Helene's birth story, Part II

[To read Part I of Helene's birth story, click here.]

There were a couple of bumps in the road, however. Unusually, there was another woman in labor at the same time. This rarely happens. It's not a problem because there are two birthing rooms, but the "family room" where relatives and friends can wait was kind of crowded. There was also a hot water issue. As in, it wasn't hot. It was barely lukewarm. Oh my hell, I had to get in that damn tub. Suzanne and the midwives marshaled the staff, and got them to start filling buckets from another sink where the water was hotter. Suzanne asked if I minded if one of the staff members came in and out with buckets of water. I didn't care who came in and out, especially if they had HOT WATER. They'd all seen birth before. Inhibitions at this point? None. While the tub filled, I got on the sofa on my knees, and bent over the sofa arm. Seth stayed right by me, and did an awesome job helping me to keep breathing deeply through each increasingly strong contraction. Seth made sure that I set up the camera for him, and wanted to be sure the flash was on if it was dark out when the baby arrived. Suzanne said, ”Oh no. You’ll probably see your baby long before it’s dark.” So hard to believe! It was hard to look beyond the immediacy of all this physical effort and remember that there would be a baby, a little tiny wiggling breathing baby. Finally, the tub was full. I could not peel off my clothes fast enough. I dropped them on the floor, and staggered to the tub.

I couldn't get comfortable at first. It didn't feel great to be on my back, so I tried flipping over to hands and knees. I didn't think I could sustain that, so I went back to lying down, and trying to move my hips back and forth.

I also had to have IV antibiotics, as I had tested Group B Strep positive a few weeks before. One of the midwives, Ebony, came in to do my heplock and IV. For whatever reason, she had a hard time finding a vein. After stabbing me a couple of times with no success, Ebony fired herself and got Lisa Uncles, another midwife to try. Seth said later that he would have been pretty upset at all the needle sticks I got to get that heplock in, but in the throes of labor? It really didn't matter. The IV was finally in, and the antibiotics started.

The water was pretty warm, but not that hot. More staff members had been recruited by now, and they were rounding up whatever receptacles they could find to ferry hot water to the tub. Pots, pans, buckets, recycling bins - they were all in use. There was a regular parade in and out of the bathroom as women came in to refresh the hot water. Someone thought of the brilliant idea of heating water on the stove in the family room, so staff members were soon carrying steaming pots of water in with potholders and pouring it in the tub, like I was a giant pot of soup, simmering away. Contractions were more intense, closer together, and despite the hot water, I would shiver and shake from time to time. I suppose this was "transition," but I was never conscious of it being different; it was just more intense. I felt sort of burpy at times, but thankfully I never felt nauseous. Seth or Suzanne would hold my water bottle to my lips periodically to get me to drink. Midwife Lisa Ross stayed vigilant, sitting on the closed toilet lid.

We’d been hearing occasional noises from the woman laboring in the other birthing room. At some point in here there were three midwives in the bathroom with me, as well as Seth and Suzanne. Suddenly, we heard what sounded like a blood-curdling, long drawn out scream. Seth said, “Was that screaming?” Midwives Ebony and Lisa Uncles glared hard at him and said, “Oh no. That had to be the wind. It’s very windy outside. Definitely the wind.” Seth started to say something like “I don’t think so” but was silenced by the looks from the midwives. [Ebony and Lisa, thanks. I knew that it was the woman in labor in the next room screaming, but I appreciated your efforts.] I wasn’t going to scream – I’m just not a screamer. It also seemed like a dramatic waste of energy.

I started feeling intense pressure with each contraction that felt like it was in my rectal region. The contractions were so intense now; it was all I could do to keep breathing and gasping and rocking my hips through each one. I kept gasping “The pressure!” and sometimes “It hurts!” Seth was right there, holding my hand, and telling me I was doing great, and offering me sips of water. Lisa asked if I was into a water birth. I said it sounded good to me. It was hard to imagine getting out of the tub at this point. Suzanne and Lisa asked if I felt like I wanted to push. “I’m not sure. I just feel so much pressure.” They advised me to try with the next set of contractions. I think they could see me hesitating or holding back, so they broached the whole poop subject. Yes, I did want to know what they did when, um, other things came out during pushing. Well, they have a little fine mesh net on a long wire handle; the kind you would use to scoop goldfish out of an aquarium. And the offending matter, like dead goldfish get scooped out and then flushed. Brilliant. That question was answered; I was at ease. I could try to push.

