Lola’s birth was… amazing. It was so much better than I had imagined it could be. We had the most un-hospital hospital birth possible. Just like we wanted.
It all started about three o’clock in the morning. I started having contractions, definitely contractions and not Braxton Hicks. I was excited but skeptical. The same thing had happened a few days earlier, yet by early morning I had fallen back to sleep and the contractions had stopped. This time, though I was able to sleep and even dream in between contractions they didn’t stop when the sun came up. And frankly, I was pooping. I must have pooped six times by the time I finally had breakfast.
I met the morning, fairly rested, pretty sure I was in labor… but still skeptical. Though they were real contractions they were very short and spacey. I could walk and talk through them. I got up with Normy, fixed him a bowl of cereal, made the coffee and ate some toast. By the time everyone else was up I told them I was in labor but admitted I was scared that it might end up being like Little Jacob’s labor. I couldn’t see how these mini-contractions could be doing much of anything.
Still I got around as though something was happening. When Kate (my sister) offered eggs to the house, I ordered two. Once they were in front of me all scrambled and fluffy, I had a flash-back to Georgia’s labor. Once again the eggs were yummy… until a contraction hit, then I had to shift my focus.
The morning passed with me putzing around upstairs hiding-out from everyone else. I repacked my gear for the hospital deleting and making additions. I showered and braided my hair with the golden headband from a friend that made me feel like a birth goddess. I sewed a hole in my eye pillow… that sort of thing. All the while contractions came and went. I was never so content as when I discovered there was laundry to be folded. My Smoochy cranked up the music and I happily made neat little stacks of towels and socks contraction after contraction.
I spoke with the head-nurse on the labor and delivery floor, I called my doula (Kelly). I told them labor had started but that it was EARLY labor. I had checked myself and felt that my baby wasn’t putting good pressure on my cervix. She felt HIGH and in front of where I thought she should be… not that I’m an expert in these things. My doula wisely mentioned that labor would probably really go fast as soon as Lola was all lined-up the way she needed to be. Kelly reminded me that we could always drive down near the hospital and just walk around. I didn’t have to check-in. (One of my biggest fears was driving the 25 minutes to the hospital in hard labor.)
At about ten in the morning I was outside watering the flowers in the front of my house when the contractions really started feeling uncomfortable. Each time I squatted down to refill the water from the spigot a contraction would hit and Lola seemed to settle a little more into place. I decided it was time to head downtown. We gathered our bags and even remembered to grab the movies to return to the Redbox on the way out.
I cried when it was time to say goodbye to the kids. Georgia asked, “You go to the hospital now, Mommy? Georgia go too!” I so wished I could take her. Normy started to cry a little and needed a big hug. I told the two of them that wed be home soon. I told them I would bring them home baby Lola like I would say, I’ll bring you home some ice cream from the store. Little did I know how quickly I’d make good on my word!
The contraction that hit me as we drove out of our long bumpy driveway in Smoochy’s big black Dodge Ram just about knocked my socks off. I lifted all my weight off my bottom and begged for mercy. But, after that the drive was actually pretty easy. Smoochy left me in the truck to return the DVDs and I didn’t have but one little contraction the whole time he was gone. I think I had one or two mini-contractions the rest of the trip.
By the time we reached the hospital, I was pretty sure I was still in early labor. We parked the truck and decided to leave all of our stuff there while we scoped the place out. We never did the hospital tour so thought we’d just walk in and see where the maternity ward was before walking around a little more. Kelly was on the way to meet us, and we figured we’d check out the hospital garden. We walked into UNMC (University of Nebraska Medical Center) looking like we were going to an amusement park with our flip-flops and sunglasses.
Once inside things seemed to change for me. We made a pit stop at the first restroom we saw, and I must have spent three or four minutes on the commode having a wild contraction. From there on I started feeling like a space cadet. As we walked through the hall I started to stop Jacob every few yards for a contractions so I could moan and sway. I was so grateful that it was Saturday of Memorial Day weekend and most of the hospital we walked though (physician offices and outpatient stuff) was deserted.
By the time we made it to the center of the hospital and up to the fourth floor maternity ward there was really no doubt that I was in active labor… but it had really only been about ten minutes since we parked so I don’t think either of us had processed it yet. I wanted Jacob to tell the nurse at the window that we were here just to give the midwife on duty a heads-up, though we still didn’t plan on checking in just yet. The nurse look over at me moaning and rocking in the waiting area and clarified with a strange look on her face, “You aren’t checking in?” Nope. Not yet.
Smoochy led me back to the elevator and back down to the third floor… when the doors slid open I couldn’t move because I was frozen in a major contraction. I felt pressure, lots of pressure. I felt woozy; I felt a little panicked. I stepped out of the elevator and declared, “I want to go back. I want a room. I don’t want to do this in front of everyone.”
“No”, Jacob said. “Let’s keep walking.”
“Please” I pleaded, “Trust me.”
“Ooh-kay.”
So we rode back up the elevator and landed once more in front of the nurse behind the little glass window.
Jacob said, “Well that was fast. We’re Back!”
Then there was some discussion about forms and insurance cards and extraneous bullshit that I didn’t really comprehend because I was in the middle of the lobby with legs wide and clearly making a pushy sound at the end of each moaning contraction. They did manage to get me to scrawl my initials on a consent-to-treat form, which was pretty amazing as I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience. The Me that was floating someplace closer to the ceiling than the floor heard the nurses and my husband debating where to put me. (This was precipitated by Jacob’s question when he realized we were not heading straight to a labor suite.) Protocol dictated that laboring moms go to a recovery room first for check in, then on to a delivery room once labor had been established. One of the debating nurses settled it after I had a particularly low and long contraction. She said:
"I’d bet my child’s life that this woman is actually in labor; can we just get her a room please?"
