The Birth Story

Since the creation of my blog over a year ago I have found one concern rising above the many I have about blogging, the Internet, technology, and more: how much personal information should I share?

I tend to withhold the intimate details of my life. I don't free myself to write in a brutally honest way that exposes me and makes me vulnerable. My blog lacks evidence of opinions and views I feel so strongly about. And yet...

...my blog does come from my heart and I put a lot of heart into it, but I save most of my deepest felt experiences and thoughts for my husband, and just for me. Others who know me call me a private person, an introvert, a shy person, and I think that fits me, but sometimes I try to step out into the open, throwing my thoughts out into the world to see what ears they fall upon.

Today is one of those days... I'd like to try my hand and heart at writing about the birth of my daughters. This started out as a writing exercise for Kate Hopper's writing course "Mother Words," and now I'm developing it even more for my blog.

I apologize in advance if this story contains too much detail. I hope it doesn't upset anyone. Tomorrow's post will be much more enjoyable!

The Birth Story of My Daughters

Women. We're all about shapes (and sizes and softness and spiritual sacred bodies). During a yoga class many, many years ago, my instructor asked us to focus on the first image that came to mind when he said the word beautiful.

The first image that popped into my 17-year-old mind was that of a pregnant mother holding her first child in one arm while holding her pregnant belly with her other arm. The image expressed roundness and warmth: pure beauty in its most natural innocent state.

Although I did get to cherish moments like that image during my last pregnancy, with my curious little toddler often being the one to hold and hug my pregnant belly, the roundness of being a mother didn't entirely reach the depth of my soul.

My belly was significantly round like I swallowed not just one, but many watermelons; however, it was my pelvis that wasn't round enough. For some odd reason, both of my babies preferred to lay across my belly when I was pregnant. Transverse, the doctors called it, claiming my pelvis was not an ideal shape for natural childbirth. Thus, both babies were born via c-sections due to the transverse position and the odd shape of my pelvis. All my hopes of a natural labor and delivery vanished in the vacuum sterile surgical room as my body was prepped for surgery.

With each c-section I encountered an absence of smell under the flare of fluorescent lights as I laid upon the hard narrow surgery bed. Childbirth was supposed to be a moment full of earthy smells and sounds I thought.

Prior to each spinal block for the surgeries, a nurse gave me a shot (the drinking kind) in a Dixie cup. The liquid tasted like one thousand Fred Flinstone vitamins crushed and blended with only a few drops of water. The lingering taste of a rusty pipe in my mouth had me begging the nurse for a chaser. However, I had been without food or liquids from midnight on, so a chaser was out of the question. Instead I got hooked up to an IV! And oh how my body began to swell.

The shot of medicine was supposed to prevent any nausea that I might have after the surgery. Both times it proved ineffective as I spewed up empty matter after each surgery while I waited in the recovery room for my babies to be brought to me. The Chloroxed recovery room air became infused with the smell of vomit to my embarrassment, which further delayed getting my babies on my breasts.

After I tossed back the shot, I walked into the surgical room. Each time a nurse assisted me and my bulging belly up onto the narrow table. Each time I was asked to hunch over like a "shrimp" (probably the least likely creature I could imagine myself as), hugging my belly to my chest as the needle dripping with medicine for the spinal block was inserted into my spine. Each time I inhaled the perfume of the nurse bracing my head and shoulders in front of me as the liquid Nitrogen feel of the spinal block pushed against my back like a ton of frozen bricks.

Quickly my legs and body were spun on top of the surgery table as a flimsy pale blue drape was slung in front of me, blocking my view of my belly. In my mind I envisioned what the other eight doctors and nurses were seeing: my naked body. The humility of the moment quickly passed as each time I realized the spinal block was too slow to take effect. My belly and arms received countless pricks of a needle drawing drops of blood each time until I finally could no longer feel any pain from the tiny stabs.

The spinal block prevented all pain from entering my mind, which allowed me to maintain control of my mind. I'd prefer never to hear some stories women share: the horror stories of c-sections gone bad. I had to keep a handle on the situation. I paced my breathing and relaxed my hands, which were strapped down on either side of me.

Although I was numb from the breasts down, each time my babies were removed from my body brought an unpleasant sensation deep within my body cavity. It felt like a giant organ being excavated from the trenches of the deepest part of the earth, so engrossed in its surroundings, so attached with tentacles and pumping life that separation is impossible.

The doctor performing the second c-section exclaimed, "She's SO BIG I can't get her out!"

Never in my life have I felt the urge to say "WTF," but laying there in that surgery room I almost screamed it out.

Instead my internal scream was drowned out by the roar of a vacuum sucking out blood and fluid to loosen my baby's grip on my body.

"Now your uterus is outside your body," the doctor stated.

Again, another WTF? but this time I stammered out in panic, "I'm burning inside."

Within seconds of my daughter being pulled out, and apparently my uterus being held outside of my body, a flood of raging hot pain engulfed my upper abdomenal area under my ribcage. I didn't experience this with my first c-section, so the surprise of it shocked me senseless. I immediately lost my grip on my mind, my control, and I felt afraid.

"We don't know what causes that hot pain, perhaps it is the carbon dioxide entering the body when we have your uterus outside of it. The pain will go away eventually."

And it did, 15 minutes later, as I listened to the doctor comment during the sewing up of my body about socialized medicine (I had my first c-section when we were stationed in Canada), and the blah blah blah of his philosophy on it. Being a scientist myself, I followed along for a few minutes until I realized that I only wanted to be thinking about my newborn daughter who was choking just a few feet away from me as her doctors suctioned meconium and fluid out of her throat and mouth.

"Breathe," I whispered to her over and over.

Almost three hours later I finally felt warmth again as my daughter was placed in my arms for the first time. I smelled again the sweet wetness of life that blossoms in even the most sterile of environments. And I touched again, I touched a living miracle created from two loving souls.

Beautiful: a newborn child.