or, “A Labor of Love”
[Author’s Note #1: This story revolves around an actual birth and is therefore both totally beautiful and totally disgusting. With that said, read at your own peril.]
[Author’s Note #2: This story is also very, very long. The Birth of Borealis: The Executive Summary is a much shorter post that summarizes the content of The Birth of Borealis: Parts I – IV. However, that post also contains less detail, less dialogue, and less humor than the originals. Make your choice accordingly.]
Ok, so I have to start out by saying that I don’t like this story. The exposition makes me squirm; the climax makes me cry; and the denouement is so cringeworthy that it’s actually not even included in this retelling.
[Author’s Note: Just kidding. I ended up covering the denouement in Part IV.]
And yet, this tale reigns supremely as my most-told story of all time.
Why? you might ask. Why, if this story makes you so uncomfortable, do you tell it so often?
The answer is twofold. Firstly, God used this story to remind me that *He* is the one in control. Secondly, it is difficult to truly grasp the relationship that my son and I share without knowing how it all began.
Prologue: February 13th
On February 13, 2018, after 38 weeks and 2 days of pregnancy, I had my first contraction.
Well, my first real contraction. I had been experiencing painless Braxton-Hicks “practice contractions” for weeks, but this was the first one that actually hurt.
As usual, I blame my husband. Taylor and I had been laying in bed and talking — no, that’s not descriptive enough. We weren’t really talking as much as we were communing (“to converse or talk together, usually with profound intensity, intimacy, etc.”). It was the kind of heart-to-heart that made me fall for Taylor in the first place — one full of hope, joy, and love. And as Valentine’s Day loomed only hours away, our little chat must have released a gush of love-y hormones into my bloodstream.
Unfortunately, it seemed that one of those hormones was oxytocin — a hormone responsible for uterine contractions (i.e. going into labor). It was kind of cute at first.
“Oh my gosh! Babe! I just had my first contraction!”
But it got old quick.
The seizing sensations weren’t regular, and they weren’t much more intense than a regular menstrual cramp. There seemed no point in calling the birth center — the midwife on call would surely just tell me to get some rest in preparation for true labor.
And so, I did.
Act I: February 14th
My contractions woke me a few times during the night, but Valentine’s Day dawned with no baby on the horizon. However, there was some discharge in my panties that hadn’t been there the previous evening. But, my contractions were still irregular — so not much urgency, yet. We discussed our plans over breakfast.
“Do you think I should call the birth center? I think Zelda‘s on call right now. She would probably be able to test the discharge, right?” I asked Taylor as I finished preparing his food.
“Um… It wouldn’t hurt to ask, right?” Taylor hedged. I handed him a plate of fried eggs and toast, then ground the morning’s coffee. The remaining beans rattled ominously in their nearly-empty canister.
I looked up from our French press and decided, “Ok, I’ll call and see if they have an early appointment. You said that today, you’ll be able to finish up everything you need to, right?”
Taylor posited, “I think so. And, if I need to leave early, I will. Just keep me updated?”
“Oh, for sure,” I replied, not entirely certain I was telling the truth.
My husband continued, “Remember also that we’re supposed to go the pediatricians this afternoon for our meet and greet. Do you think we’ll still be able to make it?”
I massaged my massive belly. The baby hadn’t dropped yet, and my last contraction had been thirty minutes previously. “Yeah, I think so,” I guessed. “I’ll plan on getting you at 3:30?”
“Sure babe.” Taylor kissed my forehead and slung on his backpack. “I gotta go. I’ll see you this afternoon!”
After he left, I called the birth center. Zelda was indeed on call, although she sounded distinctly troll-like when she picked up the phone.
“Hello?” was her gravelly greeting.
“Hi Zelda — oh, sorry, did I wake you?”
“No!” she declared unconvincingly.
“Ok great,” I barreled on. “So I started having contractions last night, and they were probably thirty minutes apart during the whole night, and maybe about twenty seconds each, and then this morning I noticed some discharge, and it doesn’t seem like enough to be my amniotic fluid — unless it’s only a small hole, and it’s trickling out — but anyway, I know it’s not my amniotic fluid, but could I possibly come in and get it tested, just in case it is?”
There was a pause on the other end. “Zelda?” I prompted.
“Sorry,” she yawned. “Ok, could you make it in for a nine o’clock appointment?”
I glanced at the clock. 7:50am. “Yes, for sure,” I answered. “I’ll see you soon!”
After all, my only job at this point was to birth a baby. I had all the time in the world.
I left immediately and drove down to Pangea Coffee Roasters.
“Hi, I need the sampler box of coffee beans, and also I’m in labor,” I greeted the barista.
She noticeably blanched. “Um… do you need any of these ground?”
“Nope!” I chirped, then pranced (as much as a very pregnant woman can prance) back out to my car.
I made it to the birth center just in time for my appointment. I had had several contractions since leaving home, but nothing serious enough to impair my [already-bad] driving. Zelda greeted me and led me back to the exam room.
“First of all,” she started, “I am so excited for you to have this granola baby. I bet he pops right out and immediately asks for kombucha.”
Zelda was sounding much more like her typical sardonic self, and I was glad that my early call hadn’t thrown off her day too significantly. Laughing, I declared, “Zelda! We are not granola! You’re the only person who thinks that!”
My favorite midwife affixed me with a mock glare. “Holly. You’re having a natural birth with midwives. Your husband’s hair is practically longer than mine. You’re planning on super artsy birth photos. And need I remind you of your son’s name!?”
I threw a hand over my heart. “Zelda! You cut me so deep!”
She laughed and then got down to business. “Ok, I’m going to take a sample of your cervical fluid and check your dilation at the same time,” she informed me.
I squirmed on the exam table. “Um… do you have to? Or could I leave my underwear on at least?”
Zelda sighed. “Holly! I thought we already established that you can’t give birth with panties on!”
“I know!” I affirmed. “I won’t wear panties. Just, a long dress so that no one can see that I’m not wearing panties.”
“And makeup, and French-braided hair, et cetera, et cetera. I remember. And we’ll see how many of those plans you decide to stick to once you’re actually in active labor.”
I didn’t bother arguing. With flaming cheeks, I pulled off my underwear and lay back on the exam table. Zelda grabbed a speculum and inserted it, well, where a speculum goes.
After about a minute of hmms and hrms, I finally snapped, “What is going on down there?”
Zelda sighed. “Your cervix is hard to find,” she explained.
“Hopefully not for the baby,” I interjected.
“Haha! Hopefully. Anyway, there’s enough discharge to make everything moist and kinda homogeneous. I’m going to make the speculum a bit wider, ok?”
Without waiting for my answer, Zelda expanded the viewing diameter of the instrument. Unbidden tears streamed down my face, and I started to gasp in pain.
Zelda looked up. “Oh shoot, I’m sorry that hurts. I just need another second or two.”
I continued to cry silently as Zelda returned to her inspection. After about a minute, she said, “Ok, well, the good news is that I found your cervix. But, it looks like it’s only about one or two centimeters dilated. Let me get a quick swab and then we can finish up.”
A few seconds later, I felt an odd stirring in my nether regions, and then the pressure let up all at once.
“Oh thank goodness,” I breathed out. “How am I going to be able to push a baby through there?”
“It’ll happen!” Zelda glibly assured me. “I’m going to go test this, and then I’ll be right back.”
A few minutes and a short contraction passed before my midwife reappeared. “No amniotic fluid,” she told me straightaway.
I groaned.
“Yeah, I’m sorry about that. I know you were hoping to get this underway.” Zelda took off and tossed her gloves. “Ok, so one way that you’ll know when your water actually breaks is that your contractions will take on a whole new sensation. Like, they’ll change markedly in character.”
I thought for a second. “Oh, well, they didn’t, so… yeah. What do you think the discharge was then?”
“I would guess that it’s just the fluid that seeps out with the passing of your plug. Have you seen your plug yet?”
More talk that made me uncomfortable. I briefly wished for a weighted blanket beneath which to hide. “Um, no, no sign of that yet,” I mumbled.
Zelda didn’t seem concerned. “Ah, well, these things happen in their own time,” she confided. “Let’s check the baby’s position, and then we can get you on your way.”
I lay back down — clothed this time, thankfully — and Zelda pressed cold hands onto my belly. Then she rocked back on her feet and said, “So, I do have some homework for you. The baby is occiput posterior.” Noting my blank stare, she clarified, “Sunny-side up. His face is facing your belly button.”
