My husband and I arrived early and nervous to our “alternative birthing class.” We were there with about ten other couples. They seemed all somehow more adult, polished, and definitely more prepared than we felt. The instructor entered and we did a series of exercises and had conversations over the next few weeks about our “joyous, calm experience.”
The instructor, a middle-aged woman of seemingly vast experience showed us tapes of woman quietly birthing their babies to gentle music with minimal screaming and moaning. It seemed like we had struck gold! Each night we dutifully put in our “relaxation” CD and promptly were sent off into Snoreville … we thought wow, this must really work if we are lulled into sleep this easy. And yet, something in the back of my mind was nagging.
We went to each of our appointments, updating our practitioner and glowing in the way that soon-to-be parents often do. It was all going along so well. We flew to California at five and a half months and all was well. We flew to Jamaica for my best friend’s wedding before my seventh month and everyone commented on my glow and how well I was doing. Little did I know my stretch marks were showing and my large ankles were a preview of what was to come.
Suddenly at thirty-two weeks, the first visit my husband had ever missed, I had an elevated BP. They tested my urine and found protein (blood). It was a quick ride in a panicked state to the hospital a few miles away and a long day of testing to come. They monitored me to make sure the baby was okay and that preeclampsia was not setting in. I was put on bed rest and sent home. We returned to the birthing classes and were reassured that all would be well. That evening we envisioned our labor and were to determine the length of our birthing in our heads and minds … I chose two and half hours (the time it took me to be born at home, incidentally). Turns out, I was off by about … a full TWO DAYS and SEVERAL hours!
Let me just say that the birth I had envisioned was peaceful. It included warm baths, walking the halls, and my best friend flying in from Maryland to hold my hand while my husband attended the whole process. Instead, on a “routine” visit to the hospital for BP updates after only two and half weeks of bed rest, we were told to get ready. This was it. We were being induced. At this point we were packed and ready (in the loosest sense of the word).
Immediately I was told I would be put on the dreaded “pit” or pitocin to begin my labor. Oh boy, alt-birthing no-no number one! And next on the list, due to my elevated BP, I was NOT allowed to walk around unless it was to the bathroom. I made a lot of bathroom trips, necessary and unnecessary, that weekend. I’m sure the nurses will recall my overuse of that particular privilege.
It only gets better from there. We started on a Thursday evening and I will fast forward past a long sleepless night through an eventless Friday full of intense contractions (and a subsequent night off the pit) to a Saturday full of contractions and my mother and sister sitting by the bedside. I think my mother was somehow experiencing more anxiety than I was that day. It was better that she went home after a few hours … and that was when the fun really began. It was sometime around that evening, the mark of two days that an epiphany came to me … that niggling thought registered in a giant light bulb right before the nice man with the epidural arrived.
