Oscar was born on May 1, 2002, at about 7:30 p.m. The night before, as I was reaching up to get the leash to take our dog Simon for a walk, I felt this surge of water come out of me. At first I thought perhaps I had peed in my pants, as my bladder was under constant stress and I never knew. But then I thought about it again. I sat down on the sofa (I was wearing a pad), picked up the phone and called my husband. “Uh, Kevin,” I said, “I think my water broke!” He was home shortly.
Getting to the hospital was a blur, but I didn’t feel any contractions or anything, just a lot of anxiety. Once I got there and was examined, my midwife said that there was a partial rupture of the membrane. After a few hours with not much change, it was decided that I would be given Pitocin.
I remember the midwife telling me not to eat anything, but I was hungry and Kevin gave me some dried apples, and I remember ferociously chewing ice, even though I don’t even like ice in my drinks. So it began. My husband and I had decided that instead of an epidural, we were going to use Hypnobirthing, which is basically getting yourself into a state of deep relaxation through breathing. The breaths are long and drawn out.
When you feel a contraction, you take a deep breath in through your nose for a count of ten and then slowly breathe out. You also use visualization, and quiet music if you want. We took a course in it that I’d heard about through a local yoga studio. Things were going pretty well, except that my blood pressure was high and had to be constantly monitored. They had strapped on one of those automatic blood-pressure monitors that checked my pressure every 15 minutes. To this day I believe that it was causing my blood pressure to get higher than it would have if they had just periodically checked.
A few more hours passed, and I still wasn’t making much progress, even with the Pitocin. The midwife decided that she would fully rupture the membrane. After that, things moved pretty quickly. When the contractions started getting really intense, I felt nauseated and promptly threw up the dried apples I wasn’t supposed to eat.
I remember getting into a really deep state of relaxation, a kind of drifting about in my mind. When the midwife told me it was time to push, I opened my eyes, and to my shock there were at least 10 other doctors and nurses in the room with me and Kevin! I was not aware of them coming in or anything, because I was so focused on my breathing and my husband.
As it turned out, they had noticed that Oscar was in some stress, and they brought in extra doctors for him. After I delivered him, they discovered that he had managed to wrap the cord around his neck twice. I didn’t even get to hold him at first; they rushed him over to cut the cord and get him breathing.
Meanwhile, the hardest part was still ahead for me. No one really tells you that after you have brought your baby into the world, you still have to deliver the afterbirth. I could barely muster enough strength for the task, and I still hadn’t held Oscar and I was nervous for him. Labor and delivery took 12 hours, and finally a couple of hours later, I got to hold my son for the first time.