My Second Birth Story - Pt. 3
After much supportive feedback from my first birth story, I am back to share the story of my second. It makes way more sense within the context of my first birth, so if you haven’t read that, or if you need a refresher, read it here. To read this second story in order, check out Part 1 and Part 2 first.
This time, I gave birth at home, and I know the idea of home birth is a loaded one. You should know that my first thought after returning to lucidity from laborland was: “Holy #/&%! Everyone should give birth however they want!”
You should also know that this is a story about birth. Swear words, anatomical terms, and reference to normal bodily functions that are typically taboo are part of the package.
Monday, July 10th - 42 weeks + 3 days
After the last-ditch effort acupuncture seemed to turn my birth on like a key in an ignition, I fell into bed for the afternoon and rested like it was the most important job in my life.
Contractions began to catch my attention around 11pm Monday night. I was reluctant to call it ‘Labor,’ but I was also aware that 10 days of prodromal labor may mean that things move fast once they finally start. I began to time the contractions to see if a pattern was emerging. They were coming anywhere from 3 to 8 minutes apart and lasting almost exactly a minute each.
Caught between the fear of contractions fizzling into nothing and the fear of a speedy birth for which no one arrives on time, we finally called it ‘Labor’ and rang our people around 1am. We rang my mother-in-law Kirsten to pick up our son Viggo. We rang midwife dispatch to make a plan. And we rang my doula Karina Isolde, as I was near ready for support through the pains.
Throughout the dark of night, Bjarke and Karina took turns spooning me in bed. Karina’s hands pressed like a cat’s, padding into my back. Bjarke would actively offer massage, then his touch would taper off as he fell asleep, then on again as he jolted back awake.
In the red glow of our nightlight, I looked at the room around me—my room—and felt so grateful that birth had finally come, and that I was laboring in my own home.
Tuesday, July 11th - 42 weeks + 4 days
Morning Slow-Down
With the dawn, Bjarke, Karina, and I emerged from the dark cave of the bedroom to fix a little breakfast in the light-filled kitchen. We’d made a plan with the hospital to dispatch a midwife to us at the next shift change around 9am. We were to receive Harriet, a seasoned midwife who’d just returned from a midwifery appointment in Greenland, and who happened to be acquainted with Karina. I felt like she was going to fit right into our little birth bubble.
Somewhere between the snacks and small talk I realized it had been quite some time since my last contraction. ‘Oh, hell no!’ I thought, ‘This will not be another false start. I am having this baby TODAY.’
With the midwife on her way, I panicked, believing she’d arrive and discover the truth—that I was still not in labor. Harriet did indeed show up in the middle of this lull. I felt embarrassed, almost apologetic, for my poor performance of labor—first I’d summoned Karina out of bed in the middle of the night, and now I’d made the midwife come out here without even one contraction to show her. I panicked at the thought that maybe my body really didn’t know how to sustain consistent contractions, that the nurse who’d looked me in the eye in my first pregnancy and said, “We don’t believe you’ll go into labor naturally” was right, even now.
Just as I was about to spiral all the way into unhelpful thoughts, someone (me?) suggested that perhaps my body labored best in the dark. So back to the bedroom cave I went. I took one of our red dining chairs with me, as sitting down on it seemed to bring on some of the best contractions. So there I labored, squeezing the edge of the seat with my hands, thanking my past self for swiftly purchasing black-out curtains for our new bedroom.
My cast of caregivers rotated in and out of the bedroom, so there was only one person with me at a time. They simply waited and observed, or offered a hand if I asked. Like this, labor picked up again.
Doula, Karina Isolde (left), and midwife, Harriet
Noon + First Exam
At 12:15pm, Harriet suggested a vaginal exam (the first one, and she’d already been there almost 3 hours, mind you). This was a loaded procedure for me, as I felt pressured into several vaginal exams during my first birth, many which now feel like violations. Most were painful, uninformative, and only promoted despair that my body was opening too slowly.
During this pregnancy, my consultant midwife Catrina helped me understand that, yes, those vaginal exams were a violation. When I said “no” to them, that should have been respected. She also helped me form a rubric for considering how and when a vaginal exam might be a helpful tool.
