Pax Birth Story

The abstract looks like this:

I was in control until I wasn't in control which is a lesson in how I'm never in control.
For hours I had mental stability and clarity and breath on my side.
For hours I sat in the blue water and went inside and exhaled pain.
But he wouldn't come.
My body wouldn't open that way - on my head's terms with all my control. It only opened when I let go.
At that moment, I was at the mother ocean's beck and call and she tossed me on the rocks and made me let go. She reminded me that I am not mine. I am hers.
If she wants to pull me under, she can. No will of mine could stop her.
If she wants to take me out to sea I will not paddle back.
I roared back at her but it didn't matter.
I tried to flow with her but she did not wait for me.
Wave after wave after wave
and I knelt down under her power on the floor.

Still, he did not move inside me. They said he was moving, they told me he was coming, but I could feel him there
just waiting.
He did not move until they said to me:
Let it build in you. Don't turn away from this. Mama, this is the sea. Let it grow and swell and build and THEN
let.him.come.

And then he was born in a rush of flesh. And I said:
Let me see you. My third. My son. Let me see what I have made.

The specific looks something like this:

Mom had come to stay to help with the kids when I was 38 weeks pregnant. She was planning to stay for four total weeks. I was aware she’d just gotten back from a long trip and was having to be away from Regie and her dogs, so I was actively working towards labor every day. I was taking EPO and eating dates and bouncing on a bouncy ball. At 39w1d I started to have some cramps around 3pm. I laid down and watched TV and let the cramps come and go, but they were mild and not close together. I was in kind of a bad mood and didn’t want to talk to anyone or do anything. Around 6pm I started to time the cramps. They were period like cramps, similar to my first labor and they were about 20-30 seconds long every 15 minutes. If I let myself get distracted, they would take longer to come. I started to get frustrated if anyone spoke to me or asked me to stand up or do anything. I felt like I needed to focus to “keep” my body in labor.

Anthony and I went for a walk around 8pm to get things moving. The walk was about 30 minutes long, but I didn’t have a contraction the entire walk, and didn’t for a few minutes after I came home. I got frustrated again and went into the bedroom to lie down and try to force my body into labor. The contractions started coming again 20-30 second long every 10 minutes.

Around 10pm nothing had changed. The contractions hadn’t gotten closer together or longer and I was starting to get tired. I tried to go to sleep. But every 10 minutes I would wake up to another contraction. Around midnight I was exhausted and we called the midwife to see what we should do. She told me to do something different - eat or shower - and if I was in labor the contractions would speed up. If I wasn’t, they’d slow down. I ate a banana and got in the shower and finally the contractions started coming every 7 minutes. I wanted to wait longer to see if they’d get longer, but by 1am I was getting tired and we decided to go in.

Anthony drove us to the center, I was in the back of the minivan on the floor. At this point I was tired, but generally in control and I was breathing through every contraction and managing myself fine.

At the center by 2am, the midwife filled the birth pool and checked me. I was only 6.5cm which discouraged me. I was generally in a bad mood. I got in the pool and the contractions started to move to my back. Anthony had to press on my back for each one. I would almost fall asleep between contractions or make a joke and then lie my head down. Part of me was sure labor was going to stop, it seemed too spaced out and calm and each contraction just took a few breaths to move through.

After a few hours though I was realizing even more how tired I was and my body was starting to shake. They asked if I was cold, if the water in the tub had cooled off and all I could say was I didn’t kno . The nurse attending said it had been a while since I’d emptied my bladder and asked that I get out and go to the toilet. I moved into the bathroom and sat backwards on the toilet and peed and suddenly my contractions ramped up. If before they were a 4 on the pain scale, they were suddenly a 9. I asked a few times if I could push and the midwife felt my dilation and said I was only an 8, but if I felt any urge I could. I tried a few pushes on the toilet like this and it felt so much better to push, but it also didn’t feel like anything was changing in my body.

The pain in that bathroom though was unbearable. I cannot explain how much it hurt because it took me by surprise. I got on my hands and knees because I was in too much pain to do anything else, but even pushes there didn’t feel productive. I stood, the way I have had two other babies, with my arms around my partner and I pushed and pushed, but baby wasn’t moving. Finally the midwife felt inside and with her hands she moved the baby somehow. It was the strangest feeling, his whole body turning inside of me. Then she put her fingers inside my cervix and told me to push into the pain where her fingers were. She told me that I should let each contraction build and once it was huge inside of me, I should push. I tried and tried but Pax didn’t seem to want to come. I cried. I said, he isn’t coming. He’s not going to come. The midwife made me look at her. She told me he would come, he was on the way. I didn’t believe her.

I was so tired. I was in so much pain. What had started as a controlled calm had turned into a raging ocean that wasn’t letting me take a breath, it was holding me under. The midwife asked the nurse to get the birth stool.

I have secretly laughed at a birth stool in many birth classes - this ancient weird toilet without a bowl that puts women in a weird semi-squat. But the moment I sat down, I was able to pull up with my arms and push down with my body. I was able to use myself against myself and I felt my baby boy come. Two pushes. And Pax Emerson D’Oriano was born.

I think I said, “let me look at who you are!” I was so proud of myself. They helped me to the bed and I lay there looking at my perfect perfect son. 7lbs 4oz. Born a Leo. 7/25/21