My Birth Story
By Cheri Augustine Flake
I knew that I was pregnant before a pregnancy test could ever detect a baby was on the way. I was sitting in my office seeing a client and all of the sudden; I felt a rush and as cheesy as it sounds, an overwhelming feeling of joy. I instantly thought, “I’m not alone anymore.”
I had a great, uneventful pregnancy. A bit of morning sickness, swelling in my hands and that was about it. I did, however, gain all of my weight in the first trimester. This coupled with my short stature and big baby (that prompted many inquiries about multiple births which infuriated me) made the passing of my due date a bummer and quite frankly, unbelievable.
Very early on Monday morning (Sunday night, really), 6 days pass my due date at about 12:12 AM; I woke up and noticed that I was soaked. I was certain that my water had broken. At about 1:30 AM I started having contractions about 10 minutes apart. I woke Andrew at about 5:30 AM. We decided to call my midwife and my doula. Despite every single birth story that I had read or heard about, as well as my midwife and my doula telling me to go back to sleep and forget about it for now, I just couldn’t. I was far to excited. My baby is 3 weeks old now and I still regret that I didn’t get that little bit of sleep that night.
When I called my midwife, Kay Johnson, and told her that my water broke, she was not so sure. She mentioned that towards the end of pregnancy, many babies just press on the bladder and it releases; giving the illusion to the mother that the water has broken. She told me to forget about it (yeah, right) and go back to sleep.
Alice, my doula, decided to come over when I called her and she got to my house around 6:30 AM. I put on the dress that I wanted to labor in (a cool idea from my friend, Chelsea) and we labored in my bedroom for a few hours, listening to music and talking. I can remember thinking, “this is not so bad…I can do this.” My contractions were fluctuating. Sometimes 7 minutes, sometimes 5 minutes apart…when they reached 3 to 5 minutes apart, we called my midwife.
Both my mom and my maternal grandmother had their first child within 2 hours (my gram swears that it was less than an hour). So, this had us somewhat vigilant since I was delivering at North Fulton Hospital. It’s about 30 minutes away (if there is no traffic) from Decatur, where I live.
Kay said that she would meet us at the hospital and we got there about 1:30pm. Just like everyone always says, my contractions did slow down quite a bit when we headed for the hospital. They slowed to about 7 minutes apart. I should have known…ladies, if you apply lip gloss on the way to the hospital, it ain’t happenin’ any time soon!
Kay checked me (the first time I had ever been checked throughout my whole pregnancy). The good news was that my membranes were intact. The bad news? Only 2 centimeters dilated and 80 percent effaced. She told us that we had some choices. We could be admitted, and thus subject to many interventions of which I would not be thrilled about, or leave and come back later to see if I had progressed all.
We opted to leave and see what progress we could make. We believed we were in for a long night and decided to eat. We ended up laboring at the Cheesecake Factory. The waitress was floored that I was in labor and the whole staff seemed to come around to see “the lady in labor.”
After a very late lunch, we thought we could walk around a near by mall. We never made it past Macy’s. In the shoe department, by the ties, kitchenware and even the bathroom, contractions were more intense and closer together. People stared at us…one salesperson managed to get in one last inquiry about twins (ugh!), another about having a baby at Macy’s and therefore, naming the baby “Macy.” These contractions were different for sure. The labor was intense, painful, and much stronger and I really thought I was getting somewhere.
We went back to the hospital at 7:00 PM. Still no change, only 2 cm. It was quite disappointing. All that time, all that pain and still no progression. It just didn’t seem fair.
Dragging all of our carefully packed bags back to the car, we drove home pretty bummed. I cried a little. My midwife gave me an Ambien so I could sleep. This ended up being a good call.
Sadly, my doula went home. I woke up about every 10 minutes with contractions. Andrew was very helpful and we labored together using relaxation exercises and visualizations. In the morning, Andrew really wanted me to wait until my contractions were regular before calling Alice. Why? I’m not sure, but at about 10 am, I needed her…I believe I was even calling out her name! Andrew called her and it’s a good thing because her other client went into labor the same day and I got her-thank God!
