Welcome to our world, Hazel Jane Miller!

written by Leah Miller

So, I woke up on Thursday, October 29th at 6 AM and my water broke. Not a gush, but a pretty sinificant leak every time either of us (Hazel or me) changed positions. But contractions did not start up. It took me a couple of hours before I really realized what was going on, or accepted the fact that I was going to have a baby in the next day or so, no matter what. Finally, I told Ted just that. He was pretty excited and asked if he should not go into work. I told him that he should go in since work is only 2 miles from home and I would call him as soon as labor began. I then called my doula, Yvonne Novak, and let her know what was going on.

Yvonne, unfortunately, had been diagnosed with swine flu the day before and her doctor told her that she should stay home for a minimum of 5 days. Of course, she had a back up, and although I was sad that Yvonne wouldn't be with us, we both felt that these things happen for a reason. Yvonne's back up was Sarah Lozoff, a doula in the Silver Lake area who I knew of, but had never met. In fact, we were Facebook friends and she was one of those doulas who was always updating her status, so I felt like I knew her to some degree.

Hours went by and still no contrations. At 2 PM, Ted and I decided to call the midwife on duty at UCLA and get her advice. Of course, she, Maria, advised we come in to have the baby monitored. So we did just that. We drove to UCLA and baby girl was just fine and eventhough I was leaking quite a bit, fluid levels were pretty good. So we were released and we told Maria that we would return by 12 PM if contractions didn't start on their own.

Ted and I drove back to Mt. Washington, had some dinner, finished some last minute stuff and tried to get some rest. Still no contractions. At 2 AM we headed back to UCLA. We were admitted at 3 AM and at 4 AM they did a pelvic exam and found that I was 70% effaced and less than a centemeter dialated. I was crushed. I felt really disapointed in my body. How could this happen? How could I end up being induced? Maria placed a very small dose of cytotec at my cervix.

The dread induction process had begun and god knows how long this would take so Ted and I tried to get some sleep. However, within an hour I was feeling contractions. Surging every five minutes or so. They were intense and so I got out of bed and began to move and sound. I called Sarah, the doula, and told her to come on down. I woke up Ted and asked for help. We began. Working with the ball. The slow dance. All fours. Squatting. I was listening to some tamburra music and sounding all sorts of vowel sounds and lots of OMs. I also chanted the anusara invocation that I love so much. It seemed appropriate to beign labor with this.

Between contractions, I was fine. Ted and I were cracking jokes and having a good time with it all. I spent a good deal of time on the toilet. My bowels were really going for it and it seemed like a great place to labor. Sarah showed up and we met eachother for the first time as I was sitting on the toilet. She walked right in, introduced herself and swore the bathroom hardly smelled at all (liar).

Immediately I felt more relaxed and so happy to have her with us. She has a great energy.Around this same time, a new midwife came on duty, Ann Trudell. Ted and I had met Ann several times for pre-natal appointments and I was so happy to have her there. She is very knowledgeable and expereienced. I knew I was in really good hands. We decided that Ann would wait to do a pelvic exam for a few hours. We all felt this was best, afterall it really wouldn't make a difference. So Ann left us to keep on laboring.So, at this time, I had a hep-lock but no IV bag. Also, the baby was being intermittently monitored. Every hour, our nurse, also named Sarah, would come monitor the baby for several minutes, either with the fetal monitor (never with the belt though) or, if I was far from the nurses station, they would use the doppler. I was completely free to try anything. It was great.

Sarah, the doula, suggested that I get in the shower. I felt like it was too soon. I was really worried that I was still only a centemeter or two dialated and I wanted to save the shower for when things got really intense. We talked about how I needed to get out of my doula-head and just be a laboring woman. I decided at that point to not focus on the really tough, complicated births of my students/clients. But instead to think about and be inspired by those births that were so....normal. I thought a lot about Kate, Andrea, Rebecca, Lalanya, and most importantly, my mom and my own birth.

At about 11 AM, Ann did a pelvic exam. I was between 6 and 7 centemeters dialated. I nearly cried of joy and I told Ann that I loved her. We were all so happy and I was so proud of my body. So excited because the baby would most likely be here in just a few hours.