“And it’s supposed to be facing my back?” I guessed.
Zelda helped me sit back up. “Well, yes and no. Occiput posterior is a totally normal birth presentation, but it is associated with longer labor and more back pain. It would be good for you to try and shift the baby to occiput anterior, if possible. He’ll have an easier time engaging into your cervix then.”
I groaned. “Zelda. Don’t give me more work! Is it possible the baby will shift himself?”
“Well, yes, but you could definitely try to help it along. I’ll text you a link to the exercises. You should do them!”
“We’ll see,” I growled.
Immune to my malice, Zelda soldiered on. “Although, you’re in a labor pattern that’s sustainable for days, if not weeks. So even if the baby does turn around, that doesn’t mean you’ll have him right away, regardless.”
“Grrrr,” I growled again.
“Go home, relax, do the exercises I’ll send you, and hopefully I’ll be seeing you again soon!” Zelda pronounced.
And with that, I left the birth center and drove back to Golden.
The TV show 30 Rock introduced a concept called “Reaganing” (after, of course, Ronald Reagan). Someone is “Reaganing” if they succeed in every task set before them, for an entire day. And while I don’t think I actually achieved “Reaganing status” on Valentine’s Day 2018, I came pretty darn close.
Despite Zelda’s warning that the baby’s arrival was not necessarily imminent, I was pretty sure that this period of labor would eventually lead to our son’s arrival. Accordingly, I set about doing everything that needed to happen before I went into true labor.
Most of the day, my contractions were around thirty seconds long, about 10-15 minutes apart. This meant that I could accomplish virtually any household chore, in 10-15 minute increments. So, between 10am and 3:30pm, I cleaned out the bunny’s cage, vacuumed the rugs, swept the hardwood floors, and put up all the dishes — pausing every now and again for around thirty seconds.
As I was wiping down the counters, my housemate Samara walked into the kitchen. She and her fiancé, Trent, had both graduated two months beforehand. However, since Trent’s job was only a thirty-minute commute from our house, it made sense for them to continue living in Golden. Our other housemate, Leroy, wouldn’t be graduating until May, after which point he would be moving to Ohio.
“Hey! I’m in labor,” I announced subtly.
My housemate nodded pensively. If I had been hoping for an effusive, bubbly reaction… well, then I wouldn’t have sought it from Samara. Everything she does tends to be methodical and staid. “Do you think you’ll have the baby tonight?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I sighed. “It seems kinda unlikely. My contractions are way too far apart still, although they are getting longer and stronger.”
Samara nodded again, then asked, “So what is labor like then?”
“Um… honestly, so far, it’s just like a really bad menstrual cramp. Like the sensation is all concentrated in my abdomen. It’s not, you know, a full-body sensation — at least, not yet. It’s like a giant hand is squeezing my uterus really hard.”
“Yikes! Good thing I’ll have an epidural whenever I have a baby!” Samara laughed. I rolled my eyes.
“Anyway,” she said, “I have some errands to run, but let me know if you need anything, ok?”
“Uhhhggghh!” I grunted through a contraction.
Samara patted my back and then left the house. Glancing at the clock, I realized that I needed to do likewise, or else risk being late to our date with the pediatrician.
After all, what’s more important during labor than getting to know your kid’s future doctor?
Taylor stood on the edge of a curb under a dreary gray sky. I careened to a stop beside him and smirked as he tried to cram his 6’5” bulk into the passenger seat.
“Gosh, how would anyone fit in this seat?” he complained. He shot a malevolent glare at the bulky carseat behind his chair, then finally contorted himself into the spatially-restricted front seat — at which point, I burst into helpless giggles. Taylor’s knees were tucked up so high that his feet weren’t even touching the floor. His full lips pouted even more than usual, and he growled, “Alright, let’s go.” I laughed even harder.
Amazingly, I drove us to the pediatrician’s office without incident. We paused for a contraction during the short walk from my car to the building, then went to wait in the “Well Room” until we were joined by Dr. Ann.
To my delight [sarcasm], Dr. Ann’s speech was clipped, ambiguous, and condescending. She didn’t seem to hear my comment that both Taylor and I were chemical engineers. Either that, or she heard and yet was unable to derail from her rote and very dumbed-down presentation about a child’s first year of life.
“Yes, I know how a vaccine works,” I muttered ungraciously, before clapping a hand to my seizing belly.
“Aw, is he kicking?” Dr. Ann asked with forced sweetness.
“No, I’m having a labor contraction,” I responded coolly.
“Oh, that’s not good!” the doctor gasped. “Or, I mean, that is good! It’s perfectly natural. Um, well, I hope your labor goes well…?” Our future pediatrician was hilariously flustered, and I wondered if she had any kids of her own. She didn’t seem to be the maternal type.
Dr. Ann took a second to gather herself, then stated in a much more level tone, “Well, I suppose we’ll be seeing you back here in a day or two then!”
“Afraid not,” I responded as Taylor and I rose to leave, “since the midwives at my birth center will be taking care of the twenty-four-hour check-up instead. We’ll see you eventually, though!”
Dr. Ann had nothing to say to that. She rose and gave each of us a perfunctory handshake. As usual, Taylor had been conspicuously silent for the entire visit.
As my husband tried to fit himself back into the passenger seat, I said, “Look, I know that you didn’t like her. We’ll just ask to have the pediatric nurse see us instead.”
Taylor: <grunts in acquiescence>
We drove back to Taylor’s work (again, shockingly, without incident). He stepped [read: tumbled] out of the car and then leaned way over to peer back in at me.
“So you think this is it, then?” he asked. “True labor?”
I rubbed my belly again and sighed. “Yeah, I think so,” I decided. “I‘m pretty sure it’ll be this labor pattern that give us a baby!” I met Taylor’s gaze with a watery smile.
He breathed out in a huff. “Yeah, I think so too,” he agreed. “So, you know, it’s nice that we’ve had such a heads-up! Like, we’re able to fully prepare for his arrival.”
I nodded and grimaced through a contraction.
Taylor winced in sympathy, then started, “So, I still have some work that I have to finish up….” He trailed off. My husband is the king of beating around the bush.
“Yes?” I demanded expectantly.
“I mean, if you need me to come home right now — like if you think the baby’s arrival is imminent — then I can leave now! But, well….”
I sighed. If I didn’t say something, we would be here all night. “You can stay as long as you need,” I relented. “I’d prefer that you wrap everything up so that you’re not, like, answering emails while I’m in transition.”
Taylor let out a relieved breath. “Ok, great! I’m hoping to be home maybe by six?”
“I’m sure that’s the case,” I grumbled. Taylor’s time estimates are never accurate. “Love you!”
“Love you too, babe!”
And with that, I drove home.
Dear reader, you probably know that I’m a bad driver. This personal fact is highlighted in numerous stories, including Z is for Zoo, If You Give a Kid a [Quinoa-Spinach-Apple] Meatball…, and, of course, The Story That Started It All.
I‘m a bad driver all the time, but I’m an especially bad driver when it’s snowing or raining, when I’m driving on the interstate, when it’s nighttime… oh yeah, and when I’m in labor.
My contractions were coming more and more frequently at this point, and regularly enough that I experienced several on the short drive back to Golden. If you’re wondering what it was like for me to drive during an early labor contraction: Imagine trying to operate a manual-transmission vehicle after two or three drinks while also attempting to curl into the fetal position, and that’s basically it. [Note: Obviously I wasn’t drinking and driving. Just, my sober driving is still a little drunk.]
Prayers and empty roads saw me home safely, and I strutted [read: slinked/scuttled] back into my house on a mission. Earlier in the day, I had cleaned up the rest of the house; now, I needed to tackle my bedroom.
But first, a bit of background. Our house is a four bedroom, two bathroom 1940s rancher that is short on style but long on history. Taylor, two of his groomsmen, and one of their other friends lived in this house during their sophomore through senior years. After they all graduated in 2015, Taylor remained in the house while the three others vacated rooms that were quickly filled by Leroy, Samara, and me. Taylor and I were married shortly thereafter, and promptly combined our possessions into a single bedroom. My original room became the temporary home of several sub-letters before Samara and Trent got engaged, at which point he moved into the small, stuffy bedroom in which I had once lived.
As things stood in February 2018, the three upstairs rooms were occupied by: 1) Trent, 2) Leroy, and 3) Taylor, Mache, myself, and my baby bump. Samara lived in the basement. And that accounted for all of the usable rooms in the house (since most of the basement is unfinished storage space).
