The story of you, Soo Bean

I woke up at 6 am on Friday, February 5^th feeling like I was starting my period- no pain, but that heavy-wombed, crampy and juicy feeling of the first day of my typical menstrual cycle. It might have been any other day - except, of course, for the fact that I hadn’t had a menstrual cycle in about ten months, so that made it fairly noteworthy. I anticipatorily went to the bathroom to discover I was bleeding. Again, just like the first tricklings of my typical menstrual cycle. I, as most people close to me know, am not a relaxed person. I relax by worrying. Some people knit, some people decoupage, I fret. I fret like the wind. I knew the biggest hurdle for me in having and then having a baby was going to be mastering the art of letting go. Let go let go let go. It’s my mantra. For how well I do with it most of the time, I might as well be saying, “Abra cadabra banana.” But I keep on keepin’ on. I am, at any moment, trying harder to relax than anyone else in the world, except maybe prisoners being tortured or wealthy socialites.

But I began my morning determined not to let fear take the wheel. Not on this morning, not for this experience, not for my daughter. I would welcome her as her mother - as the mother I meant to be. Brave, honest, patient, present, in faith and love.                

I made it about a half-hour. Then I became convinced that I was bleeding too much- probably my placenta going all placenta-supernova, worn to bits by my aging body and too many jelly doughnuts clogging up the filtration system. I called my doula, April Harries, who knows me and explained that my bleeding was normal, and that I was probably about to go into labor, if I wasn’t already. Whoo hoo? Whoo hoo? Maybe a whoo. It was too unreal. Apparently, I thought, I am going to have a baby. Like, now. Or as “now” as labor gets- it’s more of an “infinite now,” really.

In my preparations for this moment, I had done some fairly exhaustive reading about birth, pain, pain management, and deep relaxation. I knew, from my experience with my son, that Lamaze was a great way to get through early labor, passing time and encouraging a calm restfulness. But from active labor to end-game transition labor, Lamaze is like one of those teeny little Band-Aids in the multi-pack. Cute, and useless in 99% of Band-Aid situations. I needed something a little meatier - think, ace bandage.. My doula April recommended I read Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth, as well as A Thinking Woman’s Guide to Childbirth, and I did. I also picked up a copy of Hypnobirthing, The Mongan Method. In the interest of using my hamster-wheel brain for good (helping me have a healthy, happy labor) rather than evil (memorizing all of the symptoms of black mold inhalation) I had decided to focus my crazy intense thought stream on all forms of open- open jaw, open lungs, open yoni, open cervix, open heart. Prenatal yoga had pointed me to a vital discovery: it’s impossible to clench your jaw while making deep, sustained, throaty  “oh” sounds. The key to “open” for me was sound. I decided to use what I’d learned in my spate of power-reading about relaxation techniques in conjunction with what I’d learned about the power of sound resonance to help me through my childbirth experience. I was prepared to relax so hard, it would boggle the mind.

April asked me what I thought of everything I read, and I explained that I was really struck by the significance of fear and previous negativity in the birth experience. I said the biggest thing I was going to need to do was to manage my fear. April responded that the best thing I could do was to get out of my head, and into my body - wild animal style. I thought about this a long time, and although she was (and continues to be) obviously right, and as much as I wanted to do exactly that, I didn’t think I would be able to make that kind of change in time. I told April that I believed that kind of change was a my-whole-life thing, not so much an in-the-next-five-weeks thing. For now, I thought, we’d need to use, not overcome, my cerebrality to get me through. As it turned out, you don’t have to pick one. Your own nature is exactly what you need. As Barack Obama said, you are the person you’ve been waiting for. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Anyway, since a baby wasn’t hanging out of my hindquarters, I went to work. I thought I could knock out a few more projects before things got too big time- I wasn’t even having contractions yet, so what else was I going to do? Sit around and relax?

When I got to work, I called my doctor. She asked for me to come in for an exam, so I put in a whopping half-hour of work before I left for the doctor’s office. Dr. Mueller poked around, and informed me that I was effaced to 75%, and dilated to nearly 3 cm. I was delighted! All this progress and I hadn’t really felt a thing! Maybe my body had grown stronger since my son. Maybe all my visualization and relaxation had yielded! Maybe a baby would just suddenly drop out of me, into my clasped hands, like a precious little honeydew melon. “You’re in labor.” She announced. And so I was. I went home, ordered pizza, and began a “Dexter” marathon (because nothing says “miracle of new life” like a lovable serial killer). My husband and sister joined me a couple hours later, and we took pictures of me in my bikini, for the baby book.