The best decision I made regarding my labor and delivery was hiring Alice Turner, my doula. She also was responsible for recommending my midwife, Kay Johnson who I just loved.
I had trouble during my pregnancy putting together the right team. The first practice I chose had me delivering at Piedmont. There were two midwives and one was just a bit too nutty for me. Andrew and I agreed: this was not the practice for us.
The second practice, recommended by a friend, had me delivering at Northside (the “Baby Factory”) and had 5 midwives of which I was never 100 percent certain about…each one gave me a hard time about something different. “Don’t try to be so in control…it’s not the birth story that matters, but the health of you and your baby,” one said. Another, “don’t try to be a hero, even I ended up getting an epidural with both my kids.” And my favorite, “you can write a birth plan, but we probably won’t read it.”
At 34 weeks pregnant, on my way into the office for an appointment, I asked God to give me a sign to indicate if this was the right practice for me.
I told the midwife (strangely, the very midwife that had been deemed the favorite of the group) that I had become concerned about my birth plan and that I was uncertain whether my requests would be honored. She was very kind and asked me to elaborate. I began with addressing their policy for inductions at 7 days passed the due (guess!) date and said something like, “I really don’t want to be induced, some babies are just 6 or 8 days late, right?”
She answered, “and some babies die.”
I was floored. Who would say that to a pregnant lady??? I cried a little. She told me that maybe I needed to cry and “be a little emotional,” (whatever that means). She told me that I needed to “let go now and trust my practitioners,” I told her that I thought that was great advice…but it wasn’t going to be with them.
Alice had recommended Kay Johnson so I called her that very day. She was with a patient and would call me back. I remember those few precarious hours in which I was under no care at all…I had no practitioner, no team…at 34 weeks, it scared me.
I went to a “pregnancy and weights” class at Pierce Yoga to pass the few hours before I would hear from Kay. Margaret, the instructor, had been inquiring around the room various prenatal questions and just casually threw out to me, “and where are you delivering?”
“I don’t know…” and the tears just came.
Kay called me that afternoon and after we spoke, I knew she was the practitioner for me. I explained that I was totally cool with interventions and help and even surgery if something goes wrong but that complications were unexpected. I can remember saying, “I just want a chance, that’s all.” She explained that many practitioners see pregnant women as sick, not pregnant. She also told me that I was exactly like all of her other patients, which was very comforting.
When I met Kay, I hugged her. She helped me with my birth plan, answered all of my questions and never weighed me (I made it through my pregnancy never knowing how much weight I gained, it’s just too depressing!).
Under Kay’s care, we would be at North Fulton Regional Hospital; the only hospital in Georgia that offers a water birth. This offered a whole new opportunity for us. Andrew and I knew that when we went to the water birthing class and had the tour of the labor and delivery unit that this was the place to have the birth that we wanted. We also were pretty impressed with how educated we were in comparison to other parents to be there. After all, our birthing classes were over and I could deliver any time now.
So, after laboring for about 34 hours this was only Tuesday. Alice came over and we tried EVERYTHING to get the labor really moving. I labored all over the house, on every chair, stair and bed. I even labored on the toilet, which is excruciating! I writhed around on the toilet, yelling, and eventually broke it…it was the worst!
Kelly Hightower, my HypnoBirthing teacher who is also a former labor and delivery nurse, was kind enough to come by and check my cervix. She lives right near by and this was nice because it saved us trips to hospital. It turned out to be a good thing because she checked me that morning, 3 cm, that afternoon, 3 cm. That evening 3 ½ cm. She also reported that the baby’s head was not molding at all to help the trip be a bit smoother down the birth canal.
Aaaaaaaaagh!
One more night of laboring at home…I just couldn’t believe it. How could this be lasting this long??? I had never heard of such a thing!
