before I went back to bed and tried to sleep a little more lying down.

Thursday morning was even more discouraging than the previous day. My cold was worse, my contractions were still painful but didn't seem to be doing anything, and I was tired but unable to rest. Between my cold and labor I had no desire to make breakfast, so I drove to our closest local coffee shop and picked up coffee and pastries, all while my contractions continued. I texted my midwife again and she reassured me that all was well. 

So, we passed the day as we could: I sat in the rocking chair and listened to an audiobook (Miss Austen, if you're curious) and was able to doze for an hour or so. I took a bath, which gave a little relief. We watched episodes of Wodehouse Playhouse while I bounced on the birth ball. We solved Rubik's cubes. I stopped timing contractions because it was discouraging. I took natural remedies for my cold and labor pains, but little seemed to help. By the end of the day, desperate to be able to sleep, I sent my husband to the drug store for congestion medication, lest my stuffy nose be one more barrier to rest that night. It was nice to be able to breathe, but otherwise the night was the same as the previous — the majority spent in the nursery rocking chair, getting a total of 2–4 hours of fitful sleep.

On Friday morning, we had a prenatal appointment. I wasn't excited about doing the 45 minute drive while in labor, but contractions had once again spaced out to every ten or twenty minutes, so it was manageable. It was a hot day, and I remember thinking that the heat and the congestion from my cold were as uncomfortable as labor at that point. 

After our appointment we picked up Mediterranean takeout and then stopped at our local natural food store, as it was the monthly sale day. If I was about to be confined with a newborn at any moment, I was hardly going to miss the opportunity to stock up on some essentials! ;) Plus I'll admit I felt pretty cool having contractions while grocery shopping.

That night we ordered pizza and watched Interstellar. It passed the time, if I was a little distracted at parts. I gave up on even trying to sleep lying down, so we moved the rocking chair into our room and I attempted to lull myself to sleep with my audiobook. I eventually realized that sitting still through contractions was no longer possible, and sleep wasn't going to happen either. I bounced on my ball, took another bath, and eventually woke up my husband, who tried giving me counter pressure and pressing a hot rice sock on my back, which helped a little. We called my midwife around 6:30am. Though I thought things were pretty intense at this point, after listening to me have a couple contractions on the phone she determined it was still too early for her to come. She recommended walking to see if that would help my body establish a more consistent pattern of labor.

Thankfully, though I felt a bit like a zombie after a night of no sleep, my cold was definitely improving by this point, and walking to the park with my husband in the fresh morning air felt rather pleasant. Afterwards I took some Benadryl on my midwife's recommendation and was able to doze in the nursery chair for a few hours. Contractions continued to vary in frequency from 3–5 minutes apart, but were becoming very intense. The baby's movements were starting to feel painful as well, and felt lower down than I was used to. I tried vocalizing through the contractions, and that helped some, as did swaying.  I started to feel like I was reaching the point of being unable to talk through them, so at 5:30pm I had my husband call my midwife again and start setting up the birth pool.

By the time she got to our house, my contractions had started to space out again, though they continued to be extremely intense. I had heard that sometimes this can happen at the end of transition, as the body naturally gives a little bit of a break before pushing. So this time I wasn't too discouraged, as I was convinced I must be near the end based on the intensity level.

My midwife wasn't so sure, though, and she asked my permission to do a cervical check. That was extremely painful — worse than the contractions had yet been, and devastatingly disappointing: She informed me I was only a 3 or a 4, not even technically in active labor. While I tried not to cry, she told me to go get comfortable on the couch with my husband, watch a movie, talk to my baby, and try — again — to rest.

That was one of the lowest moments. After managing contractions that already felt very intense for four days, to realize that things were going to get a lot more painful and continue on for many more hours was so discouraging. I also realized that I had subconsciously believed that calling my midwife to come would mean labor was almost over, as though there was some cause-and-effect relationship there, where I could bring things to an end just by having our midwives there. But there was nothing else to do but to cry a little bit with my husband and then to put on Emperor's New Groove and try to make use of the pain relief of laughter.

When the movie was over, I realized that I needed to find a way to lie down through contractions. Even if I couldn't sleep, I had to find a way to relax my body after standing and swaying most of the afternoon and evening. Lying down was always more painful, but my legs were starting to shake from the exertion and I knew it wasn't sustainable. I lay down and concentrated on completely relaxing every muscle as the contractions started to roll over me. I counted while I breathed in and tried to count the same number as I breathed out. It hurt, but I told myself that I had to surrender to the pain and not look for a way to escape it. This was painful, but it was bringing my baby here. Over and over I repeated to myself that for the joy set before him, Jesus endured the cross, scorning its shame. No, it was not joyful in the moment. It was painful. But he knew there was joy on the other side.

