Okay, part 3, last part

Clay and I pulled into the birthing center parking lot and I immediately hopped out and started crouching. My doula (who had just showed up with the midwife, who was unlocking the center door) ran over to me and started rubbing my back. Once the door was open, I hurried in. The lights were all off and the air felt chilly. So very strange to be showing up here with only a small posse instead of the bustle of a busy ER.

"Let's go downstairs to the office to check if you're at 5," said Lindsay (the midwife). I must have looked at her like she was bananas, because she quickly changed her tune. "Or we could just go into the birthing room and do it there..." 

I slid off my Uggs onto a pile of other shoes and then somehow ended up on the birthing room bed. (Set-up = A regular ol' bedroom with a queen size (I think?) bed and a rocking chair and some tastefully hidden medical equipment, then an en suite bathroom with a shower and birthing tub.) I squirmed as she checked me, desperate to get back in the shower.

"Hey! 5! You can stay!"

We all did a little cheer and I immediately booked it to the bathroom. 

My doula, Shannon, turned on the shower while I stripped down to my undies and bra. (Or maybe I took my underwear off. I guess I did.) 

"So things are probably going to get a bit more intense from here on out," she warned. "And faster, too." This was all around 6:30, I think.

I felt a touch of panic shoot through when she said that, but didn't have a ton of time to dwell on it, as the contractions were coming right on top of each other. The shower was small and the water didn't feel hot enough and I couldn't get my positioning right. Shannon sat outside the shower and held the shower wand, moving it around my lower back while I crouched in the corner. She was getting soaking wet and we couldn't really hear each other. My shower at home was much roomier and the water much hotter and I felt frustrated by the downgrade. 

I didn't know whether to stand up or sit down because nothing was relieving either the pressure or pain or intensity. The only thing that helped was getting loud.

Clay had teased me through the pregnancy that I'd be screaming through it all, while everyone politely watched from their stations in the room -- but I was certain that wouldn't happen. "I'm more of the get-silent-during-serious-pain type..." Because sure, when I stub my toe or have a terrible headache, I retreat and get quiet. But this was a whole new planet of sensation. 

My loose plan had been to labor in the tub and then give birth on the bed. I didn't want a water birth because it weirded me out, quite honestly. I pictured laboring in the water for hours and hours and it being filled with all kinds of junk and then pushing my innocent little bub into all that. No.

After awhile in the shower (20 minutes maybe? 20 years?) I asked if the tub was ready. "It's not quite filled, but you can get in if you want..." 

I scooted from the shower to the tub and sank in. Or, rather, I wanted to feel like I was sinking in, but it probably was only halfway filled and the temperature felt tepid. I didn't feel any pain relief, but I did like having more freedom to move and the water did feel comforting. Like I was a little more hidden from everyone else in the room. 

As soon as I got in, a contraction hit me that lasted about 2 minutes. It was so unbelievably intense and crushing, I remember literally dropping my jaw afterward and staring at the midwife, who was kneeling by the tub. 

"Why is this happening? Why am I having no break? I'm only at 5! It's not supposed to go like this! Is it going to feel like this for SIX MORE HOURS?!"

She smiled, all Mona Lisa, and said, "Maybe." I hated her forever and the rest of my life after that. I wanted someone to say "It could, it could. But probably not if it's this intense already. You're probably in transition! You're doing such a good job! You're right! This is so painful!" But yeah, she just smiled and said "Maybe." 

By now, whenever a contraction would hit, I'd spring up to my knees, take a cold washcloth offered by my doula (another very placid and Mona Lisa type) and gnash it back and forth across my forehead while I counted. Or moaned. Or yelled. The midwife and doula stayed kneeling, saintly, by the tub.

"I really, really, really feel like I should get checked." We're probably at....6:45 now. 

"Okay. We only checked you a half hour ago, but we can do it again."

I laid very awkwardly on my back and she checked me. "7!" 

"Is that good? That's good, right?"

"Yes! That's good."

"So it probably won't be 6 more hours..."

"Right." A chuckle. (Don't chuckle at me!) "In fact, I need to get the nurse here." (Who showed up quickly. And I liked her! She was really nice.) 

Throughout this, I was a total and complete b about letting them check the fetal heart rate. Which in retrospect really freaks me out, since that's not my way at all. (Me, who rented a doppler for the first 6 months of pregnancy and checked her heartbeat everyday!) They'd try to get near me with it and I'm all "No! Stop! She's fine!" Right on, Amy. They were pushier than I was, because they had to be, so she did get checked frequently, but I did not make it easy.