If I had been admitted to a hospital, they would have begun intervening early on…Cervidil, Pitocin, stripping the membranes, anything everything to move it along. I believe that many women would have long labors like mine if they didn’t succumb to inductions and other interventions. Most women just don’t get a chance to labor. I hear about women who become spooked by rare possibilities and begin to believe that they really only have such and such amount of time (decided by their doc) to deliver. I was lucky that my team did not adopt this philosophy.
People are alarmed when I tell them how long my labor is…and, as difficult as it was, I think it was exactly how God intended it. My baby came when he decided it was the right time.
Tuesday was also when the horrific back labor set in…this pain was a whole new animal. The pressure on my pelvis was immense. Alice started using a heating pad on me for every contraction and applying it with counter pressure. That was what got me through it. It was really rough.
I had been doing yoga since 2001, and continued to do yoga with the masses until my 26th week. Then I joined up with the prenatal yoga. I had learned many poses to help out should the unfortunate event of back labor come up. None of which worked. I think my baby was wedged into my pelvis and gravity just doesn’t help in that situation.
One pose that I used all through my pregnancy (and later in labor and delivery) was Supta Baddha Konasana. If you’ve read the book, A Prayer for Owen Meany, I liken this pose in my birth story to Owen’s reference to “the shot.” Whereas, I practiced it religiously and all along not knowing how desperately I would need it in the end. Serendipitously, Alice reminded me of the pose and had me practice it on the ottoman.
But all of the work, all of the pain, and none of the progress began to really get to me.
We tried everything. That evening the shower and the Jacuzzi was where I labored the most. But after Kelly came over the third time, I really got down. I started telling Andrew and Alice that I couldn’t do it anymore. I told them to take me to DeKalb Medical Center, give me general anesthesia, punch me in the face even! Anything to get the pain to stop…I yelled and complained and cried in our Jacuzzi, stopping only to surge and turn the jets on through each one. I told them that I wasn’t who they thought I was…that I wasn’t one of those women that could do this…I started naming off my friends who had had an epidural, even a c-section and how wonderful they and they’re babies are doing now. I told Andrew, “you know how we go to the movies and I insist on seeing the scary one and then we get there and it’s too scary??? I CHANGED MY MIND!!!” I yelled and begged and the two of them kept telling me that I could do it…that I was one of those women because I was doing it, right then and there in front of them. They never succumbed to my temporary lapses of doubt and hopelessness. I’ll always be thankful for the way that they both handled everything. I am very lucky to have had them both.
Alice and I shared a pretty sweet moment together while I was laboring in the Jacuzzi. I think to help me get my mind off of things, Alice told me that she was pregnant with her fourth child! It worked, but at this point, I thought she was nuts to have a baby! Didn’t she see what I was going though? Had she forgotten? That makes me smile so big now.
When I was in the Jacuzzi, I wanted to get in the shower. When I was in the shower, I wanted to be on the stairs. When I was on the stairs, I wanted to be in the shower. Now, nothing seemed to help anymore. And what did it matter anyway??? All of the work and none of the reward. I was starting to get hopeless…I really wasn’t sure how much more I could take.
I do have to say, however, throughout the entire endeavor, I never had any fear. None. Now, having gone through the laboring and delivery process, that shocks me. No fear whatsoever. I believe that fear alone could have stopped my progress altogether.
I attribute not having any fear at all to the HypnoBirthing Method. Part of the HypnoBirthing philosophy is that fear makes everything worse including pain. I remember one part of the book where they described how when someone is afraid, all of the color, that is, blood, is drained from the face as well as the uterus. They explained that you need your uterus to be filled with blood in order for the muscle to perform optimally. Fear was thought to interfere with dilation of the cervix. This made a lot of sense to me.
Being a therapist, this was a practice that I could really get my head around. I had been using hypnotherapy in my own practice for a couple of years and really liked it. When it worked, it worked great.
