Gray’s Birth

To summarize, I had a wonderful natural birth experience attended by an excellent midwife. When I was pregnant I loved reading natural-birth stories, which gave me the inspiration to go drug- & intervention-free, so I hope that mine can now encourage others who are hoping to do the same.

The Star of the Show
Gray was born at 2:02 AM on Wednesday, December 10, 2003. He was born at 39 weeks and 3 days gestation, one day before his estimated due date. He weighed 8 lbs, 13 oz., and was 21 inches long. He was healthy and beautiful, and our little Gray has become the joy of our lives.

My Last Appointment
One week before his arrival, I went to my 38-week prenatal visit with my midwife, Jenny. First, I want to share a few things about Jenny: I chose her to be my midwife based on many positive recommendations and her outstanding reputation in our community. I connected with her immediately and trusted her easily. She has a very direct and down-to-earth way of dealing with her patients, even being stern when it’s needed (and I pushed her to that point on quite a few occasions!). Her philosophy is that God created women’s bodies to be able to handle pregnancy and childbirth without all the medical interventions that are so prevalent today. She told me right off that only 2-4% of the time does a woman produce a baby that’s actually too big to fit through her pelvis, and that her c-section rate reflected that. This was good for me, because I knew—based on my family history (and the 54 pounds that I’d gained!)—that I would likely have a baby that most OBs would label as big, and I needed someone who would not tell me that he was too big for me to deliver. I also wanted more than anything to have a drug-free, natural labor, and I was frustrated to find that most people around me told me I was crazy, and some even told me that I wouldn’t be able to do it. “You just wait,” they all said, with their foreboding tones. But I knew that I could do it, with the right support. And when I met Jenny, I knew I’d found it. I spent months venting to her about my fears and worries, and she constantly told me, “Childbirth is a normal, natural process. Trust your body. You were made to do it, and you’ll do wonderfully.”
Getting back to that appointment…Jenny examined me and declared my cervix to be about 80% effaced and not quite 2 cm dilated, with Grayson still sitting at the 0 station that he’d been at for over a week. I asked her if she thought I would go into labor soon, and to my disappointment, she said she expected to see me back the next Wednesday for my 39-week appointment. I didn’t know it then, but for the first time in my experience with Jenny, her analysis would turn out to be wrong!

Something’s finally happening!
As the weekend approached, and I hit 39 weeks, I began to feel strangely not myself. I was feeling very hot, and my face was flushed pink; I didn’t feel well, but I wasn’t sick. I was having headaches, which I hadn’t had since the first trimester. My Braxton-Hicks contractions came and went like usual, but were getting stronger. These feelings continued and increased through the beginning of the week.
On Tuesday, December 9, I woke up feeling nauseous, and I was having lots of Braxton-Hicks contractions. I went about my day, but couldn’t help but notice that, while the contractions weren’t painful, they were very strong, and they were coming pretty regularly, at intervals of 5 to 8 minutes. I’d been having bouts of timeable contractions like this for months, but something just felt different about these, although I still didn’t think it could be early labor.
The contractions continued throughout the afternoon, closing in to intervals of about 5 minutes. At about 3pm, I went to the bathroom and saw that there was some blood. I knew then that something might be happening soon. When I told Philip, he wanted me to call Jenny right away and see what she had to say. For once, it was him who was worried, and me that was laid back! I told him that since my next appointment with her would be the next day, I’d wait and mention it to her then. We went in the living room and began working on putting Grayson’s new bouncy seat together. I was still contracting, and Philip was timing them, annoying me by mentioning at the beginning of each one that it had been five minutes since the last one.”

The “Pop”
At 4pm, I was sitting on the couch, and as I leaned over to get a part out of the box, I felt a little pop down below, followed by wetness. Instantly, I knew what it was. I jumped up, just as a huge gush of fluid came rushing out. I ran over to the tile by our front door, just in time for most of it to hit the tile rather than the carpet (yay!). I had been wearing a nightshirt, and the force of the fluid was so strong, it took my underwear down with it! I stood there, frozen, and then—just as another gush of fluid came rushing out––panic hit! I began to cry, saying over and over, “Oh no! What do I do?!” Philip was already up and working on getting our bags together for the hospital. “Mr. Calm And In Control” to the rescue! I just stood there, shaking, and wondering when the bursts of fluid would stop (they didn’t!). And for the first time ever, after all the months of Braxton-Hicks contractions, I began to feel actual pain with these. It was like an initiation of sorts! It was still pretty mild, just a strange aching down low in my belly. The realization that I was now in labor hit me hard, and it terrified me. There was no turning back now, and I was, admittedly, scared of what the night would hold.

