Good Finking!

Read Birth Story Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 (this is the last part, I promise!)

I lay in a daze as I turned my head to watch them whisk him over to the table at the side. So much for delayed cord clamping – his being stuck had only intensified the urgency with which they suctioned him in case any of the meconium from the amniotic fluid had made it into his lungs. That would have been very, very bad. Luckily, our boy is a strong one. Within moments, we heard his wail. Mr Fink called out, “How many fingers?” Amused, the nurse reassured us there were ten fingers and ten toes. “No really, I’m serious,” he said, “It’s not a joke!” Because, you see, I was born with six fingers on one hand. It runs in our family; my dad and his dad had a sixth toe. The gene skipped Baby Fink though.

My SIL told me later with tears in her eyes that as she and my MIL stood outside the door listening to our baby’s first cries, she also heard me. I was calling out to him, “Don’t worry baby, don’t worry sweetheart, mummy and daddy are right here, it’s ok! We’re right here munchkin.” I don’t remember this part at all but I got tears in my eyes too when she told me. I suppose that mothering instinct really does kick in automatically.

After having given him the once-over (he scored 8 and 9 on the Apgar tests), they brought him to us and lay him on my bare chest. (I guess that was one good thing about not having worn a gown!) And we just looked at him. I can’t speak for my husband but for me it was with awe that I took in his strong little nose and blinking eyes and tiny turtle chin. Could this really be what had been inside me for all those months? I was struggling to grasp the enormity of it when my eyes fell on his little feet. Ah, those feet. I took one in my hands and gingerly rolled his little toes and thought of all the times he was kicking me from the inside and I’d stroke his feet from the outside. Finally I made the connection. His feet will always make me smile.

As we lay there marveling over our baby, I delivered the placenta. I had given consent for them to administer a shot of pitocin to my thigh to control uterine bleeding but though my midwife has promised me it happened, I have no recollection of it. I barely remember the placenta coming out either, though I do remember the nurse pushing down on my lower belly afterwards, looking for signs that it was successful and that hurt. I also accepted Yarra’s offer to see the placenta. While I know some people revere it for the important role it plays in bringing a baby into the world, I personally didn’t see much that was magical about it, though I’ll admit it was interesting. It was at this time also that they stitched me up. Yarra believes I didn’t tear (or barely did) when the baby’s head came out, but the yanking the followed left me with some. She said she was absolutely amazed that they were only first degree tears, however, considering what they had to do to pull him out. The stitching did hurt, or rather, the needles to freeze the area hurt. I mean, isn’t that the very last place you want a needle stuck? And I’m not sure the freezing actually did much. But I wasn’t paying too much attention to it because, of course, I was busy staring at our baby.

Eventually our family tip-toed into the room and there were hugs and tears all around. I’ll never forget my mom’s face when she saw us. She had flown in that morning after getting a call from me the night before that I was in labour, and she had been anxiously waiting for a few hours for a first glimpse of not only her newest grandchild, but also her daughter as a mother.

We stayed in the hospital only as long as it took me to pee (they wouldn’t let us go before that), which was just a couple hours. After all, it was our son’s birthday and we didn’t want to spend it there. So home we went, to celebrate quietly with kisses (for him) and chocolate cake (for me).

Birthing our son is, thus far, the most difficult thing I have ever done. It is something I am enormously proud of but I am just as proud of the nine months that preceded that one day, the 32 years it took to get there, and of each day since.

Giving birth naturally was an intense experience and one that has changed me forever. Even though I’ve finished writing my birth story, I still think about it every day and I think I still have some feelings about it to work through. Would I do it again the natural way, given how shaken I still am? I think so. But I do understand now that there are benefits to doing it with pain medication too, and by that I mean the mental benefits, not only the physical.

One thing is for certain – this was an important step in my journey of womanhood and made me realize my body and soul’s enormous capacity for both pain and love. And each day I wake up and look into my son’s eyes, and see how my husband looks at me, takes me one step further. I am full to bursting with gratitude for my beautiful little family. Oh how incredibly blessed I am.

Read Birth Story Part 1 and Part 2

I had written in my birth wish list that I wanted to push upon feeling the urge, not upon being told to and, well, I fished my wish. What everyone says is true; it really does feel like you have to do a huge number two. And it was very scary – not just the first urge but each one afterwards too. In the back of my mind I was really afraid of tearing so it took a lot of concentration and a leap of faith to push properly each time. At first they suggested I push while squatting. When I was imagining how I’d give birth, I always thought I’d do it that way so it was funny that when it was suggested, getting off my butt was the last thing I wanted to. However, I forced myself to do it, because I knew later I’d wished I had at least tried it. They attached the bar to the bed and what do you know – my instincts were right and squatting was not for me. Back on the bed, they tried to get me to lay on my side but I was vehemently against that too so I ended up pushing in a semi-reclined position.