With each contraction that came now, I tried to push. I was blowing too much breath out, breath that could be focused downward to push the baby out, so Suzanne helped me to breathe and focus the energy of my pushing with each contraction. My water finally broke with a pop and a gush after a couple of pushes. It was relief, but not as much as I had hoped. I don’t know how long I pushed. I know that after several contractions, I started wondering when I would feel the head moving down, feel the burning of my flesh stretching, feel the baby turning to emerge. I felt like I was pushing well, but felt impatient that not enough was happening. “Tell me I can do this,” I said to Seth and Suzanne. Sometime in here, Seth said I looked like I did at Mile 20+ of the New York Marathon – he knew I was strong and I was going to finish. Midwife Lisa said that she wanted to do an internal exam to be sure I was fully dilated and that there was no lip of cervix in the way that would interfere with pushing. I’d been hesitant to have unnecessary internal exams, but decided this was probably the time to be sure. Lisa came to the tub to check me. First, she listened for the baby’s heart rate with a Doppler. She found the heartbeat higher in my belly than she’d expected; the baby should be further down. But the heartbeat was regular and strong. After some long, uncomfortable seconds, Lisa announced that I seemed to be the full ten centimeters dilated, and that there was no cervical lip. But… but… “I’m not feeling the back of the baby’s head. I’m not sure what I’m feeling and I want a second opinion.” I thought that maybe the baby was flipped over “sunny side up” or that she was brow or face first, and thought, that’s OK, I’m sure I can still push her out. I can get out of the tub, I can squat to open my hips, I can do it.

Midwife Lisa Uncles came in, and asked me to get out of the tub and onto the bed so it would be easier for her to do the internal exam. Everyone helped me up out of the tub and got me over to the bed. It was excruciating to lie down on the bed, after being able to float a little in the warm water. Lisa U. asked me not to push while she did the exam; I had to puff and blow out my breath. Not pushing was incredibly difficult; I was fighting against the powerful ripple of the contractions, against everything that my body wanted to do. It was agony while Lisa U. poked and probed. Seth was next to me on the bed. The other midwives were gathered in the room. Lisa U.’s brow furrowed. After what seemed like long minutes, she announced, “That’s a butt. This baby is breech.” There was a shocked silence in the room; I saw the shock and disbelief on the face of all the midwives and Suzanne. “What?” I gasped. “How is that possible? She was head down for weeks.” I waited for someone to tell me differently, to tell me it was OK, to tell me it wasn’t really true. Seth’s head collapsed onto my shoulder. In a soft voice, Lisa U. said “We can’t deliver breech babies here.” I started to sob, because I knew that already. I knew what a breech baby meant. There was one option, and only one: a transfer to the hospital for a Cesarean section. It was one of my worst fears, my worst labor nightmares. It was everything that I had chosen midwives and a birth center to avoid. The midwives hustled into action, and hurried out of the room. “We need a plan,” said Lisa Ross.

I wanted to collapse and give up. I wanted it to be over. I wanted the contractions to stop. Someone told me not to push. It was horrible, fighting against the downward tide of those strong contractions. Since I knew what was inevitable, I wanted the epidural or the anaesthesia, now, now, now, so I wouldn’t feel anything, so they could just get the baby out.

Suddenly the midwives were back. Lisa U. was giving me a shot “to stop the contractions.” “Terbutaline?” I whispered. She nodded. I felt it work almost immediately, the contractions slowing, slackening. It was a relief. Ebony was at my side, talking to me calmly. “We’ve called an ambulance to take you to the hospital. It should be here in fifteen minutes.” Midwife Lisa Ross would ride in the ambulance with me – only one person was allowed, and she wanted to be there in case the baby did come out during the ambulance ride. Seth and Suzanne would drive separately. Someone gave me my shirt; I didn’t know how I would possibly put on pants. Suddenly, the ambulance was there. There was a whirl of people around me, paramedics with a stretcher, Ebony wrapping my naked lower half in a sheet and a blanket, snapping at the paramedics that it was freezing outside. Lisa Ross was in coat and winter hat, at my side, my file tucked under her arm. They rolled me down the hall, through the big double doors that I remembered hearing about during my introductory session at the birth center. “If we need to transfer you, the ambulance backs up to those double doors, and we can get you in and to the hospital quickly.” I remember thinking I was glad they were there, but I was sure it was only a very remote possibility that I would use that particular feature of the birth center. Then I was in the shining, bright stainless steel interior of the ambulance, Lisa at my side, calm, her hand gently touching my leg. I don’t remember if they put the siren on. I just remember wanting to cry, having to fight the contractions, wanting to be numb, flashes of cold blue November sky and DC rowhouses at the ambulance window, the heat in the ambulance on too high, stifling. I went through all that for nothing, I thought as I quietly sobbed and huffed through another agonizing contraction.

