A Story That Ends With a Wet Bed

One of the things I'd wanted to write about (but then chickened out about) is the story of Tankbaby's birth. I've read some really great birth stories on various blogs, and have found them fascinating and funny (if occasionally gross and scary), and I'd planned to write it all down in the weeks immediately following the birth so that I wouldn't forget the details. However, one of those details was a real live baby, so it's now, a year later, that I'm finally getting around to it. I don't know if these stories are appealing to anyone who has not either gone through birth (as the deliverer, not the deliveree) or plans on giving birth at some point, but I've given you this whole nice long paragraph to buy you the time to flee, so consider yourself warned: discussion of bodily fluids, girly parts, and a frozen dairy treat to follow.

Tankbaby's Birth Story, Part 1, In Which I Remain Dressed and Dry (Spoiler Alert: in Part 2, I am neither!)

Tankbaby was due on February 26^th. He was born on March 8^th. That’s ten days late, people. Which doesn’t seem like much, unless you are holding a tiny-but-getting-bigger-by-the-moment human just above your bladder. However, I was on leave, I owned maternity yoga pants, and I was pretty comfortable. However, we’d been taking Hypnobirthing classes (surprise! We're big hippies!) and wanted as little intervention as possible, so I was trying to avoid an induction that might then lead to the need for an epidural. We tried everything. Walking, acupressure, sex—I even allowed a bit of spiciness to taint my beloved pad see ew. Nothing. This baby was apparently just as comfortable living in me as I was having him in there. I felt slightly guilty, like it was my fault that the baby wasn’t coming, just because I was feeling like I could stand to be pregnant a lot longer if it meant putting off this scary thing called “labor,” followed by the even scarier “delivery,” and the most terrifying: “parenting.”

But the baby’s movements slowed from his typical ADHD-gymnast-on-crack routine, and Karen, our midwife, ran a few tests and advised us to induce. It took a little time to let go of the idea of our completely natural (except at a hospital, because the idea of a home birth—well, let’s just say we have a dog and poor tidying habits, and leave it at that) birth. No water breaking at home, no calling MOTH with “it’s time!” Suddenly we had a schedule. An appointment to birth. After a few hours, though, the upside became evident. We had time to pack leisurely, to clean the house so that we’d come home to serene tidiness, to foist the dog off on some generous friends, and generally busy ourselves with comforting routines as we disbelievingly barreled towards possibly the least comfortable experience I would ever have.

When we got to the hospital, we were told that it was a busy night and that our room wasn’t quite ready. Having had ample time to pack well, we were prepared with DVDs, knitting, and books, and were quite happy to wait in the waiting room for a while, which seemed to surprise the nurses, who appeared to expect more protests. I pointed out, “Hey, I’m not in labor. Go ahead and help the women who are.” I promised that when I was in labor, I would be less accommodating. Secretly, I was also hoping that my water would break spontaneously in the waiting room—wouldn’t that have made for a great story?

No such luck. I texted friends and family and worked on the same ½ inch of knitting that I’d been working on for days (because the days leading up to the birth of your first child are a great time to take on a challenging project! It’s not like your concentration is totally shot or anything!). When we’d checked in, we learned that our wonderful Hypnobirthing instructor, Kristen (who was also an L&D nurse), was coming in at 11 pm. It was almost 10 when we got to our room, and the head nurse had heard that we wanted to have Kristen as our nurse, so she asked if we minded waiting until Kristen got there to start the induction. Nope, fine with us. More time to encourage the water to break. I poked my stomach, jumped up and down, but that babe was burrowed in. I donned my chosen birthing outfit (I did try on the hospital gown, but it was itchy and I didn’t like that I couldn’t fasten it myself), a pair of hand-me-down maternity pajamas of mysterious origin and questionable style. They were, however, soft, and tied in the front. There were some capri-length pants under a knee-length robe, and I also wore a cami tank top, being unwilling to have my not-insubstantial breasts unfettered during the upcoming aerobics.

Kristen came in and we hugged and chattered in as nonchalant a way as possible, considering that one of us was in scrubs and one of us wasn’t wearing underwear. I was strangely reassured by Kristen’s presence. Not that it was strange to be reassured by her, because she emanates a serenity and matter-of-factness that was the perfect antidote for such a nerve-wracking occasion. But I had been feeling strange, almost guilty, about agreeing to be induced, because it wasn’t Totally Natural. I believed I was making the right decision, because I was concerned about the baby’s decreased movement, but it helped my neurotic brain to have the instructor of the birthing method there, actually doing the induction. Like a weird kind of permission, as preposterous as that is. Plus, it felt like a neat “I’m controlling the world with my mind” thing.