Those two hours of pushing were… intense. There’s no other way I can describe it. I was partly relieved to be doing it because I knew it meant the end was near and all I wanted was for it to be over. That’s not a very dreamy-bubbly-romanticky thing to say, I know, but it’s the truth. It also felt good to be able to actually actively do something myself to make it end sooner, rather than sit back helplessly and have those contractions wash over me. On the other hand, it was the hardest physical feat I have ever been succumbed to. I’m no Ironman triathlete but I imagine that pushing out a baby with no drugs would indeed be comparable to swimming/biking/running for 17 hours straight (at least from what I’ve heard).

As I felt each wave crescendo, I shut my eyes, screwed up my face into not-so-lovely contortions, pulled on the backs of my knees and curled myself up and puuuuuuushed with everything I had in me. I usually managed about three pushes for each contraction, after which I fell back totally and utterly exhausted. I did not open my eyes, I did not speak, I did not hear anything that was going on around me. All I did was soak up those blessed three minutes of respite. Then I did it again. Over and over and over.

At one point I did open my eyes to look up at the clock on the wall. It read 1:20 pm and I very clearly remember thinking to myself, “If this baby is not out by 2:00 pm, that’s it, I’m not going to make it. I can’t do it past 2:00 pm.”

My midwife Yarra was coaching me throughout and at first it was very rewarding to hear her say, “You’re doing great, you’re getting so close.” It was even more rewarding to hear my husband tell me he could see the head and that there was lots of hair. I knew it – those old wives’ tales about heartburn and hair really are true. “You’re almost there! Almost there! One more push!” they kept saying. But after hearing “Just one more push” one too many times, I got so frustrated. “What does that MEAN, you’re so close? HOW CLOSE IS CLOSE??” Later I learned that Mr Fink really did think I was close. He had no idea how big a baby’s head was and when he saw the opening getting bigger… and bigger… and bigger… I think that’s when the shock settled in for him.

At one point Yarra told me I could reach down and touch the baby’s head but I refused, just as I had refused a mirror. I’m not sure why I did that; I rather thought that was something I would want to do but that’s labour for you – you just go with your instincts I suppose and mine was telling me to just concentrate on getting that baby out.

Finally I could feel the baby stop moving back up the birth canal after each push and just stay at the bottom. It felt really huge. And uncomfortable. It motivated me more than ever to give it all I had and finally his head was coming out. I braced myself for the ‘ring of fire’ I’d read about so many times and while yes I felt the stretching, I was surprised to realize that it wasn’t nearly as bad as I had expected.

“His head is out – just one more big push Kasia!” Yarra exclaimed. So I strained harder than I had ever strained before. And nothing happened – down there, that is. In the room, on the other hand, there was a bit of a commotion as the nurse and OBGYN who was standing by and who knows who else (I had my eyes closed so this account is second-hand) all jumped into action.

What happened next is what makes my entire birth story a scary one for me. I’m writing it here because I want to be honest about what happened from my point of view, and also to be able to re-read it one day, perhaps before the birth of our next child if we are so blessed, and remind myself that even though it was horrible and awful and painful, I survived. I survived it and it was worth it.

The baby was stuck. His hand was up by his face and I’m not sure who did what or how. All I know is that I was laying there on the bed, helpless and in the most vulnerable position a woman can be in, and my body was being thrashed from side to side as they twisted and pulled and yanked. It felt like my insides were being torn out. It was violent and it was horrifying. I was screaming and the echo of those screams played hollowly in my ears for days afterwards. It was the worst minute and a half of my life.

But finally he came out, all 7 pounds, 11 ounces of him. It was exactly 2:00 pm on the nose. It was over. Well, the worst was over, and now the good part could begin – falling in love with our baby.

To be continued.

Go to Birth Story – Part 4

Read Birth Story Part 1 here.

I finally called my midwife Yarra again just before 7 am and she arrived shortly afterwards. The first thing I asked was if she could check my dilation. She did and then looked at me evenly and said, “I could tell you what it is, but I just want to let you know, Kasia, that a lot of people would be disappointed at this number. So it’s your choice but I just wanted to let you know that.” Looking back, I can’t believe it but I actually said, “Ok, I don’t want to know then.” It was like something bigger than me took over and made the decision for me and it’s probably a good thing. Afterward I found out I was at 4 cm at that point and Yarra was right, I would have been devastated. Fourteen hours of contractions three minutes apart and I was only 4 cm dilated? Good lord.

When Yarra arrived, I had moved to the spare room upstairs which I had prepared for the birth and laboured on. Yarra and Patricia had me trying different positions, laying on my side and on my hands and knees, but by this point the back pain was driving me out of my mind and I started to get distressed. I was just so tired and knowing that it was daylight outside and I was still laboring was really affecting me. I got in the bath again but this time I sat up as Mr Fink and Patricia made me drink mango juice boxes and Yarra checked the baby’s heartbeat with a doppler every 15 minutes.

