The Labor Story

I haven't been sure where to start in telling this story. It went fast, that's for sure, but it's filled with so much emotion that it's hard to tell wholly and concretely. So I'll start with this.

Thank God for the epidural.

I had a wavering distaste for them before I, you know, had to use one. I knew I'd probably break down and get it, but deep down, part of me wished I could be one of those women who could claim she did it "all natural," whose baby was born without the aide of chemicals.

But I didn't waver when it came time for that needle. And because of that, I can honestly say the birth of my daughter was a beautiful--albeit terrifying--nearly pain-free experience.

On Sunday night, two of my friends came over to watch The Hangover and eat pizza. I'd been having these weird stomach cramps all day (famous last words), but they weren't time-able or alarming.

Halfway through the movie, right as a petite Asian man was jumping out of the protagonists' trunk, I finally verbalized it.

"I think these are contractions," I said, gripping my stomach.

My friend Crystal, a nurse, simply said, "If they were real contractions, wouldn't you be, like, saying 'ow?'"

And that seemed reasonable enough. They hurt, yeah, but not enough to pull out the stop watch and cry wolf. Not even enough to say "ow."

You spend so much time toward the end of your pregnancy worrying and fantasizing about those things. Contractions. I can't tell you how many times I googled "what does a contraction feel like?" How many times I asked another mother to describe them to me. How many times I felt a stomach cramp and wondered if this was it. And everyone kept telling me that when they were real, I'd just know. I wouldn't be googling.

Yet there I sat, contracting. Oblivious. Or in denial.

I didn't get a wink of sleep that night. Not even the tiniest glimmer of sleep. Every time one of the pains struck I looked at the clock, waiting for the next one and some hint of a pattern. But a pattern never came, and seven hours of tossing and turning later, Jason was getting up for work, and I was dragging myself out of bed to start the day.

I already had my 37-week doctor's appointment scheduled for Monday at 1 PM. I might have called my doctor during the night if I didn't already have that appointment. But I kept telling myself to wait, to not get too excited, that surely this wasn't it.

I made myself some eggs and carried on with my day, taking a a minute-or-so hiatus every hour to double over in pain. It was getting worse, but not any closer together. Without letting the idea that it could be the real thing permeate my thoughts, I finished packing my hospital bag. Casually. Without any air of expectation.

Jason got home from work around noon to take me to the doctor. We debated taking the bag with us to the doctor, just in case, and decided against it. Again, denial.

On the car ride to Nashville, they started coming closer together. Jason started timing--and my pain, this time, was tangible even to an outsider. This time, I was saying "ow."

Every seven minutes on the dot, I gripped the door handle and started the chant--"ow" sprinkled with a few choice expletives. By the time we reached the hospital doors, the pain was coming every five minutes.

Jason dropped me off at the front while he went to find a parking space. I got in the elevator--packed with strangers--terrified of letting the pain show. Because, by now, this pain wasn't quiet, or hide-able. It was intense, leaning over, smack the stranger-who's-staring-at-me-in-the-face real. Denial over.

I was already 3 to 4 centimeters dilated when the nurse checked me. She could feel Adelyn's hair. I'd been in labor since the day before. Those were real contractions, and for all my googling to figure out the age-old question asked by anxious pregnant women everywhere, I finally had an answer: they feel like hell. Like a pounding, burning, menstrual-cramp on crack, that starts in your back near your hips and radiates--sears--toward your abdomen.

After 9 and a half months of waiting, preparing, researching, and planning, I still wasn't ready. And I think I immersed myself in my pregnancy more so than the average woman--I wrote about it, breathed it, obsessed about it. And still, the thought of actually being in labor was too much to handle.

They sent me to triage and gave me an hour deadline to progress. If things had changed after that time, they'd admit me. If not, I'd be sent home, to deal with the exceedingly intolerable pain without medicinal help. I prayed for progress.

Jason and I walked the halls of the maternity ward for the next 45 minutes, looking every bit the part of the cliched couple waiting for labor. I wore the dingy hospital gown, he wore a terrified expression. I stopped every five minutes to put my forehead on the wall and groan in pain, he stood behind me, unsure of how to help, timidly rubbing my back. I had the worst contraction of the entire labor standing outside the hospital's nursery, looking at a baby born two hours beforehand named "Gomez." I gave him an introduction to the world he probably wasn't ready for and had to put my hands up against the nursery glass, right in front of his newly-born-face, to try to steady myself through the pain.

When we got back to the room, the nurse examined me and found I had dilated to a full-on four. With her hand still uncomfortably poking at the source of my pain, she looked up at me and smiled.

"You folks ready to have a baby today?"

And my heart nearly stopped.

Sarah Caitlin blogs on Nine Months to Life. Read more about Sarah's pregnancy journey: