A labor of love...

"Waking up when you got a baby, you feel like you drank a bottle of whiskey the night before, except the shit's in someone else's pants."
~Shit my dad says

It's late Tuesday night and Billy and I had just settled in our bed to go to sleep.  He was checking up on some emails and I asked him to look at a twitter feed called "Shit my dad says."  We were reading it and I was laughing so, so loudly.  I mean, I used to be a loud laugher (ask anyone who knew me in college what my most defining feature was and I'm sure they'll say my laugh), but I haven't laughed a good laugh lately.  That night was an exception.  Every post I read on that website, I almost wet myself I was laughing so hard. 

And, I swear to God, this is what caused me to go into labor. 

I get up to try to make it to the toilet before I peed all over the bed and, as I'm peeing, I get the weird stomach rumble pangs that accompany the kind of poops you don't want to have.  To make a relatively long story short, it wasn't intestinal distress.  It was the start of labor.  Yes.  Labor.  At 12:45 in the morning on my due date.  I mean, who does that?  I was sure I had at least 3 more days left as a childless woman. 

At approximately 4am that morning, after laboring 2 hours with April and Billy at home and after having minute-long contractions 3-4 minutes apart, we drove up to the hospital.  I went to the labor and delivery triage and they checked my cervix.  I was 100% effaced (yes!) and 2cm dilated (what?!?!).  I felt defeated.  The contractions were making me cry out in pain.  I couldn't look at anybody in the face and kept my eyes closed.  They sent me home but not without some morphine for the pain.

As dawn approached, I lay down in bed to get some rest.  The morphine did nothing for the pain of the contractions but helped me blissfully sleep in between the contractions.  Billy, who downloaded a "contractions" app to his phone to time the frequency and duration of the contractions, said that I would zonk out for the 10 minutes or so in between the contractions and then automatically begin to get up on my hands and knees to rock back and forth and work through the 45-second contraction.  That was the most sleep I've gotten in the last week :)

My water ended up breaking at about 2 in the afternoon.  I got up in between contractions to go pee and I just kept peeing.  I know this is gross, but it really is the weirdest sensation to feel that your bladder isn't working at all and you can't control all this fluid that's leaking out of you.  Ladies, word of advice, if your water breaks at home, bring a towel with you wherever you are, especially the car.  Plan to wear something dark: for my labor at home and drive to the hospital, I wore a shorter black maternity skirt and white tank top. 

Once my water broke, I was clear to go to the hospital.  The nurse midwife on call was Sarah.  She was absolutely darling.  I wish I could say I was a great patient, but at that point I was at like a 7 on the pain scale and I wouldn't open my eyes.  April and Billy were fantastic and made sure that I had my "labor of love" playlist playing, my scented lotion rubbed on me, and the lights dimmed.  Billy even put up a copy of the ultrasound image of Desmond giving me a thumbs-up sign in the bathroom so I could look at it while I labored in the water.  At around 6, Sarah checked my cervix again.  At this point, I was 5cm dilated!  Progress!  Thank God, because I was starting to feel disheartened and had told April a few times by that point that I thought I wanted some drugs.  During our sessions together, April had told me that she would be aggressive in reminding me that I wanted to do a natural birth and would discourage me from getting an epidural as long as I didn't give her my password: windowsill.  The password is the word that I would say if I was damn sure that I wanted drugs.  Windowsill is one of the prettiest words to me and, when I said it, represented a graceful acquiescence to a pain-free birth. 

I couldn't bring myself to say it.  So, we labored for 3 more hours and through another shift change.  At this point, it's 9pm, I've been in labor for 21 hours, and I'm to the point where I start crying in between contractions because the thought of going through another one felt like an ordeal I couldn't keep on shouldering.  I kept thinking that I would not let my goal of a natural birth make giving birth to my baby a horrible memory; I wanted to be in control of my birth and that meant saying, "enough is enough" and letting medicine take over. 

The nurse midwife's name was Deb and the nurse attending my care was Courtney.  Sweetest, kindest, most amazing ladies.  They set me up with an IV for extra fluids in preparation for the epidural, which made me really cold and I couldn't stop shaking uncontrollably.  The anesthesiologist came by (who, by the way, looked like he was maybe 22 years old) and gave me the epidural.  For those of you who have no idea how an epidural is given, they insert this long cord thing into your spine and deliver drugs into it.  While they're putting the long cord thing into your spine, you have to hunch over a table and put your head on your forearms and stay.  really.  still.  Try doing that naked while shaking uncontrollably and breathing through the most monstrous contraction in your life (and for those of you who don't know what a contraction feels like...imagine overeating at Thanksgiving and then, imagine someone (for me, I imagined that red-headed bully from A Christmas Story) pulling a belt along the lower half of your belly tighter and tighter...couple that with some intense back pain and maybe...just maybe...you'll understand the place I spent an entire day in). 

But...as soon as the epidural started to work, I forgave everyone and everything and drifted off blissfully in and out of sleep.  Billy was exhausted as well, so was happy to see me relieved of the pain.  He laid down on the pull out couch and caught a few hours of sleep.  April stayed up with me, talking me through the contractions that the Pitocin was causing (I chose to have the Pitocin because, at the rate my contractions were going, I wasn't going to have Desmond anytime soon.  The Pitocin would cause my contractions to increase in frequency and duration, hopefully dilating my cervix even further). 

Finally, at about 2:00 in the morning, I started feeling intense pressure in my bottom.  It was the weirdest thing!  As soon as I felt it, I notified the nurses and I was given the go ahead to start pushing.  God, what a relief!  I breathed deeply through each push, being careful not to hold my breath.  I didn't feel any pain up until one point when Deb pressed against me with her hand (in an area VERY close to my urethral opening).  I thought, God, if I weren't doped up, I bet this would BURN like hell.  I looked over at Billy, who was holding up my leg and staring in horror at what I assume to be the new view down under and I started laughing.  The nurses looked at me with this look on their face and said that they had never seen a woman laugh through the pushing. 

At 3:19am, Desmond John Thomas was born.  Billy said that it had looked like all that was coming out was head, head, and more head.  Then, the shoulders came out and immediately slithered out the rest of my baby's body.  My stomach immediately deflated and my first thought was, "YES! I could sleep on my tummy now."  I looked down in between my legs to see if I could catch a glimpse.  Billy was given the job of announcing the sex.  I waited with bated breath...I could tell that everyone already knew the sex and were waiting for Billy to say it.  He tilted his head, scrunched his eyebrows and I thought, "shit.  it's a hermaphrodite."  I guess the cord was in the way and he couldn't see whether or not it was a boy or girl.  He finally saw a very large pair of testicles and announced the sex. 

The cord was cut and the baby was whisked away to the warmer and the pediatricians because of the presence of meconium in my amniotic fluid.  All was OK and he was given back to me quickly.  They lay Desmond on my chest, skin-to-skin, and I took a look, for the first time, at what Billy and I had created.  He was beautiful.  And the pain became a vague memory.  I kissed his misshapen head, held him close to me, and closed my eyes.