A year ago today…
December 13, 2009 | Clark, Mom In The Making
Clark’s first birthday is tomorrow, but of course I went into labor a year ago today. I never posted my birth story back then. I just felt too raw from the experience, and honestly, EMBARRASSED about all the screaming I did. Can you believe it?
This is really long, and probably not of interest to all but a few of you. If you’re one of my 2 or 3 male readers, you may want to skip this. There is talk of fluids and cervical lips.
All day today I’ve been thinking about what I was doing at this exact time. It’s 9:49 pm and I was probably doing laps in the business-y hallways outside the birth center. Looking back, at this point in my labor I felt like I was watching myself in a movie. I couldn’t believe it was really happening.
The next post will be about my Clarkie, but this one’s about me. Happy Birth Day to me!
Clark Herbert Jacobs
Born
Sunday, December 14, 2008
6:13 am
7lbs 15oz
19.5” long
At 4:40 in the morning on Saturday the 13th, I woke up to pee. When I hoisted myself out of the guest bed I felt a warm gush. I was only 39 weeks and 1 day, so I thought there was NO WAY that could be what it seemed to be. My due date was the 19th, and all along we assumed that the baby would come late, probably on Christmas. So, I wiped up the trail of fluid I had made to the bathroom and went back to bed. I didn’t even tell Aaron. Over the next hour, I had 4 very mild, totally ignorable contractions that I was still totally in denial about. Water usually doesn’t break first, except for in the movies, and besides, this was totally not happening today. At 5:30am, Aaron’s alarm went off because he was taking the Lees to the airport that morning. I called to him to come to the guestroom and fussed over him driving carefully because it was snowy and icy out. He asked me if I was ok and that’s when I told him about the gush. He promised to be careful and left.
I woke up again at 8 and when I got up there was another warm gush. That’s when I knew I better call the midwife. I could tell Susan was just as skeptical as I was, and we agreed to meet at The Birthing Inn at 11:00. I took my time showering and getting dressed and put on one of the adult diapers they’d told me to get, that I was SURE I wouldn’t need. I was super glad to have them though, when I was putting on my shoes to leave and had two more gushes.
When we got there, I told Susan that I was now sure this was actually it. She did a test and confirmed that indeed, that was amniotic fluid and no, I was not just wetting myself. Now of course I was on a ticking clock. When your water breaks first, you have 24 hours to be in active labor or you have to go to the hospital and be induced, no intervention-free, birth center birth like we planned. Susan checked my cervix and it was posterior and not at all effaced, perhaps dilated to 1 cm. She sent us home with a homeopathic cervix softener that I was to take once an hour, and to keep her posted.
On the way home, we planned to go out for breakfast because at this point I was still not contracting at all. Aaron had to mail something so we stopped at the UPS store first. While he was in there, I had 4 contractions exactly 3 minutes apart and then some serious gushing, more than the Depends could handle. When he got back I told him we had to go home.
At home we busied ourselves scurrying about trying to finish the last things on our list that we thought we had another week to do. Aaron installed the car seat, and I packed a bag for me and for the baby, and we cleaned and prepped for the guests who would soon arrive. Tiana came over for a little while and hung out with me while Aaron had to go run errands. Lael arrived in the afternoon and started totally being a rockstar. She would do so much for us over the next 2 days. My mom got there soon after and then the two of them did the last thing on the list, which was to make a belly cast. It turned out really beautifully and I’m so glad it got done.
Afterwards, I sat on the ball and we all hung out for about 2 hours, and my contractions got to be regular and a little more difficult. When we confirmed that they had been consistently 4 minutes apart and a minute long for an hour, we decided to call Susan back and tell her we were coming in. The weather was snowy and we wanted to get to the birth center before it got too treacherous outside. I think it was around 6pm.
We got there and settled in. There was an hour or so of organizing our stuff and eating sandwiches and me thinking things were further along than they were. When Susan checked me I had made progress but not a ton. My cervix was now anterior, 75% effaced, but still only about 1-2cm dilated.
Aaron and I got busy walking the halls and doing squats on the stairs. Things got increasingly more difficult from then until about midnight. I took a shower, tried a few lying down, and was starting to get a little scared. Somewhere in there I asked to be checked again and I was 100% effaced and dilated to 4-5cm. I was starting to get worried I wouldn’t be able to handle birth because there was so much further to go and I was already having a hard time.
