a birth plan? ha, good one (C.’s birth story, long overdue)

Photo by Stacey Vaeth

A. and I sit cross-legged in the back room at the Potters House in D.C. on a rainy November evening with about 20 small slips of paper in front of us. We’re charged with arranging them on the carpet from least important to most important.

I breathe hard and reach over my massive belly to grab one of them. It reads, in small type at the top, “It is important to us to…” and then, in large type, “Wear our own clothes.” I make a face and put it at the bottom of our list of priorities. I’ll probably be naked.

After that, it gets harder. I want all of them, really. Access to a shower/bath. Yes. Avoid labor induction. Yep. Have freedom of movement. Yes. Avoid epidural. Definitely. Delay cord cutting. Check. Avoid forceps/manual extraction. Oh goodness yes. Avoid Cesarean surgery. Absolutely.

At the top of priorities, I put “Have a healthy baby.”

A. looks at me with disapproval.

He grabs the slip that says “Have a healthy mother,” and slaps it above healthy baby.

“If something happens, we can always try for another,” he admonishes me. “There’s only one you.”

We’re taking a Bradley Method class and learning about labor and delivery. We signed up so we’d meet other couples in the same boat. And we want to learn how to be our own advocates in the delivery room. Turns out, most of the women are birthing at home or in a birthing center. They’re anti-hospital and anti-intervention. I do have wishes around giving birth, but really, I just want me and my baby to get out of this alive.

A month later, and seven days after my due date, my water breaks in a gush all over my black maternity pants. My contractions haven’t started. And all of a sudden, I’m on a clock: I have 24 hours to get this baby out of me.

It’s 11 a.m. on a Friday in early December when I check in at the hospital, brimming with adrenaline. I put my bathing suit on under the hospital robe. “Is this the birthing tub?” I ask a nurse. “Yes,” she says, “but since your water broke, you can’t use it.” Oh, I think, disappointed. One wish, rejected.

when long-held dreams slowly morph into reality

OK, I’m starting to get uncomfortable. Some of those side-effects of pregnancy — that I won’t get into here because, well, they’re embarrassing and I have friends who want to get pregnant — are starting to kick in.

Yesterday, A. found me in the bathtub after work trying to soothe my over-sized body and said, “Is it go time?” His face looked so bright, it made me smile. Later, he was sure he felt a contraction as we cuddled on the couch together, listening to Chopin. And then another a while later. “OK, contractions are 20 minutes apart,” he said, joking. Maybe it was a contraction — I did tighten up, but there was no pain. I think A. is trying to will this baby out of me.

Ten days till my due date. Is it strange to say that it still blows my mind we’re having a baby? That there’s a full-sized baby inside of me? I guess I won’t believe it’s real until I’m looking into my son’s or daughter’s eyes.

I’ve always dreamed about being pregnant, about having a newborn. One picture I had in my mind is of lying on a full bed with my partner and baby in a small studio apartment (in my mind it’s New York) listening to classical music with the city noises below (such a strange, romantic snapshot — mostly cause now I don’t imagine us in New York and I’m really glad that we have a two-bedroom.)

But after more than 20 years of various dreams, the reality that I’m about to give birth — even as I feel a leg push under my left rib cage — is really hard to grasp. Exciting, but still mind blowing.

baby o. still needs a name

A. and I still don’t have names for Baby O. When we tell people this, they say, “Oh, you probably just don’t want to tell me.” And then I say, “No, really, we don’t have names yet.” And then there is silence — people are really afraid for us and our baby.

Early on, like eons ago (three months), A. called the baby Carrie, after his favorite movie (we don’t even know the gender). Yes, the 1970s thriller Carrie, about a troubled, awkward girl who is voted homecoming queen at her high school. But then at the dance, her classmates rig a bucket of pigs’ blood above the stage so that when she’s crowned, the blood soaks her — to her horror and humiliation. So she goes nuts and burns down the school. Yes, that Carrie — that’s the movie A. wants to name our baby girl after (should we have a girl). I bought the DVD for A. for our first Christmas together. We watched it one cold Sunday in his Virginia apartment and laughed hysterically at the sound effects (ree ree). I had no idea it’s really a comedy. But to name our daughter after that movie seems to me… I dunno. Just wrong.

Then, as luck would have it, when A. heard his mom say Carrie with a New Jersey accent, he said, “OK, no, no, can’t go with that.” [Thank you, Vikki!] That was more than two months ago.