Finally, finally, we were at Washington Hospital Center, and they rolled me through a maze of halls and doors and desks. We paused at one desk, and there were papers and a conversation, and a doctor appeared. “Good, it’s Dr. X. We like her,” whispered Lisa. For a second, I thought maybe, maybe they’d still let me try to push the baby out. But I knew better; no one delivers breech babies. And they rolled me into the bright cold white and steel of a large operating room. There seemed to be at least five people working on me. They got me onto a hard, narrow table. I had to sit, which was agonizing. Lisa got into scrubs, and stood right next to me, her hand on my leg or arm, calm and comforting, telling me quietly what would happen. They put IVs into both arms, I chugged a shot of strong antacid to counteract side effects of the anesthesia. I kept telling them when a contraction was coming, because I thought they needed to know, because they couldn’t expect me to keep still, couldn’t expect to stick needles in me while it was going on. I just wanted the epidural, whatever, as soon as possible, to stop the labor pain, to get this over with, to get the baby out, because she was ready to be born. Someone asked when I last had food or drink. There was some ridiculous discussion about how they didn’t have labels, so they couldn’t give me anesthesia yet. I writhed on the table, feeling amniotic fluid running everywhere, wondering if it would spoil the sterile environment. They wanted to draw blood for type and cross, and Lisa said impatiently that she had my blood type in the file. After more idiotic, ceaseless discussion of labels, someone could finally numb me up. A pinch in my back, and I felt the anesthesia working. I thought it was an epidural, but found out later it was a spinal block. Lisa told me that they would put up a drape, and that Seth was outside getting suited up in scrubs. They would only let him in right when the procedure began, because too many husbands had passed out just from seeing the prep. Lisa looked at me and commented that, hey, I didn’t get any stretch marks on my belly, just a few on my sides. She smiled. “At least that’s one good thing.”

They laid me on my back, and I could feel myself getting tingly and numb from the chest down. They gave me all kinds of consent forms to sign. It’s quite hard to write when you’re flat on your back and doped up with anesthesia. I’d like to see them prove in court that those signatures were legible or mine. Then I had to hold my arms out straight to my sides, palms up. The drape was put over me, right at my breastbone. A voice asked me whether I could feel various pokes and tickles. I could not. I was told I would feel pressure and tugging. Suddenly, Seth was there, by my head. I was impressed that he had remembered to bring the camera. They had already started. I didn’t even know. Pressure, tugging, athletic wrestling, it seemed so rough. Suddenly, I guess she was out, and Seth raised the camera, clicked the shutter. “The flash,” I whispered, because there had to be photos, because I could not see. Lisa heard me. “She wants you to turn on the flash.” Seth did. “Can I take a picture?” he asked the doctors. “Sure.” He took a couple of shots. I saw them days later – our little baby, bloody and wet, twine of umbilical cord still attached. I can’t even see my own body in the photos. I’m glad we have them, so I know what she looked like, because I missed it. Someone said, “5:26 pm.” Then, I could hear the insistent cries of a baby, somewhere across the room. They went on and on, so loud. I knew it was our baby, but it was so disembodied and far away. I didn’t feel anything. My body was numb. Everything was numb. Seth said, “Where’s my baby?” and left my head to go over to see her. She kept crying and crying. I wanted to see her so badly, wanted to touch her, wanted to hold her and stop her cries. But I was immobile on an operating table, hands pinned by IVs and the drape, still peeled wide open, doctors and nurses still working on me, examining my uterus, looking at the fibroids in there.

I was glad Seth was with the baby. He said that he gave her his finger and she grabbed it tight, and seemed to relax when he talked to her. I think someone announced her length and weight. I could hear the shutter click as Seth took photos. I saw later how her legs were folded straight up to her ears from being stuck in the frank breech position, a little yogini. Seth told me the nurses had a hard time swaddling her, because her legs kept popping back up to her ears. Then, Seth brought her to me, wrapped in a blanket. She seemed impossibly clean and tiny. I could only look at her, upside down. Lisa Ross took a couple of photos. In them, I am smiling. I know I didn’t get to see her long enough, right then.

The doctors were still working on me. Remembering something from our Bradley class, Seth asked whether they were using a double-layer stitch to sew me up. “What, are you a doctor?” someone scoffed. Seth told me later that he was thinking, no, asshole, this is just my wife’s body. Some minutes later, one of the doctors looked at me and said ”You can have a VBAC.” I knew that was good, but it was hard to process. I think they took the baby away at this point, and Seth went with her. Seth told me later that he counted her fingers and toes. They finished me up and moved me to a tiny recovery room somewhere. Lisa and Suzanne were there, and somehow, so were all of our bags and belongings from the birth center.

