Birth story, part III

At some point in the "epidural or c-section" discussion, triage nurse Suellen (pictured at left) had joined our team of nurses in the delivery room. She took over where Gloria had been most of the morning, directing every push. Directing doesn't even begin to describe it, though. Suellen was one of the biggest cheerleaders I had in that room - I was supposed to push three times with each contraction, and she sometimes made me do another, shorter push. When I wanted to stop, she made me keep pushing, and she directed Tim to count down with each push so I knew when "the end" was near. I had Stephen on my left, Tim on my right, and Suellen at the end of the bed, telling me if I had made any progress with the last set of pushing. (I think she lied half of the time just to keep my spirits up.)

I seriously didn't think I could do it. I thought I couldn't push much more, and I didn't think I was making progress. Suellen kept telling me I was making progress, and the head was "almost there." I remember yelling a lot, which we were told not to do in our childbirth classes (basically you're wasting breath and energy that you could be channeling in to each push), and I remember keeping my eyes closed the entire time I pushed. (My eyes were closed for almost two hours straight.) Each time I finished a contraction, I would start breathing really fast, and they were worried that I was going to hyperventilate. Never one to miss a chance to mock me, Tim likes to remind me that at one point I kept saying "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry" about twenty times because I felt like I was letting the medical team down. Dare I say it, but I was near hysterical at this point. I know doctors and nurses have probably seen it all during delivery, and at the time I seriously felt like I couldn't do it. In retrospect, I fear I looked like a big baby. But hey, not like I spend every day delivering a baby or will see most of those people again, and they *told* me I did an amazing job and had an incredibly high tolerance for pain. (But Gloria also told me we could go get margaritas after the baby was born, so maybe she was just lying to me the whole time, haha.)

After the Pitocin started and the pushes were pretty much non-stop, things happened quickly. Soon, I heard one of the nurses say that someone might want to tell the doctor he might want to get in the room. I think he barely made it before my final set of pushes - and then I was told to push REALLY hard. They said the head was out, and I remember hearing Tim tell me he could see her. Then Dr. S asked me to not push, and then I was told to push slowly, like I was squeezing a roll of toothpaste.

Uh, WTH?! I'm giving birth to Gigantor, not eeking out the last of a tube of Colgate.

I still didn't know how close we were, though. After the "slow push," I realized I was feeling a lot of wiggling and that it was actually Elle. They had called for a slow push because her cord was wrapped around her right shoulder - I'm guessing if I had pushed too hard or too fast it would have tightened and they were trying to dislodge it as I pushed. My final push was when her feet came out.

And all of a sudden she was on my chest, a squirmy, bloody, wriggling mess. But she was ours. And she was out.

Tim and the doctor cut the cord.

I seriously couldn't believe that she was out. I think I just kept gasping "My baby, my baby ..." (again, hysterical and in disbelief) and I didn't want them to take her, but I knew they had some things to check on her, and Tim was able to be with her the whole time. I was able to see at least part of her most of the time, and the medical staff let me know what they were checking and how she was doing.

I didn't feel any pain when she was born. I don't know if it was adrenaline, or just the fact that the contractions were finally ending and I was so relieved that the pushing was over, but it was more an odd, rather than painful, sensation as she was born. The part after her birth was painful, and seriously, I don't think the postpartum descriptions really came close to what happens. The doctor delivered the placenta, and apparently I had some rather severe tears - when the nurses were charting my delivery and asked Dr. S what level my tears were, he made some comment about how there was no level to describe the tears. (Tears are graded on a scale of 1-4, with four being the most severe.) I was alert enough to hear him and respond with an admonishing "Doctor!" because I couldn't believe he'd just described me with a "there are no words" comparison. He finally classified them as level 2 and level 3 tears, but apparently the lengths and placements made them more complex.

As I was stitched up, I asked Suellen to distract me - I wanted my baby, but I knew they needed to do some work on me before the area around my hospital bed would be clear enough that I could hold her. Suellen had photos in her badge, and I asked her to tell me about the little boys. I gripped her hand tight and tried to focus on what she was telling me instead of what was going on around me.

Finally, I was "fixed," Tim was on the phone with our parents and my sister, and Elle was brought to me. I looked at her face, her tiny little hands, her bright pink cheeks and rosy coloring, her ragged breathing, like she had just completed some crazy task like being born or something ... and I honestly didn't remember any of the pain from the contractions, or the intense pain I'd had in my back just minutes ago, or the swollen feet (more on that later), frequent trips to the bathroom or the 14 weeks of morning sickness. Her head was perfectly shaped, and I'm attributing that mostly to the fact that she didn't spend much time getting cone-headed in the birth canal. Her face was a little puffy, and she was starving, but again, she'd had a rough morning. And really, as far as newborns go (and I may be a bit biased), she is gorgeous and perfect.


I was able to breastfeed her, and then as Gloria did some final post-delivery work on me and helped me change in to a new hospital gown, Tim was able to hold our daughter for the first time. (And just typing that and looking at the picture makes me fall in love with my little family all over again.)


I don't think either of us really knew what to expect from labor, delivery or the birth of our daughter - it was surreal, it was painful, it was gory, it was fast, it was terrifying, it was exhausting, it was exhilarating. But there's no denying that we wouldn't trade it for the world, and it has changed us forever. (And I cry every time I read that paragraph, so I shall move on now ...)