A Midwife's Birth Story
Vanessa Ross
Miles Mackie Ross was born on October 9, 2004 in our home in San Francisco. We had a waterbirth, he was healthy, and as our midwife said, it was a "textbook" first birth. As a midwife myself, having attended hundreds of births, living through the experience of labor and delivery from the other side was in some ways exactly what I expected it to be. But as is always the case with such a powerful force of nature, birth had some surprises in store for me.
The first surprise was that I went into labor early at 37 2/7 weeks. Now I must admit, I had a bit of a premonition this might happen. The baby dropped just shy of 35 weeks, and the combination of pelvic pressure and cervical/vaginal twinges I felt from that point on was so intense that I couldn't believe it would last another 5-7 weeks.
Well, I was wrong, or rather, right, because at midnight on October 8, 19 days before my due date, I started contracting. I tried to ignore it at first because it was just like mild period cramps, mostly in my low back (a ghastly omen), but I couldn't sleep because they were coming every 10 minutes or so. A bath didn't help, so I lay in bed trying to rest. I let my partner Liz sleep, but at some point in the early morning she awoke. I still wasn't sure this was labor, so I didn't make a big deal of it. But when she asked me why I wasn't sleeping, and I told her, she bolted upright in bed and said, "What?! You're having contractions?!" and wanted to stay up with me.
I was still only having mild, irregular contractions come daylight, but we decided Liz should stay home. Which brings me to the next surprise of my birth, that I enjoyed having a long early labor. Assuming that we had at least 2-3 weeks to go, we had assembled the essential home birth kit items, but still needed to organize baby things and clean up a bit. It gave us some time mentally and emotionally to adjust to the fact that our baby was en route. That day of early labor is one of my sweetest memories ever. It was a gorgeous Indian summer day, typical October in San Francisco. We had the doors and windows open, and the house was full of sunlight and fresh air. We called our midwife and a handful of friends and relatives to let them know things were in motion. Liz cleaned and organized and ran a few errands while I intermittently rested, showered, ate, drank, and made two big pots of soup for our midwives and friends who would be there later. We played our favorite music and took lots of breaks to slow dance and hug and kiss and acknowledge the immensity of what was happening, the shifting of our lives into a new reality growing closer with each contraction.
The back labor persisted but was quite bearable until late afternoon, when it was time to call for reinforcements, namely my friend and sister midwife Jenna who was to be our doula. Jenna was coming from just over an hour away and had been keeping tabs on me all day. Liz had been worried that having a doula would leave her with nothing to do during labor, but as soon as I started needing continuous counterpressure through each contraction, she realized how right I had been that we might need the extra support. Bringing me to my third big surprise of labor: the pain.
Now I'm sure you readers are chuckling to yourselves, how could anyone, much less a midwife, be surprised about labor pain? Well, all I can say is that it hurt a helluva lot more than I expected. I've seen hundreds of women in labor and 99% of them appeared to be in serious pain, particularly the ones with back labor. But there must be some strange malfunction in the brains of many people who work in birth but haven't birthed themselves yet (I've had this confirmed by other doulas, midwives, nurses, etc.), that helps you believe that somehow, when you go through labor, it won't really be as bad as it looks.
By 10 p.m. that night after almost 24 hours of early labor, I was lying in the bathtub complaining to Jenna about our damned human bipedalism and big brains, and wishing I could be a birthing chimp instead. I was also mildly cursing my mother, who claims to have had a painless labor, for not passing along that gene to me. I clearly got the evil, recessive back labor gene instead, the one that ensures you will have excruciating back pain throughout labor even though your baby is not posterior (he wasn't). Luckily, Jenna, the wise woman that she is, convinced me at this point to take a couple of leftover, sleep-inducing, anti-nausea pills from the first trimester to help me rest, and I got three whole hours of sleep. I awoke, as hoped, somewhat refreshed with stronger, more regular contractions, and even stronger back pain. I definitely began to experience the feeling, which I have heard many women describe, that my sacrum was going to pop off and my pelvis, explode. From then on my darling Liz had to push on my back or squeeze my hips through every single contraction.
