When they told me at my 37 week appointment that I was three centimeters dilated and 70% effaced and Renee, our nurse midwife smiled and said she doubted I’d make it to New Years and nurse midwife Trish winked at me on the way out the door saying, “Maybe I’ll see you this weekend!” I was sure you would be here before Santa.
But a week came and went without a peep. I wondered where you were, but then, since your brother was ten days early, and you were due January 2, I was certain you wouldn’t make it a day past Christmas Eve. So we went to church, had a nice dinner out, and came home to watch It’s a Wonderful Life and prepare for Santa.
And then, you started in with your tricks. When you started pushing and kneading my lower back from within, we got excited. This is it, we thought, the back labor. He’s coming. A Christmas baby. We packed our bags and my mom came to stay the night. When we woke up on Christmas morning the cookies were gone, but you, my little trickster, were still comfy in the womb and the back labor---gone.
A week later, and the day before New Year’s Eve, I was closer to four centimeters dilated at my appointment and nurse midwife Sue Holden stripped my membranes. “Maybe I’ll see you tonight,” she said. The next night as we celebrated New Year’s Eve at Aunt Laurie and Uncle Mike’s, once again you started in with your tricks. Contractions every fifteen minutes. This might be it, we thought. I went to bed that night with a watch on to count time between contractions. At some point, I fell asleep. When I woke up, it was morning. No tax break. We treated ourselves to breakfast.
Now, five days later, it is January 5, and you are three days late. I lay in bed, sleepless, anxious, impatient, praying at 1:30 a.m., “Please let my water break. Pretty please let my water break.” Maybe that is the wrong approach, I think. “No, you’re right,” I pray, “Your plan is perfect. Please give me patience. But also, please let my water break.” I seem to be getting fatter and fatter. Even my shoulder feels fat. I am laying there feeling fatter and fatter and anxious and impatient.
After three hours of sleeplessness, I get up to take a Tylenol and my pants are wet. It seems like there is some kind of slow drip occurring, like a faucet with a cracked washer. “David,” I say, “I think I’m dripping.”
“That’s probably your water breaking. Should we call your mom?”
Oh, no, I think, I’m not falling for this again. “No, I might just be peeing my pants. Let’s wait.” So, I climb back in bed and finally start to fall asleep when I feel a giant pop! Like a punch, like a burst from within, so significant that I shout out in my sleep.
“What happened?” David says.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what that was. Something punched me.”
David runs to get a towel and I stand up out of bed to check the dripping. Sure enough, it is now a gush on the bathroom floor.
It is 4:15 a.m. I call my dad. “Can you be here by five?” I ask.
“I can be there sooner than that,” he says. Thank you, Dad, for being quick and low maintenance.
This time, we know there is no time for showering. There is no time for sending quick emails. No time to stop by the video store. We have been living out of half-packed bags for weeks now, so we dress and throw in toiletries. No contractions yet, so we still have some time. David makes coffee, toasts some English muffins. Dad arrives in less than thirty minutes. By the time he arrives, before the coffee is brewed, before the muffins have toasted, the back contractions have begun and right out of the gate, they are five minutes apart.
We get in the car. David ignores the 25 mile per hour speed limit. He treats red lights like stop signs. He knows he has to get us there fast. Mercy Anderson is 30 minutes away. In the car now, the contractions are three minutes apart.
When we arrive at 5:15 a.m., they already have a room ready for us. Check-in seems much quicker this time thanks to pre-registration. Marion, our Irish nurse, introduces herself. She is gentle and calm. Tells me to put on the gown and we’ll check things out. When I come out of the bathroom, your name, Charlie, is written on the dry erase board beside the bed.
“Oh, can we erase that?” I ask, “I’m not ready for it yet. I need to see him first.”
“Marion has a Charlie too, Jill,” David tells me. Something about that connects me to Marion.
The contractions are now three minutes apart and Renee tells me I am five centimeters. I’ve asked to labor in the labor tub to ease the pain of the contractions and move things along quicker. They roll it in. It takes 45 minutes to prepare and they need to monitor the baby for 30 minutes before I can get in.
