It was 5:30pm on a Saturday

The Retelling of C's Birth Story

My daughter was born one year ago and, as expected, I feel emotional. I thought about writing a post to reflect on my accomplishments throughout the year, but I’ll leave that for my private journal. Instead, I will share my birth story, which I’ve only shared with close friends, moms who ask, and have written glimpses in prior posts. I wrote a version of this (a longer one) in my early postpartum days, and through my editing process, decided to leave in the majority of my language and phrasing since it is a window into my newly postpartum brain. My present thoughts are italicized. Now that I am, supposedly, no longer considered to be “postpartum” (although my pelvic floor pt may say otherwise), I can more easily recognize the identity shift that has occurred over the past year.

So. One year ago…

Early Labor — approximately 13 hours

I woke up on Friday, July 5, feeling like it was the first day of my period. It was a new moon and my due date was the following day. My google search results suggested my period-like cramps meant I was in labor, but I doubted it given I had recently crawled out of the deep rabbit hole understanding prodromal labor – labor that can start and stop, and vary in intensity, for days. I mentioned to Jonathan and our doula: “I’m having period-like cramps, it could be early labor, but let’s see if they increase in intensity throughout the day.” 

The cramping didn’t stop. It became more regular as the day went on. Coming every 10 minutes, then 8, then 7. They weren’t particularly painful. They felt familiar. Period day 1. 

Jonathan and I spent the day together. We read and I drank an iced Hojicha latte at Rare Bird Coffee in Falls Church, Virginia (our favorite coffee shop). We spontaneously painted pottery next door to Rare Bird — Jonathan painted an owl and I painted a fox for C’s room. Creativity took my mind off the “what ifs” and drove me straight into the present. As I painted, I thought about the brushstrokes on the clay and the variety of colors and textures, my mind preparing for the deep embodiment that was about to occur over the next day and a half.

On the drive home from the pottery studio, my cramps came every six to seven minutes. Still not particularly painful; still the same familiar feeling experienced by all women who have menstruated.

The familiar cramping continued with regularity. Around 5pm, I went to the bathroom and noticed a gelatinous, slightly bloody, goop in the toilet (obviously I have a photo but will spare you all). I thought I lost my mucus plug a few weeks before and I could have lost part of it or all of it—and it could’ve regenerated (our bodies are wild) — but this time, tinged with blood, indicated that my cervix was opening. I walked outside while Jonathan grilled dinner: “I think I lost my mucus plug. I think this is happening.” 

We ate one of the heartiest meals I had in a while. Veg burgers on brioche buns, caesar salad, and potato salad from a local BBQ spot (yes, two vegetarians walked in and only ordered a side of potato salad). This meal allowed me to power through the next 24 hours.

After dinner, at the recommendation of our doula, I began to work through the Miles Circuit to help C move into position and keep early labor progressing. Stepping sideways up each stair was no small feat with a 40-week belly. And the “open knee chest” exercise felt nearly impossible. During the exaggerated side-lying position, I listened to a meditation to encourage relaxation.

Intense Labor — approximately 17 hours

About an hour after getting in bed, the contractions felt more intense. I tossed and turned, breathing relaxation during the breaks and breathing into the waves themselves. My bed felt too soft; I felt like I was sinking. I walked downstairs and let Jonathan sleep. I knew we’d be in for a long day, maybe two. Once I got downstairs, I bounced on my exercise ball, which relieved some of the pain in my lower back during a contraction. With each contraction, I visualized my uterus pushing C down. Productive. I downloaded an app called Freya, which was the best $5.99 I’d ever spent on an app. My type A personality thrives with structure. And this app both timed my contractions and guided my breath in their rise and fall. 

Tabor followed me downstairs. He wouldn’t leave my side. As I bounced on the birth ball, he pawed my leg. He sensed the transition and the energy inside of me. 

Jonathan came downstairs around 1:30am. He brought me a bowl of cut watermelon, cold, right out of the fridge. Each bite perfectly crispy, bursting in my mouth. The ideal combination of hydration and sugar. He stayed with me, rubbed my back, and did the weird thigh muscle jiggle that unexpectedly relieved pain. I encouraged him to try to go back to sleep. I knew the day would be long. I doubt he slept.

I went back upstairs, lay down on the upstairs couch, and followed the guide’s voice on the Freya app for the next couple of hours. Breathing in, 1, 2, 3, 4, breathing out, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Between contractions, I visualized each part of my body relaxing, starting with my head, moving down to my toes.

Time ceased to exist, but the markers of time helped. Each marker gave me a goal. We agreed with my doula to check back in around 5am. Rather than attach myself to the unknown of how long labor would last, I knew I could reach 5am.