Between Midnight and 6am was when things got really scary. I was not handling my contractions well. I would appreciate the time between them and rest and relax, but as soon as one would start I would immediately tense up. I started making increasingly more distressed sounds, not calm ones like I had intended. I would try to switch to calmer noises and horse lips at the height of my contractions, saying over and over again, “Calm down, calm down, calm down”. (also, Mother Fucker, Jesus Christ, Oh God, Oh Dear, and Aaron’s favorite, Shit Balls)
This scary time is very fuzzy for me. There was some time spent on the toilet, squatting near the toilet, then finally in the tub. Sometime while I was in the tub, Susan called Amy, her partner, to come in. I had been waiting for that because I knew that we weren’t even close until Susan made that call. Being in the tub was not the relief I had hoped it would be. I couldn’t get comfortable. I couldn’t find any kind of escape from the contractions. I knew in my head that I needed to relax, to surrender to them, to go THROUGH them, but I just couldn’t. Finally someone bossed me into getting out of the tub, and I’m so glad. I thought that seemed impossible, to move from where I was, I was so crazy from the pain.
There was a lot of screaming. I just could. Not. Help it.
When I got on the bed, Susan was able to check me and see that I had a bit of cervical lip that was stuck between the baby’s head and my pubic bone and was getting pinched with each contraction. It was apparently swollen to the size of a golf ball. Once she moved it, which was incredibly painful, I was complete and could start pushing. It was 5:32am. Pushing contractions were also painful, but NOTHING like I had been feeling with that pinched lip.
All in all, I only pushed for 45 minutes but it seems like a lot happened. At first I was on my side. It was just so scary. Pushing requires such a crazy mix of surrender and control. You have to keep your mind from holding back and just push with abandon, even though it feels like you are going to explode. I was so afraid of tearing, though by this point, I just wanted it to be over. They eventually told me to lay flat on my back and gave me one end of a ski rope thing to hold, my mom had the other. Then I would pull towards me, curling up, while pushing. It was so freaking intense!
Each contraction, they would tell me I was making so much progress. I could feel the baby moving down. It felt like it was close, but still so far away. Eventually Susan told me she was going to have to do an internal episiotomy. Apparently, my hymeneal ring was so tight that the baby was just not going to get past it. I told her to do what she needed to do. That was when she told Aaron that he couldn’t watch anymore. I swear I didn’t even feel it.
After she did that, he was out in the next contraction. He came out in one push. There was no crowning, no ring of fire like I was expecting, no calm birth of the head and then waiting for the next contraction for the body, just one big push. One big push and his whole body was out and warm and on my chest. He cried IMMEDIATELY. Loudly and lustily. I worried he was getting traumatized he was crying so hard, in that grunty, newborn, pterodactyl sounding way. We waited for a minute or so before looking to see that he was a he.
I didn’t get to hold him for very long before he was wrapped up, and Aaron took him over to the rocking chair, because I had to deal with the placenta and the stitches. The placenta came out just fine, which was a relief since I’ve had so many friends have issues with theirs. Then I got three shots of a local and a bunch of stitches for the episiotomy and a 1st degree tear. It really wasn’t that bad. Even shots and stitches don’t hurt after labor.
Clark is the prettiest baby I’ve ever seen. Since he came out so fast he’s not abused looking at all. He doesn’t have that alien lizard look that most babies have.
Birth was much scarier than I thought it was going to be. In retrospect, I don’t know if it was a good thing that I’ve been to so many births. I had a lot of expectations of how it was going to be and how I was going to handle it.
I’m trying, with a bit of distance, to feel more proud of myself. I know that I should perhaps be even MORE proud because I was able to do it, even with that horrible cervical lip situation, but I’m actually kind of ashamed of all the screaming and freaking out I did. Writing that, I can see how dumb that sounds, but really, I know that I made it more traumatic for myself and everyone else with all that screaming. I can say that I was never mean to anyone, though, and I’m definitely proud of that. I know how hard it is to be an attendant wishing you could do more to help, and then have the poor mom bite your head off. Even though you know it’s not personal, it still hurts your feelings. I’m happy to have not done that to anyone.
I’m glad to know about the lip. It makes sense to me, with how it felt. For the majority of the labor, the contractions started, built, peaked, and went back down, as they should. Even the worst of those, I was able to handle, by breathing. The peak would last about 3 or 4 pain-full breaths, then it would start to recede, and it would be such a relief. I would be proud to have made it through another one and I would revel in the break before the next one. But when he moved down far enough to start pinching that lip between his head and my pubic bone, the contractions no longer built, they would just immediately pulse with the most insane, inescapable pain I could imagine. I’m glad to understand what was going on, though. If I ever do this again, I will know that that kind of pain is not what I should be feeling.
