Z's birth story: A comedy

At 3:15 on June 22, 2009, 5 days past my due date, I had an appointment with my midwife for my 41-week check up. My midwife and I had talked in advance, and she had agreed to do a “stretch and sweep,” which is a fairly non-invasive intervention that can induce labor. Essentially a “stretch and sweep” involves a vaginal exam in which the midwife stretches her fingers in the patient’s cervix as far as possible and then runs a finger between the cervix and the bag of waters. My midwife did this twice, and at that time, I was about 3 centimeters dilated and was easily stretching to 5 centimeters. In the event that this didn’t work, we had planned an induction for June 28th, which would have put me at 41 weeks 5 days gestation with Z. I really didn’t want to wait that long for a number of reasons. I did not want to be induced, but I couldn’t bear being pregnant any longer. On top of that, my mom was scheduled to leave that day, and it was going to cost her about $400 to extend her ticket (thanks to the international fair), which neither she nor I could afford.

After my midwife appointment, C and I went home and picked up Wild Man and my mom. It was hot and humid that day, and although the temperature was much milder than anything we’d ever experienced in Southwest College Town, I was uncomfortable. We decided to take Wild Man over to the local bookstore for a while so I could rest in the air conditioning and he could play with the train sets. While C looked at the home improvement section and my mom shopped for books for Wild Man, Wild Man and I played with the trains and read books. It was nice to have some time just for the two of us. After about an hour or so, we headed home as Wild Man was getting hungry. C took Wild Man to the car while my mom and I stood in line to pay for the books she got Wild Man (as an aside, I highly recommend Margaret Atwood’s children’s books; Wild Man loves them!). As Mom paid, she looked at me and asked if I was ok. I said, “Oh, just another contraction, but this one was a bit more painful than the ones I’ve been having for the last month or so.” We left and got in the car. It was about 5 minutes after 5:00 pm then. We drove home, and Mom started reading to Wild Man while C got dinner ready. I went to the bathroom and had another strong contraction. I asked C for his ipod to keep track of the contractions (he had downloaded a labor application a few weeks earlier for us to use), and I distinctly remember thinking that I was glad I’d put chili in the crock pot earlier in the day.

For the next 20 minutes or so, I kept having strong contractions, which lasted about 90 seconds and were 5 minutes apart. Around 5:40 I told C he needed to get my bag ready and that he needed to eat dinner. At that point, I noticed he and my mom exchanged a look. I tried lying on the couch to manage the pain on my own while C tried to eat and Mom fed Wild Man. I vaguely remember C taking stuff to the car, and then I started calling for him to help me manage the pain. He rubbed my shoulders, and then I told him I had to move around. I went from the couch to the bathroom, where I sat on the toilet for a few contractions. On my way there, I stopped in the dining room to reassure Wild Man who was getting a bit concerned for me. He kept calling for me and asking what was wrong. I wasn’t in a position to talk to him, so my mom and C tried to explain things best they could. Around 5:50, I told C that he needed to call our midwife. This was a bit complicated. Our midwife is currently working with a student midwife who is finishing up her clinical rotation. Since C and I are both teachers we had no problem working with the student, whom I’ll call L. We’d be instructed to page L first so she could get practice assessing women in labor. At the time, I really just wanted to bypass L and call my midwife directly because I knew labor was progressing very quickly, but we followed my midwife’s instructions. We called L and waited 10 minutes; when she didn’t call back C asked me if I wanted him to try her again. I said, “Absolutely not! Call my midwife.” By now it was around 6, and the contractions were getting really strong. As we waited for the midwife to call back, I did something really stupid. I went up stairs to the master bathroom to brush my teeth. I got up the stairs in between contractions without C’s help, and I don’t even think he realized I was upstairs until I called for him. Why did I go upstairs (putting me on the third floor of our house)? Well at the bookstore, I had shared a frozen strawberry drink from Starbucks with Wild Man, and I could still taste it in my mouth. I remember thinking, “I cannot have this taste in my mouth the entire time I’m in labor.” Not the smartest decision on my part, but it is what I did.

