My mind, body and soul has been wracked with the intense joy and deep darkness of those moments of labor and delivery. The night terrors have subsided for now; they are replaced with far away recollections of those 21 hours that seem like it happened to someone else. I barely remember the physical pain of it, but the mental impact lingers in dark corners, bubbling up in my moments of anxiety and exhaustion.
That she came out of 21 hours of agony is a beautiful thing. She has brought a sense of calm and inner peace to my life. I will never rely on her to supply that feeling, her presence on this earth alone is what provides it. When I tell her the story of her birth, I will tell her how I reached deep within myself to speak to her, to coax her into life and bring her outside to hold her externally for the first time. She is perfect; we watch her sleep and listen to her breathing and her smell is one I have memorized – she is tangible, alive, thriving – and she is our perfect gift.
I remember waking up at about 1:45 in the morning with a grim realization that my body was going to be put through a marathon of blood, sweat, and tears. I was not afraid, though I considered the possibility of my death. I took a shower while my husband packed our bags. I remember watching the water pour over my pregnant belly, and the sensation of water breaking in the fanfare of her imminent arrival. I spoke with my parents on the phone, whispering quietly, my voice calm as my dad responded with the same level voice.
We packed up and drove to St. Paul at 3:30 in the morning. Light snow. A glittering city. Christmas music on the radio. I looked down at my hands in a moment of panic, realizing I wasn’t wearing my wedding ring. My hands were swollen from pregnancy, it simply hadn’t fit for weeks. I didn’t have it with me – what if I died? – and it Jesse needed something to hold on to, the ring wouldn’t be there. I closed my eyes. My hands were trembling.
We were admitted to the hospital at 4:10am. The confirmation that my water had indeed broke sped up the process, and we were given a room. There were ovals and circles everywhere, and soft hues of magenta and pink. “I feel like I’m in a uterus.” The nurse laughed and said yeah, that was kind of the point. We had already bonded over our matching narwhal socks, which I took as a sign that things were going to be okay. Jesse managed communications and sent out text messages to friends and family letting them know that we were indeed admitted to the hospital and that our daughter was well on her way.
Several hours passed. Jesse caught up on sleep – well, he tried to – and I paced around, waiting for the true pain to set in. I resolved to take a bath at about 9:30 in the morning. I sat in the tub, looked at my body, prayed. At about 11am they put me on Pitocin to speed up the process. I sat on a birthing ball (aka a stupid yoga ball) and called my sister. We talked for a few minutes. I hung up and called my mom. She talked to me while I moved through two contractions. If Jesse was worried at this point, he didn’t show it.
It was noon when it became unbearable. I remember being upset and afraid of how many cords and needles were already attached to me. Heart rate monitor on my finger, fetal heart rate monitor attached to my belly, IV dripping Pitocin into my arm. It was impossible to adjust myself without setting off one alarm or another. In this time, I began to beg for help. I clawed at the side of the bed. I asked Jesse to distract me with weather, news, anything.
I made it until 1:30 – nearly twelve hours of labor – before I conceded to the epidural. The immediate relief it provided was something I was beyond grateful for. I loved that blessed anesthesiologist. I could not thank him enough.
It was then I was able to rest. I dozed on the bed, counting and watching the waves of contractions on the screen. More cords, more tubes, more needles. A catheter, blood pressure cuff, the epidural hanging out of my spine. It was at this moment I realized the severity of my situation. I lost my ability to get up and move at will. I could no longer walk out of the hospital if I wanted to. I was confined to my bed, and would not be leaving it until the baby had left my body. I remember the kindness of the nurses. One held my face in her hands while she encouraged me to rest. Another draped warm blankets and towels over me. My whole body was shaking with the adrenaline and Pitocin. The mounting pressure of the contractions didn’t bring me pain, but they were nagging. Waiting.
At about 5pm, I was ready to start pushing. At this point, I was joined by a nurse who had just started her shift. She would stay with me for the duration of her shift and became one of my greatest allies in this fight with nature.
I was told early in my labor that first-time mothers usually only have to push from 1 to 3 hours. As Zelda and I began working towards her entrance into the world, I told myself I could handle 3 hours of pushing. I was still flying high from my epidural but had enough sense of self to be able to control and feel my muscles push. So the journey began.
One hour.
Two hours.
Three hours.
It was then that we realized Zelda was stuck. Her head was lodged under my pelvic bone, and her body was pressed up against my tailbone and spine. Her heartbeat spiked and sunk. The nurses, at first so close to me, holding my arms and my legs, were suddenly quiet, pulling out the printed sheet that tracked both of our heartbeats.
I began vomiting. They put an oxygen mask on me. Further confinement, spiraling deeper into claustrophobia.
I remember standing in the fields. I heard and saw and smelled generations of people who looked like me, who looked like my grandmothers and grandfathers. I was spinning in lazy circles, feeling the tall prairie grass brush against my legs. These legions of people watched me.
My mother was suddenly in the room. I tried to convey that I was fine, that I was calm. I don’t remember much. I wonder what that was like for her. She birthed me, and here I was, caught in the throes of the end stages of delivery. She told me later that she could hear me struggling, and she crouched outside the door.
At a point, I realized that I could die. I contemplated telling Jesse that should it come down to it, to choose Z, to let her live and let me go. I decided against saying anything to him, not because I didn’t want to scare him, but because I could already feel this tug of mortality behind my eyes. I think it was this realization, this very present end of my life, that caused the ensuing night terrors.
Suddenly, I felt things come together. I told the nurse I had to push again. I closed my eyes, and just like that, Zelda’s head became free. She moved closer and closer to the end goal. Jesse whispered to me that he could see the top of her head. A nurse told me she had blonde hair. I held back tears. Determination to see that blonde hair myself was enough to keep me going. I kept going. The doctors reached into me, rotating Zelda’s shoulders. She was facing up, a little to the right, where her dad was standing. They call babies who are born that way “stargazers.”
A new terror set in when they realized there was meconium. That brings a high risk for infection. Suddenly, the room was filled with quiet strangers. The next twenty minutes passed with bated breath. NICU staff flooded this sacred space that was supposed to be stress-free. They were all so, so quiet.
10:11, she enters the world. She takes a huge breath.
In a minute, the strangers exit the room. They are gone as quickly as they arrived, and Zelda is in my arms. She is so dark. Her skin has a blue tint to it, her head is cone-shaped, her hair is dark and matted. They wash her and give her back to me, and she is pink and pure and quiet and ours.
I didn’t reckon with the deep impact labor had on me until a week later. When the terror and trauma set in, I cried every night.
No one talks about the recovery. It takes a long time, physically. But the mental fingerprint of every labor and birth is so pervasive, it’s no wonder that so many women feel a lingering sadness. It is a realization of the fragility of life, though we prove that we are resilient. Zelda is evidence of that; she is the spring of my life, the perfect evidence that I didn’t give up. She is here, and she is alive, and she is ours.
to put it simply 