I was to ask, ‘What decision will a vaginal exam help me make at this point in my labor? What actions might we pursue based on the measurement, and am I open to those actions?’
Harriet, in complete respect for my wishes, said that a vaginal exam could help us decide whether to actively help Baby find better positioning, or to just continue following labor’s flow.
I consented. Together, we decided that Harriet would check my cervix but not tell me how many centimeters open I was, as one of my biggest concerns was that a vaginal exam would leave me feeling deflated.
[Side note: In Harriet’s notes from my birth, she wrote about consent everywhere, and that feeling of safety and respect that I experienced in her care resurfaced just from reading them. It felt like she wrote these notes as a love letter to me—a record of my power and of her respect.]
She went ahead with the exam and then grinned at me: “Are you sure you don’t want to know? Because it’s super!”
“Alright, I want to know then,” I grinned back, buoyed by her enthusiasm.
“You’re 4-5cm open. It’s great news!”
Though I trusted Harriet’s enthusiasm, the number felt lackluster. The 10 days of prodromal labor already had me open to 2cm, and I’d expected the rest to go fast. But now I’d been actively laboring for 12 hours and only opened 2-3cm more. I still felt far from the goal, but I followed Harriet’s lead and decided to be encouraged.
The other measurement method I did not want to revisit from Viggo’s birth was the constant fetal monitor that wrapped my belly in a belt and tethered me to a machine. This time, Harriet checked Baby’s heart rate every 15 minutes with her hand-held monitor, and I loved listening to his strong heartbeat and confirming that he was well. That, plus his movements I could feel the whole way through, provided what we needed to know.
Afternoon in the Rainbow Room
After the vaginal exam, Harriet suggested I could enter the birth pool if it sounded inviting. The only issue: Bjarke had beautifully staged the pool in our living room, which was bright with daylight. But by now we knew I needed to be in a dark cave to maintain strong, working contractions. What to do? Just as I’d almost accepted that there’d be no warm, soothing water, I remembered that there was, in fact, another room with blackout curtains in our apartment: Viggo’s bedroom with its cheerful rainbow wall. So Bjarke and Karina cleared Viggo’s bed and set up the tub in front of the rainbow, next to a shelf of children’s books.
A bit before 2pm I stepped into the birth pool, hoping that the water wouldn’t slow down my contractions. It didn’t. I continued to work through their increasing intensity with steady breathing. Harriet even asked me where and how I’d prepared for birth and she complimented my connection to my body in labor, how I seemed quite in tune with what was happening.
One thing that befuddled me, though, was finding a ’comfortable’ position to labor in. ‘Comfortable’ in quotes, because who expects labor to be comfortable? But I did form labor position criteria: 1) it must encourage labor’s progress (aka be upright, so gravity pulls baby’s head down to put pressure on the cervix) and 2) be restful enough as to not drain the energy necessary to complete the labor marathon.
Before the pool, I tried on lots of positions for size: standing and swaying, standing and leaning at a 90-degree angle, all-fours on my bed without pillows, all-fours on my bed with all the pillows. I badly wanted to find a rhythm in one of these prized ‘optimal birth positions,’ but the position in which I labored best remained seated with my butt in a regular ol’ dining chair, squeezing the seat with my hands to cope with each wave. I had such good contractions there that every time my legs shook with fatigue as I experimented with a more ‘optimal’ position, I announced my return to the ‘contraction chair.’
In the pool, I still searched for a ‘comfortable’ position. I assumed all fours, I sat upright on my knees, I draped my arms over the tub’s edge, and then I returned—every time—to a seated position with my legs stretched out in front of me. I pressed my fists into the ground with each building contraction, lifting my bum off the floor of the pool.
Searching for the ‘optimal’ labor position. The glamorous net underwear are holding a hot water bottle on my lower back.
Finding my rhythm in the Rainbow Room. You can see Harriet monitoring Baby’s heartbeat here.
Returned to my ‘optimal’ labor position: on my bum.