Then, finally, finally, they brought her to me. Helene. I could hold her, nurse her for the first time. She latched on with total determination, right from the beginning. She had fringes of hair, soft and golden, or was it a little red, like her namesake, Seth’s grandmother Helen? She was only six pounds, six ounces, petite and perfect. How could her fingernails be so tiny? Her head was round, skin smooth, unmarred, because there was no trip through the birth canal. They let me hold her and nurse her for an hour, Seth told me, before they took her to the nursery again for more tests. It felt like a mere few minutes, not long enough.

***

It’s hard to know where to end this, because there was no satisfying conclusion to Helene’s birth. I didn’t get to triumphantly push her out. Seth didn’t get to catch her. She wasn’t placed immediately on my chest, for me to hold her while she was still connected to me by the umbilical cord. I don’t know whether she had any vernix on her skin. We didn’t get to see or feel the umbilical cord pulse. Seth didn’t get to cut it. I only know what she looked like right after birth from the few photos that Seth thankfully took. Seth said later that he felt like he went from an active, important participant in his baby’s birth to a guest star, costumed and hustled onto the stage at the last minute just for the big reveal.

I am comforted by the fact that she was ready to be born. It was time for her to come into the world. She decided that. I am proud that I went all the way through labor – I did everything but push her out. I could have pushed her out, had she just been turned the right way. We would have had our baby in our arms earlier that afternoon, would have gone home with her that night. She didn’t have any drugs throughout labor, her heart rate was strong and steady the entire time, there are benefits to the baby going through labor, she didn’t have any of the possible negative effects of a Cesarean. I know all of that, but I am still haunted. Because I don’t know exactly when she turned from her head-down position (sometime between our 38-week exam and 39 weeks, 5 days), or why she turned. Shouldn’t I have felt it? Shouldn’t someone have known? Could I have done something? I know that the rational answer to all of those questions is “no,” and that this was an unusual, practically freak occurrence. I am now a statistic. But none of that stops my irrational, emotional heart from wanting a different outcome, a do-over of Helene’s birth.

The days in the hospital are a blur of pain, discomfort, tears, anxiety, fitful sleep, streams of doctors, nurses, interruptions. The debilitating pain that I felt the day after the birth was so far beyond anything I experienced in labor. I couldn’t even sit up in bed unassisted to nurse my new baby. I can’t understand anyone choosing this invasive procedure without a clear medical reason. The best, shining thing in those awful days was Helene. Our reason for existing in those days was to keep her alive, warm, changed, fed, comforted, loved. She hardly spent time in the hospital bassinet, because I couldn’t stand for her to be away from me. I would fall into a deeper sleep feeling her tiny breaths against me. She comforted me with her compact warmth and the very fact of her existence as she slept in on my body, just inches of flesh and blood away from where her life had begun.

Helene's birth story, Part I

[Because this has ended up being long-winded, I'm breaking it up into two parts. I also need to, uh, finish writing the second part. ]

Tuesday, November 18, 2008. I worked from home all day, trying to wrap up some last-minute things. I optimistically told my supervisor that I would be in on Thursday (my last official day of work). to drop off some files, and that she'd see me then, "unless of course, the baby decides to do something else." I had a backache on and off all day, and wondered whether that meant what I thought it might mean.

Seth's parent's had arrived in town the day before. They came over to the apartment on Tuesday night for dinner. Seth and his mom embarked on putting together the changing table and the co-sleeper. I was feeling quite insistent about having those DONE at this point, because the nagging backache was still present, and I thought I was beginning to have some actual contractions. I had told Seth about the backache earlier, but we decided not to tell his parents, because we didn't want them getting too excited over something that might not be it. Seth and his mom were busy for a couple of hours putting everything together. I puttered around and unpacked various baby-related accessories from their boxes and put them in our bedroom and on the shelves under the changing table. I was having occasional, irregular stronger contractions, ones that I really had to breathe through. When I was in another room alone, I experimented with breathing and changes of position to see what might make me feel better. I was dying to tell Seth, but again, I was afraid of being The Girl Who Cried Labor if this wasn't it and the contractions petered out in a couple of hours.

Seth's parents finally left around 11:00, and I could finally tell Seth what I was feeling. He was excited, and said we should call our doula, Heather. I was more hesitant, not wanting to assume this was it. I called Heather at 11:30, and told her I'd had a backache all day, and that I was having what I thought were some irregular contractions. She advised me to do what I was thinking about doing anyhow - take a couple of Tylenol for the pain and try to get some sleep. [Several days later, when recapping all of this with Heather, I said I'd really had to breathe through the contractions at this point, and that I was occasionally getting on my hands and knees. She exclaimed,"You didn't tell me that! I wouldn't have told you to take Tylenol and go to bed!" I reminded her that I had a tendency to understate things, and that I didn't want to be wrong about it being actual labor. Heather just shook her head.] I did take Tylenol, and try to sleep, because I knew I would need all the rest I could get if this were the real thing. It was hard not knowing if it was for real, and how long it would take.

