The Gory Details

It all started at 2 am on Tuesday 7/29/97, when I awoke from a sound sleep thinking I had wet my pants. Then I thought, what if it's my water breaking? and felt instantly annoyed because I was TIRED and wanted to go back to sleep, not go into labor. I went to the bathroom and sure enough, I was dripping pink-tinged fluid that kept going even after I finished urinating. Fortunately I had bought several packs of Kotex maxis on sale ... then I went back to bed and noticed I was having what felt like intense menstrual cramps. I watched the clock and figured out they were happening every 6-8 minutes. Wow, I must really be in labor!

I had no warning ... I had a great day that Monday, went into Manhattan to Jam Paper to buy envelopes for the birth announcements, to Paul Smith for an anniversary gift for Paul, then off for another massage with Elaine Stillerman, to my maternal fitness class (where everyone said, next week is it, right?), then P and I sat out on our roof deck and watched a beautiful sunset and grilled a steak and some corn on the cob, then finished up with watermelon. Perfect summer meal. Tuesday the 29th was our wedding anniversary and we were looking forward to our traditional lobster dinner ... well looks like we were getting a different kind of anniversary present!

At 3.30 I was pretty sure that this was it, so I began the arduous task of trying to wake P, who is a very sound sleeper. I kept shaking his shoulder and saying, I'm in labor, I think I'm in labor ... this little boy wants to be born on the 29th like his daddy! (P's birthday is 11/29; his mom's is 5/29; so you can see it's a family thing). He finally awoke and snapped into action (about 4 am by now). We went out to the living room and he timed the contractions. They were about 30-45 seconds long and about 2-3 minutes apart and were getting REALLY uncomfortable. I couldn't sit and I couldn't lie down, the only thing I could do to get relief was stand and rock my pelvis from side to side. We tried the positions from the sheet our childbirth instructor gave us and they didn't help either. At this point I think I began throwing up and completely emptied my stomach (the corn and the watermelon were still completely recognizable--gross) and had started puking up bile.

I was feeling kind of panicky because I couldn't find the sheet from the OB saying when to call. I knew I had lost my mucus plug because I had seen it in the toilet, and I was pretty sure (but not certain) that I had ruptured my membranes, so I decided to call the midwife. The pains were intense but I could still talk through them, barely. I called the office and got the service. They told me that Melissa was the midwife on call. DAMN! Out of the 3 she is the one I can't stand, the one who wrote "MANY questions!" in the comments section on my first visit. She is not a bad person, but we are NOT simpatico. I knew from the beginning that sod's law (as P would call it) would decree that she would attend my birth ... she called back instantly and said from the sound of I had "a long ways to go" and that for my own comfort I could get in the bath or the shower. Well, that's a relief I couldn't remember if that was OK with the ruptured waters or not. This was around 5 am.

I got in the tub, which wasn't so great--it's shallow and narrow. Lying down wasn't comfortable, anyway, so I got up and turned the shower on. We have one of those pulsating shower heads that comes off the bracket so you can hold it in your hand. Instant relief! I held it against my lower abdomen or lower back during contractions, which helped a lot. But being in the shower was boring. The bathroom in this apt sucks, it's a interior room with inadequate ventilation and really ugly tile. It wasn't where I wanted to spend my time ... I had thought that I would be able to go to the roof deck, but no such luck. It was too painful to sit (I have a very sensitive cervix, and as it later turned out, all those contractions, even though they never got longer than 55 seconds or closer together than 3-4 minutes, were really doing a number on my cervix); in fact sitting made the contractions even less tolerable. By 7 am when Melissa the midwife called again to check, I was pretty miserable. I couldn't walk, I couldn't talk, and I was already dreading the cab ride to the hospital because I couldn't sit, so when she said she wanted to see me in the office at 9 I refused. I said I wanted to go straight to the hospital because I couldn't face two cab rides. She argued with me saying that the hospital would send me home if I wasn't progressed, but I was adamant. She said OK, she would check back with me in an hour to see how I was doing. Every time I would have a contraction I would screech ow Ow OWWW OWWW, because they really hurt. When I said, OWW, these really HURT, Melissa said "that's why they call it labor." See what I mean about lack of sympathy? She could have said, I know, but think of what you're going to end up with ... or something nice and encouraging. While I was talking to her on the phone, I noticed that I had fluid and blood running down my legs, so I told her that while I wasn't sure before that my water had broken I was sure now. She merely said that that was good.