I was an exemplary HypnoBirthing student. I did all of the homework and I practiced every single day for months. I knew from my own experience that it wouldn’t work unless I practiced.
The classes were fabulous. Extremely educational but were also really a bonding experience. Andrew and I got so close over those 5 weeks. Also, we met some cool couples as well. I still keep in touch with all of them and their babies.
While we labored, Andrew kept reading me the scripts from HypnoBirthing…the fawn exercise, the pain valve, the relaxation and visualization exercises…we tried it all. Alice even had me visualize Loopy as a baby kitten. We listened to my favorite HypnoBirthing recording by Aaron Aldridge again and again…more scripts and recordings and nothing much changed. I was so tired. I was hopeless. I was in more pain than I’d ever known.
Alice tried to get me to picture the baby. I just couldn’t. He just didn’t seem real to me yet. He seemed somehow separate from my labor for some reason. I remember my friend Megan had described visualizing her baby as a cartoon character throughout her pregnancy and that’s kind of how it was. All I could do was yell, “BAY-BEEEEEE!” to get me through the contractions.
I did every breathing technique I could remember. Pierce Yoga, HypnoBirthing, Iyengar Yoga and even did the motor boat (very helpful idea from Alice, that Kelly appropriately calls, “horse lips”). But it never stopped. It never changed. It just kept on and on…
Don’t get me wrong. When I held my breath or fought the contraction, it was worse, very much worse. So, all of these practices and breathing techniques worked and worked well for me. It had just been so long and so hard. It took more focus and dedication that I ever thought I had in me to keep using the techniques and not give up.
I tried to think of the millions, even billions of women before me that had birthed their babies and that helped too. I remembered a story that I heard in a class at Pierce Yoga where a woman in labor described picturing all of the glistening sparkles that reflect off of the ocean from the sun as she labored. As she rode each wave or contraction, she would imagine each little sparkle as a woman who had birthed a baby before her and her new bond and connection to each. While I was laboring, I thought about my birth story unfolding before me. I even thought about writing this very paragraph and being able to report that yes, this visualization helped me tremendously.
But I was still in labor.
I started having the thoughts that I thought I never would have. All this work and no more centimeters to show for it…it wasn’t fair…how long could this go on??? Anger and frustration just made it harder…I had to really let go and let God. I had no choice.
One recommendation I would have for pregnant women who plan to labor at home, (of course, besides hiring a doula, having a heating pad, and sleeping and eating as much as possible before and during), would be to be sure to have a lot of clean towels and panties ready. I had no idea! Even though I was barely progressing, I was still bleeding. Plus, laboring in the Jacuzzi and the shower necessitates a lot towels.
Andrew ordered dinner for us…I couldn’t really eat. Alice begged me to eat. All I could muster was some oatmeal. I remember them eating tacos in the dining room while I labored on the stairs. Even as I write, I feel the pang of that vivid, painful memory.
The contractions (or “surges” as we say in HypnoBirthing) continued to fluctuate in time, but never let up in intensity. We just kept on and on. Sometimes they were 3 minutes apart, sometimes 7. Alice stayed with us all night and slept in the nursery. I swear, she only missed maybe two contractions all night. She would come right in our bedroom and apply pressure to my back with the heating pad. I could not have gotten through it without the two of them. I remember looking at Andrew and thinking how tired he looked.
The next morning, it was Wednesday. Another day. Despite the lack of progression the day before, it seemed an unspoken truth between us that we would just go to the hospital and leave it to fate. I watched Andrew get our bags together for the last time. Alice called Kay. I knew what would happen if I continued to exhibit, “Failure to Progress.” So did Alice and Andrew. No one said much. I had washed my “laboring dress” the night before. I put it on and was ready for day three…surely, he would be born today, right???
On the way to the hospital, Andrew and talked between the surges. I knew he was preparing me for a C-section. After all, I wasn’t progressing and we knew this baby was big and I was small. He explained how much he loved me and how far we had come as a couple during the entire pregnancy and labor. He told me how I had done everything I could and everything I was doing was “right.” He was so incredibly loving and sweet.
