It was a thursday and at what was to be my last Birth Center prenatal appointment, Julia the midwife, mentioned how excited she was to be on-call to catch the leap year babies over the weekend. I asked her to sweep my membranes, startling her by laughing through a notoriously uncomfortable procedure. Who knew it would tickle?! I couldn’t help feeling giddy though. A swipe of her finger could be all it could take to kick my body into gear.
I had a non-stress test (which has never failed to stress me out). My baby's heart tones and my blood pressure were perfect though. I hadn’t realized that my husband, Luis, had never toured the birthing rooms at the new birth center. He was impressed by the giant birthing tub and took down the serial number so he could later search the internet to determine just how many gallons of water it could hold.
Luis and I returned home to an empty house. My older girls wouldn’t need to be picked up from daycare until 5:30pm. We cuddled in bed, had great sex, took a nap, woke up, walked the dog and picked the girls up from school. I then made dinner and took a bath. During my bath I started contracting regularly and more intensely than I had before with the braxton hicks I had become so familiar with. I lit a few candles and concentrated on the dancing flames. I got on my hands and knees in the tub and rocked my pelvis in rhythm, I thought to myself-- could this be it?
When the water grew cold, I joined my family in the playroom. Luis was asleep with the girls- a movie was running credits on the TV. I decided not to call my sister, Regan (which I had been considering when I was in the tub) and put everyone, including myself, to bed. The waves eased under the covers and I fell into a restful sleep. The next morning, I still felt slightly crampy though-- like my period was coming on-- and hwas filled with an uncontainable nervous energy.
I wrote an email to work stating that I wouldn’t be coming in. I had spent the week wrapping up all the loose ends and I was tired of coworkers speculations about when baby would come and the exclaimations of surprise that I was still waddling in every morning with remarks like: "I can't believe your still pregnant!" or "Wouldn't it be funny if you have the baby on the showroom floor?" I had been tracking regular, but mild, practice contractions secretly for the past few afternoons. More than ever, I felt ready to meet my baby.
I got the girls ready for school, walked our dog, and hung out with Luis for the rest of the day. We drove down to Middletown so he could apply for an internal job opening at work and stopped on our way home to hike the trails at Iron Hill.
Despite it being a mild winter day, snow flurried around us. It was so comforting for us to be alone together in nature. We hike with the kids often, but it had been a while since it was just the two of us. I was grateful that we took the time to reconnect as a couple in this way-- that I had prioritized spending time with the my partner I had made this new baby with. Between raising kids and working opposite shifts, and all our other shared and individual responsibilities-- spending the afternoon in bed, or taking a walk together in the woods was a babymoon in itself.
That night I took another bath, but no contractions came. I went to bed feeling a little down hearted and frustrated with my body. The next day was leap year and the perfect day to have a baby. My brother's family and my mom and dad had plans to come up the following day to go skiing, stopping by our house for a visit, and Luis would be going back to work on that night if no baby came.
For the first time in any of my pregnancies I spoke out loud to my belly. I said: “Bard, today is your birthday. We want you to join the party.” I wanted to take a walk again, but it was too cold for a hike with the girls who always refuse layers and hats and scarves. So we went to Longwood Gardens to walk around the conservatory and admire the orchid displays.
It was a busy day to visit the gardens with many far away license plates and tour buses in the parking lot, but it was the perfect place to be. The girl’s played in the children’s garden for a long while, we explored the various rooms in the conservatories-- a pregnant woman with a very cute 2nd trimester belly was taking maternity photos between waves of crowd. I could feel the baby descending lower as we walked and towards the end, I felt wetness between my legs. I needed to find the bathroom. It was part of my mucus plug.
I felt like leaving the crowd- we went outside and walked up to the bell tower which was chiming, a rather dissonant, and eerie carnival song. Among the pine trees at the top of the hill, snow drops were blooming. I had wanted to plant some in the fall in hopes that they would herald Bard’s birth in the spring, but I hadn't gotten around to it. I had been too busy with work to do any digging in the ground. I sent Bard another little message about how it was time for him to come and we went home. That evening I took another bath as Luis heated up some leftovers for the girl’s dinner. Contractions started, the kind that travel down into your thighs and feel like they are doing the work of opening.
After a while, I drained the tub and figured it would be best to time them to see if they were growing more frequent. I ate some raviolis and sweet potato and played board games with the girls. Lenore helped time contractions for me. The app I downloaded had a lightning bolt that you would push when they started and Lenore would ask again and again: “Is it time to press the lightning bolt? Can I press the lightning bolt now?”
We played a few rounds of Guess Who and by the time we made it to the end of Clue I had lost patience playing games-- someone had forgotten to put a murder weapon in the envelope. I put the girls to bed and told them that Bard might be coming tonight, then called my sister and mom. My mother was at a party and before she answered the phone I heard her tell a friend “Tonight is going to be a long night”.