I didn't get much sleep. Contractions were coming perhaps every 10-20 minutes, and again, it did take a lot of concentration to breathe through them. I was also arching and curving my back in bed, like "cat - cow" in yoga, which seemed to help. I tried to just relax, rest and snooze between them, but I'm not sure how successful that was.

Wednesday, November 19. At around 5 or 5:30 I simply could not lie in bed any longer. It was too uncomfortable. I decided to get in the tub to see if that would make it easier. I ran a hot bath, and lay in the tub for a good hour, rocking my hips back and forth gently in the water with each contraction. Either I woke Seth up or he woke up around 6:30 - I don't remember. The contractions were definitely stronger and more regular. He wanted to call Heather and our midwives, but I wanted some actual data on the contractions before calling them, so we'd have something useful to tell them. Groggy with sleep, Seth got the laptop, and sat on the floor of the bathroom using the Contraction Master website to time the contractions. They were coming anywhere from 10 to five minutes apart, and were all lasting about a minute. We timed for close to an hour, and then I got out of the tub and made our phone calls.

I could hear something in Heather's voice as soon as I called her. "I'm so sorry, but one of my other clients also went into labor. She's 11 days overdue, and she's further along. I can't believe this - it never happens! I'm going to call my backup, Suzanne, and have her call you. She'll come to you if you want, and I'll come to you as soon as I can." It was in our contract with Heather that if, for some reason, she could not be present, she would have a suitable doula backup. As soon as I got off the phone, Seth asked with some anxiety "Is she going to help us?" having heard my end of the conversation. "She's calling her backup, who will call us." There was nothing to be done, and it wasn't worth getting upset about. We would just have to go with it and trust this person. I then called the midwives at the birth center. Helen, the midwife on call, called me back. She said it sounded like I was in active labor, but that it was a bit too early to come to the birth center. I could come in if I wanted to, just to be checked, but the odds were that they would send me home. I didn't want to have to get in the car and submit to the uncomfortable internal exam just for some information that might not be terribly useful, so I declined. I'd labor at home (well, our temporary home) until it was really time to go in.

The contractions were getting more intense. I was kneeling on the floor, and bending over a chair to cope with them. Suzanne, our doula backup called me at around 8:30. A second before she called, I'd had one contraction that was suddenly longer and more intense than all the previous ones. Before that, I had been thinking that I could cope for a while longer without doula support, but after that contraction, holy crap, I definitely wanted Suzanne to come as soon as possible. We had scheduled our cleaning service to come that morning, and before that contraction, I had thought (far too optimistically), oh, we can just go for a walk around the neighborhood while they clean for an hour. But no way, not after that one intense surge. We called to cancel the cleaning service. They understood.

Sometime in here I knew I should try to eat something so I had energy for what could be many long hours of labor. I couldn't think about chewing, so Seth made fruit & yogurt smoothies in the blender. I figured that if I felt nauseous, a smoothie also wouldn't be so bad if it came back up (nice logic, eh?).

Suzanne arrived around 10:00 am, and put us right at ease. She told us she'd been a doula for about five years, that she had done a lot of births at the birth center, and that she taught classes there as well as teaching a Bradley class in our neighborhood. She was just so calm and competent, and we were so glad she was there, because we were amateurs at this labor thing and didn't know what the hell we were doing. I was still on my knees, resting my head on the sofa, and with my next contraction, Suzanne did some kind of fabulous deep lower back rub that felt soooo good. Contractions were crazy, because I was just totally consumed by them for the minute or so that they lasted, and they took all my concentration to breathe and rock through them. Then, in between, I felt completely normal, and could sit down on the sofa or floor and carry on a real conversation. Suzanne helped me slow my breathing through each contraction, and try to stay on top of it. She also got out her rice beanbags, which she heated in the oven and placed on my lower back to ease the pain of each contraction - also really great. I was really feeling the contractions in my lower back, and worried that the baby had flipped "sunny side up." Suzanne said that was just the way a lot of people felt contractions. It was so comforting to have someone there who had been through labor with women lots of times before and who knew what would make me feel better. Seth tried rubbing my back also, and he got pretty good at it, but honestly, not as good as Suzanne. The contractions were coming pretty steadily. Both Suzanne and Seth were right there, rubbing me and helping me to breathe and telling me I was doing great.

