Every birth is different, I suppose.

I had high expectations for this one; most of which were not met.

I was planning a natural birth in a birth center (inside of a hospital). I wanted to go into labor naturally, enjoy every contraction in true Hypnobabies style (like Austin’s birth), then pass through transition in a Jacuzzi tub. I kept baby’s gender a surprise from myself so it could be an epic reveal (like Peter’s birth).

None of those things happened.

40 weeks came and went, and my mother-in-law came and almost went before the baby came.

On the Sunday after my due date (people are always mad to see you after your due date. You get in trouble with everyone who sort of knew you were supposed to have had a baby by now. “What?! Why are you here?!”) I had a really frustrating experience with Peter during Sacrament meeting, and then was talking to my friend who sympathized with me that things were not going as planned, and I lost it. I spent most of Sunday School crying in the bathroom. And then I got bored of listening to people pee, and I’m not really the kind who can skip class comfortably, so I came out, red puffy eyes and all.

It was an embarrassing week in Relief Society to be crying uncontrollably. The teacher taught from Elder Nelson’s talk about joy in tough times. Saints can have joy in every circumstance… and I can’t stop crying. I didn’t feel like I was being preached against, I knew I was going to have joy again- I just couldn’t stop crying. And then I felt bad for the teacher (especially since she was my friend and my peer) who might have felt uncomfortable that she had to tell me that I should be able to feel joy even when more than 40 weeks pregnant. Which made me want to cry more. It was a good day to practice my humility.

My midwife group lets women go to 42 weeks before inducing them. My understanding is that for low risk pregnancies, the baby’s chances are still just fine at 42 weeks, but doctors induce at 41 weeks to be extra safe.

I chose a midwife practice (led by obstetricians) because this is my fourth baby and the other three went without complications and for low risk pregnancies, obstetricians and midwives statistically have the same outcomes.

The midwife I had at my non-stress test after my due date expressed confidence that breaking my water would start labor, so she said she’d do it whenever I wanted.

I went home and thought and thought about it. The natural birth community frowns on elective inductions because it’s an intervention and interventions ruin peoples’ lives unless they are necessary to save their life. Also, they say nothing’s wrong with going past your due date. The date is chosen because statistically, half of all pregnant women who go into labor naturally do so before that date, and half go into labor after that date. They say if the induction doesn’t go well because your cervix is not ready, you automatically get a c-section because your water is broken. If you hadn’t chosen to be induced, you could have avoided all the nastiness of recovery after surgery.

I didn’t automatically get a c-section, but breaking my water didn’t start labor. I chose to come in on Tuesday, because I liked the sound of March 28th better than March 29th. I spent Monday feeling anxious, which maybe was the Holy Ghost? But it was hard to tell because of course I would be anxious about jumping off that diving board.

Bryan and I went in on Tuesday at 9am, but at that time the midwife was juggling two or three tricky cases and didn’t want to start another one. So we waited until 1pm, which was the best since we both had our laptops. But, since we’re Holly and Bryan, we had our monthly financial meeting (talking about purchases recorded on Mint, investing, checking on budgets, etc) instead of watching Netflix (which we don’t subscribe to, because we’re Holly and Bryan.)

We finished with enough time to watch a TED talk about why you shouldn’t follow your passion when you graduate college and are looking for a job. (Instead, pick something you are at least interested in, then put in time to get good at it. Once you are skilled, use that as leverage to negotiate for the things that are important to you: working from home, autonomy at work, less that 40 hours, whatever. And then you’re happy.)

Mick, the midwife (short for Michelle. Midwives go by their first names, which is a little strange to me.) broke my water, and that was a new experience. I guess I’ve had my water broken three times already, but each time I was not in a position to know what was going on. (Epidural, epidural, and a Hypnobabies happy place.) It was extremely odd, I kept thinking I was peeing, and had to check to see if I could still depend on my Depends. I did some yoga, paced the room, and had a few contractions but nothing regular.

So in the evening I start alternating between a breast pump and a walk. Nipple stimulation is supposed to release oxytocin, which is supposed to start labor, and I guess walking irritates the uterus so it contracts, because that’s all a uterus can do? I got an ounce or two of colostrum pumped, but baby was not liking the nipple stimulation. The heart rate increased to 180 beats per minute, which is higher than they like to see, and higher than I’d ever seen from this baby. My completely unfounded hypothesis is that the kinds of contractions induced by nipple stimulation is the kind to shrink the uterus after birth? Not birth a baby? I don’t know. Anyway, if her heart rate didn’t come down in thirty minutes or so, they were going to send me over to Labor and Delivery even before my twelve hours were up. The midwife told me to drink water.

Bryan told me a story the other day, about a co-worker whose daughter broke/ fractured/ sprained/ somethinged her arm, and he didn’t think it was as bad as it was, so he told her to drink water and go to school. The water was a convenient placebo. And then my midwife told me to drink water! Placebo or not, it worked and I again had until 1 in the morning to start labor naturally.

It was awkward to walk the halls, because the only circle hallway they had was very small and went past a nurse’s station and they were talking about weird things and I went past way too often.

At some point Mick went off duty and the midwife Lisa came on. She checked me, and after 12 hours with my water broken, my cervix hadn’t dilated any more. Lisa was more no-nonsense and I could tell she wouldn’t have broken my water if it was up to her. I felt bad, kind of like I was in trouble.

But, we packed up our things and headed to Labor and Delivery. I got an IV, which of course was unpleasant because it was painful and because I was strapped to the machine. I also got the continuous fetal monitors, which I don’t like because the bands are itchy and any time the baby moves or I move the nurse has to come fix them but this probably gets old so they come less often and I stress too much. Additionally, I had just come from the birth center where they do intermittent fetal monitoring, which is listening with a doppler every thirty minutes. Statistically, low-risk mothers and babies have 99% of the same outcomes with intermittent monitors as with continuous monitors. And, mothers monitored intermittently have fewer c-sections. Birth centers can’t get accredited if they monitor continuously.