Time to Go to the Hospital
The 30-minute drive to the hospital was a little hectic. It had just begun to rain, and the 5pm rush-hour traffic was in full force. Philip was navigating the traffic well, while we timed the contractions, which were now coming as close together as 3 minutes. They hurt, but not too bad at this point. I got to do my breathing exercises for the first time, and they actually helped. We were both giddy with excitement (my hands were still shaking), and I remember us joking a lot in between contractions.
When we got to the hospital, Philip pulled up to the ER drop-off and went to find a wheelchair for me. A security guard came out and wheeled me through the ER and into the admission office, while Philip went to park the car and unload our stuff. I had to sit in the office for about ten minutes or so while a clerk entered all my info in the computer. This is when the contractions became a little more noticeable, and I became more and more uncomfortable. When the clerk finished, he wheeled me out into the halls of the ER and told me that someone from Labor & Delivery would be coming to get me soon; then he left. So there I sat in the hallway, all by myself, just as the contractions started really hurting. I remember thinking how something was strangely funny—almost surreal—about me being left sitting here alone and in labor. I began wondering if anyone would ever come get me, or if I would have the baby right there. At one point, two nurses walked by me, and one commented, “Wow, looks like you swallowed a watermelon!” Gee, thanks…!
Just as I was totally losing my sense of humor, a nurse showed up and took me up to Labor & Delivery. As soon as we got up there, Philip was walking down the hall with our bags. Seems he’d had trouble parking and getting everything unloaded. I got put in a room, and they gave me a gown to change into. I went into the bathroom and changed, leaving a trail of amniotic fluid all the way there, as well as flooding the bathroom floor. I kept apologizing to the nurse for all the mess I was making! She got me in the bed and hooked me up to the monitors, and then she checked me and said I was dilated to 4 cm. Wow! I was impressed. I didn’t expect to be that far along! The nurse was impressed by my contractions on the monitor. She asked me if I was in a lot of pain, and I said it was not too painful yet. Then she remarked that they were pretty strong, and said she was concerned that they were so close together. She talked to me about pain relief options, and I expressed my desire to have a natural labor without drugs. We discussed whether or not I wanted to have an IV drip of fluids, but I declined, so she brought me a big ol’ tub of ice water and told me that since I had no IV, I had to “drink, drink, drink!” to stay hydrated. Then she went to call Jenny and let her know that I was there and was in active labor, and Philip and I went out to walk the halls.

Walking the Halls
We walked up and down the halls for a good while, stopping with each contraction so I could breathe through it. I would brace myself against the handrail, and Philip would simultaneously massage my lower back, which really helped. The pain that accompanied the contractions was gradually getting stronger, but was still totally manageable. At some point, we passed a room where a laboring woman was evidently in pain, because we heard her screaming from out in the hallway. I’m not exaggerating when I say screaming. My eyes got really big, and Philip—knowing what I was thinking—told me not to pay attention to it. The screaming continued, so we thought it best for me to return to my room and try something new.