Marion asks me what my plan is. I tell her how I’d like to try for another natural birth if it’s quick, but if I get tired or it gets to be too much, I’m not opposed to an epidural.
“You’re a smart girl,” she whispers, “Keep your options open.” Something about her gentle nature and her Irish accent make me feel like everything is going to be okay.
As I lay on the bed, I am aware of things going on around me. The tub is being prepared, David is setting up the ipod, Marion is putting the IV in, asking me my medical history, another nurse is asking me to sign some paperwork. All of this is happening, as you, Charlie, keep nudging me on the back, telling me, not so quietly, that you’re coming. As I cling to the side of the bed through the wave of each contraction, you push and push on my belly and my back and seem to tell me with each quick, fast wave that that labor tub will not get used today. Not by me.
“Marion, I have to go to the bathroom. Will you tell me when I can go?”
“Certainly, dear. You can go right now. Let me unhook the monitor.”
As I walk into the bathroom, you press and press on me the whole way there. Renee follows me in.
“Renee,” I say when I get up, “I still feel like I have to poop.”
“That’s the baby, Hon. Can you get back to the bed? Let’s check you out.”
6:20 a.m. She checks me. 8 centimeters. 5 to 8 in one hour. Here you come.
A few more contractions come and go. The birth tub is still filling. Marion and David take turns pressing and rubbing my tailbone during contractions to apply counter pressure to get me through.
6:30 a.m. “Renee?” I ask, “Can it be possible that I already feel the urge to push?”
“Yes, it can. Let me put my birthday clothes on.”
And they tell me to turn on my back. Oh, how it hurts to turn on my back with you, little Charlie, pressing, pressing, pressing on it.
And they tell me to pull my legs back and I wonder, can I do this? Can this be happening again? Can this be happening already? And I lay there, filling up with doubt.
David helps me grab one leg. Marion grabs the other. “I’m scared,” I say, “I don’t remember how to do this.”
“You can do it, Jill,” I hear from David, from Marion, from Renee.
“Just do what your body tells you to do,” says Renee.
And the lights are bright, and my eyes are closed, and I’m ready to push, but we wait. We wait, for you, Charlie, and for the next big contraction to push you out. And I pray for strength. And here it comes. And I wince. And I push. Hard. And there’s your head.
“Good job, Jill. You’re doing a great job. Just one more…”
And I push again. And there you are, on my chest, shocked and gooey and a little pink and a little blue too. And I’m trying to open my eyes to look at you, but I’m a little shocked too. But there you are. Such a good boy. So worth the wait. Two pushes and there you are. It’s 6:49 a.m. and the labor tub is still filling with water, but my Charlie has arrived. Eight pounds, eleven ounces, 20 ¾ inches long. A little blue, a little pink, a little perfect. And a big boy to come out so quickly and easily. Put his name on the board, Marion. Charlie. Now I have a Charlie too.
And still the room swirls around me. They clean you off. They sew me up. But when they’re done, when I open my eyes, David hands you to me, all tiny and warm. And there I am, nursing my second son, my second miracle.
And I find myself in a familiar place. A place I had forgotten about. The warm, tired, spiritual sort of bliss that it is to nurse a newborn. The great relief that it is to no longer be pregnant. The feeling of overwhelming pride and accomplishment that comes at the end of a long race. I did this. Little old me.
Looking back now on Finny’s birth story, I remember the great drama of it all. The sense of fear and urgency and that everything was happening so fast and nobody was listening and nobody was bringing me the epidural and there was no relief in sight, just great fear of the unknown.
Your story is different, Charlie. It’s calm and smooth and well, sort of easy. It’s colored with the sweet lilt of Marion’s Irish accent, the relief of the hard pressure of your daddy’s hand on the small of my back, and the reassuring confidence from Renee that my body would tell me, that Charlie would tell me when it was time to come out. And you did. I was so impatient for you, Charlie. But you came when you were ready and you came just right.
My Charlie. Three days late. Right on time.
No comments:
Post a Comment