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| Taken away to another world, wave after wave |
I’m never quite sure if this story is better told in English
or in Portuguese. It was almost entirely lived in Portuguese, if there is such
a thing, but I know that I am able to express things in English that access
parts of me that Portuguese does not. And I am curious, as I have written about
this in Portuguese before, but not in English. Thus, I feel my words may
surprise even myself. Especially myself.
So all right, another birth story. Another one! But no, to me it is the only one, the only
birth story to come out of my womb and my 10-month-old ovalish belly.
The end of the pregnancy was as gradual as the waxing bump,
or so it felt. With an initial series of bumpy, stop-and-go crampy days, then a
build-up of doctor’s appointments and serious concerned faces as the “you’ll
probably won’t need our next appointment” turned into “well, now I need you to
come in every other day”…and the “each birth has it’s own schedule” turned into
“why don’t you schedule some acupuncture and let me do this little maneuver here
on your cervix?”…And that 41st week dripped by in increments of wait…wait…wait…ping,
pong, ping.
41 and 1 day.
41 and 2…
41 and 2 and half…
Every contraction I felt set all systems into full alert and
I had to control my eagerness and joy at the possibility of that being “IT”.
But it never was.
41 and 2 and three quarters…
What happens at 42, I wondered, do I explode? Do I implode?
Desperation starting taking over me, as the words c-section started to hound my
plans for a home birth. “BIG BABY” was another classic. Perhaps you are diabetic? Let’s just be sure,
let’s submit you to 1000 tests which just happen to be your greatest phobia,
but I’m sure it’ll be fine. And they were.
BIG BABY, said the ultrasound technician, does your doctor
KNOW about this? I would call her right away!
BIG FRICKIN ME, I would retort in my mind, BIG MOM, just
suck it up! But no, of course I said nothing.
So then…
41 2 days and 9/10ths….
Plus a brew of chocolate, cinnamon, ginger, and many other
things that might sound fine separately and in homeopathic doses, but on this
particular Friday evening, was a concoction meant to churn the stomach, taste
buds and eventually, my uterus.
And so it did. The tightening of the belly started up once
more, and once more I had to curb my enthusiasm – be careful, I said to myself,
it could be more of the same…but it wasn’t. One after the other. One, after,
the other. Little waves. No rhythm though, or regular intervals, but they were
there to stay.
Slowly everyone was activated. Husband, check! Doula, check!
Midwives, check! The doula/my good friend came over first and would stay till
the end. One midwife of the pair came to check up on me and perform one of the
maaaaaany checks that would take place over the next X hours.
I can’t even say how much I was dilated (or not dilated),
but it is enough to say that I was still in very early labor, and that she
would only come back once active labor started, after 4cm. So she left, and I
spent that night enjoying my contractions and getting used to that tightening
sensation. Finding positions, finding mind-body connections that helped…I
learned to zone out completely, give in to the pain, and thus I slept during
some intervals, all through the night.
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| zoning out in early labor |
And then, morning came. Light, sunshine, renewed energy. The
other midwife came and another dilation check.
Some more progress, small, but it was happening. However, we
seemed to have entered the initial stages of active labor, so the midwives took
turns staying with us that Saturday, never leaving us alone.
I did not feel discouraged and felt like rolling up my
sleeves and saying, alright, let’s get this started!
And from here on I have really hard time with the timeline.
Something like this, ready?
All family and close friends were informed of labor in
progress (as I said, my end of pregnancy had become an issue of concern and
quite the SUSPENSE topic, when will it be, when will it be?? So there was no
one who was not aware that a baby was supposed to be coming out at any moment,
THEREFORE, it was impossible to hide the news, as people called and texted).
So Ezequiel spent quite some time updating and tranquilizing
people: all is well, labor is progressing, no, no baby yet, all is well, etc,
etc, a loop of the same answers.
And then…pain got worse, I remember lots of throwing up
during contractions. I remember the taste of vanilla ice cream, I remember
straws, I remember honey, I remember the shower, I remember finding perfect
positions on the bed, propped up with lots of pillows…I actually liked lying
down, even though it’s supposedly one of the worst positions. Being on all
fours was unbearable, I remember that too…
And I remember that evening started encroaching and someone
asked if I wanted another check…and yes I did!! I felt like I was about to get
an A plus after so much hard work..so I lied down and had that horrible check
done and…
No change.
No change.
Hum.
Ok then. That news fell like a ton of bricks, but I did my best to throw the bricks away and remember that time meant nothing, as long as we were well, it meant nothing.
And the messaging got more intense, the phone calls to my
mom, who was beside herself with worry and after a few hours of no updates
thought to herself: Well, that MUST mean the baby has been born!! Of course!
And so she came over unannounced to the apartment, toting my grandma along for
the show. What a disappointment for her to see me still in labor, what a fright
and horrible reaction she had…the entire atmosphere of patience and calm and
concentration started crumbling.
So now there was that. There were my own concerns, my own
process of getting through the contractions, trying to understand what another
night in labor meant, and the concerns of the entire world following me via
text messages. And my mom. And grandma. Who were now also wedged into the
little tiny apartment.
That night I threw up a loooo-ooot, I remember that, but I
also got back in the zone and was able to forget everybody there. I didn't want
to know about time, time was absolutely relative and irrelevant. I got into my
lying down hypnotic state with pillows everywhere and dove into the pain as
each contraction took over.
All
night
long.
And morning came. Again. This was getting old.
However…
Sun, light, open windows…
one more check…9 cm!
I remember shouting, Hallelujah!! Yes!
