Before his pregnancy, if asked, I would have sworn that I wanted a highly medicated birth experience with as many interventions as necessary to keep me from feeling any pain. Fate pushed things the other way. Pushy Bitch.
We moved back to the island of Saipan when I was six months pregnant. In my imagination, my calm and medicated birth took place in a hotel-like hospital room, shiny and new, with all yucky medicalish torture implements hidden behind a pretty pastoral picture on the hotel-room-like wall. I knew things were rougher on Saipan. The hospital is basic, clean and safe, but basic. No pretty birthing rooms that look like hotel rooms, no high tech tours, no epidurals for normal births.
"What? Back up." I gave my crusty, weather-worn, ex-peace-corps family practitioner, Tony, the evil eye. Tony has lived on Saipan since 1973. He has delivered more babies than God. You know, if God delivered babies, rather than just creating them.
"Well," Tony explained, calm and rational, "there are only two anesthesiologists on the island and they need to be available for real emergencies. Surgeries. We can't have them tied up with trivial things like child birth."
He may not have said 'trivial things' but I was almost seven months pregnant and this is my story. No fancy room, no epidural, but I had a good attitude. I became more and more attached to the idea of natural childbirth. "I can do it," I told Matt, nervously. More like: I CAN? DO? IT? I am woman, hear me scream bloody murder.
Garrett was ten days late when I finally went into labor. My salt-of-the-earth, ex-peace-corps family practitioner wasn't worried. In fact, he informed me at my 41 week appointment, that I only measured about six days overdue. Oh. SIX extra days. No problem then. In case any of you decide to become a laid back, salt-of-the-earth family practitioner in the next few years, for your own safety, you do not quibble over four days with a 41 1/2 week pregnant woman. If I say TEN days overdue, it's ten days overdue. Period.
I started contracting at about 10:00 p.m. the night of October 10. The contractions were regular, but mild, and I spent the next eight hours wandering around our house feeling vaguely excited. In the morning, we bumped and jolted down our unpaved, rutted driveway to the hospital in Matt's Jeep, laughing, exuberant and exhilarated. Today, we would be parents. Or, two days from now. Details. Clearly, I wasn't in active labor quite yet.
Saipan's labor and delivery ward is run by Fijian midwives. They are large, authoritative woman who are not impressed by laboring mothers. They checked me at the door, almost literally, I think if I would have let them stick a finger up there and check me at the actual door, they would have, and agreed it was labor, but early labor. The Fijian midwives told me to take a walk. Or thirty. Actually, they signed-languaged me to take a walk, since they don't speak English and my Fijian is rusty. I asked when I should come back and they signed something vague about feeling actual pain.
Hmmmmm. I walked until 1 p.m. I was hungry. Tony showed up to check on our progress and I'd achieved a whopping 5 1/2 centimeters of dilation in fifteen hours of labor.
Tony: You have a long way to go, but you're making progress.
Me: I'm hungry.
Tony: You should keep walking.
Me: I'm hungry.
Tony: I have to go back to the clinic for some appointments, but I'll be back to check on you in a couple of hours.
Me: I'm hungry. I want a hall pass. I'm hungry.
Matt: I think we should stay here.
Me: I. AM. HUNGRY.
Tony: You can leave. Just be back to be checked by 3 p.m.
We went to McDonalds. I had a chocolate milkshake. I still remember it being one of the creamiest, sweetest, yummiest milkshakes I've ever had. That and that it was really weird to be in labor in the Saipan McDonald's drive thru. From McDonald's, we went home for an hour and Matt gave me the stink eye until I caved under the pressure and agreed to go back to the hospital a little before 3:00.
We ran smack dab back into the Fijian midwife wall at the L&D door.
FMW: (making the universal fingers-walking sign for walk) Walk.
Me: How long?
FMW: Until it hurts you. Come back when it hurts you.
Me: It hurts a little.
FMW: (shaking her head in disgust) No. Walk. (Exaggerated fingers walking.)
Me: Sigh.
Matt: I guess we should walk.
