What can I say?

As I sit here and type this out on a calm Friday night, I still can't quite believe how the week is ending. As July came to a close and August started, I was getting impatient and eager to be done with this pregnancy and the colossal heat wave that seemed to swallow all my energy. I woke up Tuesday morning to make it to my regular doctor's appointment on time and felt like a twisted knot of anxiety and fatigue. When the nurse took my blood pressure, I knew something was up. "It's high, right?" I asked. She seemed surprised I knew, and said yes. But for me, something was up. I knew I was anxious that day, but didn't know why. I wanted to talk to the doctor about scheduling an induction for after my due date, but I also just wanted to hear that I was more dilated and could go on over to the hospital right away. Ta-da! Let's have this baby! I just wanted to know what was in store.

Of course the joke is that I didn't have much longer to wait to find out what would happen with this girl. After checking me again at the appointment, my doctor declared I was at about 3 1/2 cm dilated (up just slightly from the week before) and we agreed to set the induction date for Monday, August 8th. I was somewhat relieved to have a plan and figured that gave me time the rest of the week to go into labor on my own which was my ultimate goal. I was in more pain after the exam than I'd had on previous visits, but once Nacho met me for breakfast, we sat down and I thought it would all subside. Later I walked to the bus thinking this couldn't go on for days and days. I would have to go soon, right? By the time we got home and I laid down for a bit, I woke up to feel something more going on around 11:30 a.m. A contraction? For real? I had been nervous for weeks that I might not recognize the signs of a normal labor. With Elisa my water began to leak and nothing really started until hours and hours later at the hospital when I consented to the pitocin drip that turned out to be my worst enemy. Not the way I wanted to go this time. But as I laid there timing things, I realized that every 20 minutes I was having the same pains. I laid there excited but too nervous to believe it was happening. Then the next hour they came about 10 minutes apart. I got up and confessed to Nacho that this might be the day. We had lunch and I tried laying down again only to find out that the 7 minute contractions were slowing back down. No, no, no...this better not backtrack is all I thought.

By about 4:00 p.m. I was feeling the contractions about every 5-7 minutes. I knew my doctor had mentioned calling and coming in around 3-4 minutes apart for an hour, but I wasn't sure I could wait much longer. With rush hour traffic over the Queensboro Bridge in mind, I figured waiting til 5:30 or 6 p.m. to leave might not be the best idea. So I called. Come in now, they said. So we were off. Wait, no. First Nacho made a coffee. At the time I wasn't finding that very humorous, but now it all makes sense (especially if you know my husband). Better be highly caffeinated before this long night began, right? So we gathered my stuff, hailed a cab and my mom and Nacho brought me to the hospital in record time. Really. I only had about 3 contractions getting there, so about 15 minutes total travel time--the first of many miracles. And yes, it really did feel like I was in a bad movie hanging on to the cab door as I contracted and darted through New York City traffic. But there I was. We made it to triage and the contractions only picked up coming every 2-3 minutes. This is where I began to panic a little. I was holding myself together pretty well, but waiting to see the nurse was difficult. Fortunately, the nice one I got jumped me ahead of the line when she realized this was my second labor coming this fast and that was that. Within an hour I was in my delivery room fully hooked up to the IV, checked and at about a 4 1/2 or 5 cm, and waiting for the epidural that I knew would help me cope. This time around, I wasn't playing games. These contractions were not insurmountable, but fuck it, I thought. There was no part of me that was tempted to wait and see what "natural" felt like beyond this. I guess that was another difference with this labor. All my curiosity about how my body would do, whether I could go without drugs, was gone. I knew from my experience with Elisa that the fear of needles and a catheter wasn't the worst to come. The pain and hours of pushing was the worst, and anything I could do now to minimize it was all I cared about.

