Catch up with part one here.

I walked into the birth center and, before I could even greet one of my midwives at the front desk a contraction started and I just gripped the front desk and said “OW” until it passed.  I remember feeling slightly self-conscious doing so, like I was a great big faker.  I don’t know why.

This is the room my son was born in!

We shuffled quickly back to the birthing suite I picked out a few weeks ago, where an internal exam revealed I was 3 cm dilated and 95% effaced.  This was at 9 AM.  My midwives assured me I was doing great, and just starting active labor, and to call if I needed anything.

This was one thing I loved about giving birth at the birth center: they didn’t hover.  A watched pot never boils and all that.

My mother in law arrived at 9:30 AM, bearing bagel sandwiches and good cheer, and we all settled in for what we were sure was going to be a long day and night.  I was able to eat about half my bagel sandwich between contractions, and tried a few positions before I realized pacing in between contractions and then leaning over and bracing my hands on something during was the only way to get through them.

My contractions at this point were intense, and had very little warm-up time, and if I were lying down or sitting when one hit I was unable to assume a comfortable pose before it was on in force.  This ruled out lying down or sitting in between contractions (I was scared of the contractions only when I couldn’t get into a position to handle them, you see) so I paced.

My midwife checked in on me at around 10 AM (I think.  There was a clock in the room but I turned it around because I didn’t want to know what time it was) and I asked her when it would be ok to go in the birthing tub.  She told me to hold off until I felt like I couldn’t handle the pain without it.  She also suggested I start squatting during contractions to widen my pelvis, which I did.

I would hold onto the post of the bed in a deep squat, and rock back and forth to Radiohead’s “Hail to the Thief” while Wes applied counterpressure on my back.  Heaven help him if he was on the other side of the room when a contraction hit!

Half an hour later, I announced, “I need to get in the tub”.  My contractions were now two minutes apart, lasting a minute each, and they’d grown fangs.  There was no question, no uncertainty.  I needed the tub.

I slipped in and instantly knew that every person who touted it as a “liquid epidural” was full of crap.  The warm water felt lovely in between contractions, and made it easier to relax without pacing and burning off energy, but did nothing to make the contractions themselves less painful.

I went through the entirety of active labor and transition in that tub in about an hour and a half.  There came a point where the contractions hurt so deeply, and exquisitely, that I started saying “No no no I can’t” during them.  Wes recalls this being the case for two contractions.  By far, these hurt the most.  Saying “No” to them, fighting them, made them hurt more.

I decided to try saying “Yes” instead, and that was the turning point in my labor.  I welcomed each contraction with a loud “YES” and “LET’S GO AIDAN” and turned each one into an opportunity for me to be a cheerleader for my body and my baby.  Sounds ridiculous, but this is the approach that got me through natural childbirth.  I was so loud I had no voice for two days afterward.

Eventually I could no longer bear to have Wes touching my back during contractions and I felt really nauseous.  In the back of my mind, I knew this meant I was likely in transition (going from 8-10 cm dilated) but in my state of mind at the time words like “transition” and “dilation” meant less than nothing.

After who knows how many contractions, I started feeling a ton of downward pressure with each contraction, almost like I was pushing involuntarily.  My midwife decided to check me, and while she was still checking my cervix another contraction came barreling toward me.  I yelled, “F***, get out!” and scrambled back into an on-all-fours position.

Once the contraction subsided, she told me she thought I was complete (meaning fully dilated) and ready to start pushing.  There were two student midwives in the room, as well as my very experienced midwife.  All of them sitting patiently at the side of the tub.

I found it most comfortable to drape myself over the side of the tub between contractions, resting my head and arms over the side while catching brief bits of sleep until another contraction would wake me up.  Wes had a bowl full of ice water and a washcloth, which he would use to cool my forehead and I remember this feeling incredible.

My midwives gave me the go-ahead to start pushing, and this felt incredible as well.  The pushing contractions confused the heck out of me, though.  They were different than the other contractions.  Some of them had multiple peaks, others had just one, and I remember finding it hard to figure out when to push because I was unsure of where the peak of the contraction was.

There was so much pressure, you see, that it was nigh impossible to discern what was pressure from Aidan’s head and what was pressure from a contraction.  My midwife handed Wes a mirror, to see if he could see the head descending, but I was moving too much to make this feasible.

I ended up pushing for 45 minutes, but I had absolutely no understanding of time.  I said a few choice phrases, such as, “Are you sure he’ll fit?” and “This will be our only child!”

My midwife started announcing numbers, like 4 cm and then 7 cm.  Wes later informed me that this was the circumference of his head that she could see, but I thought at the time that these numbers indicated how far down he still had to go and I remember being furious that the numbers kept getting bigger.

I stalled out on progress at one point, and when I reached down to feel his head I told them it felt pokey.  My midwife checked and discovered there was a little bit of amniotic sac slowing things down, so she popped it and things went quickly after that.

I started feeling the burn.  The undeniable, there’s-a-head-stretching-me-out burn, and I knew I was close.  I was terrified of that stretch, but I was determined to meet this baby.  They checked his heartbeat and it was slow.  I asked my midwife if he was doing ok and she said he needed to come out soon.

I marshaled every ounce of strength, determination, and stubbornness I could and really got to work.  If I was pushing before, now I was pushing, and within two pushes his head was out.  I could barely catch my breath with his head out before another almighty contraction came and before I knew it the rest of him came tumbling out.

