Daphne
When I take my pregnancy test in early November and start roughly counting months to figure out my poppyseed of a baby’s due date, I quickly realize we’ll share the same birth month. July is a perfect time for a birthday in my opinion, and I’m happy to share the joy with this ungendered baby. Then I do more precise calculations, and it tells me her due date (July 15th) is precisely one day before my birthday. Cool, cool, cool. That’s what I say to my husband and mom but inside I’m feeling a little disappointed, although I know it’s selfish. I like my birthday because I like celebrating myself. The thought of sharing it with someone else, even just within a few days, is a bit unwelcome. I probably should have realized at that point that becoming a mother meant the forever overshadowing of my selfish days.
By the time mid-July appears, however, I’ve come round to the idea of sharing a birthday. I’m maybe even a little excited about it. The last few weeks of pregnancy are enjoyable for me, despite the rest of womankind complaining endlessly during month nine. Sure, baby girl has some mighty strong legs and yes, I’m waking up two or three times throughout the night to relieve myself in our small bathroom built in the 50s, but generally pregnancy has been a dream for me. Watching my body stretch and expand to accommodate a new person that it creates without my conscious help is empowering. I am a whole new version of myself and I like it.
A couple days before baby girl’s due date—which I keep in my mind but referred to as a “guess” date, as my natural birthing course from home instructs me to—I start having some mild contractions. At first I don’t realize it, either. I’m canning tomatoes with my mom, something I’ve seen her do my entire life but never learned myself, and I start feeling some mild cramps. It happens enough times I ask my mom to tell me if my round belly feels tight and her excited, “Uh, yeah, you’re having a contraction” makes me feel like super woman. Having a contraction and not even realizing it? Man, the birth is going to be a breeze.
The due date arrives and is nearly passed, and my husband and I lay in bed and watched The Officeuntil he falls asleep. I lug my enlarged body out of bed and begin the long female process of preparing for sleep. On the toilet, I lose my mucus plug. That’s a gross concept but frankly a really normal part of preparing for birth that no one ever talks about, so I’m including it. I’m pretty excited as I lay down in bed, but know it could still be days or weeks before the birth actually happens. Within minutes, however, the contractions are starting again, and this time they’re more definite. My brain reminds me that early labor is a long process and it’s not likely this is the real deal, but my heart wants it to be, so I skim through emails from my midwives describing the signs of labor. I’m not supposed to get excited unless they’re ten minutes apart, so I try to be calm, but they just keep coming. It seems like I should time them, and there we are, ten minutes apart on average. After thirty minutes of this, I wake up Chandler.
In retrospect this is the point where I should have gone back to bed. I’ve done enough obsessive readings of unmedicated labor, my delivery of choice, to know that sleep is incredibly crucial and the beginning stages of birth could take days. A voice in the back of my head reminds me to be sane and reasonable, but the other part of me sees numbers that indicate I’m actually in labor, so we stay up all night. I pace around the house, sit on a birthing ball, do anything I can to pass the time. The midwives had said not to call before 6am unless it was definitely go time, and my obedient self makes it until 5:45. Chandler calls them and gives them the stats—each contraction is five minutes apart and often over a minute long—and their response, “well it sounds like she’s in labor” comforts me. Clearly I’m very good at giving birth, just as I had been at being pregnant.
We make it to the birthing center with pillows surrounding me in the car, but each crevice in the road still feels like the gallop of a horse. I listened calmly to my “Hypnobabies” CD, which I’ve been doing for months, but this one is special and had the clear instruction not to listen to it until birthing time. At this point it’s also my birthday and I’m actually thrilled I’ll likely spend at least part of the day holding my daughter – talk about the best birthday ever!
We make it to the birthing center, where my mom meets us, and I obediently lay down to be inspected. The student midwife, Madeline, goes first, followed by the official midwife, who I’m disappointed to find out is my least favorite one in the clinic. A month or two previously, she’d been there for my weekly appointment and had a harsher, more blunt form of communication than anyone else I’d visited with, and I left the birthing center in tears. Madeline, however, is my midwife ideal. She has that classic Californian cool, an incredibly tender bedside manner, and a humor that delights me.
“You’re one centimeter.”
“Are you serious?”
There’s the crushing defeat. After being so careful to not be one of “those” first-time moms, showing up with barely any substantial headway and being turned home until things got real, I amthat first-time mom. It doesn’t make sense to me, though, because by all numerical signs I’m deep into labor. They offer then to strip my membranes, a term I’m familiar with to a vague degree, but unsure of the specifics. Apparently it means sticking their fingers up inside my uterus and swiping them in a circle around my cervical opening, separating the amniotic sac from the contacting muscle. Cool, cool, cool. It might help the process speed up.
“Do it.”
They send me home with a sleeping pill and instructions to kneel for 45 minutes with my butt in the air and my shoulders on the bed, because I’m also experiencing a lot of back pain which means baby girl is facing the wrong direction. My cervix is now at 2 centimeters, however, since human fingers have been abruptly shoved up there.
My mom comes home with us and I obediently contract in that awful position, each wave bringing fresh discomfort. After a while, I drift off to sleep.