So while I might have browsed the Pinterest boards for “polar bear nursery” and “modern crib styles”, my digital dreams were doomed to a prolonged incubation within my mind. The baby’s nursery, for the time being, would exist only as a subset of our bedroom.
The only problem was, our bedroom didn’t know it yet.
You see, we had really been banking on the likelihood that the baby would arrive on or after his due date — February 26th. So when I officially crossed over into early labor the afternoon of February 14th, our room still looked a bit too much like a college dorm.
I would like to say that it wasn’t our fault, although there’s really no one else whose fault it could’ve been. I guess I can kinda blame the situation, though. Preparing for the arrival of our first child without a room in which to put his future belongings meant that most of the gifts we received and clothes we purchased (secondhand, obviously) went into a variety of boxes and storage bins. Most of these containers lived in our basement, but a good many of them were still loitering in our room the afternoon of Valentine’s Day.
Which brings us back to the story. When I got home from dropping Taylor off, I finally tackled the specter of my bedroom.
I had had grand aspirations of actually sorting through everything residing in those boxes. But for my early-onset labor, I might have actually done so. As things happened, however, my grand aspirations were not to be. Instead, my big achievement here was clearing out the bassinet of everything but my “labor bag” and consolidating all of our to-be-sorted pile into two large storage bins, which I was then unable to move.
I found Trent typing at the dining room table. “Hey, Trent, would you be able to help me move these storage bins into the basement? I don’t feel like I could safely carry them down the stairs.”
“Ummm yeah, but can it wait until six? I have an assignment due for that teaching class I’m taking.”
I glanced at the clock. 5:15pm. “Sure, whenever works for you,” I gritted out through a contraction. Trent went back to typing.
After huffing and puffing for almost a minute, I was able to begin on my final task of the day: washing Mache (sounds like “McKee”), my seventy-pound Colorado Mountain Dog.
Mache is a beautiful creature who looks like a cross between the white, furry dragon from Spirited Away and the white, furry dragon from The Never-Ending Story. She is featured in a number of stories, most notably When Fur Babies Get Supplanted and If You Give a Kid a [Quinoa-Spinach-Apple] Meatball…. But at this point, I wasn’t really concerned with how pretty she was (although, indeed, she is gorgeous after a bath). I just wanted her to be clean when she met her new baby brother.
Thankfully, Mache is the poster puppy for easy dog baths — more or less. She hops into the tub at the command word, “Bath-time!”, and then looks up at me with big, sad eyes until I turn off the shower. The biggest issue in our normal baths is that her fur is so dang thick. Working up a uniform lather — and then rinsing out that lather — is a time- and energy-intensive process.
Labor added a new and unwanted element to our bath-time routine. Every few minutes, I would have to pause for a minute of heavy breathing. Mache, thinking this was the signal that her bath was over, would start to step out of the tub, leaving me to gasp, “Mache! No! Stay! Bath-time!”
Eventually, though, most of the suds were out of Mache’s ivory coat, and I gasped and moaned through towel-drying her fur. I let her out into the house and followed behind at a more sedate pace.
Samara was back in the kitchen. Before she could say anything, I blurted out, “Will you help me carry some storage bins down? I can’t do it on my own and I don’t know when Taylor will be home.”
“Sure!” she obliged. She magnanimously made the two necessary trips downstairs, and with that, I was ready to give myself over to labor.
I journaled a bit for the baby, exhorting him to come quickly and safely. I wanted to go to our birth center before the night was up — but not, like, before Taylor got home. I was definitely not safe to drive myself.
My husband finally returned around 6:30pm. The first thing he said was, “I’m sorry it took so long! But, I got everything wrapped up! So I’m ok to be out of the office for the next, well, however long it takes.”
I growled in acknowledgement.
The second thing Taylor said was, “Ok, let’s time these contractions.”
So, the good news was that I was definitely in “early labor”. My contractions were getting longer, stronger, and closer together, which meant that overall, I was moving in the right direction.
The bad news was that I wasn’t moving in the right direction very quickly. The baby definitely wouldn’t be arriving before midnight.
Dear reader, before we proceed any further in this story, we need to discuss labor. [Note: Trust me. This birth story makes no sense without a basic understanding of the birthing process.]
First things first: labor typically starts with a contraction — not with the rupture of the amniotic sac. [Apparently, the scene that we’ve all seen on TV (“My water broke! I’ve just gone into labor! The baby is imminent!”) is only the norm for about 10% of non-induced labors.]
Anyway, moving on. Childbirth is divided into three stages: 1) from first contraction to 10 cm dilated; 2) from 10 cm dilated to delivery of the baby; and 3) delivery of the placenta. The first stage is subsequently divided into three phases: early labor, active labor, and transition. Here is a “quick” primer on these three phases…
- “Early labor” is the period of time during which the cervix (the muscular connection between the uterus and vagina) dilates (expands in diameter) to about 3 cm. This phase is characterized by regular, [relatively] low-intensity contractions that are at most a minute long and are greater than five minutes apart.
- “Active labor” is the cervix’s dilation to about 8 cm. Qualitatively, this stage is more challenging than early labor but less challenging than transition. Quantitatively, active labor is often demarcated by intense contractions that are about a minute long and are five minutes apart. If this pattern holds for at least an hour, then the labor is characterized as “5-1-1” (five minutes apart, one minute contractions, for one hour). 5-1-1 is the heuristic for many, many hospitals — that is, women are told not to come to the hospital until they enter that labor pattern.
- “Transition” is usually the most challenging segment of childbirth, but it is also typically the shortest. This phase consists of the final dilation of the cervix to 10 cm, and it’s often characterized by double-peaked contractions (i.e. contractions that start to decrease in intensity, then suddenly get worse again). This is the point when [virtually] every woman says, “I can’t do it! I give up!” [To which every husband/doula/midwife/etc. is supposed to respond, “You’re amazing and you can do it!”]
… And a brief discussion of the second and third stages of childbirth as well.
- “Pushing” (delivery of the baby) is usually easier than transition but harder than active labor. This stage can last anywhere from minutes to hours. (I heard somewhere that a first-time mom pushes — on average — for three hours before the baby arrives.)
- “Delivery of the placenta” is almost always the easiest part of childbirth. The placenta is typically born a few dozen seconds to a few dozen minutes after its baby.
Ok, so back to my labor. When Taylor got home, my contractions were about 45-60 seconds long, around 7.5 minutes apart… and they stayed that way. For hours.
Before bed, I called the birth center answering service and asked for Zelda.
“Hello?” she chirped.
“Wow, you’re much more awake now than you were this morning,” I commented.
“Yeah, being a midwife has turned me nocturnal. What’s up?”
I filled her in on my current labor pattern, concluding with, “So… I guess I won’t be having a Valentine’s Day baby after all.”
“You never know,” Zelda admonished. “Sometimes things kick into gear with no warning.”
“Really? You think I’m going to go from early labor to baby in the next three hours?”
“Probably not,” Zelda admitted. “But you may be in here before I go off-duty at 7am! Anika is on call after that, I believe. And in the meantime, I think you should take a bath and try to sleep, if you can. If your body is ready to go into active labor, then the bath will accelerate things. And if not… well, then a bath will likely slow down your contractions. Either way, it will be an indicator of where you are in your labor.”
“Ugh,” I groaned. “Are you serious? A bath could undo my progress so far?”
Zelda laughed. “Not all of it! But you know, you may not be able to progress in your labor until you spin that baby around. Here, I’ll text you a website with some good techniques for that.”
“Fine,” I sighed. “I’ll take a bath and read your black magic cures to speeding up labor. Hopefully I’ll see you before seven!” I rang off and trundled into the bathroom, where Taylor was already drawing me a bath.
“Do you think Leroy will mind if I steal some of his epsom salt?” I mused.
Taylor thought for a second, then decided, “Nah, I don’t think he’ll even notice.”
[Note: I did eventually own up to stealing the epsom salt, but for the life of me, I don’t remember if we replaced it or not.]
“Here goes!” I exclaimed as I stepped into the tub. “Hopefully the baby practically races out of me!”
Alas, he did not. Instead, my contractions slowed down to almost ten minutes apart, and even after the bath, they didn’t speed back up.
“Worse Valentine’s Day ever,” I muttered as we got into bed.
“Not true!” Taylor countered. “There was that one where you thought I was going to propose, but I didn’t.”
