Last Tuesday night, Ben and I took Mikey to the park. He desperately needed to expend some energy, so we played the wear Big Mike out game in which I hold onto a screeching dog as Ben runs to the other end of the field. Once Ben is far away, I release Mikey and he sprints to Ben as fast as lightening. His speed is impressive.
The thing is, the only way I can keep an excited 85 pound pitbull from false starting the race towards Ben is to straddle him and use my weight to keep him put. Pre-pregnancy, I would lift my knees and lay on him, but with 3o extra pounds on me I could just sort of squat. Well, the third time I did this I felt a painless pop inside of me, followed by a warm gush of water that completely soaked my legs.
I slowly stood up and Mikey took off. “Ben!” I yelled, “I think my water broke!”
“What?” He was quite far away but started jogging towards me.
“My water!” I yelled as loud as I could, “My water broke…I think!”
When he reached me I had to repeat myself again. He gave my leg a feel and then looked at me and smiled. I smiled back, but I felt my lips quivering. He put his arm around me and said, “Okay, let’s go. Are you scared?”
“A little.” My hands shook.
We walked slowly to the car, Mikey prancing beside us.
I didn’t feel anything besides the water–in fact, earlier that day I had been telling Ben that I didn’t even think Violet had dropped very far down into my pelvis. It seeemed like she was still high up near my ribs and I hadn’t had a Braxton Hicks in a few days either.
I called our doula, C., when we got home and told her my water broke but that there were no accompanying signs of labor. “I think I’ll take a shower and go to bed,” I told her, remembering from birth classes that if labor starts late at night it is best to try and get some rest and sleep through the first round of contractions.
She agreed and said to either call her in the morning when I woke naturally to start laboring or to call if I needed anything.
Before I laid down, I threw in a load of laundry because there was a particular pair of pants that I wanted to bring to the hospital. Ben put on Netflix for me and made the bed up into a cozy nest of blanket and pillows. I settled in while he cleaned up–he knew I wanted the dishes done, the floor swept, and everything in order for when we arrived home.
As I watched Nip/Tuck and hoped to fall asleep, I had a contraction. Mild, but noticeable. And then I had another one, not long after. And then another. I thought it was weird that they seemed close together but since they weren’t that painful, I just let them happen and tried to concentrate on the show.
Soon, however, not even the dramtic story line–Julia had recently become a lesbian after breaking up with her midget boyfriend, Christian had accidentally killed his baby-mama, and Sean was becoming an alcoholic and sleeping with Kimber again–who had not only slept with his best friend but had also made a baby with Sean’s son, who was really Christian’s biological son—-
Anyway. Not even those stories could hold my attention as the pain increased.
When Ben came in to check on me, I was squeezing my eyes shut, which he must have recognized as pain, because he rubbed my forehead to try and relax my face.
I told him I was starting to have a lot of pain and wanted to time my contractions. I was having a pretty significant contraction every 5 minutes. I thought that maybe I was mistaking contractions for something else, but whatever it was, it was getting worse. I called C. and told her what I was feeling. She said that she knew I was feeling pain but that unfortunately, these were likely mild contractions. She said I should try, try to get some rest because I would have a long day ahead of me.
I hung up the phone. I started getting nervous. “If these are mild contractions, I’m not so sure I can do this without drugs,” I told Ben. He sat with me and helped me count and breathe through them. I was struggling. A few times I couldn’t even get through with a steady, controlled breath. A few times, I couldn’t keep track of what number I was on or what came next.
I called C. again and told her that there was no way I could fall asleep against this pain. She wanted to hear me through a contraction. I had one over the phone and again, she said that it sounded like I was definately in labor, but that I had still had a long stretch. “Well, can’t you just come over?” I asked. She said yes.
I felt like a total wimp. I couldn’t believe I was only 3 hours into labor and I was breaking down from “mild” contractions. I was terrified and disappointed. But man, did it hurt.
