Birth // Baby // No.4

 Warm afternoon light pooled on the comforter near my feet as I woke up from a glorious late afternoon nap on one of the last days of summer. Autumn was just over a week away, and I anticipate the cool winds and dying trees with an unfamiliar ferocity, because it could not come fast enough. With three children born in three different seasons, we just had to make it another eight days to be out of summer and have four children in four seasons. Of course, life is rarely as serendipitous or poetic as the perfectly delineated plans that bubble up inside the heads of dreamers. 

 

As I stared at the lengthening shadows and filtered light, I felt a familiar pang that rolled down my back and rested squarely in my pelvic bones. The pain was immediately recognizable, though between the false alarm the week before and the fast approach of fall, my denial was a bit larger than it had ever been. Sucking in a calm, deep breath, I pushed aside thoughts of being ill-prepared and instead began the final preparations, chargers that were ordinarily plugged in next to the bed were moved to the hospital bag along with a bag of everyday toiletries and our toothbrushes. 

 

The scent of dinner wafted upstairs, and I knew that I needed to eat something, so I shoveled an entire square of lasagna and part of a salad into my mouth, hoping it would be sufficient nutrients, before announcing that I was in labor. I announced the news like I was conceding defeat. I kissed the boys and told them that next time they saw me I would have their baby sister, then waddled off to the car. 

 

It was still early enough in the day for the main entrance to be open, so we walked in through the main double automatic doors, and into the glass elevator that rose above the atrium that contained a cafeteria, scattered tables, and an entire jungle worth of plants. Unlike the false alarm the week before, I knew to call ahead, so the nurses had already prepared a room for me and immediately attached the familiar pink and blue elastic bands with two round sensors that measured contractions and fetal heartrate. Listening to the familiar, soothing whir of the fetal heartbeat, I answered the nurse’s questions and explained the precipitous labor of the previous two boys. That gentle drumbeat submerged in water, kept my breath even as my first contraction since arriving appeared on screen with a gentle rising and falling that felt much more painful than the screen indicated. I closed my eyes, relaxed my face and body, and took deep gulps of air as the contraction ran down my back and radiated pain from my pelvis back up to my belly button. 

 

The nurse asked if I wanted an epidural, and I considered it for a moment before assenting. While in the car on the way to the hospital, I confidently stated I wasn’t going to bother requesting one, but the hope and fear that I would be in labor long enough to actually get one paired with the increasing pain of each contraction wiped away any resolution I had against one. The gradual rise and fall of contractions appeared on the monitor as I silently breathed through them for the first twenty minutes. When the nurse finally returned, the contractions had progressed to me laboring on my hands and knees, rocking on the hospital bed, before returning to the comfortable lying position. 

 

In preparation for the epidural, the nurse ordered a blood panel. The next time the nurse returned, a lab tech accompanied her with a cart of needles, elastics, glass tubes, and an electronic tablet for consent. The nurse used a large needle to insert the flexible catheter for the IV, and the lab tech drew three vials from the new port before the nurse attached a saline drip. Moving from laying down to hands and knees was significantly more cumbersome now that a leash of liquid tethered my arm to a large metal pole with a sack of clear liquid hanging from one of the hooks on top. 

 

Vomit spilled out unceremoniously into the pink bucket that the nurses had intended for other sorts of biological waste produced during birth and the acrid scent of partially digested lasagna filled my nostrils causing me to heave again and again until the taste of bile left a bitter film in my mouth. When the nurse returned, my dinner was outside my body and my body was quivering with the strength of another contraction as I rocked, resting my head against the foot of the bed while my spouse pressed firmly on the small of my back. Terms like “raggedy ann” and “counterpressure” bounced around my brain, and I tried to relax through the contraction, but I wasn’t entirely sure that was even possible at this point. 

 

The doctor walked in calmly and asked me what position I would prefer to push in while she examined my progression before allowing me to return to all fours. She explained that when she returned, she would break my waters, which could slow the labor.