Around 4:00 am I couldn't stand the pain anymore and we got up. Contractions were coming every 2–3 minutes and the baby's kicks continued to be sharp and painful. In between contractions I would fall asleep wherever I was sitting and instantly have some mini dream before waking up for another one. My husband was in contact with our midwife — I was beyond coherent conversation at this point — and per her recommendation I did some contractions on the toilet and then went up and down the stairs sideways, before trying to lie down again for a time. 

That day — Sunday — is a complete blur for me, but I know I kept counting my breaths, in and out, and that vocalizing was no longer helpful — I had to go deep inside. Pain relief methods weren't helpful because focusing on the pain or trying to work against it made it worse. I didn't want to be touched. I had to crawl inside myself as far as I could, go into a dark room inside my head and shut the door, while my body labored on.

Early that morning the other midwife came and assessed me. She determined I was at a six or a seven. I begged to get in the birth tub, even though I knew it could still be a long time before the delivery. Unfortunately, the water did not give me pain relief. It helped me to relax between contractions, but the feeling of floating rather than being grounded made the contractions more difficult to handle. The idea of transferring crossed my mind. I kept thinking, I just want some relief. The contractions were relentless. An epidural sounded pretty good at that moment, but I knew everything that came with it, and that ultimately it was not what I wanted. Still, I had my husband call our midwife back in to our bedroom, and in between contractions I asked her at what point they would suggest a transfer, because I didn't think I could keep laboring on for days and days. She reassured me that the longest part of labor was getting to this point, and though she couldn't say for sure when our baby would be born, she said we'd have a baby by the end of the day. Though I still felt exhausted, her words encouraged me a little. Although it felt like labor would never end, I knew in my rational mind that days do come to an end, and I just had to hold on till the end of that day.

Sunday: Trying to follow the Bradley Method (Or, labor isn't fun anymore)

At some point the first midwife came back and they checked me again. Finally some progress — she estimated I was at a nine. They suggested that if my water broke it might help me dilate the rest of the way. So per their recommendation I went sideways up and down our stairs, stopping when a contraction came on to silently count my breaths and hide away inside myself. I started to feel a little pushy, like my body was starting to bear down. After ten laps or so, I went back to the bed for them to check me again. The midwife paused to let me have a contraction on the bed, and suddenly my water broke with explosive force.

All of a sudden the tone in the room changed as the midwives listened to the baby's heart through several more contractions. "I'm not liking this," the first one said. The baby's heart was dropping too low and then spiking too high. The midwives told us that even though I was getting close, as a first-time mom I could end up pushing for several hours, and they didn't want the baby's heart rate to be questionable for possibly hours more. They gave us the option to wait for another half hour or so to see if the baby's heart would stabilize, but they recommended that we transfer to the hospital. 

Things got really hard at that point. I hate to admit it, but there was some part of me that welcomed the need to transfer, because I knew that if we did I would choose to get an epidural. If we were in a hospital there would be no way I'd be able to resist the temptation to get relief. At the same time, once we made the decision to transfer and I knew I would no longer be giving birth unmedicated, I completely lost control of the contractions. Up till this point, though they were more painful than anything I've ever experienced, I was still staying on top of them. As long as I had time to retreat inside before each one, I was hanging on, if only barely. But now it seemed like each contraction was like a wave crashing over my head, over and over, and I couldn't get on top of them anymore. My body was having an adrenaline response and I was shaking. I was also having shooting pain down my right leg each time I had a contraction, which made both standing and lying down more painful.

Somehow we loaded up into the car — I had forgotten to pack a bag, but I couldn't think about that at the time — and drove the five minutes to the hospital. My husband dropped me off at the emergency room entrance, where our midwife met me with a nurse and a wheelchair. The next few hours are a haze. I know they got me to a room very quickly, thanks to our other midwife calling ahead and faxing my records. I know they did various tests and checks (like my weight — which was ten pounds lighter than before my water had broken!). I remember being asked to sign various things and wondering why they weren't asking my (coherent, non-laboring) husband to consent for me, but I also remember the nurses were kind and would let me get through a contraction before having to answer a question.

