Labor. It's work.

I was so eager to meet her. At 39 weeks of pregnancy, I had had it - I was tired of being immobile, hot, uncomfortable, and chained to the bathroom. I could not wait to hold her in my arms. I was impatient and curious - what did she look like, what would she smell like, what would her cry sound like? Would she recognize my voice when she heard it, and would I feel like I had known her for so many months already? Sometimes I would sit and poke my belly and say, "Come out and play with me!" and Paul would scold me because he said that she'd come on her own time, and that he wouldn't mind a few more days of sleep either.

Maybe somehow I willed her exit to happen. I woke up on July 10, 2011 in the middle of the night to discover my water had broken. It wasn't like in the movies where everything is wet. Things were only a little bit wet, yet I knew that it was water and not anything else. I waited and waited that morning, wondering if my contractions would begin and the process of labor would start. We waited some more, making plans to go to a friend's birthday party if she didn't come, repacking the hospital bag if she did come; yet nothing happened. I felt some Braxton-Hicks contractions, which are more like minor cramping, but nothing that told me that my body was going into actual labor.

I called my doctor that afternoon and she advised me to come into the hospital, saying that there was a risk for infection if my contractions didn't begin soon. Little did we know what we were in for. They tested to see if I was leaking amniotic fluid, and the test came out negative. But my doctor was dubious about the results and told me to walk around for an hour and take the test again. I was okay with that until the nurse told us that we had to stay on the eighth floor (the labor and delivery floor) of the hospital. This made the hour particularly slow, as I was moving at a snail's pace (I had pulled my groin in pre-natal yoga class the week before, making my walking ability that much more impaired!). Paul and I walked from one side of the hospital floor to another, stopping to stare out the same window about 50 times, sometimes laughing at the futility of the exercise and sometimes staring at the clock in disbelief. But what do you know - my doctor's instincts were correct. At the end of the hour, I took the test again, and it came out positive. My water had indeed broken, and the clock was on before the baby was at risk for infection. And so the ride began...

We settled into a rather large delivery room and the nurse stuck an IV in me and started me on a low dosage of Pitocin, a synthetic form of oxytocin used to induce contractions. As hours passed and they raised the Pitocin level notch by notch, we waited for my contractions to get stronger, but nothing seemed to be happening. I checked Facebook on my phone, played Words With Friends on my iPad, and even watched an episode of Friday Night Lights. It was boring and I wasn't doing anything; we were waiting for the drugs to do the work. I didn't feel good about that but nothing could be done. At one point, the fetal heart rate monitor indicated that the baby's heart rate began to drop and a barage of nurses burst into the room interrupting my sleep, flicking on all the lights and talking in loud, urgent voices. They threw an oxygen mask on me, did a rough cervical exam (ugh!) and waited to see if the baby's heart rate would go back up. Even though I felt like I was in the middle of an ER episode, I knew the baby was just fine because I could still feel her moving in my belly. They then had to turn off the Pitocin and start all over again from a low dosage.

Finally, after about 12 hours, my doctor figured that my water hadn't completely broken - it had just started leaking from the top of the bag, which prevented my body from receiving signals to go into labor. So she broke my water (I didn't even know this was happening when she did it) and then the contractions began to kick in so strongly that I knew I wouldn't be able to handle them for very long without pain medication. I had long kissed my dreams of a "as-natural-as-possible" birth goodbye, and had to accept that this was what was in the cards for me. Letting go of the desire for a natural birth was hard, as I had read all these books about it, including The Joy of Natural Childbirth which heralded all the ways birthing could be a beautiful, painless experience. But being on Pitocin, I couldn't use all the coping methods that we had learned in our birthing class, like walking around, using a birthing ball, taking a bath, shifting into different positions, etc. I was chained to the bed with an IV pumping antibiotics and fluid, a fetal heart rate monitor, and all kinds of things stuck invasively in every part of my body. And because the Pitocin made the contractions even more intense than they would have come on naturally, the pain was searing. In tears partly from the pain and partly from letting go of what I had wanted for my labor, I called for the epidural.

