I have intended for some time to get the story of Maxine’s birth in writing. It will be long. It will not be gory. Her birth wasn’t and I’m not one to embellish. Well, unless it makes me seem smarter and/or thinner. And while giving birth technically made me thinner, it certainly did not make me smarter.

For those uninterested in the long version: on her due date, seven hours, and no drugs.

For those who are, and for posterity’s sake…

I’d had a feeling she would be born on her due date. I’ve just always assumed any child of mine would simply make that happen. 

So, on the morning of Monday, December 26th 2011, Job and I were doing exactly nothing. We had stayed in the city for the holiday break. A 10-hr trip home was not part of my birth plan. 

The cats had been eyeing me all morning. I even made comment about all the cat eyeing I was receiving. They knew.

My water broke just after 10 am. I was rising from a seated position and I felt the pop. It wasn’t unlike a tendon passing over a bone. I could both hear and feel the tension give way. I suspected my water had broken but the situation called for restraint. For some very silly reason, you don’t want to sound a false alarm. For me, it wasn’t really the worry of being wrong, it was the  gripping fear of being right. I was ready. I was due. But the clock - like the clock - just started on the waning hours of life as you know it.  And then there was still the actual labor & delivery to contend with. 

I brought Job up to speed. He made me chuckle and my suspicions were confirmed. Peeing yourself a little while pregnant is par for the course. This was different.

I called the midwife. He finally packed a bag. We showered a’ deux. Marveling about life as we know it. I offered my cat theory again. We agreed if the cats were sitting outside the shower door with hot water and towels then they truly did/had known. There they sat. (Minus water and towels but it’s no less remarkable.)

I was to receive antibiotics so there was no laboring at home for us. We absolutely took our time though. Lingering over phone calls to family and friends. I experienced my first real contraction en route. Real, but still super manageable.

Some of the amnesia that eventually comes with having a baby leaves me with the distinct memory of sitting in the backseat on the way to the hospital. But I just wasn’t. I was in the front seat. Memory is an odd thing. Memory plus climbing a mountain of pain for 7 hours and then sliding back down with your vagina lends itself to inaccuracies.

We arrived at Pennsylvania Hospital (the nation’s first) and made our way to triage. They had lost my pre-registration materials so we did that. Again. I disrobed and gowned. Climbed in a truly tiny bed in a room with another truly tiny bed and waited for the labor bullying to begin in earnest. I suspected a hospital would try to strong arm me into the typical cascade of interventions and they didn’t disappoint. I think it might have been 7-minutes until we heard “Pitocin”. 

Nope. We were steadfast. My water had only broken 2-hours ago. Can a sister get some time to let nature do it’s thing?? I am certain I was labeled as difficult and one particularly unpleasant midwife advised me I could sign out AMA. It was by no exaggeration that ridiculous. Alas, while they dickishly told me I wasn’t considered in “true labor” and therefore couldn’t be admitted to L&D, I also couldn’t go home because my water had broken. They pushed me to a peri-partum floor and I acquiesced to take a ripener. 

While it felt long, the timeline went something like: Arrive at hospital at Noon. Admitted / move to peri-partum room at 2-something. By the time they get the medication up from the pharmacy and find a pill cutter, I was in active (!!) labor by 3pm. Like contracting every 3-minutes, vomit from the pain/force contracting. Intervention averted.

Yay nature.

So, now I can rightfully go to L&D. (And they will later shamefully charge me over $400 for the 2-hrs I spent in that peri-partum room they dickishly sent me to. Insurance - sminsurance. It’s the principle of the matter.)

I walked. It hurt. I had to pause to contract along the way and shit just got super real. I lost any sense of composure and decency on that walk. From there on in my vocabulary was reduced to “Ohmygod. Ohmygod. Ohmygod.”, “Ohshit. Ohshit. Ohsit.” and, turn your head Mom, a whole mess of “FUCK!!!!!”. The very core of my female being is apparently not a lady.

I tried the bed. OHMYGOD. I tried a chair. OHSHIT. I even tried the commode. FUCK.

I passed the hours in the shower. Sitting on a tiny seat that folded down from the wall. Job alternately stepping forward to massage my back and resting with my contractions. 90-seconds of barely keeping it together followed by 30-seconds of “rest”. That’s a joke. You are either coming down from the previous contraction or you are rounding the next. You can sense it coming. Welling up from deep within and then splitting out and over your entire body. 

I can’t separate the time adequately when trying to remember. It’s all a blur. I do distinctly remember eyeing a tile wall next to me and seriously considering just banging my head until I lost consciousness. 

It was terrible. It feels like nature hates you. I’ve searched for an appropriate metaphor but really it feels like your giant, baby swollen uterus is contracting to expel your 8-lb baby out.

It’s terrible and then you have to push. I returned to the bed. Laid on my left side. And Job and I yelled at one another. Not in a bad way. We’re not quiet people and this situation called for yelling. I really couldn’t even hear the midwife though she didn’t say much. She later complimented us on our teamwork saying she didn’t feel like she needed to coach / intervene. We were everything the other needed.

Pushing was not a relief. I knew then and recall with perfect clarity that I resisted pushing her out. It hurts. I was scared. But the midwife did wisely tell me at some point, “Emily, you will eventually have to push your baby out.” I remained capable of reason and gave in. 

Once Maxine’s head was out, I heard the midwife ask the nurse to page Peds. “Why are you paging peds?” “The baby passed meconium.” And that was all I needed - I finished the delivery. 

She was fine. No complications whatsoever.

In that turn. That seconds long leap. I went from being consumed with my own shit - 30+ years of really just wonton selfishness - to being wholly owned by my child. Even the suggestion that she might be in distress and my distress was dismissed. I tucked away my pain. I offered everything I had to serve anything she needed. 

In that seconds long leap, I became Maxine’s mother. 

There were mountains of pain but I will never recall it as a painful experience. I am immensely proud and grateful for what my body has done. I am immensely proud of my daughter and grateful for the part that she played. It can’t have been pleasant for her either. And I am beyond proud and grateful for my husband. Sometimes I wonder if it’s not harder to watch the one you love slam into a wall of pain. Well, not harder, but it can’t have been pleasant for him either.

I can and can’t wait to do it again.