The epidural took a long time to take effect. When they finally finished all the initial checks and tests and were able to place it, they told me it should be in full effect in 20–30 minutes, and hopefully I'd start feeling some relief even before that. My contractions were extremely painful at this point, particularly as I had to lie on my back, and my leg was spasming with each one. It was not until an hour and a half later that the epidural took effect and suddenly I had relief. I stopped shaking, the shooting pain in my leg disappeared, and I was able to think somewhat clearly for the first time in days. I realized I was starving, as I hadn't eaten anything since about noon, but the hospital didn't allow me to eat and in our rush to leave our house we hadn't brought any snacks. My midwife left at this point, since she no longer could be responsible for our care. We also decided to let our families know what was happening so that they could be praying.

The doctor on call at the hospital was opposed to allowing me to rest for a few hours before beginning to push. Once I was fully dilated, they wanted me to start pushing right away. I repeatedly asked the nurse who was assisting us if I would really be able to push the baby out when I couldn't feel a single thing below the waist. I was nervous about tearing and also concerned about being unable to change positions. She reassured me that women deliver babies with a strong epidural all the time, and it's very common to tear but not to worry about it. Her attitude towards tearing was not reassuring, and I still felt uneasy about having no feeling whatsoever, but when we asked about turning down the epidural she told us it was set at a standard level and couldn't be changed. 

From the moment I started pushing, I knew that a c-section was a possibility. I knew the stats, how the likelihood of a c-section increases with each intervention, including an epidural. I thought again about Jesus's passion. I prayed silently with each push, "If it is possible, take this cup from me. Yet not my will but yours be done." But the line, "This is the cup you have for me," from the song "Spirit Lead Me," kept playing in my head.

With the nurse on one side and my husband on the other, I pushed for an hour. At this point, the doctor came back in and checked the baby's position. She could feel the baby's head was developing a caput of fluid from the pressure, but wasn't moving significantly. She and the nurse assured me that I was pushing "effectively," but the baby wasn't descending as fast as they thought it ought, and therefore was likely too big to fit through my pelvis. She said that if things didn't progress after another thirty minutes, we'd have to discuss "other delivery options."

After another thirty minutes of coached pushing on my back, the doctor returned, pronounced the baby had not moved, and said we had the option of getting a c-section immediately, or pushing for twenty more minutes and then getting a c-section, because baby was simply not going to fit through my pelvis. Those were the "options" she gave us. When we asked about me resting for a while, or turning the epidural down or off completely, both the doctor and the nurse said it wouldn't make any difference.

It's hard to describe what I felt in this moment. Though I was thinking more clearly than pre-epidural, enough to be able to have a conversation, I felt mentally as numb as I was physically. I knew my body had not grown a baby that was too big to come out. I know that the pelvis changes shape when the mother moves through different positions. At the same time, I knew that if the doctor had already concluded that I could not deliver our baby, that was the reality we were working with. There was no way I would convince her that I knew more about birth and the baby's descent through the birth canal than she did. And without turning down the epidural, which they practically refused to do, I could not change positions anyway. While I fully believed I could deliver my baby, I knew it wasn't going to happen at that hospital with that doctor. I felt deadened, resigned to the surgery I knew was unnecessary.

In some sense it reminds me of this silly scene from the movie we'd watched that Saturday night, where Cuzco recognizes the impending disaster and yet flatly accepts it rather than trying to fight back.

So, an OB came in to explain the surgery and the risks and answer any questions. They made it clear that this was not an emergency c-section since the baby looked fine at this point, so there was no rush. They told us that the longest part of the surgery is stitching up the mother after the baby is delivered, but they told me that I could have the baby on my chest immediately as long as he/she didn't need any emergency care.

They wheeled me into the operating room and dosed me with antibiotics, more pain medication, and multiple different anti-hemorrhagic drugs (even though, as I learned later, studies have shown that several of these drugs are just as effective if given after a woman shows signs of hemorrhaging rather than prophylactically, and one of the three drugs hasn't even been proven to be effective at preventing hemorrhage at all). I began shaking uncontrollably, with my teeth chattering so hard I was afraid I was going to bite my tongue. 

Within a few minutes, at 1:30 am on March 23, we heard a cry. The OB lifted our baby, who was covered in vernix, above the curtain, and said, "It's a girl!" I immediately started crying. They took the baby to the warmer while the doctor started stitching me back up. I was given another drug at this point that made me feel sleepy, so I could barely open my eyes to look at my baby being measured and suctioned. Eventually my husband was able to hold her and held her next to my head. I was still shaking, besides being extremely drowsy.