Me: At least I'm not hungry.
We walked and walked and finally, a little after 6:00 p.m., Tony breezed in from his yacht club meeting. I kid you not. He checked me and offered to break my water. Sure, I told him. Anything to quit walking. I have been walking for 21 hours now. Tony went into my vagina (too graphic, sorry, my story) with a horrid little hook and broke my water.
Ten minutes later, I had my first contraction. Because everything before then had just been for giggles. For the love of God. The pain. The horrible, nauseating, excruciating pain. I sobbed. The baby surely must be coming NOW. The FMW smiled. Yes, she nodded enthusiastically, now. Yes. Labor. Huh. Dear god, make it quick.
Garrett, my love, it is at this point in the story that I passionately and sincerely began to hate your father and for the next few hours I continued to hate him. Don't worry, he redeems himself later. The Saipan hospital L&D ward is a bit old-fashioned. Right in the middle of it, there is a huge whiteboard where each patient's name and status and vital information is written when they are admitted. The FMWs keep it updated throughout your stay with interesting statistics like centimeters of dilation.
Matt, apparently, got bored with my endless labor and excruciatingly painful contractions and amused himself by following the board, like his own personal betting pool in Vegas. He would periodically check it to see who had been admitted and how many centimeters they were. Then, he would report back to me with encouraging, loving words like, "Stace, I KNOW you can beat this one, she's only 2 centimeters dilated."
A few minutes later, Tony would rise creakily from his comfortable spot on my birthing ball, pat my leg and depart to deliver the woman's baby. The woman who had been in L&D less than an hour. After the third one, I bit off Matt's head and told his bleeding neck stump that the board was not to be mentioned in my presence again. Like EVER.
Five hours later, hoarse and exhausted, I had achieved ten centimeters dilation and had permission to push. I remember seeing the clock and registering that it was a little after 11 p.m. Oh, I thought, he'll be born today, then. October 11. Aha.
I pushed. And pushed. And pushed. For three and a half hours, I pushed. And screamed. I pushed and screamed and cursed quite a bit, I believe.
"You almost there. Just one more push."
15 minutes.
"You're so close. One more like that."
30 minutes. Three other babies were born down the hall.
"That's perfect, just one more big one like that."
15 minutes.
"That's it, you're so close, we see the head when you push like that."
15 minutes.
"You're almost there, Stacey."
"NO! NONONONONONONONONO!!!! I am not almost there. You've been saying that for hours. This sucks. I'm tired. I can not do it. ICANNOTDOIT."
"Come on, you're doing so well, don't you want to see your baby?"
"No. I don't want the baby. I might hate the baby. But, not more than Matt. I don't want it. I just want to die. Do you all hear me? I no longer want a baby. The best part about this entire day was the stupid chocolate milkshake."
But, my body betrayed me and I pushed one more time and, just before 3 a.m. on October 12, 2005, Garrett Russell entered the world. He had a really, really, big, horribly misshapen cone head. In his defense, he spent three hours in the birth canal, which is a pleasant euphemism for IN MY VAGINA.
At the moment of his birth, his father said, "oh my god, he's huge, I'm so sorry," which might be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. I forgave him for everything, the board, the island, being alive, everything. I forgave you too, Garrett, my perfect, gorgeous, miraculous, first-born son. Because you were better than anything I'd ever done or seen or held or achieved before that day. Better than my whole life up to that point put together. Better than a million chocolate milk shakes.
Yes, that little hat is hanging from the point on the top of his alien cone-head. What of it?
Happy Birthday, G-rama. We love you.
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This is my third and final birth story. Quinn's came first, my baby, born in July. We already had a baby girl on the day Garrett was born, a beautiful two-month-old baby girl, but she was still living in an orphanage in Haiti.
I adore birth stories. Tell me yours! If you already told me one on Quinn's birth post, tell me another one. If you don't want to tell your story, you could read about Marinka's c-section or the birth of Kate's twins or Psychmamma's scary, but ultimately happy experience. Go on, it's the miracle of birth. You know you love them too!
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