It is very unusual to have any kind of episiotomy at the Birth Center. Susan told me the next day that she had discussed it with some of the other midwives and they all agreed that if she hadn’t done that, because of the way she could even see my urethra stretching, I would have ended up with a 4th degree tear. I can’t even imagine having to deal with that recovery. I found my stitches difficult enough, and they only hurt for about 5 days.
When I started writing this, Clark was only a few days old, now two weeks have passed. I can’t believe how much I love him already. I miss his little face when someone else holds him, I want him touching me all the time. I’m so glad that I’m feeling so attached to him, because I really didn’t when he was inside me. Some mothers describe how connected they feel to their babies when they’re pregnant, but for me, the baby was always too abstract of a concept.
This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I still have not made it through a day without crying. But just like people say, it’s totally worth it. Just the smell of his head, his fuzzy duck hair, his cheeks, his nose… I could go on and on.
***
edited to add:
I hadn’t read this since I wrote it, and now I just read through it again after posting it and I’m surprised at how negative it sounds. I didn’t mean it to be, and that’s not the impression I have of it now. There are so many more scary things that can happen at a birth, and all in all, I’m so lucky to have had a pretty smooth time. Maybe what they say about those forgetting hormones women have is true, because now, I feel like it was a GREAT birth and I’m proud of myself for making it through the biggest, scariest, most personally challenging thing you ever do. For the record. 
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December 14th, 2009 at 11:15 am, hliv Says:
jenny…i am so glad you posted this. what a way to mark a year. i truly believe that labor is not just about birthing a child, but about crossing over into motherhood. the trials and joys of labor and pregnancy prepare us for the trials and joys of motherhood. you know how spoiled i was by my labors, i can’t imagine the pain you experienced with the pinched cervix. you managed your pain, more than you needed to, and vocalizing was part of that. i am glad to hear that time has made you proud of yourself. you should be girl. i wouldn’t have gotten through my labors as well without you there, i wish i could have been there for you too! and it just keeps getting better, i love you
December 14th, 2009 at 2:00 pm, Lucy in UK Says:
Happy Birthday Clark! Jenny, thank you so much for sharing your birth story. It doesn’t sound at all negative, just extremely honest. You should be really proud of yourself, you had a really tough time with labour but you coped so well. It is such a joy to see you being such a great mum to such a great kid! You remind me of myself, the way you are so smitten with your little man. It’s my little boy’s birthday in the new year and I’ve been doing loads of reminiscing, I can’t believe he’s about to turn six! Lucy x
December 14th, 2009 at 10:40 pm, dahli Says:
No negativity at all. I am so happy to read this story & I thank you from the bottom of my heart for posting it.
xoxo
December 14th, 2009 at 10:52 pm, worldmomma Says:
Great story, thanks for posting. It can be a very scary and very painful experience and that doesn’t make you any less of a person or a mother. Mine was more like yours, so I really hate reading the stories of the easy, empowering births. I don’t think the manner of the baby arriving is as important as some make it out to be. You brought him into the world. Congratulations.
December 15th, 2009 at 6:02 pm, Jen Says:
Thank you for posting this. I’m not sure I should have read this so soon. Part of me loved reading your story, what you went through and the honesty of it. But I’m having difficulty typing right now and am loosing feeling in my hands. I think I’m freaking out………………
December 17th, 2009 at 10:53 am, Jenny Says:
hliv: Thanks, my friend. I thought I was going to be a calm and peaceful rockstar like you. Not so much…
Lucy: Ahhh! Six! That’s such a wonderful age. I’m so excited for six.
dahli: Thanks you for reading it!
worldmama: Thanks! I was so hoping for one of THOSE stories. Maybe next time.
Jen: Oh no. Jen, it’s TOO EARLY for you to be reading birth stories. You are a stong, healthy, and powerful woman and you will have an awesome birth. But you can’t even start thninking about it until you are at least 6 months along. OK? Then, let me know, and I’ll get you a ton of super positive ones to read. Which, weirdly enough, you will devour. That’s how it works.
December 20th, 2009 at 2:38 pm, Jenny M Says:
I’m on the same page as worldmama. Sounds like you did great, and there is nothing wrong with some screaming. You set a goal for yourself, got through it, and DID IT! Sounds like a beautiful birth to me (and I see lots!) Glad you had such a lovely birth at TBI, they are wonderful. Love, Jenny
December 25th, 2009 at 12:38 pm, tacomachickadee Says:
Good work. With the birth, the boy, and the sharing.