anastasia's birth story

Throughout my pregnancy, I'd been determined to not be one of those mothers whose frustration and impatience with waiting begins exactly on her due date. Especially since my due date was only an estimated one, I tried not to build up any expectations around that day. February 12, 2008, was just a day like any other, nothing to get excited about.

I did get one surprise on the twelfth: a package from Mom Baker, with some of Matt's baby clothes, handmade by a friend, and a poem that Grandpa Baker wrote while they were waiting to hear about Matt's birth.

But that, and a lot of phone calls asking when I was going to have the baby, were all I got on her due date.

Eight days later, my sister-in-law, Heidi, was induced and gave birth to Anastasia's cousin, Olivia Grace. I was happy for her, but a part of me couldn't help but feel a little disappointed: Heidi and Jeff had already had one baby, and their due date was after ours! Heidi and I had enjoyed being pregnant together, but I had wanted to have my baby first.

However, I'd also had a feeling all along that Anastasia wouldn't come till the end of the month--maybe not even until March 1. On February 22, at our regular appointment, I told my midwife, Beth, that I thought the baby wouldn't come until the following weekend, either February 29 or March 1. Joy, Beth’s apprentice, mentioned that she would be on vacation that weekend. "Oh." I felt a touch of disappointment. "I don't want you to miss the birth!"

Driving home from the appointment that afternoon, I thought to myself, Well, maybe I should have the baby earlier than next weekend. Actually, I think I'm ready to have the baby now.

My contractions started at nine that evening.

I didn't say anything to Matt at first; I'd been having a lot of Braxton-Hicks, and I didn't want to get excited yet. We watched a movie (Becoming Jane), and I made myself comfortable on the couch. But when the contractions still felt strong and regular two hours later, after the movie ended, I started to think something might be happening.

"I'm having a lot of contractions," I told Matt. "I think it might be starting."

We timed the contractions at 3-5 minutes apart, but they weren't consistent or very strong, so we didn't call Beth. I didn't want to be one of those women who couldn't stop calling the midwife. "I think we have a while yet," I said, and we decided to go to bed.

Except that Matt wanted to watch another movie. He watched Sweeney Todd (the old version, not the newer one), while I tried unsuccessfully to go to sleep. It wasn't that I was too excited--although that was probably part of it--but it was mostly because I was uncomfortable lying down. By the time Matt finally came to bed, I had given up on sleeping. Lying down made the contractions painful, but while I was walking around I felt fine. So I walked around the house, sat on the toilet, and read Harry Potter 5 (I'd been re-reading the series) while Matt slept. Around three in the morning it occurred to me that this really was labor, so there was no point in waiting to set up the waterbirthing tub, and that I might be more comfortable in water. So I set up the AquaDoula tub and filled it with water. By then, I was getting tired and very uncomfortable, and I was glad when the tub finally filled. I sank into the water with relief and was able to relax for the first time since the contractions had started. I listened to my Hypnobabies CD until I got bored of it; then I kept reading Harry Potter and tried not to think about being in labor. And waited for it to be late enough in the morning to call my midwife.

I finally called Beth around eight a.m. I hadn't wanted to wake her up when it clearly wasn't an emergency yet. She had several things scheduled that day--a home visit and a blessing ceremony--but assured me that she would skip out on both of them if I needed her. "But you don't sound like you're very far along yet," she added. I tried not to feel disappointed. "On the other hand, you are doing that hypnobabies thing, so maybe you're just relaxed."

Right.

We agreed that I would call her if I felt different or if anything changed, and she would keep calling me throughout the day to check on my progress.

By that afternoon, nothing had really changed. I felt like I'd been having contractions for a really long time, and I was tired, but although they were very regular they didn't seem much stronger. I'd been either walking around or sitting in the tub for most of the day. Joy decided to stop by my house on the way back from the blessing ceremony, and she arrived at 2:30 pm. I was excited for her to check my cervix and see how far I'd progressed, but I was stunned when she told me it was only 2 cm. Two?!? I already hadn't slept in 18 hours.

"You need to rest," Joy ordered me. "You have a long time ahead yet." She made me get in bed and got me a glass of red wine. She also insisted that I eat something--I'd had nothing but a little toast that morning--so Matt made some bacon and I tried to force it down. She left me lying propped up on pillows, trying to relax.

