What Happened Was…

Baby A was nonresponsive during our NST (fetal monitoring) at the doctor’s office Wednesday (3/26) afternoon.  No amount of poking or prodding would rouse him.  This was a big change since he’s usually very reactionary.  His heart tones and oxygen were fine, but we were sent to Labor & Delivery.  (“To trap me?” I asked my doctor.  He put a hand on my shoulder and said, “Yes, to trap you.  This time you’re not leaving this hospital without babies.”)  A second NST yielded the same results, non-responsive.  By now it had been hours since I’d felt him move.  If this were all just precautionary, I wouldn’t be able to escape now that the wheels were set in motion.  But if something was truly wrong, well, I couldn’t even go there.  For three days I’d been in early labor, nothing too crazy.  But that particular morning brought a host of random, moaning contractions.  One came on while I was hooked up.  It lasted 4 1/2 minutes.  Baby A crashed.  I was at the center of an instant frenzy – oxygen mask, teams of medics rushing about, shouting, beeping.  Then he recovered.  The ultrasound technician wasn’t permitted to talk about what she was seeing, but having watched two hundred scans by then I knew exactly what we were looking at:  Baby A not moving, not practicing his breathing, diaphragm perfectly still, and Baby B bouncing around, wiggling toes, sucking fingers.  I started to cry.  Each fetal test brought us to the same worrisome conclusion, something was wrong.  I knew it.  Our midwife knew it.  The doc knew it.  He told us his wife had undergone two unwanted and unplanned c-sections.  With tears in his eyes and a quivering lip he told us that if I were his wife we wouldn’t be talking right now, we’d be on our way to surgery.  I wondered why I wasn’t on a gurny already.  Baby A’s small size and cord had always been of concern.  It was likely he’d simply reached the expiration date of his placenta.  He was hanging on with a strong, healthy heart, but it was clear labor would be too much for him.  I was at once profoundly grateful that there is a such thing as hospitals, surgeons, interventions, c-sections, and that they were all accessible to me. 

Everyone, the whole of the staff who worked on me, was respectful and supportive of my wishes.  Before we went into the OR my midwife reminded me that all of the coping skills I’d learned in birth class would be highly useful now.  She stayed by my side and encouraged me to center myself just as I had done with my contractions.  I thought of the Ring of Fire I’d made, all the words written on it, the names attached to each word, and a great sense of calm and faith washed over me.  I was not afraid.  TC kept me calm as the epidural block sunk into my spine.  It killed.  I had just enough time to lie across the operating table before my legs went warm, then hot, then numb.  It was a wild sensation.  I took it all in asking TC to take pics of me splayed out naked under the bright lights.  It hardly seemed real.  High above me I spied my reflection in the giant surgical lamps.  I could see the entire sterile field.  I narrated what I was seeing to TC who refused to look.  This is what it took for me to cope, to keep me from freaking out, and to ensure the safety of our boys.  I had to engage my fascination with all of it.  There came the smell of disinfectant.  My belly was scrubbed and painted.  Pieces of tight plastic wrap stretched across me.  A long incision gave way to a pool of rich blood.  A metal clamp peeled back my skin, further and further.  The doctor sliced through several layers of body until a fountain of amniotic fluid flooded out of me.  A gloved hand reached inside of my abdomen.  “Look, look!” I cried, “The head is about to come out!”  I chanted, healthy babies, healthy babies.  The first baby didn’t fit through the incision so it was quickly made bigger.  A perfect, slimy baby rose up from the flood.  Large and strong, he managed to clear his lungs on his own.  ”This can’t be the little guy!” said the doctor, “Whoops!  Baby B is now Baby A!”  Endorphins.  Wonder.  Joy.  Love.  My chant immediately became, Come on, Little Guy, Come on Little Guy.  I wanted only to hear his voice, to know that he would not need to be resuscitated.  Human hands fished around my bloody uterus then with a loud cry the Baby formerly known as A was born.   

