The Story

At 12:06am, the day before my due date, I woke up suddenly. The first thing I saw was the big, full moon- as round as me- pouring light in the window.  I woke up because of the contraction, and in that moment under the moon I knew it was all beginning. 

Because it was just the beginning, because I felt I’d waited so long, maybe because I was delirious from sleep, I smiled a big smile, happy that I would meet my baby soon, and went back to sleep.

At 1:06am, I sat straight up.  Groggy and a bit confused, and scavenged for a pen and paper to start writing down contractions. Hmm.  I thought.  Hmm.  I think this might go a bit faster than last time. 

From then on, they came 10 minutes apart, over a minute long.  Definitely in labor. 

And would you like to know what I did, Peanuts?  In labor?  In the middle of the night?
I did laundry.  Yes.  I hauled it down to the basement and back up to the second floor, load by load, and I washed it and dried it and folded it up.  Because I am a strange, warped little person and my primary concern when faced with an impending birth was, apparently, that it was laundry day the next day and how was it going to get done if I was at the hospital? Frankly I was a bit irritated that with J still sleeping away in the bed, I wasn’t able to change the sheets.  I have a sickness, I know it.

I also tidied up the house a little, got all my things together, took a shower, got dressed.  Just taking care of business, remembering Little One’s Birth Day and how it takes time, and is a process, and how I wanted to spend as much of my labor at home as possible. 

But by about 4am, I was not smiling.  At the moon, the baby, or anything else.  I was starting to freak out a little. 

These contractions were long and they hurt more than I remembered.  I wasn’t feeling very tough, already dropping my hands to my knees and taking long breaths, with surely many, many hours to go.  I’d only slept about and hour and a half, and after just a few hours of this (ok, and a few loads of laundry up and down the stairs) I was getting really tired.  Plus. 

The thing about this baby being baked two extra weeks is that She’d had that much longer to grow.  She would be at least as big as a two-week old Little One, I figured, and maybe bigger.  In fact, maybe this labor hurt so much more because She was so much bigger.  HUGE probably! I was getting increasingly concerned about Her exit, and altogether starting to panic just a little. 

J, for his part, was just annoyed that I was frolicking about in the middle of the night. Waking him up with all this pacing around, and turning on the bathroom light, and rustling things about, and, wait, seriously? Is she doing laundry? At 3am?  Crazy pregnant lady.  Let a guy get some sleep already. 

He tried to be a good sport.  When I asked him to rub my back he groggily, dozingly complied. Even though, jeeze, now I have to give her a back rub? At 4am? Crazy pregnant lady. 

At one point, he cracked his eyes open and observed the crazy pregnant lady pacing about and taking long, annoyingly loud breaths, and wondered aloud,“are we having a baby today?”  
“Yes”.
He said, “Oh”, and fell back asleep.
When they started to seem really bad, I asked him to count, to time how long they were. 

 “…thrity two, thirty three, thirty…four..thir..ty…f…..” 

“Um, J?”

“Hunh? What?”

“Did you really just fall asleep in the middle of my contraction?”
“…”

“J?”

Such is the exhausted stupor of a medical resident.  I asked him to go downstairs and get me some juice, once. To get me water, twice. And he did. I sat on the bed next to him and squeezed the life out of his hand, several times.  And still, he never achieved full consciousness until we were loading up the car.  It’s not really that he didn’t realize I was in labor.  He just didn’t realize that I was in real labor. 

And honestly, neither did I.  Really, we both thought I was bothering him unnecessarily much.  That I was being, well, kind of a big baby about it all this time around, and why couldn’t I just relax for awhile and wait it out? Like I did before?  How could I be LESS stoic on my second time around?
But I was.
By 7:30, I was back in the shower, calling him and not caring who else I woke up.   
“J.  J!  JJJJJJ!!” 

“What? What?”
“J.  I. Think. Ah! I. Think. I. Want. To. Go.To. The hospital.”

“Already? Are you sure?”
“NO!...Yes!  I DON'T KNOW PLEASE PUT STUFF IN THE CAR!” 

By this time, Little One was up and having breakfast with Nana downstairs.  J loaded up the car and I hollered down the stairs for him.  Sheesh, I thought as I hollered.  I am not being very calm about this.  “J I NEED YOUR HELP!”

He helped me get dressed and had to help me down the stairs.  I paused on the landing and tried very, very hard not to completely freak out Little One, who wanted to know why I wasn’t coming to give Her a hug. 

“Oh no, mommy you sick mommy? You ok?  Need a kiss?”

She hugged me and I moved to the door.  I sat on the couch to get my shoes on and give Her a hug.  Another contraction and it took ALL my self-control to force a smile for Little One, who was not fooled in the least. 

Thank goodness for my mother, who very cheerfully and calmly managed to help me with my shoes, explain everything to Little One in a very reassuring way, hug me and give me one of those mom looks that instantly fortify you, and bundle us out the door, all in one swoop.  My mother is an angel. 

I sent a text to my OB, letting her know I was on the way to the hospital. 