4:30am. Jonathan sat with me on the couch. The contractions were more intense, requiring my entire focus. I could no longer speak through them. At 5am, our doula listened to me go through a contraction over the phone. She coached me through it; told me I was doing great. I continued to focus on my breath.

We went back downstairs, I lay on the couch in the living room, Jonathan rubbed my back, and we tried the TENS unit, which I didn’t like. Breathing was my best pain management tool, innately inside me. The next best was Jonathan rubbing my back, applying counter-pressure.

Jonathan arranged to drop Tabor off at our dog sitter around 7:30am. I would be alone for about an hour, but I felt confident I would get through it. Again, having a time marker felt helpful. 

At some point that morning, I bled more when I went to the bathroom. It looked more like a clot, more than just a heavy period, which worried me. We called the midwife on call, who advised us to monitor, and if I wanted to, I could come to the hospital. But she did not seem worried. Our doula reminded us that if the midwife was worried, she would tell us to come in right away. This felt reassuring, and I decided to delay going to the hospital for a bit longer. I continued to switch positions. I hung around Jonathan’s neck, and leaned into him. He was my tree trunk. 

Our doula came over at 11am to provide additional support. She guided me into different positions, all to move C down and to encourage the best position possible. The three of us—plus C—were a team. Katya applied counter-pressure on my back while I hung around Jonathan’s neck.

I felt exhausted, contractions continued, and I hardly rested in between. At this point, I wasn’t sure how much longer I could go on. Even though I knew there was nothing I could do to stop it. I thought, “if I go to the hospital now, and I’m only 4 or 5 cm dilated, I want an epidural so I can nap.” I had intended to be unmedicated during this birth, but remained open to an epidural if I felt like I was suffering. My intention was to be in my body and not to suffer. I was almost at the point of suffering. But not yet. With my goals in mind, tactically delaying going to the hospital, our doula suggested I move through two contractions in this position, two more in that position. I leaned on my radiator cover with my forearms and placed one leg on top of two yoga blocks. I switched legs. I knelt on the floor and rested my forearms on the couch. Counter-pressure on my back, and some hip squeezes. 

The Hospital & Birth — approximately 4 hours

I mentally geared up for a 25-minute drive. Jonathan loaded the car, and I walked slowly to the garage and leaned on the hood of the car during a contraction. I slowly shifted my body into the front seat. Our doula placed a heating pad behind my back, which felt so good. I played my Rainbow Relaxation track (conveniently 24 minutes long) and settled in. I calculated 25 minutes meant about 8 contractions. I closed my eyes and focused on my breath. After each contraction, I looked at google maps on the screen. 20 minutes. 17 minutes. 14 minutes. 11 minutes. 3 contractions, maybe 4, more.

2pm. Finally, we pulled up to Inova Fair Oaks, parked the car in a temporary loading zone. Jonathan helped me out of the car, walked me into the lobby. I had another contraction. My moaning echoed through the building. I briefly wondered whether anyone could hear me, but this instantaneous moment of modesty quickly vanished as my body took over. I was in labor land and my conscious mind could hardly pierce the barrier, able to focus only on my breathing. I was wheeled up to labor and delivery. At the check-in desk, my eyes remained closed and my breathing steady. I was silent. I heard someone say, “she’s in the zone.”

On the way to triage, I had another contraction. This one I don’t remember and Jonathan told me later. I must’ve been entirely in labor land, unaware of where I was being taken. This is how women have babies in elevators. On the side of the road. In hospital lobbies. There is no stopping this process; it runs on its own clock, entirely disconnected from the clocks on our walls. Apparently, after hearing this contraction run through me, hospital staff decided to admit me immediately rather than take me to triage. They helped me settle into a room. 

My midwife and nurses came in, took my vitals, and listened to C’s heartbeat. She was doing great. Strong girl. My midwife asked me if I wanted to be checked — my cervix, she meant. Yes, yes I did. I needed to know how much progress I had made. Or how much I hadn’t made. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could continue without pain medication — I wanted a break. I wanted a nap. Desperately. 

Always asking for consent before touching me, the midwife placed her fingers inside me to feel my cervix. I hardly felt this check, just some pressure. Taking her hand out, she said, “I have the best news to share. You are 9 cm.” I felt a wave of relief and a burst of confidence. I was almost there. So close. I could do this.

We moved through more positions. I sat backwards on the toilet, with Jonathan behind me, pulling up on my belly as I moved through a contraction to supposedly help with positioning. I got in the bathtub and allowed the warm water to envelop my body, but the tub was small and the water didn’t cover me. The pressure below increased and I felt an intense urge to push. I wanted to get out of the tub and back onto the bed.