The big guy was stimulated, wrapped and brought right to me, gunk and all.  My midwife quickly unswaddled him and placed him naked in my arms.  I kissed his face, rubbed my cheek against his, smelled the top of his head, looked at his beautiful fingers and toes.  It was heaven.  It was all I’d dreamed of for these long, long months.  After making sure he was healthy, the little guy was brought to me for the same naked cuddles.  He was TINY!  I was overcome with thanks.  They were born at 8:56pm and 8:57pm.  And it was over.  They were here.  All I could do was turn my head and vomit.  My uterus was removed, placed on my abdomen, examined and rinsed.  It looked exactly like a grade-school kick ball (huge, firm, red), but they somehow managed to shove it back into my body (a very unpleasant experience I might add).  While I centered myself and let the anti-nausea meds take effect, the brothers greeted each other for the first time out of utero.  Pictures were taken, video shot.  If you’ve ever heard me complain about those terribly sad photos of immobile mothers in blue surgical caps with their newborns held up to their drugged faces - I.  Was.  Wrong.  It’s not sad at all.  No matter how it happens, it’s amazing.  It’s exuberant.  It’s new life.  For me, it was a moment of thrilling clarity.  Healthy babies.  Nothing else mattered.

The hours leading up to their birth passed like seconds.  Nobody was called, warned, informed.  As they wheeled me into the OR I suggested TC call my parents to let them know I’d be having a c-section in a matter of minutes.  The next twenty-four hours were a big blur.  But for the exhaustion, there’d be much more to tell… The part when the little guy went to stay in the NICU, the part when I puked all night after surgery, the part when I freaked out about all the nurse interruptions, the part when TC kept asking if I wanted to brush my teeth, the part when I woke and discovered I looked every bit as pregnant after surgery as I did before, the part when I broke down about how my milk was not coming in and my sons were starving yet loathed my nipples, the part when TC staged an intervention and insisted I let the big guy sleep in the nursery on the second night, the part when I screamed at a nurse to rush one single solidified drop of colostrum to the NICU, the part when Lactation staged a second intervention and advised that the only advise I needed was to get some sleep, the part when we found out the little guy would have to stay in the hospital longer than the rest of us.  But for now there’s a lot of baby to care for and I think I probably won’t get around to telling these stories for a very long time.  The boys are beautiful, perfect, new and pure.  Their sisters are dying to be with them.  We’ll probably be home Monday late afternoon.       

A Male Perspective On Birth

By the time I’d gotten to SF I was wise to the significance of the male perspective.  I counted on my old friend, P, for some insider trading.  He’s a radio guy; talk is his business.  After a quick hello to TC and kids, P and I disappeared into the fog.  We’d been in touch forever, but it’d been twelve years since we’d last seen each other (in what was a momentous last hurrah before settling down with partners we’d eventually marry).  My pregnancy thwarted the threat of any college monkey business.  Still.  He looked good, same bounding energy, same passion for music, same bright eyes.  I tested the waters, “You’re turned-on by my hugeness - you want me bad, yes?”  Without skipping a beat P answered, “Actually, no, not at all.  Sorry, Babe, I’m just not into it.  You look great, though!  Look at you!”  The light of his honesty felt like home to me.  He told me not to fault TC if he wasn’t into it right now, that there was a lot going on down there (in my body), and it’s hard for some guys, including himself, to get comfortable with it.  I huffed, “Well, why can’t you just turn off the light then?”  He sighed, “Yeah, that’s what M said.”  (M, his soon-to-be ex).  He explained it wasn’t that simple… the changes were intense plus there was the burden of impending parenthood and the stress, fears, and doubt that goes with it.  He’d wanted to buy me ice cream and had me hold his arm when we’d crossed the street.  I begged him to put my round belly and gasping lungs out of his mind and remember me as I once was.  We sat at an Irish bar, P with his beer and me sipping  ginger ale.  P had something important to say.  He laid-out a blanket disclaimer that he knew full-well women are the superior sex, wiser, more pain tolerant, better multitaskers, all-around stronger than men.  I concurred with this well-documented fact.  “There’s a reason you’re the ones having the babies,” he said, “men could never do that.”  He went on to confess something I’d never heard before, something that occurs when men see their wives give birth.  “It traumatizes some men,” he said, “For real.  I have more than one friend who’s been deeply scarred by it.”  That’s why when P’s wife gave birth he dared not venture south of the equator, but anchored himself right by her side, eye to eye (“And believe me, that’s a lot!”).  It was all to say that if TC chose to stay up yonder I should respect his decision and know that it doesn’t make him less of a father.  (Boy, was TC glad to hear this, because if these words came from him I may not have readily accepted it.)       