I managed to brush my teeth and then went to our bedroom to make sure we had everything. At that point I was hit with a really strong contraction and I called for C. He found me leaning over our bed and demanded to know why I’d come upstairs. I looked him straight in the face and said, “I don’t care what I’ve said for the last 9 months; I want the epidural this time. Make sure you tell L and our midwife that.” He didn’t say anything, but later he told me he knew I was entering transition at that point. C managed to help me downstairs to the main floor and just as we got there my midwife called back. C explained what was going on, and he asked me if I could talk to her. I was in the middle of another contraction and trying to hug Wild Man at the time, so I think I said something not very kind to either one of them. C told her that he thought we needed to get me to the hospital quickly. She said she’d call over to the birthing center and make sure they were ready for us and then call back. She called back in about 2 minutes and said we could head over; she then asked if I wanted her to come to the house and check me there. C passed this along to me, and I said “No, I’m going to the hospital now if I have to drive myself.” I then started heading downstairs. C later told me that B, our midwife, found this amusing; she apparently laughed and said she’d meet us there.

By now it was about 6:20. The contractions were coming really quickly, and C kept telling me to keep track on the ipod. I finally told what he could do with his ipod. Wild Man followed me down the stairs and was really upset at this point. He didn’t understand what was going on, but he knew I was hurting and that bothered him. He didn’t want to leave me, and my mom realized he was going to have a major meltdown. She didn’t want him upset and she didn’t want me upset. She looked at me very quickly and said, “M, I’m going to do something you’re not going to like to distract Wild Man. I’m sorry.” She then said to Wild Man, “Let’s go have some ice cream. Would you like to have some ice cream with Nana before we take a bath?” Ordinarily I would have been displeased with using food as a bribe, but given the circumstances I didn’t care. And it worked. Wild Man kissed me and scampered upstairs. My mom kissed me good-bye, told me not to worry about Wild Man, and very sternly instructed C to take care of me. C then helped me to the car. He tried to put me in the front seat, but I went in the back so I could lean over the driver’s seat. He then told me to put my seatbelt on, and I told him to shut up and drive. Luckily we’re only 5 minutes from the hospital.

As luck would have it, C couldn’t find a close parking space, and being stubborn and in a lot of pain, I did not want him to drop me off. I told him, “I don’t care if you have to carry me; you’re not leaving me by myself.” He found a space as close as he could and we started walking to the hospital. He stuck his ticket for the lot in his pocket; we had arrived at the parking lot at 6:32 pm.

To get to the hospital from this lot, you have to walk over a sky bridge that spans the lower parking lot. As soon as we entered the sky bridge, C grabbed a wheelchair and put me in it. The floor on the sky bridge is very bumpy though, and it was not remotely comfortable. Half way across I got out of the wheelchair and walked, stopping every 30 feet or so for a contraction. We finally got to the elevators, and suddenly my labor turned into a comedy of errors. The elevators in this hospital are notoriously slow, so we waited through at least 2 contractions until one arrived that was going down. Somehow C got me on the elevator in the middle of a contraction, and we pushed our way to the back so I could lean against the wall. Now, we were surrounded by 3 nurses and at least 4 doctors. C was so focused on helping me manage the pain that he never asked for a floor, but he said he thought to himself, surely they will push 2 for the birthing center. When the elevator doors opened everyone got out, including us. We headed in the direction of the birthing center, and C said, “Oh, M. I’m so sorry. This is the first floor. We have to get back on the elevator and go up one floor.” I turned toward the elevator and literally pushed a doctor out of my way so I could lean on the wall to get through another contraction. C said the doctor didn’t even seem to notice, and by now, C was getting a bit aggravated that no one was being particularly helpful. As we waited for the elevator, an off-duty nurse saw us and brought us a wheelchair. Being me I refused again to get in it—it literally hurt to sit down at that point. Standing up was the only way I was managing the pain at all. Given that we weren’t able to sit down or even stand still, we weren’t using any relaxation techniques at all. C was trying to get me to the birthing center as quickly as possible, and I wasn’t being particularly cooperative. But as I’ve reminded him, I was in labor!