About 20 minutes later, the anesthesiologist showed up. He was a little Korean man with a cart full of drugs. I imagine he must be a popular guy whenever he enters a hospital room. It took about 15 minutes to administer the shot in my back as he casually made small talk with my nurse about last year's hospital holiday party, and almost immediately I felt a numbing sensation come over my lower body that finally brought relief from the intense contractions that had had me writhing in pain. Ahhhhh. I smiled, relaxed, and felt like myself again, wanting to hug him. It was the perfect dosage - I was relieved from the pain, but could still wiggle my toes and feel my feet. I was able to sleep intermittently for the next part of my labor, as I wanted to rest as much as possible for delivery. But the nurses watching the baby's heart monitor again burst into my room a few hours later, repeating the exercise from what was now the day before, saying the baby's heart rate had dropped and they had to turn off the Pitocin once again. It was another scare, but deep down I knew she was just fine. At this point, I realized that so much of obstetrics is about preventing the worst-case scenario, despite a mother's intuition telling her that everything is okay.

I had now been in the labor process for almost 24 hours. At this point, my contractions were still going even without the Pitocin, and once they turned it back on again, I was finally closer to the right amount of dilation. At last, I was at about 8.5 to 9 cm dilated, and it was almost time to push. But my doctor came in with a doubtful look on her face. "I'm really praying that the baby will start moving down more, but I don't know..." She was worried about the amount of time since my water had broken, which was approaching a point dangerous enough that a C-section could be a safer route since the more time that passed increased the chances that the baby could get an infection, and the baby was still feeling a little too high up. With all the antibiotics they were pumping into my system, I didn't feel that worried and something told me that somehow, my body was going to make a way to get this baby out safely.

Finally, I was dilated enough that it was time to push even though the baby was still pretty high. And push I did. With a nurse holding one leg and Paul holding the other, I pushed with all my might because it was the only way to bring relief to the intense contractions that I was feeling now that my doctor had turned the epidural off. I thought about the technique I had read about in my Hypnobirthing book that discouraged traditional "purple pushing" and instead advocated for the mother to "breathe your baby down." Well, I hadn't taken the class, I'd just read the book - but at this point there was no way that just deep breathing was going to make this baby come out. Maybe next time, oh somewhat-misleading-natural-birthing-methods.

Continuing to push, I went through bouts of frustration, asking my doctor desperately, "Why isn't my body helping me?" to which she replied sympathetically, "I don't know, Connie. I don't know." I pushed through sweat and tears, groaning and using every last ounce of energy in my body. Nearly two hours later, I finally heard my cheerleading team screaming more optimistic chants such as - "You're almost there!" (me: "You promise?!") and "I see the head!" (me: "Are you serious?!") "You're doing amazing!" (me: "Really?") and "Oh my God!" from Paul, shocked by what he was seeing, along with a rather sweet, "Thank you, thank you" he whispered in my ear seconds later. Then, a final push, my doctor saying, "I know you have a birth plan and you didn't want a vacuum used-" and me saying, "IT'S OK, JUST DO IT!" And then, a cry. A very sweet cry.

A crying, wet baby was placed on my chest and though I couldn't see (didn't have my glasses on) and all I really wanted to do was take a shower and sleep for 10 hours, I was amazed at this little person wriggling around finding her way to my breast. She was really here. I felt a strange sense of peace and rationality float over me, and this first encounter was nothing like what I thought it would be. I had imagined myself bowled over with emotion, crying at my first glimpse of her. But instead it sunk in slowly - I was a mother; I was calm and collected, and here was my baby at long last, needing me for survival, wanting me, and in her own little way, loving me. I strained to see Paul and the baby as he cut the umbilical cord. I wanted so badly to be standing there next to him and the team of nurses hovering over the baby, but I was still lying in the bed with my IV in as my doctor was quietly focused on stitching me up. I kept asking her if she was done, and finally she said she was, putting away her collection of scissors and tools that had made me cringe at first glance. She looked over at the baby and from behind her scrubs, shower cap and face shield said, "Happy birthday" to the baby softly, and then, "Oh, you guys - she's so cute!"

And then it was all over. Paul held a calm, quiet, clean baby in his arms wrapped up in a pink and blue hospital blanket and cap. He had this huge grin on his face with a tenderness in his eyes that I had never seen before. The nurse helped me get cleaned up and use the bathroom, and I nearly fainted from dizziness and pain. I got refueled on some cranapple juice and was moved to another room in the postpartum wing, where I nursed the baby again and gazed down at her little face. I melted as she held my index finger tightly in her tiny grasp, feeling a deep love wash over me. She was perfect, healthy, and nothing seemed to matter except for the three of us in this tiny room, soaking in the bliss of being a little family.