Our Birth Story - Day 1, Part 2

Wednesday, March 30, 4 a.m. - 6 p.m.

I was hoping I would be able to compare my labor contractions to menstral cramps, but the back labor threw everything off. I didn't even feel the contractions in my uterus. Each one began, peaked and ended entirely in my low back, causing intense pain.

The most "comfortable" place for me to labor was in the Heathcliff Huxtable recliner - now forever known as the birthing chair.

There are a few ironies about the Huxtable chair. For starters, it was given to us by our good friend Lynette. The chair's name came courtesy of another good friend, Scotty - Scotty has a strange thing for Bill Cosby, often breaking into random "Cosby-isms" for no apparent reason. Upon his first glimpse of the chair, he thought its purple geometric patterns looked like the sweaters Cliff Huxtable used to sport on the Cosby Show. It wasn't until Courtney was actually laboring in the chair that we remembered that the Cliff Huxtable character was an OB!

The chair was great because it allowed me to rest between, and move into my contractions by changing positions without having to do too much extra work.

At this time Dave moved the dog bed "nest" from the couch area to alongside the chair, using the "Jarex" beanbag seat for added comfort.

I did my best to stay as close to Courtney as possible without being intrusive, or invading her space as she worked through labor. I wanted to be ready to do whatever, whether it meant putting pressure on her back or just touching her hand while I was half-asleep on the floor. The new beanbag nest provided an amazing view of her as she worked.

Throughout my entire labor, I had an irregular contraction pattern. Sometimes my contractions were 15-minutes apart; other times, 5-minutes. Occasionally they came back-to-back. This pattern allowed me to get sleep between contractions, which was one of the reasons I was

able to stay strong over the course of the entire 60 hours.

Still believing that Baby was head-down and on the right side, I couldn't figure out why I was having back labor. Dave and I (and the dogs of course) drove the Zada to see Jenny B, our chiropractor, for an adjustment.

This was the second time I was out of the house, the first being a morning trip to nearby Woodlawn Park so the dogs could chew each other's faces and let off some steam. While there I ran into a dude who knew the dogs from seeing them with Courtney. His dog, Lola - a Ridgeback/mutt mix, ran around with Satchel and Maji for a good 20-minutes. He and his wife had a seven-week old daughter, and when I told him about the home birth he was excited for us and wished only the best. Back home, Courtney was checking Facebook and email, and found some good inspiration from a few people about dealing with contractions and all-things labor related.

Jenny, like everyone else who palpated or examined me over the course of my pregnancy, thought the baby was head-down, and figured my sacrum was "sticky" with my low vertebrae. She adjusted me to help with that issue, and in the process showed Dave a few hand positions that would help alleviate the back pain. I felt immediate relief that lasted for about two hours.

On the way home, we stopped at New Seasons, where Dave got me a turkey sandwich on sour dough, and picked up other food supplies.

I didn't quite appreciate the out-of-body, out-of-mind feeling of labor until I stepped into New Seasons. Even the drive to the chiropractor felt somewhat normal. However, the "friendliest store in town" was also the strangest place I'd ever stepped foot in. Reflecting on any number of hallucinogenic experiences I've had in my life, ordering a turkey sandwich in a bustling midday grocery store after having been awake as a labor partner for 16 hours was by far the oddest, most intense, and in a way the most melancholy. At moments when, through exhaustion and companionship you achieve pure presence, things like a shopping trip remind me of how asleep we are most of the time. All I could think was, "What the hell are all these people doing here, and what could they possibly be shopping for on a Wednesday afternoon?"

At the checkout, the cashier asked about the coconuts I was purchasing alongside the sandwich and other things. Specifically she said, "What are you going to do with those coconuts?" Normally I'm all for the casual meaningless banter that takes place in a grocery store checkout line, but this time I was put off and annoyed, mainly by the way she asked, which seemed trite and heartless. I asked if she really wanted to know, and she took a second then said, "I guess." I said, "My wife's been in labor since last night and she asked me to bring her coconuts so she could drink the milk. So that's what I'm doing." I couldn't have gotten out of there fast enough. All I wanted to do was return to the nest with Courtney and the dogs. While I was in the store, Courtney sat in the back of the Zada and called friends Dan and Stacy to give them an update.

Once we got home, I continued laboring, this time mostly in bed. Maji spent most of the time safely in her crate - by her choice. Satchel, on the other hand, kindly arranged himself in the bed with me. With his back supporting my back, he provided continuous pressure during contractions. When Satchel was taking a break, Dave also provided back support, using the hand positions that chiropractor Jenny showed him.

Around early evening, midwife Laurie came over to check vitals. All was well, except my blood pressure was slightly elevated. There wasn't much else she could have done at that point but to wish us well and head back to her house. After she left, Dave, the pups and I prepared for our second night of labor.

Our Birth Story - Day 1, Part 1

Tuesday, March 29, 2011, 10:38 p.m. - Wednesday, March 30, 4 a.m.

To appease Dave's desire to be all literary and stuff on this epic birth story, Courtney has agreed to allow him various licenses. For example, we'll be telling the story in sections, with numbers (1, 2, etc.) setting each section apart from the next. We'll post a section or two at a time, along with pictures that were taken during various moments and phases. Courtney's telling of the story will be the main body of the narrative, while Dave's interjections will appear in italics, much like this intro-interjection here.