We also called the maid! I had left the house a wreck with towels and laundry and mess everywhere…I really wanted to come home with my new baby to a clean house. And damn it! I was coming home with baby this time!
After a pretty rough car ride, we finally arrived at the hospital at about 10:30 am. We were admitted and settled in about 12pm. I was checked and was only 4 centimeters and 90 percent effaced…after that long, hard night, only ½ centimeter more dilated…ugh!
Kay suggested that I take a shot of Morphine. At first, I was kind of appalled. I mean, I wanted this natural childbirth and everything. Kay explained that there was no way that I could deliver my baby without any sleep at all and a shot of Morphine, that is harmless to the baby, would be my only hope of sleeping a few hours before delivering.
Alice chimed in with her opinion, as well. She didn’t want to me to just sleep the day away. I was to have a few hours of sleep and get up ready to labor again.
I figured if Kay, the au natural midwife and Alice, the doula, thought I should have Morphine, then they were probably right.
I labored through the shot, but the Morphine took the edge off for sure. I slept a few hours, until about 5pm. Andrew stayed with me and Alice slept in the doctor’s on call room. I woke up rearing to go! Kay checked me, I was 7 centimeters! I was like, “ok, let’s have this baby now, people!”
I labored hard. I remember one of the nurses coming in while I was yelling and singing “Rehab,” by Amy Winehouse as loud as I could. She told me that I was a rarity; that women in labor usually listen to relaxing music. She didn’t know…we’d been listening to Krishna Das for three days already! I was over relaxing music!
I labored in the hallways, in the room, and on the birthing ball. I ate an enormous chicken potpie. I hadn’t eaten chicken in years, but didn’t care. I knew I needed the calories. I drank water. I really prepared myself for the ordeal.
Kay checked me at about 8:45pm. I was still 7 centimeters! I couldn’t believe it. She kindly told me that we needed to “make a plan.” This made me a bit nervous. She suggested breaking my water. I think she thought that I would protest for some reason, but I was all for it.
Kay broke my water and could feel the warm gush all around me. While I laid on the bed, Andrew and Alice began filling the tub in the room so I could labor in it. I crawled in the water and had contractions one after the other, right on top of one another. I remember Alice putting the hose with hot water on my back for every surge and suddenly, I couldn’t take it anymore. I told her to stop. My contacts stopped working. I couldn’t see anything or hear anything. I was writhing around in unbelievable, lonely pain. Breaks between contractions were gone. And, on top of all the pain, my body was so uncomfortable. I couldn’t find a way to lay, to sit, to just be in the water.
I remember Andrew trying to tie my hair up with a claw toy and I took it from him, threw it and yelled, “don’t touch me, I’m laboring!” It was definitely a surprising movie moment for Andrew, I’m sure.
Right then, Alice asked me if I was pushing. Is that what was going on? Was I pushing? Is that why I can’t bend my legs? I felt like I had to pee and as much as I tried to just relieve myself in the tub, I couldn’t do it. I was holding my legs wide and just couldn’t seem to close them at all. Is this pushing?
“I don’t know.” I answered. “Maybe?”
I remember Alice saying something like I couldn’t push. I was only 7 centimeters.
Alice went to get Kay to check me. According to Andrew, this was about 9:30pm. I was 9 ½ to 10 centimeters! Fully dilated! That’s 3 centimeters in 45 minutes laboring in the water. No wonder it was so incredibly painful.
Kay was telling someone to call Dr. Scineaux, to tell her that we were pushing. Later, I knew that this meant that Kay had suspected that she might need Dr. Scineaux if I didn’t progress further…yikes!
I tried to labor again in the water but I just couldn’t get comfortable. We tried a few pushing positions, but the back labor was unbearable. I truly felt like my pelvis was going to break in two. I remember thinking that if someone would take a sledgehammer to my pelvis that I might actually get some relief. I tried using gravity by hanging from Andrew’s outstretched arms and throwing my arms over the back of the bed. It didn’t work. I couldn’t take the back pain. Gravity wasn’t helping. This baby was wedged into my pelvis.