By 2 pm, I still wasn’t having any contractions, although I continued to bleed steadily. So, around 3 pm, I suggested we go for a walk to see if we could get the party started. Because it was February and cold and windy, my mom thought this was a terrible idea, because it was slick outside. She suggested instead that I walk around my house. I argued that I would have to walk around my house 194375529507 times to equal one city block, and wanted the cold wind on my face. Mom asked what we would do if I really started laboring far from the house. My sister suggested one person stay back at the house in case that happened. This incited a full family argument about how we would manage ourselves in the event that our walk took us too far from home for me to make it back to the house because my labor had been walked into a frenzy, forcing my husband and sister to deliver this child on the side of the road, using their winter parkas as towels and swaddling the wee beasty in wooly long underwear. Maybe, I suggested, we could stuff the baby in one of my mukluks, before huffing and puffing the long blocks back to my house so we could drive to the hospital. After about fifteen minutes, we all sort of simultaneously realized this was ridiculous, and that if the walk really sped up my labor, we’d just walk slowly back. I promised I wasn’t going planning to walk to Two Harbors - just hump around the block - and my mom finally agreed. We all laughed at how serious it had become. Too much “Dexter.”

Off we went. We walked around my hilly neighborhood, and sure enough, my uterus began a steady rhythmic drum beat, much more powerful than any of the cute little clenchy attempts earlier in the day. Yes! The weather was challenging- forcing me to work, which my uterus met with squeezy adulations. I still felt lucid and connected to the people around me, able to talk and make jokes and generally connect.

Having accomplished our mission, we headed home. Once we got back inside, my contractions remained steady and strong, but a little erratic. I still felt lucid and connected to the people around me, able to talk and make jokes and generally connect. An interesting tidbit about my contractions: they are as flighty and erratic as me. Sometimes they are like diligent little work horses, rolling in every five minutes as predictably as the tide. And then, they go all crazy, stealing their step-dad’s car and staying out all night drinking forties behind the old high school gym. And they stay like that until a baby appears. So, that can happen. Also, after about three hours of contractions roughly five minutes apart, April began timing the length of my contractions, which were around 90 seconds long. With my son, they were around three minutes long, so I knew this was possible. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that all of this made me feel like something was wrong with me- like I wasn’t built right to have a baby. When I had my son, my contractions never grew closer together than three minutes. This was great for breaks between, but made pushing him out take forever (see “infinite now,” above). That, and I was so terrified that I’m pretty sure I all but had my legs crossed against his arrival. I was clenching on the molecular level. So I was apprehensive about experiencing the same thing this go ‘round. But I released the fear, because I was already in labor, and April didn’t seem concerned about my wacky contractions at all. Lots of people have long, random contractions. I returned to my pleasant assumption that I was exactly the right person to have this baby.

At 10 pm, April recommended that my husband and I try to get some rest. The contractions were steady and steadily stronger, and inching closer together. We decided that we would take a hot bath before we tried to nap, because I was more wound up than tired, and thought the bath would relax me. Shortly after we got into the bath, my contractions intensified. I started breathing through them- the deep lifting breaths described in the Hypnobirthing book. I took bottomless, energy-filled relaxing breaths in between, picturing my body swirling with red-gold light, wrapping my womb in warmth and power. My husband squeezed hot water over my back, gently touching my skin and reminding me of all the other nerves in my body. After about 20 minutes in the tub, we felt it was time to go rest in our bed.

My body was languid and soft, the only tension in the rhythmic pulse of my uterus. I felt myself begin to brace against the contractions, and I stopped myself, deep breathing and opening my yoni into the contraction. We curled up in our bed, but I was not anywhere near sleep. After one episode of Dexter/my husband snoring, the contractions got much more intense. I started to use the sound techniques to help me through the contractions. I focused intensely on the humming. As I felt the contraction first stirring in my uterus, I drew a deep, slow, red-gold breath into my lungs, drawing it deeper and deeper, beyond my lungs, into my uterus. As the contraction began to pull and compress, I began to release my breath and red-gold energy in the form of a steady, deep, strong hum. I found my voice’s natural frequency, and pushed the air forcefully through my body, vibrating my lips, my nose, and filling my throat with warmth and energy. I pictured the deep hum separating me into two floating layers, like sound or light wave frequencies, isolating myself with the sound and relaxation- not the pain.

