Gianna's Birth Story: 6:15-9:55 am

Missed the beginning? Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. 

…We headed to the “Blue Room” …and I proceeded to have contraction on top of contraction while leant over the bed, swaying my hips back and forth to that now all familiar labor dance, thinking I hope I am in real labor, I hope I am in real labor….

For this 2^nd to last installment, y’all actually get real data and times because the midwives kept track of everything. It’s really funny to read over my labor, because I barely noticed they were writing this stuff down haha. Anyhow. Also, there are pictures in this one. No nudity or anything, no worries. 

At 6:15 we arrived at the birth center and were in the “Blue Room”. Carmen wanted to do an internal exam (would be my first for the entire pregnancy), but I couldn’t lay down. I just bent over the bed and swayed my hips back and forth. For the next 45 minutes I walked around (still couldn’t lay down) walked the house looking at the 2013 birth charts (they have sticky notes of everyone’s due dates and then another sticky with the actual birth info. I remember there were 2 women due the next day), alternating between walking and leaning on something or on the floor. Carmen put a heating pad on my back and tried some counter pressure on my hips to help me with the back pain, but nothing really did much. I think the heating pad felt nice though. 

According to the notes, during this time, my contractions were felt moderate (Carmen’s hand on my belly) and lasted about 60-90 seconds. I apparently said my pain level was like a 6 out of 10, but I hate such subjective questions. If my hand were being sawed off, maybe I would have said the contractions were actually a 4…or if I was getting a delightful massage, I may have said 10. I hate the pain scale. I like tangible and concrete things. I also said I felt like puking (normal during labor). My nose bled (weird that never happens to me) and I wasn’t even doing anything. Chris gave me some “labor aid” I had prepared ahead of time—homemade Gatorade, with all pronounceable ingredients. I hated the taste, which makes sense—I hate Gatorade (it was Lemon-Lime), but I knew I would need the strength and energy so I drank it anyway. 

Finally, at 7:15 am, Carmen convinced me that I could endure laying down for the internal exam and that if I got a contraction I could roll over until it was over. Well that exact thing happened. I rolled back over and she finished. I was scared to find out the results because I was thinking I was like 2-3 cm dilated and that I wasn’t in real labor and that it was going to be another day. Here’s how the results went down, not exactly quoted though because I can’t remember:

Carmen : “Do you want to know?”
Me: “I don’t know, I’m worried I’ll be disappointed”
Carmen: “Well you’re further along than I thought”
Me: “What did you think?”
Carmen: “According to the strength of your contractions and how you were handling them, I guessed a 5 or 6.”
Me: (thinking OMG WHAT?!)
Carmen: “…but you’re actually at a 9.”
Me: “NO WAY”(SUPER excited that I was in real labor, laughing a little at myself for being an idiot, happy that it would be over in fewer hours than what I had already endured.)
Carmen: “Yep, you’ll have a baby by lunchtime!”

Side bar: On my chart, apparently a few minutes later it was recorded that I said: “oh my gosh! It’s going to be so weird to have a baby!”

Carmen asked if I wanted to get into the tub to help relieve some of the back labor and if I was open to having a water birth. Sure, why not, I love the water! (I didn’t have a birth plan, I just wanted to do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted at the time) Carmen turned on the tub and said that she was going to go pump milk so that she would be ready for when my body started to push. I asked Chris to do some counterpressure on my hips during my next contractions. I think he tried to talk to me during one, or like moved his hands and I got SUPER PISSED and probably told him to shut up. I was not into talking or sounds. But that was the only mean thing I said to him. 

By 7:45 I was in the tub sitting Indian style. Gloriously warm water. Again, didn’t make things awesome or anything, but I liked moving back and forth on my hips seated in the water. The rocking/monotonous movement was mellowing. Chris has brought the laptop and turned on a playlist he made, which included some Jack Johnson, Jackie Francois and a couple other artists. We were singing songs in harmony together (in our frog sickly voices…not pretty)(yes, I was seriously about to have a baby and was singing…don’t judge) and took a few goofy pictures to document. We were really excited and couldn’t believe there was going to be a baby soon!