Active Labor
It was now 7pm, and shift-change time for nurses. At that point a new nurse, Lucretia, came in to check my progress, and I was not much more than 4 cm. She suggested I try the whirlpool tub while I waited for Jenny to get there. She also put a cordless monitor around my belly, where they could monitor my contractions and the baby’s heart rate without me having to be hooked up to anything…a neat little invention for laboring while not having to be stuck in bed. While the tub filled (which took forever!), I sat on my birth ball and rocked back and forth. I had looked forward to using the ball in labor, but at this point I was having so much pressure in my pelvis that it was very uncomfortable to sit on it. I tried it for a while, anyway. When I had a contraction, I would rock like crazy to help dissipate the pain.
While I was rocking & rolling, Philip’s parents arrived and came in to let us know they’d be in the waiting room. When they left, I gave up on the birth ball, because the pain and pressure were actually getting worse and not better, so it was time for a change. I was starting to have some more significant pain now, such that I needed to get through some of the contractions. I tried the “slow dance” position, with Philip’s arms encircling me under each of my arms and around my back while I leaned into him, my head buried into his chest, rocking through each contraction, and it really helped! In fact, this later became the labor position of choice for the night. We were still doing this when my parents arrived. I talked to them in between contractions (since there was absolutely no pain in between), telling them how dramatically my labor had begun that day. Then Lucretia came and told me the tub was full and ready for me. My parents went to the waiting room, and I went to get in the tub.
Now, ever since I’d heard that my hospital was getting whirlpool tubs installed earlier in my pregnancy, I’d been looking forward to laboring in one. It really helps most women to manage the pain, but as usual, I didn’t fit the “norm”. I was immediately uncomfortable in the tub, the reason being that I was having significant pressure down low in my pelvis, and any position that had me sitting on my bottom (like with the birth ball) was very uncomfortable, especially when a contraction came. I soon realized I couldn’t sit in the tub, but I tried crossing my legs underneath me and sitting on my feet, with my body leaned down so that it was underwater, also. This helped a lot, and when a contraction came, I would keep that position but would also rock back and forth and do my breathing exercises. I stayed in the tub for about an hour and a half, and during that time the contractions really picked up in intensity. And, the thing that I dreaded most began to happen: I started to feel a little nauseous whenever a stronger contraction would hit (I have the worst phobia of vomiting!). Also, my legs eventually started to go to sleep from sitting on them, so I figured I’d better get out of the tub.

Slow-dancing to Transition
Once I was out of the tub, I went back to the previous labor position, in which I was leaning on Philip. The pain was really nasty at times, but I was so pleased to find that as long as I had him to lean on and rock with while I breathed, I was able to weather each contraction without much of a problem. It was almost like I was transferring some of the pain to him (hmmm, not a bad concept!).
The nausea diminished also, for the time being. Jenny, my midwife, arrived at about 10pm. I was so glad to see her! The first thing she did was check my cervix, and to everyone’s surprise, I was dilated to 7 cm! She told me congratulations¬––I was almost in transition! She also commented on the strength and frequency of my contractions, but told me I was doing very well managing them. They were lasting about a minute and were coming only a minute and a half apart. I told her how I was having so much pressure that sitting positions weren’t working for me, and she told me that happens sometimes, and to continue rocking with Philip since that was working so well. She sat down and coached me through each contraction, telling me to lean into Philip, bend deep at the knees, and rock my pelvis back and forth in order to bring the baby’s head down more quickly. The three of us chatted in between contractions. She told me that she and her nurse had just been talking about me that afternoon in her office, and they were guessing when I would go into labor! I told her about how my water broke and how it had brought my underwear down with it. She thought that was pretty cool.

Transition and Breathing
It wasn’t too long until the pelvic pressure began getting more and more consuming, like the constant need to have a bowel movement. Jenny checked me again and found me 8 cm dilated. She also checked my blood pressure and said it was a little higher than she liked, and she told me she wanted me to lie down in the bed for a while, on my left side. She said this would help to space out the contractions, which would give me more rest in between each one, and hopefully my blood pressure would go down. I didn’t like it, but I trusted her and I did it. She pulled out a leg rest, where I could put my right leg while lying on my side. As she and Philip stood in front of me, Jenny massaged my back, and sure enough the contractions spaced out a little…to about 2 minutes apart. My blood pressure returned to normal range and remained there.
Being smack in the middle of transition, things began to get more intense. This is the stage of labor that I’d feared and dreaded, but to tell the truth, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be…but it was indeed tough. I was still lying on my left side with my right leg up in the leg rest. Philip was standing right in front of me, and Jenny was standing beside him. I could hear them talking about how quickly each contraction was peaking. On the monitor, the line would go straight up— then off the chart for the duration of the contraction—then straight down. I knew what they were talking about, because I was the one feeling it! There was no gradual build-up at all. Each contraction began with sudden, very intense pain, and would stay that way for the duration; then it would just go away.
The pain was finally to the point that it was hard to manage, but with the help of Philip (who was amazing, by the way!) and Jenny, I was able to get through it. Jenny kept saying two things: “Blow that pain out Cam. Blow it out!”, which helped me to know how to effectively breathe, and “Relax your face”, because I guess the pain was really showing on my face! Blowing was very effective at helping me to feel in control of the pain, and thus helped me to relax my body in order to give myself over to the contractions that were opening my cervix.
With each contraction, I would hold on to Philip’s arm, breathe and blow with all my might, try to relax my face and body as much as possible, and do a lot of whimpering! Between contractions, Jenny reminded me to close my eyes, relax, and use those two minutes or so to rest and regain my strength. She also gave me lots of ice chips. About the same time, I got a good case of the shakes. My whole body, especially my legs, was shaking uncontrollably. Jenny told me this was very normal and not to fight it, because doing so would make it worse (she was right again).
My contractions began to double-peak at times—two extremely intense waves of pain with no relief in between. The nausea also returned with a vengeance somewhere in there. It was a gassy kind of nausea, like really bad indigestion. I felt it creeping up from my stomach to my chest whenever contractions peaked.