Kristen hooked me up with two big Velcro straps, each with a fist-sized plastic disc in the center. The blue one measured the baby’s heartbeat; the pink was to measure contractions (or “surges,” in the parlance of Hypnobirthing). She tried to check my cervix, but said it was hard to tell and that it didn’t matter at this point, anyway. She inserted the misoprostil, which I barely felt. She showed me how to unplug the leads from the monitor and throw them around my neck if I had to go to the bathroom, but warned me that if I disappeared from the monitor for more than a few minutes, she’d have to come in and check on me. She encouraged us to try to get some sleep, which sounded perfectly logical, but equally impossible. I wanted to sit up with Kristen and review everything in the Hypnobirthing course, like cramming for a final with the prof. Failing that, MOTH climbed into the narrow hospital bed (which would have been a tight fit with the two of us and was downright awkward with the three of us—um, three meaning us and the baby, not us and Kristen) and watched the second episode of Dollhouse on my laptop. That particular episode opened with a woman in labor screaming. So much for controlling the world with my mind.

It was after 1 AM when the show ended, and we figured we might as well try to sleep. MOTH went over to the narrow couch, which had been made up into a bed. It felt strange not to sleep together on this, the last night when it would be just the two of us. I slept poorly. Even if I’d been able to shut off my brain, I was still tethered to the monitor. I could hear the baby’s heartbeat, which I found to be a sweet reversal, considering he’d been listening to mine all these months. But I could also hear when the baby or I moved in such a way that the band no longer picked up the heartbeat, and would move it around to avoid someone having to come in and futz with it. Around 7 AM, Kristen came in to say goodbye, and to reassure me that she’d hand-picked her successor, Heidi, another nurse who was familiar with and supportive of Hypnobirthing. I was disappointed that I hadn’t spontaneously burst into labor in the night and gotten to keep Kristen. She showed me that I had been having some surges throughout the night, which elated me. First, because I was making progress, and secondly, because I hadn’t felt them, so I figured my Hypnobirthing training was paying off.

The plan was for Karen to come in later that morning and break my bag of water if the contractions hadn’t picked up. We called our friend E, who was serving as our amateur doula, or Splendoula (like Splenda, she was as good as the real thing), around 8 and she came in around 9. Somewhere in there, Heidi came in and checked my cervix. I was a little more dilated, around 3 cm, and Heidi gave me another dose of misoprostil. She was able to tell me that the baby’s head hadn’t been lined up with the cervix, which probably explained why I hadn’t been dilating more. Basically, poor Tankbaby was standing in the doorway, pushing on the doorjamb. Like that Far Side comic where the kid is pushing on the door for the School For the Gifted, a door clearly marked, “Pull.” Heidi also let me know that Karen, who had been on call all weekend, had forgotten it was Daylight Savings Time and slept late (yet another reason why DST is wack), meaning she would be in closer to lunchtime. The contractions started to pick up a bit, and I used my Hypnobirthing breathing through them, greatly reassured that I didn’t really feel any pain, just the pressure I’d read about. I walked the halls with MOTH, feeling supremely confident. E pointed out on the monitor that I was having contractions every 4-5 minutes or so, and marveled and how well I was doing: “You could be one of those women from the videos!” she cried, alluding to the earth goddesses in the Hypnobirthing videos, who rested serenely, only a few looks of intense concentration or exhalations belying their relaxed demeanors until babies slid effortlessly from between their legs, like dropping a sudsy shampoo bottle in the shower. I replied, “I know! Of course, it’s still early…watch the surges kick in and I’ll realize that I was just being smug right now.” But secretly I began to believe that I could be one of those women and that this was going to be a great, natural, easy birth, just like I’d read about.

Karen came in around noon and used what looked like nothing more than an overlong crochet hook to break my water. It felt like nothing, until I felt the rush of hot liquid coming out. The feeling was unlike anything I’d felt before; it wasn’t like peeing, because there was nothing internal that was propelling this. It kept coming, however, and I’d soon saturated the pad they’d put beneath me. Let the indignities begin, I thought.

OK. Must sleep now. Part 2 tomorrow! If you're grossed out by this so far, you reaaaa-heally won't want to come back for that.