Since then, A. adopted the named Cholula (have I mentioned we don’t know if it’s a boy or girl?), after his favorite hot sauce. A. started dousing all of his food in Cholula when he was in Afghanistan, and has been addicted ever since. He even puts it on plain Greek yogurt (I just gagged as I typed that.)

holy shit, i’m almost full-term

36 1/2 weeks

In a few days, I’ll be full-term — the baby’s organs will be fully developed and he or she — in all of his or her wriggling, red-faced, squeamish glory — will be able to breathe on its own should it decide it’s tired of the womb.

I can’t tell you how happy this makes me — but holy shit, I’m almost full-term.

These days, I’m having trouble putting on my socks. I often dribble liquids on my protruding belly and look down at the mess like a 3-year-old. I can hear myself breathing hard just sitting at my desk. And when A. and I lie down in our king-size bed, snuggled up on either side of the body pillow, our faces inches away from each other, I can feel my heart pounding twice as hard as it usually does. Dr. M. said it was nothing to worry about — that even at rest, my heart is working as hard as if I was working out.

Most evenings now, A. and I have “story time,” where he leans down to where the doctor says the baby’s head is, and tells him or her a story. He talks to my whale-sized swollen belly, kissing it and rambling about the day’s events. It’s so cute, I should record it. I always try to stifle my laughs so that they don’t drown out his voice — I want this baby to recognize its father’s voice. But can the baby really hear him? I wonder what the baby senses or feels.

who am i? who will i be?

Over the years, I’ve heard people say that when you have a child, you have trouble remembering what life was like — and who you were — pre-baby. The little tyke becomes so integrated in your life, and everything changes — including you. I don’t know what this means, and I suppose I can’t know what this means till it happens to me.

But with about 5 weeks (or maybe 7, we’ll see if  I go past my due date!) to go till the little nugget starts spiraling his or her head downward to enter the world, I’ve been thinking about it a lot.

I mean, it’s obvious that our routines and rituals will change when A. and I have a little one totally dependent on us for his or her basic needs.

Here are some of the things I loved pre-pregnancy (some I can do, some I haven’t been able to, but it’s been OK). I love making morning coffee with my Italian espresso maker (this was replaced by a different warm drink yesterday) and sitting somewhere quiet with a book or the New Yorker. I love getting pedicures once a month.  I love long walks or runs with my friend S. through Rock Creek, followed by a hearty brunch. I love hiking and camping in the woods and the smell of fresh air — and stopping at holes-in-the-wall for grub and noticing the locals. I love yoga classes and volleyball and bike rides. I love the feel of buying a plane ticket to somewhere adventurous — skiing in Colorado, hiking in Peru — and the anticipation leading up to the trip. I love photography and hearing writers speak and going to National Geographic events. I love learning about different cultures and learning languages — even if it’s just “hello” and “thank you.” I love long, hot showers and sleeping in on the weekends.

i’m 32 weeks pregnant and something is different

Something has changed in the past week or two. I’m finally getting in touch with the little person inside of me.

That might be in part because the kicks are more frequent and ticklish — instead of a series of pokes or jabs, it’s rapid motion fire — pow pow p-p-p-p-pow. I can feel the little munchkin squirming and moving its little limbs all of the time. And when it happens, I look down — chin to chest. My stomach is like that game Whac-A-Mole — blurp blurp blurp. Now you see me, now you don’t.

Occasionally, I can tell that the baby wants to be Superman — the fists and feet are punching out in tandem. I can feel legs on one side, fists on the other — fly, baby, flyyy!

my first trimester, long-distance: 40 seconds of skype snapshots

During the second half of A.’s deployment to Afghanistan after our two-week trip to Tanzania, we found out that I was pregnant. It was emotionally taxing to be apart from each other during such an intense discovery, but we relied on email, phone calls and two-hour Skype sessions to feel connected. At one point I told A. that I was tearing up all of the time, and he said he was, too.

On Friday evening, April 1, I took an EPT test after A. and I signed on to Skype. I ran to the bathroom and returned with the stick and together we watched the vertical line appear. A. cheered and high-fived the screen. I laughed, stunned. And then we stared at each other lovingly — I loved that I could look into his eyes during such an important time for us even though he was so far away. (I wrote about our story for NPR.org, you can read it here).

The following Monday, I had an early morning appointment with my gynecologist to confirm my pregnancy. Since I was already six weeks along, the doctor suggested we do an ultrasound. I hopped on the table and shortly thereafter I saw the baby’s heartbeat. I couldn’t believe a heartbeat had formed that quickly. And I was deeply sad A. wasn’t there to see it.