Cold Cloths to the Rescue
After a while, Jenny suggested I turn over onto my right side and put my left leg up into the leg rest. Somehow I managed to do it, although by now everything was a blur of pain and nausea. I remember a big wave of nausea hit me, and for the first time I thought I might actually throw up. I said out loud, “Oh, I feel sick!” and she got me one of those little kidney-shaped dishes to put by my head, saying, “That’s totally normal; lots of women get sick at this point.” Philip provided comic relief by holding up the dish and quoting a profound line from the movie Wayne’s World: “If you’re gonna spew…spew in this.” This actually made me laugh out loud! Jenny began putting ice water-soaked cloths on my neck and face, which really helped with the nausea and just altogether made me feel better. As the most intense contractions came and went, I would hold an icy cloth over my face until it started getting warm, and then I would ask for another. Lucretia came in to help, and both she and Jenny made sure I had a new cold cloth every time I reached for one (I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but Jenny told me later that they were laughing at me, because whenever I was done with one, I would just throw it down…and each time, it would land down between my legs, where I was bleeding. So, they kept having to get new cloths out to replace the bloody ones. I was totally oblivious!).

Time to Push
I’d had lots of pelvic pressure all along, but it started to become more and more consuming. Jenny checked me again, and found I was dilated to about 9 ½ cm—almost 10! And she felt the baby’s head. I couldn’t believe it! Then she said, “Okay, I’m going to give you a choice…you can go through a few more contractions until you dilate to 10, or I can push the remainder of your cervix up over the baby’s head, and you can just start pushing now…it’s up to you.” I had no clue what I wanted to do. I’d never done this before! So she reached up inside me again, and told me to go ahead and try pushing. I was terrified. The moment to push was here, and I was too scared to do it.
Let me just say that the next few moments were very intense. Jenny had her hand up inside me (she was pushing my cervix over the baby’s head), she was telling me to push. I was having a contraction, and it all compounded to be the most horrible feeling I’d ever felt. I got a little frantic and yelled at her, “What are you doing?!” She just told me calmly to bear down and push. So, I did, but I didn’t do very well at it. Now that I was fully dilated, the contractions stopped being so painful; they instead became an immense pressure and urge to push. But I was scared to bear down, because when I did, I felt the (seemingly) enormous presence of the baby’s head there, and something about that sensation frightened me.
Jenny said to Lucretia that this wasn’t working, and to go find a squat bar so that I could squat and push. In the meantime, she told me to get up and try pushing in a sitting-up position; maybe that would work better. I got into position, and she told me to hold onto my thighs and try pushing. Another nurse, Andrea, had shown up to help, and they coached me to hold onto my thighs, curl up into a “C”, put my chin to my chest, and push. This was good coaching, but I still was in a panic about the sensations I was feeling, and I did a terrible job of holding onto my thighs. Leave it to me to handle the pain of labor but not be able to handle the “easy” part! Jenny pulled out some handles on the side of the bed and told me to hold onto those, and Andrea and Lucretia (who had returned because she couldn’t find the squat bar) each held onto one of my legs and pushed them up for me. I was feeling totally out of control of my body, and I was frantically trying to push when and how they told me to, but I kept messing things up.