Some of you, living as we do at the epicenter of the U.S. home-birthing movement, patchouli capital of the world and mystical land of breastfeeding-until-five, might be offended by this revelation.  But I urge you to see this for what it is: a male perspective previously unknown to me.  I applaud P’s brave share.  

Naturally, I was curious to hear his take on post-birth vagina.  He said that generally his friends claimed there was no difference at all, but for him… and this was offered with great trepidation… he… noticed a change.  Not a big change, but it definitely felt a little different.  (I take into account that during this conversation he was at the beginnings of a painful separation).  But it was not the physical change that was most significant, he and his friends agreed.  What they couldn’t overcome were the images forever seared into their memories.  Seeing a woman’s body all stretched, bloody and wet with a human head pushing out of it, the grunting, moaning, sweating and trembling.  It’s just too much for some men.  “It’s messy business,” he said, “I mean, stuff is coming out all over, you know that, right?”  I knew only too well.  “It’s coming out your ears, your nose, your eyeballs.  If there’s an orifice, shit is coming out of it, no joke!”  Being a member of the superior sex, I loved hearing this.  His voice was passionate and imploring, ”No man needs to see that.”  I told him I knew a woman or two who shared the sentiment.  

Over the ensueing days of retelling, it became clear that the one who benefited most from my conversations with P is TC.  TC is always complaining that men just don’t talk like this.  Whenever I come back from spending time with the ladies he’s all ears, wanting to know every detail, because the information we share is substantial not superficial.  Years ago when I told my wise mentor (a male feminist playwright) that TC had a lot of womanly qualities, my mentor cautioned, “Be careful.  Don’t assume these traits are female.  What they are is human and men are quite capable of embodying them though sadly most have been programed shut to down.”  True.  Fortunately, there’s a small contingency of men I know who are excellent communicators, who are interested in expressing their hopes, fears, desires and sharing their experiences.  Perhaps men would be more likely to lay their armor down if we made it safe for them to say that the thought of seeing their partners’ bodies turned inside out by childbirth is horrifying to them.  And the others, the men who get right down there and apply hot compresses to their wives’ perineas, should speak out too and let their brothers know that as intense as it can be, they will survive.  Shit storm and all.

37 Weeks!

37 weeks: my number came true!  All that’s left is labor and delivery.  Oh, and those sleepless nights.  Plus, the rest of our lives together.  Last night I had two major contractions, strong enough to make my eyes water, hands and lips tremble, and render me speechless.  Awesome.  The trembling was surprising.  It came out of no where and once my uterus relaxed, it stopped.  Maybe I’ll be one of those women who vomits during labor.  It’s a mystery how my body will react, which is so cool and exciting to me.  I only hope vomit doesn’t come out of my nose.  I really hate that.  

Tonight we celebrated our full-term milestone with ice cream cake, 80’s tunes and the lighting of our birth candles.  The girls called into my belly, “Come out, brothers!  Come out!”  I hope it didn’t scare them in for another several weeks.  During this pregnancy I’ve been surrounded by many wise, wonderful women.  Although my experience will be totally unique, I’m inspired knowing that it’s possible to birth a ten pound baby without medication, to have one’s perinea make a full recovery after being stitched together like a patchwork quilt, to keep one’s sense of humor, to be totally at ease with a c-section, to forgive oneself for getting too attached to and/or deviating from The Plan, to accept medication without guilt or shame, to do whatever is necessary to keep our babies safe.  I can hardly believe I’m standing at the threshold of something so completely intense, out of this world and profoundly beautiful, not to mention bloody.  I’m an avid and passionate scab-picker, therefore, I simply must examine these placentas.  I will not be eating them, friends, but I certainly will admire them in all their slimy goodness. 

Tomorrow night I’m going out for spicy food with friends.  Over the weekend I plan to use my Barefoot Sage gift certificate (thanks K!).  Sex is in order, of course.  It’s not that I’m trying to evict these precious cherubs, but after being inactive for the last four weeks, I’m really ready to get going.  I need to liven things up, though it’s not easy with my elephant legs and two-ton abdomen.  I’m freakishly huge.  When the babies move I can almost see the outlines of their entire bodies now – above my ribs, in my pelvis and around my back all at once.  Ooouch.  I’m sure they’re big enough to come out and play now.  But when?  That is the question.