After days of painful Braxton-hicks contractions, I awoke on Wednesday, January 28, feeling damp and certain that I was leaking amniotic fluid. I called David on his cell phone. He was in class that morning, but had been leaving his phone on in case I needed to reach him. I let him know what I thought and I paged my midwife. David arrived home twenty minutes later and we packed our bags and camera in case it was the real thing and she wanted us to stay. We arrived at the birthing home and I was tested with litmus paper. It tested positive when rubbed on the pad I’d been wearing, but came out negative when swabbed internally as well on as my cervix. The midwife wasn’t sure what to make of it, and I was feeling extremely anxious and excited, hoping she’d confirm that it was amniotic fluid. She checked me and determined my membranes were still intact, and that perhaps I’d just had a little leak that sealed itself over.

I think David and I both disappointed - I was so eager for things to move along. She continued on to say that I was 50% effaced and 2cm dilated, and asked if I wanted her to sweep my membranes. I agreed and she was only able to do half because my cervix was still in a very posterior position. It wasn’t nearly as painful as I’d heard people say before and it only took a few seconds. She told me it might not work, but that she swept my first midwives’ membranes only days before and that she started having contractions on her way home. Maybe! She checked the baby’s heart rate and his position. Still posterior. We borrowed her Mexican rebozo and she encouraged us to do everything we could to get the baby to turn. We spent twenty minutes or so before leaving doing exercises to help.

We arrived home and rested. I spent a lot of time on my hands and knees and rocking my hips. The baby wouldn’t budge at all. I continued to have cramping like I had in the days before, and the next night I lost a great deal of my mucus plug that was bright pink and streaked with some blood. The moment I saw it I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. It was unreal that I was having signs of going into labor soon. We spent the next couple days getting last minute things prepared for the baby and doing lots of walking. I started drinking tons of fluids and even went for a ten minute run with David.

On the night of January 31st David and I had dinner and started watching the second season of ‘The Office’ on our computer in our room. My cramps were much stronger and I started timing them. Fifteen minutes, ten minutes, eight… they were painful and I didn’t sleep much that night. I acknowledged there was a possibility that I was in real labor when hot showers weren’t working anymore and the cramps didn’t subside. But when I called the midwife in the morning and my contractions were four minutes apart and ninety seconds long, I denied that I was in labor. She told us to make our way over in a couple of hours or when I felt like I needed more support.

Three or four hours later I was feeling intense pain with contractions and we started getting ready to leave. Getting into the van was excruciating and I knew the drive would be unbearable. I tried hard to remain relaxed and wrapped myself in a blanket. The drive to the birthing home is ninety minutes long and extremely bumpy, and desolate. By the time we arrived in downtown I told David I didn’t think I’d be able to make the rest of the ride. We waited for an additional fifteen minutes in the parking lot of the birthing home waiting for the midwife to arrive too. We all walked in together and I climbed into bed. I briefly met a midwifery student and my midwife's birthing assistant. She was quiet and small with red and black hair and bright blue eyes. I didn’t think much of her and that she would probably hang back and watch the entire time. I didn’t lie in bed long before Alina told me I needed to stay on my feet. We went for a couple short walks in the garden and I sat on the birthing ball while David left to Whole Foods to buy some lunch. He arrived what seemed like hours later and we ate broiled chicken and rice.

I’m not sure if we walked more and if my contractions started becoming more painful, but I remember moaning through each one and having to drop to the floor with each one. I wanted to get in the tub badly, but the midwife told me to save it. My back was feeling the most intense pain and my doula massaged my back while David applied counter pressure above my tailbone.

An acupuncturist from the Oriental Medicine office next door arrived and had my lie on my side while she stuck needles in my back, hands, and ankles in between contractions. She attached an electrical charge to my ear and I felt a hot buzz through my body. It relaxed me and helped me focus, and the sharp sting of the needles took my mind off my pain. I don’t know how long she was there, but her presence was peaceful and strong and she gave me some strength. Before she left she removed the needles and I started to get up. She accidentally left a needle in my ankle and I rolled onto it. Yow!

