The Epic Tale of Eko's Birth

Perfectly complicated sums up Week 40 of our pregnancy. It started on Sunday, September 11, when we attended the Puppets in Paradise performance (a series of 10-minute puppet shows at the Hayward Gardens in Putney, VT). After walking from show to show for several hours, I felt so strong and healthy that we ended the evening with a They Might Be Giants concert in Norwich, VT. I missed dancing, but it was still fun to sit on a blanket in the grass with the other families. I eventually joined the crowd at the stage and was by far the most pregnant fan!

The next day I felt good enough to take a long walk between my office and the Putney Rd butcher shop – something I hadn't felt up to for weeks. That evening, while staying late at the office to finish up some loose ends (always with the idea in mind that I might not make it back in the following day) I was still at my desk at 7pm Monday when my water broke. It was a huge flood in my jeans. Our midwife, Mary, was a little skeptical at first (only a 15% minority of women have their water break prior to labor). She said we'd be surprised what the body could release and still have its waters intact. She encouraged us to visit the Cheshire Medical Center in Keene, NH, to be sure that it was amniotic fluid that had saturated my pants. We rushed to the hospital under a huge full moon, where a kindly nurse confirmed that my water had indeed broken, and labor would likely start in 24 hours. Our birth was starting!!!

We had a hard time getting to sleep Monday night, but by Tuesday morning very little had changed. I felt “sensations” in my lower abdomen, but nothing strong. Mary had me take black cohosh homeopathically to gently encourage labor. We ran errands, picked our last tomatoes, took a very slow walk on our road, and finished gathering what we needed for the birth center. We even had time to take one more belly photo shoot. I did some last-minute work from home to tie up loose ends and redistribute my unfinished projects to the others. It helped me detach myself and move more fully into labor mode.

By Tuesday night, contractions had officially started and I was using my hypbirth recordings to help my body stay relaxed. If I didn't hit the play button in time, my body would go rigid as it strained with the strong sensations, but if I caught it in time, I could keep my body completely relaxed while still perceiving the discomfort. The more relaxed I stayed, the more my body would proceed strongly with labor. By the middle of Tuesday night, contractions were still irregular, but strong enough that Mary said we should meet her at the birth center. She was a little concerned about my water having broken, and otherwise might have had us labor at home longer.

When we arrived at the birth center, I promptly threw up, but it was a wonderful release. Mary checked my dilation (something no one wanted to do often since infection was more likely with broken waters). I was only 1cm dilated. I labored through the night while Jay got a few hours of sleep, and Mary and her assistant, Heather, periodically checked in. Mostly they left us alone to relax.

The next morning, I was still only 1cm dilated, but we weren't discouraged. Our doula, Libby, brought black cohosh and cotton root tincture and a rented breast pump. I drank a tincture mixture every half hour and used the breast pump to stimulate my nipples, which would in turn stimulate contractions. Which it did. Labor became stronger. I paced in slow circles around the birthing room listening to our favorite music, got massages from Libby, and tried to eat, though it was really difficult. Jay breathed with me and made vocalizations during harder contractions, which really helped.

Sometime Tuesday afternoon, I realized I couldn't pee anymore. This made my contractions a lot worse – we later found out that my uterus was blocking my bladder and would squeeze it during a contraction, but the pee had nowhere to go. I finally lost all sense of modesty, put some disposable sheets on the floor, contorted into the most extreme Child's Pose my belly would allow, and could then pee a little during the contraction. I was getting worried – I knew that a full bladder could hinder a baby's progress, even if I reached full dilation. Another unpleasant surprise – by late Tuesday afternoon, after all that laboring, I was still only 3cm dilated. We chanted, “ooopen, ooooopen” during contractions and I stared at my birth mandala, a drawing I'd made depicting the actual-size, fully-dilated cervix. Other couples had been able to mentally encourage their dilation, and we hoped we could, too.

Tuesday night Mary said we had to rest. It was thundering outside with a giant orange moon. For most of two days I had hardly eaten or slept, but my spirits were high and I was still optimistic that all would work out. I was beginning to have thoughts about transferring to the hospital, but didn't want to give in just yet. Unfortunately, the pee-contractions made it impossible to sleep. I took hot showers which were very soothing, but wasn't allowed in the tub, as it could slow down my already pokey labor. I craved that tub fiercely!

In the middle of the night, Mary came to observe us for awhile, and asked me, “What are we doing here?” I admitted I couldn't sleep and was worried about my bladder making things complicated. I asked Mary about how the transfer might go, and once my fears were soothed, decided it was time to go. We packed up the birth room, said goodbye to Heather, and headed over to Cheshire Medical.

At the hospital, it was as if we were met by the fairy godmothers of Western Obstetrics. All of our needs and wishes were heard and respected, and everyone we dealt with was kind and compassionate. A quick ultrasound found that my bladder was full, though not as full as it may have been if I hadn't worked so hard to keep it flowing. We also found that the baby had turned posterior, so the doctor attempted to initiate a turn while I rocked my hips for half an hour. I eagerly accepted a catheter, which provided immediate relief, and chose 4 hours of deep, medicated sleep. We slept on two hospital beds pushed together, and while I was sleeping deeply, Jay endured the crack in the beds!

