OUT! Birth Story V

Some women give it a one, two, three... and out she comes! Other women, like me, have to do some "passive pushing" before actual pushing. So I spent an hour "bearing down" in various positions in an effort push the baby down before pushing her out.

I'm not the first woman to report that I like pushing. It sounds odd, because this is, of course, when some very sensitive spots have to spread wide enough to press a person through them. But with pushing comes relief.  Instead of trying to keep myself still, and to manage contractions, keeping each of them contained against the pressure, when pushing I was working with the pressure, rolling with it, directing it, moving it down down down and soon.. Out!

Joyce, the midwife kept encouraging me to change position. The bed had a "birthing bar" which arched over the middle of the mattress. One can grab on and squat while standing on the bed (which I did), but there were other ways to use it too. Joyce rigged up a sheet so that I could sit on the bed with one foot on Sheffield, one foot on my mom, and hold the ends of the sheet like horse reins. "The Cowgirl" was my favorite position. But I would tire, turn around and drape my arms over the raised head of the bed, or squat, or lie on my side.

(If you've been through it, or been told, you know that many a woman craps the bed at this stage. I felt that in order to get over the embarrassment of that possibility, I would just state the obvious: "Guys, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna shit on this bed." They cheered "do it!, go for it!" as if I had just said "Guys, I think I'm gonna run in this 80-yard touchdown." But I was empty, so no TD.)

Toward the end of this "passive pushing," I got on all fours. My mom and the midwife were happily chatting in the corner of the room, and Sheffield stood beside me, coaching. Despite my deep focus and efforts, I couldn't help but notice that beyond a drawn curtain, the door to my room opened.

I had a memory flash that Sheffield was instructed to ask any visitors who arrived during this stage to leave. To spare him the responsibility, and with full confidence that my request would be would be heeded, I open my mouth, mid-push, and emitted a deep, guttural voice I should reserve for Greek tragedies (Agave, Medea, that sort of thing...) and roared:

"GETOUT!"

From behind the curtain, a young (terrified) female nurses voice said, "OhmyGodI'msosorry, I didn't know she was pushing," and left.

My team applauded.
My mother said, "Ginna, was the "get out" to the nurse or to the baby?"
I was still pushing, so again in my Medea voice, I said:

"BOTH!"

Although I wasn't aware of the hours passing, time was wearing on my team. I looked over at my mother whose hands were folded under her chin and eyes were directed upward. The woman was clearly in prayer, and I thought to myself, "aw shit, I thought things were going pretty well..."  But I didn't feel I could spare the energy to worry about it, so I just kept at the work.

Have you ever tried trapeze?

(Nice segue, right?)

In flying trapeze class, which I've tried three or four times, one must stand with toes at the edge of a platform very high off the ground with only a net between flyer and a fall. One must hold her bar with one hand, press her hips way forward, and on cue, release her second hand from its stable grip, to grab the bar as well, and...

jump.

The prep is terrifying.
The flight is exhilarating.

This is a video of me in trapeze class a year ago.

In the Labor and Delivery room, I would eye the birthing bar arched over the bed much the same way I did the trapeze bar: I wanted my hands on that bar, but getting there seemed impossible. I could barely stand the pain just lying in bed, and in my mind, there was no longer any possibility of pain management.

The prep is terrifying.
The flight is exhilarating.

I am a beast. I am large and sweaty and heavy. My hair is matted. My clothes are... where are my clothes? Yet in all my awkward mammal-ness, in a brief hesitation between contractions, I flung myself at the bar, fearless, trusting.

Got there.
Great.
Pushed some more.
While in trapeze flight, one must also have the courage to then release the bar.
To fly, one must let go.

The prep is terrifying.
The flight is exhilarating.

Time to let go.  I was no longer pushing the baby down, but pushing with the intention to get her out. My team saw glimpses of the top of her head and cheered, guided, instructed: "Push! HOLD! Don't push! Pant!" I'm trying. I'm trying!  "Tighten and push with your stomach, but relax your legs"  This last cue I found almost impossible, even for all my yoga/fitness bravado.

Nurse Juliet would see the tension my face (something I spent years trying to identify and eliminate in actor training) and say in her Jamaican accent: "Don't push with your face, push with your bottom."
"Bottom," I thought, was a great word choice.
I dropped my jaw.
I pushed with my bottom.

During that last bit of pushing, I remind myself over and over in silent mantra: I'm going to get huge. My baby knows what to do.  This, I thought, would be my secret weapon against tearing or stalling. If I identified a fear, I talked right to it.

See, I'd read that sometimes delivery can stall, even at this stage, if the mother is harboring fear. It could be fear of tearing, or something else physical. Or it could be something deeper, more psychological. I'd had so many fears to face, even before conceiving. Had I addressed them all? Or would some stubborn anxiety stick in the way, and require a vacuum or forceps delivery?