Around noon, Suzanne suggested that we try to eat something. Seth and Suzanne had lunch, and I managed half a banana. I kept trying to sip water and stay hydrated. I felt strong. We tried using an exercise ball to see if I could sit on that and labor, but there was no way - I just could not sit on it, and felt too much pressure in my lower parts. Back to hands and knees. Around 12:30, Suzanne threw out some options. We could try to go for a walk to keep labor moving, or we could try going to the birth center to see if I was far enough along to get in the labor tub there. I wasn't sure I could walk around, so we decided to call the birth center to let them know we wanted to come in. Seth spoke to the midwife on call, and she cautioned us that I needed to be at least four centimeters dilated for them to allow me to stay at the birth center. Suzanne was confident that I was at least that far - I was in good active labor, and she would bet that I was five centimeters.

Now, we just had to get there. The thoughts of (1) walking, and (2) riding in a car were near to unimaginable. Seth had loaded most of our bags and birth accessories in the car earlier, so we were pretty well ready to go. Somehow, I got my coat and shoes on, Suzanne stuffed some just-heated rice beanbags into my pants to soothe my aching lower back, and we walked out of the apartment. Suzanne advised me to sort of sway as I walked, in a staggering, drunken conga sort of motion, to ease the contractions, and to sway my hips when I stood. It did help, and I managed to walk to the elevator, hoping I didn't have to walk this way in front of too many people.

There are only about 20 or 30 residents in this new apartment building that we are staying in. We never, ever run into anyone in the elevator. Except for THIS DAY, of all days. Incredibly, the elevator stopped at a lower floor and a woman got on. It took her about five seconds to look us up and down, and exclaim "Oh! She's in labor!" I grinned (grimaced? snarled?) and said "Uh huh!" Since I was breathing heavily and shifting rapidly from foot to foot and visibly very pregnant, it was either that or I really had to pee. The woman looked kind of flustered at that point, and accidentally got off on a different floor than she meant to. She then almost halted the elevator to get back on and go to her intended floor, but wisely thought better of it, and stepped off to let us continue our journey to the parking garage.

I had no idea how I was going to ride in the car. Sitting was not possible - I just felt too much pressure in my nether regions. Seth and Suzanne had figured it out though, and Seth set up the car for me. He moved the front passenger seat all the way forward and put a towel on the floorboard of the back seat so I could kneel on it, facing backwards, and bend over the bench of the back seat. I crawled in and started to sway my hips side-to-side for all I was worth, because I knew it was the only way I was going to make it through the car ride. The birth center is only a fifteen minute drive from the apartment, but it was an eternal-feeling fifteen minutes. Damned if they were going to send me home again; I knew I could not take this car ride again.

I staggered/swayed/conga-ed into the birth center and into an exam room where midwife Lisa Ross was ready to check me. I couldn't sit or lie on the table, so she let me kind of perch on the edge while she did an internal exam. "Seven centimeters." Yes! I felt like I had just nailed a fast split time in a race, or scored a goal in an Ultimate game. I think I actually did a fist pump. I was kicking ass at this labor thing! They were going to let me stay and get the hell into the birth tub!

[For Part II of Helene's birth story, click here.]

Baby Helene

She's finally here. Helene Marie Stewart Kaufman came into the world at 5:26 pm on November 19, 2008. At birth, she was 6 lbs. 6 oz. and 19 inches long.

I've finally felt recovered and settled enough to have a little time to write. Plus, Grandpa Allan is holding the baby.

Her birth wasn't what we had planned or expected; I'll post her full birth story later. But in short, what was planned as a natural birth in a birth center, and what started with a relatively fast unmedicated full labor, ended with a surprise breech baby who must have flipped from her head-down position shortly before or during labor, a transfer to a hospital, and a Caesarian section. It was far from our ideal, and we are still struggling with the emotional impact of the events.

We are focusing on our amazing, beloved little girl, which is easy, as our whole hearts belong utterly to her. She is delicate and compact, with slender little fingers, golden-fine fringes of hair, and rosy-smooth skin.

I literally can't hold her enough. Looking at her and realizing she will grow up brings me to tears. My heart hurts every time she cries. I am utterly floored by how much I love her.

39 weeks - and waiting....