“Oh yeah!” I remembered. “And you hadn’t made a reservation, so we stayed home and watched The Walking Dead, and it was the episode where Tyreese was like, dying alone the whole time, and so I just cried and cried. Good times and thanks for the reminder!”
Taylor: <grunts sleepily>
“Ok, fine. So I guess this isn’t the worst Valentine’s Day,” I admitted.
But by that point, Taylor was asleep. And until 8am the next morning, he would stay that way.
Act II: February 15th
The same thing could not be said about me.
That night was not the first night that the baby had interrupted my beauty rest, but it certainly was the worst [so far]. My sleep lasted from 10pm to 8am, but it was interrupted every ten minutes by gut-twisting pressure. So about five dozen times that night, I woke up for a minute-long interval of loud mouth-breathing that somehow did not disturb my husband.
As the sun peeked in through the curtains, Taylor rolled over and cuddled my stiff body.
“Mmmmm,” he murmured into my ear. “No baby?”
“No, obviously not,” I snapped, gesturing to the massive mound of my belly.
“Are you still having contractions?”
“Yes, for the whole fricking night, but I’m so glad that one of us slept well,” I grumbled.
“Wifey,” Taylor admonished. “Be nice.”
“You’re right,” I sighed. “I’m just tired. I want this baby earth-side already!”
Taylor cuddled closer. “I know, babe. Let’s go get you some breakfast, if you can eat.”
I could eat, but not much. Instead, the majority of my consumption that day was water. The reason for this was twofold: 1) compared to food, water is easier to keep down and less unpleasant to *not* keep down, and 2) dehydration can cause non-productive uterine cramping — an undesirable event that sometimes manifests itself as contractions that run into each other (i.e. cramping with no breaks in between).
So there we were on the couch: me sipping water, and Taylor playing Breath of the Wild. Every eight minutes or so, I would experience some wild breaths of my own. However, the overall character of the contractions was no different from the ones I had experienced the previous night. So, around 10am, I decided that we should finally do something about it.
“Ok, it’s witchcraft time,” I relented, opening Zelda’s text. She had sent me the link for Spinning Babies, which, in truth, is an excellent resource for promoting ideal birth positioning. Their discussions and techniques are backed by tons of research, with just a little black magic thrown in for good measure. Zelda had also recommended three specific exercises for me to do.
Which is how I found myself kneeling with my forearms on the couch, mid-contraction, as Taylor “rebozo sifted” me from behind. The link does a much better job than I could at articulating this technique, but it’s descriptive enough to say that Taylor essentially supported my midsection with a large scarf, which he then shimmied back and forth across my belly. I don’t know. Supposedly it helps relax the uterine muscles and allow for the baby to shift during labor — or something. And really, since I’m not a midwife, I had no idea whether or not the exercise was effective.
What I do know, however, is that about midway through one of these sifting sessions, Samara came upstairs, cut up an apple, and sat down to eat it in the dining room (which adjoins the living room). She methodically munched through her apple and peanut butter as I puffed and groaned, and amazingly, she did not look up from her phone once. I stifled a maniacal giggle as I imagined her texting her mom. Ugh, my housemate’s having a baby in the living room. So inconsiderate. Once Samara disappeared, Taylor and I decided that perhaps our bedroom would be a better venue for the rest of these activities.
Over the next half hour, we did “side-lying release” and “forward-leaning inversion”. While each technique — neither of which bears description here — is highly lauded for its efficacy, neither seemed to spin my stubborn baby. I followed up these uncomfortable exercises with a prolonged period of leaning forward while sitting criss-cross-applesauce. [Note: Apparently, the proper term for “criss-cross-applesauce” is “tailor style”. Way less fun.]
This technique, finally, seemed to have some effect. I felt the baby squirm within my belly for a number of minutes, and I was optimistic that Zelda’s hooey had done some good after all. At the end of this time, however, I felt for the smooth expanse of the baby’s back, expecting to find it smack-dab down the frontline of my body. But, it wasn’t there. I was pissed.
I called the birth center, and Anika answered.
“Anika!” I shouted — because, you know, I don’t understand how phones work.
“Holly,” she answered calmly. “How is your labor going?”
“Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuggggggh,” I moaned. The sound lasted about thirty seconds, during which time Anika patiently waited on the other end. “So we just did rebozo sifting and side-lying release and front-falling lean — or forward-leaning something — inversion! — but yeah, so we did all the right things for a posterior baby, but he hasn’t spun around yet!”
Anika took a second to respond. “How do you know that he hasn’t flipped orientations?”
“Well, I mean, I guess I don’t know, but I did the sitting-forward thing, and he moved around a ton, but I still don’t feel his back. Like, my belly still feels kinda hollow, like when Zelda checked it out yesterday morning.”
“Indeed,” Anika mused. “Yes, I read Zelda’s notes this morning when I got on call, and to be frank, I was shocked to see that the last entry was, ‘Advised a bath and sleep.’ I think she was probably really surprised that she didn’t see you last night.”
“Yeah, and she wasn’t the only one,” I rejoined mirthlessly. “Just working on day two of labor, nbd.” [Author’s Note: I write “nbd” rather than “no big deal” because that is, unfortunately, how I actually say it: “en-bee-dee”. As if the full words are too much work.]
For once, Anika’s impersonal professionalism flagged. “So, I don’t have a crystal ball, but I would be — *quite* shocked — if I did not see you before my shift ends.”
“Really? Like I can tell my family that it’ll be tonight?”
Some of the midwife’s austerity returned. “That is my best guess from my understanding of the situation, but it is just that — a guess. I cannot guarantee you’ll have your baby tonight. But, in the meantime, please do your best not to worry about the baby’s position. Sit forward as much as you can, but don’t obsess. And, in the gentlest way possible, please let me remind you that for all your intellectual acuity, you are not a trained midwife and therefore may not be accurately assessing the baby’s position at all.”
“Ok,” I relented. “So… what? Just keep doing the do?”
“Exactly,” Anika affirmed. “So, besides frustrated, how do you feel?”
I shifted around on the bed to assess my condition. As ever, my husband sat silently beside me. “Um… I guess good, all things considered. My contractions are still pretty manageable. I’ve been taking them on hands and knees, and Doula Taylor over here has been doing some rad counter-pressure.” [Note: The counter-pressure did almost nothing for me, but it is a useful tool for a lot of women! Here is a good resource on counter-pressure during labor.] “Oh, and it feels like there’s a bowling ball in my pelvis. I’m thinking that the feeling might be, you know, the baby’s head, but obviously, I don’t want to get my hopes up.”
“No, that feeling is probably what you think it is, which is good. It means the baby’s head is engaging into the birth canal, which might mean that he’s spun around to a more suitable birth position. Additionally, kneeling is one of the best positions for spinning a posterior baby, so you’re doing good there as well.”
“Thanks Anika. Ok, I’ll let you know if anything changes. We’re still at about seven minutes in between contractions.”
“Just keep on keeping on. Here, let me give you my personal number so that you don’t have to ring through the answering service. The only reason I wouldn’t respond immediately is if I’m with another client. I’m planning on taking a quick nap when I get off — so, around 7pm — so that I’ll be alert and fresh for when you’re ready to come in!”
“If only I could be alert and fresh too,” I responded drolly.
Anika laughed, then gave me her number and rang off.
Afterwards, I called my mother to give her the update.
I opened with, “Hey, the midwife on call thinks that the baby’ll be born tonight.”
“Great!” my mom enthused. “I’ll book a hotel room so that we’ll be close to the birth center. I don’t want to have to drive up from Colorado Springs in the middle of the night.”
“Sweet. That totally makes sense. Oh, and… Can you possibly handle getting Aunt Frannie here?” Aunt Francis is the older sister of Taylor’s late mother, and we had asked her to fly out from Minnesota for the baby’s birth (assuming the timing worked out). We wanted her both to represent Taylor’s family and to photograph the birth — hopefully in the super-artsy way of which Zelda had accused me. With loose confirmation that the baby was indeed on his way, Aunt Frannie could stop waiting anxiously in Minneapolis and instead confidently hop on a flight to Denver.
As ever, my mother was super accommodating. “Of course. I’ll look at the flights and let you know.”
“Thank you!” I gushed. “I’m really in no condition to be making travel plans for anyone right now.”
“Sure, sweetie. We’ll see you tonight.”
And with that, Taylor and I settled into a long day of labor.
My contractions started to kick up in intensity and duration around noon, but they still lagged about seven minutes apart.
“At what point do you think we can call this ‘late-stage early labor’?” I asked Taylor after a particularly difficult one.
