Birth Story Part 3: Transition and Delivery

Note: Our doula came by to visit yesterday and shared her notes from the birth with me... it turns out I have most of the times a little off. She said I was already at 5cm when she stopped by at 3:15. I can't remember the rest of the times she gave me so I need to get her to email them. For now I'm just leaving the rest of the story as I wrote it...

Transition was definitely fast and furious, though to me it seemed like an eternity. At that point the pain was pretty much continuous, as I felt the contractions come and go but between them I felt very crampy. During every single contraction I wanted to give up. I felt there was just no way I could make it through one more. But I also was just so in the thick of it that at that point it really didn’t even occur to me to ask for drugs or anything else, I was just swept up in the process. My moans had turned to deep, primal yells, and I briefly had the thought that I was probably scaring the bejesus out of every other laboring mother on the floor. The sounds I was making weren’t anything like screams of pain, they were just noises that I was instinctually making from somewhere deep inside. My “coaching team” was still doing an amazing job of keeping me going, telling me I was doing great, and they started telling me it was going to be over really soon.

At some point Dr. J came in and I remember M telling me she was in “regular clothes.” She was asking how soon they would need her, and I heard them discussing whether or not she had time to go to the grocery store. The nurse said she probably had enough time for that, but not much more. That gave me a boost because then I actually believed I was close to the end and they weren’t just telling me that to keep me going.

During transition I started having an urge to push so I was checked again and was close to 10 cm but had an anterior lip of cervix left so they told me to blow through my contractions and resist pushing – I couldn’t even do the grunting growling sounds that I wanted to do at that point. Blowing through that urge to push was absolutely terrible and they had to keep reminding me to do it because I could hardly focus anymore. Finally the nurse said that she thought maybe the lip of cervix wasn’t a big deal and I could do some practice pushing, and they got Dr. J in quickly. For my practice pushes they asked what position I wanted to be in and I said I’d try side-lying, but I didn’t even have enough energy for that… to my surprise I actually felt like I could get the most pushing action lying flat on my back, the one position I was sure I wouldn’t use.

There was a flurry of activity then as Dr. J came in wearing scrubs and a mask along with a baby nurse, the lights were turned on and the bed was turned into a delivery table (the bottom section removed and stirrups came out). I heard Dr. J ask twice if I was going to push in the all fours position, like I’d told her during my prenatal appointments, and they told her no, I was going to lie on my back, so they got me in the stirrups. M and the baby nurse were at my left leg and the doula and nurse were on my right leg.

After the strong urges to push I’d had at the end of transitional labor, I was sure that pushing was going to be easy and that it would “feel good” like I’d heard. That was far from the case! It was incredibly difficult, took a huge amount of mental concentration and physical effort, and it hurt like hell. I could just manage to say “okay” at the beginning of each contraction so everyone knew I was going to push, and then I’d go for it. M, my doula and my nurse were all cheering me on and telling me I was doing great, while the baby nurse was like a drill sergeant ordering me to hold my legs back (I didn’t have the strength) and telling me things like, “it’s your choice!” “It’s up to you!” I wanted to cover my eyes because the lights were breaking my focus, but she wouldn’t let me.

I briefly felt the infamous “ring of fire,” but it was like a faraway sensation amidst a much bigger world of pain. The contractions still hurt like crazy and most of all I felt Dr. J stretching my perineum, which was incredibly painful and terrible – at one point I yelped in pain from that – and also I still felt strong cramps between the contractions. Every time I pushed I felt like nothing was happening and I couldn’t do it, and I just didn’t know how to push a baby out of me. I couldn’t really believe that it was going to happen. But I just kept going.

Suddenly I heard M exclaim, “There he is, oh my god!” and start crying. I looked down and saw in total disbelief that the baby was born! I started laughing and crying at the same time. They put him on my chest immediately, rubbing him down a little and leaving the blanket over us. He stopped crying and just stared at me, searching my face. It was the most amazing feeling of meeting a brand new person… he had his own little face and just looked like Miles, like he was a small but whole person already.

After a little while they took him to the other side of the room to clean him up and weigh him and I told M he could go over there to be with him. They told us the time of birth was 5:56 – I had been in labor for about seven hours total, only four hours from the start of the Pitocin. His weight was 7 lbs 3 oz, perfectly average, but he had big feet that went off the page when they stamped his footprints. As I lay there getting worked over and M attended to the baby with the baby nurse, I felt like all was right with the world. I asked Dr. J if the placenta was already out, and she said yes – I hadn’t even noticed it being delivered. She said she had to give me a local anesthetic and stitch me up, and said to the nurse that I had a second degree tear, but none of that was bothering me at that point.

When Miles was cleaned up they put him back on my chest in a blanket and I got the opportunity to nurse a bit. I of course had no idea what I was doing but the nurse got him to latch on seemingly by magic and he nursed for a little while with me. M was calling our families and let me talk to my parents and brother briefly. We had two hours to recover before moving to our room, so before we moved I used the bathroom and took a quick shower, since I was a mess and the baby had also pooped all over me right after he was born. I felt absolutely amazing after a shower, and off we went to rest and enjoy our baby!