Thursday morning dawned and I woke from my deep sleep refreshed, groggy, and with strong contractions, but they soon stalled entirely while we ate breakfast. At 11:00 they began giving me a slow dose of pitocin which helped encourage my labor. My bladder was still blocked, so I opted for a “carry-along” catheter bag, which eased my body and mind. In labor, all discomfort is relative. I hardly felt the catheter!

Mary was doing work in the hospital lounge, giving us space, but Libby stayed with us most of the time and helped Jay immensely. For five hours I labored using my hypbirth audio tracks and breathing and moaning with Jay. At one point I said to him, “Staring into your eyes takes away the pain.” Jay was an incredible, steadfast, loving support during the entire long birth.

Around 3:45pm, I started having the “pee contractions” again that made me want to bear down, but I was afraid it was too soon. Our nurse brought me to the bathroom where we found a lot of blood on my pad. The nurse mumbled, “that's a problem,” and quickly left (to get the hospital midwife), but left me alone wondering what was wrong!

Our hospital midwife, Rebekah Rice, performed a check and found that nothing was wrong: at long last, I had fully dilated and could start pushing. “We did it!” I cried. It was such a relief! It was also a sudden, surreal change. I wasn't even sure when my Transition had happened. I had certainly been more in my head the last several hours, but was always waiting for the next intense wave of labor to begin – a huge credit to the hypbirth audio and Jay's incredible support. Mary returned and she and Rebekah gave constant verbal encouragement while I pushed. It was a nice change – not painful, just satisfying, like taking the biggest poop in the world. I was bent over the bed on a stack of pillows and Rebekah squatted behind monitoring the crowning, ready to catch the baby. I gripped Jay's hand and we breathed together through each push.

The only really annoying part was all the monitors and tubes I was hooked up to, so when they asked me to change positions (the baby's heart rate had suddenly dropped) it was like moving an awkward pregnant marionette! I was able to reach down and feel the baby's head. Wow. Minutes later, our beautiful son performed an amazing backwards turn in the birth canal and emerged in the proper face-back position. He was lifted right onto my chest squalling, but Mary laid her hands on his head and he quieted... then peed on my belly. Jay cut the cord. Our son nursed right away and kept it up for a full hour. Jay and Mary made a beautiful placenta print, which everyone was very interested in, and also that we would be encapsulating it (apparently they didn't get patients like us very often!). They also wanted to know about hypbirth. One attendant said I had acted like I was on an epidural!

The room had been full of attendants (our midwife and doula, the hospital midwife, her overseeing senior physician, nurses, and out in the hallway (though we didn't know at the time), a surgeon had waited in scrubs in case things had taken a bad turn with the baby's decreased heart rate). With happy words and final touchups, the room cleared and Jay and I drank in our new little son. Jay escorted Libby out, who would stop by our house to drop off the placenta and check on Sasha. I found myself alone in the quiet, dim room with our brand new nursing son, sticky and warm in my arms. I sang him the two songs I'd been singing to the belly for weeks: Ripple and Cassidy.

Jay returned and we basked in our little boy's newness. All told, it had been a 70-hour experience. The attending nurse, Whitney, weighed the baby (7 pounds 6 ounces, 20 inches) and asked about names. We decided to run our top two choices by her: Eko and Alder. “Oh, Eko, definitely,” she said. We had loved that name best, but worried it might be too odd. But everyone we asked loved it, and so we trusted what was in our hearts. He really does look like an Eko... (In Indonesia, “Eko” means “firstborn.” The Japanese translation “Kodama” means “Spirit of the Trees.” And of course in English, it means the very beautiful “reflection of sound.”)

We had to stay in the hospital for two extra days while they monitored mom and babe for any signs of infection. (I had a 100.3 temperature and increased pulse after the birth, so they decided to give me antibiotics (bleh) and watch to be sure no infection had passed to the baby.) Luckily we were perfectly healthy and just had to endure near-hourly blood-pressure and temperature checks. Though it would have been nice to go home, the extra time allowed for a lot of great newborn and lactation education, and we had so many visits from the midwives and nurses that we felt very sweetly supported. It didn't hurt to have a nurse around to change or bathe the baby while we slept, or to have food brought to us so we could both spend time in bed just ogling and loving our little Eko. Before leaving the hospital Saturday afternoon, they even took a picture of Eko for their "Babies Online" page - click here to see it.

It may not have been the birth we imagined as ideal, but it evolved into our ideal birth, and we're both completely content with how it all went. You can plan for something, but then you have to surrender to the experience you actually get, and we're happy that we were able to do so with grace. The universe seemed to respond by giving us the most ideal western experience we could hope for, a natural vaginal birth, and an incredibly healthy son.

~ Thanks for sharing the journey with us. ~