The elevator finally arrived and we were on the second floor. C demanded I get in the wheelchair, and when I told him no, he literally pushed me down by my shoulders and moved so quickly I couldn’t get out. We got to the birthing center, and he started checking me in. I got up out of the wheelchair, announced that I had to pee, and went into the bathroom. He ended up throwing my wallet at the receptionist and pulled me out of the bathroom. He was concerned I was going to start pushing, but I really just had to pee. I know now that my bag of waters was so low that it was compressing my bladder, making me feel like I had to pee. A nurse showed up then and agreed to take me to the bathroom. C gave what he thought was my health card to the receptionist, but it turned out to be Wild Man’s. So until after Z was born, Wild Man was the one who had been admitted to the hospital. Once the nurse got me to the bathroom, I took my shorts off to go to the bathroom, and then I told her I needed C. She hollered for him, and then she determined that I shouldn’t go to the bathroom. She led me to an exam room, telling C on the way there that a birthing suite was all ready for me. I refused to put my shorts back on, so she and C wrapped a gown around me and we hobbled to the exam rom. She told me to lie down on the bed. The nurse said she’d check me and then get me a gown to change into. As soon as I opened my knees for her to check me, I knew I had to push. She said the words that are the most irritating thing for a woman in labor, “Don’t push.” I squeezed C’s hand as hard as I could and somehow managed not to push. She checked me and announced, “Oh yeah, she’s ten centimeters. Do you have a doctor or a midwife?” C answered, “A midwife, and she’s on her way.” The nurse then said, “I don’t think she’s going to make it in time.” I looked at the clock on the wall and noticed it was 6:55. It had taken us almost 30 minutes to get from the car to the birthing center. Then my midwife walked in.

I started freaking out a bit at that point because the contractions felt drastically different from what I experienced with Wild Man. They were one on top of the other and coming very, very fast. I told C I was scared, and he and B were great at calming me down. The second midwife, who was there to take care of Z once he was born, showed up, and I could finally start pushing. Pushing was such a relief. Instead of being high up on a hospital bed, on my back with my legs in stirrups like I was with Wild Man, I was on a low bed, and I was able to change positions as I wanted to. The room had dim lights, and the only people there were C, the two midwives, and me. I wasn’t hooked up to any monitors, and I didn’t have an IV (although, since I had tested Strep B positive 4 weeks earlier, I was supposed to have IV antibiotics). In between pushes, S, the second midwife, checked Z’s heart rate with her portable fetal monitor, the same kind doctors use to check babies’ heart rates during office visits. For the next 35 minutes I pushed while lying on my side, with one leg stretched out and the other pulled up. I changed positions once, and ultimately I was lying on my left side, holding C’s hand while I pushed. There was no counting this time. C and B encouraged me, but B let me push as many or as few times in a row as I wanted to. I pushed between 3 and 5 times during each contraction, and the 3rd push was always the strongest. After about 20 minutes of pushing my water broke while I was pushing, which was a strange sensation. It wasn’t the big gush I remembered from when Wild Man was born and my water was broken. Instead it was a small gush and then more gushes every time I pushed after that.

By this point, I was tired and ready for the baby to be born. B told me the baby was crowning, and I pushed really hard. When she told me the head was out and to stop pushing, I just looked straight into C’s eyes to have something to focus on. C told me to look down, and because of the position I was in, I was able to see Z being born. As soon as the baby was born, B put him on my chest, and S helped C and I start cleaning him up. I saw his penis right away and looked over at C, who was looking right at me. We were both quiet for a moment, and I then I said, “Well, I guess his name will be Z.” This was the only boy’s name we both liked, and ironically, it was the only name we had agreed to before I’d gone into labor. We’d gone into the delivery room with C preferring one girl’s name and me preferring another. It seems everything turned out for the best! Still, C was a bit taken aback, and said, “You’ve got to be kidding me!” He quickly agreed that we’d name him Z though. At that point, B was so focused on me that she didn’t even realize Z was a boy, and I noticed she gave us a funny look. After she delivered my placenta, she came to the head of the bed and gave Z a good look. She said, “Oh, that’s why you named him Z. I was thinking that was an odd choice for a girl.” We all laughed, and at that moment L, whose pager had not been working properly, arrived. Remember we’d arrived at the hospital, according to the parking meter, at 6:32 pm; Z was born at 7:36 pm. He weighed 8 pounds, 5.9 ounces, and was 22 ½ inches long. He was a full pound and a half heavier and 3 inches longer than Wild Man when he was born.

In the end, I had a first degree tear, which required two stitches, and I had been in labor for about 2 ½ hours. We spent the night in the hospital and went home around 3 the next afternoon. As surprising as it was to take home a little boy, we’re thrilled with our two boys, and Wild Man, who proceeded to call Z his “baby sister” for the next week, seemed very pleased with Z.