And so we got into the shower. Ted and I spent about an hour in there. Sarah turned down the lights and turned up the music: a mellow rock labor mix I had on my IPod. Transition was a blast. Contractions were very intense. The hot water helped so much as did the counterpressure Ted was applying. Between contractions, all was good. Ted and I were being our silly selves. Later, Sarah told me that in our room, outside of the bathroom, all the nurses and staff were kinda blown away by the fact that we were singing so loud, laughing so much and having so much fun ( for those of you who don't know, my husband is probably the funniest man alive. Sometime ask me about the Western Suit story.)

At 1 PM, I was feeling a lot of pressure during and in between contractions. My back was also really starting to bother me. Ann checked me again. I was 10 cms but with a small cervical lip. Wahoo. I had dialated 10 centemeters in just 8 hours. To deal with the small lip, I got into bed, as per Ann's request, and I did 3 contractions on my left side and 3 contractions on my right. I was not happy in bed. My back was now really starting to bother me and I was very insitent on counterpressure on my back from Ted and Sarah. We got out of bed and Ann told us to go back to laboring and to wait until I felt a true urge to push.Ted and I got back into the shower, same music and lighting, but not quite so jolly. My back was not happy. Every once in a while, I would push a little, but I never had that "aha" moment where I HAD to push.

At about 3:30, I told Ann that I was getting tired and I wanted to start pushing, so she let me. Even though I was complaining about my back, I didn't really think of this as back labor and nobody in the room even suggested that the baby was OP (sunny side up). Pushing was tough. My back felt like it was radiating and going to burst open. And my pushes felt very innefective. Finally, about 5 PM, her head came into view. I tried all sorts of positions, squatting, all fours, the birth stool, and the traditional semi-reclined position in bed. Throughout all of this, I was totally free. The nurse would monitor the baby several times an hour and she was coping beautifully. There was never any concern for her well-being. Strong as an ox, our girl.




At about 6:00, I was getting really exhausted. I had been actively pushing for 2 and a half hours. The pain seemed unbearable although it never really crossed my mind to get an epidural. Instead I wanted to move and be touched and make sound in order to stay present with this wild process.

The baby's head was in view by this time. Ann kept showing me her head in the mirror so I could see how affective my pushes were. The problem was that my contractions spaced out to about 10 minutes apart, and during that time, the baby would go back up the vaginal canal. I was begging and praying for her to stay down and not go back up, but eachtime she did. At about 6:45, we decided to hook me up to pitocin to try to strengthen the contractions and bring them closer together. I really had to go into the pain and this was so scary for me. I worked with the pitocin for about 30 minutes and we got the baby nearly to the point of crowning. Man, this was work. I was exhausted and I really didnt think I could finish the job. I didn't have 10 more pushes in me. So, we decided to go for the vaccuum.At this time, the room completely changed. Ann had to step to the side and let the MDs take over. The Attending OBGYN and her posse of residents stepped into center stage. Also, a team of 5 vacuum extraction specialists came in. Then the team of pediatricians came in. There must have been 25 people in the room at this point. The overhead spotlight came onto my naked body. Ted was trying to shield me from the frantic energy of the room. We were pretty scared.While they were setting up the vacuum, the attending OBGYN tried a few pushes with me. She kept saying, "Leah, I don't think you need the vaccum. You can do this. " All 25 docs started cheerleading me through a contraction or two. Honestly, I have no idea what this woman's name was but she ultimately delivered my baby. I hated her at the time. She was working with my perineum, I yelled at her, used some profanities, and told her that she should use more oil and think about cutting her fingernails. No reason to mince words at this point.

Eventually, they attached the vaccum and I pushed with the contraction, and they were pulling so hard that the vacuum popped off. That really freaked Ted and I out. They reattached the vacuum and with the next contraction, we got her out. She was born at 7:47 PM, after 4 hours and 15 minutes of pushing. They showed the baby to me. Sarah brought my hands to her so I could feel her. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Then the OB cut the cord and the baby went to the warmer. APGAR score of 9! Ted collapsed on my chest, so relieved that it was over. He had been holding it together for me for a lot of hours. I told him that I loved him and then I asked him to go to the baby and talk to her while she was at the warmer.