"Mom?"
"Yes?," she said, "I'm here."
"Do you think I'll be a good mother?"
She laughed.
So did Sheffield.
But I think she cried a little too when she answered, "Yes Ginna, I think you'll be great."
Sheffield chimed in along the same lines.
They must have thought I was joking, but between you and me, reader, I meant it as simply as it sounds.

That was my fear.
Could I be caring, patient, protective to this little person...?
Could I be enough?
I needed to believe it to get this baby out.

I opted to take their word.

And in those final moments, I squeezed my eyes together and called on my sisters. Kelly, in Prague, told me later that she'd lit a candle and kept a silent, mindful vigil for me and her soon-to-be fellow Scorpio niece. Katie, deceased now nearly 20 years, would have fought tears and squeezed my hand or thigh had she been in the room.

They weren't with me.
But they were with me.

"Come on little girl," I coaxed the baby,
"Come on little girl, we can do this," I encouraged us both.
We'd have to be a team...

There was crowning.
There was a mirror.
There were no drugs.
Push, retract,
Panting, ranting, roaring like an animal.

The smooth round head makes it's way out of me. "Oh," I think, "That's what giving birth feels like."
Ladies, it's exactly what you think it will feel like.
Guys, I don't know what to tell you.

After the smoothness of the head, something lumpier and bumpier comes out, a jumble of body and limbs. I was vaguely aware of a gush of fluids, but there was no time to think on it... Before I could emotionally prepare to meet this little Froo I'd been with for 40 weeks +2 days, there she was on my belly.

It was like seeing a little cub. Her face at that instant, is still clear in my memory.
She was pink and normal-looking, not at all gooey or blue like some of the stories I'd been told.
On my belly, she wailed.
I put my hands on her.
Sheffield did too.
Our girl.
Our family.

The baby nursed on me right away (I have a whole other blog entry on the wonder of newborns and breasts...)  When asked her name, we answered Katherine/Katie/Kate, then we quoted Shakespeare, unplanned, in unison. But we explained that she was named less for the famous Shrew, and more for the sweet aunt Katie she'd probably met in a dimension beyond this one. Out of three finalists, we selected a middle name: Lulu.

At some point, Joyce the midwife revealed that the baby was born with her hand on her face.
Oh...

I'd heard of this.

I'd heard it made for difficult delivery.I'd heard...
Ohhhh, yes....!
I'd heard it slows down labor and delivery.
I overhear Joyce tell my mom that had it not been for Katie Lu's expressive gesture, I have birthed her six hours earlier.  Hmm, I thought. I don't need to think too much on that...

The babe, when still my little Fetus Froo Froo, almost always appeared with a hand on her face during ultrasounds.

See that arm up and hand on her forehead?

And from then 'til now at six weeks...

I guess we should've known, but no matter...

Her arm position, however, was probably the cause of the excess bleeding that streamed from me, alarming Sheffield a little. (I was oblivious, my eyes on the prize.) Soon Joyce was stitching me up (2 stitches in my vagina; perineum was intact, yay!!!), and when I noticed the discomfort, I simply turned my attention back to my beautiful baby cub.  Boy that oxytocin is something...

We cuddled her for a long while before they took her to be weighed.  Nurse Juliet had ended her shift, (though she returned briefly to witness the birth) and Nurse Leanne was with me next. She brought me dinner while they cleaned up, weighed, and checked out sweet Katie Lu.

Someone poured the champagne we bought. I'd actually hesitated over whether to bring it or not. It'd been in the back of our fridge for months, an opening-night gift, and not even mine (but I think Sheffield had forgotten that it was even there.) As we packed up that morning to go to the hospital, my mom saw it on the "to bring" list:
"Do we really want to bring that champagne?"
I paused.  Would I jinx us by assuming celebration?
"Fuck it," I said to my own mother, "just bring it."
And she did.
And someone had even thought to chill it when I was pushing.

I demolished the hospital food: roasted chicken, mashed potatoes and vegetables, washing it down with champagne. Later in our new baby/mama overnight room, I added to that, a meal retrieved by Sheffield. "What do you want?," he'd asked, and --like a marathon finisher, feeling entitled to just about any food the great city of New York had to offer-- I chose...

A burger, fries, and a Diet Coke.
Yep.
And I didn't put the baby down to eat it.
The moment was documented.

Sheffield fell asleep while I chatted with my friend and first visitor, Rob.  Bleary-eyed, Mom had gotten herself home via the subway. I was tired, yes, but I was so high.
I never really slept that night.
My new baby was in a transparent bassinet thing-y next to me at eye level.
I monitored her throughout the night.
I nursed.
I marveled.

The end...

Or you can check out some pictures here.