Be Real Magazine

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In Issue 13:
Scintillations
Eight Legged Freaks
Cliff Jumping To Freedom
Princess of Crooked Lake
Easy Delivery
Transiting Venus
Different Things
Gateway To Middle Age
Letters to
My Younger Self

Featured Artist:
Andrea Scher
Superhero Guide
to Designing a
Creative Business
Photography
Belly
Funny
Grasses
Liam
Origami
Red Flower
Distance

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Previous Issues

Easy Delivery
Julie Russell

When most people heard I was pregnant, I was asked the predictable questions like: “When are you due?” (March 27^th) “Do you know what you’re having?” (No, it’s a surprise.) And “How do you feel?” (Good, all things considered.) These questions I expected, but what I didn’t expect was that the next thing out of most people’s mouths was a story about how bad their sister, mother, friend, or even their own labor was. People I barely knew would launch into a story that would scare most women from becoming pregnant in the first place.

I tired of hearing these stories immediately. I decided early on that I didn’t want to know what could go wrong unless it was somehow preventable. I knew hearing these labor horror stories would in no way help me or prepare me for the delivery of my child.

I wanted something unheard of and definitely not talked about – I wanted an easy delivery. For the previous two years I had developed my own personal principle of allowing things to be easy, and if I allowed them to be easy, then they would be. Worrying about things – anything – made every circumstance and situation more difficult and even if the end result was positive, I was exhausted from the worry.

Once I decided for my pregnancy to be easy, I noticed I had no morning sickness and minimal physical issues that weren’t assuaged with a nap, a swim, or a good meal. As time progressed I believed my delivery would be as easy as possible and I would spend as little time as possible worrying about it.

Most people couldn’t understand that I made up my mind for it to be easy. Yoga and swimming made me flexible and I often visualized my baby whooshing out of me as if it was on a water slide. I expected pain, but thinking about the pain in advance would be paralyzing. I didn’t want to hear about what could go wrong unless I could do something about it. Unfortunately, everyone still wanted to tell me their horrible stories.

One woman told me that her doctor manually turned her breech baby a few days before its birth. The baby then turned itself back around to breech position so she had to have an emergency Caesarian section. Being cut open to deliver my baby was the last thing I wanted, so if my baby was breech I’d do a headstand or at least downward dog yoga position to get that baby confused enough to turn itself around. The woman in question admitted to never doing yoga, so this thought probably never crossed her mind.

A well-intending friend nearly drove me to the emergency room during our dinner date to get a second sonogram. She had another friend who only had one sonogram done when she was 11 weeks pregnant (as is normal) and only found out when her baby was born that part of his heart was missing. Evidently a second sonogram would have detected this. “There is nothing wrong with my baby’s heart,” I insisted, “and it is just not something I’m going to worry about. Besides, even if I did get another sonogram now, at eight months, how would it help me to know that? My doctor listens to the baby’s heartbeat at every appointment and it’s as regular as a Timex.” My friend was mostly pacified with my explanation, but I could tell she would have multiple sonograms when it came time for her.

The closer I got to my due date, the harder it became to ignore these stories so I took a new tactic; I only listened for information I could use. I was indecisive about whether I wanted an epidural; the thought of a needle in my spine scared me and I kept worrying it would break off somehow and I’d be paralyzed for life. One of my close friends and my sister-in-law insisted this great painkiller was the way to go. One said, “instead of being in absolute pain, I was wonderfully excited to see my baby!” Be open, I told myself, and I made sure the option was available if I wanted it. I thought having labor induced instead of starting naturally would be awful, until I talked to a fellow swimmer who delivered a few months before me. “Being induced was great,” she said, “my husband and I knew exactly when the baby was going to arrive and rested well the night before. We arrived at the hospital relaxed and as prepared as possible.” I had to agree, being induced countered my second greatest fear that I would arrive at the hospital in labor, but would be told to go home because I wasn’t dilated enough or my contractions were too far apart.

In the end, when I was nearly 2 weeks past my due date, I scheduled an induction with my doctor. I strolled into the hospital free of pain and relaxed for a few hours in a room with a million dollar bridge-to-bridge view of San Francisco . While I was waiting for the induction, the cute, male anesthesiologist explained how an epidural is administered and convinced me there was no threat of paralysis.

The induction began when my doctor inserted a tiny pill into my cervix to start dilation and my contractions began slowly and regularly, building into stronger contractions that were monitored closely by the nurses sitting down the hall. I felt comforted and safe in a hospital room as my contractions began instead of stressed and trying to time them so I’d know when to leave for the hospital. I did a number of yoga stretches when my contractions became stronger, until my water broke sometime in the dark hours of the morning. Right before my water broke I asked for nitrous oxide to ease the pain, but my doctor said since she had to do a saline flush of my uterus to flush out the baby’s first bowel movement , I would need something stronger. The IV-administered narcotic did wonders until mid-morning when the pain showed up in full force and I screamed for an epidural.

By the time my anesthesiologist showed up to give me the epidural, I completely forgot my fear of a needle being inserted into my spine. Fifteen minutes after that wonderful dose of painkiller, I was a brand new, pain-free person who could laugh and smile again. My nurse announced that I was fully dilated and could begin pushing, but the epidural numbed me so much I had to wait an hour before the effects wore off enough for me to feel the contractions. It was just the hour I needed to rest and relax after ten hours of pain that felt like a combination charley horse and abdominal cramp.

An hour later, it was time to push. The epidural took the bite off the pain so I could feel the contractions and push with them. My nurse had set up a U-shaped bar at the bottom of the bed and with a sheet twisted over like a rope for me to hold. I placed one foot on either side of the bar, and pushed rhythmically with every other contraction. I could feel my baby descending and my vagina stretching, opening, until I insisted the baby would crown on the next contraction. To the nurse’s amazement, she did. Once my baby crowned, my nurse told me to wait, not to push, the doctors weren’t ready yet. “I want to PUSH!” I screamed. I could feel my vagina stretching, intolerable stretching, but they wanted me to wait. I thought these doctors were insane in telling me not to push, but I didn’t tear at all and didn’t need stitches.

Once the baby’s head appeared, my worst fear arose: how to get the baby’s shoulders out. “We’ll take care of that,” my doctors said. I laid back, exhausted, and I didn’t feel shoulders at all, just a whooshing feeling as the rest of my baby’s body passed from my vagina, as if she was, indeed, on a water slide.

Seventeen hours from the start, Ava Jasmine was born healthy and perfect. After a couple hours rest on the delivery bed, I stood up and wheeled her bed into our private hospital room and rested with my brand new baby girl.