When I come to and exited the bedroom, I cry. We discuss what was happening and everyone gives me advice. I tearfully FaceTime my older sister, the one who had turned me on to natural births in the first place. She’d given birth unmedicated twice now, and I loved the approach. Ina May, hippie midwife of the 70s, had become my guide, and I’d spent the last nine months learning all I could about listening to our bodies, letting them do the normal work of birth. I want to be like the Vietnamese women who squat in the rice fields during work, casually have a baby, and go back to working. Or the Native Americans who hold onto trees while each wave of pressure shocks their body. When I mentioned natural childbirth, lots of people thought I was crazy, of course. I could see it on their faces when I mentioned the word “midwife” or “natural birth,”: that sort of wide-eyed fake interest while they nodded their heads and said things like, “Wow, you’re amazing. I don’t think I could ever do that.” Which really meant, “You’re crazy, I would never take that risk, don’t you think your baby might die?” Some people were more direct, like my beloved aunt who called me outright to make sure I had a backup plan and that the birthing center was close to a hospital. Each time this happened, I envisioned their comments melting off of me, having no effect on the serene sphere I was creating for me and my baby. Occasionally, if they were open to talking about it, I’d rattle off statistics about American hospitals and cesarean rates compared with the rest of the world. But most of the time I stayed cool.
And now, my ultimate role model, the sister I copied without even conscious thought, was cheering me on. Turns out she’s what I need, and I feel much better after our FaceTime. I resolve to get this labor going, and the rest of the afternoon is filled with labor-inducing activities. I make chocolate chip cookies, since I want to bring some as a thank you for my midwives. We take a walk around the park near our home, and we all try to maintain a positive attitude. At some point, my mother-in-law, who has been texting my mom throughout the day for updates, offers to come bring us dinner. I’m grateful, and sit outside on our ground-level balcony while eating. Thunder rolls through the sky and I think back to a story in Ina May’s book about a woman who envisioned rolling ocean waves every time she had a contraction, and let her body give in to them. My contractions have slowed way down throughout the day, so I try to channel that mentality, closing my eyes and allowing the low rumbling to wash over me. I will myself to be one with the earth and sky.
Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t work. I’m not an Apache or Vietnamese, I’m an American. My mind jumps back and forth between relaxation and frustration and bitterness. Angry, I go back in the house. My mother and mother-in-law, like true Mormon women, are deep cleaning our fridge, organizing our pantry, and washing our sheets.
Eventually, the guests leave, and we promise to let them know when things pick back up again. A few hours later, my waves start coming again, eventually reaching 3 minutes apart. My back aches something fierce with each rush of pressure, and at 1am we call the midwives again. They tell us to come back to check me again.
2 ½ centimeters. My mom has driven back through the night after being awake for nearly 24 hours to hear “2 ½ centimeters.” Not even a centimeter of progress since the last time I was here.
I cry.
“You’re obviously in a lot of pain, so why don’t you stay here.” I hear Madeline say. It’s what I want, professionals to cheer me on and tell me what to do, so we stay. From that moment on, there is a giant water bottle constantly in front of my face, a thermal one that turns purple when it’s cold, so I can tell exactly how much water is left while I guzzled obediently. “Drink,” someone says, and I drink. “Take another sip,” and I oblige. Sometimes, there’s no verbal direction, just a straw forced into my mouth. I drink.
I sit in that uncomfortable butt-in-the-air position once more, since baby girl continues to enjoy the posterior position, and each contraction is felt primarily in my lower back. Someone suggests a shower, which sounds nice. Chandler puts on his swim trunks, which I had made him pack weeks before for a situation such as this, and joins me. With warm water dripping down my face, kneeling in the steady downpour from the shower head and Chandler giving me a pep talk, I feel rejuvenated. I can do this.
I don’t remember how long the rejuvenation lasts, but it’s not long. I’m given another vaginal exam and told I’m at a 4. Progress, but not as much as I thought it would be. They offer to again strip my membranes, and I’m like what the heck, so they do. While Madeline’s swiping and I’m cramping, I feel an internal shift.
“Did my water just break?” I ask.
“No, that’s just normal fluid… Wait.” There’s a rush of warm liquid, flowing out onto the queen bed I’m laying on, which is thankfully covered with large sanitary pads. Now thisis real progress. From all my reading, I know this means my contractions are about to get much stronger, so I ask if I can labor in the large, spacious tub.
That tub is nice. Here, finally, I feel like the natural birth woman I’d dreamed of, holding Chandler’s hands as each contraction sweeps through my battered and exhausted body. The midwives become worried I’m not getting enough water and decide to give me an IV. The first one doesn’t hit the vein and I yell. The second needle breaks in the process of plunging into my hand, and I become more frustrated. At this point, the head midwife, the French woman who I’m growing to appreciate but generally don’t love, takes over. She gets it.
Chandler keeps trying to be the good birthing partner Hypnobabies has trained him to be. He begins reciting some of his encouraging script, describing what I should be doing with my body, but each time, I just get more and more annoyed. Finally I yell that I gave up on Hypnobabies a long time ago. I abandon all structure and try to deal with the pain in my own way.
While laboring in the tub, I lose my dinner from the night before. Throwing up is high on the list of events I’ll do nearly anything to avoid. Through intense months of morning sickness I’d managed to only lose the contents of my stomach once, despite feelinglike I’d lose it several times a day. Despite my fear of throwing up, however, I’m fairly excited about it this time. From everything I’ve read, throwing up often means the ‘transition’ stage of labor, when your uterus stops opening and started pushing. I’ve grown up hearing the story of my mom throwing up exactly half an hour before each of her babies were born, and don’t think it outlandish that trait could have passed to me. I even think I feel some vague urge to push in my uterus region, and mention this to the midwives. Despite a long start, it seemed things are finally picking up, and picking up quickly. The midwives decide to check my cervix before I get too excited, which turns out to be a good idea. I’m only at a 6.