I called my sister Betsy's answering machine and left her a message. Unfortunately I was interrupted by a contraction and didn't really get to finish ... I felt bad because I just whimpered and yipped and hung up the phone. I got back in the shower and made lots of noise. I pretended to be my cat and howled (she had a good howl). I felt kind of lonely and wished I had the energy to go get Paul. Poor guy, he had no clue as to what to do. We had planned this very organic, serene, wonderful Bradley type labor and instead I was running around like a madwoman, howling and weeping and diving into the shower and screaming OW OW OW THIS SUCKS. Plus he was having a hard time staying awake and he kept running up to the roof deck to have a smoke. The bathroom had blood everywhere, it seemed, plus traces of vomit (I hadn't managed to make it to the toilet each time ... at one point I puked on a pair of shoes).

Around 8, the midwife called back ... I was temporarily out of the shower. She told me that since she had to be at the hospital at 9 am anyway, we could meet her there between 9.30 and 10. I was so relieved but angry too). I said I want some kind of painkiller when I get there, I can't take this. She asked me if I had any benadryl, it would relax me. I said no, just some Tylenol with codeine, white wine or beer. She nixed the codeine but said yes to the wine or beer, then I should go back to the shower till it was time to come in. I couldn't concentrate well enough between contractions to open the wine myself, so I woke Paul and gasped out what I needed, than also told him that we were going to the hospital in an hour and that he needed to call my sister and tell her to meet us there, and we had to pack pillows in a laundry bag, and he had to pack a bag and oh yes I needed some ice in a cup and then I was back in the shower. By 8.30 am I had had two glasses of wine, which really helped.

Then I got out and I put on some clothes and then I noticed that there was a big spot of blood on my lime green t-shirt so I changed to a black maternity top. I asked Paul what time it was and he said "9.40" and I said oh my god, we have to go, we have to go, we have to be there by 10 (I think I was afraid Melissa would just leave if we didn't show up ... I had no faith in her by then). As it turned out, he had looked at the wrong clock, which is 30 minutes ahead (it's the vcr that somehow got set wrong and we have never bothered to reset--the poor guy was completely going to pieces by then) but it's just as well as the guy from the car company LEFT when he felt we had taken too long to get downstairs. So I had braced myself for the trip down 4 flights of stairs and then into a cab (I was DREADING the can ride so intensely ... there are no pulsating massage detachable shower heads in a cab ...) and there was no car to get into, so I was standing inside the hot stuffy foyer, hanging on to the newel post, letting my knees go limp for each contraction. P raced back upstairs to call the cab co. again. In the meantime the courtyard is full of the Italian workmen who are doing repairs to the facade. They have a million different activities going--there is even a guy on a scaffolding over the door applying stucco, and the concrete is all broken up so there's no walkway. P comes down, says they are sending another car. I decide to go outside because it's cooler there. We wait and wait still no car. It's probably only been about 5 minutes but that's long enough for me. I see a yellow cab coming down our street (a rare occurrence) and I urgently tell Paul to hail it, we have to leave NOW. Fortunately the driver was a wonderful calm Chinese man who did not make any kind of fuss and even stopped on the next corner to let Paul get pillows out of the trunk at my most urgent request. So I rode to the hospital on all fours in the back seat of an NYC taxi, with my head pushed into P's chest and a pillow under my knees. I didn't really try to stay quiet during contractions, but I had given up howling like the cat. It was a beautiful day and I even got to look up and out the window at my favorite view of Manhattan going over the Brooklyn Bridge. In the cab, though, the contractions changed and got more intense ... I felt as though there was a bowling ball lodged in my pelvis and that it really wanted to get OUT. It was pulling on me. I guess I must have been in transition at that point. It was good thing I didn't know or I would have panicked.

