The Birth

of my baby girl
Sunday night, 1/20/08. The water heater in the house breaks. The way this message is delivered is as follows: I am in the kitchen peeling the skin off of pears to stew some pears in the hot pot. A calm activity that leads to a yummy tasting dessert-like treat when I hear what appears to be someone taking a shower in the utility closet. I look up and the wooden beams of the kitchen are dripping water with an increasing pace. The water gains speed, I scream for Andrew who comes running downstairs for upstairs. Chaos ensues. Buckets and towels and plastic containers are placed to receive water in various places. The house feels cold and demanding. Suddenly, we are not sure if we should be in it. If something might blow, if this machine that has broken is of the exploding variety. We try to sensibly select items to leave the house with. It is ohe of the coldest days in January. I dash to the computer and look up the first 24 hour emergency plumbing service that appears with Brooklyn in the search and leave a frantic, poorly communicated emergency message. About five feet down the corridor towards Warren Street Andrew stops and appears to be frozen in space and time. I am frozen in terms of temperature. I am wondering why he is not moving. I beg him to move so we can take refuge somewhere warm. He says he is thinking about ways to save the house and maybe I should go ahead without him. This is NOT going to happen. The repair man returns the call, Andrew takes the phone, we discover it is indeed, ok, to return to the house and with some tips from this man on the phone Andrew is able to stop the water. He has shut down all the power in the house and it is now dark and cold. But no longer leaking and destroying floors and ceilings. I ask him if it would be too selfish of me to go to yoga anyway and he insists that I do so. I was fairly determined to go to yoga because I really wanted to try some different form of movement to try and get the baby to come. I was so afraid that she would have to be induced and I had heard so many stories about the cycle of interventions that I wanted to avoid that at all cost. I went to a new yoga place on Court Street and joined their pre-natal class. I was the only lady there who was overdue by about a week but there were a few women who were due shortly. I spent most of the class rolling my hips in circles and stretching out my pelvis against a wall trying to get my body to imagine labor. Mentally, I could not imagine labor. I was beginning to feel pretty sure that I would remain pregnant for the rest of my life. That I would just be one of these oddities the lady who was forever pregnant. After class, I opened the door and Andrew was there. The class teacher chatted with us a bit about labor, and parenting and the whole nine yards and we walked home together and made a fire. The rest of the day is a blur, but at a certain point, I remember we decided to watch a few episodes of the Sopranos just to distract me when all of a sudden, I felt as though I were peeing in my pants except that it wasn't really coming from the right place. I said to Andrew, "dude, something weird is happening here," as I lowered my black, Old Navy sweatpants and water gushed out of them. I said, "I think maybe that was my water breaking?" But I wasn't sure. Andrew said that it must be because now that the hot water heater was broken, of course, the baby would decide to come. This meant that laboring at home would no longer include the hot baths, the warm showers, or any of those pain coping techniques we'd heard of, prepared for, or anticipated. We searched the Internet to learn that broken water was supposed to smell like bleach and we checked to make sure that there was no meconium in the liquid. Other than that, we tried to remain calm-ish and keep watching the Sopranos and stay busy. We called Andrea, the doula anf friend of a friend, to tell her that things were getting moving and said we'd call her back when we could no longer be alone. I decided around ten to try and get some sleep since labors were said to be long and exhausting. However, it didn't really work. The contractions were painful and the sleep was artificial. I was too busy feeling what was happening to my body and wondering if the pattern was what was to be expected or if something was wrong. Andrew slept next to me which was hard to endure because I was so jealous and in pain while he was able to rest. I knew it was better for both of us if he could rest, but I felt so angry that he didn't have to experience each contraction too! I tried to spend the night anticipating the baby, welcoming her, encouraging her to come. I must have repeated the words open and down about six thousand times to myself in a futile effort to focus and calm myself down. By the morning, I was pretty miserable and really wanted a shower. I had sweat so much during the night and my arm pits smelled so filthy I didn't think I could take another minute. So, we decided to go to the gym, the local YMCA where we could take a shower. We called Andrea, told her to meet us there so that she could supervise me in the shower, should I have too painful a contraction and not be able to stand or something. I think on another level, we both just wanted to be around someone who had experienced a birth before.
