My Labor Was Nothing Like What I Expected It To Be
I can admit, I've never been the most graceful when it comes to discomfort. Being uncomfortable isn't one of my strengths. I've been told I have a high pain tolerance, but when I am uncomfortable, it seems to occupy a ton of brain space. And if I don't know what to expect from anticipated discomfort, whew, you better believe I am a full-on stress monster.
Based on this alone, you can probably surmise that in April of 2018, my inevitable future of going into labor put me into a mental tailspin.
I sat in my (unknowingly) final OBGYN visit on a Friday when my favorite doctor came in to examine me.
With my pants, underwear, and any sense of pride or dignity gone, I placed my feet in the familiar stirrups like I had done approximately one million times during this pregnancy. The doctor took a look and happily proclaimed that I was about 2 cm dialated.
"Let me just do a quick 'membrane sweep,'" he started to say as he made his way toward me, gloving up.
"A what –" I began to ask when whamo! I felt a strange pressure that quickly turned to pain and it was gone.
"There," he stated self-satisfiedly, as he removed his glove. "You'll be having a baby likely by, hmm, I'd say Wednesday."
He started getting ready to leave the room.
"Back up doc," I called after him, looking at my husband, our eyes as wide as saucers.
"What do you mean by Wednesday? I'm not even due until next Friday," I sputtered.
(I'd like to note how I now know how truly stupid that indignation was because obviously nothing with children ever goes as planned.)
He chuckled and explained that the sweep he did (otherwise known as "membrane stripping") was to separate the amniotic sac from the cervix to help bring on labor sooner.
I was dumbfounded. There was no way I'd go that soon. My own mother was 2 weeks late with me, it was impossible.
Wednesday morning, I woke up to sharp cramping that felt a little like period pain.
I lay in bed next to my sleeping husband, and 10 minutes later I felt it again. Roughly 15 minutes later, I felt it again. I shook my husband and informed him that the doctor's predictions were right, and I was hopping in the shower.
Once I was ready to go, we grabbed out bags and went to the hospital. I was there by roughly 7 a.m. By 7:30 a.m., the pain was getting slightly more intense and frequent. The details are a little blurry, but after walking around for an hour to speed things up a doctor (different from my favorite one) came in and informed me that I was in no way actually having a baby today.
She looked me dead in the eye, snorted, and said:
"You aren't in enough pain yet."
I was baffled, as I was wincing through contractions, and asked her what was a sign it was enough to come back.
"When you can't breathe through it."
And then she sent me home.
She also told me this could go on for days, and that's when I started to panic.
Days. D-A-Y-S of this. I was home by 11 a.m. and began pacing. The pains were becoming more intense and consistent, but because the doctor put into my head that there was a threshold I had to reach, I began beating myself up.
By 6 p.m. I was in tears, completely unable to get comfortable. My husband insisted we go back to the hospital, but I swore that because I could still breathe, it was fine.
By 9 p.m. I said "Screw it. We're going back," and wailed the entire car ride there.
Within minutes at the hospital I vomited everywhere and internally began beating myself up.
How could I be so weak? I thought. I have days of this to go, the doctor said so herself.
After cleaning me up, one of the many angel nurses I would encounter that night hooked me up, measured my contractions, took my dilation, and proclaimed:
"Looks like you're staying!"
I was dumbfounded. Wasn't it supposed to be, well, worse? Wasn't I supposed to slog through days of this? Am I really being admitted to have this baby, NOW?
By 7:38 the next morning, I had my answer as I stared in wonderment at the screeching little boy who had just come from me.
After a gorgeous epidural took hold, I spent several hours waiting for my baby boy to arrive. When it came time to push, my body went almost on autopilot. The nurse described ways I should be trying to push, and somehow my brain made my muscles that I had never used before do it. Within two hours of active pushing, I was lucky enough to deliver a healthy baby with minimal tearing.
I freaking did it.
I'm not saying that labor and delivery wasn't the hardest thing I had ever physically done in my life. But in that suffering, I learned something about myself I had only suspected before.
I'm a damn badass.
Seriously, going through that experience taught me that my mind and body can do so much more than I ever logically comprehended. Even when doctors were right and wrong, even when I doubted myself, my body took over and did the damn thing.
That's not to say that people who have had less lucky birthing stories are less than. It's more to say that if you're scared about going into labor because of pain or discomfort because of the sheer unknown, you might be surprised by your incredible body too.
Parenting is an endless journey of dichotomies. Bad always exists with good. And the pain, the work, the exhaustion, it is beautifully balanced out. Labor truly isn't any different. It will break you down and build you up.
But ultimately, mama, we want you to know that you can do it. You got this, and getting to the other side is absolutely worth it.
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