“Ummmm…” he stalled. “Maybe when they’re only six minutes apart?”
What he was saying was, Not yet.
“Some doula you are,” I muttered.
I was surprised by the range of contractions that fell within “early labor”. The previous afternoon, I had stoically huffed and puffed through each episode with no change of position; now, I rocked back and forth on hands and knees and, occasionally, bleated like a frightened sheep.
I cringed any time my coping noises rose above a normal speaking register. The walls in our rickety old house are paper thin, and I was certain that Samara could hear every owwww and baaaa emanating from my bedroom. I didn’t want to put a damper on my housemates’ days, so I tried to keep the groaning to a minimum. I expressed my concerns to Taylor.
“Don’t worry about it, babe,” he assured me. “We’ll be going to the birth center any hour now, and then you won’t have to worry about bothering anyone. We’ll literally be paying for the right to bother them as much as you want. Plus, I think only Samara is home right now.”
”I’m not sure that makes me feel any better,” I grumbled into my pillow.
Taylor grabbed his phone and started typing. “I’m texting the housemates to let them know that you’re in labor.”
“Yeah, I think they’ve all heard from Samara by now,” was my muffled reply.
“Haha! Probably. But no, I’m using it as an opportunity to, like, ask them to be… you know, more helpful than usual.”
Taylor’s assessment was not unwarranted. We loved (and still love) our housemates as people. I’ve known Samara since we were six. She was my maid of honor, and Leroy was one of Taylor’s groomsmen. Trent and I have been friends since before our freshman year began at Mines. They each have a special place in our hearts.
However, we frequently had conflicts with our housemates as, well, housemates. My preferences for organization, chore allocation, house culture, and [especially] general cleanliness differed markedly from those of Trent, Samara, and Leroy. The state of the kitchen was always a point of contention, and I was pretty anxious that, once the baby was born, things in our common space would deteriorate quickly: overflowing trash bins, unwashed dishes, dirty hand towel, gritty floors — so, par for the course in a typical college home. All this to say, I was grateful for Taylor’s intervention.
Another contraction came and went before Taylor was able to finish his text. (Communication is not one of his strengths.)
Sweaty and gasping, I asked, “What did you say?”
Taylor related his text in a stilted monotone. (Reading aloud is not really one of his strengths, either.) “‘Hi everyone, Holly is in early labor, but she isn’t far enough along to go to the birth center yet. She is working really hard, and you can best support her by keeping things *clean* and *quiet*. Thanks!’ How does that sound?”
“Great. Thanks babe,” I panted.
And then we went back to the grind.
It’s difficult to remember what those interminable hours were like. I know we listened to music, and at one point Doula Taylor tried to give me a “pain-relieving” massage. I think he might have played on the Switch for a while in an attempt to distract me. My dog came to check on me a few times, and I cried as I buried my hands in her ruff. For the most part, though, the period of time from noon to 5:30pm [ish] is one long blur.
Well, with one glaring exception. It was clear that Leroy had read Taylor’s text by the way he tiptoed down the hall when he got home. As the second oldest of ten children — [nearly] all of whom were intimate, family-style home births — Leroy was no stranger to labor. While his mother is the sweetest lady you’d ever meet, I’m certain that when she was in labor, she also wanted things *clean* and *quiet*. So he did his best to accommodate.
Unfortunately, his best was still so dang loud. Leroy is not a small guy. At the time, he was three months out from commissioning into the Army, and he looked (and still looks) the part. He smiles about 90% of the time, but the remaining 10%, he looks like he’s capable of tearing you limb from limb.
Anyway. So Leroy comes tiptoeing down the hall, and I think he inadvertently tread on every creaky board along the way. When he got to the door of his room (which, incidentally, is now the baby’s room), I heard him fumbling to put away his keys, and —
BANG!
— his full Nalgene thudded to the floor. Then, he bent to retrieve the water bottle —
CRASH!
— and dropped his crowded key ring instead. And as he knelt to pick up the keys —
BANG!
— he dropped the Nalgene again. At that point, it sounded like he threw open his door, kicked the offending bottle into his room, and followed close on its heels.
“I’m gonna fricking kill him,” I hissed. [Note: Stronger language was used here.]
Doula Taylor just shrugged in response.
Around half past five, we decided that another bath might be beneficial — either to speed up my contractions or slow them down. The seven-minute intervals were really grating on me.
I [vindictively] stole more of Leroy’s epsom salt and settled in for a bath that was not at all relaxing. Taylor sat attentively by the tub and timed my contractions.
“Ugh, I meant to shave my legs,” I bemoaned. “I’ll look like the freaking Great Divide logo in all of Aunt Frannie’s pictures. Ummm… the Abominable Snowman. The Yeti. The… Loch Ness Monster?”
Taylor looked up from his phone. “It’s Bigfoot, babe,” he reminded me gently. [Note: As it turns out, the logo is actually a Yeti after all.] “And I seriously doubt that your shins will be the focus of those pictures.”
“I don’t know man. Birth photography is pretty weird. You never know which body parts are going to make it into the shot.”
Taylor: <grunts in acknowledgement>
“And,” I continued, “I never painted my toenails! They’re so gross!” I lifted one thick leg out of the water for emphasis.
“Do you want me to paint them for you?” Doula Taylor offered.
I sighed and shook my head. “Nah babe. I think I’d just mess them up the very next contraction.”
“You’re probably right.” Then, as my face contorted, “Another one?”
I nodded, then grimaced. I was pretty sure that my contractions were worse, not better, in the bath. If that pattern kept up, I seriously doubted that I would end up doing a water birth at the birth center. Although, the gorgeous white tubs in the birthing rooms were certainly a step up from our grungy, tiny bathtub. Maybe I’d feel differently when we finally got there.
After that contraction passed, I announced, “Alright! I’m done! Back to the bed we go!”
Doula Taylor wrapped me in a towel and shepherded me back to our room.
“Do you want to put your dress back on?” he asked, holding up the garment.
“Nope!” I declared in an out-of-character, pro-nudity moment.
My husband scrambled to adjust. “Ok, well let me put a towel down on the bed for you then.”
He quickly set up a cozy spot for me to labor in bed, and I gratefully cuddled in between the towels, in between the sheets.
“Round two — hundred!” I muttered.
The next hour passed in much the same manner as the previous six, except with even more intense contractions — still seven minutes apart, from start to start.
“How is it possible that early labor can be so challenging!?” I demanded at one point.
“You can do it, Wifey!” Doula Taylor promised.
“How is it possible that I’m still dehydrated!?” I snapped back. “I’m practically guzzling water here. How many times have you filled that up?” I asked, nodding at the carmine Starbucks cup that glinted evilly in the low lighting. Its only claim to fame was that it possessed a straw and was thus easy to operate.
My husband tried to think back. “Well, at least once since your bath,” he concluded eventually. “I think I’m having you do three big sips every other time.”
“So why are my contractions riding each other then? And wait, when is my next one supposed to be?”
Taylor looked down at his phone. “Um, now, actually.”
And like clockwork, another contraction seized my body. I rolled quickly from my side onto hands and knees, and Doula Taylor moved to support me from behind.
“It hurts!” I sobbed. “Taylor, it hurts!”
“Shhhhh,” he soothed. “I know, sweetie. I know.”
“No, you don’t!” I gritted out. “You’re a guy!”
And it was true. My husband did not know what my contractions felt like, and at the point of writing this, I hardly know either. The episodes are difficult to remember, let alone describe. Again, my best approximation is a really, really bad menstrual cramp. Like, so bad that it exhausts your entire body and makes you cry and seize involuntarily.
But this cramp was finally winding down. I felt the tension start to leave my muscles, and I relaxed against Taylor’s support. I wouldn’t have to tackle another one for six minutes.
Except, that wasn’t true. My uterine muscle clenched again with a ferocity that sent me lurching across the bed — as if I could escape from the pain by crawling fast enough. I felt like a caged animal — trapped, desperate, and dangerous.
But, as he does in so many ways, my husband pulled me back. He gathered my sobbing frame into his arms and made me look at him. “Holly,” he said, and I finally focused in on his face. He only uses my name when he’s terribly serious. “You can do this. Your body is designed to do this. You are the toughest person I know.”
“I’m not!” I wailed back. “I can’t do it! Seriously. I’m still in early labor. This is the part of birth that every woman does without drugs! And I’d kill for an epidural right now! How the heck am I going to be able to make it through active labor — if I ever even get there?” I bit out.