She, Hazel, seemed to be back with me pretty quickly, within a few minutes. Ted and I looked at her and felt her. She was covered in vernix. And pretty small. At that time, I noticed that her head was so swollen and there was a huge red mark on the left front side where the vaccuum was attached, twice. Ann came over and helped me with getting Hazel latched on. I think at this point, Ann explained how Hazel was not only OP but was also Asynclinic, or tilted. Basically, the left side of her forehead was leading the way down the birth canal and this is why pushing took so long and was so also so painful.All in all, it was the most incredible day of my life. I wouldn't change anything about it. I feel so grateful to have been given this amazing experience. Ted and I and our marriage will never be the same. Man, he was so incredible from start to finish. Sarah was wonderdul and brought such a good energy into the room. And Ann was a rock. She was so thoughtful and so simple in her approach. 15 hours from start to finish. And now the real work begins: raising this gorgeous little being. So tiny and so resilient. Hazel is a dream and Ted and I are completely in love with her.

My Yoga Practice

So, there were a ton of things I wanted to do during this pregnancy and I've barely scratched the surface. But, one thing I am really proud of is that I have continued with my own yoga practice. I have been studying with Maria Cristina for maybe 18 months or so. She is a great teacher and I learn so much from her classes, her sequencing, her energy and her fantastic sense of humor.

It took Ted and I a while to get pregnant. Oh man, that was a really tough stage in our life and relationship. So hard. During that time, I was very inconsistant with my yoga practice. Mainly because I was afraid. The first couple weeks of my cycle were fine, but after that I worried about over-heating and inverting, etc. I was so desperate to get pregnant and feared that my yoga practice would hinder that.

At some point, months and months into this process, I decided that I was sick of living in fear. I decided that I didn't want to be that kind of pregnant woman. And I really didn't want to be that kind of mother. Immobilied by my own fear. So I turned things around. I practiced yoga for myself wihtout inhibition. I went out to dinner and drank wine and laughed into the wee hours of the morning without thinking twice. And, of course (it's so predictable), I got pregnant right away.

I remember in those early weeks of the pregnancy doing research on miscarriages. I was really blown away to read that 99% of miscarriages don't happen because of anything the mother does: getting too hot, drinking wine, dying hair, inverting, etc. Miscarriages happen because of genetic issues. Sure, getting kicked in the stomach by a horse or getting in a car accident may result in a miscarriage. But there was no reason for me to stop living my life, because my life and my body were very healthy and very balanced. I stopped drinking wine and dying my hair for the first half of the pregnancy. I sought out nitrate free turkey and bacon from TJs. I skipped sushi. But, I kept going to Maria Cristina's class and working on my personal practice. So what if it wasn't a prenatal class? I figured that I would go to her class once a week until I was about 8 months pregnant and then stop all together. Well, this week, my 39th week of this incredible journey, I went to Maria Cristina's class twice. And it felt so so good.

My practice, Maria Cristina and this class has been a rock for me throughout this journey. Every week, new emotions and new fears have come up for me. But taking the time to check in with my body, my breath, my limits, my aches and pains has been so fantastic for me. And although Maria Cristina's class isn't a prenatal class, my yoga practice has prepared me for labor and delivery in such a powerful way. Sure, carrying around a 7 pound baby inside my belly is limiting in some ways. But in other ways, I have more strength, focus, courage and flexibility than I have ever had in my life. Sticking to my regular pratice, continuing to live my life as a woman and not just a pregnat woman, has given me that. And I am thrilled that I am starting the journey of motherhood in this wonderful, strong state of being. I feel really blessed.