At the hospital I just went straight in, barely waiting for Paul. We went to the L&D elevator and got straight in. The elevator only stopped once on the way up and I guy got in. P motioned to me to move out of his way and I said loudly, FORGET IT! I'm in labor, he can get out of MY way. Fortunately the guy laughed and said I had the right attitude. The elevator let us out tight in the middle of the L&D ward by the nurses station. There were a bunch of people in scrubs sitting around chatting. One guy was holding a very new baby and said to me "Are you going to have one of these today?" I said It better be today because if it's not till tomorrow I will DIE. So we were rushed right into a labor room. I looked at the clock on the wall and it said about 10.10. Some nurses came in and out and put me on the external monitor and said I was doing very well. Melissa arrived. The first thing I said to her was When can I have the painkillers? I have changed my mind about this unmedicated stuff. She wasn't too pleased but said she needed to do the internal first. When she looked up at me again she smiled and said I have good news and better news--you're 9 centimeters dilated. I looked at her blankly and said so what's the good news? I was just so out of it. Then I started having the new kind of weird contractions again. Melissa showed the only insight on her part of the whole process and asked me if I thought I was ready to push (I hadn't mentioned the contractions changing before because I thought she would just pooh-pooh me) and I said I thought so. At this point things get very confused in my head. I had been on my hands and knees for about 15 minutes, although at one point I had requested a squatting bar and had been standing on the bed leaning on it. Melissa started telling she couldn't deliver me in that position, that I had to get down. I wanted to tell her to get lost, but got back down again. With the determination that it was time to push, she and the nurse coaxed me onto my back with my knees up. P held one knee the nurse the other, I held onto myself (I had been holding onto the bed rails and yelling during each contraction) and suddenly found myself being coached--don't yell! Save the energy and direct it downward, into your vagina! Straight down! You can do it! Push like you're having the biggest bowel movement you ever had! Hold your breath, push, and let it go! You have more of the contraction left--use it! Use it! Use it! PUSH again!

I felt like I was being coached to win an Olympic race. I did abdominal pushing like I learned it my fitness class and it worked really well. In fact, probably a little too well. I pushed about 10 times and suddenly there was a popping feeling and they said, there's the head! (I had touched it when he was crowning--it was like touching a slick mossy rock deep in a river) Melissa said OK, hold back, this will take willpower, and suddenly there was a loud SPLOOSH and I felt something big and squirmy slide out between my thighs and heard crying and there he was. I swear I didn't push again--he came out on his own. Later P said he looked like a little spaceman, with the umbilical cord around him in big loops. The nurse announced it was 10.55 am, so I had been at the hospital for about 45 minutes. They put him on my chest and I was just stunned and amazed. This was my baby? What happened? I thought it would take longer! Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod, he is so LITTLE. Look, look, we had a baby!

Melissa told me I had a tiny tear and started sewing me up. Ow ow ow, where's the local anesthetic? I AM giving you the novocaine, it doesn't hurt. Oh yes it does. At this point I hate her, although P later points out she is just doing her job. The nurse reports that his apgars are 9/9 and he weighs 6 lbs 5.8 oz. Then another nurse comes in and announces that my sister is waiting in the waiting room, so P goes to get her. I am still holding Stig on my chest. I am eager to feed him, which I do a bit later. My sister Betsy comes in and she is crying. I am still in this odd, detached mood and wonder what the fuss is about. I say, look, we have a little boy! I think he likes us. I'm not sure what to do next. I worry that Paul doesn't like Stig. I think he is awfully small. I thought he would be bigger. Melissa finishes sewing me up and makes a speech about how empowering unmedicated birth is and how much better I will do with the next one. She leaves the room and I say to P I am NOT EVER doing this again! Betsy and I dig out my MCI card and we call my mom and dad and then my other sister Cappi, who lives in Chicago and has just started a new job so we have to get her babysitter to divulge the new number and then when we call she is in a meeting so I tell Betsy to tell the secretary it's a family emergency and she HAS to come to the phone, which Betsy tones down somewhat and then I get Cap on the phone and tell her that I only pushed for 30 minutes (it took almost 4 hours to get the twins out) and she said I am jealous you make me sick. But she's really very happy. And so am I.