Taylor: <grunts uncertainly>
“How long was that last contraction, anyway?” I asked.
Taylor looked at the app. “Almost two minutes,” he relayed.
“Are you kidding me? I’m having two-minute-long contractions in early labor? What do you think transition will look like — just a single, hour-long contraction?”
Taylor shuddered, then put the straw to my lips again. “It seems like you must still be dehydrated. Here, drink a bit more.”
So I did. And you know what happens when you drink a lot of water? You have to pee a lot — especially if there’s a baby pressing on your bladder. And you know what happens when you pee during labor? [Note: I did not.] You get another contraction. So then you drink more water. It is literally a textbook example of a positive feedback loop. (A positive feedback loop occurs when the product of a process causes more of itself to be created. In common parlance, this is known as a “vicious cycle”.)
Before I made each towel-clad trip to and from the bathroom, I had to peek around my door to make sure none of my housemates were in the immediate vicinity. Thankfully, after the Nalgene incident, I basically didn’t hear from Leroy for the rest of the night.
Trent and Samara, on the other hand, were another matter. The good news was that, as I had desired, my labor did not seem to impinge on their evenings in any way. The bad news was, their evenings definitely impinged on my labor.
Just as they did every Monday and Thursday night, the couple put on JEOPARDY! at 6pm sharp. While Samara had a TV down in her room, it was unable to receive regular channels. (Alas, in a house full of engineers, none of us were very electrically inclined.) Accordingly, these bi-weekly viewing parties always occurred in the common living room, and this time was no different.
And so, strangely, Alex Trebek’s voice is a strong sound memory from this period of my labor. I had some weird waking-dream montages where Alex was asking me questions about the birthing process.
“The labor pattern with which you are finally equipped to go to the birth center.”
“Um… What is ‘3-1-1’?”
“Correct! Good luck getting there!”
After an especially bad contraction, I asked Taylor, “Do you think they know that the TV has a volume knob?”
“You know, I’m honestly not sure,” he answered. He looked down at his phone. “Well, at least the show’s almost over.”
Yeah, and then they’ll start making dinner, I realized. What fun!
As 7pm approached, I drafted a text to Anika to let her know that my labor had seemingly stagnated, but that Taylor had noticed some seepage from… well, where the baby comes out. Sometimes, the rupture of the amniotic sac manifests itself as a slow leak, and I wanted to alert Anika that this might be the case with me. I had to pause in the middle of typing in order to tackle another long contraction.
I finally sent the text at 6:53pm. I had hoped to catch Anika before her nap, but I had *not* hoped to actually talk to Anika before her nap. But, sure enough, my trusty midwife called immediately upon receipt of the missive.
“Hi Holly — thanks for updating me. Definitely keep an eye on your discharge, but it doesn’t sound to me like it’s your water breaking.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think so,” I muttered, and I was thinking, Let’s hurry this shiz up!!! I had another contraction heading my way, and I wanted to be off the phone when it came.
Alas, Anika was seemingly in no hurry. “My best guess is that you’re probably in prodromal labor, which is extended early labor that can last days or weeks. If you were in the hospital setting, you would be given a sedative to help you sleep, but we obviously can’t do that here. I’m going to have you approximate that treatment with a warm bath and some Benadryl.”
And then, the moment I had been dreading came to pass. Seven minutes was up, and another contraction rolled my way. Maybe she won’t notice, I hoped desperately. But, the thought that I could somehow hide a minute and a half of choppy breathing and muffled grunts is laughable. Anika clued in on my discomfort almost immediately.
“You’re having another contraction?” she queried.
“Uhh-uh-huh!” I croaked.
“Ok. You can do this, Holly. You need to slow down your breathing,” she admonished as my panting grew more ragged. “Shhhhhhhh. Breathe on my count. Innnnnnnnnn. Ouuuuuuut.”
I was so embarrassed. I had wanted to hide from Anika the fact that these early labor contractions were knocking me flat. (Figuratively, that is. I was still *literally* on hands and knees in bed for each cramp.) Even now, I wanted to downplay how very insurmountable my [hopefully] late-stage early labor felt.
But, I’ve never been good at playing my cards close to my chest, so after this episode passed, I gasped out, “Anika, I don’t know how I can do this if I gets more challenging than this. Like, this feels like it’s at my limit, and it’s supposed to get so much worse than this.”
[Note: I never used the words “painful” or “hard” during early labor. Instead, I said “intense” and “challenging”. I guess my reasoning was, if early labor is basically half the intensity of active labor, which was theoretically half the intensity of transition, then I wanted to save the word “pain” for when it truly applied to my labor. After all, where do you go after “pain” — to “excruciating”? “grueling”? “agonizing”? Ideally, no. Nothing says, “I’m ready for a baby!” like some pretentious bombast.]
Anika blew out a breath. “I haven’t given birth,” she admitted. “But from what I’ve seen, it seems like you get a new limit in every new stage. Right now, it’s clear that this is more challenging than you’ve experienced yet in early labor, but once you get to active labor, your limit will recalibrate.”
“I sure hope so!!” I replied sardonically. “Because if it doesn’t, I’m headed for a cesarean.” And with that, I started to cry.
“Oh, sweetie,” Anika soothed. “You can do this. You are tough, and you know your goals. In addition, having a C-section is not the end of the world, if it’s necessary for the health of the baby. I’ll be there with you if we have to transfer you to the hospital. Oh, and if that is the case, remember to have Taylor take a piece of gauze, swab your birth canal, and rub it all over the baby’s body and in his eyes, nose, and mouth.”
We had learned about this technique — sometimes called “vaginal seeding” — in our birth education classes. It’s a way to kickstart a C-section baby’s immune system and microbiome by mimicking the bacterial exposure that they would get during a normal vaginal delivery. And if you’re read A Cure for What Ails You, you know that I’m all about that microbiome.
“Yeah, I’ll have my uncertified doula get right on that,” I remarked dryly. “But Anika, there is *literally* no way that I could sleep through these contractions.”
Anika, however, would not be budged. She assured me, “I think you’ll feel differently after the bath and Benadryl.”
Plot twist: I didn’t.
But, I’m getting ahead of myself.
Back in the grungy bathtub (sanctified with a light sprinkle of Leroy’s bath salts), I was even more miserable than beforehand. Samara and Trent were making dinner, and it sounded like they were using every instrument in the kitchen. At one point, I could have sworn they were intentionally bashing some pans against each other. Either way, the sound from the kitchen was deafening in my hyper-sensitized state.
Just to round out what was already a weird night, my family stopped by on their way to the hotel. Taylor left the bathroom to receive them, and then poked his head around the door a few minutes later. A contraction had come and gone as I waited.
“Do you want to see your mom?” Taylor asked.
I nodded glumly.
“Ok babe,” he said. “I’m going to ask Leroy to go get us some Benadryl.”
“Thank you,” I moaned piteously. “Can you have him get me an epidural too?”
Doula Taylor gave me a tortured look, then asked, “Do you really want an epidural? I can bring you to the hospital, and they might admit you, even though it’s still early labor.”
“Uuuuggh, no,” I admitted. “I don’t. But don’t ask me during my next contraction! I might say yes.”
My husband looked extremely relieved. “Ok babe. I’m gonna send in your mom.”
As I waited for my mother to appear, I listened to my charismatic and sarcastic father as he “held court” with my housemates. He draws a crowd wherever he goes. I’m glad that my labor could be socially gratifying for someone, at least.
At the sight of my mom, I burst into helpless sobs. “Mommy!” I wailed.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she cooed. “You’re so tough! You’re working so hard!”
And indeed, I was. It seemed that the excitement of seeing my mother had triggered all my uterine muscles to seize at once. She rubbed my damp back as the contraction passed.
“How did you do it?” I moaned. “I don’t know that I can do the natural thing like you did. I’m so tired.”
“You can do it!” I heard for the zillionth time that day. I wanted to sit down Taylor, Anika, and my mom and inform them all, “I cannot do it. Stop telling me that I can.”
My mother crouched beside the tub and smoothed back my hair. “Remember when you ran that marathon?”
“Yeah, but that was like five years ago,” I scoffed.
“Remember how you got through Mines?”
“Yeah, but that wasn’t physical pain. That was about mental toughness.”
“So is this. Do you hurt in between the contractions?”
“No….” I admitted sheepishly.
“Then this is about getting through each one. And after that, the next one. It’s about mental toughness way more than physical toughness. Which is how I know that you can do it!”