It's kind of funny that I am a pre-natal yoga teacher and writing about taking regular yoga classes during my pregnancy. I love pre-natal yoga and I have taken tons of pre-natal yoga classes throughout my life as a teacher, as well as throughout this pregnancy with so many different teachers. I do have to say that Silver Lake Yoga really has such a fantastic program and so many wonderful teachers. I'm incredibly proud to be a part of this program. Thank you Juliette! Anyhow, pre-natal classes are a wonderful way to connect with your pregnant body, deal with the usual pregancy aches and pains, prepare for labor and delivery and connect with other pregnant women in your community. For pregnant women who don't have an established yoga practice, going to a regular yoga class is totally innapropriate. They should absolutely attend only pre-natal yoga. For those pregnant yoginis out there, try sticking to your regular practice for a bit and see if it works for you or not. Definately find a prenatal class that works for you and attend that too, either once a week or once a month, just to check in and to remind yourself of what is and isn't appropriate for your body. If you are unsure about anything (abdominals. twists, inversions, etc. ), be sure to ask a pre-natal yoga teacher.

Nursery is Complete

We are now ready. The nesting/nursery project is done. Yipee! I really had fun with this project. Because I haven't really been doing massage for the last month+ and only teaching a little bit until last week, I was really able to devote myself to this project. It was fun. Today my mother-in-law came over with the new uphostery for the glider and ottoman which she gave me as a shower gift. Very sweet. She wasn't a big fan of the 70's orange, but I love it.

Now that the nursery is complete....just wondering if my nesting instinct will develop in another direction. I'm really not a big fan of cleaning. I straighten. But not a big cleaner. Anyhow, I've heard so many stories of women mopping until they go into labor and I just wonder...will that be me? Ted wishes but doubts it.

Incredible Breastfeeding Book

My doula first told me about this book. Then I head about it at the Pump Station. I cannot recommend this book enough. It is so good. I would recommend it to anyone who is planning on breastfeeding. I have only read the first three chapters, but they really made an impression on me. It makes so much sense. And I feel so much more excited and confident about breastfeeding. It's simple and logical. The explanation of oxitocin in the sencond chapter is wonderful and I think it will be entirely helpful during labor, birth and those first few hours with my girl. Anyhow, check it out.

Breastfeeding Made Simple: Seven Natural Laws for Nursing Mothers by Nancy Mohrbacher and Kathleen Kendall-tackett (Paperback - Sep 15, 2005)

The Pump Station

I just wanted to say how much I adore the Pump Station. And no, they have not given me any gifts or money to say that. I'm just so impressed with the store and the classes and the consultants and the products. It's an amazing place and I feel really lucky to live just a 20 minute drive away from the Hollywood location.

This past weekend, Ted and I went to their Baby Care class which was c0-taught by Corky and Jessie. The class was $100 and 4 hours long and we just had a blast. We really learned a ton. And we have both spent a good deal of time around infants, but still, haivng someone go through swaddling, and bathing and taking a baby's temperature was so helpful. It was eye-opening and at the same time totally reassuring.

Today, after Juliette's pre-natal class, I went to the breast feeding support group for mom's with baby's 0-4 months at the Hollywood Pump Station. This support group is offered on Mondays and Tuesdays at 1 PM. I highly recommend going and checking this out, either pre or post-natal. It was amazing. The first class is free, and after that it is either $10 or $15. Corky led the group and I learned so much from some of these incredible moms. One mom was there with her 8 day old baby and she was really having a hard time breast feeding and Corky basically gave her a free private consulation. Good to know if funds are tight and you can't afford the $100+ to have a private lactation consultant work with you, even just for a few minutes. There were a few other moms there who were struggling with going back to work, pumping, etc. It was very interesting and I can't wait to go back.

The thing I loved so much about both of these classes is that there was such a positive, reassuring energy with all the women. Everyone was so nice and so supportive of one another. It's rare to be in a room of women where there's no judgement or competition.

And this has everything to do with Wendy and Corky and the beautiful business that they have built. I have only met Wendy once very briefly, but I have heard great stuff about her. After being with Corky over the last few days, I just really admire her (quirks and all). Here is this woman who breast fed during a time when NO ONE was breast feeding. And she feels so passsionate about it that she has created an entire community of women to support one another. Yes, it's a business and yes their products are expensive....but still, I don't get the sense that profit is there main goal. I really feel that they are passionate about helping women and their families succeed during such a challenging time.