About fifteen minutes after she left, I felt a gush of liquid down my leg. Fortunately she had put a pad under me on the bed, anticipating something like that. I ran to the bathroom and discovered I was bleeding. "I think my water broke!" I said excitedly to Matt, and I called Joy.

"It sounds like your water broke," she agreed. But she was still adamant: "Get some rest," she said again, and I reluctantly tried to lie down.

But it was even more uncomfortable to lie down, so I soon went back into the tub. I spent the afternoon alternating between sitting in the tub reading and wandering around the house. Joy came back at nine that evening. By then the contractions were stronger and very frequent, but it wasn't very intense yet. Between contractions, Joy and I talked about literature and youth ministry (she also used to be a youth director at a church); I showed her my library and recommended several books she hadn't read yet. I leaned on the back of the couch during each contraction, breathing through it as I'd learned from my Hypnobabies CDs, relaxing as much as I could.

I also told Joy how we'd been joking about labor the previous weekend with some friends, and predicting when my baby would be born. One of our friends was training to be a flight attendant, and the cheer she'd learned for passenger instructions in an emergency had sounded to me (with birthing on my mind) like something you could say to the baby: "Heads down, stay down! Leave everything, come this way! Slide, slide, slide!" "You can say that to the baby when it's coming out!" I laughed to Joy.

Not long after she arrived, Joy asked if I wanted her to leave and come back or just stay. I think the look I gave her in response must have had a hint of desperation in it. "Please stay," was all I said. It helped so much to have her there, someone who knew what was going on, who had been through it herself, who could tell me what was happening. I hated wondering how far along I was, wondering what was going on, wondering whether I was normal. I wanted a professional there.

"No problem," Joy said. "I'll just stay the night."

We waited, and talked, and time passed. Nothing really seemed to change until eleven forty, when I threw up and started shaking."Yes!" I thought to myself. "This is transition. I'm probably at nine centimeters already." I waited eagerly as Joy checked, expecting her to say I was nearly there, but after feeing for a minute she pronounced me at 3 centimeters. Maybe three and a half.

She still wanted me to try to rest, even if I couldn't sleep, but I didn't think I could relax lying down. "What about in the tub?" Joy asked.

"Well, yeah, I can relax there," I said a little sulkily, still upset about my lack of progress, "but I'll fall in if I sleep!"

"I'll watch you and make sure you don't drown," she replied, and that's exactly what she did.

For the next five hours, I sat in the tub and tried to rest. The contractions slowed down to about ten minutes apart, and I felt them mostly in my back and butt, like bad cramps. I found they were better when I relaxed through them, riding them like waves, settling into them despite the pain. Between them I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the side of the tub. I tried to listen to my Hypnobabies CD, but I quickly discovered that it was incredibly annoying (how had I listened to that irritating voice all through pregnancy?) and tossed my headphones aside. Joy dimmed the lights and lit candles and made sure I had water to drink, and to my surprise, I was able to drift into sleep. I'd wake up with a start as another contraction started, feeling like I'd slept for an hour, but it would have only been two or three minutes. After the first few hours, Matt offered to take a turn so Joy could sleep, and he sat there in the darkness trying to keep awake as I tried to go to sleep. This is the part I remember most vividly about labor: the warm water lapping at my shoulders, the candles flickering, and Joy's soft voice coming from her silhouette in the darkness as she reassured me: "You're doing great, breathe, don't back away from it, let it happen, you're doing great."

At five in the morning I got out to go to the bathroom, and Joy wanted to check me again. I was surprised when she told me I was five centimeters. I had stopped thinking of progress at that point; I was experiencing each moment, living from one contraction to the next. I hardly even thought about being halfway there, although I was pleased I wasn't still at three. I got back into the tub and rested a little longer.

Around seven I told Joy that things felt different. It was light outside and it felt like morning; I felt ready to be awake, to do something. "I can feel my cervix stretching," I told Joy, and it was the strangest feeling, but I really could feel the muscles pulling and the tissue stretching wider, like opening your jaw as wide as you can, or spreading your fingers to their fullest extent. "Something's happening," I told Joy. I was thrilled when Joy said she thought we should call Beth. That, I felt sure, meant the baby would be born soon.