By 7 p.m. I had my epidural started, and things were beginning to calm down a little. I tried to lay back and relax. Hospitals are so weird anyway, but this time I was more accustomed to the bodily humiliation and prodding of modern day labor & delivery. I was thanked several times by the nurses and my OB/GYN for not complaining which I found slightly amusing. Moi? Well, I suppose there are all kinds of women and maybe I was tolerating this better than some. But really, so far, things were progressing and even though I had no idea what to expect of the rest of the day, I was pretty happy with how things were going. My labor started on its own, it was speeding up and I was on some pretty good drugs. Who could ask for anything more? For the next several hours I laid in bed shifting slightly and listening to the steady gallop of Carolina's heartbeat. There's nothing like hearing that on the monitors and knowing she's almost ready to come out and bring that little heartbeat into my arms. Unfortunately, the nurse came in a couple of times to "turn" me acting as if it was for the epidural, but when I pressed, she said it was also due to Carolina's decelerations. The heartbeat wasn't as "bouncy" as they'd like and she said that the baby needed to move a bit more and I may need some oxygen to help things out. Hmmmm...okay, I thought. Nothing out of the normal, since I remembered Elisa having one or two episodes like that. But by the time she brought the oxygen mask out, I was wondering if this baby was going to have more trouble than her sister with keeping her heart rate up. And part of me was mentally racing ahead to an emergency C-section if they couldn't get her to stabilize. Just what I needed, I thought. A second labor that ends in surgery because this little cretin can't hold her own. Little did I know that in fact she was more than capable.

With the oxygen flowing and blasting my eyes closed, I laid there for another hour or so just trying to stay relaxed and positive. Nacho and Mom had taken shifts to get dinner and we were all waiting to hear when the doctor would check me again since it had been about 4 hours. I told the nurse that with the last few contractions I could feel a rolling kind of pressure at the end of each one that might be kind of a bearing down sensation. She seemed unfazed and told me to let her know when I had that sensation without a contraction. Mmmm...okay, if you say so. It felt like something important to note at the time, but then again, they see this every day. I probably had about a half hour of those contractions before I checked the clock. It was about 10:20 p.m. and I was starting to doubt that this baby would be here before midnight. Just then I felt a "pop" down below. I waited half a second expecting that my water had finally burst (it had been leaking a bit) and asked my mom to come over and see what was going on. She stood over me trying to open my legs a bit when I protested. Something felt like I shouldn't move. There was no pain just a tiny bit of lingering pressure, but I just felt like I needed to keep my legs closed. My mom made a dash down the hall to get the doctor and within a few seconds the nurse was charging into my room ahead of them declaring, "Oh, we have a head!" It was just that easy. The doctor flew into the room instructing the pack of nurses following her in the kind of organized chaos that you see on TV medical dramas. Within a minute or so, they had tables pulled up and equipped, lights in place and gowns on. My mom and Nacho stood on either side of me beaming equally and telling me there was a head with "lots of hair!" I was semi-delirious by now just wondering how things could have gotten to this point so quickly. And yet, I was also still mildly cautious that I'd been here before with a visible head poking out and delivered a baby after 4 more hours of pushing. What would it be this time?

As they instructed me to pull my legs back and Nacho and Mom again taking charge of each side, I gathered myself for the next contraction and began to push. And before I felt like I'd done anything at all, she was out. It was 10:23 p.m. I felt all those limbs coming out but no pain or burning like with Elisa and no last minute episiotomy or vacuum assist to seal the deal. This was cake. Labor was officially over and I couldn't have been more elated. And to top it off, I had a baby on my chest being wiped down and the experience of seeing her in those first few minutes. It was a beautiful thing. With Elisa, she was whisked away because of my fever and her risk of infection since we were 32 hours past my water breaking. I saw her only for a few minutes after her Apgar scores and then she was off to the NICU where I saw her again after about 5 hours. She roomed there for the entire hospital stay and was pumped full of antibiotics, formula and had a paci in her mouth for the next two days. To say this was a better labor and outcome is putting it mildly. I really couldn't have asked for it to go any smoother if I'd written up a birthing plan and nailed it to my forehead. One push. One fucking push. If I'd heard this story from another mom, I'd be inclined to call her a lying sack of shit. But no, it really happened just like that. So excuse me if I might seem a bit smug, but I can't stop pinching myself. I'm home and it's now 3 days later and I'm feeling like myself only a bit tired. No sitz baths, no donut rings, no witch hazel wipes and grimacing to sit on the toilet. A little achy in my abdomen and that's it. And to be clear, I have absolutely no desire to do this again, but it's pretty awesome to go out on such a high note. My memories of Carolina's birth have already made me feel like I got the full range of birthing experiences and came out a winner on all fronts.