Define all natural birth

The birth of your child is an incredible experience.  It doesn’t matter if you have a planned C-section or an emergency one. It doesn’t matter if you have a home birth or a side of the road birth. If you arrive to the hospital 15 times before you are actually in labor or ten minutes before you begin to push.  They are all incredible experiences and each one is yours and yours alone.  You can draw parallels, compare and contrast with friends, but no one has had your experience.
The birth of my daughter was a whirlwind of pain, excitement and fear.  It was amazing and had made for TV moments that I almost wish had been recorded so I wouldn’t ever forget the incredible feeling it was to hear the Doctor say “Open your eyes open your eyes” as my daughter entered this world.
I had been pregnant for 39 weeks and 6 days with my second child and had begun the slow decent into the depression that every mom feels at the end where you begin to feel as if you have never not been pregnant and apparently you will never not be pregnant again.
At 4 pm after some alone time with my husband I started getting some contractions, we went to pick up our son at daycare as unfortunately we had attended the funeral of my grandmother that very morning.  We picked up my son and went to a shopping center with a Barnes and Nobles so he could play with some trains and burn off a bit more energy.  The contractions continued, randomly throughout the early evening hours, being erratic as they tend to be with me. Getting these was not uncommon, so while my husband decided at 4:15 that we would be going to the hospital, I did not agree and felt very strongly that these were fake and would disappear as they had done so often with both my son and this most recent pregnancy.
By the time we put my son to bed, my husband had already packed his stuff into the hospital bag and was pressuring me to call my mother who lived an hour away so she could stay with our son while we went to the hospital.  Being the stubborn person that I am I refused and instead paced through the kitchen into the dining room and finally the living room for three hours with these un-timetable contractions until finally at 10 pm I said screw it and went to bed.
An hour later I woke up to a pain I hadn’t felt before, my son had been an induced labor a week late, and let me tell you the pain of induction and the pain of a natural contraction are not the real thing. If I can convey anything to anyone it is to avoid induction at all costs.  There is something carnal about going into labor naturally, your heart races, you can feel the adrenaline the trek to the hospital all of it prepare you for what you are about to go through.  Arriving at a predefined time to begin an IV drip is something else entirely and pitocin contractions are not like natural contractions, do not believe anyone that has told you they are.  Only those of us that have had both can tell you, they are not the same thing.
I digress, anyway, pain, lots of pain, breathing through it kind of pain … 11 pm, we call a close friend who lives just down the street to come to the house and stay at the house while my mother makes the hour drive to get to us.
We got to the hospital at about 11:45, when you arrive in triage understand that all the nurses and doctors there see women in labor every single day.  So while you think that you are in a lot of pain and need to be admitted immediately, they are going to move at a glacial pace because most of us do not arrive in active labor and those that do haven’t waited 8 hours to go to the hospital …. my husband wanted to kill me 🙂 but he did well and quelled the urge.
Finally a doctor arrives at triage to check me, its about 12:30, 6 cm dialated, “you are having a baby tonight” really … I mean really did you get your medical degree last week no shit.  Of course the intern then wants to ask me questions like “how many children do you have” “what was your last birth experience like”.  I’m sorry I can’t talk to you right now, my contractions are about a minute apart and I want to kill myself every time they come and we both know that you don’t actually need this information because a human is about to come out of my vagina, GO GET A REAL DOCTOR ….
Finally they ask me if I can walk over to the delivery wing, no I cannot walk to the delivery wing, don’t these beds have wheels? I need you to call the guy with the pain killers right now and get his ass over to my room.  They also move at a glacial pace … you have been warned. Of course the nurse couldn’t call the guy with the drugs until she got an IV in and she couldn’t get an IV in until we got to our room … wheel this damn bed faster.
1 am, the IV has been placed I am in agony and all I can focus on is whether the man with the drugs is going to be in the room soon because that is the only way I am going to get through this.  My poor husband has sat silently through the glacial movement, resisting the urge to kill everyone because in his eyes no one is helping me with the pain.  To be honest I don’t have a ton of memory of where he was or what he was doing from about 1 am to 1:30 as the pain an my desire to get drugs was all I could focus on.
Is he coming soon?
Finally the blessed man arrives, “what was your weight at your last appt” I answer, I scream, “Are you allergic to any medication” I answer, I scream,
The nurse who was an angel and is the only reason I didn’t lose my mind keeps telling me to breath through it and to not bear down, come to the edge of the bed, round your shoulders, don’t clench breath breath breath … scream.
“I need her to sign this, this is … I interrupt him, I don’t care, he hands me a pen.  I feel confident that there is something about being in the correct state of mind before you can sign a legal document releasing them of liability.  I would have signed away my house, car, and life for that man to put what he had in that syringe into my back.
I scream ….. and a gush of fluid goes all over the bed and my poor nurses shoes, I start to push, I can’t help it, its animalistic in nature, you don’t have a choice. “Don’t push don’t push … do you feel like you have to push?” Yes I barely get out, my teeth clenched … the guy with the drugs stops … we have to check you.  I almost started to cry, its 1:30 am …. 9 cm … Great I said between contractions get that thing in my back.
I have to give you a test shot first, let me know if you taste metal or if your head hurts … I wouldn’t have told him if either of those things happened … I just wanted him to give me the real amount.
I have to push I tell her, can he give me the real thing yet?
It’s not going to fully take affect .. the nurse asks if he can give me another test shot.
The Doctor arrives and I have five blissful minutes where the test shot takes the edge off and I can breath for the first time in an hour.
It’s time .. I know it is because I can’t control anything going on with my body.
I close my eyes and push, and I can feel it all of it, “holy fuck that hurts” I do remember saying that … and the next moment
“open your eyes, open your eyes, a perfect child is placed on my chest and I instantly feel better.  I actually feel amazing, the best drug in the world was just given to me and it wasn’t from the man with the syringe.  It was my brain release a cocktail of hormones that was incredible.  Thankfully the epidural took hold for the delivery of the placenta, cause that’s the hard part.  The intern got to take part in that, good for you buddy.
My daughter was born at 1:48 am after about 3 pushes.  It was hell and looking back I loved it.  My husband is an incredible trooper and held my hand (which I apparently squeezed within an inch of breaking at one point) and then he held my leg.  He stood by my side while they finished with me and took the first pictures of our daughter.  He fought his exhaustion throughout the night and kissed me as we welcomed the new addition to our family.  He didn’t even say he told me so when I could finally admit that we probably should have gone to the hospital when he suggested it.
The nurse who helped to deliver me checked us in, after the fact as there just hadn’t been enough time, we all joked about what had just happened.  For an hour and a half that nurse, whose name I don’t remember was the most important person in my world, she coached me through my “almost” natural birth and was my advocate.
She hugged me when they moved me to recovery and I never saw her again.  To her I say thank you even though she will never read this.
To all expectant mothers I say write down your birth story as soon as you can, remember it in all its glory and disappointments.  It will not be as you planned but it will be all yours and for that reason alone it is special and worth remembering.