I woke my husband, and told him I needed to go downstairs. It was around 11 pm, and I knew the baby was coming. My whole body was beating like jungle drums, alive with some awesome energy that felt simultaneously completely familiar and utterly foreign. Going into labor, when things get rolling, is not unlike discovering that, if you squeeze your eyes shut and hold your breath, you can make yourself invisible. It’s kind of a “what in the hell?” realization that there is this crazy thing your body can do. And by 11 pm, my body was no longer screwing around. Having spent the last several hours checking the turn signals, testing the brakes, revving the engine and generally idling fast, my body had peeled out of the driveway and was burning down the road, gaining speed with every mile. I was scared of the power of my body, at exactly the same time as I was comforted by the incredible power of my body. It knew how to do this. I knew without knowing. I was not in control of the labor, the pain, or the way it would unfold. I was only in control of my reaction.

Naturally, I tried not to flip out.

From 11 to 11:45, things had gotten to the point that I could no longer chat with anyone. My sister’s jokes were less funny. Everyone around me seemed sort of fuzzy and far-away, as though they were projected images on a screen. They all seemed to be staring at me as though I was Willy Wonka’s character Violet, swelling to massive roundness and turning bluer and bluer, threatening to explode right before their eyes.

My contractions were steadily 3 - 4 minutes apart, deep and intense, and April asked if I wanted to head to the hospital. Because of the level of pain I was in, I said I did, and bundled up to head to St. Lukes. Before I was in labor, I believed Duluth’s number one priority as a city was to address the education shortfalls facing the city. Since my labor, I think the city needs to drop everything and fix the streets. Retiree healthcare? Pshaw. Balanced city budget? Whatever. Streets. Stat. Every single bump was bone-crunching. I asked my husband to slow down, but he couldn’t go slowly enough to eliminate all impact from the car’s motion. (With my next baby, I am buying a helicopter. Or a jetpack.)

Also, before I was in labor, I lived three minutes from St. Lukes. When I went into labor, I entered a wormhole, which dragged me 29872575979257 light years from St. Lukes. How we were able to get there on one tank of gas is beyond me.

But get there we did! We slowly made our way to the birthing center, walking another  29872575979257 light years to the elevator. I had to stop every three minutes to experience my contractions. It was difficult while I was walking to welcome them and remain open- I buried my face in my husband’s chest, hanging my arms around his neck and continuing my deep humming. It was impossible to clench and hum, so I hummed and rocked my hips, doing a little hug-dance every time I contracted on my way to the birthing center.

We had called ahead to request a room with its own bathroom, and in hindsight, I can’t imagine what it would have been like without my own shower. Before and after the baby! We checked in, and pretty quickly I was in the bed, in the butt-shot robe, waiting to find out how far my cervix had come in the last few hours. I was anxious to hear how much I had dilated- more so because my labor with my son was 24 hours. 24 hours is a long time to spend doing something super fun and pleasant. It’s longer when it’s something hard and painful. With that labor, I was blind sided by the intensity of the pain, and by how long it took to get from zero to ten centimeters. I had been expecting pain, and had reels of Hollywood baby deliveries playing in my head (Mom screaming at Dad, “you did this to me! We are never having sex again!” and dad passing out...). I thought I knew what was going to happen. But I was wrong. It wasn’t like anything I had ever felt before. The pain transformed me in enduring it. I had felt, during my son’s birth, that I was in as much pain as I could survive. About ten times. And each time, the nurse would check me and tell me I was, basically, nowhere near done. Two cm. Four cm. Eight cm. Every time I felt like I was at my limit and discovered I was nowhere near complete, I felt like a failure, as though I was weak and inadequate. But 24 hours later, I had managed to survive, and my beautiful son was in my arms. I wasn’t inadequate. It was just really, really hard. Thank God for this lesson.

Our nurse came in to check me, and introduced herself as Lois. She was a soft-spoken woman, in her mid-fifties or so. As she introduced herself and started to examine me, she asked me what kind of labor I was planning, with or without any medicine or intervention. We explained that we were committed to a natural labor. Lois was such a gentle woman, and she sincerely listened to every word I said. She hooked me up to the mama and baby monitors, and then checked me for dilation.

