A Birth Story, part three

After he covered my back with the medical equivalent of duct tape, they laid me down on the bed, rolled me from side to side, and I got the shakes. Teeth-chattering coldness. I wondered if something was wrong. Nope. This is apparently normal. It was very surreal going from body-shattering pain to the drug-induced numbness and shaking. I kept asking if I was alright. Yes, I was alright. 

The pain was seriously numbing everything except this one place on the right side of my abdomen. Pixie said, I had a “window”. Sometimes the drugs don’t cover everything, and you get a window. A window is exactly what it felt like, a rectangular area right in my center, like it was simply avoided. But I rolled over some more and within an hour, the window closed. All was numb. The only thing I didn’t like was not being able to feel the baby move inside of my anymore. The baby was moving, I just couldn’t feel it. Very weird.

Then I put on mascara and lip gloss.

Don’t judge me! I had been having contractions for 24 hours, had been in and out of hot water umpteen times, and finally felt good. I was going to have a baby! I got soooo excited about it! I was really going to have a baby! With the pain being virtually eliminated, I was able to refocus on what this was all about. 

I remember after Lydia was born, just saying, “Thank you,Jesus, that it’s over.” When Claire was born I remember the "ring of fire." This time was going to be different. I was enjoying birth for the first time. I was going to have a BABY!!! And by golly, there’s no reason a girl can’t have shiny lips for those first photos. My midwife said,"Well, if you're gonna look that good, better get a picture."

Pressure. Oh. OOOOOOOH. That’s what they mean by the urge to push! Never felt it before. Not with my first unmedicated birth or with my last spinal block birth. Never felt the baby move down or have the urge to push. What an amazing feeling! My excitement level was going through the roof. Pixie checked me, I was complete and she said I could continue to let the baby “labor down,” or I could push anytime. There was just one problem. Claire wasn’t there yet. 

The day before when I was in the early stages of “not quite labor”, we invited Claire to be at the birth. She had asked early in the pregnancy and we said we’d think about it. My friend, Gyovanna, was to be Claire’s Birth Buddy, the person to take her out of the room if necessary or entertain her if labor was too long (Ha!). So Claire had spent all day with Gyovanna at her house because we were never quite sure what was going on with the labor.

But when I got the epidural, Mark made a call to my mom and said it was time to come if she wanted to see the baby born. Mom asked, “What? Where are you?” She thought we had ended up going home. Apparently, we didn’t do a stellar job communicating with the people we loved during “not quite labor”. But Mark contacted Gyovanna as well, and assured them both we were at the hospital, I was really in labor, I had an epidural and there was going to be a birth. What he didn’t communicate was any urgency. So the 3 of them started the trip to the hospital. And I kept “laboring down.”

Meanwhile Nana K shows up with a van load of children, and a very hungry baby. Kendra nurses her baby outside of Labor & Delivery because there is this very mean sign hanging on the door that says only children related to the laboring woman can be back there. Then Nana K prepares to drive Kendra’s kids back to Fort Wayne for school Monday morning! But what to do with the baby? If Nana K takes her, it’s the same hungry baby problem again, but if Kendra keeps the baby, a pesky little sign is preventing her from being able to be in the room at birth. What to do? What to do?! Kendra & her mom and her 6 children have all driven across 2 states to meet my laboring needs and a few words painted on the wall might keep Kendra from missing the birth.

I decided to have a little heart to heart chat with my nurse in which I explained Kendra’s heroic efforts, her hungry baby, the gracious Nana K, and our current predicament. I ended with a very pouty, lip-glossed lip asking if they could please make an exception and let Kendra have her baby at my delivery. We got a yes!

Nana K pulled out of the hospital driveway and Kendra & baby Tate walked through that Labor and Delivery door. They were stopped by the very first nurse, telling Kendra she couldn’t bring “that infant in here”. To which Kendra replied, with a hearty, yet exasperated smile and thigh slap, “But I just got special permission.”

At this point I’m feeling so much downward movement I ask where my mom, Gyovanna & Claire are?! How far away are they? “Someone needs to tell them to hurry or they might miss this!”Pixie asked to take a look and see where things were. I told her, “Nope, I’m keeping my legs together until they walk in the door.” It was seriously that close, my friends.

Twenty minutes later my mom, my daughter, and my friend arrived with questioning faces…."Did we make it?"