If my crying before had been full of feeling, this is the Niagara Falls of emotion. A 6? That’s it? After all this pain, I’m barely at half my uterine potential? The pain in my back isn’t subsiding, but I thought I was nearly through. “I can’t do this anymore, I can’t do this anymore,” I cry at my husband, the midwives, my mother, anyone who will listen. Perhaps it’s my subconscious trying to speed things along; I’ve read several stories from other births that considered the moment when the woman admitted defeat as the moment right before the birth. Here and now, though, I know both that I can’t do it anymore and that I still have more to do. My pain is going to get nearly twice as intense, and I have no out. I’m trapped in this pregnant body, and the only release is straight through the pain. Anxiety envelops me, settling into my pain-worn bones. “This was a bad idea,” I shoot at Chandler, angry that we’d even decided to conceive. This turns out to be my mother’s favorite moment from the birth, and she’s laughing about it for days.
The midwives offer me laughing gas, an option that can take the edge off of the pain. They seem hesitant to offer it, used to women who are adamant about no form of pain-relievers during childbirth, but I say yes quickly. I make it out of the tub at some point, although I have no recollection of the fact. The laughing gas feels odd and I can’t tell if it helps at all, but I use it like there’s no tomorrow. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. I’m legally the only person who can hold the tube to my mouth, so I transition easily to the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland.
The next few hours are an absolute netherworld. People had told me that for the last part of labor I’d be unaware of my surroundings, but it still surprises me to this day that looking back I have very little memories from such a pivotal day in my life. The back pain feels like the force of a train at this point, and each person in the room takes turns pressing on my hips as each contraction consumes me. One on each side, elbows locked, pushing with all their might—that’s the only thing that seems to help. If they get the position wrong just a tiny bit, however, it hurts to high heaven and I scream for them to stop.
Sometimes I grab Chandler by his upper arms and let the rest of my body sink to the floor, squatting and pulling on him with the minimal energy I have left. Every few hours he leaves to go to the bathroom or grab a drink, and when a new wave hits and I notice he’s gone, I cry out “Where’s Chandler??” I’m completely oblivious to any needs but my own. At one point, I find myself laboring on the floor on my hands and knees. A contractions subsides and I find myself more conscious that I’ve been in a while. I’m thirsty. “Water,” I whisper. Everyone is surprised to hear my voice speaking words and not just moaning. “What was that??” Chandler leans closer to hear what I said. “Water,” I whisper again, somewhere finding it in me to get the exact intonation Albus Dumbledore has in the sixth Harry Potter movie. I know Chandler will recognize it. I’m in excruciating pain and going through the worst day of my life, but I’m making a joke. I think Chandler laughs and mentions the joke to my mother, who doesn’t believe I’m capable of doing that on purpose right now (and I don’t blame her), so I nod my head to show that I did indeed mean to make a joke. Later, Chandler tells me this is the moment he knows I’m going to be alright, in the end.
As I lay on the bed, resting between contractions, I hear Chandler and the midwives’ hushed conversation behind me, explaining the reddish-purple line extending up my butt, which indicates I’m nearing 10 centimeters. At one point a midwife asks me if there are any songs I sing to the baby, and I quietly murmur “The Goodship Lollipop,” which I’ve been singing every other day or so to the baby girl inside me. My mom tries and sing along at this point, since she was the one who taught me the lullaby in the first place, and for some reason I’m mad. I want this to just be me and my baby. I cry and tell her to stop singing, but immediately feel awful for it. For days after the birth I relive this moment and feel like the most awful daughter, but when I finally apologize to my mom, she’s incredibly understanding.
I don’t know when I start pushing, but I guess I do. I’m still inhaling laughing gas like it’s ambrosia, which means I start getting light headed. I finally come to enough to recognize this, and quickly tell the midwives I feel like I’m going to pass out. They descend like a hive of bees, laying me down and grabbing the tube of gas from me. The head midwife, who’s generally stayed back most of the time unless checking a stat, kneels over me. She stares me down and insists I look at her. I feel myself fading.
“HEY,” She yells, bringing me back to earth. “You’re not going to pass out, okay? Look at me.”
Someone suggests transferring me to the hospital at this point. I’m trying desperately to keep my eyes open, since I’m afraid of what fainting would do to my baby, but my eyes keep trying to shut against my will. Eventually someone asks me if maybe I’m just shutting my eyes to sleep, and that feels right. The feeling of passing out has passed, although I’m still a weak pile of bones and flesh.
Someone reminds me that I’m going to meet my baby girl soon. I’ve completely forgot about the fact that there’s a fully grown baby I’m about to see, my focus on the pain has been so complete. I’m horrified to realize that I don’t even care about the baby anymore. All I want is for the pain to stop and for me to sleep.
We end up on the birthing stool and I begin pushing in earnest. Chandler sits behind me and supports my back, but he also needs supporting since he’s been awake just as long as I have and has exerted all his strength pushing on my hips. We sit there for a while before someone reminds me that I need to do actual work. Oh, right. They have me tune in to my body and I realize there are actual contractions coming, and I should be using those to push down. I ask what it’s supposed to feel like. “Like you’re taking the biggest poop of your life,” someone tells me. Cool, cool, cool.
They can feel baby girl’s head, it’s right there. Each push brings it into view for a moment but then it disappears again. Madeline reaches up and tells me my baby’s hand is up by her head, which is why it’s taking so long. She pauses, then looks at me and urgently says, “Anna, your daughter just grabbed my finger.”
There’s really a baby in there and she’s really mine and she has little fingers, which is wild. I keep pushing.