Three cm. Three cm? What the flying flip? For reals? I’d be lying if I didn’t admit there was a nanosecond of self-pity temper tantrum, but it never made it past my reptile brain. I immediately reminded myself that this was what had happened with my son. I made it through that, and I would make it through this. The big difference was that this time, I knew that I was the mom. I would safely bring this baby into the world, as my first act of badass mama-ness. (Knowing, from my fifteen-year-old son, how many times that badass will be on call. The mom position ain’t for lightweights. Although, as a side note, I would totally have gotten an epidural when they had to put an IV in my then 10-month-old son’s head if that would have made the experience any easier for me. But not for this. But I digress.) I took a deep breath, and got in the shower.

As I stood in the shower, I had a little conversation with myself about labor. Labor, I reasoned, was not unlike a really onerous household duty, like, say, painting the exterior of your home. You have to do it. It’s definitely going to suck, and take a long time. But when it’s time, you have to do it. I leaned on the shower wall and rocked my hips, slow-mo-Shakira-style, and said a little prayer of welcome to my baby, and to God, too. “It’s okay for you to come, now, baby. I am ready to do this. I will make a safe passage for you into this world.” Saying this over and over in my head made me feel calm and ready, sinking into each contraction, opening my yoni and my throat as I hummed deeper and more intensely with every passing contraction. I actively welcomed the pain as much as I was able.

I stayed in the shower for an hour. When I got out, I laid in the bed and tried to rest. But we were beyond rest time - it was labor time, and April started to play a much larger role. She kept giving me choices, somewhat reminiscent of the “would you rather?” game people play, i.e., “would you rather fall out of an airplane with no parachute, or fall out of a 120-story window?” April would gently present the world’s crappiest idea, immediately followed by a slightly crappier-sounding idea. “Would you like to sit on the toilet for a while?” Absolutely not. Nope. “Would you like to rock on the birthing ball for a while? No, no I wouldn’t. But I did, because I knew it would make the contractions come harder and faster, and bring my baby to me.  April and my sister began massaging me as I worked through my contractions. As time went on, my humming opened with my cervix, and my humming became a singing of sorts- from a sustained “mmmm” sound to a low sustained “ohhhhh” sound. The massage touch was light during the contractions, and harder between, which seems to balance my sensation.

The f*%$ing monitors came off 273540925474512438439 times.

I am not sure what those things are for, but if your belly isn’t flat or cubical, they are going to slide off. Overandoverandover. (I suspect the same people that are making women’s jeans are making those monitors.) Thankfully, I had Lois. Wonderful, gentle, birth-fan Lois. And she would episodically come in, church-mouse style, and oh-so-carefully re-establish that both me and the baby were alive. She was so respectful of my birthing process, and so kind. She was truly a gift. After another stretch alternately on the birthing ball and the toilet (which is an awesome way to make your contractions go crazy), Lois came to check me again. I was at seven. I had gone from three cm to seven cm in about two hours. I was so happy, and so proud of my powerful body, doing its amazing thing. The pride lasted a few minutes, because things started to get very hairy.

Somehow, the news that I was at seven seemed to really inspire my uterus to get cracking. The contractions started to come harder, and stay longer. I knew my body was in control, and that I was about to experience the hardest part of my labor. This part of labor is the strangest, and the hardest, both on your mind and your body, I think. The incredible otherness of your body in labor versus your body in, let’s say, aerobics class is so profound it’s frightening. I wondered with my son and with my daughter if my body was even mine, if it would kill me trying to expel the baby. But it couldn’t kill me- I was my body, I was the pain, but I was not in control of it. My body was protecting me from the weakest parts of myself - the parts that would withdraw from the contractions, not clench so hard, try to make it hurt less. My body was doing what needed to be done to abet a miracle. I didn’t have to design the plan. I just had to be brave enough to go along with it.

As the contractions changed and deepened, I was astonished by the pain I could feel without dying, or at least passing out. As each contraction began, I drew my breath as deeply as I could. I opened my mouth and expelled the air in juxtaposition with the pain, balancing, balancing the energy flowing out of my mouth against the awesome clenching of my uterus. As the contraction gained momentum, I would first feel nauseous, and then, as the pain mounted, the hair on the back of my neck and scalp would prickle. At the apex of the contraction, the pain was so ferocious that my breath was taken from my body, and I had to fight to maintain my song, because it was so hard to maintain a strong exhalation. I had to work very hard to stay ahead of the pain, and my focus was absolute.

