Labor of Love: Adventures in Birthing

One of the things people learn about me right away is that I have five children. No, that’s not a typo – I have 5 beautiful, infuriating, loving, whiny, fun, disobedient, smart, smart-mouthed, wonderful kids. None of them are twins or adopted or stepchildren, so I have had five full term pregnancies, for a total of about ten years of continuously being either pregnant or nursing (or both).

If you are pregnant for the first time, or have had miscarriages or stillbirths (as a very dear friend of mine did), you are probably nervous about your pregnancy and especially about labor and delivery. Your ob may have told you that your mood and stress level effects the baby, and that is true, but just saying that will not ease your mind and relax you. So I thought maybe a little humor would help. (Although funny, these are true stories.)

My eldest, Danny, is now eleven years old. Since he was my first, I really didn’t know what to expect. Somehow, I thought that the more people who loved me were there, the more I would feel supported. Bad idea (at least for me, everyone’s different)! Both of my parents and a good friend were there, and of course my husband, who was so nervous he was vomiting in the bathroom almost the entire time. My dad brought his video camera and taped the entire birth, which after the excitement had died down, became completely humiliating for me. I have since confiscated the tape and it has never been shown, nor will it ever. Let’s just say that it isn’t my best side and leave it at that.

My second child, Mia, was nine days early. In the mysterious mind of an expectant father, that somehow meant that every child would come early. So when I was pregnant with my third child, Miriam, my husband was so confident that she would come early that he took all of his vacation time a full two weeks before my due date. When his vacation was almost over and I was still pregnant, he panicked. Since his job involved travel and he had no more vacation time left, he pressured me to be induced so that he could be there for the birth. So on New Year’s Eve, I went into the hospital to be induced.

If you are ever faced with a non-medical decision to induce, think very carefully because it is very painful! Even though I had an epidural, it didn’t take quite right and I had the combination of my legs being so numb I couldn’t feel them at all, with excruciating pain on my right side. Because it was New Year’s Eve, the hospital was short staffed. There were very few labor/delivery nurses there. The two experienced nurses they had initially given me had to leave to deal with emergency C-sections, and I was left with a nurse who, it appeared, had never done this before. She lost the heartbeat on the fetal monitor and spent around ten minutes trying to adjust the monitor. You can imagine how incredibly scary it was for us when she couldn’t find the baby’s heartbeat and we kept insisting that she call the doctor.

Finally, the doctor came in, lifted the sheet, and there was the baby on the table, already born! Because of the funky way the epidural worked, I hadn’t even felt it at all. No wonder the nurse couldn’t find the heartbeat; the baby was already born! As soon as he saw her, the doctor scooped her up, cut the cord and she was just fine, thank goodness.

With my fourth child, Leah, I had decided to have this baby au natural, since I had such a bad experience with the previous epidural, so I hired a doula to help me through the labor process without drugs. A doula is someone who helps a laboring woman through the contractions, eases her pain through massage and helps keep her calm and focused. My doula, Pam, was extremely experienced, both professionally and personally (she had seven children of her own). Most hospitals in the US (unlike in other parts of the world) are not supportive of expectant mothers wanting to give birth naturally, so I was determined to do the bulk of my labor at home where I could do what I wanted, rather than being forced to lie down (the worst position for labor), attached to a bunch of machines.

I went into labor in the morning and asked my husband to drive the kids to school. I didn’t know how it would go without drugs and I didn’t want them in the house listening to me scream. Since my labor with Miriam lasted 18 hours, when I was pregnant with Leah, my husband naturally thought that he had plenty of time for this labor, so on the way back from dropping the kids at school, he stopped at Starbucks to have some coffee. Meanwhile, this baby was in a bit more of a hurry.

Labor progressed quickly and a few minutes after the doula asked me “You don’t feel like pushing, do you?” she ended up delivering the baby right in my bedroom. When my husband called from Starbucks to ask if I wanted him to get me a coffee, he was told that the baby was born (and anyway, what woman in the middle of labor has the presence of mind to drink a hot beverage?).

My mother, who was in the house (but not in the room this time), called 911 because we really didn’t know what to do now. When my husband arrived with his coffee in his hand, there was a fire truck out front and half a dozen firemen in my bedroom where I was lying all naked and exhausted. He was just in time to cut the cord. For years afterwards, every Christmas, I sent Pam a gift card to Starbucks, which gave her a good laugh.

My youngest child, Rebecca, was born without drugs on Christmas Eve, and the doctor who delivered her (yes, we made it to the hospital this time) was named Dr. Rudolf.

So, I have certainly had some adventures in the delivery room, but they all came out fine and healthy, thank goodness. There are some crazy things that can happen, but for the most part, a woman’s body knows what to do and it all ends up with you holding a beautiful baby that you will love for the rest of your life and who will challenge you to become the best that you can be.