Our Book List

Leah
Ina May's Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin (Paperback - Mar 4, 2003)

Jen
The Birth Partner, Third Edition: A Complete Guide to Childbirth for Dads, Doulas, and All Other Labor Companions (Birth Partner: A Complete Guide to Childbirth for Dads, Doulas, &) by Penny Simkin (Paperback - Jan 15, 2007)

Claudia
The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child (Sears Parenting Library) by Robert Sears (Paperback - Oct 22, 2007)
The Baby Book: Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby from Birth to Age Two (Revised and Updated Edition) by William Sears, Martha Sears, Robert Sears, and James Sears (Paperback - Mar 2003)
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown (Hardcover - Sep 15, 2009)

Kessa
Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way: Revised Edition by Susan McCutcheon-Rosegg, Erick Ingraham, and Robert A. Bradley (Paperback - Jul 1, 1996)
Your Amazing Newborn by Marshall Klaus and Phyllis Klaus (Paperback - Jan 19, 2000)

Masha
Feeding the Whole Family: Cooking with Whole Foods by Cynthia Lair and Peggy O'Mara (Paperback - Jan 28, 2008)
What's Going on in There? : How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life by Lise Eliot (Paperback - Oct 3, 2000)
Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood by Michael Lewis (Hardcover - May 18, 2009)

Ashley
When You're Expecting Twins, Triplets, or Quads, Revised Edition: Proven Guidelines for a Healthy Multiple Pregnancy by Barbara Luke and Tamara Eberlein (Paperback - Jun 15, 2004)

Sarah
The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Newborn Baby Sleep Longer by Harvey Karp (Paperback - May 27, 2003)

The Birth of Gabriel Dylan Samuel Bergemann

Below is the report my doula, Margie Levy, compiled as my labor progressed culminating in the birth of our son, Gabriel. I have added my thoughts in italics afterward to give a more intimate and personalized account of the experience. I had thought I would be able to write out my own lyrical narrative to share on Leah’s blog, but the exigencies of life with a newborn preclude any sort of literary aspirations!

The Start: August 23, 2009

9:34am: Eric called to say that Cassy had felt some contractions in the last two hours. Yes, these were the giddy contractions of the delusional mind that are deemed sooooo manageable and mild. I had done some massage/acupressure with Leah the previous day and was smugly congratulating myself on the efficacy of the bodywork.

4:17pm: I spoke to Cassy. It was still very early in her labor. The fact that I was on the phone actually chatting with Margie let her know it was really only the VERY beginning!

10:16pm: Cassy called with an update. Her contractions were about 8 minutes apart. At this point, I was thinking I would have the baby early the next morning, what with my frequent contractions that were definitely becoming less than pleasant...ha...how wrong I was!

August 24, 2009

2:34am: Eric called saying that they were ready for me to come to the house. Cassy’s contractions were about 4 minutes apart and she was having some back pain. I had hesitated in calling Margie as I didn’t want to wake her up in vain...I had heard enough stories of bleary eyed doulas having to tell mothers who were convinced they were about to pop that they were FAR from that point... I am an inveterate people pleaser and really did not want to inconvenience anyone with the labor thing, but I had been having strong contractions every 4 minutes for over an hour and a half so I thought, technically, I am in the right window here.

3:14am: I arrived to find Cassy coping well with her labor and contracting every 3-4 minutes. Even though the contractions were close, it still seemed somewhat early. I love how she writes I was “coping well”...of course, I felt like evil elves were playing dodgeball in my uterus ( forget the hynpobirthing visualizations I had practiced religiously for months...it was all I could do to breathe and stop shivering). I was sure I was about to hit the pushing stage, but since I was still able to instruct Eric what I-tunes playlists to play on the ride to the hospital, Margie realized that I was clearly NOT in the incoherent altered state of real transitional labor.

3:34am: Cassy was sitting on the birth ball and felt a gush of fluid during a contraction. The fluid was greenish, which meant that the baby had passed meconium. Meconium...the dreaded “M” word that was to plague the rest of my labor...at the time, I had little idea of what it was...it seemed like it came from the same Superman planet as Kryptonite and I definitely had a sense that it fell in the nemesis category. FYI...I later found out that meconium is just baby poop and that for post-due babies ( Gabriel was born 8 days past his due date) it can be a sign of fetal stress if they are pooping in their amniotic sac....not a burning red flag or anything, but worth getting to the hospital in order to better monitor the baby.