I’m yelling wildly as I push with all my might, but it feels like my entire reproductive region is going to split in two. For months one of my worst fears has been tearing; it would be completely normal to do so, but I’m still terrified of it. One of the student midwives suggests I put the energy I’m using for yelling into pushing. I’m supposed to direct the yell downward instead of out of my body, and I oblige. I can feel some real pressure now. Why didn’t anyone tell me to do this sooner?
I want this baby out. Finally, it’s real. We are so close, but she’s not coming. As each contraction begins, I push with all my might, and find myself staring fiercely into the eyes of Madeline. She’s my lifeline, and looking into her intense gaze somehow strengthens me. I know I can do this, I know I’m not going to tear into a million pieces, but I swear the baby’s head is going straight out my butt, and isn’t my vagina further forward? Someone explains she has to make a turn underneath my pelvic bone. What a trip.
I’ve been pushing for two hours at this point, and the baby has stalled in my birth canal. She’s only progressed by an inch or so, and the midwives are pretty sure that’s just because her head is swelling up. I can hardly feel the contractions anymore. The head midwife finally announces we’re going to the hospital. Everyone is concerned about me. “Anna, are you okay with that?” My mother is frantic I’m going to end up getting a C-section. Do I actually want to go to the hospital?
Finally I yell, “This is what I’ve been saying!!” Referencing every moment I cried that I didn’t want to do it anymore. Everyone’s a little stunned, but they grant my wishes. I guess I’ve been naked since I stepped out of that shower ages ago, so they quickly throw my slip and robe over me.
As I stand from the birthing stool with the help of several people, I can feel my baby slide back into me. My uterus isnothappy about that. Where before the waves and slowed to barely discernible, they return with a vengeance. I now know THIS is what pushing contractions feel like. I’m screaming and yelling, “She’s going to come right now.” And everyone’s trying to simultaneously be there in case she actually does, and transfer everything to our car. My dad’s been in the waiting room for a few hours, listening to his daughter scream and moan. He’s the appointed driver, with my husband in the passenger seat and the head midwife next to me in the back.
I’m squished next to our newly purchased Chicco car seat, the one that had brought me to tears a few weeks earlier. Dimly, I register that it’s a stormy July evening. When did it become evening?
The drive to the hospital is everything you’d expect from a soap opera birth. I can’t sit down, the contractions are so intense, and I’m positive I’m going to have the baby right there in the car. I keep screaming that she’s coming, that I’m going to have her right now, and the midwife eventually fires back that if I have the baby right there in the backseat of my car, it’s fine. She’s there and she’ll catch the baby.
We pull up to the labor and delivery unit, where the head of the Women’s Clinic is waiting to escort us in. I can hardly walk, and every minute I have to stop while another intense contraction hits. Inside my head, I realize how ridiculous I look, screaming that the baby is coming as I enter the hospital. Others that see me probably assume I’m a first-time mom who’s only dilated to a 2, which is technically what I had been a few days previously. I want to scream at everyone that I pass that I’m at a 10 and I’ve been pushing for two hours and I haven’t had any pain meds so this screaming is realand they better do whatever the hell I want them to.
I’m settled into a hospital bed and they hook me back up to an IV. The nurse quickly asks me questions while my husband fills out consent forms. I want to snatch them from him and make sure we’re not agreeing to give away all our agency. My Hypnobabies course had told us to have backup plans for hospital emergencies, but I ignorantly refused to acknowledge that as a personal possibility. I hate myself for it now.
The nurse is a stern-face, long-haired blonde in her 30s, and I don’t know how she ended up in the labor and delivery unit. She tells me she’s going to check my dilation and shoves her gloved hand up my vagina. I scream and writhe in pain I while she harshly scoops her hand around the baby’s head. “What the heckare you doing?!” I yell, angry and violated. “It’s neverhurt this bad before!” I wish now I’d just said hell.
She finally removes her hand that’s become an impersonal tool. She looks a little miffed that I had the gall to yell at her, and my midwives look furious that she has violated me in such a way. Chandler and I are glaring fiercely. She says something about a bit of the cervix being caught or something, but all I know is I hate her.
“Do you want an epidural?” She asks.
“Uh, yeah, that’s the only reason I’m here. I need something that will let me sleep.”
When I tell people in the medical field that I got an epidural while I was dilated to a 10, they’re frankly stunned. I don’t know why this hospital allows it, but I’m grateful, since the alternative likely would have been a C-section. I’m personally stunned that I manage to stay still enough during the needle, since my body is still being wracked by contractions every few minutes, although they’ve slowed considerably since entering the sterile, industrialized hospital room.
The relief is immediate. My entire body starts to tingle and the immense pressure that’d been making the calls for the last 24 hours subsides until it’s gone. I’m deliriously happy, and suddenly remember we left the cookies I had made yesterday afternoon at home. They were meant for the midwives and everyone who helped, so I sleepily tell the anesthesiologist that I have treats and I forgot them but we’ll make sure we get them so if he wants to come back in a bit I’ll give him cookies. He’s like, “Sure, sure.”
The midwives make sure I’m comfortable and prepare to leave, since I’m now under hospital jurisdiction. Looking at them all and reflecting back on the harsh cervical exam I’d just received, I’m incredibly grateful. I stare at their kind faces and begin weeping. “I just love you guys so much, you’ve been so wonderful.” I tell them. We have an easy conversation about the names at the top of our list for baby girl: Molly, Lila, and Daphne.
“Daphne like Scooby-Doo or Daphne like the Greek myth?” Madeline asks.