Over the next two hours, I started to see an image in my mind as the contractions crescendoed- a hollow tube or column, with two oval holes along the length, on both sides of the column, allowing me to see right through. When I think about it now, the ovals formed sort of a raised infinity symbol. The image, for some reason, was what the pain looked like. My contractions lost their boundaries, coming one on top of the other, lasting five, ten minutes, one arriving immediately after the other. I was lost in this sea of pain, and I lost my voice somewhere in the waves crashing into me harder and faster. I could no longer get ahead of the pain with my breath and separate myself from it, there was no time before the pain was at its most intense. My song became a high moan, my lungs unable to produce sound enough to balance the pain. I started to weep, great, racking sobs. I rolled to my side, clinging to the railing on the bed, grasping and pulling it as though I could pull my conscious self out of the pain, like a drowned woman from the water. I wept and finally said, “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t. It hurts so much.” The room erupted in affirmations and love. At the peak of the next contraction, I felt a bone-crunching pressure at the bottom of my uterus. It was an utterly new sensation, and completely distinct. It felt as though the pain had a target inside of me. It had changed from a wide, tidal pain, and become directional, heading down. It sounds crazy, but the pain felt like it was heading out. I needed to push it. “I feel pressure!” I shouted, and everyone flew into action. Within seconds, Lois? Dr. Mueller? Someone was checking me, and announced that I was “complete.” Ten centimeters. Ten. I could not believe it.

The next twenty or so minutes are both utterly clear and utterly chaotic in my memory. I can’t remember who said or did what. “It’s time to push!” Someone said. I immediately began crying again. “I don’t know how!” I said. The fear and sadness lingering in my memory from my son’s birth poured out of me. “I don’t know how!” Dr. Mueller explained that I was going to just take a deep breath and bear down with my bottom. April said they would help me. And my husband held my hand and said, “you can do it.” I was shaking like a leaf. “Okay,” I said, through chattering teeth, “okay.” My legs were handed to me, and I felt like a car accident victim being asked to kick her way through the windshield with her broken leg. “Take a deep breath, and bear down as hard as you can!” The contraction was already on me, ripping through me from my uterus toward my vagina. “Push!” Everyone was yelling encouragement, but I felt as though I was standing at the very edge of a deep, rushing river. I couldn’t wade across gingerly. If I stepped in, it would carry me away, and I was frightened. I took a deep breath, and threw myself at the river.

For me, pushing exerts an inexorable force. In a way, it’s like throwing up. Once you start, you absolutely cannot stop, and you will allow your body to do unthinkable, impossible things. You have to abandon yourself in trust. Trust in your body, in God, and in the wisdom of the pain.

The second I started bearing down into the contraction, my body and I transformed back into a single unit. Instead of separating myself from the pain, I joined it and it possessed me. It was a raging, roaring thing, and I was transformed by it, illuminated and powered by it. I bore down with all my strength. The room was full of shouts of encouragement. I dragged in as much air as I could hold and threw myself at the river again. I felt like a wild animal, like a hurricane or comet, hurtling through the contraction. Again, and again. The baby crowned, and Dr. Mueller rushed to get her scrubs on (my sister, who could see the baby’s head, said in a panicky voice, “ISN”T SOMEONE GOING TO CATCH THE BABY?”). “Hold it right there,” Dr. Mueller said, “Just keep her right there, Anna.” I struggled to control the energy. It was like holding the door closed on a submarine as it dove - I shook with the effort. “Okay! Push this baby out!” I drew as big a breath as I could, and bore down with every molecule in the universe that was me. My breath, and my breath energy, caged in my chest and thundering against my uterus to force the baby out, roared from my mouth like I was a wild animal. My daughter was born.

And now the room was perfectly still. My uterus was still. My breath softly returned to my body, and my daughter was placed on my breast. Her face was so familiar and so beautiful. She looked like an ancient eskimo, her eyes opening in a sort of mystical confusion, like she was being woken from a dream in a house she was not yet familiar with, looking sleepily around to try and reconsile the place her dreaming mind thought she was and this place. I sang her the song I sang every morning of my pregnancy.

"Morning has broken, like the first morning. Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird. Praise to the singing, praise to the morning. Praise to them springing fresh from the word."