And they did. Jacob led me by the arm and we all trudged along to the room. Our doula had joined us as we were checking in. Thank goodness too, or we wouldn’t have a single picture of the birth. Remember, we had left all our stuff in the car. Smoochy offered to go get our things and I bellowed through a contraction, “No don’t leave me. We won’t need the stuff.” I was scared if Jacob left he would miss another birth. Plus, I needed to lean on HIM. I asked Kelly if she had brought her camera. She had not, so she ran out to the truck to get ours.
Once inside the room, I stripped off my shirt and bra. I was sweating like a stuck pig. A nurse wanted me to get hooked up to the external fetal heart monitor, which I had no problem doing standing up for fifteen minutes. But, as it turned out the contractions kept coming fast and furious, and I couldn’t seem to walk across the room to make it happen. Moments later the midwife, Bridget, walked in to the room and the strip wasn’t mentioned again. In fact, she said right off the bat something to the effect of, “Looks like you’re about to have this baby!”
They asked if I wanted to get in bed: I did not. I told them I wasn’t moving. Bridget said that was just fine I could have the baby right where I was standing. She used the Doppler to get a heartbeat. Lola was chugging along nicely, and so were my contractions. Bridget suggested that I must be complete and could just proceed as I wanted. I protested: “But, I haven’t seen any bloody show!” She shrugged, sometimes you don’t. “But, my water hasn’t even broken yet!” She shrugged again, some times it doesn’t. She offered to check me, which I wanted. In hindsight, I am impressed that it would have been fine with her if I had not wanted her too. But, after pushing for so long with a lip when Normy was born, I wanted to be sure I was at 10. Further, she didn’t ask me to get into bed for her to do so. She simply reached around me from behind! And surprise surprise, what did she find? I was complete with a huge bulging bag of water!
All was going great until my arms fell asleep. So, Bridget suggested the birthing stool, and when they brought it out at my request to have a look at it I thought it seemed like a marvelous idea. Bridget then, to my surprise, asked Jacob if he wanted to catch… in the hospital. How freaking cool is that? I answered for him mid-contraction: “YEEEEES!” With a big smile he responded, “Well, I guess I do.” He knelt down in front of me as I got down to business. Once I started pushing on the birth stool things happened very fast.
Someone really should have warned Jacob what would happen next. The first contraction I had sitting down I truly felt like I was going to poop. As I pushed I hollered, “I’m going to SHIT!” Everyone assured me that would be just fine and I pushed away thinking: well if it happens at least clean-up will be easy with this cool birth stool. But, it wasn’t a big poop that gave me relief, but my water breaking! Everywhere: all over Jacob. The look on his face was hilarious. He said after it was all over, at least his mouth had been closed. I think I exclaimed, “That felt sooo goood!!!” It was the most wonderful feeling of release in the whole world.
The relief only lasted until the next contraction. I pushed with all I was worth and moaned, “Loooola, Looooola! Looooola!” I was trying to focus on her through the pain; I was trying to call her down. Smoochy said I only pushed three times over the course of five minutes. When she was starting to get close I stuck a finger in to feel her, I could feel all that hair on her little head. I exclaimed, “Oh hi sweet baby, there you are!” I felt my perineum and was AMAZED at the feeling of it stretching. When she started to crown I placed my hand on her head. It felt so firm and warm. I wanted to look down, but couldn’t see, and I tried to see in a mirror that they had put in front of me, but I couldn’t see her around Jacob and Bridget. I had been sad that I hadn’t seen Georgia emerge when she was born, but this time I felt so connected through touch, that I don’t regret what I couldn’t see. I feel like I have a tactile memory of Lola’s birth deep in my hands and fingers. After her head was out, I lost control. I pushed and pushed to get her body out, but felt over whelmed, I screamed, “Get her out! Get her out!” I think I just wanted someone else to help.
In one last push, and a little help from the midwife who gave Lola a gentle tug under her arms and there she was. Jacob passed me my slippery vernix covered daughter and I laughed and cried and gushed and cooed. “Oh Lola! You’re here! I love you, Hello sweet baby!” It was one of the most perfect moments of my life.
There is not much to write about after that. The rest of the hospital stay was brief and uneventful. All I wanted to do was snuggle and nurse my baby girl and laugh with her daddy about what a wild fast ride we had just been on together. And really, that’s what happened. The hospital staff mostly just sprang into motion to help us achieve our number one goal, which at that point was to get the heck out of there as fast as possible. I can’t tell you much of what the hospital actually did… it would be easier to tell you what they didn’t do. No one suctioned Lola. They didn’t administer a vitamin K shot or put goop in her eyes, they didn’t check her glucose levels, they didn’t badger me about vaccines; they did not actually offer or talk about any of those things with me… Which means they did read my records! They did not take her off my bed to examine her; they did not make us bathe her before leaving. And the big one: they did not force us to do the newborn screening before we left. Bridget dug-up and dusted-off a waiver that made us promise we’d return 24 hours later when the test would actually be valid. (All of the midwives had told us this would never happen!) Seriously, except for the fact that I had only met Bridget twice before for a total of about 30 minutes and I didn’t know the nurses from Eve, my hospital birth was just like my birth center birth with the big exception that my husband was actually there!
So in the end, it was as perfect as it could possibly be. And we were home in time for supper. Normy and Georgia were thrilled with the baby we brought back for them.