The Questioning Phase
Questions began to bubble up while I labored in the water in the Rainbow Room. The question that had been present the whole time now showed up with more urgency: HOW do human bodies do this? HOW is birth possible?
After a while in the tub, the contractions began to shift. They spaced out for long periods of welcome rest, but in between the rest, a new type of contraction was forming, one markedly different from those I’d been breathing through for going on 14+ hours. My breathing started shifting to something more vocal, nearing those primal sounds that I knew from my hours of absorbing birth stories indicated the impending arrival of the pushing stage. But perhaps my conscious mind was playing a role in producing those noises, hoping to show myself and my birthing team that we were almost there.
In the waiting spaces between contractions, I began to allow myself to wonder if my body was transitioning from opening to pushing. ‘Transition’ is a famously intense phase, and while my contractions were all-consuming, it didn’t quite match that lose-yourself-laborland I’d heard so many people recount. In my head, I thought, ‘I can’t get off this easy…’ and in my body, the truth was that pushing still felt a few steps away. But I allowed myself a little hope and a vision of my baby soon descending out into the water, out into my hands, in front of the rainbow in my firstborn’s room.
But these strange new contractions picked up frequency and intensity, and I began to lose a grip on where I was in that linear labor ride I’d thought I was on. If the change in contractions didn’t mean I was on the cusp pushing, then where was I?
Besides, I could no longer find a comfortable position that still afforded rest, so I suggested I get out of the tub. Harriet recommended a check of my cervix to see what we could do next.
Still searching for a restful position..
Saying goodbye to the serene, breathe-through-contractions phase of labor.
5pm + 7cm
At 5pm, almost 5 hours after my first cervix check placed me at 4-5cm open, Harriet’s check revealed I was 7cm open. ‘WTF?!’ I raged inside my head. I clamored for understanding and the wherewithal to cope with these new contractions—they now made even less sense to me, since they hadn’t marked the transition from opening to pushing.
I could not cope with these for another 2-3 hours, if that’s what it was going to take. Somewhere, I briefly grieved that this labor may carry on to the point that my midwife would need to shift out. And in yet another cognitive place, I felt bad for making everyone wait even longer for my birth.
‘We don’t know how to get lost anymore.’
While 17 days of waiting for birth to start may have taught me patience, I still had a lot to learn about being lost. Up until now, I could trace each stage of my labor back to some textbook definition of progress as I understood it. But it no longer made any sense—we’d gone off-piste; I couldn’t locate myself in it anymore. I needed to signpost the stage we were in, which stage we were leaving, and where we were going next. Contractions were supposed to shift once one hit 10cm open….but I was merely 7cm with no pushing in sight. Strong contractions pummeled me with little rest in between. It didn’t make sense, but I had no choice but to carry on without knowing where I was or where I was heading next.
I labored laying on my side on the edge of the bed and crossed a threshold into a new phase. I left my serene breathing techniques behind. I’d lost the plot of this birth and very little made sense to me anymore. I worked my way vocally through each contraction now, groaning, roaring, and cursing my way through them. My hair and the bedsheets beneath me soaked with my own sweat. Bjarke and Karina took turns getting at eye level with me and answered the questions I cried out with:
“Whose idea was this?!”
“Why is this so hard?!”
“How do I get out of this?!”
Answers:
The idea was mine.
I am creating life.
The way out is through.
I closed my eyes and willed a helicopter to lift me out of this misery and deliver me for an immediate c-section or a miracle epidural. I sincerely believed I was dying—couldn’t understand how I could sweat so much and not be dying—and in that moment, I flirted with death, inviting it as the solution to ending the suffering.
“F— YOU GUYS” I roared toward my birth supporters, as I carried on vocalizing whatever the f— my labor-land mind spat out. In the next moment of lucidity, though, I clarified the grammar: “I meant, ‘F—, COMMA, you guys!’” as I meant no offense to my unflinching caregivers.
[In reading Harriet’s birth notes, I snorted with laughter at this section, because she wrote, “Gina’s handling it beautifully!” about this exact phase in which I was using the crudest language, hoping for a helicopter to airlift me the hell out of there, and roaring all the way.]
