The birth story of Giselle actually starts the day before her birth date of December 13, 2001. Sweet Giselle was due December 8th, but was taking her time getting here. My mother-in-law had been staying with us since the 2nd, and was leaving the evening of the 12th to go back home to California. My mother was coming the 14th, and there was only a 36-hour window where we'd have no parental unit with us.
Of course, a mere 8 hours after dropping off the mother-in-law at the airport, I awoke in pain. It was 1:28 AM. In truth, the only thing that really made it bad was waking up like that. My mind was reeling from sleep and I struggled to gain some sort of alertness. And then the pain passed. I laid in bed for a moment wondering if the pain was a phantom pregnancy dream or a muscle ache or something similar. Then another one hit, and I realized within seconds it was a contraction. The clock read 1:32, and I gasped as the contraction gripped my body for an entire minute. I was in labor. And by the feel of it, I was in active labor and had been for a while.
I got up and tried to wrap my mind around the fact that the baby was coming, that I was alone with two sleeping kids, and that it was the middle of the night. Part of me wondered if this was a false alarm. I didn't want to start calling people only to have labor stop or stall. Then another contraction hit, and I was nearly incapacitated by its power. I couldn't walk or talk if I had wanted to. "Crikey," I thought, "this IS it".
I went into the front room and called John on our cell phone. Now, I should note, that John works graveyard at a glass company. While there is a message center open at all hours, it can be difficult to get a note to him in a reasonable amount of time. So, a few months ago, we got a cell phone for just such an occasion.
What we failed to do was test the cell phone at his work. It was on, in his pocket. But he couldn't hear it ring over the running of the machinery he works with. It might as well not even been there. Now John had thought that this might happen, so he often checked the cell phone for missed calls every hour or two. It happened on this early morn that he checked the phone at 1:30 AM, about 8 minutes before I first called.
But I was, of course, unaware that John couldn't hear the cell phone. So I called. And it rang. And rang. And rang. Nothing is worse to a hugely pregnant laboring woman than being on the wrong end of an unanswered phone call. The voice mail message clicked on, so I hung up and called back. And back. Nothing.
It was at this point that I realized that, for whatever reason, the cell phone was just not going to be the way I got a hold of John. So I called the message center where he works. When the guy answered the phone I was in the middle of a contraction. I still managed to get out the sentence I'm in labor! Tell my husband! I gave him John's info, and hung up the phone. Apparently that sentence translated to "Hold onto this message for 45 minutes before giving it to said recipient of message." I'm not joking. I'm not sure how much more dramatic I could have made my phone call or what I could have possibly said to make Messenger Boy get his act together and RUN, not walk, the message to John.
But, of course, it didn't happen. Although I didn't know this, since I was too busy trying to breathe and get it all together mentally at 1:40 in the morning while in labor. I didn't even consider the possibility that John wouldn't get the message promptly. I had, for the moment, bigger fish to fry, and that included getting someone over to watch Chloe and Ivan.
Hello snag Number 2. What does Murphy's Law state? Anything that CAN go wrong WILL.
I called the home of our first babysitter, my aunt and uncle. The phone rang, and rang. Hey, this was getting to be a familiar theme in my life. Their answering machine picked up, and I left a rather dramatic message, thinking that at any time one of them would pick up sounding sleepy and confused. Not so. No one picked up. Even after three calls. Unbeknownst to me, they had left their cordless phone downstairs. They all sleep on the second floor, and never heard my early morning call.
On to babysitter number two. Guess what? Their phone rang and rang and rang, and NOTHING picked up - no voice mail, no answering machine. I'm not sure how long I let the phone ring, but I do know that I sat through two contractions with that stupid sound in my ear before I gave up.
Third times a charm, right? Wrong. This time I didn't even get a ring. I got a busy signal. I tried the phone number three times, and every time it rang busy. I even called the operator to try and do an emergency break in the call. That would have worked if babysitter number 3's phone hadn't been off the hook.
So, it was now nearing 2:00 AM, and I had basically not been able to get a hold of anyone. Not one person. Well, except for the Lame-o Messenger Boy. To add insult to injury, my contractions were getting stronger and lasting longer. I'm sure the stress from not being able to talk to anyone I wanted or needed to talk to didn't help.