As we got to the door of the Y, I started to have a big contraction. I was afraid that if they heard me moaning and freaking out that they wouldn't let me in and that would mean no shower. I was not having that. I was not willing to take that risk, so I just went in a total circle around the glass revolving doors and had my contraction tucked in a corner of the building a little way down the block. I let out a low, loud moan, not the first of MANY to follow and Andrea was encouraging saying it was a good noise. Once inside the Y, Andrea's guest pass taken care of, I nearly ran to the shower. I stripped off my clothes at a record speed and new things were moving because I didn't have my typical insecurities about how overweight, pregnant and horrible I looked. I simply didn't give a shit. I duck walked over to the warm water and sighed as it poured over all my aches. My stiff shoulders, my right jaw, my vagina, my stomach, even my head. No part of me felt calm and all the tension was gaining momentum with the contractions. Andrea sat near by, came in and pushed against my lower back when the contractions gained power and talked me through the pain. She sat calmly on a stool. People looked at us inquisitively but mostly left us to ourselves. Andrea piped up with the occasional, she's just having a baby remark which gave people the hint and allowed me to not concern myself too much with the moaning--a real coping tool for me. While dressing by the lockers, a pile of mucus plopped out of me staright to the cold tile floor. It was both hysterical and embarassing. I doubt anyone noticed, but I'll never forget.
Once dressed and reunited with Andrew, we headed to Tazza for breakfast where I ordered two bowls of Muesli, somehow knowing or intuiting that food would become less and less desirable to me as time wore on. Again, we sat in the corner and as the contractions came on, I tried to keep the moaning low. I had one in the bathroom and a few at the table, but other than that, we enjoyed our breakfasts, used the phone sent some text messages and went on as though nothing major was happening. Andrea suggested that a walk might get things moving faster, so we gathered all our goods and started heading for the promenade. The wind was so cold, the ground so frozen, i was sure I would fall. But the sun was shining and we stuck to the sunny side of the street. The contractions gained speed as we walked. Movement seemed to be a key. We would walk about half of a block and the pain would gain momentum. I would fold over onto Andrew and Andrea and just moan. I can't describe the pain. It did come in a sort of wave as people say. At the crest, I felt so absorbed by the pain that I was unable to focus on my surroundings or even feel conscious of reality. I was just sort of enclosed in the pain. I felt as thought my insides were trying to come outside or vice versa. On the street, people stopped us several times and asked if we needed an Ambulance or help, and wondered what was going on. It was getting pretty fierce, but Andrea kept saying, "no, she's just getting ready to have a baby." One woman, clearly a naturalist herself, shouted out "This is just wonderful, wonderful." Andrea joked that we were giving Brooklyn Heights an impromptu lesson in natural birth. I'd had enough walking, we'd had enough laboring in public, and I think they'd had enough holding me up, so we stumbled home.
At home, things are foggier for me. I know that eating seemed important but I had no appetite. I attempted to eat a banana with yogurt, honey and wheat germ but wasn't very interested. We realized that I was fairly dehydrated so Andrea instituted a water after each contraction rule. I had some gatorade and electrolytes along the way, we'd stopped at the store for gatorade and gum on the way back. But the contractions didn't seem to be coming as quickly as they did when we'd been walking outside. We tried bouncing on the laboring ball, I sat on and off of the toilet several times but there were no signs of blood or more of the mucus plug or anything that was clear. We were all mentally gearing up for the hospital. We all wanted me to need to be there. On the other hand, the goal was to be far enough along that once there, we wouldn't be turned away or told that I was only a cm dilated. So we hung out as long as we could, we even took one more really short walk around the block but the contractions were so strong, frequent and fierce on the walk at that point that we couldn't go much further. Finally, we all decided it was time to go to the hospital. We called to let the hospital know that my water had broken about 18 hours earlier and a very prickly doctor got on the phone with Andrew. I could only hear part of what she said but it was enough to make me not want to go to the hospital at all. She said we should have come to the hospital as soon as my water broke and that now there was a real risk of infection. We assured her that we had not gone anywhere and that having taken a course, we felt confident that laboring at home was in our best interest. We inquired as to whether or not Jacques Moritz, my doctor, knew that I was in labor and she said she would let him know but that she was the doctor on call. She seem offended that I wanted my own doctor which struck me as insane. What person would not want their doctor to deliver the baby? I'd developed a relationship with him over months of sonograms while she was a complete stranger. Andrew said I was over-reacting and he was probably right, but the hospital was sounding more and more like a death trap.
There was a lot of running around, shuffling for bags and keys and last minute additions or after thoughts while Andrew called a car service. The car arrived and we made are way over, placed the labor ball in the car, the bag in the trunks and I howled in the backseat, fairly oblivious to the world around me, but aware enough to see that the car driver was freaked out. At one point, he yelled that we should have called for an ambulance. The car ride was so painful. I couldn't move enough and the bumps made me want to stretch out even more. I wanted to squat but was like an oversized banana squished in too small a skin. I was trying to burst out. The traffic wasn't bad at all because it was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, few cars were on the road, we took the West Side Highway all the way up to Columbus Circle. It was an easy ride considering how it could have been, but I couldn't take another second. I was ready to run out of the car and just run to the revolving door of the hospital. But we made it and tried to give the driver a little lesson in the modern birth plan, such as it is.