“I need to rest! I need to rest!” I cried as each contraction hit me with relentless intensity. The midwife responded by attaching a TENS machine to the bottom of my belly. The small, electric shocks offered a distraction, if not quite rest, and I was grateful. But shortly after, I was desperate again and Harriet suggested the relief of warm water in the shower. I agreed and we plodded our way to the bathroom.
The Shower
I stood under the stream of warm water for just a few moments before the pressure of gravity became too much and I assumed all-fours on the floor. Water beat down on my lower back, which actually did help.
And yet, the relief still was no match for birth’s intensity. The contractions shifted again, each one now concluding with an involuntary buckling of my body—dare I begin to allow the thought—a reflexive pushing.
But I’d only been open to 7cm mere minutes before! So my logical brain knew it couldn’t be the baby.
“Something is trying to exit my body! It’s poop, it’s poop, I know it’s poop!” I suggested with wild-eyed confidence.
The midwife asked me to turn around so she could watch a contraction from behind. As I turned to point my nose to the back corner of the shower, I warned everyone of the hemorrhoids I’d long suffered with both my pregnancies. [These bits of grounded cognition and small talk scattered amidst the backdrop of an otherwise incredibly intense and other-worldly experience will never cease to amaze me about birth.]
Harriet, likely having heard the “it’s poop” claim at every birth she’s ever attended, suggested we return to the bedroom so she could check me one more time before doing anything rash.
Pushing
And thus, 30 minutes after the 7cm disappointment, I found myself back in the same side-lying position on the edge of the bed, when Harriet exclaimed, “You’re all the way open, and he’s right here!”
A sober moment of pure joy pushed up through the constant contractions. Glee flashed across my face.
‘Baby on my chest, baby on my chest,’ I repeated in my head, this time giddy with knowing how close we were.
[Karina later revealed something that I hadn’t caught during my labor—that when Harriet had measured me to be 7cm, she also noted Baby’s positioning. His head was still high up and his chin hadn’t yet tucked. Remember during those 10 long days of contractions when I asked Karina, “I wonder if he just needs to tuck his chin or something…?” In the shower—whatever work I engaged in with my body and my baby must have coaxed that chin into a tucked position, and it became, all of a sudden, time for his exit.]
I laid on my side, still desperate for any semblance of rest. Bjarke held my top leg up to make way for the baby. Harriet assumed the catching position. Karina snapped a few photos and supported where needed.
The next part was sensational, as in, so many sensations happening in short succession.
I remember feeling the baby’s feet almost pushing off, swimming toward the exit of my womb.
Then, a head. In my pelvis. My gut reaction, as most would probably agree, was to get that head all the way out of there—it certainly didn’t belong there for too long. But Harriet asked if I was pushing through a contraction (I wasn’t) and asked me to wait. Oh, that wait was rough! I panted, impatient for the next contraction to build.
It did, and I pushed. It burned as if an army of hands was reaching in and wriggling the baby out. I shouted for the midwife to stop, stop, stop! But there was no army of hands; there were only Baby’s head, shoulders, arms, belly, and legs.
I felt a flash of warmth hit my perineum as Harriet applied a cloth at the exact right moment. “Thank you! That feels amazing!” I yelled breathlessly in one of those moments of lucid pleasantries.
His head emerged en caul—still behind the veil of the amniotic sac.
He began crying before he even made it all the way up to my chest.
I threw back my head with overwhelming joy and relief.
BABY ON MY CHEST!
Post-Birth
In those first, tender hours after birth, Harriet and Karina padded around our apartment, quietly tying up the loose ends of their work. Karina sliced birthday cake and brought me a bowl of seaweed soup. Harriet performed a newborn exam and kept a close eye on me.
I looked over at the back of Arlo’s small head as he lay upon the skin of Bjarke’s chest. He began, with all of his hours-old might, to lift his head, and I flashed forward to all the crawling and first steps and first words and imagination blossoming that lay ahead. How stupid lucky I am to witness the life of another human being.
