Twenty-Two, and Part II

Today my little girl, my first-born, a person who has changed my life for the infinitely better, turns 22 months old. That number may seem weird to celebrate since she’s two months shy of her second birthday, but it feels momentous to me. Month 21 passed in the blink of an eye. Her language skills have suddenly developed up so much so that she ran into our bedroom this morning with her toy pot and ladle and exclaimed, “Mama, I make soup!” She’s like a little tornado of EMOTION, which she expresses to maximum effect. When she’s joyful, you can’t help but laugh and twirl and march alongside her. When she’s angry, a dark cloud looms over all of us. What a curious, wonder-filled adventure it’s been thus far with our little imp:

Happy 22 months, Addie...

And now, for the next installment of:

The Tale of Adeline, Part II: Nature’s Revenge

(for Part I, click here)

I was eight days late. No, not my period this time. My due-date. Not that due-dates are ever accurate. I think it’s something like a 10% chance of actually having your kid be born on the due date your doctor gives you, but still. By the last month of your pregnancy, you are HONED in on that day. That glorious day when you will be released from the shackles of an alien life-form that’s hijacked your body (I actually loved everything about being pregnant until a week before she was born and then it was like OUT, VILE CREATURE, OUT!)

By the time the whole breech baby-it’s-the-end-of-Ariel’s-world-as-she-knows-it fiasco was over, it was already December, and my due date was the 20^th. Well, the 20^th came and went. I think I went about my day tip-toeing around, hugging Zoe a lot, expecting my waters to break and drown us all at any moment. And then it was the night before Christmas, and I was praying that this poor kid wouldn’t have to share a birthday with Jesus Christ. And then Christmas came and went and we played a lot of Nintendo Wii, ate homemade fried chicken and spaghetti puttanesca, and walked around the neighborhood loop thirty million times to kick-start my labor. I even took some Labor Tincture my midwife gave me but it only gave me a few mild contractions that faded away through nighttime.

The next evening (the 26th) I began to feel contractions again, but figured they would go away like before so I knocked back a little more Labor Tincture and proceeded to kick everyone's ass at Super Mario Cart. They kept coming though, and by 10:00pm, I was on the phone with my midwife. 10 minutes apart, for 30-60 seconds long. Labor, schmabor!, I thought. Hoo-boy, what an idiot I was.

My sister and Zach went to bed, leaving me to suffer in my own private hell. It's not like they could tell how I felt. I would be fine one minute, and then the next, face down in the carpet, butt up in the air, breathing hoo, hoo, HOOOOO. By 2:00am, I'd had enough alone time and started harassing my midwife again on the phone. She could tell I needed support by that time and sent her assistant, H., to our apartment. H. was a GODSEND. Patient, amazing, calming angel of a woman. By the time she arrived at 5:00am, it became clear that the baby was in a posterior position (head facing the wrong way) by the intense lower back pain I felt each time I had a contraction. She and Zach would literally put all of their weight into their clenched fists against my lower back for relief--I had bruises to prove it.

Zach and H. are having some random discussion while I look like I'm praying at the altar of Michael Pollan. Did I seriously think I was going to be in the mood to read about grass-fed cattle in between contractions?

Apparently, yes.

I don't think I have ever consumed as much liquid as I did while laboring at home. They tell you not to drink or eat anything at the hospital; well, these people shoveled homemade "labor-ade", bananas, and peanut-butter toast down my throat at every given chance. I never want to taste the combination of lemon juice, water, honey, salt, and ground-up calcium magnesium tablets again. GAG. They did, however, do a great job of keeping my energy up because my labor kept going. and going. and going. In the late morning (around 10:00 am), H. checked my progress and said I was at 4 cm. Whoo-hoo!

By this time, I was in my own deep, animalistic private-world. All modesty and sense of decorum was thrown out the window. I didn't care that my sister was taking photos of me half-naked, in full squat-position, moo-ing as loudly as possible from the very deepest pit of my stomach. I look at those photos now and blush HARD. But nobody said child-birthin' was purdy!

As the young folks say, shit was getting real. My water broke at 12:37 (thanks, note-takers), and there on the bathroom floor, was a bright red, heart-shaped puddle (the bloody show!). Really! I have a photo, but I don't think you want to see my mucus plug, even if it looked pretty in that i-make-art-with-my-bodily-fluids kind of way. This was past the twelve-hour mark and I was hit with a second-wind, encouraged by my water breaking and progressing another centimeter. I cried, completely overwhelmed with the level of support and love I felt toward and from the people around me.

Here I am right after my water broke, smiling. Because I thought it would be over soon.

Time ceased to exist. Hours flew by without my notice since all I could focus on was getting through each mind-numbingly painful contraction and then relaxing during the few-minute reprieve. I spent most of the time in our bathroom, jumping in and out of the shower, rolling against an exercise ball, and sitting on a medieval-looking "birthing stool" that was invented by a Danish midwife so you could have your baby without straining your thigh muscles while you squatted. Now there is a pretty picture for you to go along with the words! Oh, and I was bellowing like a p.o.'d moose at the same time. I'm sure our neighbors were equally too embarrassed and terrified to do anything like call the police.

Sitting on the "birthing stool"...maybe I'm imagining my spirit animal?

It was night again, and everyone besides myself ate dinner. By 10:00pm , a full night and day later, my spirits began to flag. I was beyond exhausted. I was falling asleep while still standing with my head resting on the bathroom counter.

zzzzzzzzzzz...wake me up when the baby is here

I told my midwife I didn't think I could do it anymore. She checked me again and said I was eight, almost nine, centimeters.

"Well, it's time to shit or get off the pot," she said.

"What!?", I thought, and became very pissed off at her all of a sudden. What the hell had I been doing the past 24 hours?

The next five or six hours were a blur. I tried to focus every molecule of my being into dilating that last centimeter. I meditated. Zach and I took a bath together. I begged to whatever higher power existed in the Universe to please help out a tiny bit and get me through this.

Suddenly, I felt my insides bearing down very hard and it felt different than the usual contraction. Am I pushing this baby out?, I thought, as amniotic fluid gushed out. It was like my body had a mind of it's own and it got sick of waiting around--it was time to push. My midwife checked me again and said that I was still at 9 cm but she hoped these stronger contractions would help bring the baby's head down and push me to 10.

The odd pushing contractions kept coming, I kept losing amniotic fluid, and I felt like death may be a more viable option than continuing as I was. I was feeling so disheartened every time the midwife checked me and I was still stuck at 9.5 cm. My normal contractions were petering out, getting weaker and weaker, and in a total panic over failing, I ran up and down the apartment stairs outside in the freezing weather at three o'clock in the morning to make them stronger. I was a maniac.

By 4:00 am, talk of hospital transfer began...

to be continued...

Go to Part III