The dark night of the soul comes for me after 21 hours of labor. At two o’clock in the afternoon, 16 hours in, my midwife had told me I was dilated to four centimeters. My water had just broken, and the contractions became more intense, more frequent. For five and a half hours more, I labored on, wave after wave of pain, wave after wave of opening and relaxing into the pain. She checks me at seven thirty in the evening, 21 hours into the process, and cheerfully informs me that I am now at five centimeters.
I feel my face go slack and my eyes dim. I say, “You have got to be kidding.” She informs me, in all sincerity that “the first five centimeters are the hardest” and I’m “more than half way there.” My inner cynic is not happy, and she is saying, “Yeah, right. I don’t know how you figure that five is more than half of ten, but I’m not buying it…”
I labor on for another hour, and I do battle with desire to escape. I can’t go through with it, I decide. I cannot labor on and on with no end in sight and still have to push this baby out…for an hour, the contractions feel sharper, and I labor literally and figuratively in darkness. I have had back labor this entire day, requiring someone to apply hard pressure to my sacrum for each contraction in order for me to tolerate the pain. My birthing partner sits with me in the darkened room, pressing my back during each contraction, while I silently, internally search for an escape from this process. If only I were in the hospital, instead of doing home birth. I could get an epidural and be free from my suffering. But no, my baby is breech. If I were in the hospital, they would do a Caesarian section. That would be okay, I think in this moment, though until labor started I’d have been horrified at the thought. So what’s a longer recovery period, I think, or missing out on the “joys” of natural childbirth? I’ve had enough of the joys, and I want out. But I realize that if I really want a Caesarian, I’ll have to be transported to the hospital, and I’m so tired right now. I can’t imagine getting myself up and to the hospital. The thought of having contractions—and back labor—in the car is more misery than I think I can stand. So I continue my silent bargaining. I know in this dark place that I don’t have the resources within myself to bring this child out…and yet I must.