Then Luis and I had sex. There were no signs that my water had broken and things still felt early so there was no harm. The plan was for the prostoglandins and oxytocin to do the work of keeping labor going. I was so worried my contractions would fade away if I rested. I can’t say that sex durig labor isn’t pleasurable and even though the contractions were getting intense, it felt nice to be connected to my partner in this familiar way. Plus it was a distraction from the discomfort. Luis found the difference in sensation interesting too-- when your uterus contracts, so does everything else. My tip is for the pregnant partner to be on top. This gives you control and to use communication with your partner so they understand if things are getting too intense.
Afterwards, I called the birth center and we rested together on the couch (I didn’t want to risk falling asleep in bed and the contractions going away. Then my sister and parents arrived. I spoke to Julia on the phone who recommend that I wait until they were coming 4 min apart and lasting 1 min before I called again. I was comfortable waiting, but found it hard to lay still. I paced around and moved from the couch to the bed and back again until Regan arrived. Luis was able to fall asleep and I didn't wake him.
Regan began timing contractions for me and we chatted mostly in my bedroom. I’m made a nest of pillows on my bed which I buried my face into with every contraction, thrusting my pelvis into the air. In between contractions, she plucked my eyebrows and we chatted. My sister has always been my labor support person. When I was in labor with Sloane she stayed on the phone with me the entire 6 hour drive from her college in Morgantown, WV to The Birth Center Wilmington, DE. When I had Lenore she was just 16, but she held my hand and watched in the mirror as I pushed my baby out. Now I was giving birth to my third baby and she was pregnant with her first. I was so grateful that she was able to be with me again.
Then my paren’ts showed up. My dad was awkward and uncomfortable. I suggested that he lay down in the playroom with Luis who was still asleep. My mom commented on how good I looked to be in labor-- whatever that meant! Was I looking good or coping well? At this time, I was alternating between leaning on the kitchen table where everyone watched as I contracted, the bathroom sink where I bicycled my feet through contractions, the door frame of the bathroom on my tip toes, and my dresser in a low squat. I did this circuit over and over. I was getting to the point where my thighs would stay contracted even through rest periods. Regan massages them by making a claw of her hands and digging her fingers into the muscle and shaking to loosen them up or punching them with a fist-- this brought so much relief and they hurt less through the rest of my labor.
She noticed that I was arching my back when I was on hands and knees and we clumsily tried rebozo but couldn’t find the right legnth scarf. A reminder to practice this things before labor begins and to have all the correct supplies on hand!
Then I felt my baby lock and load. He literally clicked into place.
By this time contractings were coming less than 4 min apart and we called Julia and arranged to meet up at TBC. My mom woke the girls and we got ready to leave. Julia lived about 20 minutes away, but wer were only about 10 so by the time we were ready and all the things we gathered we knew we wouldn’t be waiting in the parking lot. Luis only knew how to get to the new Birth Center facility via 95-- I remember telling him on the way to the couple of apointments he attended that there was no way he was driving me to TBC on 95 when I was in labor, but as we neared the exit, I surprised myself “Please take 95” I begged. It was faster and there was no traffic, which was what I was afraid of.
“You want me to run the red light?”
The Highlander was cold. I couldn’t get comfortable. I reclined the front sear and worked through my contractions in a side lying position. Anytime we had to stop for a light a contraction would come on and it was so hard to cope. It was a relief to see Julia getting out of her vehicle when we pulled in.
In the midst of the mild choas of leaving the house in the middle of the night, the perogies I had made with the girls for my after birth meal were forgotten at the house and so was the “birth” bag. Someone was going to have to drive home and get them.
Julia let us in-- it was dark and she turned on lights as we went. "Which room did you want again?" She asked.
“Yellow”
When she turned the lights on in the yellow room I knew I made the right choice. The walls in my bedroom at home were yellow and I felt at home in the warm glow. I went to the bathroom, amused at the hotel toilet paper roll-- the end folded to a fancy point. I wiped and noticed bloody show. This brought to mind Sloane's birth, where I had announced "I've got Bloody Show!" on the toilet right before she was ejected from my body. Julia checked me between contractions. "I’m really glad you decided to call when you did. You are 8cm with a bulging bag."
My last birth took place 6 minutes after we arrived at The Birth Center. I knew that things were getting intense when we left and was relieved that we had made it with time to spare. Julia started to run the water for the birth tub.
The girls came in with Regan and left. I looked for my sister but couldn’t find her “Where’s Roo?" I kept asking. She’d gone back to the house to pick up our perogies and the rolling bag. Why hadn’t my dad gone? I heard Luis saying when there was about two inches of water in the tub “this was how much water was in the tub when Sloane was born” I had thought to myself, "Well it had better fill up fast."
I was leaning on the edge of the bed. It was very high up off the ground and crinkled from the protective plastic sheet underneath. The cloth sheets on top were printed with little grey hedgehogs.