3:58am: We left for the hospital. Well, at least this part of my labor fantasy came true...we definitely had NO TRAFFIC getting to UCLA from Atwater Village at this time!

4:34am: We arrived at UCLA’s labor and delivery unit. The Ronald Reagan Hospital at UCLA is truly a gorgeous facility...replete with white marble, original artwork and natural lighting, it was designed by I.M. Pei and is actually more like a sleek hotel than an antiseptic hospital.

5:19am: Stacy, the CNM on call, examined Cassy. She was 3 cm dilated, completely effaced, and the baby was at -2 station. Oh dear, what an anticlimactic moment...3 cm was not very impressive for all the moaning and groaning I was doing, and if I hadn’t been in such acute discomfort, I would have probably felt embarrassed and apologized!

6:36 – 7:03am: We left the room to walk around, which would increase the strength of the contractions. Cassy leaned on Eric for support during each contraction. This walk was no stroll in the park; I can remember how surreal it seemed that people were pleasantly sipping coffee in the courtyard and chatting as I was being wrenched in two by some unforeseen force I had no control of... Eric was such a strong and steadfast husband, tenderly supporting my weight as I crumpled into his arms, but after 24 hours of no sleep and an increasing sense of fear and demoralization, I felt I needed something more than a loving husband and amazing doula to get me through to the other side.

7:05am: Cassy decided that she wanted an epidural. More like Cassy decided she wanted a #%**#ing epidural NOW!

7:30am: Stacy’s shift ended. Susan would be Cassy’s midwife for the next 24 hours. Can I just say the Nurse-Midwives of UCLA rock!? Both of these women were paragons of compassion and professionalism and not once did I doubt that they would be anything but honest, authentic and supportive.

8:27am: Anesthesia arrived to administer the epidural. They were done at 8:52am. OK so this was not the most fun for sure. The anesthesiologist gave me a kickass epidural ( he blocked the pain but I could still feel and move my legs easily) but scared the living daylights out of me with his stern admonitions to NOT MOVE, DON’T MOVE AN INCH, ABSOLUTELY DO NOT MOVE NOW just as I was going through some of my heaviest contractions... thank goodness for the lovely nurse, Danielle, who held my arms in a calm embrace and fed me a steady stream of encouraging words.

10:56am: Pitocin was started to increase the strength of the contractions. While I was nervous about how the Pitocin might stress Baby G., I was relieved to see how his heartbeat stayed steady and strong throughout. Margie did a superb job of interpreting all the fetal monitor readings and reassured me that Gabriel’s heart was happy. Eric and I even recorded his heartbeat on my Iphone...ahhh what a sweet sound!

12:40pm: There was another gush of fluid, but this time it was clear. We were all relieved that the dreaded meconium had beat a hasty retreat but were still wary of its return.

4:40pm: Susan examined Cassy. She was 4 cm and the baby was at -2 station. Susan advised that it would be a good idea to insert an internal monitor for the contractions. This would help Susan determine the strength of the contractions more accurately, so that she could adjust the dosage of pitocin in a safer manner. Cassy and Eric agreed. The biggest bummer for me personally of going the medical intervention route is the immobility and discomfort due to all the wires, catheters, needles, monitors, and tubes that are placed in the most uncomfortable of places and keep you plugged into your bed like a hostage to technology. However, this was our last chance to keep a vaginal birth and that was something Eric and I were still really hoping for.

4:46pm: Susan inserted the IUPC (internal contraction monitor) and felt the baby’s head. She determined that the baby was posterior. We helped Cassy move far over onto her left side to help the baby rotate. I knew that a posterior baby meant that the largest part of his head would come out first and that was not ideal to say the least. I basically styaed on my left side for the next 3 hours. Margie gave me massages, pressure point balls, and heat packs to relieve a knot in my back that had developed in my left lower back.

5:01pm: The IUPC showed that the contractions were weak, so the Pitocin dosage was increased. As the Pitocin was increased, the Epidural Holiday I had been on started to downgrade from a 5 star resort in Monaco to an eventual tin shack on the banks of the LA River ie. I was starting to actually FEEL the contactions again!