I laid on my back in the bed and began pushing. It was truly an amazing experience. Suddenly, the room was filled with women…nurses, I presumed. They were surrounding me. Cheering me on. They were saying wonderful, encouraging words and really rooting for me.
I learned quickly that you only push when you have a contraction. This was relatively difficult to discern as I now had pain all the time. The nurses would watch my big belly to see it contract and tell me to go for it. I also learned what a productive push really was and how I could manipulate my pushes to make them more and more productive.
Between contractions I would hear words of encouragement and get a sip of water from Alice. Alice was holding my head up and pushing it forward with each push. This was good because the tendency was to push my head back, which doesn’t help the baby come.
I was sweating and panting and yelling. It was almost tribal. I was more naked then I’d ever been in my life and I noticed that I had handfuls of scrubs from the women surrounding me. I also was aware that I performed and pushed much better the more encouragement that I got. Kay telling me to push “into the pain” was very helpful, painful, but helpful. I kept hearing Andrew’s kind voice and words of astonishment and excitement. He kept saying, “that was a really good one, Cheri, you’re doing great!”
I kept thinking that he would be coming soon. I was hoping for a July 1st birthday only because it was July 1st!). Looking up at the clock at about 11pm, I asked Kay, “will he be born on July 1st?”
Kay answered, so sweetly, “no.”
AAAAAAAAAAAAGGHHHHH!
Kay told me to stop screaming during contractions, that it was wasting my energy. Funny, I hadn’t noticed that I was doing that. Oh yes, when I would ask Kay, “when is he coming?! How much longer???” She would answer me so calmly, “hmmm, maybe 10 more contractions.” What??? I was always so surprised that we weren’t closer. I would sometimes yell, “Kaaaaay” during the next contraction.
They put a mirror up so I could see my results. I remember seeing my little baby’s head emerging from me. The opening looked so small? However would he fit his head??? Then I would see his head press up against me, stretching the skin and leaving an impression where he is pushing through…it seemed impossible for him to make it! Andrew kept telling me to look in the mirror, but it was almost impossible. I couldn’t concentrate on it. Plus, later on, when the baby came, the mirror was obstructed so my view was blocked.
I can remember thinking, “this is all me. No one can do this for me.” If I had a contraction and the pushing was particularly unproductive, I would think, “I can’t slack off. This will only make it longer and harder. I’m the only one who can do this. The only way this will be over and he will be here is if I do this now, by myself. This is what is happening and only birth will end it.” Because I wasn’t afraid, all I had to deal with was endurance, strength, and pain. Despite my yelling out a few times, “I can’t do it!” I knew, deep down, that I could.
People ask me now why I didn’t get an epidural during this time. Honestly, it never even dawned on me. I was so focused on the task at hand. Later, when Kay told me that I had been pushing for three hours, I was astonished. I told her that if she would have told me that I would have thought she was crazy (actually, I said, “drunk and stoned,” I have a video of it). She responded, “then you would have gotten your epidural.” Oh, then that was an option? Way to stick to the birth plan, team.
Besides the Morphine shot and getting my water broken, no drugs or interventions were ever mentioned. I appreciate that. I am sure that various things were talked about, but never to me.
My legs were burning while I was pushing, so while I rested, they shook. I couldn’t straighten them, couldn’t really bend them. I finally found the position that worked. The position that was really working the baby down was this variation on Supta Baddha Konasana. Where I was on my back, my knees wide apart with the bottom of my feet together and about 4 inches from my face. Kay said later that at one point during the birth she looked up and thought, “my goodness, what position do we have this poor woman in?”
