My Birth Story, For What It's Worth

Since starting Lullabies and realizing that my blog, whether I choose to accept it or not, tends to slip into "mommy blog" territory, I've toyed with the idea of posting my birth story. I've read a few at other places and have enjoyed tales of women doing, in all shapes and forms, one the most challenging aspects of life; the bringing in of another. The MOST challenging aspect of life? Getting your coffee maker and VCR to stop saying 12:00. I digress. Since Jack is taking a nap right now (the voodoo is working you guys!) I figured I'd regale you with the tale of how Jack almost but didn't come out of my vagina but came into the world nonetheless.

Here is that story.



March 6th, 2008

"Lets have sex. I want this baby out now. I've walked all day and he's overdue and I'm kind of horny anyway. Your fatherly duties start now. Pretend I'm hot and lets go for it."

Greg won the Oscar for his role in "Things I Did So My Pregnant Girlfriend Wouldn't Maime Me" that night.

March 7th, 2008

We wake up and Greg starts getting ready for work while I get ready for my job that I started around my seventh month of pregnancy- being aggitated. I start thinking that nothing will get Jack out and that I'm destined to be that forty year old woman on the Discovery Channel who is PREGNANT FOR TWENTY YEARS or something equally horrific. But then-
"Whoa. Uhhhh...I think we may be on to something here."
"Really?!"
"Yeah. Call in. I think this is it."

Greg calls in and the first thing I think of is how hungry I am and how I'm happy he's off because now he can drive my fat, laboring ass to Burger King to eat the last thing I would be able to eat for over twenty four hours. I scarf two, yes two, Whoppers and fries and proceed to lay around counting the minutes between contractions and freaking the hell out. Because I am twenty years old and while all my peers are gearing up for spring break I'm trying to wrap my head around the fact that I will soon be trying to push a living, breathing human being out of my body. I suppose my peers and I did have ONE thing in common in that moment- the want of a really strong margarita.
After things started to progress (read: I was cussing more at the contractions, Greg, my unfinished french fries) we decided to move the party over to the birthing center. I spent the next hour or so being hooked up to monitors and pretending like I knew what the hell I was looking at. After that they said I wasn't dilating enough and to take a walk for an hour to speed things up. Because that was EXACTLY what a wanted to do. Go and pick some daisies while my insides were being squeezed by invisible man hands. So walk we did. It was nice to be able to scream at things like lizards and cactus. I knew they wouldn't judge me and my colorful language.
Once we walked around for a good hour I was admitted into my room. It was swanky. I immediately perked up and became slightly confused. Had Greg won a crapload of money playing craps with other expectant fathers while I was on the monitor thing and we got upgraded to the "High Rollers Birthing Suite"? Whatever it was I liked it. There were wood floors. Wood floors land directly on #15 of my all time favorite things. We settled in and Greg began the first of his many trips to fetch me cherry flavored popsicles and ice. I hate cherry flavored anything, but labor does weird things to the mind. I turned on Scrubs (television lands on #14 of my all time favorite things) and the wait began...

"Yes. YES. I would like the epidural! YESPLEASEKTHANKSBYEDOCTORMAN!"

I had held out long enough. It should be known that prior to going into labor I had this grand plan of what my labor would look like. Wanna know what I thought it would look like?
1. I would breathe like I had taken yoga for five years instead of whining about how "I should take yoga"...for five years.
2. I would walk around and pause, letting contractions wash over me like a birthing goddess and people would marvel over my birthing goddessness.
3. I would have my ipod playing a thoughtfully planned birthing mix and we would cry and get excited and cry again when the right songs played.
4. My hair would've looked a lot better.

But, I forgot my ipod at home so none of this went down. I proceeded to eat ice pops and tell my mom "this is the first and only grandchild you're ever getting out of me so I hope you're happy" repeatedly. I became THAT woman, when the going got tough. Luckily, I had an AMAZING team of nurses to guide me along and support me. I will say that much about my birthing experience. The nurses made it bearable. My doctor, for some reason, could not be there for my labor and I was introduced to the guy that would be. Remember that scene from "Knocked Up"? Well, I couldn't find the right clip on Youtube, so this one will have to do. But my doctor was kind of a step up from that being that he asked me politely, but with a slight off-putting grin, if he could "pop my waters" (my water had not broken) and then proceeded to go to Barnes and Noble. How do I know he went to Barnes and Noble? Because he told me "I'm gonna go and get some coffee and read at Barnes and Noble". This was the man I trusted to fist me periodically throughout the evening to check my progress. I considered becoming a lesbian after that, what with my hatred of men growing by the minute. I know you can't just BECOME a lesbian, but if freshman year of college taught anybody anything it was that you could for a little bit, if you wanted to.
So things are going kind of okay. I'm sucking down water and chewing ice cubes like I'm going to win something (hint: I DID win something! You'll find out at the end of the post!), people are doting on me and I can't feel the pitocin they had me hooked up to because I had used jedi mind tricks asked for an epidural and was marveling over how awesome the world was and I no longer wanted to be a lesbian. None of this would prove effective for actually HAVING a baby. My body just wasn't having it. I have a small pelvis. Jack ended up being 9lbs. 5oz. and after about three hours of strenuous pushing and no progress, we began considering a c-section.
I cried.
They wheeled me into the OR and did what they had to do. It was kind of like Inception. Only instead of being really confused at the end, I had a baby.

March 8th, 2008

I awoke from the anesthesia and looked into my sons eyes for the first time. It was like Christmas. It was like all the birthday wishes I'd ever made had been wrapped in a blanket. I smelled his head and fell in love.



It wasn't a perfect. But he was.