I made Chris continue to apply counterpressure and squeeze my hips during contractions. He didn’t always get the “right spot” during contractions, but he was sitting behind me on this ledge in the most awkward position ever, so that’s to be expected. 

At about this time I told Chris that I was starting to feel “pushy”. I never wanted to be checked again and had always planned to only start pushing when I had to. I think it’s silly and completely arbitrary to being pushing when you’re “fully dilated” because some women have to dilate more than 10 cm, some have a cervical lip that tears even though they are fully dilated, etc. Also, I wanted to exert as little effort and conserve as much energy as possible. I just wanted to wait until my body started pushing on its own………..THEN I could join in ;-) (sounds like the slackers guide to giving birth)

Chris told Carmen (who was still pumping) and she said I could start pushing whenever I felt like it. I decided to wait until the urge to push was a bit stronger. The mid-wife-in-training, Melena, arrive at around 7:55 am and at that time I felt like my water may have broken…but how can you REALLY tell in the water? (My consolation with the back labor is that my waters were intact until I was ready to push….would have been worse without that watery cushion).

Right before I started pushing, I remember one of my favorite Jackie Francois songs came on iTunes and I sang along with these lyrics: “Pick me up, hold me close, in Your arms don’t let go. Draw me near to your heart, be with me God my Father….I am your child….be with me.” I felt very peaceful in those moments.

Carmen came back and we were all talking and I said that I wanted to start pushing. I was up in a full squat (squatting shortens the birth canal and gives you up to like 10% more space…I squatted EVERY SINGLE DAY –almost—for at least 5-10 minutes and whenever I remembered to practice so that I could give birth squatting because while it takes some strength, it’s the best position because I’m working WITH gravity to get baby out!)

The whole time I was in the tub, Chris was giving me labor-aid to drink faithfully every few minutes and I think I had a few snacks too. I highly suggest this for laboring women. Whoever said it was a good idea to deprive women of any food or drink while giving birth (unless of course you’re having a C-section) is a total idiot who probably never gave birth before (a man). Those kind of policies are definitely only for the hospital/care provider’s benefit, not the women. Mama needs her strength and energy!!!

Between 8:12 and 8:42 I was pushing, but not very hard, just working with whatever my body gave me. Gianna handled the contractions really well, and her heart rate was awesome the entire labor. They checked via the Doppler on my belly every 15 minutes. That thing is waterproof it was cool. Glad I didn’t have to get out of the tub. I felt something POP and decided that that was actually my water breaking, maybe before was just springing a leak lol. My body started to push more forcefully on its own. 

8:45 am—my feet felt so numb from squatting for 30 minutes, so I laid on my right side in the tub for a couple minutes to get circulation back. By 8:55, I was pushing again, and apparently could see 2-4 cm of Gianna’s head. I was surprised that it happened so fast (granted I had no concept of time) and was expected to be pushing for a lot longer. She had been riding low for a few weeks, very low in birth canal, and at my appointments, the midwives kept asking if I felt like I was sitting on a bowling ball, but I never did. I guess she was low.  

A word on pushing. It was weird because pushing just kind of happened instinctually. I kept wondering if I was “doing it right”, and Melena and Carmen kept saying that I was doing great and handling the contractions/pushing great. So I guess I will believe them. At the beginning it felt like I wasn’t doing anything (and I really wasn’t pushing very hard), but then I could feel myself making progress and the baby actually descend further down. This was my system (I think I read it in Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way)—feel contraction begin, relax and take deep breath, on exhale bear down for15-30 seconds, relax and repeat until contraction was over. It was weird to just know when to stop pushing. Ladies, our bodies are freaking cool. 

Another word on pushing. Some people describe it as a relief. Nah. I wouldn’t. It was really freaking hard work. It was, however, nice to being doing something, rather than just have to lay and relax with the pain. It is an incredible and intense feeling, makes you kind of shaky, and very powerful.

Then it started to get HARD. By 9:04 am, I had 5+ cm of her head out, and it was noted that she was moving her head (I wonder if she flipped from posterior to the right way at this point?) and Melena started to do counterpressure on my perineum to help stretching and prevent tearing. This is really the midwives bread and butter. They really work you through the most difficult part and are super in tune and cautious about preventing tears and making sure the baby comes out slowly to help stretch things out slowly instead of rocketing the baby out. Soon at 9:15, there were at least 6 cm of Gianna’s head visible. 