“The myth,” we say, explaining that Chandler is studying Classics. I’m surprised she even knows about the myth, and she laughs and tells us she put an ex-boyfriend through a Classics graduate program years ago. Madeline has meant the world to me throughout this ordeal, and in that moment I know our baby girl is going to be a Daphne.
Since I’m now much more aware of my surroundings, I give the nurse my requests. I don’t want the baby to be given a bath or the vernix to be rubbed off her skin right away. I want her on my chest as soon as she’s out. I want delayed cord clamping. I don’t want an episiotomy without my permission. Can we make sure those things happen? Stick-up-her-butt nurse tells me we can.
The doctor wants to start me on pitocin since my contractions have dropped way off since the epidural, but I plead for sleep. “Just let me sleep for like, an hour, and then if they haven’t started again we can do it.” He seems to mentally roll his eyes but leaves me alone.
Chandler and I try with all our might to sleep. A machine in the corner keeps beeping every fifteen minutes, though, and nurses wander in to adjust it. I ask if they can shut it off, and they say “Oh yeah, it should stop,” but it doesn’t.
After an hour of sleep that’s really probably more like thirty minutes total, the nurse comes in and I agree to pitocin. I lay there for a while with a peanut ball between my legs, just like the one at the birthing center. This feels incredibly different, though. I can’t even feel what my body is doing, I’m strapped to continual monitors, and I’m not allowed to leave this one position. My mom comes back, having settled my dad and in-laws into the waiting room, and we finally get to the pushing stage. Again.
I ask the nurse if I can have a blessing before we begin pushing, and she helps me back onto my side after we’ve already set up those awful stirrups. My dad and father-in-law come in, and Chandler offers a really nice blessing. I don’t remember much of it, but my mom later points out that he mentions the doctors knowing what to do. I’m grateful.
We begin pushing, and this time there’s a regiment in place. I have to push as hard as I can for 10 seconds, then I get to breathe for a moment, then I do 10 seconds again. After three or four times, I rest during contractions. It’s nice to have something specific to do, but I also feel a loss of control. Because I’ve been laboring with this good body of mine for a few days now, I can still sense when a contraction is coming if I focus really hard, and I’m full of pride when I alert my nurse to a contraction she almost missed from not looking at the screens.
I’m starving at this point, and incredibly thirsty; all I get are ice chips and a slushy. I guess I’m getting plenty of fluid through this IV, since I apparently consumed two bags at the birthing center and am making my way through two more here. Baby girl’s heartbeat, which was steady as a horse during my 16 hours at the birthing center, is wavering a bit with each contraction. I get an oxygen mask, which makes breathing frustrating and hard. I ask continually if I can take it off.
Another nurse comes in at 11:45 pm and says the doctor is delivering another baby next door and wants us to stop pushing. Cool, cool, cool. I love stopping the circle of life for the convenience of a man I don’t even like. This probably means the baby will be born after midnight, which means she won’t have 07-17-17 as her birthday, which I’d started rooting for. Fine, whatever is best for the doctor.
I have a habit of high expectations that are dashed into wallowing pity, and it’s on the brink of explosion throughout this entire experience. I keep reminding myself that this is supposed to be the best day of my life. I could ruin in by being angry and disheartened, or I could do my best with the situation. The happy attitude is difficult to maintain, but I think I succeed. I even try chatting with the nurse I hate to break the ice a bit. Her six children include several teenage daughters. My mom later tells me how bad she feels for those girls, since our nurse is clearly a no-nonsense perfectionist.
Finally, a bit after midnight, the doctor and a whole entourage of nurses come in, pulling a table of scary-looking tools. A couple nurses in the corner warm up the endlessly beeping machine. It’s in case the baby needs to be resuscitated or something. I ask if that’s because they’re worried; no, it’s just general procedure.
I push and push and push. They ask if I want to see the process with a mirror and after one try I ask them to move it back—it’s too weird. I can tell the doctor’s getting frustrated this is taking so long and I want to club him over the head but I keep my cool. At some point, scissors come up too quickly for me to notice and with a quick snip, I’ve been given an episiotomy without my consent. My mom is furious, but tries to keep her cool and just glances at my husband. I see the exchange and decide to ignore it. I’m about to give birth and bask in the feeling of new motherhood, and I don’t want anything to ruin it.
After a while the doctor says, “I can get this baby out on the next contraction if you want.” My mom, who is holding one of my feet, is confused. “How?” she asks. “Salad tongs.” He says brusquely. I’m baffled at that one, and look at my mom. Her lips tighten and she turns to me: “Forceps,” she translates.
Nope, no way. I’m not having this man yank the baby out of me and give her head trauma. Was he trying to lighten the blow by calling them “salad tongs”? It feels disrespectful to me; call them what they are and don’t trick your clients into it.
I ask if I can push a few more times and then revisit the forceps idea. I guess her head is stuck going under my pelvic bone, much as it had been back at the birthing center. After four more contractions, I can feel my strength waning. I don’t want this to turn into an emergency cesarean, so I give him permission to use the forceps. Perhaps I ask him to be careful, I can’t remember.
He slides the forceps (which truly do look like salad tongs) gently into me and we wait for the next wave of pressure. He guides baby girl’s head under the bone and then removes the forceps, allowing me to do the rest of the work. Despite his immense flaws, I’m incredibly grateful for the skill he had with that maneuver. In the coming days, nurses are always surprised to hear there were forceps involved, since our baby has no head trauma.
After a few more quick pushes, my baby girl is born.