When Yarra checked me again, I was at 6 cm. She suggested that if I wanted to speed things up, she could break my water, though she warned me that it would make the contractions even more intense. More intense? What could be more intense than what I was going through? I didn’t even hesitate: “Yes, yes YES. Let’s do it! Anything to speed this up.” So I lay back as Mr Fink held my hand and I winced as Yarra broke my water. Soon I felt the warm gush of fluid and it hit me yet again that oh my god, I was about to have a baby.

For a few minutes Yarra didn’t say anything and then she began by saying, “This is totally normal and I don’t want you to be alarmed, but there’s meconium in the fluid.” What with my obsessive researching, I knew what this meant but I didn’t know what it meant for me, laboring at home. She explained to us how there was an added danger now that the baby could have meconium in his lungs and therefore might require resuscitation and that she and the midwife who would join her were trained and capable of performing this. That said, we also had the option of transferring to the hospital if we wanted to.

I looked at my husband and he looked at me and I didn’t know what to do.

It was here that I hit my lowest point. I got in the shower and leaned my forehead against the cool tiles and I couldn’t help it – I started to cry. “Please make it be over, I just want it to be over,” I begged Mr Fink, who had joined me in the shower and held me tight as each contraction hit me with the force of a tidal wave and I used all my strength to keep my moans low and to resist wailing, which is what I wanted to do.

I didn’t know it at the time but before joining me, Mr Fink had called his sister for advice. She’s given birth naturally twice, the first time at the hospital and the second at home. He knew how much I having a home birth meant to me and so he was torn between enabling me to have the experience I had hoped for, and going to the hospital which was what his instincts were saying was the safer choice. SIL reassured him that in her talks with me, she knew I wasn’t married to sticking to my birth plan and that if we did go to the hospital, I would be alright with that decision after the fact. She was right, of course.

Mr Fink didn’t pressure me either way, though, and truly went above and beyond to try to gauge what I wanted to do. The problem was, I was unsure myself. I had had such hopes of giving birth at home and I did have great trust in our midwives’ abilities. At the same time, this was potentially a dangerous situation and being in a hospital couldn’t be a bad thing, though the thought of getting there filled me with dread. What helped me make my decision was the excruciating pain. I had had enough of it and that moment of complete and utter despair in the shower compelled me ask Yarra straight out, if we went to the hospital at that point, was there still a possibility of me getting pain medication? Could I still get an epidural? She said yes, and that tipped the scales and I decided to go.

Despite my months of research and mental preparation and intense personal resolve to have a natural birth, I suddenly understood why people got epidurals and it didn’t seem like such a bad thing anymore. I wanted so very, very badly for the pain to stop. I wasn’t sure I could live through much more of it. That’s how bad it was. Words cannot describe it.

As soon as I decided we would go to the hospital, there was a flurry of activity. Mr Fink rushed to get me some clothes and find the bag I had packed “just in case” just hours before. Phone calls were made and I’m sure other things went on but it was all a blur to me. I remember Mr Fink helping me put my sandals on and thinking to myself that I must look ridiculous wearing that dress with those sandals but I didn’t care. I couldn’t fathom sitting down in the car and instinctively got in the backseat on my hands and knees. I buried my face in Patricia’s shoulder as Mr Fink raced the ten blocks to the hospital as fast as he could, considering all the speed bumps along the way. If the drive was horrible, checking into the hospital was a hundred times worse. I leaned on the counter moaning as a nurse painstakingly got our information. When she pushed over some papers for me to sign, I thought to myself, You have got to be kidding me. I’m pretty sure those signatures don’t remotely resemble my name.

Finally, after what felt like an hour but must have only been about ten minutes, we were directed to a room down the hall. No fancy birthing room with a jacuzzi and exercise balls for us, but I was beyond caring. I was also beyond wearing clothes apparently, because although I vaguely remember being offered a robe, photos of the event show that I refused it. That’s right, I took the “au natural birth” to a whole new level. I remember asking about the epidural but don’t remember the response, only that I was brushed off for awhile. The nurse, a soft, white-haired lady with kind eyes, offered me the gas. I huffed it a few times but felt like I was drawing on thin air which made me panic a bit. They encouraged me to try it again but I resisted and finally I did but, frustrated, pushed it away and frantically exclaimed, “It’s not DOING ANYTHING!” and refused to take any more. I think that was the closest I came to a b*tchy moment. I’m proud to say that I did not swear once (at least, to my recollection), though there was that moment in the shower where I almost bit Mr Fink. (Patricia saw it coming and caught me just in time.)

At this point, Yarra checked my dilation again and then told me, “You’re almost there!” I’m still not sure at what point I was dilated at that moment, but Yarra said that there was just one little lip of the cervix that needed to move out of the way. She said that if I wanted to, she could do it for me but that it would hurt quite a bit and again, I didn’t hesitate for a moment: “YES!! Let’s do it!!”. I just wanted it so badly to be over. I’m still not exactly sure what happened here but all I know is that her fingers were inside and I was told to push. Fifteen minutes later, success! I was ready to officially push this baby out.

To be continued.

Go to Birth Story – Part 3