The Long and the Short of It

Birthing culture in America is just plain weird. Nothing sets women off like swapping labor stories. The culture of "one ups-manship" is disturbing. Nobody's labor is more traumatic, exciting, dramatic, or interesting as their own. Many women don't hesitate to flat out tell you what you did wrong with your own labor or criticize decisions you made regarding pain management. It's been my experience that these are also the same women who tell you you're dooming your baby to a life of violent disease and stupidity if you don't breastfeed or co-sleep. I largely try to ignore this group and only offer opinions when asked. Otherwise I'm all smiles as I realize how personal these decisions are.

Grace's labor was the longest labor on human record--at least it felt like that for me. Induced at 13 days late, there could be nothing more medicated about the whole process. This was particularly ironic considering we started our pregnancy with a midwifery practice and I desperately wanted a "natural birth." Why it's called "natural" is really beyond me. Is there something "unnatural" about receiving medication for pain? I don't think so. I now call it an "unmedicated birth" because I hate the implication that "natural" carries with it. Ask a woman in 1850s Philadelphia if she would like an epidural and I'm sure her answer would have been "hell yeah!"

Pitocin is the synthetic drug they give you to bring on contractions. It's nobody's friend and after a day of laboring and getting no where, they cranked it up. I toughed it out until then and opted for the epidural. After about 20 hours of labor and over 2 hours of pushing, out came our beautiful girl. I realized at the end of the day that nobody gets a medal for how well they labored.

This time around my husband and I talked at length about how we thought labor might go down and how we would handle it. When we went past our due date I was increasingly disappointed that I might not experience what it was like to go into labor without my friend pitocin. Hollywood and TV have provided us with an image of mom pacing the hallways all night long while dad stands by coaching her to breathe and hang in there. I wanted my labor to be like that. I thought that would be really cool.

Instead, we found ourselves breaking the land speed barrier to the hospital. I had had so many episodes of contractions that went no where, I think I was in denial that I could actually be in labor. After a night of sleep between contractions, they quickly jumped from 15 minutes apart, to 10, to 5, to 3 within an hour and a half. Thank God my husband pushed for us to go to the hospital because if we waited any longer, we could have been a story on the news.

We had decided that unless things were much easier than expected, I would like an epidural. I had seen enough episodes of "Birth Story" and experienced enough pain with Grace to know a "natural" birth was not for me. But by the time we got to the hospital I was already at 8cm. How did this happen? I was dumbfounded. While I screamed "no, no, no" my husband looked gleeful (while always supportive) because it was time. But my time had run out. At 8cm, no pain medication was available because things were progressing so quickly. Dear God I thought. I can't do this.

But I did. I didn't have a choice. What surprised me the most was how animalistic the whole experience was. I didn't want my husband near me. I didn't want to talk to anyone or look at anyone. I just curled in a ball and waited while the nurses scurried to set everything up. What felt like an eternity was actually a whirlwind. No time even for stirrups as the doctor rushed through his set up. I became one of those women that always scared me on TV. Complete with screaming, cursing, and protestations that I couldn't do it, wouldn't do it. But I did. And like that, the pain was over. It was perhaps the most surreal moment in my life. To go from blinding, white-light pain that you think will kill you to the euphoria of seeing and holding your precious baby is not something easily expressed in words. While my husband beamed at me, and shed a few tears, I looked at this little (but not so little) baby curled up on my chest, eyes open, searching to find the source of our voices. I laid there in shock, unable to process what had happened. Just 45 minutes after we arrived at the hospital, our "little man" as we call him, was in our arms.
Nobody gave me a medal at the end of my labor. They gave me a baby. And that's all I really have to say to anyone who chooses to comment on how either of our children got here.