3:30pm. Pushing was unlike any feeling I had ever experienced. With my first or second push, I felt the pop of my water bag. It broke in part while I was laboring, right before the pushing phase. But it had stayed intact the entire time I was laboring at home, likely adding some cushion.

With each push, I consciously bore down, using my breath during a contraction, but then I’d feel my body take over. Each conscious push transitioned into something uncontrollable. Hard to describe in words. As if my entire abdomen, down to my rectum, turned into an automatic high pressure french press system, with my conscious bearing down switching on the system. Once the system switched on, any semblance of control I had disappeared and my body completely took over. This is when I most felt how our conscious minds live separately from our physical bodies.

Physically, I felt like I was ripping open from the inside out. I did tear (a 2nd degree internal perineal tear), but the ripping felt broader than in just that one spot. This being that grew inside me for nearly ten months, a part of me, not yet independent, was in the process of separating from me. She stayed in this liminal space, a physical transition, literally inside a portal for hours during my labor, but the separation felt most present during the pushing phase itself. 

And my exhaustion peaked. Grasping for any marker of time, I asked multiple times how many more pushes. The midwife and nurse team could tell I was fading. Jonathan fed me an orange popsicle as I was on all fours, leaning over the back of the hospital bed. He looked at me right in the eyes, his eyes teary, mine probably strained: “You’ve got this. You’re doing so great.” He was right there, so present with me. Guiding me as I guided her.

I flipped to my back and tried to recover as much as I could during each seconds-long rest period. After asking me, the nurse wheeled a mirror over so I could see the productivity of my pushes. I saw myself completely open. With a push, I saw her head peeking out of me. I watched as the top of her head made an appearance and then hid behind the curtain again. Again and again, each time a centimeter further. The midwife spread birth oil around the circumference of C’s head. She held warm compresses to my perineum throughout this phase to reduce tearing. With one final push, C’s full head popped out. It was like that; after all that, her head popped out. The midwife worked her way around C’s shoulders, and the rest of her body slid out. Covered in vernix and meconium, she was placed on my chest. The nurse suctioned her nose and mouth until she took her first breath. Her first breath earthside. The transition almost complete. 

5:30pm. An immediate wave of relief rushed over me as soon as she was born. I was completely exhausted and the intensity of emotion overwhelmed me (in the best way). I felt relief, joy, love, pride, awe, disbelief, and shock all at the same time. I held C against my chest and the experience didn’t feel real. I couldn’t believe I birthed her. She had been inside me just a second earlier. My eyes kept toggling between Jonathan and our daughter. Disbelief that we made this tiny human; disbelief that she grew inside my body, that she grew all of her parts, that she was breathing, and was now earthside. She was still connected to me. The cord pulsed for about 20 minutes. The rich blood flowed back into her, building her immune system. After the cord stopped pulsing, Jonathan positioned himself to cut it. The separation between her and I complete. She was now her own independent being, physically disconnected from my body.

Birthing The Placenta

The final step — birthing my placenta. The temporary organ my body created, seemingly out of thin air, needed to be expelled. Its time was done. Purpose served. Pushing once more, a boneless, bloody blob squeezed out of me. I began to bleed more heavily at this point and my midwife needed to administer pitocin to slow the bleeding. My hep lock was already inserted and the nurse screwed on the vile of pitocin. The midwife then told me she needed to perform a uterine sweep, which I had heard about on a podcast of birth stories. I dreaded this, but I still held C. I felt the midwife’s hand, up to her forearm, inside of me and manually removed any clots that could be causing the bleeding. (Reminder that I was unmedicated.) I was holding C and my determination to keep her safe and warm stopped my body from writhing in pain. I knew the pain was temporary — and necessary. Again, I came back to my breath. Deep breaths in and out until she removed her arm. (I feel a wave of nausea editing this part of the story.) 

I believe the uterine “massage” happened next, to help stimulate my uterus to shrink to its pre-pregnancy size. I am unclear on why the word “massage” is used to describe this uncomfortable technique.  

And then it was over. C in my arms.

My body left feeling completely stripped of all protective layering. Emotionally raw. I made it through the most intense experience of my life. Still in complete awe. I trusted my body. I allowed the experience to move through me.

The pain of childbirth and labor, at least my experience, is unlike any other pain. Each contraction came in a wave. It rose, peaked, and then fell. I knew it would be temporary. I knew I’d get a break — albeit a short one — in between. I also knew it was productive. Served to push C down. And in this situation, my drive for productivity served me well. This mindset helped me overcome any fear.  

[This is where the postpartum version of my story ended.]

With one year’s distance from this experience, it still gives me chills. Still leaves me in awe. And still only the beginning.

Thank you for reading until the end.

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