Aug 26

Aug 26 Stevie's Birth Story, Part III

Well, you made it this far and I’m impressed… and also grateful. Because the witnessing of birth, holding that for another person, is a beautiful and important gift in this world. Since you’re here, I wanted to let you know that not all birth experiences are positive. In fact, many people experience trauma from their births. If you experience anxiety or pain around your birth experience, there is help for you. There is healing. And I am here for you if you need support or a kind ear, always.

It is also extremely important to mention that Black women have an outrageously disproportionate risk of death due to complications during birth and after. Black women are up to four times more likely to die from childbirth than white women. Systemic racism is engrained in the United State’s health care system and it not only fails to protect Black women but it continually puts them at risk. Please consider donating to the Black Mamas Matter Alliance, an organization that “advocates, drives research, builds power, and shifts culture for Black maternal health, rights, and justice.”

Thanks for reading, friends. Birth is beautiful but it is also one of the weightiest and most profound acts of humanity and all birthing people deserve to have the positive story that I experienced and that you are so graciously reading about.

PART THREE

It just so happened that when the Pitocin was started there was a shift change at the same time and, much to our surprise, our nurse was Janice. Remember her? South African? An absolute joy? Both of us were so happy to see her familiar eyes (as the rest of her face was masked) and she was eager to make our experience the best it could be.

It seemed as if within minutes of the drip starting, my contractions started hitting harder and with more frequency. I looked at Nick with a bit of worry and said, “I don’t know if I can do this without meds. It’s already so hard and it’s going to get so much harder.” His eyes were sympathetic and I knew he wanted to encourage me but he also didn’t want to push me. Janice quickly spoke up. “You can do anything if you want it bad enough!” Her tone was no-nonsense and she had a fierceness in her eyes that said she believed in me, that we could do this thing. It was possible. We made a deal that if I said I wanted an epidural three times, the third time was the cue that I was serious and Janice would request the anesthesiologist. “I know you can do this without an epidural,” she said, “but if you want one, you are going to have to ask. I won’t bring it up again.” From that moment on, I was incredibly focused.

At first, I was able to continue to move around the room between contractions. I knew that keeping my body active would keep me from anticipating the contractions too much, a sort of form of distraction in between. I walked and paced and swayed. When a wave would begin rolling towards me, I would stop and focus only on remaining relaxed and open, particularly my jaw and my shoulders, allowing them to hang. I would breathe deeply into my core, filling my lungs, and exhale with purpose, sometimes with a low humming sound coming from my chest. “I relax, I breathe, I open,” continued to run through my mind, scrolling text in the void whenever I closed my eyes to welcome the next wave.

It’s incredibly difficult to describe the pain of labor. It’s all-encompassing. The act of labor and birth requires all of you and so the pain seems to enshroud your whole body, every muscle, no matter how minute. While laboring — especially while on Pitocin — the experience at times felt out-of-body, like I was watching myself wade into waist high waters only to be overcome with a tall and rough wave. I would topple head-over-heels in the rushing water, turning in on myself over and over, somersaulting, and then be spit out into shallower depths where I could finally tread water for a moment or two. The sensation was nauseating at times. My body needed the release of throwing-up but I fought the urge until I couldn’t any longer. Twice, I raced to the sink after contracting. Perhaps surprisingly to some, this was my least favorite piece of labor, even though each moment was brief and brought some sense of relief afterward.

As the contractions began to intensify (and they did very quickly), I began to struggle to find even a glimpse of comfort between them. I moved from walking, to the birth ball, to the bed, to the couch, back to the birth ball. Janice raised the bed to be chest-high while I sat on the ball so I could rest my head and arms on the mattress between contractions and have support during them. At one point, I tried to stand and a contraction came barreling towards me. I began to crumple to the ground, with both Janice and Nick racing over to brace me as I breathed through it. Nick tried to find ways to support me physically, but everything he tried just seemed to draw attention to my discomfort instead of ease it so I would brush him away. But, with each contraction gaining strength and coming more quickly, Janice knew I needed counter-pressure and she showed Nick how to push and rub his fists into the small of my back while each contraction washed over me. The pressure felt incredible and was an antidote to the weakness I was beginning to feel.

Soon, my measured and intentional breaths began to seem futile. My contractions overtook my lungs, my diaphragm. I felt like I could no longer bear to simply let my breath out, I had to direct it through my body. As I would feel a contraction coming I would take a deep breath, relax, and through the entirety of the contraction release a deep moan. It was around this time — when my breath turned into sound — that I journeyed into the transition phase of labor. It had only been about two hours since the Pitocin was started so it seemed unlikely to any of us that I had progressed far enough to be anywhere near birth, let alone in transition, but as my volume increased with my contractions coming so quickly, it became apparent to Janice that I was reaching some sort of threshold.