From here my memory is hazed, but I believe the midwife checked me to see how dilated I was. After sixteen hours of labor I was only 3cm. She started talking about the hospital and telling me that I didn’t have to stay at the birthing home if I didn’t want to. I began feeling distressed and hopeless and told her I couldn’t make any decisions. I told her to ask David if she had any questions. She left for a while and David and I talked with my doula in the room. I told her that I felt the midwife was pressuring me. Her face was so understanding and I immediately felt a connection with her unlike with my midwife. David told me that the midwife was focused on seeing progression, and that if I wouldn’t progress that night I would have to be transferred to the hospital nearby.

I was determined to try and be more active to speed things along. I did lunges against the tub and did a soldier walk up and down the stairs with David. It was extremely painful and every change of position increased my contractions a million times. I sat on the toilet a few times which felt relieving in a way, but made me moan through each contraction. I think at this point the tub was filled and I asked if it was okay for me to take off my clothes. I jumped in naked and felt instant back relief. I sunk in the hot water up to my ears and closed my eyes. This was going to be my sanctuary.

Dinner came and went. I had a few bites of chicken alfredo. David continued rubbing my back and hours went by. The baby’s heart rate was checked often because I was keeping the water very hot. I went between floating on my belly and leaning over the edge of the tub. My temperature was checked and I was given homeopathic arnica every fifteen minutes. At some point I was given black and blue cohosh.

At around twenty-four hours into labor I started becoming delirious with exhaustion. I cried to David that I lost my ‘Bill Clinton mug’. What on earth? He told me he’d buy me a new one. My doula stayed by my side every moment and I asked her about her births. Her oldest daughter who is ten was born in a hospital and her younger, one year old, was born at home with my first midwife, who had her baby boy only days before.

It grew late and every one was tired. Midwife and doula went to bed, promising to check on me every hour. I got out of the tub and dressed at her request, and lied in bed next to David. He was snoring within seconds and I felt alone. How can every one be asleep when I’m in so much pain and hurting?

I immediately got back in the tub. It was too painful out of the water.

The midwife ran in when she heard me turn the water on and checked the baby’s hear rate. She’d become diligent about this when the baby’s heart started racing because of the heat. She said I could stay in. I stayed in the water alone going through each painful contraction. I started crying and yelled for David. He stayed with me for a few minutes before falling asleep in a rocking chair near the tub. I couldn’t sleep and I was in a nightmare. I heard her alarm go off an hour later. She didn’t wake up. I listened to it for what must have been another two hours before I heard her feet hit the floor and she threw the door open and ran in. I was dehydrated and miserable and she suggested an IV. I broke down crying and started hyperventilating. David and my doula convinced me that it may help and give me energy I needed to get through. She missed my vein three times. It hurt so bad. I yelled at her and told her I didn’t want an IV anymore. I was feeling so upset and was sobbing. She kept saying we could leave now if I wanted and they would give me Pitocin at the hospital and I would have the baby that night. I cried because I didn’t want to and I felt pressured, and I knew it would hurt too much to get in the car and drive, or get onto a stretcher and be wheeled in. No.

They made me magnesium tea to help relax me and gave me a natural rescue remedy. When this didn’t help my doula drove to the gas station and bought Tylenol PM and I took it. What a mistake. I went through a living nightmare for hours. My mind and body fighting the sleep the medicine was trying to force me into. This was one of the most miserable parts of my labor.

I never once left the tub. In the morning my midwife checked me for progress. 4cm. All those hours, all that pain, and I only increased by a cm. I cried.

This was it, if I didn’t start really progressing I was going to be made to leave. I got out of the tub and into a towel and started walking the hallways. This hurt so badly and David held me with each contraction. I would alternate between the tub and walking and sitting on the toilet. I spent a lot of time in the bathroom.
I began talking more with my doula. I stared in her eyes during contractions and asked her if it would only last a minute. Just one little minute, you’re doing it!

The contraction is not you… through your belly, into your vagina, and down into the ground…

She repeated something like this with each contraction. When she got up to leave I waited anxiously for her to come back. I couldn’t relax without her mantra.

Hours later 5cm.

By dinner again, on February 2nd I started feeling hopeless again. Doula promised me I’d have the baby that night, but it seemed so far away at only halfway there.

I started feeling nauseas and threw up several times. The contractions started becoming outrageous. I told the midwife I thought I was peeing. Moments later there was a film of white floating above the water. Vernix!!!

She checked me again. Same dilation, but totally effaced. My membranes were still intact so I gave her permission to break my water. She grabbed and amnihook and within seconds I felt another gush of fluid.

