Upon the commencement of my eighth pregnancy, I have been doing a lot of thinking about the past 13 years of my married life, which have been filled with the trials but also the rich joys of being blessed with a growing family. One trail that is worth hours of pondering, is the path that I have journeyed in searching to make peace with the birthing of my children. I lamented to my husband, as I awaited the birth of my oldest, that there were only two ways to get the baby out, and neither was particularly appealing. Looking back, I can honestly say that each birth was a day of splendor and joy, but the means and methods of getting to that birth have been widely varied for me. Each birth story is of incredible value to women who share the fate of childbirth. Each is of incredible importance in the life of the mother, which is why I am grateful to be able to look back now, after more than a decade of experience, and process what is overwhelming in the moment, and miraculous in the everyday.
I am not one of those women who "always do the same thing", physically or otherwise. My Mom was pretty textbook with her eight deliveries. About 10 hours of labor, increasing in difficulty until the natural delivery took place in a hospital. Yes, my brother Michael was born before the doctor (or anyone else) entered the delivery room. She had tried to tell them he was coming. And my brother Jake was a hefty 9 pounds 14 ounces, two weeks overdue. My Mother did think the end had come at that delivery. But mostly, her children were around 7 pounds, on time, and all of them naturally delivered, medication free, and in a hospital, even if my Mom was only there for 10 minutes before the baby was out--but that's due to her stubbornness (because, of course, she had to make it to Mass on Sunday first...and throw in the wash before she went), and not due to the speed of her labor.
Interestingly, my Mom didn't think much of the pain of childbirth. The experience was so beautiful and spiritual for her that she boasted to a nurse that she "could do it again right now" as she held her first. I hate to throw too much out there, but I do feel the need to add that my Mom went so far as to say that the women who screamed during childbirth...were wimps. This is important, because it was taken very much to heart by me as I prepared for my first child to be born. With such a buildup, is it any wonder that I was incredibly confident? I am the oldest daughter in my family, so I didn't have anyone to suggest that childbirth might be otherwise. Women who encouraged me to get an epidural were pretty easily written off...because they obviously were not what my Mother was.
I went two weeks overdue with my first. Our induction was mis-scheduled, so we arrived at 7 am expecting to deliver our child, only to be told that the date of induction was the same day the following week...which was far too late to be induced. Our doctor put us on an emergency list. We toted our carefully packed suitcase home and waited to hear confirmation that I would be induced the next day. This took a rather large emotional toll on me. I cried all day. At 5 pm we still hadn't heard whether or not we'd be induced the next day. My husband called the doctor and he said to be there at 7am, again. I went to bed early, and tried to drop my emotions in time to rally for the delayed joy of knowing I was going to deliver this baby at last!
As fate would have it, I was in labor by the time 7am rolled around. I sat in a rocker, in a gown, waiting for the doctor to come in. I wondered whether or not I should mention the fact that I felt some strong and consistent contractions. I was hooked up to a fetal monitor and the doctor himself noticed the contractions as he broke my water. Looking back, I wonder if I might not have been wiser to request that we hold off on the water breaking, given that I was in labor. In any case, break the water did, and within 20 minutes, I was in transition. Within two hours my daughter was born: 9 pounds, 1 ounce. I'm not a particularly large woman, and I don't have a large bone structure. This was a big baby to have so fast, especially as one's first.
There were the contractions that convulsed my entire body, which the thought of "relaxing through" (as my Bradley classes had taught me) or "breathing through" (as my Lamaze videos had instructed) was laughable. And then there was the "pushing phase" during which my body went into auto-pilot and expelled the child out of me. There was a wild shrill screech that I heard as if from a distance, which, when it ended, I was shocked to discover had been emitted from my own lips. I think my head turned 360 degrees...but my husband won't confirm that.
When the precious child was placed in my arms, I rather quickly requested that this "little porker" get weighed. When I heard the weight was over 9 pounds, I felt validated. Then I began to soak in her beauty and bask in the post-delivery high. I was enormously proud of my baby, the biggest and most beautiful in the entire hospital, from my perspective. However, as for childbirth...I had been disenchanted. I explicitly recall meditating on the immortality of the human soul, and nothing but mustering a great act of faith in that belief enabled me to admit that childbirth was worth it. I also marveled at the thought that a sporting stadium was filled with human beings who had all come into this world in similar fashion. I honestly struggled to comprehend that the world was so populous. Deep thoughts for one clad in a gown that ties in the back.
"Words" were had with my Mother. I did my best to dispel the myths that my Mother had been perpetuating to my younger sisters (who subsequently labored just as easily as she did and pretty much invalidated my experiences). I tried to prepare my friends honestly.
What became clear to me, as these women went on to have their own first children, was that some of the women shared my pain, and some of them really did not.
It was later that I would discover that childbirth really does differ in pain or intensity according to many factors. Some women truly do NOT feel the pain another woman felt. How do I know? Because my third baby (and my seventh) were birthed with something I could almost describe as pain-free. It was physically exhausting, and emotionally weighty, but not violent. My first birth had been violent. And now I see that that set me on a very long path to making peace with childbirth. That path is what I hope to track over the course of these entries...I'll try not to dawdle, we've got six more stories ahead of us!
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