Everyone talks about the moment they first became a mother and the waves of love that poured over them. The “wow this is really my kid” type of feeling. The feeling that “the veil was so thin.” I don’t feel any of that. The doctor takes out my reddish-gray baby and I reach out my hands for her. He suctions out her nose and I stretch my arms more. He hands Chandler scissor to cut the cord, which I specifically asked him to delay, and my arms yearn to hold this child that’s been with me for 9 months. Finally, they give her slippery body to me.
I’m full of relief. Instantly I wonder if she’s really mine, since I can’t see many resemblances. Her lips and cheeks are swollen and I don’t see my genes. My eyes light on her slender fingers and I note surprisingly long fingernails already need a cut. Those look like mine. I keep holding her and just trying and trying to bask in the moment. It’s nice, but it’s not world-shattering.
Within two minutes, a nurse asks me if I want them to get a diaper on her so she doesn’t poop on me. I’m really confused. We’re both covered in blood and slime, I think we’re fine? I want her to remain in her original state as long as possible.
After ten or fifteen minutes, I start feeling a little bad that Chandler hasn’t gotten to hold her yet, so I ask if he’d like to. He’s happy for me to keep holding her, but I’d really like to see him being a dad, so I insist. We make the transition and Chandler carefully takes our vulnerable newborn. He’s like every new dad I’ve ever seen— timid, extremely cautious, and a bit awkward. It’s pretty cute.
They get Chandler settled in for some skin-to-skin time, and I realize there’s still a bunch of people hovering around me. The doctor has been stitching me up for what feels like an eternity. I ask where the placenta is. “Oh, you delivered that a while ago.” Cool, cool, cool.
Finally, the doctor leaves. I notice movement in the corner of the room though, where they’ve been weighing and measuring baby girl, and now she’s on that stupid beeping machine.
“What’s wrong, is she okay??” I’m beginning to get a bit frantic. She’s fine, apparently, but her breathing is just a little bit fast so they want to monitor her for a while. I want her back in my arms, but I’m forced to wait.
The nurse I dislike tells me she’s going to sit me up, and begins to raise my bed. Immediately, I feel light headed. The nurse takes one look at me and lowers the bed again. I don’t feel good at all, and my body is shaking. “I’m so cold,” I tell her, and she gets me several more blankets. She then takes my blood pressure, and it’s freaky low, like 60/20, so she takes it every five minutes for a while. Our baby cries in the corner, no longer firmly enveloped by constant warmth. Chandler holds her finger and she stops crying.
My mom stays by my bed and Chandler stays by the baby, but we’re separated by the whole room and I’m mad. I want to hold her, but I’m also feeling so crappy I don’t know if I can. My mom encourages me to relax and strokes my hair. I vaguely wonder if I’m dying. Articles about appalling maternal death rate in the United States spin through my mind, and I’m not sure if anyone in this hospital cares about me. Why aren’t they doing more to make sure I’m okay? I’ve had a slight fever throughout my entire labor, and it’s not going away.
Eventually I feel a little better and I’m allowed to hold our daughter. By now it’s 2:30 in the morning and I feel terribly guilty that my in-laws have been sitting in the waiting room since we arrived at 6:00. While my mom goes to get them and my dad, Chandler nervously asks me what I’m thinking about the name. He’d been partial to Daphne for months, but I’d come round to it slowly. I’d even gotten mad at him a few weeks previously since I didn’t want him to be disappointed if she came out and another name felt more right. I smile and tell him I like Daphne, and Chandler is relieved. Everyone comes in and has a turn holding their new granddaughter, Daphne Rose. It’s a good moment.
After they leave, I finally get some quiet time with my daughter while Chandler passes out on the bench in the corner. I try to nurse her and am completely unsure if she latches or not. A new nurse takes over, and she’s much kinder than Blondie. At 4am they transfer us to the postpartum ward, and I’m incredibly proud to be riding the halls with my newborn in my arms. She’s really beautiful.
They try to give me all this information about the postpartum unit at 4am, showing me forms I need to fill out in the next few days, how to order meals, how to call for the nurse, everything. I’m barely cognizant as it is and want to yell at them that it’s Tuesday morning and I haven’t slept since Friday night, but I haven’t got enough of a backbone to hold my ground. Next time I’m telling them to leave.
Daphne wakes up several times throughout the night, and each time I put her to my breast and try to nurse her. I’m doing everything I know how to do, but I’m still not sure if she’s getting food. I think once or twice we get a good latch. She dozes off and I do too, waking each cry to the startling reality that I’m now a mother. Nurses come in for their shift change at 6am, and they give me antibiotics and pain meds. The nurse tells me I’m not allowed to hold Daphne while I sleep, since I could easily drop her in my exhaustion. It’s a really valid point, but I also know we’re going to co-sleep the minute we get home. I feign obedience for the nurse. She still sleeps most of the night in my arms.
The next morning, Chandler finally wakes up and we chat for a bit. We’re so happy and we’ve got a real baby and it’s amazing. A nurse comes in and says “Is that red?” as she looks at Daphne’s hair, which is caked in blood. I’m like “No, it’s blood,” and she’s says, “No, the hair.” I realize I’ve given birth to a redhead and my heart swells. The nurse says she’s taking Daphne down to the nursery for her newborn checkup from the pediatrician on call. I desperately want to accompany her, but I’ve just given birth after a grueling labor and I’ve still got a catheter, so it’s really not an option. Chandler goes instead. The nurse promises me it’ll just be thirty minutes, so I try to sleep.