Most of my labor I felt like a weird, sad whale alone in a small pool. With people staring at me like "Huh? Why'd this whale show up? I thought this was free swim..." It didn't feel great.

15 or 20 minutes after I was at a 7, I felt like I had to go to the bathroom in a very, very intense way. "I think I have to go! I mean, I feel like I have to go, but I don't!" 

"You can go, and we'll clean it up..."

"Ah! No! No. I know that's not it, I'm just saying it feels different!!!!"

"I think we need to check you again..."

And now I was at a 9.5 with just the tiniest bit left to go. Just two or three more contractions, they said. 

"Just picture your cervix is a tight turtleneck being pulled over your baby's head!"

I think the look I gave Shannon after that gem shut her up pretty good.

Oh, dude, did I want this done. But I couldn't push yet, so I turned my back to everybody and faced the window. I put my arms over my head and kneeled in the W position and screamed. And screamed. I visualized my body splitting apart and I imagined some kind of benevolent force was helping it split. I was in such shock that a body could feel like this and not be dead that the me who was definitely living outside of my body right then giggled a little. I screamed and roared and imagined that the baby was helping me. At the end of the third contraction, I felt very very frantic kicking in my abdomen and, what I can only describe as... swirling? Like when the very last bit of water is going down the bathtub drain...

And then suddenly I yelled "Something's happening! I'm not doing this!" 

My whole body seized up and bore down. Sort of like how you contract and heave when you throw up, but this was throwing...down. I wasn't doing it, but then again I guess I was.

"I'm not in control, I'M NOT DOING THIS!"

"Yes, you are! You're in total control! It's your body, it's the baby!" 

Uh.

Okay, I guess? But I always thought you reached a certain level of pain, felt immense pressure, and then pushed against it. Not that your baby would handle that whole process for you? I mean, thanks Bea, but mama's got this. I felt super scared and weirded out. The sad whale now felt like she was in Alien. But the pain was ever so slightly lessening, so I tried to focus on that.

Every minute or so, my stomach would squeeze into a cone shape and that bizarre sensation would hit again. I still hadn't been checked again, but I knew I had to be at 10. I finally let them check me and yup, at a 10 and baby girl was mostly down and through the canal already. I think this was 7:30. I was definitely about to birth in this tub because no way no way was I getting out. The idea of walking or moving or doing anything but staying rooted to aliveness was laughable.

Baby had pushed herself to the edge and now I had to do the rest. This was much harder than I thought it would be, but only because it just really hurt. Oh and because she was a tank. So I would push, but not my hardest, and then my foot would slip or I couldn't get in the right angle and I'd have a tiny break from the pain and pressure and it would be so wonderful. Then it was time again and that crazy, searing pain returned, and I just couldn't believe I'd have to go fully into that after what I'd already been through. At one point, I could fully feel her entire head and everything just rightright there and I didn't even care. Like, maybe I could just enjoy my second child in this manner? 

After 15 minutes or so, I could tell the room was getting frustrated. "We need to move to the bed if we can't make progress here..." That did it for me. No can do. I finally found a good position and gave myself a pep talk. This was going to singlehandedly be the most insane thing ever ever that would happen to me, but then it would be done. And I'd have her. I took a deep breath and pushed and pushed and pushed. 

And then woop! Searing over. The midwife brought her hands up out of the water and with them a huge, pink, slippery, beautiful baby girl was on my chest. With a true knot in her long umbilical cord and a perfectly round head from coming out so fast. 9 pounds, 2.5 ounces and a loud loud loud cry. 7:58 PM. I was in shock and in love and couldn't believe it had already happened.

She was so soft and squishy and I squeezed her tight. I really felt like we'd just done all that together. I kept kissing her little nose and closing my eyes. I'd waited so, so very long. 

Oh, oh. My Beanut! My new person. She was here. 

It was therapeutic to write this all out and apologies if it seemed super random to throw it up without much explanation. I'm glad to have a record now of sweet Bea's birth story in addition to Harper's much (much!) different one. I'm glad I waited till now, too, as some of the extreme rawness has faded and I can tell it without interjecting too much emoting. 

There was some real weirdness with midwife and doula and such, but that stuff doesn't matter in the end and I hope I kept that side of the experience to a minimum, while still saying honest. Natural birth is, for sure, empowering and powerful and primal. I recovered faster and I loved how alert Bea was so shortly afterward. I'm still pondering whether all that pain was "worth it" (whatever that even means!), though, and why we hold unmedicated birth as some supreme and superior way to bring our babies into this world. I don't think I agree. But! Maybe more on that at another time. For now...back to our regularly scheduled programming!