I left my mind behind here, but now I know that the rupture of my membranes threw me so hard and fast into transition I didn’t even know what was happening. I moaned and cried and threw up again. In a way I felt a hellish kind of good. I wasn’t totally aware of what was happening, but I remember feeling voices and everyone looked like shadows. I was stuck six more times for an IV. David (he was a nursing student at the time, currently a Registered Nurse in the ER) stuck me twice with the biggest gage needle he’s ever seen, and the midwife tried twice as well. Finally the birthing home’s administrator who is also an RN gave it a shot. She hit my vein and it blew. One more try. In… she managed to get a quarter of the bag in before my vein blew again. I felt a cold shock and pain in my shoulder, but we’re not sure why.

I thought my back was going to break and I screamed for a rebozo. Somebody grabbed a bright blue scarf, or some kind of fabric, and slung it behind me and pulled gently. Relief. I started becoming agitated and kicked Suzanne out of the room. Someone turned the lights off and everything was silent. Much better. My eyes were closed and everything was still and quiet. David sat behind me in the water while I went through some contractions in a “C” position in the tub. He was so warm and his arms around me brought me so much comfort. I turned around and started kissing his mouth hard. I couldn’t control myself and didn’t care that there were three people sitting inches away. I think D was a bit surprised, and the midwife told him that it was okay and that she’s seen a lot of people do that near the end of labor.

My energy returned and I started pushing and grunting. Midwife said she wasn’t going to stop me, but I was only at 8cm when I started feeling pushy. I managed to only to do small pushes and this lasted hours long. When I reached 9cm she stretched me to 10, but I kept slipping back to 9. Finally I just started pushing hard. I felt out of control and hated the way my body was making me do something I couldn’t stop. Pushing hurt. She told me to put my fingers inside and see if I could feel his head. I felt something soft, but told her I didn’t think so. Soon I was able to feel his head pressing against my fingers, and then slipping back up after each contraction. It was frustrating. I knew I was screaming with each push but I couldn’t hear myself. Everything else was silent.

At some point D got out of the tub and held me up while I pushed standing in the tub. I nearly pulled him in a few times. He got back in and asked if he could feel the baby’s head. I pushed against his fingers and heard him gasp in shock. I pushed harder and harder and screamed. His head was coming lower and lower and I felt incredible pressure. I yelled that it felt like I was “pooping a goose”. I kept trying to sit on my butt in the tub and everyone kept pulling me back up. It kind of felt like I was sitting on his head, but I couldn’t stop it. I reached down and felt hair! I didn’t know what it was at first and I’m afraid to admit I pulled it. David felt it and peeked - it was dark!

I’d been pushing for hours and the midwife told me that if he wasn’t born soon she’d have to call an ambulance. No. David got out of the tub to help me from the outside. Right before he started crowning I felt him wriggling and trying to turn. I cried “He’s turning!!” It felt like a large fish swimming right inside and it terrified me. David checked… no cord around his neck. My belly was soft and I knew it hopefully wouldn’t be too long before he was born. I asked her how many more pushes before he might be out. She said eight or nine more. I gave my loudest and sharpest scream and knew he was crowning. At 4:30am I pushed with all my strength and felt an audible pop… and our beautiful boy was born.

I was in a dazed shock. The midwife cried out “pick up your baby!!” and put her hands to her face and sobbed. I looked into the water and saw his baby face staring up at me, big eyes blinking like a doll. He never turned, he came out posterior! The second I took him from the water and held him against my chest he screamed. He was crying so loudly but looked pink and fresh, with hardly any vernix covering him at all. He was so much bigger than I imagined he’d be. Somebody squirted a few syringes of something awful tasting into my mouth, while David appeared next to me and kissed me and felt Damian’s head. I think he was laughing. I thought Damian was choking so I patted his back until the midwife suctioned his mouth a bit. I didn’t know what to think. I think I was smiling, but I didn’t shed a single tear! Damian had a head full of long silky dark hair and giant blue eyes. I thought he looked just like David and my heart swelled.

Damian was born after 50 hours of labor and 6 of pushing, at 8lb 13oz and 21 3/4 inches long! I was 19 years old at the time and will be turning 21 soon. Damian is currently a rambunctious 15 month old who is still my "water baby". :)