The pediatrician comes to our room thirty minutes later and sits down. In retrospect, I should have realized there was bad news coming, but I didn’t even know who this man was. He tells me everything’s fine, but Daphne’s breathing is still fast and since I’ve had a fever, they want to keep her in the NICU to give her antibiotics. It all sounds like they’re just trying to cover their own butts in the small chance something is wrong, and I’m ticked. I’ve had less maybe 8 hours with my daughter, and she’s been stolen from me without my consent. I thought she was leaving the room for a mere 30 minutes, but after this, she never comes back to this room.
He leaves, and I call Chandler immediately. “What’s going on.” He’s just as mad and quickly explains what happened, but he’s just finished washing his hands for five minutes and is now getting into the NICU, so he has to go. I sit alone in my hospital room and wring my hands.
Chandler comes back and tells me everything is fine, they’re trying to give her an IV but not having success, her veins keep rupturing. They’re sticking my newborn over and over again with needles. Cool, cool, cool.
The next few days are a blur. People keep coming in to tell me things I’m supposed to remember: here’s a pump, I’m your insurance representative, I’m your lactation consultant, here’s Daphne’s insurance representative, I’m the head nurse. I want to tell them all to shut up and let me have my baby. I finally make it into the bathroom on wobbly legs, and a kind nurse helps me relieve myself naturally for the first time in more than 12 hours. It’s terrifying sitting over that toilet, feeling like my insides are going to come spilling out. Everything hurts.
Down in the NICU, Chandler and I find Daphne alone in her portion of the room. I want to hold my baby again, so we pull her out, which makes the machines around us start beeping. A nurse angrily comes in and tells us we can’t just do that, and helps us get her out in the approved manner.
I’m told that rupturing veins are a sign of sickness. They can either poke Daphne one more time in the head, or skip straight to using her umbilical cord opening to give her medicine directly. We choose the latter option. While I’m there holding her hand, Daphne’s breathing reaches normal rates. The nurses are surprised, but Chandler and I are thinking, “Duh, I’m her mom, let her stay with us.” Apparently if we had been at the hospital 20 minutes the other direction, she could have.
I’m hungry and sweaty and shaky and I can’t walk. My baby is in another wing of a hospital I didn’t even want to be at in the first place. Family members come by, but it’s awkward to sit in our room without a baby. The grandparents are put on the list of NICU visitors, but by day two my mom calls me and tells me she’s sick. She cries as she tells me she can’t come visit but that she wants to more than anything in the world.
Daphne has trouble breastfeeding. That first day, she’s only hungry every 6 hours or so, and Chandler and I start to accept the fact that she really is sick. When she does try and eat, she has trouble latching and I’m getting frustrated. This isn’t the kind of environment I expected to be in as my baby and I learned to nurse together. It’s tense, loud, and impersonal. At the end of that first day, a nurse is extremely surprised to learn I haven’t started pumping yet. I didn’t realize I was supposed to, but I obligingly begin pumping every 3 hours in addition to being wheeled down to nurse Daphne at the breast. Some nurses are extremely helpful, like the one who stays for 20 minutes with me until we get a good latch. Some are pushy and seem to suggest that breastfeeding just might not be the best option for us. They don’t know how determined I am.
I receive a nipple shield after a few days and it helps immensely. She’s getting the milk she needs, but she keeps falling asleep. We’re sending all extra milk I pump down to the NICU so they can bottle feed her with it anytime I’m not around. One day we arrive right before a feeding with a nurse already preparing the formula, just full on ready to feed our baby without checking if we were on our way.
After one exhausting visit down to the NICU, Chandler wheels me back to the postpartum unit. The room across from us has its door ajar and inside there’s laughter and happy chatting spilling into the hallway. We enter our quiet, empty room and I sob on the bed while Chandler holds me. I want Daphne here with us, healthy and happy. I want friends and family coming to visit and bringing flowers and holding the tiny bundle for the first time. I want to enjoy new motherhood and relish in the fresh wave of emotions it brings. My pillow is wet with tears by the time I’m done. Everyone cries in postpartum, but I feel my tears are more than just hormones. I’m mourning what I’ve lost.
Chandler insists I get some sleep. “Everyone keeps barging in,” I tell him, so he pulls a chair to the entrance, dims the lights, and guards the door. As I sleep, I hear the door open several times and Chandler telling whoever is behind it that I’m sleeping and I need to be alone. I love him.
We’re kicked out of the hospital on Thursday afternoon, despite Daphne remaining. My mother-in-law buys groceries for us and we hurriedly make plans to stay at my aunt and uncle’s house, who live much closer to the hospital than we do. We head home to gather some clothes and toiletries, and when I enter our small apartment I cry again. The perfect nursery sits undisturbed, with my letterboard reading “Welcome home baby girl,” but there’s no baby to welcome home. I’ve come home from becoming a mother empty-handed.
Over the next few days, if we’re awake, we’re at the NICU. By now I can walk, although it’s more of a shuffle, and my breasts could feed a third world country. We leave at night for about 7 hours, and during the day for one nap, but every three hours I’m pumping milk regardless. We pack sandwiches for lunch and granola bars, carrots, and hummus for snacks, and our families come bring us dinners. The nurses, who have made official notes in their logs that we are a “very independent couple,” wheel in a reclining chair to Daphne’s area, since we spend so much time there. We have to wash our hands for five minutes straight every 12 hours, although we don’t have to wash our phones, and our hands sure touch those right after being washed. There’s one male nurse we get two days in a row, and after a moments hesitation I decide to breastfeed unabashedly in front of him. If he’s not over that kind of stuff by now, he really shouldn’t be a nurse.