A week later, at my doctor’s suggestion, we did another ultrasound for A. My doctor came in early and didn’t charge my insurance for the test. I brought my laptop and connected to Skype from the ultrasound room. A. was in his bare-bones office at Bagram with a few of his coworkers. He had on his headset and smiled at the computer. “Hi doc!” he said. I laid back on the table and a technician held up the computer to the machine and I could hear A. say, “I see it! Wow!” He sent me an email immediately after we hung up that said, “That was AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

During those two-and-a-half months, A. figured out how to take stills of our Skype chats. He also had the ultrasound photos from 6 weeks (the first ultrasound), 7 weeks and 12 weeks. He came home when I was 16 weeks along.

So in his last few days at Bagram, A. put together this video. I couldn’t share it this summer because we still had to tell a lot of people (including A.’s family) our news.

The video sums up my first trimester. I didn’t take many pictures in those three months, so I’m glad we at least have this (though I wish he was in it). In general, I was nauseous and exhausted and overwhelmed with hormones. But when I knew I’d get to see A., even if it was only on the computer, I was giddy and goofy. (Excuse the cleavage, that’s a new thing for me — hormones!)

all i wanna to do is eat, eat, eat

When I was in my first trimester, I made up a little song about how all I wanted to do was eat. I had some vicious nausea, and eating bread and citrus (lots of guacamole with lemon) was the only thing that made me feel OK. So one night I danced my way into the kitchen singing, mostly off-key, “All I want to do is eat, eat, eat. All she wants to do is eat, eat, eat.” (I get this song-making-upage from my mother.)

And now that I’m in my third trimester, I’m feeling that urge to stuff my face again. This baby must be going through a growth spurt, cause I’m hankering for as much food as I can possibly eat. Generally it’s healthy food, but I do have a nightly urge for Breyer’s vanilla chocolate swirl ice cream. Of course, I do not (repeat: DO NOT) want to try to push out a 10-pound baby, but I think I should feed him or she’ll give me another swift kick to the ribs. (Notice how I switched up the gender?) This baby is trying to whip me into shape before he even enters the world.

hello foot, how about you go into mouth where you belong

This morning, A. and I went to our monthly OB appointment at the hospital that we picked because it has the highest level NICU in town, patients get private rooms, and I heard a wonderful birth story from my coworker’s neighbor who delivered there. She was 34 years old and had a low-risk pregnancy (like me) and she wanted and achieved a natural birth (e.g. no epidural). Her story was that she was able to walk around, not connected to an IV; the fetal heart rate was monitored intermittently; and she felt very supported by the nurses who were trained in midwifery. The hospital also has tubs in each room and a top-notch lactation department.

Anyway, this morning, as A. and I waited for the doctor, we joked around with the nurse — a nurse we’ve had before who we know has a good sense of humor. When she asked me if I was ready to get on the scale, I said, “Just let me get naked first,” and she laughed. “Oh honey, you’re pregnant, it’s OK.” I was happy to see I have gained 25 pounds since I got pregnant — with 10 weeks to go, maybe I can stay in the 35 to 40-pound range.

Dr. M was running late, so A. and I did squats in my continuing effort to strengthen my legs. I’m sure we looked ridiculous, squatting down on the white-tiled floor — A. in his blue button-down shirt and dress pants, me in a tank top and skirt — looking into each others’ eyes and grimacing a bit. I said: “What is it that Sting is into? I bet we look like that.” We finished three of them before Dr. M knocked on the door.

you are getting very, very sleeeepy

My parent’s home in the suburbs of Detroit has a narcotic effect on me. I think it’s the familiarity and the quiet. Their house sits on 3/4 of an acre surrounded by trees and flowers (daffodils!) and bushes. Deer and bunnies run through the yard. Hummingbirds and blue-jays and robins peck at their feeder. Occasionally, a train rumbles by.

A. and I arrived Friday night. We flew in for a baby shower my mom threw with the help of my sister-in-law, aunts and family friend. And aside from the lovely three-hour shower — where we saw friends and relatives (some of whom I haven’t seen in more than a decade), ate chicken salad, fruit and cupcakes and got child-rearing advice — we generally relaxed in the quiet.

A. read three of my dad’s books — one on baseball, one on math (infinity) and one on history. I read Ina May Gaskin’s book on birthing (I’m still trying to wrap my head around a baby coming out of me.)

On Sunday afternoon, we both fell asleep reading — me on one couch, A. on the other. I think we needed to be forced to relax with all of the madness of moving, settling in our new space and thinking about baby stuff. It was divine.