She ushered me into the bathroom where she helped me out of my clothes and into the small tub and had Nick perch on the side with the handheld shower head. “Every time she starts contracting, point the water directly on to her lower back,” she instructed him. “When the contraction is over, raise it to her shoulders so it runs down her front and keeps her warm.” Oh, Janice. Her presence was exactly what we needed and her direction to Nick allowed us to have this experience together. She reminded me that I was capable and got out of the way when I needed her to, but stayed present and was seemingly able to anticipate every need I might have.

Feeling the water on my back seemed to tone down the pitch of the pain so I could go even deeper into my body, into focusing on opening up. It was at this point that my mind seemed to go into a completely new place that I had never experienced before. If you ask Nick he’ll say that I was in a different dimension. The wave would come and I would drop my jaw, open my throat, and let out a deep, guttural cry. I didn’t know I was even capable of making sounds like that! But had I even tried to contain them, I wouldn’t have been able to. My body had taken full control and I was just getting myself out of the way. Even though my logical brain seemed to be out of order — my instinctual brain turned up all the way — I somehow needed to communicate my desire to push through, to defy any lingering conscious doubt I had. I called out to Nick, “I don’t want an epidural!” Janice poked her head into the bathroom.

“Did she just say she wanted an epidural?”

“No, she said she doesn’t want one.”

“Okay!” she chimed cheerfully. “Let’s do this!”

None of us knew that even if I had requested one, I was too close to have even been able to receive an epidural.

What felt like an eternity — growling and moaning and bellowing through every contraction — was forty minutes in the tub. At one point I heard Janice sneak in and say, “Don’t be scared.”

“I’m fine!” I snapped with a bit of fire.

“No, I’m talking to Nick,” she replied.

I wish I could have seen his face as I warrior-woman-yelled my way through labor.

My yells became more frequent, more piercing, and Nick had to begin to remind me to keep my tone low, my throat relaxed, to help with opening. But I also began to feel a distinct sensation that the baby was moving down, quickly, and I needed to push. I called for Janice and said that I was feeling pushy. I was surprised to hear her say that my body was wise and was telling me what it needed to do. She told me not to fight it but said that she wanted to check me when I felt I could move to be checked in the shower or on the bed. I knew that the baby was coming soon and that I would need to get on the bed sooner than later so I bolstered myself for the few steps from bath to bed. I stood, naked and dripping, with Nick’s arms around me and my hands pushing into his chest with all my might as a contraction burst through me. Janice waited before toweling me off and helping me to the bed, where the cool sheets beneath me felt heavenly in the mere seconds before another contraction came.

All three of us were shocked when Janice found that I was complete. I started crying immediately, “I get to meet my baby!”

The next forty-five minutes bled into one recurring mantra memory: I can do it.

The doctor quickly came in to check me and approve me for delivery and then it was just the four of us. Me, Nick, Janice, and Stevie working hard to make her entrance into the world. Nick and Janice became my cheer squad, holding up my legs with every push, encouraging me, giving me sips of water in between. I didn’t feel like I could adequately relax between contractions; I could feel the baby moving down, centimeter by centimeter even when I wasn’t pushing, and the pressure was immense. She was working hard to arrive and I wanted so badly to finally see her.

Through the blur of heat and sweat, Janice told me to reach down and feel Stevie’s head and she called for the doctor to come in. There was a small flurry of action as he arrived and the charge nurse prepped for delivery while Janice and Nick continued to coach me through the next pushes. And then suddenly, I was being told I was so close. I looked up at Nick and his eyes were wide and gleaming and his face was a jumble of shock and delight and absolute exhaustion.

I pushed again and there was a rush and a release and Stevie was there, being lifted onto my chest.

I won’t try to explain the sheer wonder of that moment. For me, it’s beyond language. It’s all feeling and mystery. Total ineffability. I will tell you that right as she was born, “That’s How Strong My Love Is” by Otis Redding was playing. The same song that I sang to her while rubbing my belly in the months before she was born. As the doctor administered a few stitches, Stevie began to cry on my chest. “Sing to her,” Nick said. And so I began to sing that very same song and she went still, opened her eyes, and peered up at me with the most delicate calmness on her face. The room was quiet until I sang the last word and the doctor said, “that was nicest suturing experience I’ve ever had.” And we all laughed, still mesmerized by this tiny gift in my arms.