Another contraction hit, and I cried out in discomfort. Again, my mother soothed me through the worst of it.
“I can’t do it,” I sobbed afterward. “This is going to be the death of me. I’m going to be in early labor for the rest of my life.”
My mother stepped back and gave me a curious look. “I don’t think you’re in early labor,” she asserted. “I’ve been in here for no more than five minutes, and you’ve already had two contractions.”
I had no answer to that.
“I think you should go in to get checked,” my mom suggested. “You might be more dilated than you assume.”
I shook my head. “No one’s at the birth center right now. And Anika’s napping so that she’ll be ready for when I actually go into active labor.”
“Then call and wake her up! I’m sure she would meet you at the birth center to check your dilation.”
I was still shaking my head. “I don’t want to wake her up for a false alarm. She might be delivering my baby, so I’d kinda like her to be, I don’t know, not pissed at me before we even start? I would feel soooooo dumb waking her up, asking her to drive into the birth center, having her measure me, and then finding out that I was like two centimeters dilated. She’ll be like, ‘Thanks! So much for my nap. I hope you’re happy to have an exhausted midwife delivering your baby!’”
Another contraction.
Afterward, my mother said, “Ok, well I strongly urge you to reconsider. I can see that the baby has dropped a ton. Like, the top of your stomach is flat.”
I looked down and confirmed what my mother had pointed out. “Yeah, well, maybe we won’t shoot for 3-1-1. Maybe we’ll only aim for 5-1-1 instead. I think that it’s possible my contractions will get down around five minutes apart. You know, like, tomorrow.” The timing had still been around 6.5 minutes apart when I got into the bath.
“It’s not gonna to be tomorrow,” my mother stated bluntly. “You’re about to have this baby.”
“We’ll see!” I declared with mock enthusiasm.
“Alright, sweetie, I have to head out so that we can get your sister settled in at the hotel. Call me if you end up having the midwife check you, ok?”
“Ok,” I whimpered. “Send Taylor back in?”
“Of course,” she murmured, kissing the top of my head.
Taylor came in and shepherded me back to our bed. In case the discharge continued, I was now equipped with some granny panties and a heavy-duty pad.
At first, we were optimistic. I didn’t want to take the Benadryl in case things kicked up a notch very suddenly. But as the four-minute interval between contractions grew to five minutes, then six, then back to six-and-a-half, I lost hope completely.
“Alright, dose me up,” I demanded around 8:30pm. Taylor complied with two Benadryl, which started to work almost immediately.
And that was how I ended up sleeping in five-minute increments while my husband watched for the telltale grimace that would indicate the arrival of another minute-long contraction. I’d sling my exhausted body back into a kneeling position, and Taylor would resume his post behind me as I breathed heavily/yelled/screamed/cried through each endless minute.
“Does this help?” Doula Taylor asked at one point as he pressed his fists into the meaty parts of my hip.
“No,” I moaned.
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No,” I repeated.
Better that we both be exhausted, right?
And truly, I was exhausted. “I’m going to have nothing left over for active labor,” I told my husband/doula. “Anika said that prodromal labor can last for days or even weeks. I literally will not be able to do that.”
Taylor knew that I was deadly serious at this point. “I don’t know, babe,” he admitted. “I guess… I guess just keep going as long as you can.”
And so I did.
At one point, I could hear Trent standing at the back door to call in his dog. “Brio!” Pause. “Brio!”
But Brio is the kind of dog that listens to no one — least of all an owner who she knows loves her without bound.
“Briooooo! Briooooo!”
Even Taylor was starting to look peeved. If a dog doesn’t come inside after three calls of her name, then it’s unlikely she’s going to come inside after, say, ten calls of her name.
“Brioooooooooooo! Brioooooooooooo!”
“I think that the FDA should approve Trent’s yell as a drug for waking the dead,” I slurred after a contraction. Taylor laughed.
And then, Trent started to whistle.
It is usually only a slight exaggeration to say that the sound of whistling makes me want to die. At the time of this incident, it was *not* an exaggeration.
“Brioooooooooooo!” <whistle, whistle> “Brioooooooooooo!”
“I’m gonna die,” I moaned. Taylor clucked sympathetically.
Eventually, Trent managed to get Brio inside. I honestly think he might have started clapping at some point. Regardless, we were able to return to our awful pattern of sleep-seize-sleep-seize.
The tenor of my contractions changed around 9pm. It’s difficult to precisely describe the shift, but I started to lean back a bit more each time, and the pressure during each episode eased if I bore down — basically like trying to poop. My vaginal discharge increased around this time, so I was glad that my skimpy outfit included a sanitary pad.
And then, something unforgettable happened. At 9:31pm, I rolled onto my knees for another contraction. Taylor started the timer and moved to kneel behind me on the bed — so, all actions typical of the dozens of contractions I had experienced over the past several hours. However, this contraction was irreconcilably different from all the others.
Just as I had for the past several cramps, I bore down at the beginning of this one — and all at once, there was a huge release of pressure. My water had finally broken.
The best analogy I can give for the sound and experience was that of a water balloon popping. Once again, I was thankful for the sanitary pad. Rather than dousing Taylor (who was, of course, right behind me), the amniotic fluid hit the pad and dropped to the towel and sheet beneath me, effectively soaking the bed. The contraction ended at that point.
“I am so sorry!” I exclaimed — as if this were my fault. The things one says in labor.
“Ok! Ok!” Doula Taylor was clearly flustered. “Alright! Ok!”
I gave him a moment to gather his thoughts. This was his first birth, after all. You can only expect so much out of uncertified doulas.
My husband took a deep breath, then said, “Alright babe. I’m going to bring you to the bathroom so that you can clean up a bit and change your pad. I’ll change the sheets and get you some fresh panties, ok?” Man. He knows me so well.
He wrapped me in another towel, walked me to the toilet, and set down his phone beside me. “I need you to time your own contractions,” he said. “Can you do that?”
I nodded mutely.
“Ok babe. I’ll be right back!”
Taylor left to start a wash of the fluid-soaked towels, sheets, and mattress cover. Meanwhile, I was just hanging out on the toilet, timing my contractions and reveling in the knowledge that the baby finally had an eviction notice. The risk of infection skyrockets after the amniotic sac ruptures, so — one way or the other — this baby would have to be born in the next twenty-four hours. I peed as I waited for Taylor to return, and then I realized that I kinda had to poop also.
So, you may have realized that I’m kind of a private person when it comes to having people witness my nudity/bodily functions, and bowel movements were no exception. [Note: Good thing I have no such compunction in having people read about my nudity/bodily functions!] The educator at our birth center had calmly informed us that almost every woman poops during labor, and the midwives are trained to surreptitiously and skillfully remove the offending excrement without the birthing mother’s knowledge. I was mortified at this prospect. Needless to say, I was super excited at the prospect of relieving myself on my own toilet because it meant that no one else would have to clean up my feces.
So I lackadaisically started to work on a bowel movement, all the while timing my contractions. They were unbelievably capricious — ranging erratically between a minute and five minutes apart. There was no pattern at all.
After about twenty minutes, Doula Taylor poked his head around the door. “Alright babe! The bed is clean and ready for you!”
I swung my head drunkenly toward him and tried to focus on his face. “No, I think I’m good here. I’m tryna poop.”
“Are you sure?”
I nodded. “See? There’s a tiny poop that I made.”
“Ok babe,” Taylor said, sitting down on the edge of the tub. “I’m going to call Anika and update her on the situation. I think we can finally claim to be in active labor now!”
I grinned maniacally in response.
“Hi Anika,” he greeted her serenely. “Just calling to update you that Holly’s water broke around 9:30. She’s doing good, and her contractions are coming down in time, but we’re not at 3-1-1 yet.”
Anika’s tinny voice crackled out of Taylor’s phone in response. Taylor had turned up the volume, but he hadn’t put the call on speakerphone. I guess my grunts weren’t conducive to good conversation. The midwife said, “Oh good! I’m glad to hear that she’s progressing! Keep me updated. I actually want you to let me know when her labor pattern gets to 4-1-1, and I’ll have you come in then. Some labor patterns never have contractions that are only three minutes apart, and it seems like that might be the case with Holly.”
Taylor nodded, then said, “We’ll definitely let you know!”
Anika asked my husband, “Did her amniotic fluid have a color or smell?”
[Note: A “yes” to either of these questions might have indicated the presence of meconium (baby poop) in the amniotic fluid, which would have elevated my labor to a slightly higher risk category.]