Hard Work
This was the most intense part of the night for all of us, but especially for me. I’ve never experienced anything so frenzied, so consuming, so exhausting, so overwhelming, nor so utterly primal in all of my life. Pushing that baby out is the hardest thing I’ve ever done! I did eventually figure out how to push effectively, but it took a few tries…and a lot of frustrated but patient coaching from Jenny and the nurses to get it down right. A few times, when they told me to push, I would gasp, “I can’t!” and Jenny would sternly reply, “Yeah, you can. Now, push!” She wouldn’t let me wimp out! I found it hard to concentrate on both pushing and keeping my chin down. At one point, someone began helping me to keep my head pushed down to my chest (I found out later that it was Philip). At the end of each push, I would naturally let out a cry of exhaustion, but they kept telling me to stop and get back to pushing. Everyone kept encouraging me by telling me how they could see his head, that he had dark hair, etc.
In between contractions, I would rest, and Lucretia would give me a fresh cold cloth (I was still going through those pretty quickly!). I could constantly feel the presence of the baby’s head in my birth canal. It was such a huge presence! It felt impossible for it to pass through me, but I knew that it could…and would.
Jenny began perineal massage during my pushing, to keep my perineum from tearing. I must say that it’s a very uncomfortable feeling, but it’s better than tearing, and so much better than an episiotomy, so I was glad for it.
I went through round after round of pushing with each contraction, each time getting more efficient at it, but more exhausted. I remember thinking it was taking so long, and I asked Jenny if his head was stuck! She said no, not at all, that I was doing great at pushing and that he was descending quite well. And then she added, “If I were a doctor, I would’ve gone ahead and cut you by now, and he’d be out, but you know I don’t do that.” I had to smile at that. At one point I again became so exhausted I felt like giving up, but I just prayed that God would give me strength to do what I needed to do, and also that he would let this hurry up and end!
God answered, because it wasn’t long after that prayer that the baby’s head began to crown, and oh, did I feel it! I began gasping, “It burns! It burns!”, and Jenny replied, “That’s the ‘ring of fire’ ” and told me to push through the burning, but to push more gently now. Philip said later that he resisted the urge to sing the chorus of Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire”…probably a good decision on his part.

Our Son is Born
A few slow pushes and a lot of burning later, out came the baby’s head, and then each shoulder…then there was sweet relief as I felt the rest of him slide out easily. There were lots of “oohs” and “ahhs”, and I looked down to see Jenny bringing Grayson up to my chest. As she lay him down, his cord still attached to me. I was totally overwhelmed…it was a real live baby, and he was mine! I began to touch him and was surprised by how soft and wet his skin was. The first thing I said was a giddy, “He’s so soft…and squishy!” Everyone laughed at me for that one. I lay there holding him, thanking God out loud for the safe arrival of his much-awaited gift. After I paused to deliver the placenta, it was time for Philip to cut the umbilical cord. Grayson was on his own in the big world. I began breastfeeding him immediately, and he latched on and took to it quite well.
While Grayson was being weighed and wiped off, Jenny told me that I’d sustained only a tiny surface tear that would need one stitch; not too bad, especially when Andrea called out to us that he weighed 8 lbs., 13 oz.! Jenny exclaimed to me, “Girl, you pushed out a 9-pound baby in only 49 minutes!” I was amazed as well! As she gave me my stitch, she told me how well I’d done overall, with both the labor and the pushing. I told her I couldn’t believe I’d actually done it, and she answered, “You know one big reason for that? Because so many people told you that you couldn’t! But I knew you could.” She couldn’t have said it better.

An Amazing Experience
All in all, the labor lasted 10 hours, including the agonizing 49 minutes of pushing. I don’t have any regrets at all about going natural––only joy and deep satisfaction. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I had heard and thought it would be. That’s not to say it wasn’t painful or difficult; it was definitely both. But it never got to thepoint that I couldn’t manage it on my own, and I believe the reason my labor and delivery went so well and so quickly was because there were no interventions, as they always seem to bring with them a host of complications. Looking back, it was the most amazing experience of my life, and I wouldn’t change a thing. I will definitely do it again should I have another baby. Although next time, I won’t be scared, because I’ll know what to expect. And I just might even look forward to it.
Oh, and I never did throw up. *whew*