There were even broken waters in the middle of another great
heave, gushing with new life.
All motors started running again, enthusiasm took over all
who had spent the night dozing on and off on the couch and chairs:
Let’s turn on the incense, put on the red-tinted light bulbs,
fill the bathtub for pain relief and possible birth, this is it, this is IT!
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| Hope! Fully dilated, tub filled! |
We went back to the apt, and I got in the water, the
wonderful, wonderful warm tub of water.
I was told – hey, from here on, you will start to feel the
urge to push, go with the flow and do what your body tells you, ok? From now on she needs your help, she can't do it by herself! She’s going
to be born!!
Ok, no problem, go with the flow, go with the flow,
And yet…
Where was the flow?
Absolutely no pushing urges.
Ok, that’s ok, it can take a while, they said.
And so some hours went by.
Humm, they said.
Are you sure? No pushing sensations?
No...
Absolutely sure??
Yes…well, ok..maybe? (I really wanted to be feeling
something, ANYTHING, it seemed to be very important to them)
They started teaching me about this so-called-urge, push
down there, breath and push down…Let’s lie on the bed so that we can watch you
do it and see what's going on.
Of course, my mother got nervous once more and paced back
and forth in search of “WHAT SHOULD BE DONE” and
what “WAS NOT BEING DONE”. She panicked, basically, and the midwives were
panicking because there was this person questioning their every move and my
labor was not progressing in a form they were familiar with. Nothing was going
as they expected, but since I was still ok, and the baby was still ok, we were
moving on (despite my mother wanting me to go the hospital ASAP. I don't blame her…but it made it tougher).
Now the IV-part.
They explained:
Hey, look, you’ve been in labor a long time, we’re afraid
your uterus might stop contracting due to exhaustion, we better be safe and
hook you up to Pitocin just to get things moving along again (my time in the
tub had seemed to slow everything down).
IV? Panic inside me, but hey, if this is what it takes, here
we go, I am not going to be a baby and be afraid at this point, or show my fear.
IV?
PURE HELL.
The contractions came in little block formations, uniform,
one after the other, like punches to my soul.
Punch, punch, punch, no time to breathe.
With each one I was coached: Breath! Push! Down! Push! More!
There! Breath! Oh – no, not like that! You’re not doing it right! The frustration was palpable, doubt filling the room.
And that lasted a while until I got fed up and exasperated,
how could I be doing it WRONG if it was something that supposedly was an URGE,
something that would take over me so strongly that no earthly force would be
able to stop me? Shouldn't it all be natural?
Where was the urge? And I began doubting the whole process.
The IV was unhooked, I needed to rest, and everyone needed
to regroup. Anxious midwives huddled in corners talking, avoiding my mother who
paced back and forth in her anger and concern.
I went to the bathroom, where Ezequiel tried to give me a
pep talk, about how much I wanted this, about how much we were close (we were
able to see her head during the pushing, but it always scooted back up again
when I was done). He started saying how I was being influenced by my mother and
blablabla, Everything everyone said from there on had become one big drone.
One flat sound against a flat wall of me not being able to
hear myself anymore.
There’s no shame in
going to the hospital
Are you sure you don’t
want to try the IV again?
You’re so close! Don’t
give up!
You can’t do this
anymore, you’ve done all you could
Droningdroningdroning.
I cried on the toilet, sad, pathetically drenched in sweat, naked and completely tired of caring who saw what or what I looked
like. I felt like the apt had been divided into sides and I was on the verge of
making one side win and the other one lose.
So fed up.
I wanted it to be over.
I wanted it to be over.
I wanted it to be over.
Game over.
Meekly I said –
hospital.
I was met with resistance, I think one of the midwives
almost started crying, Frustrated, confused, mad?
Hospital please. I need this to be over.
I got in the car, feeling nothing at all, numb. I sipped on
my Gatorade and had absolutely no concerns about feeling contractions in the
car, as I knew it was over. And in fact, it was. No more contractions came.
Quick summary of hospital:
My OBGYN came, so nice, so kind, such a relief amidst all
those worried and tired people who had seen me throw up too many times and had
stuck their hands inside me too many times.
Are you sure, Maya, this is what you want? We can try
Pitocin again.
No.
I was adamant, I was desperate, we would NOT try that again,
it was absolute agony.
But even so, I think the nurses put it in as protocol (??)
and as soon as I felt the contractions I started shouting like a 2 year old – DESPERATE!! No, no, no, no, what is this?! No, no, take it off, take it off!! I had lost
all self-respect.
And it was off.
And I was gowned.
And I was injected with anesthesia….sweeeeeet anesthesia. I
melted into the inevitable and the relief. Someone take care of it now, I am
done. I put it all in your hands, sweet lady doctor.
Surgery.
Surrealness.
Baby coming out in less than 5 minutes, being shown to me,
me saying “she’s real??” and then baby gone. Me gone. I started shaking, I
started bleeding, I was in whole new world.
Hours later I stabilized. Hours shaking and watching the
world from my horizontal viewpoint, watching Ezequiel pace back and forth with
Cora tightly wrapped in hospital blankets (that’s right, we forgot to pack for
the hospital, we had NOTHING). Grateful I didn’t have to hold her. I just
wanted to lie there and never have to do anything ever again. Much less think
about the fact that there was a baby to care for now. That was completely
un-thinkable at that point.
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| Immediately after birth |
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| Our days at the hospital were pretty much me and this face…exhausted. |
- so nothing more appropriate.
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| Just to end with something beautiful, this was the last day at the hospital, ready to go. |
