Paavo's Birth Story
Waiting for Paavo was a challenge. We were so excited to meet him, and always expected him to be early since my water broke with my first son at 33 weeks. All throughout the pregnancy Cynthia and I were diligent about doing all we could to prevent another preterm rupture of membranes. When 40 weeks rolled around I really started getting impatient. Each day felt like an eternity of high hopes and disappointment. We had bought a bottle of castor oil around 38 weeks, which I had been staring at every day. Just looking at the bottle seemed to give me the courage to keep waiting because it sounded like such awful stuff.
By Wednesday night it didn’t seem so bad after all. I decided to drink the awful stuff the next morning. I downed it in a smoothie of frozen strawberries and milk. I kept thinking of Mary Poppins singing about a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. . .so I added a generous heaping of sugar to the elixer of life. My last gulp and gag was at about 11:30 a.m., and the contractions began at 12:30. Gagging on the oil and urgent trips to the bathroom paid off. I knew I was in labor because the contractions were definitely following a regular pattern. I’d been having surges of contractions for weeks, but they would always taper off after an hour or so. I was so ready for the real thing. Not knowing how long labor would be, and wanting to be fresh and rested, I took a shower and took a little nap. I woke up to painful contractions about 4:30, and made the call to Cynthia an hour later. She arrived twenty minutes later.
I puttered around gathering last minute supplies for the birth room, pausing every once in a while to catch my breath through a contraction. Being the way I am, I kept trying to offer her water or tea, or was there anything I could get for her. In hindsight it was totally ridiculous of me to think that I should be taking care of her, but I had this compulsion at the time to busy myself with something in between contractions. The contractions were about 4 minutes apart though, and I was having trouble stringing two thoughts together. Cynthia told me if I didn’t stop trying to be a hostess she was going to go home. I quit and just relaxed into her caring for me. After getting everything all set up, she checked my cervix. It was about 6:30 and she told me I was 6cm. I worked really hard for the next hour. I remember standing and kneeling while leaning forward on a soft chair helped quite a bit. I was really hot and really uncomfortable. I knew before going into labor that I would want to be in the shower, but for some reason, during labor I forgot all about it. Cynthia suggested a cool shower, and it was heaven. I finally got out of the water when the contractions were so painful that every drop of water felt like a distraction. After that for some reason, keeping my eyes closed seemed to be the best thing. Everything outside of my body was a distraction.
With my eyes closed, everything around me was gone and I was totally focused on the work inside me. My husband, Alan, was the only one allowed to enter my little world, and he was always there for me at the right moments in the right ways. His presence and his comfort was so encouraging and gave me confidence in myself. The pain did not feel overwhelming. It was work. Outside of the pain, I felt totally calm, relaxed, and at peace being in my own home, knowing that my two-year old was being looked after by mom, feeling Alan at my side. It was perfect. Even throughout the labor I felt so grateful to be in the comfort and warmth of my own home. Speaking of warmth, I was burning up. I tried using a plastic exercise ball at one point and couldn’t stand it because I was SO hot and it just felt like it was suffocating me.
At 7:15 I asked Cynthia if she could check me again. My water still hadn’t broken and I was dying to know if I was progressing. She said, “it really hasn’t been that long, let’s just wait a little longer”. Fifteen minutes later I felt the desperate urge to push. I shouted “PUSHING!” I remember Cynthia jumping in surprise and quickly checking. Then the most beautiful words, “you’re 9 centimeters!” I was so happy. I knelt on the bed and with Alan ready to deliver him, I felt our son moving. It was such a beautiful feeling. Describing it in words won’t begin to convey what I really felt. Physically all I felt was pressure in my hips and painful contractions moving him lower and lower. Burning pressure as he crowned and I thought I could feel the weight of Alan’s hands gently drawing him out.
Emotionally I felt our little one connecting with us for the first time, reaching out to us and moving into his place in our family with a sort of quiet dignity. Once his head was out, I felt like the rest was downhill. The contractions were still painful, but his body seemed to warmly slip into place in this world right into Alan’s hands. He brought our son right up to me and with the cord still attached we held him and stared at him. Alan cut the cord, and then the most relieving part of the evening came when I delivered the placenta and I knew it was over, and I could rest. I asked if I was bleeding – no blood. I asked if I had torn, only a small 1 – no stitches. Everything was perfect. The pain of labor was instantly replaced with blissfully adoring our baby. The time of birth was 8:11pm. Three hours later we were alone as a family, snuggled in bed together with our new baby, and amazingly slept peacefully almost the whole night.