Once we got into the hospital, everything changed. The doorman immediately sent us to the 12th floor and I remember saying, "how did you guess?" and he responded,"Actually, it was the ball." We were carrying the labor ball, a very pregnant related item, so it wasn't my moaning and pale face that did it! On the 12th floor, we went straight to triage and responded to a few insurance questions, until we were called back into a big room divided into little spaces. A nurse told me to undress and that she was going to check to see how dilated I was. This was the moment I'd been waiting for and I was so afraid that I wouldn't be far enough along and that they would start wanting to intervene with medications. I took off all my clothes, used the bathroom, came back into the bed while Andrew and Andrea sorted out all of our belongings and the nurse came along and "checked." This term does not really convey how painful the process is. Someone you don't know, shoves his or her fingers, then hand, up your vagina and stretches it the way you might a garbage bag to fit the rim of your can. I screamed and they said, "I know, I know," but I know that they don't know unless they have actually given birth and I didn't know that. But, in the end, the nurse declared "six centimeters." They decided I was ready to be admited straight to the laboring room. I shouted out " Yes!" and gave high fives to both Andrew and Andrea (and any nurse willing to participate). The sonogram indicated that the baby was in the right position--head down. The baby monitor indicated that all was well too. My doctor was not working and so the doctor on call who had spoken to us on the phone came in to talk with us. She was cold at first but warmed up when she saw I was clutching my platypus tightly. She showed me her Winnie the Poo socks and told me that she would let Dr. Moritz know I was here now. She made a few dry humored jokes and that warmed us to her a little.

We went to the laboring room. Once we reached the room, I met a nurse who lives in my neighborhood named Jay. On the way down the hallway, the doctor told me that she thought we'd be finished by midnight and that I had about another hour to let her know whether or not I wanted the epidural. She said I didn't need to be a hero and that some women felt they had something to prove by turning down the epidural. I assured her that I was not that girl and my only goal was to be in active labor but at the moment, I didn't feel that I needed the epidural, I could in fact, manage the pain on my own. Jay said she could tell that I wasn't that interested in medicine so she was going to give me a heplock in case later interventions were required. She tried the right hand, but muttered that it hadn't worked smoothly, so she had to do another one in my left hand.
Both attempts hurt quite a bit and I felt irritated that in our twenty minutes in the hospital, the days experiences were colored by the institution. From the moment we'd entered, it was questions and insurance and taking blood and missing forms and all kinds of poking and proding. I should of course, not have expected otherwise, but the contrast was so blatant that it left me feeling trapped. However, once all of the intake procedures were completed, we were left for a bit to just labor and it was ok. I had a few contractions on the ball, and realized quickly that I hated the bed and that the ball and moving was my only path. However, my contractions didn't seem to be coming as rapidly as they had in the car on the way over. The nurse shift switched and a new nurse came in who was not bothered by my refusal to medicate. However, after awhile, they said that I needed to sit still on the bed for awhile because they needed to have a clean trace of the baby's heart rate and my continual moving and heading to the bathroom to empty my bladder was interfering with the trace. They said that the heart rate appeared to be lowering a bit when I had contractions and that the contractions were far apart. They wanted to give me an IV of Petocin to try and speed up the contractions and to see what that did. I had heard in class that often a baby's heart rate will drop a little, so I didn't really buy their line of reasoning and I really didn't want the Petocin as I'd heard that once you start down the intervention road, interventions tend to bring more interventions. But they insisted and started saying that the safety of the baby was in question--the great medical trump card that no pregnant woman in her right mind would dare question. Quite instantly, I went from an empowered woman managing my pain and laboring well (or so I thought) to someone who felt completely confined and uncomfortable. I had an IV of petocin and some water because they said I was deydrated, I was hooked up with a strap to the baby monitor and after what felt like hours, the doctor came in, "checked," and said that I was still only six centimeters and it appeared that the Petocin was not really working. They cranked up the dosage of the petocin, the contractions hit harder and they inserted the epidural. I hated the epidural, it made me itch uncontrollably everywhere and the numb feeling in my legs made me feel as though I were about to be paralyzed for life. It was as though I was having the last few tingling sensations in my legs before losing all feeling forever. There was a woman across the hall whose howls made mine appear tame and the nurse told us that she, too, was now quiet because of the epidural. I felt totally defeated, as though somehow, I'd wasted the last 26 hours in labor only to be clamped down in a bed frantically listening to the falling heart beat of my baby. My back was turned away from the monitor and at this point both Andrew and Andrea were trying to get some rest. I couldn't clearly explain to them that at this point I already knew where things were headed and when I tried, they tried to encourage my by telling me not to be negative. But I could hear the heart rate drop and I knew from the slight tightening in my core that the contractions were still much too far apart. I was so exhausted and angry and defeated that when the doctor came in and announced that we could either continue with the Petocin for another hour and likely wind up with the same call needing to be made or we could just call it now, I voted to call it right then and there. C-section. Emergency. Something was wrong.
