On the Saturday morning of
November 1, 2014, at 9:13 am, we welcomed little 7 lb. 10 oz. 19" long
Cole Alexander Monsees into the world!
The previous night was
Halloween, and Dave and I decided to take a longer evening walk to enjoy the
Halloween festivities on 24th street in Noe Valley. We rummaged through
our box of Halloween costumes and knick-knacks to get into the spirit. We
kept it simple - Dave wore Groucho glasses, Winston our Maltese had on his plaid
bowtie collar, and I safety-pinned a severed doll arm holding a pumpkin candy
basket onto my then fully-blossomed belly (a recycled costume worn by a friend
last Halloween when she was pregnant with her little guy). My costume was
by lengths a success amongst many kids and adults that caught sight of the baby
crawling out of my tummy to go trick-or-treating. Little did I know that
this costume was to foreshadow what was to happen early the next morning!
In the early morning hours
of Nov 1st, at around 3AM, I awoke, as typical, to relieve my tiny, compressed
bladder. Upon returning to bed, I began to have light cramping - similar
to the discomfort of the 1st day of my period. It was an unusual but
familiar feeling (as I hadn’t felt that in 9 long months!), but I did not think
much of it and tried to go back to sleep. By 3:30AM, the cramps felt a
little more intense, so I went to the restroom again and after wiping noticed
pink discharge on the toilet paper. I remember thinking - well, my
mucus plug is still M.I.A., so perhaps it will show soon or this is just my
body slowly preparing itself for labor in the coming weeks. I crawled
back into bed to try and close my eyes, but the cramps continued to
intensify. By about 4AM, I decided to wake up Dave and told him what I
was feeling and seeing, and all the while, the cramps continued to become more
and more painful.
My recollection of what
comes next is a bit blurred as my body continued to turn up the intensity and
my mind began to focus more and more inward, but I remember needing to move
from the bed to the living room and sitting on the couch leaning my arms
against the backrest. Dave in the meantime had quickly downloaded an app
on the tablet to record my contractions. As the minutes passed, I
remember it was becoming harder and harder for me to communicate through the
rushes and I began out of necessity to moan through exhalations to release the
tension emanating from my lower abdomen.
According to Dave, by
5:45AM, we decided that this was in fact labor, and paged Maria -- contractions
were 7 mins apart and a hard 1 min 20 sec long. I was not in a mindset to
process how long my contractions were, what that meant, or even the concept of
time for that matter (!), so I recall in those moments thinking it was too
early to call Maria - that I didn’t want to inconvenience her with what was
probably nothing or just early labor.
Dave continued to monitor
my contractions - my uterus decided to pick up the pace and contractions
quickly accelerated to 3 min 30 sec apart. By this point, there didn’t
feel like there was a moment to catch my breath. The best I could do was
pace circles around the kitchen island and fight the surges standing up -
hopefully finding a surface to lean on when my surges peaked. In my head,
I was trying to remind myself to live in the moment, but in reality, I
was anticipating the next surge and how much more painful the next one would be.
As the contractions got more intense with fewer breaks in between, I clearly
remember thinking, if this is what it’s going to feel like for the next
36-48 hours, I don’t think I’m going to make it!
Eventually, maybe because
I could not find a comfortable position or thought of the women we saw in
videos during our homebirth class that labored in the bathroom, I moved onto
the toilet. Here I stayed with pillows and towels at my feet (along with
Winston and Dave) to labor. After some strong surges, I felt something
hanging out of my vagina. I somehow verbalized this to Dave, who got a
flashlight to look and thought it was some part of the baby’s body, but that it
was too small to be the head. In that moment, he nervously considered the
scenario that he’d have to deliver the baby himself!
At around 7:30AM, Maria
arrived - I was still laboring on the toilet at that time and had by that point
given in to the urge to push (which did feel like a vomit reflex...just from
the opposite end!). Maria examined me and was amazed to see that what was
hanging out of me was the amniotic sac, or balloon, as the sac had not
ruptured, and also determined that I was already at 10cm!
Sue Baelen (our assisting
midwife) arrived shortly thereafter, and both Maria and Sue thought I would
make better progress by moving to the bed. When it was suggested I move
to the bed, I remember thinking impossible! and that was like someone
asking me to climb Mt. Everest. I somehow managed to make it onto the
bed, but after an hour on hands and knees on a soft memory foam top bed (not
optimal folks for hands and knees!) and little progress, I became exhausted.
Maria recommended that I try flipping over onto my back with Dave
sitting behind me so that I could lean into his torso. There, he could
support me and help me hold my legs back to rotate my pelvis up while
pushing. What helped tremendously was having Maria focus my pushes
towards the back of my vagina where she was applying pressure. This
worked well and and after a few more pushes, you could see Cole’s hair behind
the amniotic balloon.
During this time, Maria
repeatedly told me to open my eyes - to re-focus but also to see the head
starting to crown in the mirror. I kept my eyes shut tightly - maybe
because I didn’t want a visual for the pain I was experiencing, maybe because I
was trying to escape. Instead, she asked that I reach down and feel the
head emerging. I did - and I thought, wow really? I’m already
this close now? The sensation of a baby that far in the birth canal
was not what I expected - yes the surges were painful, but the fact that the
baby’s head was sitting in my pelvis about ready to be born surprisingly was
not intense.
Oh but the so-called Ring
of Fire - yes I felt that indeed! My encounter with the Ring of Fire was
acknowledgement of it, and then damn it, just push past it! And
voila - the head was out. The balloon finally opened and Maria reached in
to unloop the cord from around Cole’s neck (my cord apparently was quite long)
-- she said he came out with his eyes wide open. By this point, the
surges were becoming less intense - I wasn’t sure I was ready to push the body
out, but Maria gave me one last round of encouragement and the next thing I
know (after about an hour of pushing on my back), Maria tells Dave and I to
reach down and catch our baby! We reach down and pulled a crying Cole
onto my chest. He was big, pink, and full of life. Dave admitted
there were tears. I honestly cannot recall what thoughts flooded my head
at that moment, but I was certainly awe-struck...in awe of Cole, in awe of what
my body just did, in awe of Dave, in awe of Maria and Sue, all the while
thinking, this is it!
It’s humorous to note that Winston our dog sat quietly on the bed next to us - literally a foot away from all the action. Either he knew exactly what was going on or was wondering why the hell everyone was making so much noise!
We let the cord pulse out
for a few minutes, and the placenta delivered quickly thereafter. I
received stitches from Maria for a labia tear - luckily, we later learned from
another midwife Ami that Maria is the best embroiderer around!
The only other big
challenge after that was peeing. After a few tries that morning, and
concern about swelling near my stitches, Maria inserted a catheter and was able
to drain an incredible 2 liters of urine from my bladder - a record according
to Maria!
By 12:15PM our new family
was alone. After only 6 hours of (intense) labor, and a week and a half
early, it was hard to believe what just happened. To capture some of the
sentiments from Dave’s own written account of the birth - having only known
him for less than 36 hours, I can tell that little Cole is an amazing guy. And
after watching Judy bring our baby into the world in such a brave and focused
fashion, I can't imagine myself ever being prouder.
And now after 3.5 weeks of
living our lives with Cole, I can also say that I can’t imagine myself ever
being more proud of our new little family.
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