At 1am they took baseline vital signs (or just twiddled their thumbs for an hour? I don’t know. I napped.) and then at 2am they started me on a low dose of Pitocin for an hour, 2 whatever units. After a while they increased it to 4 whatever units. I started on Hypnobabies and was doing well by myself.

One reason I chose to get an epidural when giving birth to Peter was because going to the bathroom was such a chore with my monitors and my IV. And I couldn’t relax because I had to go to the bathroom. When you get an epidural you get a catheter and then you have no more problems. :)

But this time, I chose not to worry about it. Between contractions I hopped out of bed and headed to the bathroom and let my nurse deal with the monitors and IV. I peed, grabbed hand sanitizer, and got back in bed real quick before the next contraction. I decided that it was not my job to worry about the monitors. It was my job to breathe. During some of those contractions, that’s all I let myself do. I told myself I had the easiest job. The monitors had a hard job, the nurse had a hard job, Bryan had a hard job, baby had a hard job- but mine was the easiest. All I had to do was breathe. It totally worked for a while.

And then it didn’t. I woke up Bryan, which I was concerned about. He is a deep sleeper. And a cranky waker-upper. Awake Bryan is nice, and asleep Bryan is not the real Bryan and he isn’t nice, but awake Bryan actually still likes me. Just not asleep Bryan. I just don’t wake him up. Ever. Except for this time, and magically, he was so nice about it! He told me later that he didn’t even really understand what I said to wake him up, and he wasn’t sure I actually had said something, but he erred on the side of getting up. Yay. So he sat with me through a few contractions, getting me water when I demanded it.

When these stronger contractions came, I got on my hands and knees and whimpered. Whimpering sufficed for a while. Then I started humming hymns and primary songs, and that really helped for a while. But when I was up gripping the bed rails, I bent my wrist and the IV would beep and drive me crazy. Apparently you’re not supposed to bend your wrist when you have an IV. Grr. But, once I knew that, no more beeping.

And then humming my favorite hymns didn’t work anymore. I started squatting, just to make it go faster. Which it did. It seemed that after just a short time, I was at an 8, and I coerced my nurse into saying it was too late for an epidural (which she wouldn’t, she said it’s never too late to ask the anesthesiologist to come.) She said if I could lay still, I could have one. I didn’t want to lay still. She also didn’t promise that it would start working before I had the baby.

I don’t remember how I passed the time until I was completely dilated. But I was not coping. My nurse offered to start up Hypnobabies again, and maybe that would have helped, but at Austin’s birth it didn’t help at this point in the labor, and so I didn’t want her to. I also couldn’t explain that at the time, and I felt bad because she was just trying to help. She did the hip squeezing thing, which felt 5% better so I made her do it the rest of the time until dilation was complete.

It was so relieving to hear I was at a ten.

I don’t remember much about this part, just that I was on my back and I knew I should get on my hands and knees but I didn’t want to move and I didn’t know where I was going to put my IV cord. Lisa told me to pull my leg back when I pushed, which I didn’t. I am bad at obedience when I am in labor. When I was getting the epidural at Peter’s birth, the anesthesiologist told me to arch my back like a cat, but I didn’t. I kind of did. And didn’t feel like doing it any more. So I didn’t. I think people had to hold me in the right position, I don’t remember.

I’m pretending that Bryan didn’t say I was pretty red while pushing. And I’m also pretending I didn’t make the woman-birthing-a-baby grunts, although I think I did. And that I didn’t have diarrhea on the table while pushing.

Which makes me glad I didn’t get a water birth. The nurse says that if you poop in the tub, they have a little fish net and they go scoopy scoopy and then magically no one gets infected (because the ratio of water molecules to deadly bacteria molecules is favorable?). Well, I don’t think Mr. Fishnet could have helped me, and then getting out of the tub right before delivery would have been terrible and would have been part of my birth story that I had to tell anyone who asked whether or not I had a water birth. “No, I labored in the tub, but then decided in the middle of pushing that I didn’t want to be in the delightfully warm and relaxing Jacuzzi tub, so I got out.” The pooping story is part of this birth story, but you’re reading this without me looking you in the eye and that makes it different.

I was not coping at this point either. Until I heard the birds outside the window. I love birds.

And then they went away and I was back to not coping. The nurse said I pushed for thirteen minutes, which felt longer than with Austin. I was expecting just two pushes again. With that birth, the need to push crowded out all other sensations. It actually felt better to push than not.

Not so with Erika. It all felt bad. My only hope was to push so hard it would be over. Which possibly explains the redness, the burst blood vessels in my face and shoulders, and the chasm between Erika’s two skull plates. One was like, a centimeter higher than the other. They went back to normal in about a day.

As the baby came out, the midwife told me to reach down and pull out my baby. I was so out of it. I reached down and somehow found her but I couldn’t figure out what was what and it was so warm and slimy and I am so glad I was not responsible for catching her myself. Unassisted childbirth sounds completely ridiculous.

Then she was out and they put her on my chest and I cried that everything was over. The waiting, the loss of interest in anything but sleeping, the sadness for no reason, the unreasonable anxiety, uncontrollably raising my voice at my children, months of digestion issues, not being able to stand on one foot, being such a spectacle in public, waking up every morning in my own bed and not the birth center, waddling, not having a coat that zipped over my belly, growing out of most of my maternity clothes, guilt over disappointing all of my family members every day. I cried that it was all over.