From that moment on, it was just like a television show. People running in and having me sign papers informing me of the possibility of my death or her death or serious side effects and lots of people preparing to shuffle me to the operating room. The tears just poured down my face. I couldn't control my shaking or my fear. There was no more semblance of control. Now I had to entrust the medical community. After all, I hadn't chosen a home birth. I chose a hospital in case an emergency arose, and well, it appeared, at least according to them, that this was an emergency. The doctor asked me what I most feared and I told her dying. She said she had the same fear when she had a C-section but that she could assure me that she wasn't going to let that happen and that she was pretty damn good at her job. I asked if at least, the scar could be cut into some cool tatoo shape but she said she could get sued for that. They heaved me onto a moving cart and I felt like a sack of beef waiting to be aged. My legs were so tingly. I hated seeing people as I was wheeled by, they all looked at me the way you look at accidents on the side of the road. Morbid curiousity. They said that Andrea couldn't come and that Andrew would be able to join us after the doctors were prepped. When we entered the theater I began to cry again. There they were. The enormous lights, a zillion people running around shouting medical lingo to one another while they moved me again, the big sack of beef and strapped down both my legs and arms. Now, I truly stopped being a human and was merely a set of organs and a procedure. In fact, one of the residents attempted to comfort me by reminding me how routine this procedure was and that I was her sixth for her shift. Needless to say, I did not find this comforting in the least. They assembled and raised a large blue "curtain." to shield me from watching the surgery. At first it wasn't clamped up properly and it kept falling on my face. I had to call out to ask that they adjust it. This made it extra clear how low on the priority list I was, as it took several people to realize that I was speaking to them. Who the hell else was I speaking to? I asked again for Andrew, and insisted that they could not, would not and dare not begin until he was by my side. Everything seemed to be moving so quickly, I heard clinking metal sounds, and so many voices. People kept introducing themselves to me but it didn't register. The only moment I absorbed was when Andrew was over me, lightly touching my face and looking me in the eyes. He made me feel that I might not die. His blue eyes were so sparkly in his blue scrubs and for half a second I focused on how handsome and comforting he was instead of how terrified of dying or losing the baby. The doctor again assured me that I would be ok and I appreciated that she was trying to calm me down.
Feeling people touch your organs is very difficult to describe.., I was numb from the epidural, so it didn't hurt, I felt a pinch here and there, and it reminded me a bit of stirring a large vat of a sauce as it thickened except that I was the sauce or the pot or some combination of the two. I was being stirred up and cooked. They told me little pieces of what they were doing but I don't really think I grasped much. I just felt them. I felt fingers inside my body. I felt instruments inside my body. I was praying that my daughter would be ok. I said to Andrew that this type of procedure was a place where Atheism fell short. I needed to believe in some greater power even when it was most likely one didn't exist. To not have that hope was too challenging. Moments later, everyone was talking about the baby, how she was fine, cute, well-formed, a good size. Andrew was snapping photos and I was trying to vocalize the words, "may I please see her?" Finally, they held her up over the curtain and I saw the most amazing face--my face and Andrew's face squished in horror and fear. They whisked her away and Andrew followed. They took her footprints and cleaned her up and they began to sew me up. Andrew came over and showed me some digital photos of what had happened and again, I was angry that I couldn't be with her. Babies are meant to be with their mothers in their first few moments of life, not toweled off , dipped in ink, and digitized. But I was grateful that Andrew was with her, watching and documenting so that I could at least have some perspective on what her first moments were like. Andrew came and helped me get through the sewing up portion which seemed to last twice as long as the ripping me open and yanking out the kid half of the procedure. It was just as scary except that in the background was a screaming newborn. I glanced to my side and saw what appeared to be dozens of blood soaked sheets--my blood. The sheet now seemed like a pretty smart idea. I am not sure I could have handled watching myself cut open. Routine procedure or not. Moving me onto the cot to go to the recovery room was one of the most painful experiences of the whole event and made labor seem like cake. The entire top half of my body burned. They wheeled us into the recovery room and we were reunited with Andrea and the baby. Andrea helped the baby to latch to my breast and there we saw instinct and nature in her glory as the baby was a natural! I was glad that all of the medicine and surgury had not prevented her from learning to suck. Everyone was wiped out and it was time for us all to try to get some sleep.

I apologized to this new life in front of me for being so late in the chain of people to get to hold her. But finally, there she was, my daughter, live and sleepy. Ready or not. She joined us in an unexpected manner which was perhaps the best preparation for her that we could have. She's been full of unexpected surprises ever since and has already reminded me once again to accept that control is merely an illusion. I kissed her head and promised her to do my damndest to be a good mother and give her a good life.

And we're off..