Mother’s Day is on May 8 this year, and the upcoming holiday has us all reminiscing about the various ways we became mothers. Here is one such birth story.
Last September, I gave birth to my second child in an incredibly easy fashion. Once contractions started, we calmly made our way to Newton-Wellesley, where I labored for about three hours. After 10 minutes of pushing, out popped my baby. Easy peasy. The whole experience felt like a spa day compared to my labor with my first child. It was through my second child’s incredibly uneventful delivery that I learned just how eventful my first one was.
I went into labor with my first child two days before a major blizzard hit the East coast. About 20 other women were in labor with me, so by the time I got to the hospital — when my contractions were about five minutes apart — there were no labor and delivery suites available. Not that I needed one at the time, because when my midwife checked me I was only 1.5 centimeters dilated. But I was 100% effaced. I asked her what that meant, and she said things could take awhile… or my cervix could work just like a zipper. That analogy kind of freaked me out.
I spent a couple hours being monitored in triage, and for the most part my labor was manageable — while I was lying on my side. When I stood up, however, the pressure was much more intense, and the contractions came at a more rapid speed. Thus, when the nurses eventually sent me out to walk around and progress my labor, I was not totally comfortable with the idea. They said I could go home, walk around the mall, or stay and wander around the hospital. The car ride to the hospital had been the longest three miles of my life, so I was absolutely not about to jump back in my car. We opted to walk around the hospital. I tried my best to make it to the food court, but with every step I took, my contractions became more and more intense. The furthest I could make it was about 100 feet away — to the hospital Starbucks.
It was at that Starbucks that I experienced the most intense part of my labor. I quickly transitioned into active labor and, well, to be frank, completely unzipped.
I sought out a place to endure my contractions, but all I could find was an incredibly weird S-shaped couch. By this point, the contractions were coming every one to two minutes, and with every contraction I laid down on my side and tried to contort my body to comfortably fit on this odd couch. Yes, people were staring at me. One woman smiled and cheerily asked, “Are you in labor?” Ummmm… ya think? I even ran into one of my students, whose wife was also in labor — but she got a labor and delivery suite.
Never in my life have I been more uncomfortable. I was experiencing the most difficult part of my labor, and I was doing so in front of dozens of strangers. My husband did his best to help me, but ultimately, I had no massage team, no birthing ball, no tub. Absolutely no comforts of a private room. It was just me, my husband, and the worst couch in the entire world on which to endure this intense pain — oh, and of course the other Starbucks customers.
Our initial goal was to walk around for two hours. That was quickly reduced to one hour. After only 45 minutes, I told my husband I couldn’t take the pain anymore, and I needed to go back. He tells me I said this very calmly. In my head it was more like Jack from “Lost”:
The admitting nurse practically rolled his eyes. First-time mom over here just can’t take it! I told him I needed to see a midwife again because my labor had gotten especially intense, but once again, there were no rooms available because 20 million other women also decided to have their babies that day. We were left to stay in the waiting room.
And that’s when I started to push. And panic.
Of course, this being my first labor, I had no idea what was happening to me, but I was fairly certain that my body was ready to push this baby out. My water even started to break and trickle down my leg, and I thought my baby was about to be born on the waiting room floor. A nurse finally came to see me in the waiting room, and I told her I was pushing — that I felt like I needed to take a big poop. She calmly told me, “You’re not pushing. Your baby is just pressing on your rectum.”
Finally, finally, I made it back into a triage room, and my midwife came to see me. She calmly walked into the room and blithely chatted with me about pain medication. I still thought I had hours ahead of me, so I was practically begging for an epidural. I got into the stirrups, the midwife went to grab a speculum, and the nurse — the same nurse who told me my baby was “just pressing on my rectum” — took one look and said, “Uh, you’re not going to need that.” The midwife quickly checked me out and said, “Well, you’re actually fully dilated… plus two.” Plus two? You can be more than fully dilated? I asked her once again what that means. It was then that she said the scariest words I have ever heard in my life: “You’re not getting an epidural — you’re going to the delivery room.”
As they wheeled me to delivery, I felt the craziest rush of emotions: sheer terror at the notion of pushing a baby out with no medication, the thought that there was no way I was ready to be a mother, and the overwhelming desire to get this darn thing out of me.
Of course, there were still no regular rooms available, and they scrambled to find a place for me to deliver my child. So, in what I like to think is one of the greatest of all birth ironies, I had a completely natural, unmedicated delivery… in an operating room.
I pushed for 40 minutes, and frankly, that whole time was a blur. I remember bits and pieces of those 40 minutes — the Avett Brothers playing on our iPod, the people around me laughing and telling jokes, me keeping my husband in a vice-like headlock during every push.
I had watched so many birthing videos, and what always amazed me was how seconds after their child’s birth, these women would go from primal, screaming beings… to just their regular selves. They were happy and smiling again within seconds. I could not even imagine how that could be possible. Well, as it turns out, the same thing happened with me. While I was pushing, I was in a trance-like state in which all I could focus on was getting my baby out. However, once my son arrived, I was filled with so much adrenaline and oxytocin that the last few harrowing hours completely disappeared, and I forgot the pain as I held my precious newborn baby. I immediately laughed and said to everyone in the room, “I’m sorry. I don’t feel like we’ve been properly introduced. My name is Caitlin.”
My first child’s birth was less than ideal, and I really would have preferred a much different setting for my child to enter this world. However, I do not regret how quickly things moved, and I especially don’t regret that I didn’t have the opportunity for an epidural. I liked the fact that I could feel what was most comfortable for my body and maneuver into a good position without getting in the way of wires and IVs. The recovery was also a breeze.
Above all, I fell in love with that little boy the moment I met him. For the first time in my life, I saw my own eyes looking back at me — and I was filled such amazement, wonder, and the greatest love I have ever known. Despite the pain and the drama, the day my son was born was the happiest day of my life.
And every time I pass by a Starbucks, I can’t help but smile.