Kay was busy herself. She was massaging my perineum (a sensation that I was used to as Andrew and I had practiced almost every night while I was pregnant, as recommended by the HypnoBirthing Method). She later told me that she had used a Russian technique that she had never used but learned in 1987. She almost looked like she was kneading dough. She was pointed downward (remember, my vagina was facing up) and working her hands down around his head. It was quite amazing.
I don’t know when Kay told me this, during the birth or after as my memory of it all amazingly and predictably is starting to fade, but she mentioned that it would have all been over in a flash if she had given me an episiotomy. Kay only gives episiotomies if there is an emergency and I had opted to tear if need be.
This technique she used, worked miraculously. My baby’s head never did mold one bit to help his trip through my pelvis so here came his 15 ½ cm around head. There were no tears that needed stitches. Kay told me at the birth that there were a few small tears on the inside that would heal “in a day.”
One of the nurses warned me that he could have lots of bruising and swelling and look a little scary after birth as he had been in the birth canal for quite some time. Some of the nurses were calling him, “Mr. Oblivious” due to the fact that he did not mold his head nor did his heart rate slow one bit (a common occurrence in babies being born). One nurse said, “This baby doesn’t even know he’s being born!”
I began pushing even when I wasn’t contracting. I wanted to avoid the “one step back” that occurred after every “two steps forward.
Finally, the ring of fire. I had been under the impression that this lasted for such a short time. For me, it was 3 or 4 contractions long…then the awkward feeling of the shoulders and Kay saying to me, “Cheri, reach down and help your baby out.”
I looked down and he was reaching up. I pulled him on to me. He was so slippery! He was enormous! His eyes were humongous! He looked perfect. No cone head (aaagh), no bruises. Just baby. He writhed around on me and then came to my breast. Sweaty, bloody and poopy we nursed. It was amazing.
Andrew started talking to him…”hi, Owen,” I heard him say…then Kay, “like Owen Meany!”
Owen looked up at his daddy and stared. The nurses went nuts. “Look at him look at his daddy! He knows his daddy’s voice!”
Andrew had been reading Owen a story at night while I was pregnant. He would get right between my legs for fear that the baby’s head may turn away from the pelvis toward the sound. He really did know his voice.
Andrew cut the cord, but commented that it was quite anticlimactic after what he had witnessed. Kay held up the bloody amniotic sac for us to look at and Alice took the placenta to donate it to some company that trains search dogs to find people.
Owen and I just held one another. It seemed like forever.
Owen was born at 1:38am on Thursday, July 2, 2009. He was 8 lbs, 14 oz., (though I always say that I have bragging rights having birthed a 9 pound baby as he pooped quite a bit before he was weighed). He was 20 ½ inches long.
Finally, when I was ready, they took Owen to be bathed and weighed. Andrew went along with the camera and I thanked Alice and Kay profusely.
They asked me if he should get eye drops, vitamin K and a hepatitis shot before administering anything. I never had an IV. North Fulton Regional was much more like a hotel than any hospital.
Then my nurse, Carolyn, came to me with some Motrin and a sandwich so it wouldn’t upset my stomach. I was still all bloody and slimy and couldn’t imagine eating! A shower wasn’t an option because I was a fall risk, so I was bathed with a sponge, just like Owen, and brought to my postpartum bed.
That night Kay told me that she hadn’t “seen anything like it” in her 27 years of midwifery. She told me that I “rocked.” I knew that night that I could do anything. I had participated in an initiation of sorts. I have a connection with other mothers now that is ineffable.
Owen is napping upstairs now. As the memory of my birth story fades with each day, I know that, no matter what, 72 hours of labor, with 3 hours of pushing was worth every traumatic, wonderful second.
I am filled with gratitude every day for every person that had anything to do with Owen’s birth. Thank you, Kay. Thank you, Alice, Thank you, Kelly. Thank you, nurses, Thank you, Pierce Yoga. Thank you, Krishna Das. Thank you HypnoBirthing…thank you, all.
Thank you, God. Thank you for my family. Thank you for the two loves of my life, my Andrew and my Owen.
La,
Cheri
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