I reached down and picked up my son, noting first his head full of black hair and noting second his beautiful face.  I felt amazing, I was high as a kite on endorphins and my son was out and blinking at me with the most serene expression on his face.

Unfortunately for me, this moment lasted very briefly because I was bleeding profusely and my midwives needed to attend to that.  I handed Aidan to Wes, then got fixed up.  We later found out that Aidan came out with his hand up by his face, thus making his head far too large to pass through without a lot of damage.

My skilled midwives got my bleeding under control, and then I got to try feeding Aidan for the first time.  I’m blessed with a son who loves to eat and has a perfect natural latch, so this experience went well.

I loved every minute of natural childbirth.  For sure it hurt, but it was such a constructive pain that it was good in a way.  I swore and said the F*** word a lot, but I spent far more time cheering my son into the world.  My midwives said it was a really fun birth, and continue to be amused by the things I said.

I’ll never judge anyone for choosing to birth their child differently, but bringing Aidan into the world without drugs was absolutely the best decision we could have made.  Here’s hoping our next child leaves his/her hands down on the way out though!

He thinks it's funny that it's taken me this long to write his birth story.

My son is one week old today, and in honor of this milestone I thought I’d jot down my recollections of the day he entered the world.  This account is a complication of things I remember and things I’ve since been told happened but that I could not directly recall.  You’ve been forewarned: This is going to be a long tale.

If you’ll remember, I went in for acupuncture two days before my due date (Monday).  The day after my acupuncture appointment, I’d had contractions off and on all day but they were nothing remarkable.  Wes brought home Chinese food Tuesday night, and while we were eating it I started having contractions every 10 minutes or so, lasting about  a minute each.

I kept them to myself, because they weren’t increasing in intensity, and by the time we went to bed they’d stopped.  I went to sleep consigned to the fact that I’d be going to my prenatal appointment the next day.

At 3:30 or so Wednesday morning (my exact due date) I was woken up by a contraction.  Nothing too painful per se, but enough to get my attention.  Contractions continued about eight minutes apart for the next hour, and I laid in bed and tried not to get too excited.  The contractions hurt, but not enough to make me think I might be in labor and I certainly didn’t want to wake Wes up for nothing.

Then, at 4:45 AM, the party got started.  And I do mean started.  Two very painful contractions, one right after another, about five minutes apart.  After the second one hit, I got a little scared and decided that, false labor or not, I needed Wes to support me.

I woke him up and he was great, rubbing my back and telling me I was doing well.  I commanded him not to get too excited, and assured him it was probably false labor, and he nodded and agreed while mentally getting a list together of all the stuff that needed to happen before we went to the birth center.

We moved our little labor party down to the family room at about 5 AM, because laying down in bed during contractions just didn’t feel quite right.  Wes put on the mix of soothing classical music he’d picked out for me, I lit some candles, and I just sat there and breathed through contractions for the next hour while Wes timed them.

Now, here’s the weird thing.  My contractions started off exactly three minutes apart (that’s three minutes from start to start) and lasted 45 seconds to one minute long, right from the beginning.  This is indicative of active labor more than early labor, and Wes started getting antsy when my contractions kept increasing in intensity and weren’t slowing down.

He called my midwife at 6 AM, and she assured him everything sounded great but not to come into the birth center until I felt like I could no longer manage my pain on my own.

At this point, I was still not convinced I was in labor.  My contractions felt like surges, and I used a visualization of boogie boarding to imagine myself rising up with each contraction and then relaxing as it subsided.  It must be noted here that at this point Wes was not allowed to be further than one foot away from me, and I refused to turn on any lights in the house.

About an hour later (time really does cease to exist when you’re in labor, as you’ll soon see), sitting down during contractions no longer felt right so I started pacing.  This is where labor went from manageable with breathing to demanding all my focus and concentration.

As each contraction warmed up, I felt immense downward pressure on my cervix and I would need to bend over and hold onto something (the arm of the couch, a stair railing post, the edge of the bed, etc.) and move my hips while the contraction raced through me.  They were speeding up, and getting more painful, and it was at this point I started vocalizing during each contraction.

I believe my ever-eloquent choice of words during each contraction was a forcefully uttered “OW“.

My water broke at around 7:30 AM (for all you pregnant ladies afraid if you won’t know when your water breaks…trust me, you’ll know), and Wes called the midwife to let her know that everything looked fine and there was no meconium in the fluid.  She said my contractions would probably pick up and to keep her in the loop.

My denial finally broken, I started giving Wes projects to do while I paced and focused during my contractions.  I really liked labor at the point, because while the contractions hurt, I loved feeling their intensity, knowing that each one was doing its job and bringing me closer to my baby.

At 8:15 AM, I told Wes we needed to get going to the birth center, that the contractions were too strong for me to handle in the car and that if they got any stronger I would, and I quote, “Tear the car apart like a rabid mongoose.”

We alerted my midwife, called family members to inform them that the baby was definitely on his way, and spent 20 minutes trying to get everything into the car.  We listened to Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” in the car, but it wasn’t doing anything for me so Wes put in Radiohead’s “Hail to the Thief” and that hit the spot.

I suffered through five contractions in the car, and then, finally, we were at the birth center.

To be continued…