Birth Story: His Version

***Alex and I decided that we each wanted to write our own perspective of Francie's birth. Here is what he wrote, which I am reading for the very first time***

March 19, 2012

I think we were both pretty scared when we arrived at the hospital.  Jo’s water had broken nearly 30 hours before.  We were pretty sure it was fine that we waited to come in, but in reality we both knew that neither of us had any idea what we were doing.  We were two weeks early for the due date, and she wasn’t really feeling any contractions, so we were still sort of skeptical that this was actually going to happen. 

When we did get settled into the triage room, it wasn’t long before medical staff made us feel like we had screwed things up by not coming in earlier.  They questioned us and implied that we were now at an elevated risk because of our decision.  This didn’t help our psyches.  And then, when the midwife came back to tell us that it was, in fact, amniotic fluid things got really real.  We were going to have a baby… like today.

As things progressed and the nurses slogged through the arduous process of checking us in, we realized that it might not actually be today when our daughter would be born.  Because Jo wasn’t feeling any contractions and mostly likely was not dilated at all, they told us that it could be a day or two before the new member of our wolf pack was finally born.  Despite our desire to have a natural birth experience, they had to start Jo on Pitocin pretty much right away to get things moving.  They seemed very worried about how long it had been since her waters ruptured because of risk of infection.  Again, this didn’t really help our anxiety. 

But at first things were fairly pleasant.  Our labor room at Kaiser Sunnyside had a large window where we could watch the snow, rain, hail, and eventual sunshine while reading and eating animal crackers.  It seemed like things simply were not progressing.  They hooked Jo up to the Pitocin around one in the afternoon, and for the next eight hours we just hung out.  The nurse midwife became increasingly anxious about infection, but we just hung out and watched our baby’s heart beating along with Jo’s steady but minor contractions.  

Our midwife came in the room mumbling about how she couldn’t ramp up the Pitocin because of hospital protocol, obviously miffed that things weren’t progressing.  She rambled on about moving to internal monitoring, which raised our defenses immediately.  But then she told us it was about time for a shift change and that she would be going home.  We both breathed a sigh of relief.  When her replacement, Jody, came in the room with Tamara, our new nurse, everything changed.  Jody was so laid back.  She looked at the monitors and told us that we should try to get some rest.  She was not worried and said that things would pick up eventually.  If they didn’t by morning, we could stop the drugs and restart them again, but that we should just chill out and try to get some sleep.

We were starting to get a bit bored and tired around 9:00 p.m., so we decided to go for a little walk around the ward.  We didn’t make it very far before Jo winced in pain.  It seemed that things were finally picking up.  The next three hours flipped by in a series of pursed-lip breathing, hand holding, body wrenching repetitions.  Jo’s contractions grew steadily more intense with each one, and her rest periods shrank.  She was a beast at dealing with the pain, leaning forward onto my shoulder and breathing through them as if she could teach a class on the subject.  During her rest periods she complained, and gradually got more and more anxious about her abilities to deal with things.  She rotated between a birthing ball and the toilet.  Eventually, when things began to get more painful, she started to ask about epidurals.  Our incredibly patient doula, Melissa, suggested she try getting in the bathtub first.  Jo complied, although she was skeptical.  She continued laboring in the tub for what seemed like 5 minutes but was probably more like 30.  Eventually it became too much, she wanted an epidural and she wanted it now. 

At this point, even though no one knew it, I got angry.  She was doing such a wonderful job and I had read so much about the effects epidurals have on the mother-baby bonding that only happens right after birth.  I knew that she could deal with the pain because I was watching her breath through the contractions and kick the shit out of them.  But I saw her mind getting the best of her.  During each rest period she would think about the pain she just experienced and how awful it was while simultaneously worrying about more coming.  Her rest periods were getting shorter and her pain more intense.  She was starting to panic.  I have never been very good at dealing with Jo’s panic attacks, and this was no exception.  I was watching her do the work and helping her through the pain, but I could do nothing for her state of mind.  I stepped into the other room while Melissa helped her out of the bath.  I took a swig of water and told my self to pull it together.  If she wanted respite from the pain, I had to let go of my selfish desires and get on board.  “Pull your shit together,” I told myself.  It was hard to swallow everything and just help her along. 

She was very angry that an epidural would take 30 minutes to get started.  Melissa got the nurse to stop the Pitocin and unplug her from all the wires, but things kept ramping up.  We got Jo to the bed to lie down and wait for the anesthesiologist.  Literally her next contraction caused her to shriek and her eyes to get wide.  “What was that?  I don’t like that!” She cried.  Melissa got real close and real excited.

“What did it feel like?  Do you feel like pushing?”

Jo’s cute little pouty face washed over her, “I don’t want to.  I don’t like that, I’m scared!”