I had some really clever title for this post last night before I fell asleep, but it's gone. Poof. Into the amniotic ether. But yes, here I am. Still pregnant. Kind of tired of the incredulous looks and exclamations when I tell people my due date is 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 days away. I guess I should be happy that no one has said, Oh my god you're so BIG. I don't really feel that big (except when trying to get in/get out/roll over in bed - for some reason those things are AMAZINGLY DIFFICULT. And require a lot of grunting.). I was in the office for a couple of hours the other day (I'm working mostly from home now, primarily so I don't have to actually get dressed and can wear stretchy maternity yoga pants allllll the time) and I felt like such a spectacle, as everyone and their assistant asked when the due date was, when my last day of work was, if I was feeling OK. My goodness. A co-worker who sits in an adjoining officle (cubicle + door = officle) overheard me tell someone it was 9 days until my due date. She came literally running over after he left, and seemed quite alarmed about me being in the office when I could clearly have a baby at any second! Right here in this office, on the ugly carpet! She is in at least her late 40's, unmarried, no children. And she has watched waaaay too many movie/TV representations of labor. "Do you have a suitcase here at work?" No, because I'm not really working here at the office, and I live five minutes away. "Do you have a backup emergency plan if you go into labor here?" Uh, no, because again, I live five minutes away, my birth place is 10 minutes away, my husband works in the building, most women go into labor at night in the safety of darkness, and labor is generally long. Loooooong. (Unless of course you are my friend Janine whose babies slide out in 2 hours or less and walks around 8 cm dilated with no discernible contractions. But she's extra-speshul, and her genes are going to kick all of our genes' asses.) "Well, I'm right over here if you need anything." Yes, and I will definitely turn to you instead of say, my husband, or my doula, or a trained childbirth professional. Thanks. I know she means well, but come on.
The belly is definitely full up. Sometimes the baby stretches, and it's almost painful as my skin pulls taut, I think, there is just no more room in there. And ow, as a little heel or elbow thrusts out with surprising power. I haven't really felt like OMG get out this very second get out but I will be glad to reclaim whatever is left of my body. I just want to eat, y'all. Like a full dinner, with spicy food, and a whole entire beer and dessert, and no goddamn heartburn and burping. I have definitely had it with those very special touches of pregnancy.

Sometimes, as I lie in bed, I can feel my "old" body underneath, my hipbones, my abs. I know it's in there, and it will be ready again someday soon to take me on a run, carry the baby to Eastern Market, lift her up in the air to let her look around. It just has a little more work to do first.

We think we're ready. Seth keeps talking to the baby and telling her she can come out now. I reached sort of a peaceful, still place about it a couple of weeks ago, realizing I was ready to give myself over to labor whenever it happened. The baby clothes are all washed, our bags are packed for the birth center, the baby is head down, face down, in optimal position for labor (high five, baby!), we actually installed the car seat correctly (apparently we are baby seat installation geniuses). Massage, relaxation, Bradley method, yoga, Happiest Baby, breastfeeding - we've taken classes, read, practiced, breathed.

And of course, when we got this baby sling as a gift, we immediately put the dog into it to try it out, because who doesn't do that? After the trial run, we're glad the baby will be smaller. And less hairy.

30-week plus update

The 17-year old Honda Civic didn't make it. Repairs over the next several months would have cost more than the Bluebook value, so the car is being donated. You can read the full obit/eulogy for this fine automobile here. I even got emotional when we left the car, and I have professed not to be attached to it or even like it all that much.

Seth's parents are kindly loaning us their Toyota station wagon for a few months (they're headed back to London for a bit, so they won't need it) until we have the time, money and wherewithal to buy another car. We wish we could get by with just one vehicle, but what with me planning to stay home for six months, and with anticipated daycare dropoff/pickup schedules, I just don't think we can do it. Despite the wonderful walkability of our neighborhood, it will be winter when the baby's born and I might stab someone in the eye with the nearest pacifier if I can't get in the car and get the heck out of the house with the baby some days. If we got into our dream daycare location at the Library of Congress, the pickup/dropoff thing would be MUCH easier, since it's walking distance from our house, and on the way to work. Don't even get me started on the lack of daycare facilities in the federal building that we work in, and the total disservice that is to the employees. Or the sparse options for daycare in our immediate neighborhood, despite the evident baby boom. Forget the chicken in every pot - there's a kid (or two) in every Bugaboo around Capitol Hill these days. But our car issues are immediately mostly solved. If I can get the A/C fixed in mine soon, that will also be helpful, since September in DC has decided to be muggy thus far, and I swear that my internal body temperature has risen five degrees today just to spite me and my lack of vehicle A/C. I'm just feeling distinctly.....swampy today. We are waaaay past "glowing" here, let me tell you, and into the "hot mess" category.