Arlo, I cannot believe you’re here, but maybe you can. Despite my lack of certainty in bringing another child into the world, perhaps you were always on your way to us. And since the moment you landed, I’ve felt such incredible relief and gratitude that you exist. It was not a given; you waited for us to work that out. I am so glad you’re here.
Epilogue
On the third day of Arlo’s life, we—all four of us—piled into one of our shared cars and ventured to the hospital for the routine newborn tests. With Arlo in my arms, we stepped into an elevator and saw the familiar face of a doctor who had advised us to induce labor for my post-dates pregnancy. I grinned at him, angling the bundled up Arlo so the doctor could peek at his face, and said, “42 weeks and 4 days, and he’s perfect.”
Fast forward to now, where I write this story a year later. Arlo’s birth sits in my body differently. Actually, most of the time I don’t think about it at all. When I do, I find myself standing a little taller, feeling a jolt of warm fuzzies, or smiling fondly at the memory of his arrival. His story fits snuggly, comfortably in me. It has integrated. It is part of me. Not like a foreign object my body tries to reject (my first birth), but just like a piece of me that I invited.
When I approach a seemingly insurmountable challenge, I remember how impossible birth felt until I did it. “If I can do that, I can do anything,” becomes the thought that sees me through obstacle after obstacle. Not unlike running a marathon or climbing a mountain—to explore the edges of your ability, to learn just how much you can actually overcome. It is a welcome companion, a renewable power source.
Birth matters. It matters that we are listened to, cared for tenderly and continuously. It matters that we can trust our care providers. It matters that they can both glean wisdom from general studies, and look and see our bodies individually. It matters that we are supported in birthing the way that makes us feel safest. It matters that we can carry our births with us as a welcome addition to our bodies, a source of love and warmth and power. I wish it for everyone.
References, Outtakes, & Miscellaneous Remarks
After birth, I felt self-conscious about how I ‘didn’t cope well,’ meaning I wasn’t quiet. My throat was raw for days after labor. We checked in with our (new) neighbors, with whom we share walls, to see if anyone heard—to our shock, no one had. “Well, now we could commit murder in our apartment and nobody would hear,” said Bjarke. Robina Khalid published this gift of an essay at the exact right time, and I feel absolved of all shame for not breathing my baby out silently.
In the immediate aftermath of labor, my overwhelming thought was: “Holy cow, that was hard! Every single person should birth however the hell they want.” I still find myself surprised at just how intense that experience was, and then surprised at my surprise. (I think my surprise comes a little from the fact that birth required so much more roaring than I’d anticipated)
Alongside that same thought lives a newfound understanding of how physiological birth gives us our power back. When I saw this ‘Power Woman’ lino print outside the midwife’s office two days post-birth, I felt like it finally clicked about that power we each contain.
I still am very self-conscious in how I advocate for physiological birth. Of course, medical interventions are needed sometimes. Of course, no form of birth is more ‘righteous’ than another… But I still feel like there’s a lot of space between patient, physiologic birth and necessarily medicalized birth where birthing folks have heaps of power to reclaim. If you have feedback for me on how to talk about this, I’d love to hear from you.
I was eager to read my midwife’s birth notes (compared to last time when it took months for me to build the courage to open them, and when I did, it was traumatic all over again). This time, Harriet’s birth notes felt like a healing gift, written just for me. She wrote, “Performed a vaginal exam with Gina’s consent.” (Consent is all over my birth notes, and it makes me feel so respected and supported). “Gina is handling it beautifully!” “Gina is pushing perfectly!” “Beautiful home birth.”
I ‘felt bad’ a lot during my labor. Felt bad that my midwife’s shift became so long. That we called our doula over during the wee hours of the morning, but then labor took much longer than anticipated. That I vocally rejected the calm, reassuring phrases my doula spoke to me. It was amazing to me how much I still felt I owed other people, even when I was engaged in such an intense, vulnerable process. In a postpartum visit, Karina encouraged me to let go of that guilt. I’m still thinking about how this applies in other areas of my life.
Thanks for reading Part 3 of 3. This story was written to share, so please pass it on to anyone who may benefit from it. As always, I love to hear your own thoughts and stories, too.