a novella for our Alice

On Thursday, April 24 we thought I was in labor. In the late afternoon I started having painful contractions. I could still talk through them, but by the time we were going to bed Jake said my eyes had gotten a little glassy and I was working to stay relaxed as each one washed over me. I could feel them coming on, starting low and radiating up over and through my abdomen as my whole middle tightened, hard as a rock. They continued, 3-5 minutes apart until, about 2 or 3AM when I was able to fall asleep. We woke up the next morning and they had spaced out to 10 minutes apart and by the afternoon they stopped completely. We were so very disappointed. We had thought for sure we were going to meet our baby. No amount of walking, hiking, spicy food, or acupressure could bring the contractions back though and on Saturday morning the midwife told us that the baby would come soon- those were real contractions and were the start of the process- but we should rest instead of trying to walk me back into labor. We wouldn't want to be tired when it started again.

So, then the waiting began. Oh the waiting. The excitement and anticipation of that Thursday night was really difficult to come down from. I cleaned, did yard work, read and just waited. And waited. I continued to have contractions- my belly was consistently, exhaustingly tight, but they weren't painful. We went on walks and Jake massaged the pressure points on my feet. I drank lots of red raspberry leaf tea. Jake cooked delicious dinners and we cuddled on the couch in the evenings. The due date came and went. Suddenly it was Wednesday, May 7- just a day shy of 2 weeks after that first night of contractions- and they started happening again. But, again, around 3AM they receded and I fell asleep.

I woke up on the morning of May 8 assuming it had been just another false start. I showered and got ready for the day. Sitting down with tea and some yogurt I wrote another "Dear baby" letter, having no idea that by the time I got to the final lines I would know for certain baby was coming soon. Around 10AM I noticed I was having contractions again and they were more than Braxton Hicks. They were beginning to take my breath and my concentration. At noon I talked to my mom on the phone and realized I could no longer talk through them and needed to be bent over when they hit. She encouraged me to ask Jake to come home from work and I was reluctant. I imagined that even if this was really it, we still had plenty of time. "This is not the time to be brave Kimi, this is no time to be a hero. Call Jake." I finally agreed that it would maybe be best for Jake to come home before the rush hour traffic just in case. I called him and we realized the contractions were coming just a couple minutes apart. Jake immediately said he was on his way.

At that point, with Jake on his way home, it was as if my body had the go-ahead to tell me "this is happening and it is happening soon." Jake's drive was about 30 minutes and we stayed on the phone the entire time, him coaching me through contractions as I ended up on all fours in various places in our house, breathing through each wave. The funniest spot was the bottom landing of the stairs, with Layla the cat nuzzling my face and Tony the pup sniffing my ankles. Jake got home at 12:45 and found me on all floors on the kitchen floor. He called the birth center and they were closed for another 10 minutes. Instead of paging a midwife, I told him just to wait. Even though I was pretty sure this was it, I was still reluctant to get my hopes up. The waiting had been so difficult- it was too good to be true that we would finally be meeting our baby today.

We spoke with Deb, a midwife at the birth center, about 20 minutes later and she wanted to speak to me directly. Twice I had to hand the phone back to Jake as a wave hit and I used all my energy to stay relaxed and calm. She said she thought it was probably time for us to come in and we said we'd be there by 2PM. Despite how quickly the contractions were coming, I assumed we still had a long way to go (hah!). Jake pulled together some cheese and crackers for me and the most I could eat between contractions was a single cracker! He was getting anxious to get out the door and there I was, on the floor in the kitchen, sitting back on my heels to eat a cracker and then leaning forward on all fours to breathe through each contraction. He said I was like a gopher coming in and out of my hole.

We live about 2 miles from the birth center. I had at least 3 contractions on the drive there, another one in the parking lot, and another one standing outside the door of the center. Fast and furious! Deb greeted us and ushered us into a birth room. She checked me and I was already 6 cm dilated and 90% effaced. HOORAY!! THIS IS HAPPENING!! I really don't think it was until that moment that I let myself acknowledge labor emotionally. I can still flash back to that news and feel excited and emotional.