At this point, I had a brilliant idea. Call the midwives! I called the main after-hours number, and within a few rings Amika answered. A human! Someone who knew me! I nearly started crying from sheer relief. Or something.
I managed to tell Amika everything - how long and far apart my contractions were, the fact that I couldn't get a hold of anyone - John and babysitters included - and that I was a little freaked out. She calmed me down a bit, and told me to come on in when I could, or call back if I couldn't.
After hanging up the phone with Amika I actually felt calmer. I knew I had at least a little while before the baby was born. Part of me was still concerned that I'd end up on the evening news as one of those women who give birth alone at home or on the side of the road in the front seat of their car. But I knew that dwelling on that was only going to make things more difficult.
So I busied myself by packing a bag for Chloe and Ivan, since I realized there was pretty much no getting out of bringing them along. Juice, milk, snacks, three videos, two changes of clothes for each, a passel of toys and for some unknown reason, finger paints, went into their bag.
After my hasty packing session, I glanced at the clock and realized that it was nearly 2:20 AM. "Crikey," I thought, "Where is John? He should have called by now!" I called the cell phone again, and it rang and rang, only to let me hear voice mail message again. I called the message center back, but this time no one answered. It was later discovered that Messenger Boy had fallen asleep and that it was most likely my call that woke him, sending him off to deliver the late message to John.
At this point the pendulum swung back towards panic again. I'm not crazy. But I had dealt with about all I could reasonably be expected to deal with. And it wasn't taking much to push me over towards histrionics.
I think this is about when I started crying. I had managed to stave off tears for almost an entire hour on my own, with nearly nothing going as planned. I had no more calm, rational thoughts left in my head, and nothing else to try.
In one final, desperate attempt to have a normal birth, I called the cell phone one more time. Music to my ears - John picked up on the first ring. Later I learned that John had just got the message and instantly whipped out the cell phone. It said something like "6 missed calls". At that same moment, I tried to reach him again, and he could tell from the display that a call was coming through.
Since I had gone through so much to get him on the phone, I wasn't letting John off for anything. I had labored through intense contractions alone for over an hour and I was not going it alone any longer. John was a great coach through out his entire drive home - all ten minutes of it (it usually takes twice as long). While on the phone I started stacking my bag, purse, and kids stuff by the door.
A few minutes before John pulled up, I was hit with a huge contraction, and I moaned involuntarily. Things were getting serious pretty quick, and I was never gladder to see the headlights hit the driveway.
John carried out each of our sleepy-headed kids - first Ivan and then Chloe and I heaved myself into the passenger seat of the car. Ivan slept through much of the ride to the birth center, but Chloe was wide-awake and excited. Over and over she talked about Giselle, and asked if she was coming.
I can't recall much of the ride to the birth center, other than it was filled with contractions and a bit of moaning. We arrived at the birth center around ten to 3:00 AM. I headed in first, and met Rachel, one of the assistant midwives. She welcomed me and started filling up the immense birthing tub. A quick check revealed that I was 6cm dilated and fully effaced. Even though I was only 6cm, I was feeling some nausea and was shaking through some of the contractions. It was just going so fast, and because of that I think it was quite intense.
But once I slipped into the tub, I relaxed. The water was so warm and the atmosphere so calming. The tub room was only lit from light from the adjoining rooms. Candles were lit, relaxing music was put on, and I slipped into some sort of trance.
Being free to be vocal helped tremendously. I never really enjoyed the structured breathing of Lamaze or Bradley. They both seem counter-intuitive to me. I think both were born out of our cultures need to control every aspect of our lives, including our behavior during birth. In the hospital with Chloe and Ivan, I was discouraged from being vocal, and I believe that held back my progress. Moaning through my contractions with Giselle's birth seemed to make it easier to breath and easier to relax when I wasn't contracting.
The interesting part of this birth was that John just wasn't free to be with me the entire time. Chloe and Ivan were curious and kept wandering into the tub room, and John kept trying to herd them into the reception area. John put on Toy Story for the kids, and Ivan quickly became engrossed in the movie. Chloe, however, wasn't so easily swayed. But it was also difficult for her to see me in labor, and she would wander in, see me, and start to get upset. This was hard for me too, as I didn't want her to be traumatized by the arrival of her baby sister. John did his best to stay with me and keep Chloe calm and occupied elsewhere, but he's one person, and it was not that easy of a task.