“No to either,” I said confidently. I had examined and smelled the saturated pad upon reaching the bathroom. (#justlaborthings)
“She says no,” Taylor relayed. I didn’t hear Anika’s response. My head was suddenly full of buzzing, and I was abruptly gripped with a sudden urgency. “Babe, we need to go to the birth center. We need to go to the birth center NOW.”
But Taylor was answering Anika’s questions about my most recent contractions. “No, there doesn’t seem to be a pattern —“
“Taylor, you need to tell her that I have the urge to push.”
My husband waved me off, indicating that he would address my concern after he finished what he was saying.
“No, babe! You need to tell her that I have the urge to push!”
Taylor finally relented, and in his typical methodical manner, he conveyed, “Holly says that she has the urge to push, but *obviously* it’s too early, so it’s probably just a poop.”
Anika paused for a second, then commanded, “Please elaborate.”
My husband-doula leaned down to examine my nether regions, then calmly sat back up and said, “Um, Anika, I can see the baby’s head.”
Then Taylor put the call on speakerphone, and the conversation moved really quickly after that.
Me: “Are you freaking kidding me!?”
Anika: <also calmly> “How much of the head can you see?”
Me: <eagerly listening, because I’m too scared to reach down and feel for myself>
Taylor: “Hmm… Maybe an inch by two inches?”
Me: <trying unsuccessfully to lean around my belly so that I can see the baby> “What color is his hair!?”
Taylor: “I don’t know! I can’t tell if he even *has* hair!” [Note: For all intents and purposes, he didn’t.]
Anika: “Ok, so listen to me: you are going to have this baby at your house.”
Me: “Are you freaking serious, Anika!? I’m naked! And what about my birth photos?”
Anika: “I’m really sorry. There isn’t time to get you to the birth center. Although, you could put on a dress right now, if you’d like.”
Me: “Wait, so what you’re saying is that I’ve *actually* been out of early labor for hours now!?”
Anika: “Yes, unfortunately that is what I’m saying. The quantitative data suggested that you were still in early labor, and without checking your cervix, there was no way to know that you were actually in active labor or transition. Labor looks different for each mother, so it’s difficult to assess the stage based solely on qualitative data.”
[Note: I want to take a moment here to absolve Anika of blame. We consulted with a number of healthcare professionals after the fact, and they each said that, given the information that Anika possessed, they would have made the same decision. I guess I shouldn’t have played down that contraction so much, huh? But, I didn’t feel that way at the time.]
Me: <grumble grumble>
Anika: <ignoring me> “Ok, so this is really unconventional [i.e. “not allowed”], but I’m going to come to your house. You live in Golden, right?”
Taylor: “Yes, just up Mount Zion a bit.”
Mache: <from outside> “Bark bark bark! Bark bark bark bark!”
[Note: Indeed. It’s true. Even though the number one rule for our dog was, “No one lets her out but us,” she had somehow found herself in our yard and was now barking like it was the end of the world. I don’t know. Maybe Trent inadvertently let her out when he was struggling to get Brio in.]
Me: “Taylor! Go get the dog inside!”
Taylor: <clearly confused about my priorities> “Um…”
Me: “Taylor! So help me! Go get the dog!”
Taylor: <hands me the phone and leaves the bathroom>
Anika: “Alright, so what’s your address?”
Me: <after listing the number, trying to spell out the street name> “— that’s P as in ‘parrot’, I, N as in ‘Nancy’, A, L—“
Taylor: <reappears> “It’s an ice storm out there!”
Anika: “Yes. And my car is frozen over, so I’ll be running to your house. I recognize ‘Pinal’ — we live in the same neighborhood. I moved here — well, today, actually.”
Taylor: <grabs the phone again> “Ok, just come in when you get here, and I’ll yell from the bathroom.”
Me: “Wait, should I be pushing?”
Anika: “No! I want you to breathe through them like you’re blowing out a candle.”
Me: <feeling dumb, but practicing anyway> “Ah-hew ah-hew ah-hew?”
Anika: “Good girl! I’ll be there soon. Just do that until I get there.”
Over the next three minutes, doula-turned-midwife Taylor coached me to breathe through the contractions. In between two of them, he called my mom to tell her the news. She took it surprisingly well.
“Alright, just let me know where you want us and when, once you find out,” I heard her say.
I tried to breathe through the contractions. I really did. But, as anyone who has given birth knows, the urge to push is unbelievable. Like, truly irresistible. I felt like a junkie, and getting this baby out was my next hit.
I affixed Midwife Taylor with a crazy stare as I continued to puff, “Ah-hew ah-hew ah-hew!” All the while, I was secretly half-pushing as my self-control started to flag.
And then, at 10:00pm, Anika called Taylor and panted, “Your door is locked!”
Taylor and I looked at each other. “Wrong house!” he said for both of us. With so many people constantly in and out of our home, our door was never locked before midnight. “You’re probably at a nearby house — the street numbers are pretty hard to read. I’ll come find you.”
And with that, he left me to my own devices.
[Author’s Note: Ok everyone, so this is where things get pretty up-close and personal.]
Taylor exited the bathroom, and my restraint went with him.
I finally brought myself to quest for the baby’s head, even though the “ick factor” in doing so was nearly insurmountable. It felt like a third of an orange was already protruding from my body, so I thought to myself, “Well, here goes nothing.”
I bore down fully and reveled in the sweet, sweet relief. Spreading my legs, I was able to see my son for the first time, and my first thought was…
MY BABY HAS NO FACE!
I am ashamed to say that at this moment, I bellowed in shock and fear. My son’s head was a misshapen lump of puce skin, with nary an eye or nose in sight.
[Note: I learned from Samara afterwards that it was this yell that brought her and Trent running up from the basement.]
It didn’t take me more than a second to realize what had happened. Somewhere in all the hubbub and rebozo sifting, my son had spun around and was now occiput anterior. No wonder I hadn’t experienced much back pain.
My next thought was, Oh my gosh! What if he tries to breathe, but his nose is pressed against my skin still, and then he suffocates and dies!?
So, another big push, and my son’s whole head appeared. I was relieved to locate both ears, which confirmed that his face was merely out of my sight, rather than, well, nonexistent.
Then I thought, Wait, what if he tries to breathe, but his chest is constricted by the birth canal, so he can’t get a full breath in, and then he suffocates and dies!?
So, with one final push, my son spilled out of my body and into my waiting hands. [Note: I want to be very clear here that my son did not fall into the poop-, pee- and amniotic-fluid-filled toilet. I caught him into both hands instead.]
And thus, my son was born at 10:02pm on February 15, 2018.
He was a crazy jumble of burgundy skin, pale umbilical cord, and way more limbs than seemed reasonable. If you have any understanding of my son’s personality, you will not be surprised to hear that he began flailing around immediately — like, before he was fully born, even.
As I held my newborn son in my hands, I started to panic and hyperventilate. He hadn’t taken a breath yet, and the cord was wrapped loosely around his neck. Please God, please don’t let him die, I prayed desperately.
And, He didn’t! Praise the Lord.
My son opened his mouth and started to scream. (And frankly, he’s never really stopped since.) He screamed and screamed and screamed. And I probably screamed too, to be honest. I’m not sure who was more terrified.
Even though it was clear that my son could breathe (and how!), we weren’t out of the woods yet. Neither Midwife Taylor nor Midwife Anika had arrived yet, and I couldn’t bring my baby to my chest for fear of tightening the umbilical cord and strangling him. Nor could I hold his slippery, wriggling body with one hand to untangle him with the other. I held him helplessly at waist-level while his wet body started to drop sharply in temperature.
And then, like he always is, Taylor was there.
Followed by Anika, he threw open the door and ran into a bathroom whose measurements don’t really allow for running.
“Help!” I squawked.
Taylor stood back to let Anika through. She quickly unwound the cord and allowed me to bring my son to my chest for the first time. And then, she started draping the baby and me with every towel she could find.
Looking at my husband, I hoarsely whispered, “This is our child! This is our son!”
Tears glistened in his eyes.
Finally addressed my son, I was overcome with emotion. This was my son. My true north. My love and my life.
And for the first time, I called him by his name.
“Borealis! Borealis! My son. My love. Borealis.”
And that, dear reader, was the birth of Borealis. He was truly a labor — and a product — of love. If you’re not thoroughly exhausted and/or disgusted by now, then I invite you to read the next installment of this tale: The Birth of Borealis: Part II.