The Unexpected Birth pt. 2

Warning: Some of this stories events may be uncomfortably descriptive or just in general not fun to hear about. Birth is chaotic and bloody. It is also a portal, if you will, for a new soul.

8pm rolls around. We park in the long-visit garage and I waddle to the ER entrance. A staff member finds a wheelchair to escort me to Obstetrics Triage so I can start induction. It's Tuesday, June 17. Chicago is having a heat wave. I'm already tired.

Here we are. My own personal room, fit with hospital white curtains and bedsheets, a giant bed with fancy buttons, and a window I'll never use. This wing of the hospital is old. The thermostat reports a humid 76 degrees. So muggy that all the things you think would be cold to touch; tile floors, metal bed rails, aren't. That was one of my regulating secrets - sneakily touching cold things to cool myself down. What am I supposed to do now? Breathe like I walk and talk the yoga practice I teach?

The first method of induction is Misoprostol. A tablet that will start the induction process by "ripening" my cervix. Were there no better words to describe the cervix softening? Like, say, soften? Whatever. Why get hung up on a word when the placement of the tablet is even more unpleasant. I'm laying horizontal, wishing for a cozier bed. The misoprostol needs to be placed onto my cervix. Translation: the doctor has to insert their arm through the birth canal, AKA vagina. The word I really want to use to describe the placement of the pill? Shove. I've had enough exams to check my dilation that I know to practice my inhale into the pelvic floor and relax my pelvic floor muscles. If I can do this, surely I can deliver my baby with the same ease...

Next up? The Foley balloon. The doctor sticks a catheter, a skinny tube, up through my cervix and fills up the ballon with water or saline, I don't know. The balloon feels... full. The same way you eat too much and your belly is obnoxiously large, my cervix feels full. By 10pm I'm 50% effaced. Labor has officially begun. If I could be more uncomfortable as an overly warm super pregnant person, it is now. This gown holds my heat in. I'm tearing it off, just for the nurse to button it back up. It's suffocating. I'm tearing it off again.

I can't rest or sleep, but I'm well enough to send voice memos and text messages to update my closest friends. From their end, it sounds like I've got this all figured out and I'm doing well. Two things can be true at once. I am confident that I am in the right place, doing the right thing for my birth, but I am also terrified of the unknown pain of labor, the ring of fire, and my mental state postpartum. Will I immediately love my child when he is born? Will I succumb to the lows of hormones and be depressed beyond the baby blues? How will I know if I need help? Law and Order: Special Victims Unit prepared me for all the ways to be afraid and anxious. All 26 seasons.

I'm half way to 10cm, where you want to be when a baby's head is reaching for the birth canal. Canal. As if all I had to do was break my waters and let baby ride the water slide through my vagina. Things are coming along the way they are supposed to. We are eager. We message our doula back and forth, thinking there is time and she doesn't need to be here yet. She wishes us well. The sooner I birth my baby, the sooner I get to cuddle my dogs at home. Thats the good news. The bad news? I'm doubting myself.

The internet warns you about induction. Some people say the contractions are more intense with pitocin, artificial oxytocin, running through your body. Some people say the epidural can cause labor to stall and you're seemingly stuck in an undefined space between pregnancy and birth. And you know what? Some people swear by the epidural. The conversation I told myself over and over again was to avoid it all if I can. But here we are.

12am. I'm not sure I've slept at all. Some parts of the cervix are open, others are partially there. I tell myself the Pitocin contractions aren't that bad. Guess I'll up it to the next level at 4 units. I settle in to the experience. Hoping I can finally relax, find some Zzz's, and wake up ready to deliver my baby vaginally.

I'm tired. Stay tuned for Part 3.