I watched as Julia unwrapped her sanitary bundle-- layers of emerald and plum, folded over a kidney shaped dish and stainless surgical implements. She was so methodical and watching her relaxed me.
Luis rubbed my back lightly. He was nervous. I had stopped engaging in conversation between contractions. And then my water broke. The audible pop and force surprised me and I startled, jumping up in the air. I gushed all over my thick wool socks. Julia and the nurse Ashley quickly put puppy pads under me and I looked down at the fluid. It was was clear, tinged with pink. Relief.
Then moments later I fell into a runners lunge as another contraction came on. Sensations become more intense after your water breaks as your baby's head is pressing directly on your cervix. There was no way to get comfortable-- I was pushing my baby out.
I could hear the water running as I pushed and squirmed in my splayed lunge. Julia said “if you want to give birth in the water, now is the time to get into the tub. Preferablely before the next contraction”
I took a deep breath and bolted. My amniotic fluid soaked socks were still on and I didn’t care-- Julia pulled them off one by one for me as I stepped into the water. As soon as I was submerged, another contraction overtook me. They were coming fast. I felt as if adrift in the vast ocean-- the tub was big and I couldn’t find my footing to brace myself-- i actually struggled keeping my head above the water. I reached for Luis and found his hands-- I extended a foot and found the edge of the tub. I looked up and saw that my sister Regan had returned-- just in time.
I can’t say that I pushed mindfully-- the way I had wanted. I felt overtaken-- my body was ejecting another baby. I did try to slow down and regain some semblance of control, but mostly because it hurt and I didn’t want to feel the hurt all at once.
I reached my hand down between contractions and could feel his soft squishy head-- like a brain-- protruding from my vulva. I thought to mself, "I just gotta get his head out of me and it will be alright".
As I was pushing I was saying "baby" in a soft, low voice as if reminding myself that at the end of all the pushing I would met my baby. My sister had casually ask a few days before if I had a mantra for Bard’s birth and I honestly hadn't even considered one. But what I came up with organically in the moment was "baby, baby, baby" and it helped. There was also a Fuck or two thrown in for good meassure.
Bard's head came out in a few pushes and his body soon after. My sister had filmed his birth and I realizd after, when watching the video footage, that I had lifted my bottom off the little seat in the tub and shook my hips from side to side to shake him out. Julia guided him up to me and I clutched him to my breast. His feet were still up by his face! “I don’t think he knows he’s been born yet” the nurse said.
Bard had pooped coming out-- a giant black splurge like squid ink settled on the bottom of the tub. They call it terminal meconium-- all of my babies have done it. They told me not to expect him to poop for at least 24 hours. For these reasons, and the fact that I hadn’t felt settled in the tub in the first place, I wanted out right away.
I needed a lot of help. I was shaky and the bed was high and a challenge to climb into. Once I did I gushed and gushed. They shot me with pitocin and I delivered the placenta uneventfully.
Julia examined my bottom with the head lamp in the still dimply lit room while I nursed a happily latched Bard. A tiny laceration, but no stitches required. She offered Lenore scissors to cut the cord, but she played shy. Sloane, just 3, took the scissors eagerly which was scary because they were so sharp and she was bouncing up and down in excitement. Lenore took her hands and they cut their brother’s cord together. An umbilical cord is gummy and hard to cut then you might expect.
The girls got to particiate in Bard's Newborn exam which was so warming to watch from across the room. When it was time to rest, my parents and sister took the girls home. I told them to go to sleep, but they didn’t do as they were told. Bard was born at 2:26am and we were home in bed by 7am.
I am so full of gratitude that Bard’s father, sisters, Mimi, and Auntie Roo were all able to bear witness to his earthside debut (his Pop was waiting in the next room)-- especially in light of the fact that many women would have no choice but to labor and birth alone due to pandemic regulations in the coming months. Bard was born March 1st. At that time there were no regulations in place for COVID at The Birth Center. However, his two week newborn exam would be telemed.
I love this fuzzy photo of us, a newly minted family of five, taken moments after his birth. Lenore is standing far left, just a glimpse of her blue nightgown in the frame; Sloane’s mop is in the foreground, she is wearing her hot pink LOL jams; and Luis is kneeling tub level, guffawing at his newborn son, expression beaming “job well done”.
Interested in reading other my birth stories?
Sloane's birth was my easiest, but even easy births can be tramatic. The love I feel for Sloane is soft like cashmere and butterfly kisses. You can read her birth story HERE.
I was only 21 when I gave birth to Lenore. I switch care providers half way through my pregnancy because I didn't feel that the Doctors I was seeing respected me. The compassionate prenatal care I received at The Birth Center made all the difference. The love Lenore like sunshine-- it's warm and bright. You can read her birth story HERE.
It's difficult for me to desscribe just how badly I wanted Bard even before we started trying to concieve. He is also my rainbow baby. The love I feel for him is fierce-- he brings out my inner lioness. If you would like to read about my losses before becoming pregnant with Bard. You can do so HERE.
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