2:30 pm My body felt as though a semi truck was slamming into my pelvis. I gripped the edge of the bathroom counter, put my head down and planted my feet. A roar erupted from my lungs. There was nothing to mediate this pain. It dropped me to my knees. It left me whimpering.
Craig wiped the sweat from my forehead. He had only a minute and a half between contractions to provide me with comfort. Meanwhile I repeated the same ritual: head down, feet planted, howl, drop to knees. Only with the next contraction blood shot out from between my legs.
“We need to go to the hospital now,” I cried.
Craig frantically turned in circles, “You’re not wearing any pants.” He tried to wrap me in a towel. “No, get my sister,” I told him.
Betsy appeared. She dressed me gingerly as another contraction wracked my body. She found my shoes and slipped them on my feet.
"Call Jeri," I said after the contraction ended, and Craig dialed her number quickly. As he explained that we were leaving for the hospital another contraction slammed my body, and I slumped beside the bed. As my fingers clawed the edge of the quilt I felt Betsy’s hand on my shoulder. Warmth radiated from her palm, and though I was in the midst of exquisite pain, a sense of calm snaked through my consciousness. Her feminine touch restored my fatigued reserves.
I stood and walked out of our bedroom. Before me were twenty-two steps to the first floor of our house. I silently prayed that I would get down them without another contraction. There at the bottom stood my mom and dad bearing witness. I descended quickly to the surprise of everyone. My dad touched my arm as I opened the door, but I couldn't look at him. All I could see was the walk in front of me and the van. I felt unconscious and wholly conscious at the same time.
I made my way to the van. The door opened, and another contraction slammed my body. While I pulled at the door frame, Craig pushed me onto the seat. The drive was short, only five minutes, and still contraction after contraction assaulted my abdomen. I bore my feet into the floor board as I felt the baby’s head push against my perineum.
3:00 pmTwo nurses met us on the crosswalk with a wheel chair. I tried to sit but couldn't, so Craig and Betsy gathered me in their arms and walked me to Labor and Delivery.
During our tour of the hospital we had been told that I would need to be assessed without my family present. It seemed a ridiculous notion that in such a time I would be separated from those I needed most. Ten feet from the entryway to the triage area, another cascade of pain coursed through my body. I knelt, clutched a rail, and screamed. Neither nurse suggested that I be assessed alone.
3:05 pm“Has her water broken?” a nurse asked Betsy. Craig was held up at the desk answering questions about insurance. I heard him call out to the nurse “We have a birth plan. We don’t want any interventions, no I.V.”
“It’s a little too late for that anyway,” the nurse replied.
Another contraction, another descent to the floor, another howl, and as Betsy grabbed my hand to help me stand, water burst out from between my legs, soaking the floor, her pants, and my legs.
With an unnatural calm she replied, “The answer is yes. Her water has broken.”
Minutes later I was wheeled to the delivery room. The nurses spoke quickly. Questions were asked and answered. My awareness of the passage of time ceased to exist. I retreated inside myself. The only tangible tie to the outside world was Craig’s calloused fingers which held my hand.
Jeri finally arrived and instructed me to push. I looked toward the ceiling and then my sister. My eyes focused on hers, and with a look she transmitted, “You can do this. You must do this.” I felt the shape of Julia’s head as she pushed her way out of my body. The pain was hot. It flashed through my brain like lightening. One and two pushes and she was born. The time was 3:21 pm.
Jeri laid Julia on my stomach as the nurses massaged her body, wiping the blood and amniotic fluid from her skin. She cried. Craig and Betsy cried. The cord was cut, and she was swaddled in a receiving blanket and put in her father’s arms. Between her eyes, like Bindi, was a smear of blood, my blood.
Ten minutes later I nursed my newborn for the first time. Ten minutes after that I stood and walked to the bathroom: an incredible feat given the events of the previous two hours.
Craig and I refused many of the common newborn procedures: no eye ointment, no Hepatitis B shot, no bath, and no nursery. We didn’t do this because we are strangely religious, as some of the nurses supposed, but because we saw no need. Instead, Julia was swaddled and placed in my arms before I was wheeled to my room for recovery. Late that night Craig bathed her for the first time, and afterwards she slept in her father’s arms for the night. It was a wonderful welcome to the world.
*****
I find it hard to write about Julia’s birth without including how she met her sister for the first time. However that story stands on its own and has been told by her father on the
State of Grace. Suffice it to say that I cannot watch the video of their first meeting without tears.
*****
To end this long, long story, I have one final message to send:
Happy Birthday, my little bug. You know you are loved.