At eight o'clock she checked me again, and I was seven or eight centimeters. "Really?" I felt like I'd been in labor so long that I couldn't believe it would ever end, like I'd drifted into another world, with a different flow of time. Later, I learned that she'd felt a balloon of water over the baby's head when she checked me then, so it had just been bloody show, and not my water breaking, that I'd felt earlier.

It seemed to take Beth forever to get there. She called on the way to say that she was stuck in construction traffic, and Joy gave her directions for a different way to come. I wondered if the baby would come before she did, but she arrived at 8:45, and I immediately felt better, as though everything was okay to go now.

But, of course, her arrival didn't change anything. The contractions kept coming, and I kept trying to ride them, trying to relax. I think this was the hardest part of labor, this waiting, expecting it to be over soon. There was a part of me that had thought that Beth would do something when she got there, so it was disappointing when all she did was exactly what Joy’d been doing: sit there and watch and tell me I was doing great. I wasn’t talking much any more, but I remember looking at them both with a kind of desperation, a look that said do something!—anything, drugs, forceps, something. Make it come out faster. They would both reassure me every time: You’re doing great, you’re doing this, everything is going fine.

But it’s a good thing I wasn’t in the hospital, because at that point I gladly would have accepted drugs—not really for the pain, which still was definitely bearable, but just to get it over quicker.

I kept hoping to feel the urge to push, and worrying that I wouldn't recognize it when it did come. But when it did, it was unmistakable. It was around nine in the morning when I said, "I think I need to push."

Beth checked me and felt a lip of cervix still there. "Try not to push yet," she told me. I was horrified. During the next contraction I found myself pushing—I couldn't help it.

"I have to push," I said, gasping for breath, when the contraction was over.

"Well," Beth suggested, "I can try to hold the lip back while you push during the next contraction. Do you want me to try that?"

I remembered vaguely that I'd decided earlier I didn't want that. I didn't want any kind of interventions. I wanted everything to be completely natural, to do everything myself. That was just a memory now, a very vague and faint one. "Yes, please," I said, trying to catch my breath; "let's do that."

She reached in, but I didn't feel her doing anything. The next contraction came, and I just let my body do whatever it wanted. Beth pulled her hand out. "There," she said; "you can push now."

I couldn't believe it. It had only been a few minutes, but I felt like I'd been waiting to push forever. "Really?" I looked at her in astonishment.

"Yeah," she said, with a nod like she was sending me off to go play, do my thing, do whatever I wanted.

So I did. I let my body take over completely. Even I was a little shocked by its response: for the next hour and a half, every contraction made me double up into the fetal position as I yelled at the top of my lungs, a deep grunting yell of exertion. The strange part, though, was that it didn't really hurt. It felt much better than the long, slow contractions earlier. At one point I found myself comparing it to going to the bathroom, and in the midst of a contraction I decided that it was definitely much less painful than cramps when I was sick. At one point, I looked up at Matt and was surprised to see a look of shock and horror on his face. "Don't worry," I told him. "It's not as bad as it looks, I promise. It really doesn't hurt at—aaaaaaaah "—and I interrupted myself with a yell as another contraction took hold.

But most of my time between contractions was spent urging Anastasia down. "Come on," I kept saying, "come on down! That's it, that's it." I glanced at Joy as I added, trying to laugh, "Slide, slide, slide!"

Beth suggested that I could reach in and feel the head. I tried and was amazed at how close it was, and how soft. It didn't feel at all like a skull. I kept touching it again between every contraction after that, but I was disappointed when it didn't seem to be moving down. "What's taking so long?" I demanded of the midwives. "Why isn't it moving?"

They just watched. "You're doing great," they said, a low murmur of voices that would have been meaningless if not for the fact that I knew they had both done this before, done it and watched countless other women do it. I wished they could do something more, though. Pull the baby out, or something. Give me drugs or take control or do a test, something, something more than sitting there watching as I did all the work.

Later, I remembered that was exactly why I'd chosen a homebirth: I wanted to do all the work myself.

It felt like only a few minutes later, but was really an hour, when Beth asked if I wanted to get out and sit on the birth stool. "Will it help?" I demanded.