Now, I really thought that I would think seeing her come out was disgusting and was totally opposed to looking in the mirror. But Carmen asked if I wanted to see, I said yes, and she put the mirror in the water. Let me tell you. Good choice, Rachel. It was incredible to see that little spot of dark baby hair grow bigger and bigger and really helped me to keep going, knowing that I was making progress. 

I think it was at this point that Melena actually made a 45 second video on my phone of me pushing during a contraction. It was a little eerie to watch myself. It was so quiet, all you could hear is my breathing. Pretty intense concentration going on. I remember now thinking that it’s weird that women make so much noise and that I would feel like I was wasting my energy and losing focus. I really had to be in the quiet zone. Remember, I’m all about efficiency LOL. Granted everyone experiences labor differently and has different urges in how to cope, so for other women maybe making loud noises is exhilarating. 

Back to the hard part. Pushing out the head. HOLY CRAP that was HARD. Luckily my body was seriously forcing me to bear down and push really strongly, so it didn’t take long. During the next 5 minutes I spoke more words probably than I had collectively for the previous hours combined. Among those words were “ow, ow, ow” and “no, no, no” and “omg it hurts really bad”. I wasn’t screaming or anything, but we were in an echo-y place so it was probably kind of loud. I mean. It did. Hurt. Really. Bad. Pushing her head out seemed like an impossibility and it just didn’t make sense at all, but I mean, I did it…what choice is there? LOL. Everyone talks about the “ring of fire” when the baby crowns. I was in the water, so that was somewhat alleviated (I was thinking though—HOLY CRAP how does someone NOT in the water tolerate this!!??), but there was definitely some burning, though different than what I expected. I really did feel like I had to surrender to the pain and die a little bit to myself. Push beyond what I thought I was capable of and what I thought I could endure. In a book I read, it was described as dying so that the mother could be born. I thought that was kind of a beautiful way to put it. Surrender. 

The midwives coached me through that part, telling me when to stop pushing and go “haaaaaaaaahhhh” (because apparently you can do that and push at the same time), so that my body could stretch and adjust to a huge head coming out the birth canal. It was great having someone I trusted telling me what to do at that point, because it’s a little counter  intuitive to the “just get it out” mentality that is pretty much all you can think of at that point. See below for my "ow" faces lol.

Then, all of a sudden. Relief. At 9:20 her head was out! That felt better! I looked down and thought that she looked really funny. I remember asking how much longer until I was done and they said a couple more pushes. With my next contraction, I pushed the rest of her out and at 9:22 am Gianna was officially ex-womb human! 

I was in sheer disbelief and exclaimed something to the effect of “OMG I DID IT! I DID IT! IT’S OUR BABY! YOU’RE MY BABY!” *cue strong maternal and superhero feelings* She was in my arms immediately, all nasty looking and purplish/red with vernix covering her. I couldn’t believe she was real. All those 9 months, I knew she was real, but to be able to physically hold her and see her and put a face and body to all those movements was surreal. I wish there were words to describe the feeling, but I guess it’s just one of those mysterious things. Giving birth was literally the most intense, exhilarating, amazing, and empowering experience and hardest work I've ever done. It was incredible. All of a sudden--a baby!

After draining the water from the tub, we moved to the bed by 9:55 am so I could finish and deliver the placenta. I kept Gianna on my chest the whole time and she was just so perfect! While I was holding her they checked me out and good news—only small 1 inch tear that didn’t even need a single stitch. Whoop whoop. Chris cut the cord once it stopped pulsing. We had our small happy little family all together on the bed, eating dried dates and nut thins and drinking some more labor-aid. I was absolutely ecstatic and felt like I could go run around and celebrate (I was ready to party). 

However…….there was one small issue of my placenta. It still hadn’t come out. Normally, you feel contractions after the baby is delivered to help push the placenta out. Well. That didn’t happen to me. No contractions. NOTHING. 

Oh goodness. That damned placenta!!!!!

Stay tuned for the unexpected final installment of Gianna’s Birth Story....