 

I breathed deeply, pressing my face into the darkness of my sheets, allowing another contraction to pass while another low, guttural groan escaped my lips. When the contraction passed, I responded, “which position is easiest for you?” She explained it was easiest if I was on my back with my feet facing her and told her that I would do that as soon as the next contraction passed, I would already feel the pain building up to another crescendo as I rocked on my knees and called for my spouse to apply the same pressure to my back.

 

The pain radiated into a dull heat from my pelvis and pressure on my uterus strengthened. This familiar pain and pressure elicited one natural response, one that I had done three times before. Breathing out an apology because I was still on all fours, my muscles contracted, and I pushed. Liquid rushed down my legs as my water broke, but the contraction was still working its way to its apex. My muscles tightened, and I kept pushing, feeling the roundness of a head and the lumpiness of a body tumble out in a singular long push. The pain was suddenly dulled, and I followed instructions about them pushing the baby under me while I rolled back to a regular position on the bed. Then she was on my chest. Still slick with meconium and vernix, not even crying yet, the most beautiful little baby laid on my chest and stared into my eyes while I stared into hers. Our breath and heartbeat intermingled, and the moment was infinite. 

 

The lack of a cry had grown concerning to the nurses, so I kissed her quickly on the head before they whisked her away to the baby warmer to increaser her APGAR while I birthed the placenta. In the moments between lying on my chest and lying in the baby warmer, my spouse clipped the umbilical cord. The sudden cool hospital air where my baby had just been elicited goosebumps, then shivers, until my body was shaking with chill. Sharp jabs to my abdomen and dull tugging pulled me from my worry, and the doctor gave me instructions for birthing the placenta. Meanwhile, the baby had a team of nurses who were wiping and suctioning until a large volume of amniotic fluid and meconium filled a large clear tube attached to a smaller suctioning tube. After a few minutes of pressing and pulling, I gave a few light pushes, and the placenta was finally out. My spouse and I exchanged looks of awe, because after birthing four kids, this was the first time either of us had really looked at the placenta. The brownish red organ looked more like a large liver than I had imagined, requiring two hands from the doctor to hold it up. A thin skin surrounded the placenta that I recognized as the amniotic sac. Now that the productive, but less satisfying part of labor was done, I craved the warm pressure of the tiny human against my chest. A nurse retuned her to my chest, lowered the lights, and let us bask in golden hour.

 

As I nursed for the first time, I felt the pang of an insufficient latch and repositioned. Blood pooled beneath me as my uterus continued to contract, shrinking back to its pre-pregnancy size. After an hour of skin-to-skin, the nurses came back in and she and I both had our first post-birth baths, mine looking a lot more like the scene of a grisly murder with a trail of blood dripping from the bed to the toilet and the toilet to the bath. The bath itself splashed with blood that didn’t stop flowing while I let water flow down my body, cleaning myself as much as I could in a state of constant bleeding.

 

I can’t speak for more than four births, but in my experience, labor does not become any less of a mystical and spiritual experience with time. Every time ends with meeting a brand-new human that expands my capacity to love so completely that it feels as if it was always meant to be. There is no number of tantrums or blow outs that could change the infinite and protective love that I feel for this new creature within my arms. Something so essential inside of me shifts as if my internal compasses true north has moved, that the woman who entered the hospital is not the one who leaves. My understanding of the Creator, of my own parents, of the world as a whole has been altered so fundamentally. As they grow there are moments of awe that may seem less significant but are just as life altering as this first moment. As each child grows, they become more themselves, revealing themselves in an off-handed remark or random act of genuine kindness. Birth is just the unfurling of the first leaves revealing the bud that will bloom and grow, transforming into something entirely different in the span of a few years. Eventually that flower will be unrecognizable from the tiny bud cuddled up against my chest, but for now I am savoring the scent of a newborn and cherishing the soft cries that can only be soothed by me.