In other 30+ week news, after much (probably unnecessary) freaking out, I DO NOT have gestational diabetes. I did the initial glucose screening test a day after getting back from vacation, and an hour after wiping out on the sidewalk on my way to the doctor's office and scraping up knees and palms. Seth and I were walking to his car (R.I.P.) so that he could drive me to the appointment, and I stumbled slightly on some uneven sidewalk, and just....couldn't....quite...recover. Total wipeout. Cell phone and bottle of glucose solution that I was supposed to drink in two minutes went flying. Seth couldn't catch me, so he ran after the bottle of glucose solution as it rolled down the sidewalk, and retrieved my cell phone. He then heaved me to my feet, and tried to ascertain whether I was injured. I whimpered that I had to be OK, because I had to drink the stupid glucose solution right now and had to get in the car to get to my goddamn doctor's appointment. I got in the car, knee and palms bleeding, chugged the glucose, noted the time so I could tell the nurses when to draw my blood (precisely one hour after finishing the drink), and away we went to the doctor's office. Once at the office, I scrubbed up my wounds in the bathroom, noted the total lack of large band-aids to be had in an OB-GYN office, and got my blood drawn. My doctor was quite alarmed at my scrapes, and made sure I didn't fall on my belly, have broken wrists, or anything else. I couldn't explain to her that I just do this kind of thing on an annual-ish basis, and that being pregnant had little to do with it, except that my usual recovery reflexes were inhibited. We then went to get Two Amys pizza to nurse my wounds and my poor sugar-overloaded system.

Fast-forward a couple of days. The doctor's office calls to tell me I've failed the one-hour screening test, and have to come back in for the three-hour glucose tolerance test. What I didn't know then was that SO MANY things can make you "fail" the initial screening test - stress, having eaten something a couple of hours before, the time of day you take the test, etc., and that a very high percentage of women who "fail" the first test are totally fine on the second. So, I was completely hysterical for about three days, since they called me about this on a Friday, and I couldn't take the next test until Tuesday. I Googled everything in the universe, slept badly, cried, and waited for Tuesday. I also weighed myself about 20 times, because I'd felt sort of chastised at my doctor's office for my weight gain. Their scale showed that I had gained 27 pounds since becoming pregnant. The nurse mentioned that the scale was "off" and subtracted a couple of pounds. My OB raised her eyebrows, and I was told to watch my weight gain for the remaining weeks, because it would just be harder on the baby and harder on me if I gained too much weight. But when I weighed myself at home, I was 5-ish pounds less than what the doctor's scale had said. Rapid weight gain can also be a signal for gestational diabetes, so pile on some more hysteria about giant babies born with low blood sugar. Of course, the 3-hour test last Tuesday showed that all my blood sugar numbers were totally normal from all four fricking times they draw your blood during those tests. Vampires. And every time I've weighed myself in the last two weeks, I have still weighed less than I (allegedly) did at the OB's office that day.

But all of that is over. And I have finally done what I should have done (and wanted to do) months ago: I switched from my OB practice to a midwife practice. I have also therefore switched from planning to give birth in a hospital with a 40% c-section rate to now planning to give birth in a birth center with a 7% c-section rate. Those numbers sound quite a lot better to me on the slice me-dice me scale. All along, I really knew I wanted to be in a midwife practice, and that I wanted a non-medicalized birth, and every opportunity for a natural birth, if at all possible. The more I read, the more I confirmed this for myself. I'm not afraid of the pain or effort of labor. I am, on the other hand, very afraid of hospitals and unnecessary medical procedures. I have many, many reasons for this decision, and lots of stats, facts and stories to back it all up. If you're interested in this highly politicized and emotional hotbed of discussion about birth options, you can start here, here, and here for some source material.

Moving on to another birth story - our house! Our basement is really close to being finished. Our contractor thinks it will be done by October 1! Mmmm, waaaasher and dryyyyer. Laaaauuundry. Saaatellite TV......He's also aiming for a November 10 completion date for the kitchen, but we're not holding our breath on that one. If it's not completely done, we will survive. Hopefully without too many total hysterical breakdowns as it gets down to the wire on my due date. (Note to baby - this will be the one time in your life where I really insist that it will be just fine for you to show up late. Say a week? That would be greeeaaat.)

Seriously, can you believe this is the same room as this? In the photo above, there will again be a window in the bay - they just drywalled over the opening, and will put in the new window when it's ready.
This is looking towards the back of the house - the door to the back yard is on the left. The hallway on the right leads to our massive new closets, laundry area and full bathroom.
Do you like any of these paint colors? Me neither. Too light, too light, and too....peachy. But those were the only colors in the Benjamin Moore sample sizes that I thought might work. I sprung for a quart in another, darker shade today. Let's hope that's it.

However will we give this glamorous life up once our fancy kitchen is done? Yes, those are our dishes being done in the bathtub. It's so thrilling every night that we could just pass out from the excitement.