Dave and I had been going to bed together by 10 every night for awhile in anticipation of labor starting. On this night Dave cupped his hand on my bottom, sorta near my perineum, and fell asleep. This wasn't something he normally did and he isn't sure what led him to do it that night, but the result was that I felt my entire pelvic floor relax. Unusually, I didn't instantly fall asleep. Suddenly I heard a loud pop, felt something shift inside, and my body jerked. I asked Dave if he heard the noise as well, and he said he just felt my body react (I jerked in response).

Clear mucus was pouring on the bathroom floor. Crawling back in bed, the clock read 10:38 when a few minutes later my contractions began. The back labor started with the first contraction. It was uncomfortable to lay in bed, so I moved to the couch to deal with the back pain.

I was definitely confused as to whether or not my water broke; I was losing mucus, but not water. Because you're meant to call your midwives when your water breaks, I called Laurie around 12:45 and left a message that I wasn't "sure" exactly what was happening. Five minutes later, as I was lying on the couch, my water definitely broke, soaking through a large maternity pad, my underwear and my pants.

I waited a bit for Laurie, my pregnant midwife, to call me back. When she didn't I called Kim, my other midwife. I let her know my fluid was clear, that Baby was moving, that heart tones were good and that I was having contractions.

Courtney was out of the bed for what seemed like a while. I went into the living room to check on her. She told me to go back to bed, and I did for about three minutes. The bed was lonely without her and her pregnant body in it, even though she'd been getting up and moving to the couch to sleep for the last few weeks. This was different because I knew labor was starting. I wanted to experience as much of it as possible. Plus, I imagined she would enjoy the company. So I moved to the living room, where Courtney and I created a nest with the dog beds (the dogs, of course, were fast asleep in their crates). We spooned in the glow of the fireplace holiday lights, and for a while it felt a bit like Christmas Eve.

My contractions were about 8-minutes apart, and according to ContractionMaster.com, varied in duration from 15-to-90 seconds. Between contractions, we held a heating pad on my back; during contractions, I would get up and lean forward on the couch. And yes, it did feel like Christmas Eve, like something really special was going to happen the next day. We couldn't help but feel giddy.

WHAT I HOPE FOR YOU

WHAT I HOPE FOR YOU

To Lazadae

I hope you think of me as that guy

with the warm chest you slept on for hours

your first night alive in room 2506

of Emanuel’s family wing, but I hope

I never remind you of that, Lazadae, like when

you’re 16 and you steal a knife from the mall

kiosk because your mother used to steal things

like that when she was 16 and you have

petty thrill-based theft in your genes.

After we bring you home from the backroom

security where men discussed your permanent

record, I hope I don’t say something trite

like reminding you what a traumatic experience

your birth was, how your mother labored

at home for three days until your bowels

began to empty inside of her and we drove

in dark quiet to the hospital where she was

numbed then splayed open on the surgical slab,

her bladder pushed aside so two rubbered hands

could thumb you out and away from all you knew

of wet warmth, and how you were upside down

from how you should have been, breech,

wanting to enter the world with your toes

in your mouth. I hope I don’t tell you about the surgeon

handing you off under white lights to a woman

who was not your mother who scrubbed the blue

from your skin, cleared your lungs of all

you could not cough during birth. And I hope

I don’t remind you how you didn’t cry until I put

my hand on your limp arm and said through my surgical

mask, You’re here, Lazadae,

calling you the name that came to your mother

in a dream when you were just a splitting cell,

when she dreamt of pulling a tray of lasagna

from our oven and told me in the morning

she thought she was pregnant, then made up a word

over tea, Lazadae. The name waited for you there

in the operating room, stained my lips red as I said it

over and over and you cried first breaths. I hope

when people ask what kind of name is Lazadae

you tell a story all your own, flex your wild thumbs

and say it involves unicorns, forest nymphs, that Laz

means this and dae means that and with the unstressed

ah in the middle your name is a dactyl, perfect for a poem.

And if you shorten your name I hope you do better

than some text-generation moniker like LZA LOL

because, Lazadae, I hate that stuff. But I hope

you don’t care what your father likes or hates, and when

you don't care I hope I don't care. But I will, Lazadae.

I’ll care, but still hope you bloom into a creature

beyond your mother and me, that your legs grow long,

your eyes speak poems, your mind never takes a thing as truth

because someone says so. I hope your whole generation

is like this, Lazadae, that you and all your breech brethren

born in the dark of April in the year of the Rabbit

untangle the metaphors from the Psalms,

that you bury the nails of war, burn all currency

until you achieve a clan of rarefied vision. But I hope you don’t

try to do any of that, Lazadae, not if you wish to blend, be a girl

with pink gum in her hair, sleep with a baseball glove, find love

long before you’re old enough to know it hurts. More

than anything, Lazadae, I hope you know that songs live

in the sway of leaves and shadows, that the sounds you make

as you feed at your mother are music, that your mother’s voice

is melody, that I am merely a flute, and that you, Lazadae,

are the wind, the drum, the rhythm of new hot blood.

- Dave Jarecki