Labor of Love

I’ve got a plan. At least I had one. I made it anyway. It was a great plan. One for how I was going to bring my baby into this world. Labor and delivery are somewhat of an unknown, uncertain time in a pregnant woman’s journey, whether they have had a child yet or not. My journey is unique to me and my baby, as any mama would know. I was going to give birth with a midwife, instead of at the hospital. My father thinks I’m crazy. In fact, we got into a full-on argument and yelling match about my chosen midwife's qualifications. Who is he to tell me what I can or cannot do with my body and my baby? No pain medication for me. No bright hospital lights or unknown doctors. I wanted to have a natural birth. I found the idea of my plan comforting.

And then at 37 weeks, I slowly lower my body into the chair as my head spins with a big breath of air. Reeling, my body tingling all over. My husband’s worried expression reflected in my mind’s eye. We found out it was preeclampsia, the culprit, leaving my blood pressure cresting the ridges on my graphed chart to keep track of where I am, while trying 4 eggs for albumin and a 2-quart daily dose of passionflower tea as a natural remedy. Throwing out the white slices of bread and sugar. Juicing mounds of apples, cucumbers, and celery. Doesn’t taste great to me, but how often does medicine, really?

A routine check-up at 39 weeks reveals that the cresting has cascaded above a safe ridge for the baby. We must induce labor. And now, here at the birth center. Metallic tasting, tacky castor oil for contractions, and passionflower extract to keep my blood pressure lower. A foley catheter with a balloon inserted to dilate me. Painstakingly inched in and then, I followed a rhythm of pushing, pulling, standing, and lying. Hours on end pass, and yet it feels like no time at all. At 3 am, the midwives have been working with us for over 8 hours. Everyone falls to a hush as we try to rest, believing the balloon in the catheter will do its work and allow us to put an even larger one in later for the rest of the dilation needed. In the night, the interim time, just as hope is slipping, the catheter did too. Upon waking, a need to redo the entire previous night's efforts feels as redundant as it sounds. And yet, here we are. Round 2. When did this become a fight? Why doesn’t my baby know that it is dangerous for him to be inside? Why isn’t he positioned down low enough to begin coming out? How will this turn out? Doubts, worries, fears, and insecurities inside ramp up, trying to get past the 7 centimeters we found last night. We just need 8 to escalate and move forward. We change to a bigger size early, but the castor oil is no longer working. Dehydrated and fading fast. This mama has been induced into labor now for 24 hours past. The feeling of failure weighing as a 2-ton pointed rock on a piece of glass. Scratching past the dizzying confusion of what just happened during our unexpected ride, it dissolves as quickly as it came. First, the midwife said we can’t let you go home with blood pressure that high; the hospital is your only choice tonight. Then, we find my blood pressure has decided to release its grip. The chokehold being removed results in gasping breaths as we find my choices doubled, and I get to go home for tonight. I don’t know if it is truly safe, but now I’m taking prescribed medicine, Labetalol, to keep the equilibrium as we wait for authentic labor to take place. Confusion and relief flood me like a torrential downpour.

Three days later in the dark of the night, as the clock glares at me from behind 11 pm, I begin feeling contractions. The grip of my belly and back, tight around me, passed as quickly as it came. As more contractions come, a feeling takes hold, like a boa constrictor woven around my body and preparing me for dinner. They come on more strongly overnight, lasting longer as time passes. In the morning, around 8 am, I sit up with a jolt. I need to rush to the bathroom as I wipe my sleepy eyes, and I awkwardly move with the feeling of a bowling ball between my legs. I feel wetness escape and cover my legs like a warm blanket before I can reach the toilet in time. The midwives agree, my water must have broken. They instruct me to wait to come in until the contractions follow a rhythm of 4:1:1. A ratio of intensity, the cramp-like deep body twinge coming every four minutes, lasting a full minute, and for over an hour. I try to eat and rest. The feeling of the baby as a bowling ball passes.

My birth pangs range like the mountains. They are still sporadic, and erratic. At 3pm, my midwife says, “Come in. Let’s get you checked out.” And like that, I am checked out. Sent to the hospital with concerns about my body not responding correctly, and the baby not staying in position. My plan flies gently from the car window and then flutters across the street as the breeze picks up to blow it out of reach. Lost to the wind, an hour away in a hospital, maybe there is some reprieve. A midwife comes to see me. To set fairy twinkle lights and aromatherapy in the room with peppermint, clary sage, and lavender through a diffuser in the corner. We try a belly binder to push the baby into position. She tells me maybe the amniotic sac is still partially intact and that, in an hour or so, we might try to break the rest free manually or induce again with Pitocin. And then listen: silence. Radio silence for hours on end. Come to find out, she left without a trace. It feels like she wasn’t even there in the first place.

More hours pass, and I’ve been here for 5 or longer, in pain and labor, again, for more than 24 hours. I feel depleted, defeated, and concerned. My stress is beginning to rise above high tide. And then the main doctor comes in and acts like someone should have told me already. I have a uterine infection. Says a c-section is safest for mama and baby. Oh, but that I can try Pitocin and be induced, but that every second that passes creates another route for dangerous distress. The baby has already been distressed, and there is meconium in my amniotic fluid. I only have one choice. An hour later, I’m on the operating table. My whole lower half was warm and heavy from the spinal injection moments before. A blue sheet in my face and my husband to my right. Unfortunately, I can see the reflection of my surgery in my ceiling light. I don’t tell anyone. I also don’t look away. I catch glimpses of the progress, and sure enough, 18 minutes later, my baby boy is born. Flopped onto the blue sheet, right on my face. I laugh and cry with gratitude but continue to have a strangling concern as I do not hear his cries and notice that he is as blue as my sheet. He needs his lungs vacuumed out, and my husband joins him as they work on getting my placenta. It feels like it isn’t soon enough, but I do hear his cry. Relief floods the tears in my eyes.

They need to take him from the room soon to do a deep vacuum and admit him to the NICU. I am confined and can’t respond to my child’s cries. I can’t follow him to his procedure or look into his eyes. And then the shaking starts. Violently, my body takes control. I have no ability to stop it, as I begin to feel colder than I’ve ever known. An arctic chill from what I assume to be blasted straight from death's potential drill buried deep into my body. My torso, arms, chest, and head shake with an unbreakable force as my legs lay paralyzed and resigned to inertia from their medicated source. Uncertainty has now taken its course. The doctors inform my husband that I need his support. With tears in his eyes, he holds my hand and tries to ask how I’m feeling, also trying to comprehend my hemorrhaging. I tell him that it’s fine, and it's normal. I tell him I will be okay. I wish he could stay, and yet, I know he must go to the NICU with our son. And like that, he’s gone. Just as my son is. Just as my plan was. Luckily, 2 hours in, they have escalated through 6 different levels of medicine to get my bleeding to stop, and I am sown up. Wheeled to the NICU for a short ten-minute stop to sing “You are my Sunshine” to my son before I am taken to my ward.

It seems we were meant to survive this time. As 9 days pass and we are both home, recovery is on the horizon, and I learn that uncertainty is a hurdle I must trust. I had to let go in surrender that there was no way to anticipate. Plagued with no sleep, nightmares when I do, and a healing journey are the least of my worries. The wind hurries as my blessings ride in from the sea, notably this newborn, pure and sweet.