Knowing that I’d only been having regular contractions since 1 and that I’d wanted to labor at home, she messaged back, “are you sure? Want to try taking a bath first?”
I answered no, I didn’t want to worry Little One, who was up now, and I just kind of felt like going in.  But not to rush, because I thought it would be awhile. 

We started driving.  I had been trying pretty hard to take soothing breaths and remain in control of myself to some degree.  But in the car, with no one there but J, I lost it.
I hollered like Tarzan.  Like a Banshee. I tell you, I just screamed. 

J laughed gleefully.  “This is like a movie!” 
We both laughed.  And then we sat there.  Minutes ticked by.  The contractions seemed really horrible to me.  But they were still 5 minutes apart. Which started a strange cycle of us wondering if we were going in way too early, me apologizing because I knew we’d be walking the halls of the hospital for a long time, and then a contraction hitting and me freaking the heck out.

When we got to the parking lot I was feeling really, really guilty for keeping him up all night and insisting on coming to the hospital so early.  We considered going to pick up some breakfast for him first.

Then another contraction and I started to cry.  I blubbered that I was so tired, SO tired and I just wanted to go to sleep.  I didn't want to have a baby at the moment, I wanted to go to bed instead.  I was scared.  It hurt. I was feeling very ashamed that I was handling this labor process so poorly, and crying because I was so disappointed in myself as I told J I thought I might have to have medicine this time.
I just could not imagine hours and hours more of what was happening.
I was so sorry, I said, but I just wanted to go in.
J agreed that I seemed not to be handling things as well as last time and was probably psyching myself out. But he was super supportive, both with his words and literally, holding me around the waist as we made our way through the parking lot and down the long linoleum hallways.  I kept having to stop and lean on him, but we shuffled our way to triage. 

We waited for the nurse.  I still wasn’t completely ready to let go of my hope for a natural birth, but I wasn’t sure I could make it too much longer. Maybe an hour or two... but I’d only been in labor for seven hours.  “If she says 4 centimeters, I’m not sure I can make it”, I told J.  He kind of chuckled.  “It’s just like a movie!” 

The nurse finally came in all annoyingly loud and cheerful.  Asking me questions that I could not answer (because I couldn’t BREATHE you stupid sappy cheerleader what the heck do you THINK my pain scale is right now!) But at least this time I knew the right answer to that one.  "Ten! Ten.  TEN!"

Cheerleader Nurse: “Well then! How about we check to see how far you’re dilating, and then will you be ready for your epidural?”

C: “Well….well…I think that will depend on what you tell me when you check”. 

Annoying Nurse giggled and clucked at me patronizingly, “Uh, well, I can tell you right now that you’re very uncomfortable, hun”.  
(Did she just "hun" me?! Oh no.  She didn't.  I'll kick her! I'll- wait, contraction, can't move... )

“Ok well, yes.  That’s true….but still, could you just check?”

She brought in a doctor, who checked. And immediately motioned to the triage nurse.  
“Ok, you’re having that baby NOW.”

There wasn’t even time to sign the admitting forms.  They careened the triage bed down the hall like a roller-coaster ride, fluorescent lights flying by, to the delivery room.
They said PUSH! And I did- but then I stopped.
“Wait! Wait! How big is She? Is She too big!? Is She huge?!?” 

Everyone looked around at each other. Crazy pregnant lady. Finally someone said, “um…no….no, she’s…she’s going to fit and everything, and... um..she does have to come out, so…you have to push.”

Fine.
Five minutes of waiting for the next contraction, with a roomful of people just staring at me and my rather compromising position.

“Well”, I said, “this is awkward”.  

But then it was go time again, and I was ready to be DONE.  When they said PUSH, I did. 

And suddenly, just like That-
There She was. 

She didn’t come out stretched and screaming like Her sister, She came quietly, curled up in a little ball.  They rubbed Her back until She gave a cry.  They turned Her to me so I could see Her little face.
And in that instant it was all worth it. 

The waiting, the wishing and wondering, all that puking, the swollen fingers, the aching back, the contractions and the pain and the sleeplessness.  What a small, small price to pay.  The world was suddenly right. 

And that great big baby I was so worried about being able to deliver?  Well.
Just under 6 pounds.  

We were both all cleaned up and I was nursing her when two men in scrubs came in, looking all befuddled.  “Uh..we’re from anesthesiology….? Nevermind."
Luckily I didn’t need them after all. Turns out I was a little tougher than we thought! A little. The nurses all fussed about it, saying I'd been so brave and must have this really high pain tolerance.  J and I, sharing the secret of the Tarzan scream and the tears in the car, just kept looking at each other and laughing. 

Just minutes after being born

I am blessed to have a husband who can see me at my worst; my most vulnerable and out of control, and be there for me through every second of it, keep his sense of humor about it, and love me anyways. 

We’ll probably always laugh about that, and I’m sure I’ll never live it down.  But in the end, everything worked out.  I did all my labor at home like I’d wanted, I just didn’t know it at the time.  She turned out to be even smaller and easier to deliver than Her sister, and labor altogether was a third as long.  And even though I complained about Her not coming two weeks early like my first one, She technically was still early.  By one day. 

And She could not possibly be more perfect.