Melissa told her to listen to her body, to push when she felt like it and it would all be over.  Jo did not want that.  She wanted drugs, she wanted it to all stop. 

“If you push it will stop, that’s the only way out of this,” Melissa told her.  Jo was not happy with that.

Jody came in and checked Jo’s cervix.  She was fully dilated and the baby was coming out.  Jo was scared about that part.  She told us she was picturing a baby sear-splaying her undercarriage apart in violent destruction.  Jody came around the side of the bed.

“Jo, can you look at me?”

“No, I don’t want to look at you,” Jo responded.  “I like you, but I don’t want to look at you.”  Everyone laughed.

“And she still has a sense of humor.”  Jody was immediately endeared. 

For the next 45 minutes (which seemed like 10) I held Jo’s hand through contractions and whispered encouragement into her ears as her face twisted in pain and effort while she pushed with all her might and being to get that baby down.  During breaks between the pain she would whisper “ice chip,” and I would spoon ice into her mouth. 

I have never been so proud of anyone or anything in my entire life.  She was so tired, so scared, in so much pain, but she just kept on working.  She kept on pushing.  And the craziest part of all of it was that the physical manifestations of her anxiety were totally gone.  She was completely calm.  She pushed as hard as she could, and then she went to sleep until the next one came.  It was an amazing lesson in true zen and focus.  It was, without a doubt, the most amazing I have ever seen her.  I will forever be in awe and total love with her because of that 50-minute performance.

We were all coaching her along, telling her to push, and encouraging her.  Jody had stepped out of the room, most likely to tend to another woman in labor.  Tamara peeked under the sheet covering Jo’s lower half.

“Stop!”  Tamara shrieked. 

I wanted to slap her.  We were all encouraging her and she was on the brink, and this woman gave Jo a reason to panic.

“Why, what’s wrong?!” Jo’s face was instant panic and worry.  She looked at me.  “What’s going on?!”  We assured her all was well.  Tamara quickly realized what she had done.

“I’m sorry sweetie, nothing’s wrong.  I have to get Jody, just hold on one second,” She ran out of the room paging the doctor.  Jody strode into the room with three or four assistants.  She slid into a gown and gloves.  “Everything’s okay Jo, I’ve got my baby catching outfit on, let’s do this.”

Jo went back to work.  After three or four more contractions, Jody held up a pale gray splayed out 18-inch long human being.  It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen.  She flopped the baby down on Jo’s chest.  “Look at your baby Jo, look what you did!”

“I can’t, it’s too weird,” Jo had true terror in her eyes.  The speed of things, going from nothing to this in four hours.  She was, in an instant, a mother.  She looked around, looked at the baby, looked at me, looked at the doctors, looked at the baby, put her hand on the child, rubbed her, looked around.  She was in another world.  The nurses poked and prodded little Francie to try to get her to cry or breath, which took a little while, but eventually she started squeaking and pinked right up.  By this time the placenta was coming out.  The umbilical cord was the most amazing piece of machinery I had ever seen.  It was so intricate and beautiful.  Then the placenta came out.  Jody held it up, “look at this, they call this the tree of life.”  She flipped the flat red organ over and the back was shimmering smooth with the veins splayed out all about it channeling down into the umbilical cord.  It looked exactly like a tree, like the tree of life.  It was so magical.

I was not aware until I saw the pictures later that I had the biggest, most cheesy, unwavering shit-eating grin on my face.  I had never seen, let alone been a part of, anything so incredible, so intense, so magical, so wonderful in my entire life.  My baby girl was the most precious and beautiful sight I had ever seen.  My wife was the most amazing, unwaveringly powerful person I had ever imagined.  I hugged them both at the same time.  I kissed them both.  I wanted to meld my very being with both of them.  It was the most powerful connection I had ever felt. 

I grabbed the scissors, cut the cord and then slipped back into the tunnel vision where the only things in focus were my wife and my daughter.  In the background medical staff cleaned, weighed, poked, prodded, massaged fundus (in which, I was reminded, there is NO fun), scooped, scraped, injected….

People tell you that the birth of your child is amazing.  Many say it’s the most amazing experience of their lives.  Before you have this experience, it’s sort of theoretical.  In your mind you admit, “yeah, I bet that’s pretty cool.”  But there is no register.  There is no frame of reference for the true magic of this experience.  I was thinking the next day, that if we ever have more kids I will feel bad because it won’t compare.  The first time is so intense because of the unknown that nothing, ever, will compare.  When I gaze across the room and see the soft rain-filtered light washing over my wife as she holds my beautifully precious daughter my eyes get wet.  Raw emotion – love, pride, wonder, amazement – flood through my body in a way I have never felt before.  I am quite certain I will never love anyone as much as I love these two.  And I am absolutely positive I will never experience anything this magical again in my life.