the making of a mother

The year Thinker was born was, May 8th fell on a Saturday. My labor had begun early, slow and light on Friday afternoon. I spent the afternoon in our townhouse style apartment. When Matt got home from work I was excited. This was in fact our first pregnancy, our first baby. The previous summer I had had enough of the pill and was happily pregnant two months later. I gained lots of weight, fell nauseated and incredibly tired for 4 months. Then I felt wonderful, up until the very end of the pregnancy, when I felt incredibly large, weepy and unable to get a grip. Even early labor was a relief, and it intensified as the evening wore on. Knowing what I know now, I never would have gone to the hospital when I did. My labor was at a tipping point, but hadn't tipped on its own yet. I was really fine at home, but off we went, bags packed, nearly midnight, cheerfully succumbing to the hospital process. The nurses were surprised I was 4cm dilated. Young and healthy, I was not expecting a lot of medical intervention in my birth. I just hadn't imaginatively considered the need/desire for it. It was a complete blind spot. When things slowed down and the interventions started, I was existing on two levels. My conscious speaking brain did not feel invited or welcomed into the decision making. Underneath, there was a deeper knowing that rejected all of it, but the part of me that was accessible to the OB floor resident could not access that part of me that wanted to say 'go away and leave me alone.'

Instead I got pitocin, which I had a very negative reaction to. I can hardly think of anything I have experienced that was more painful (and I have since vaginally delivered two babies with no epidural). The pitocin had me literally writhing around in the bed, my belly jerking into the air with each contraction and flopping from side to side in the bed. I tried to get up, put the pain laid me flat. Matt and I were both unprepared, shocked. No one had warned us of this potential.
I have since learned the following:
A. Not everyone has that experience, some women tolerate pitocin just fine. It was probably not common so the staff were unprepared to cope with me. Some women have had the epidural first so the pitocin doesn't feel that bad. Other women just seem to not go crazy on it.
B. They could have just turned it down a little to see if it still created progressing contractions without all the sobbing I was doing.
C. It's possible they didn't do that b/c they are so accustomed to epidural use that it is easier for them to see the epidural as the cure for that problem, rather than re-considering the source.
D. Some women do not feel pelvic pressure through an epidural, my was wearing off, that was probably very good; they are actually much better at epidurals now than they were 9 years ago. The know more, they time them better, the can control them better. Less poker, more relief without the vegas style shrugs when you ask questions.

In any case, the epidural allowed for sleep and some much needed emotional recovery. I was happy to push him out, but confused by all the counting. The directions of when to breath and not breath. I could feel plenty of pressure so I couldn't understand why they thought I needed to be shouted down. In any case, again the part of me that was having that thought was not attached to the part of me that was still able to talk.

Also, I have since learned that:
A. Directed pushing is standard hospital procedure. There is no way they would have known that I was miserable with it.
B. It "works" - ie babies come out. Babies would probably come out without it too, but since it is standard procedure, very few hospital nurses, OBs or residents know that.
C. They weren't really yelling at me. Apparently, I was not really in trouble and they meant to be encouraging. They are hopelessly unprepared for those of us overstimulated by counting.
D. This is actually representative of my whole birth experience at that hospital - I got the birth that particular hospital gives to most of its moms - and perhaps that is what they want - quirky me, wanted something else, but had no idea that I'd be rendered speechless with the intensity of the experience.

Thinker was born on Saturday at 4:31pm, with a vacuum assist, as I was falling asleep between contractions/pushes and everyone was hemming and hawing about all the blood. It is no fun to see your doctor dismayed when you can feel your baby's head in your vagina, but my husband was prepared for this moment and knew that if I could access that part of me that could talk, I'd chime in that I'd prefer (strongly) to avoid a cesarean (as we could see the baby's head and all) and could we possibly try to assist the baby with the vacuum. God bless the man, everyone's eyes lit up, like he'd just reinvented sliced bread and wasn't it so charming. So they went to get the baby suction cup and I pushed and the OB switched a lever and he let out a big wail, so hearty, they told me to look up and I looked at the ceiling, but they meant down and suddenly he was on my chest, a whopping 8lb 12ounces, explaining my incredible circumference, as that takes up alot a room on a person who is 5' 3". He was gorgeous and after an initial fuss about low blood sugar, the rest of our night was perfect - in the way that one feels perfect lying in a hospital with 3 or 4 stitches in your labia, learning to breastfeed for the first time and not doing a very good job because you and the baby are so sleepy and you just want to be happy and the feeding makes us fuss. It was perfect and we woke in the morning to Mother's Day in the maternity ward, where I fainted several times while being forced to stand up and walk to the bathroom - at which point we realized we had better send for help - so my younger sister arrived from Boston (how I wish these pictures were digital as we look like teenagers being sent home from the hospital with our new toy baby!).

That particularly Mother's Day was so idyllic, as my sleepy new born waited til the following day when we were home to wake up and be hungry. At which point he cried for three days until my milk came in. I sobbed giving him a bottle of formula - which is like comedy to me now in some ways, as you must know - but in other ways I see I was grieving the birth, all its moments of drama and fear - and what was all that bleeding about? - and the very next two weeks were among the hardest of my life, but I somehow don't remember them that way, because I had an amazing, amazing person to love and nurture and also I was carried by a younger sister who is intuitive an empathic that she postpartum doula'd be without saying much of all - my tucks were on ice, my baby perfectly swaddled - and I mean perfectly, Heather, you need to make you tube videos of your technique for the public - I always had a cold drink and my husband was home for ten days killing bees who entered the house, being a line backer at the door when I couldn't cope with company and in general admiring everything about me and our baby - and then there was the beer, imported beer, my mother had me drink when on day 5 my milk was nowhere. Half an hour later, our hunger problems were over and the child grew.
By the time he was 2 months old he weighed 14lbs 12oz. I thought nothing of driving 6 hours with him to my mother's wedding and staying in a house of her friends. . Our postpartum time was behind us and I rarely look back. His babyhood was idyllic and textbook - learning to take naps, learning to not hate the carseat. He ate up milestones and baby oatmeal and made me a Mother.

In many ways, Thinker is still all over my mothering. Tonight he and I played Dragonology. I tucked him up in bed and returned downstairs to put laundry in (exciting, I know). I heard the kettle and was about to pour tea, when I jumped as he had slid so quietly up to my side to inform me that Little Bear was crying very loud and that wasn't like him and maybe he had lost his passy and he just wanted to come down to tell me. In the meantime, I banged by knuckle right onto the kettle. The blister is forming, but I remain grateful for the extra information about the loud, uncharacteristic crying of the teething two year old and potentially missing passy. At times, I wish he'd take a break from his self-appointed task of making me mother, making me a mother, making me a better mother, making me mother better. I see he isn't actually making a critique. He just has a need to make sure I am working with all the information I need to make it go our way.