We finally discover from some lab tests that Daphne likely has the Strep C virus. Strep A is the most common strep, Strep B is common in pregnancy (and I’d been tested for it a few weeks previous), but Strep C is weird and more rare. Apparently my placenta was carrying it. We’ve no idea if I’d received the virus during labor or before, but I’m suddenly very grateful I delivered at a hospital. What if we hadn’t thought much of Daphne’s symptoms until too late? What if we’d done placenta encapsulation like I’d wanted? What if I’d gotten sick as well? I try to be grateful and positive.
There’s some Discovery channel marathon going on this whole week, and every time we go to the lobby to grab a bite to eat or trade off who’s in the room with Daphne, we watch. The Alaskan Bush People quickly become our friends, giving us a welcome escape from the hell that has become daily life.
I don’t know how we do it. Adrenaline and God’s grace, I guess. But somehow, we’re told that Daphne can come home Sunday morning. She passes her last tests in the middle of the night, when they take her from our sleeping room where we’ve been allowed a “room-in” stay to see how she adjusts now that she’s off her antibiotics. Sunday morning, we pack our bags and leave the NICU. Daphne is finally with us.
The first day of home is a happy one. I’m trying hard not to take anything for granted, like seeing Daphne in her crib or seeing her in her own clothes or nursing her in our bed. My parents come over and bring dinner and we bask in the newborn glow, but all my adrenaline is finally slowing down and I’m tired to the extreme. The next day, Monday, is much the same, but this time Chandler’s family comes with dinner. I’m so happy to be showing off our baby in our house, what I’ve been dreaming about the past week, but I realize I don’t feel good at all. I excuse myself and go lay down while Daphne meets her great-grandparents. Chandler comes in to make sure I’m okay, and we discover my fever is back. After an hour or so of sleep, everyone leaves and we consult. I’m feeling awful and overwhelmed and my uterus is beginning to ache. Again, I wonder: what if I’m dying?
My parents drive quickly down to Provo and my dad and Chandler give me a blessing. I make some calls to the OB who delivered Daphne, but he can’t help me because I’m not covered by him. We call the hospital, but they just tell us to go to the emergency room. I’m not interested in paying thousands of dollars for someone to give me penicillin, so we finally call one of my parents ward members, a family doctor and the father of the woman I trained while a missionary. He listens while I describe my symptoms. Although he’s not sure what’s going on and recommends I go see someone who specializes in this stuff tomorrow, he prescribes me some amoxicillin for the time being.
Somewhere in this visit, Chandler suggests privately that maybe we should go stay with my parents for a week or two. The idea sounds incredibly welcome, and we agree to approach them when there’s a moment. Before we can, however, my dad suggests the same idea. We all cry and apologize and start packing.
The next day I visit my midwives. My temperature has gone back down, the stitches look “beautiful” (I guess that stupid OB can do a few things right—bedside manner is not one of them), and I should be good to continue on the prescribed pills. I’m relieved that I’m not dying, since all morning I’d been considering the worst possible scenarios, like placenta retention. My midwives are kind and loving and in the coming weeks, everything I need from a group of supportive women. The difference visiting with them versus my experience at the hospital is palpable. They set aside a full hour for my appointments, watch me breastfeed, ask me about my mental health with care and compassion, listen as I cry, and give me powerful female hugs. I’m an individual, not a number.
Motherhood feels weird at first. I keep feeling like I should be filled with those rushes of overwhelming love, but they don’t really come. Sometimes I sit and quietly cry to myself. When Chandler returns to work, I panic a bit. One afternoon, Daphne’s crying and nothing will help, so I walk around with her skin-to-skin and try singing lullabies for the first time. She quiets as she hears my familiar voice. She knows me. She even seems to know “The Goodship Lollipop.”
My dad suggests I talk more to Daphne. At first I’m offended, but then I realize he’s right, and I begin conversing with this beautiful, tiny, red-haired daughter of mine. It helps.
One day, my best friend comes over and we weep together while I tell her the birth story. She holds sweet Daphne and we talk about our children being best friends. As she’s getting ready to go, my mom invites her to stay for dinner, and my friend accepts. I leave the room, frustrated that I really don’t want her to stay for dinner. I love my friend, don’t I? I should be happy to have her around. But my body and mind are exhausted and I’ve just spent an hour playing host. I don’t think I can do it for the rest of the evening. My mom finds me crying in the laundry room and when I catch her up she apologizes for jumping in. My sister, who has arrived from New Mexico, hauls me into the room with my friend and insists that true friends understand. Beautifully, thankfully, she does. That night I’m still wracked with guilt, though, and I sob again on the bed with Chandler. After talking for a while, he suggests we watch an episode of The Office.
It helps. It helps in ways I didn’t know I needed helping. I’m laughing at meaningless madness again, and we’re sitting on the bed watching a show we’ve always watched. It feels normal. I feel like… Anna. I feel like me, not just Mom. Both are important roles and I realize I need to merge the two.
As the weeks pass, everything improves. There are low moments, but there are also high moments. Like when Daphne learns to smile, or when we go for our first walk outside. Stretching my parenting muscles is weird. It’s not a perfect transition, but a continual work in progress that proves humbling and exhausting and fun. Sometimes I find myself thinking back to the birth and feel the anxiety rise within me. I joke that I’m experiencing PTSD, and the reality is I probably am, on some level. But eventually I come to a good place. I figure out how to be both a mother and Anna; Anna the Mother. I like her.