Once the surgery was finished, about forty-five minutes later, they took us to a recovery room. I don't have many memories of this room as I was still feeling really weird and out of it, but I do remember that once we got there and they finally put my baby girl on my chest, the shaking stopped, like my body just needed her with me.

That day is a blur. I was so exhausted and weak and unable to process what had happened. I could barely stand and had sharp referred pain in my shoulder that the pain medications didn't touch. But I think I was able to trust that this was God's plan for our birth, even though it wasn't what I wanted. Our baby was here, and she was beautiful. And all the nurses were so kind. They knew we hadn't planned to be there, and they were sensitive about that instead of condescending. (They also warned me whenever they removed adhesives that it was going to hurt — I wanted to say, "Girl, I just had contractions for 124 hours. You don't think I can handle you ripping off a bandaid?") One nurse helped us get discharged early — about 40 hours after my daughter's birth — and when I asked her about her own family told me she had had three c-sections at that hospital "and lived to tell the tale." It was a small thing, but one I won't forget.

Tuesday: Going home!

But the following days were harder. Once we were at home, I couldn't use our sidecar bassinet and have my baby next to me because I had to roll out of bed to get up. I had to wake up my husband to bring the baby to me at night because getting up from lying down was so difficult. I was crying every day, but it hurt my incision to blow my nose. My feet were so puffy from IV fluids that I didn't recognize them. I began to think back over each moment in our birth and question whether another path could have possible. Could I have made different choices? Could I have prepared my body better for birth? Should we have chosen different midwives, or insisted that the doctor give us more time to push? I noticed inconsistencies in things that were done at the hospital. My daughter had Apgar scores of 8 and 9 and came out crying, yet they still suctioned her instead of placing her immediately on my chest like they had said they would if she wasn't in distress. I read about asynclitism, which my long labor and intense hip/leg pain indicate, and was confirmed in what I knew intuitively: that delivering an asynclitic baby requires resting during pushing, frequent position changes, and allowing 3–6 hours or more (not 90 minutes!) for the second stage of labor. While this was validating, it was harder to get back into the place of peace, of being able to accept that this was how my daughter was meant to be born.

God was still working in my heart. The morning after giving birth I remember having the thought that I didn't want to have a scar for the rest of my life. A small part of all the reasons I didn't want to have a c-section, but it still bothered me. But immediately I thought of Jesus telling me, "I have scars too." A few days later, back at home, looking at my daughter in her bassinet, tears came into my eyes as I thought about how much I had suffered to bring her here, and how much more God suffered to bring his children life. And as I desperately wanted to just feel like myself again (like I'd been told I would after giving birth), I thought about God telling me when I was pregnant that what I actually needed was him, not a body that worked the way I thought it should.

Looking back at the birth, I can see how some things did happen the way I expected. It was the hardest thing I've ever done. I did have to depend on God in a way I never had before. I did rely on my husband in new ways. I may not be able to remember the exact words he spoke in my labor delirium, but I know he told me over and over again that I was doing a good job, got me snacks and water throughout the days before and after my daughter's birth, and let me squeeze all the blood out of his hand during contractions. And I remember him holding our daughter that first morning in the hospital and saying softly, "She's fun to hold."

I'm ten weeks postpartum now. I won't say that I've fully come to terms with how my daughter's birth unfolded. I had never imagined I'd be in labor for five days. I still wish that I could have been the first one to hold her, that her vernix hadn't been wiped off and her cord cut immediately. I still don't love my scar. Sometimes when I think back to the moment of her birth, I still have a hard time believing it even happened to me. But I am starting to see how God allowed this to happen for good, not for evil.

I wanted to have a successful and joyful home birth not just for me and my family, but in order to be able to tell birth pessimists that my birth was beautiful. I wanted to prove my mother-in-law wrong that birth is always traumatic. And though I don't think I realized it, when I heard stories of moms were really hard or ended in c-sections, there was a part of me that believed they could have avoided it — that had they picked the right provider, or done the right preparation, or gone into birth with excitement and peace instead of fear, things could have gone differently. And had I had the home birth that I did plan for, did prepare for, and did have great excitement and peace about, I probably would have been confirmed in that opinion and believed that my efforts achieved the birth I wanted or even deserved. 

Instead I had a birth that humbled me. A birth that gave me compassion for other moms with unplanned c-sections, days of labor, hospital transfers, or other kinds of birth trauma. And with my sweet baby sleeping on my chest as I write this, my heart aches for the moms I know whose birth trauma didn't result in a baby in their arms. So although it wasn't the birth I wanted, at times I can see glimpses of how maybe it was the birth I needed.