Zatera Ul

So I took the homeopathic remedy, five tiny pellets under the tongue, not expecting it to have any effect one way or the other. But just before dinner, I went to the bathroom, and found bloody show. About time! MFH made fajitas for dinner, we ate, and then called our midwife.

The exact order of the events that ensued is a little unclear to me now, but I’ll try.

After a while, contractions started up, and we tried to time them for a while–I could easily tell when one began, but it was harder to tell when it ended. Anyway, they were fairly frequent and regular, and our midwife told us not to bother with the timing. In childbirth class, she emphasized keeping to one’s normal activities in early labor.

A little later, I threw up all of the fajitas I’d eaten. I think the bagel I had for lunch came right up too.

MFH, at my request, went off to make me a paper circle of 10 cm diameter, for me to focus on during the dilation phase–something that had been mentioned during childbirth class. He even colored it nicely with crayons. (I had completely forgotten that the woman who gave this idea also said that it didn’t help her much in labor; she found it too discouraging to think of how far she still had to dilate.)

I drew all of the curtains and covered the rest of the windows. After that, I gladly took off everything with a waistband, and felt much more comfortable.

MFH covered up or took down every clock in the house.

We cracked open the tub of birth linens from the midwife.

MFH tried to get a particular movie set up for me to watch; many technical difficulties ensued, including not being able to find the CD of it that he had gotten Mike Nelson to autograph at the State Fair last year (he wrote “You thief!”).

MFH talked on the phone with his best guy friend for a while, while wrestling with some of the difficulties.

My water broke while I was lying on the couch, with a chux pad under me. Happily, no meconium. MFH made another call to the midwife. I think it was at this point that she asked if I wanted her to come over, and I said that she might as well. (Mostly because I was beginning to want the labor tub.)

At this point, it felt like it was time to transition from downstairs to upstairs. We went up, and set up the bed: two layers of cheap plastic dropcloths, covered by an expendable thrift-store sheet. MFH made a trail of old towels from the bedroom to the bathroom for me; my bladder capacity had about gone to zero. In some birth stories I’ve read, the laboring women felt most comfortable sitting on the toilet; I didn’t, especially not during contractions.

I felt a little kick from the baby, and was glad to know that he or she was doing ok so far (i.e., no cord prolapse).

Soon the midwife arrived, complete with labor tub. She did a fetal heartbeat check, using her Doppler, but with headphones, as I had requested earlier. By this time my contractions were pretty strong; I was leaning against the bedpost and breathing through them while she did the check. The baby’s heartbeat was ok. She didn’t do a cervical check, because she generally doesn’t; she usually can tell how things are going just by looking at the woman (something I greatly appreciated). The midwife and MFH brought in everything, and she set up her things and told MFH how to assemble the tub.

I pulled out my (plastic, with vinyl-covered cushion) sweater chest from under the bed and sat down on it. After a while, MFH had the tub set up and beginning to fill, and the movie playing on his laptop on the bed. The midwife did another quick, unobtrusive heartbeat check, and went downstairs to take a nap on our futon, to be rested up for later.

I was only paying slight attention to the movie, even between contractions, but I told MFH to leave it on. Mostly I was sitting there working through contractions, with one elbow on the bed (our bed is higher than most) and the other on a bookcase. I had the paper circle with me, and I kept looking at it and thinking “I only have to dilate to 10 centimeters, and then I can push the baby out.” That really helped me to relax my abdomen and let the contractions do their work. Also, I remembered Ina May Gaskin’s Sphincter Law–the cervix is a sphincter, and like any other sphincter, you can help it to open by slackening your jaw. So most of the time I sat with my eyes closed and my jaw dropped. MFH got a couple of nice pictures of this. I didn’t feel good, but I was doing fine with the pain/discomfort. It was intense, but not anywhere near excruciating.

It took three or four cycles of the hot water heater to fill the tub–a very long wait for me. MFH was running around gettings things ready, and occasionally bringing me water. The movie ended. I was still sitting in the same place, waiting for the tub to fill. I noticed that the contractions were getting stronger and closer together, sometimes one right after another, but I was still coping with them ok on my own. At one point, MFH told me, “You’re doing great,” and I replied “It’s not that bad.” Because it really wasn’t that bad. Much easier than I had expected.

On the other hand, I didn’t at all feel like getting up to walk to the bathroom, and it had been quite a while since I had, so I decided to just go right where I was, and let MFH clean it up. That happened two or three times.