"It might speed things up," she said.

"Then yes."

Beth sent Matt out to her car, where the stool was in the trunk. He brought it back and I climbed up out of the tub, supported by a midwife on either side. I was surprised at how weak I felt and shaky, out of the water. It was cold in the air. They wrapped a towel around my shoulders and I sat on the stool before I was overtaken by a strong contraction.

This time, when I reached down to feel the head, I didn't have to reach in. "It's crowning!" I exclaimed. The head was protruding out of me. "It's coming out, it's crowning!"

"Well..." Beth hesitated. "Technically crowning is when the head is a little farther out, about where a crown would sit—" She broke off as I gave her a blank look. What on earth was the woman babbling about? My baby was crowning! "Get back in the pool," Beth interrupted herself hastily. "The water will support you; I don't want you to tear."

I was shivering now and cold, so I gladly stood up to hop back in the pool. Except that now I had a baby's head sticking out between my legs. Somehow I still managed, with both midwives' help, to climb back over the edge of the tub and sink gratefully back into the water just before another contraction was coming.

Except the contraction I was expecting didn't come. I sat down in the water, and nothing happened. I waited. Finally a contraction did come, but it didn't, as I expected, push the head out immediately. In the movies, the baby comes out as soon as it starts crowning; why wasn't that happening to me? I started to get a little angry.

"What's going on?" I demanded of the midwives, as though they could do something about it. "Why isn't it coming out? What's taking so long?"

"Well," Beth spoke gently, "your body is slowing down to prevent you from tearing. It's giving your skin time to stretch." She paused a moment, then added, "That's why they do episiotomies. If we did one right now, the baby would come right out."

I glared at her. Why wasn't she doing one, then? I opened my mouth to say, only half-joking, that I was sure I had some scissors in the house, but I was interrupted by another contraction.

That one didn't push the baby out either, but it gave me time to remember that I didn't want an episiotomy. That was why I was having a homebirth.

Why didn't I want an episiotomy? That was the part I couldn't remember.

But just as I realized that the baby was never coming out, and I would be giving birth forever, in some eternal alternate reality, the baby did come out. The head popped out and the body slipped easily after, and I caught the baby without even thinking, with a reflex instinct that would become a motion I would practice many times again, to scoop up and cuddle my baby. I pulled the baby up out of the water and held it so I could look in its face. "I can't believe you're finally out," I said, still gasping for breath. It looked back at me, right in my eyes, and a little red tongue flicked out of its mouth at me. Then it opened its mouth and screamed, and I instinctively cuddled its wet little body close to my breast, comforting.

Beth wrapped a towel around both of us and put a hat on the baby's head, and only then did I realize that I could finally find out what gender it was. "What are you?" I asked through laughing and crying, and I held it out again to see. Through tears and sweat and exhaustion, all I saw was something dangling down—the cord still hanging off the baby's belly. "It's a boy," I said, feeling—to my shock—a little disappointed.

"No, it's a girl," Beth corrected me softly, and I blinked and looked more carefully, and saw she was right.

"It's a girl! You're a girl!" and I hugged her to my breast again, exulting, thinking in a joyful flash of slumber parties and girl bonding and makeup sessions and shopping trips and cute little pink baby outfits. "Anastasia," I called her by her name for the first time, and it felt so right to say it. I knew then why we could never agree on a boy name.

It was 11:14 in the morning, and the sun was shining through the window.

The rest of the morning was a blur. Beth made me get out of the tub again so she could see how much I was bleeding, and I cuddled Anastasia as we waited for the placenta to come. It took over an hour, and I was shocked when I realized my body was still working. "Why am I still having contractions?" I asked, perched on the birth stool. "I thought I was done!" But I was quickly distracted by Anastasia, who was nuzzling my breast and opening her mouth. She latched on and started nursing, and I watched her in amazement. She was so tiny, so beautiful, so perfect. "Is she really ours?" I wondered. "How can she be related to us? She's so much more beautiful than either of us." She looked like another being entirely, not even human, some lovely perfect creature from another world.

Someone told me recently that babies are perfect when they're born--and then they keep getting better. Now that I've experienced it, I know it's true.