8:27pm: Susan checked Cassy for progress. She was 6 cm dilated and the baby had moved down to +1 station. The baby had also rotated to an anterior position. This was all great progress! I was so exhausted at this point that I didn’t really register the good news...all I wanted to know was if I was ready to push yet...I was sort of obsessing about it actually. At one point, Margie took out a 10 cm. circle and told me to visualize my cervix expanding to that size.... at first I looked at her incredulously, but then another contraction came, and I squeezed my eyes shut and fired the heck out of the neurons in my visualizing brain circuitry!

10:25pm: Another exam by Susan showed that Cassy was 9 cm dilated and that the baby was at +1/+2 station. This seemed particularly unfair at the time...9 is so close to 10 but still not quite 10...10 seemed to me at that point as the most elusive number on the planet!

11:04pm: Cassy was completely dilated and the baby was at +2 station. It was time to start pushing! What can I say about pushing? Well, first of all, if I knew how freaking insane it would feel, I would probably have not been so eager to reach that stage! I realize there are many women who say this is their favorite part of labor...they know they are close to seeing their baby for the first time and they relax into the sensation with joyous anticipation and simply “breathe” their baby down. I am very happy for those women. I had a totally different experience. It was sort of like being a kid and going to the doctor for your first really big shot and your parent’s cheerily saying something like, “oh it won’t hurt at all and afterward you’ll get an ice-cream!” You then stick your arm out with a big smile on your face which prompts the doctor to put a big hot needle into it which prompts you to immediately stop smiling and immediately start screaming.... and swearing to yourself you will never trust your parents again!! As Gabriel’s head stretched my vaginal tissue to ridiculous, unnatural extremes, I realized that there would be no break in the pain. Even between contractions, I could feel his massive head just sitting there distending my flesh like a bowling ball lodged in a moistened paper straw...something was going to have to give in this game of frictional chicken and it sure wasn’t Gabriel’s head! I was really furious, enraged even, at this absolutely unfair and cruel scenario and felt an almost historical sense of injustice that women over the centuries were tricked into this physically brutally trap. Because I did feel TRAPPED...I really did just want to get up and say, “ forget it, I’m going to the cafeteria to get a sandwich, someone else can have this baby,” but of course I knew that was not an option....I was gonna have to have this baby and there was no way I could weasel my way out of it. Luckily for me, as I was having this massive freak-out, Margie and Susan calmly kept the pace up, monitoring my contractions, encouraging me with positive feedback and moving me deftly into the positions I needed to be in. Eric earned all sorts of husbandly stars by holding my left arm and leg with utter strength and love and by keeping graciously quiet (I had a weird need for him not to talk which he honored). When Gabriel finally emerged in the last two pushes, I felt such an immense sense of relief, shock, and amazement...at 41 years of age, and after much heartache, doubt, and expectation, I had actually just birthed another human being, our little baby son!

August 25, 2009

1:31am: After 2 hours and 27 minutes of pushing, Gabriel was born! Because of the meconium, he was taken right to the warmer where Eric talked to him while he was checked out. Turned out he was perfect and healthy with an Apgar score of 9/9. He weighed 8 pounds, 14 ounces and was 21 inches long. Gabriel was quickly returned to Cassy where she greeted him with words of love spoken in Portuguese. I will never forget the many beautiful and loving things that both Cassy and Eric said to their newborn son, Gabriel (Baby G).

Yes, what they all say is true...whatever difficulty you may experience during labor, it is all worth it once you get to hold your little precious child in your arms. For the record, I did have a hemorrhage scare after the placenta was delivered ( averted by the midwife’s adept uterine manipulations and quick anti-hemorrhage shot) and was given 2 small stitches ( Gabriel’s fist came out with his head which caused a small tear). But honestly, all of that is a blur in comparison to the excitement I felt upon meeting the person that has created a whole new chamber of love in my heart. Gabriel just celebrated his one month “birthday” a few days ago and we feel blessed to help him on his journey through to many more birthdays and adventures to come.