Moments after I hung up the phone with C., I had a contraction and as it peaked, I felt this incredible urge to push–like that feeling of having to poop. As the urge and the pain subsided, my legs quivered. I explained the feeling to Ben. And then another contraction started, along with that same urge. I couldn’t talk through it. I told Ben to call C. again and ask her if this was normal. He explained what I was feeling to her but she wanted to just hear me through it again, so he held the phone to my face. “I wanna push,” I grunted as that urge washed over me.
“Okay,” she said, “you feeling like pushing so soon concerns me just a little, so why don’t we meet at the hospital.” She sounded calm, like she was just taking a precaution. “And I want you to pant through those urges and try and not push.”
Ben packed up our things. I was very shaky and clammy. Ben had to hold me up, and halfway to the car in the middle of the street I had a fierce contraction. My knees buckled and he held me up while I panted through wanting to push. We made it to the car, where I curled up in the front seat and had another contraction. Ben held my hand and calmly counted me through the pain. I squeezed and squeezed his hand.
At the bottom of the pain and before it began again, I told Ben that I was such a wimp. I said that I was probably going to get to the hospital, be like, four centimeters dilated and they were going to send me home and tell me to either suck it up or take some drugs. I felt ashamed that I had been so confident I could labor naturally and I was breaking down so soon.
We arrived at the hospital at 4am. I stopped and had a contraction in the parking lot and then hobbled through the hospital doors. I opened my mouth at the check-in desk and couldn’t speak. I collapsed from another contraction in a chair, breathing and panting like a mad person. C. checked me in.
The nurses told me to change in the bathroom and “hop” onto the bed (which I remember thinking was a crazy request), where she would examine me and see how far along I was. I was nervous to hear. Embarrassed.
The nurse spread my legs and felt inside me. She threw a surprised glance at the other nurse and said, “She’s fully dilated.” She looked at me. “Okay, honey, try not to push, we’re calling the doctor.”
Calling? Like, from upstairs, or from home? From home. They called two doctors, unsure of which was closer in proximity to get there faster. As we waited for the race of the doctors, the nurses prepped me and wheeled me into a birthing room. “Can I push now?” I kept asking. The urge was phenomenal.
They said to try not to, which was really, really hard.
I remember seeing my doctor scrubbing in and I said, “Hey, I see the doctor, please can I push now? Please?” Then I saw another doctor. “Now there’s two–I can start, right?”
Both doctors approached me–they happened to be my two favorites and I told them so. I thanked them for coming. I spread my legs and finally got to push. It hurt like hell but the relief felt right. They asked me if i wanted a mirror to watch–I said no way. They asked me if I wanted to feel her head as it crowned–I said no thanks.
I pushed five times. Violet Caterson (Kate-er-son) was born at 4:43am, forty minutes after we arrived at the hospital, four and a half hours after my water broke.
She weighed six pounds, 12 ounces and is 20 inches long.
They immediately put her on my chest and I kept saying “I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do.” I held her and rubbed her little back.
“Yes you do,” one of the nurses said. “You’re doing it.”
Ben kept telling me how proud he was of us. He was smiling and his eyes were damp. I’ve never seen his face as full of amazement and happiness as it was that moment.
And now Violet is a week old. She is a very peaceful little girl–I think she has the demeanor of her father. She loves to sleep and only wakes and cries when she is hungry. I stare at her a lot. Sometimes I put my hand on her little stomach to make sure she is breathing. I’ve consulted the internet once–just to see if I should actually wake her to eat if she sleeps too long.
She looks very wise and serene.
Mikey is handling thing wonderfully. The first day was rough–he was pretty annoying–but he settled down and his curiosity has waned. He wants to lick anything exposed–usually her feet or her head. He lays next to me while I feed her, his big head on the boppy pillow. I rub his ears to let him know he is loved too. He has taken to wiggling under the crib and snoozing beneath her. I think he will be quite protective of her.
Zach cries every time he holds her, which isn’t surprising. He’s a weeper.
I wish my sisters were here.
And Ben. He is madly in love with his daughter. It is a beautiful thing to witness. “Until her,” he explained to me, “there hasn’t been anything in my life that if I lost it, would completely destroy me.” For a split second I thought, hey, what about your wife? And then I looked down at Violet curled up in the crook of his elbow, and I watched Ben watch her, and I thought, I married the best kind of man.
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