Deb filled up the birth tub thinking it would help me navigate the pain of the contractions. My sister arrived about an hour after we did and I was still in a place of being able to talk in between waves and hear she and Jake's encouragement. With each contraction I would blow raspberries with my lips as loudly as I could. The sound distracted me and the motion kept my body more relaxed. I was quick to beg Jake to rub my back- I was left with lots of bruising that night- and I remember asking him during a contraction to "remind me it's good! tell me it's good!" I wanted to keep my mind on the truth that this pain and each contraction brought us closer to our baby. Within another 45 minutes I entered transition though and everything shifted. I entered a whole different mental space and the pain became other-worldly. It is such a clean, powerful pain- truly not negative, I never felt it was harming me, but it is so big that it can be frightening. I was trying to both get out of the way of my body and work with this outside force of nature. Outside of my own volition I began basically growling through each contraction as I pulled myself up on a bar above the birth tub. The sound would start loud and high and then drop down into a deep, guttural noise that I have no ability to replicate now. I was in a very different world and the contractions were on top of each other.

Deb asked me to try to pull the sound internal and buckle down into the next contraction with a first push. When I did it hurt and I could tell I wasn't quite there yet. She asked me to get out of the tub so she could check me. I was dilated and effaced enough to push, but there was just a lip of cervix left in the way, hence the pain. Deb had me start pushing and now that I was outside the tub I could buckle down and go for it. It was a relief to work with the power of each wave. The intermittent fetal monitoring was having a difficult time catching the baby's heart rate though and when it did the heart rate was dropping lower than Deb was okay with. Deb broke my water to try to relieve some pressure and move that lip of cervix out of the way. When she did there was meconium in the fluid- an immediate reason to have to transfer from the birth center to the hospital. This is where our bit of drama began.

Mind you, I was in the midst of pushing contractions. Fast, overwhelming, exhausting contractions and moving during them felt like absolute torture. I remember seeing Deb and another midwife suddenly pull a bright orange gurney out from somewhere. The next thing I knew I was on the gurney, a sheet was being draped over my nakedness, and we were flying down a ramp behind the birth center. I later found out that Jake had swept me up in his arms and onto the gurney and he was pushing it and holding my hand at the same time. I felt the sheet billowing around me as we wheeled through the parking lot, across the street with traffic stopped, and into the back entrance of the hospital. One of the elevators was out of service. So, we had to wait, as families and hospital staff walked past us in the hallway, while I growled through each contraction and restrained from pushing, through several cycles of the elevator until we were able to roll aboard and head to labor and delivery.

Once there, the drama mostly subsided and we were on the home stretch. There was a blur of introductions to nurses. Deb quickly got us situated so I could resume pushing. My sister held my left leg while I clung to Jake's neck through each push. Everyone was so incredibly encouraging and positive. It was so hard. At some point Jake says I looked at him and said "I'm so tired. I don't know if I can do this." Once we hit this stage there was really no relief- the entire 2 hours of pushing felt like the most physically strenuous human experience possible- and even though I don't remember saying that, I do recall feeling the potential of fear creeping into my emotions. It felt like I wasn't making any progress. But, again, everyone was so encouraging. Holding onto Jake and listening to everyone's words kept me going and then, suddenly, Deb was having me reach down to feel the head of our little baby. So much hair! That little head felt so soft and unbelievable! The head finally came out and then with a last huge push the broad, precious body of our 8lb 11oz daughter was born.

We met Alice Linda at 6:11PM on Thursday, May 8, 2014. She hadn't aspirated any of the meconium and her coloring was perfect and rosy. Everything about her was- is- perfect, really. Jake held her first. I watched him cradle our little girl in his arms and tell her he loved her with tears in his eyes. I cannot describe the immensity of joy present in those moments- such relief that she was here and disbelief at the beginning of this new chapter in our lives, a new intimacy for us that has continued to grow in the days since. I am so thankful. Awed and thankful.

And then I held her for the first time:

Jake says it feels like she has always been with us. I feel like there are not enough hours in the day to just stare at this little being. She is so beautiful.