Amika arrived at around 4:00 AM, and let me know she was there by gently touching my shoulder, and asking me if I needed something to drink. At the time, I thought it was maybe 3:10 AM or so.
Amika and Rachel were magnificent coaches, talking softly and sensing when I needed space and when I needed help. They brought me water to drink, rubbed my back as I labored, and patted cool washcloths against my forehead. Because of them, I didn't feel that John's split attention was at all a problem.
Throughout labor I moved around the tub freely, and no one told me to get into any specific position. I worked at listening to my body, and I spent some time on my hands and knees, some time in a side-lying position, and other times I sort of floated in a semi-sitting position. It was wonderful to be able to move around this freely, and the water aided this quite a bit. There was almost no resistance in the water, and moving was just as easy as it could be.
As labor progressed, I lost all conception of time. It seemed like I had just gotten into the tub when my contractions started coming one on top of the other. In reality, I had been there for just over an hour.
My back and the outside of my thighs began to ache horribly, and my moaning was getting louder and longer. I began to shake and I remember feeling afraid. Self-doubt is a pretty common characteristic of transition, and I have that part of labor down pat. Transition hit, and I started thinking that labor was never going to end, that I hadn't been there long enough, and that something must be wrong. In my mind, it could only have been 3:15, and I was starting to feel the urge to push. I was convinced that there was no way I could have dilated that quickly. In reality, it was just after 4:30, and I was nearing the end of my last pregnancy faster than I realized.
It was around this time that I started bearing down involuntarily with each contraction. I didn't realize that I was doing it, but Rachel and Amika did. I was feeling pressure, and they told me that if it felt good, that I could push. But I begged them to check me, since I was somehow convinced that I wasn't ready. I was nearly completely dilated, with only a slight lip of cervix left. Amika said it was very stretchy and that I would be fine if I pushed through the lip. Yay!
So, I started pushing in a hands and knees position, because this was the way I pushed with Ivan. And with Ivan, I only pushed three times. So, after pushing through several contractions this time, and not feeling any progress I became discouraged. I had convinced myself that I was going to birth Giselle in a similarly swift manner. I remember saying over and over "It's not working! It's not working!"
Amika and Rachel were both so encouraging. Amika knew that Giselle was at a +1 station when I started pushing, so she knew it could be awhile. Lucky for me, she didn't tell me this, because I am sure I would have become quite discouraged. As it was, I pushed with everything I had.
About 11 minutes into pushing, I decided to turn into a more traditional position for birth. I turned and sat down, and started pushing again. Something seemed to give, and I felt a huge gush. And then, all at once, I could feel Giselle's head slip down the birth canal. I remember yelling and feeling overwhelmed and a little dizzy with excitement and pain and pressure. John was there, and I looked over and Chloe and Ivan were at the other side of the room, looking nervous. And part of me was trying to hold back, because I knew, I knew this was my last birth and that I needed to try and capture the feeling of these moments. And then my body started pushing and part of me was somewhere else - above me looking down.
Amika was saying "she's coming, Heather. Reach down and feel her head." I reached down and felt her soft hair and the roundness of her head. It felt odd, feeling another person slipping out of my body. A few more pushes, and her head was born. Her shoulders felt huge, and took as much work to get out as her head. But with the next contraction and a few good pushes, she was born at 4:47 AM, and Amika was saying, "Lift her up, Heather." I opened my eyes, and reached down, and pulled her out of the water and onto my chest. Her eyes were open and she was alert. Within a few minutes, she was rooting around for the breast. Giselle was here.
There is precious little that can compare to the birth of your child, and after our experience, I can only recall bits and pieces of the time that followed. Giselle was weighed and measured - 9lbs, 2oz and 19 inches long, and her head was 15 inches. Any worries that I had about Chloe or Ivan being traumatized by the birth were soon forgotten. Within seconds of Giselle's birth, they were both beside the tub, and Chloe was asking repeatedly if she could hold her. As for me, I managed her quick birth with only a minor tear and a small scrape - and neither required any stitching. Within days I felt as good as new.
Rachel made us all a huge breakfast of pancakes, sausage, eggs and orange juice, and we all ate in our room while admiring Giselle. John took Chloe and Ivan home a few hours later, and I slept on and off for the rest of the day. Around 5 PM that evening, he came back and picked me up, and we went home. All five of us, together.
-Heather Ryan