By 4 or 5 a.m. when Jenna felt it was time to call in Maria, I was breathing and moaning in full force, but I was still only 3.5 cms but 95% effaced, and the head was low at +1 station. Again, I give Jenna so much credit; I had been asking her if we should call Maria for hours, and she knew it was too early. Despite the intensity of the pain, I was pleasantly surprised that for the most part I was able to let go between contractions and "take my breaks". Probably my biggest fear about giving birth was that my midwife brain would get in the way, that I would spend those in-between moments overanalyzing my progress and in doing so, keep my primal brain from doing its job. Intentionally staying in the "now" proved extremely helpful: I didn't watch the clock, which was good since my labor was just over 39 hours total; and I was even able to experience the "bliss" of my natural endorphins. It helped me fully realize why all the women in Spiritual Midwifery described labor as "trippy", because one minute I was in agonizing pain and the next I felt totally high.
Around 7 a.m. my contractions finally stayed long, strong, and close together; active labor had begun. The next time Maria checked a few hours later, I was 6-7 cms. I had been mostly on my hands and knees or on the ball, and Maria asked me to walk and squat through some contractions. Liz's best friend Mary came to walk the dogs, and I was way beyond caring about who saw me wandering around the house naked and moaning with bloody show streaking down my thighs. I was in the bedroom feeling nauseous when the tub finally arrived (it wasn't to be delivered until 38 wks, but they were able to rush it to us), but I was deep in Laborland and for once let others take care of the details.
I definitely felt a new kinship with every client of mine who has ever uttered the words, "Ya no puedo!/I can't do this anymore!" when my ability not to dread the next contraction caved around 9 cms. Maria said I just had a rim around the back that she thought might be due to the fact that I had been mostly in forward-leaning positions. She asked me if I thought I could stay upright or squat with my back upright for a few contractions, and my initial response was, absolutely not! I didn't see how I could get counterpressure on my back that way, and I couldn't envision surviving even one contraction without it. I remembered a position a client had used for back labor where she sat in a chair and her doula pushed on the front of her knees to force her low back against the chair. I didn't think I could sit, but Liz and I modified it by having her push on the front of my hips while I stood with my back to the wall. We did three contractions that way, and I remember thinking afterwards that I could understand the appeal of an epidural now.
Suddenly, the nausea that I had been resisting became overwhelming, and I forcefully vomited all the Recharge, juice and water I'd been drinking. I usually hate to vomit, but it felt amazingly good at that moment. I was feeling super-constipated and had been waiting for that irresistible urge to push, but finally decided I couldn't take it anymore and secretly tried bearing down a bit in the bathroom. It didn't feel any better or worse to push, so I asked Maria to check me, and thank goodness, I was complete. I wasn't totally wed to a waterbirth, but decided to try pushing in the tub for a while, and that's where we stayed. The room was full of candles, Liz put on a Tuck and Patti CD, and everyone circled around the tub. It was really quite lovely, although I had a hard time appreciating this at the time. As he moved down, the back pain got more intense. Liz got very creative by leaning against the back of the tub and pushing on my back with her feet to rest her arms. I had completely lost my good attitude at this point, even though I knew I was almost done, and between each contraction repeatedly told everyone that I could not do it. As I said this, I looked around the tub at the faces of my support team, including Maria's second midwife Nancy and my friend Liz who had arrived, and they all just smiled at me and reminded me that I was doing it. In my head I was giving myself a major pep-talk, reminding myself of all the difficult challenges I had faced in life, and telling myself I could do this too.
Liz had wanted to help catch, but the position that ended up working best for me was on my back sitting on her legs. The strength and support of her body holding mine was the only thing keeping me grounded at this point. People were trying to remind me that I would have to push through the pain and to relax between pushes. Even though I had said these same things to women before and knew they meant well, I found these comments totally annoying and responded with such gems as, "I can't think outside my own vagina right now," and "That relaxation stuff is bullshit, you guys!" Finally, I felt his head stretching my perineum and my body pushing completely on its own. I wanted to slow it down because the sensations were so intense, but he was beyond the point of no-return. People always talk about the "ring of fire", but no one mentions how bizarre it is when the rest of the body emerges. I felt every curve of his body move through and out my vagina, such an indescribable, otherworldly experience.
As soon as he was out, the pain stopped, and everything in me instinctively reached out for him. I didn't realize at first that our midwife was untangling him from his cord, which had been wrapped twice around his neck and once around his body. After a few moments that seemed like eternity, he was in our arms and squawking away. He calmed very quickly, like many waterbabies do, and we all hung out in the water for a bit, letting him float and check out the world. I couldn't believe how tiny he was, 5#14oz. and covered in vernix, a little sweet pea with a full head of dark hair, the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. Soon we three were tucked into our own cozy bed, and he was nursing away. Talk about bliss. I quickly realized why women are crazy enough to go through the madness of labor again and again: because the love is so much bigger than the pain.
photos by mary juno and jenna shaw-battista