Finally, the tub was full, and I got in. I didn’t even think of asking my midwife’s “permission”. She was still downstairs sleeping, anyway. The warm water was nice, but not as helpful as I had hoped. Still, it was good to be able to maneuver around to find a more comfortable position.

After a couple of minutes, I felt like a big bowel movement was coming down, and I was trying to poop it out, so that it wouldn’t be in the baby’s way. MFH noticed me straining mightily and told me that it looked like I was pushing (as in pushing the baby out). He reminded me that the baby’s head coming down can feel like that. I knew that too, from reading numerous birth stories, but I didn’t believe that it was really the baby–I thought that I still had a bit to go before I hit transition, let alone the pushing stage. But a few pushes later, it came down a little lower, and felt much too round and hard to be anything but the baby’s head.

MFH ran down and woke up the midwife, who ran upstairs. At this point I started vocalizing in moans, partly to let them know where I was in a contraction, and also because it felt sort of good. The pain or whatever was still quite tolerable. The midwife told me I was doing great, and again I shrugged and said, “It isn’t that bad.” I spent about twenty more minutes pushing, though it was really more of an involuntary thing at that point; I wasn’t putting much oomph of my own into it. The midwife worked with me on breathing deeply; when the baby was about to crown I started panting, trying to slow down the push, but not really succeeding. The midwife was shining her flashlight into the water, and spotted the baby’s head starting to crown. She had me come more upright, into a semi-kneeling position. I felt some of the “ring of fire”, but not much (tore). Then I gave a big push, and the baby’s head was out. The shoulders and the rest came out on the next push, and the midwife brought the baby up and out of the water, and quickly wrapped him or her (didn’t get a chance to see) in a blanket. Time of birth: 2:06 am, just about eight hours after labor had started.

I spent the next few minutes in the tub, holding the baby. MFH got a picture of the umbilical cord, which was long and looked a lot like a phone cord. The baby was crying, and the midwife kept adding blankets as they got wet. Somewhere in there, she must have been checking the baby’s pulse and breathing. Finally, MFH and I take a look, and it’s a girl! (After nearly everyone guessing during the pregnancy that it was a boy.)

The midwife’s assistant arrived at this point; the labor had gone a lot faster than anyone expected. I had been expecting labor to take a full day or two or three, so I had plenty of energy left over.

But I still had the placenta to push out, and that part was harder. The midwife had me get out of the tub and sit on her birth linen tote. I pushed for a few minutes there, but this time I was having to put effort into the pushing, and it didn’t feel like I was getting anywhere. Then she had me sit on the floor, with my back against the wall, and gave me a shot of Pitocin. After a few more minutes, some hard pushing, and (I think) some careful cord traction, the placenta came out. intact. But I ended up losing more blood than I should have–about twice the normal amount, the midwife said later.

Somewhere in there, I tried nursing OLC, and she latched right on and nursed for about 15 minutes. That was good. Also somewhere in there, MFH cut the cord, though I think that happened before the placenta was delivered.

I was a little weak and dizzy, but other than that, I felt just great–natural childbirth endorphins, I guess–yay home birth! Still, the midwife gave me some oxygen, and had both MFH and her assistant giving me juice and crackers as fast as I would eat them (to the point that I started feeling nauseous). I hadn’t eaten anything during labor, despite having a huge stock of labor snacks; just hadn’t felt like eating.

After a bit, I crawled over to the bed, and up into it. They put OLC beside me. The midwife checked over the placenta, said that it was complete and very healthy-looking, and showed it to us.

She asked what we were going to name the baby, and I blurted out, “Her middle name is [foofy name from the baby name book that I really liked as a middle name].” (We hadn’t discussed baby names since mid-summer.) Then I told MFH that he could choose the first name. He went off, thought of a name, looked it up in the book and saw that I had crossed it out because I didn’t like it, came back with it anyway, we argued about how to spell it, and so it was decided.

About this time, though, the midwife noticed that OLC was having a little trouble breathing–not turning blue or anything, but some chest retractions and nostril-flaring that indicated that she was working too hard for her air. The midwife put the oxygen on “blow-by” for her, and watched to see if that would help. It did help, a little, but only until the tank ran out. The midwife then recommended that we go to the hospital, and that we travel by ambulance so that OLC and I could stay together (since I was still too weak to walk any distance).

I’ll write about our adventures in the hospital in Part 4.