Note:  I am still pregnant.  I have not had the baby yet.  This (looooooong) post is about my second born sweetheart.  :)

If you are my brother, my dad, prone to dry heaving, cannot handle reading about human anatomy, or the words “birth” and “story” in the same sentence make you wildly uncomfortable, may I direct to you to a different post today?  Any post.  Any at all.  Here’s one with cartoons and no distinctive body parts.  In case you couldn’t tell, warning: this blog post is a little graphic in nature.  Not as graphic as, say, the video results after typing “natural water birth” into the YouTube search engine, but a little graphic nonetheless.  Moving on.

After I wrote this blog post, many of you asked me to write about Sharky’s birth story.

A little word of wisdom… write a birth story soon after you give birth, or you will eventually forget details.  I sort of regret that about Rembot’s and Sharky’s births.  Also, please know this.  I care not about how women give birth.  C-section, epidural, upside down hanging from a trapeze swing, at home, in a tub, on a boat, with a goat.  Whatever’s clever.  Mothering is a hard, beautiful privilege, no matter what.  Please reread the four preceding sentences should, at any point during this post, you feel like I’m being critical or should be the object of criticism.

Labor + delivery with Rembot was long, arduous, and terribly painful.  I was 41 weeks pregnant when my water broke around midnight.  After hours and hours of no sleep and unproductive contractions, my midwife Mallory beckoned me to the hospital.  Rembot was posterior (baby’s spine against my spine as opposed to baby’s spine against my stomach), so I had vicious back labor, and they put me on Pitocin since nothing was happening.  In my research I had learned that Pitocin speeds up contractions while epidurals slow them down.  I feared needing greater intervention, so I opted to have my Pitocin-induced back labor sans an epidural.  (Note: Plenty of women have an epidural/Pitocin combo and do just fine.  Don’t let any of my decisions re: L&D sway you one way or another.)  It was the single most hellish experience of my life, but it was beautiful to have her – after 24 hours of labor – in my arms.  I’ll save Rembot’s story for another time.

This story is Sharky’s.

I was nearing my due date, and I feared a repeat of Rembot’s birth.  Despite the crazy exercises I was doing, this baby seemed to be posterior as well.  I figured I could handle back labor as long as I didn’t have to be induced, so I may or may not have taken measures into my own hands.  (I did.)  I woke up, went to my ob practice for a checkup, and the midwife told me I was 3 cm.  “It could be today,” she said.  She couldn’t strip my membranes because I was GBS +, so I went home and started firing up all of the old wives’ tales.  Eat fresh pineapple, take more evening primrose oil, etc.

My friend Katie came over to entertain Rembot, and I stared down a bottle of castor oil.  Mallory, who had “caught” Rembot 17 months before, was on-call that night into the next day.  I really, really wanted her to be the one to be on-call when I went into labor this time around.  I could mix castor oil with juice, I was told, or cook it into eggs, or something like that.  The idea of juice with a thick layer of oil on top did not appeal to me in the least.  I had to muster up some courage (seriously, it takes me a great deal of fortitude to even swallow a pill).  I knocked back a shot of castor oil – straight – and chased it with a glass of orange juice.  Waited for magic to happen.

Felt kind of gross (duh), so I decided to take a hot shower, and do some more awesome hands-and-knees exercises to make sure the baby was in a good position.  And in the shower, the castor oil went into effect, and I started vomiting.  Awful, loud retching.  After my shower, I got dressed, and Katie sent me to bed to take a nap.  Good idea.  I could totally use a nap.

Went to the bathroom, lied back down, and then I suspected that my water broke.  It was about 5:00pm when this happened.  (Sidenote: My water broke before contractions ever started with both girls, but it wasn’t quite the dramatic break that you see on television.  Both times I wasn’t sure that my water even broke, and ended up at the hospital doing a “test” to make sure that it indeed had broken.)

Because I was GBS+, I knew if my water had indeed broken, I would have to get an IV in me at the hospital pretty soon.  No waiting at home for contractions to get close together.  I called Jack, but he wasn’t answering his cell phone.  (JACK!)  He was en route to a nursing home to sing to sweet little old ladies.  I checked his schedule, called the nursing home, and calmly told her that I needed him to head back home once he got there because my water broke.  Apparently, everyone on staff there panicked and practically tackled him when he came through the door.

Meanwhile, I was at home, shoving things into a suitcase and fretting over leaving Rembot.  Suddenly I wanted to snuggle her and hold her and spend some quiet time together since it would be the last time that she would be the only child.  We asked her to say “mama” and “dada” and tell us all of her animal noises before Jack finally dragged me out the front door at around 6:30pm.

I hadn’t had any contractions.  I was worried that if my water had actually broken, I would be facing the same birth I had with Rembot.  Lots of Pitocin, four-minute-long contractions, back labor, and so much screaming that it actually hurt to touch my neck the next day.  I realize that sentence sounds a little melodramatic, and I certainly don’t want to scare any pregnant women out there… but Rembot’s birth was abnormally difficult (so I’m told).  I just say this to express the fear I was fighting going into giving birth for the second time.

Once at the hospital, the midwife confirmed that my water broke.  It was go-time.  I called my mom to let her know, and then called my friend Sunnie to tell her that it was time to head over to the hospital.

I got dressed into the sexiest hospital gown on the planet, complete with long socks with the little grippies on the bottom and settled into my L&D room.  The nurse came in to hook up my IV and woops! – did it wrong.  I watched as my hand bled and blew up a bit (seriously, my left hand was bruised for WEEKS).  The second attempt was a charm, and I was surprisingly good natured considering the extra element of pain this nurse so kindly afforded this labor.  ;)

Sunnie showed up with all of the things I probably forgot to pack.  Chapstick, hair ties, snacks, etc.  (Good thinking, S!)  She gets lightheaded at the sight of needles, so her timing was perfect as she didn’t have to witness the Great Hand Stabbing of 2010.

9:00pm rolled around and I was starting to have sporadic contractions.  Nothing crazy at first, but they were uncomfortable and I knew that I just could not sit still in a bed.  The nurse propped up the back of the bed.  I kneeled, facing it, and draped my arms over the edge.  I put my face against the mattress and let each contraction roll through.  I could feel the contractions in my back, and the only relief I could feel was when Sunnie, Jack, or the L&D nurse put pressure on my lower back.  I asked for a heating pad, and that seemed to help.

Mallory popped in to check on me and see how I was doing.  Jack had his laptop open and let Pandora play.  I think at one point they dimmed the lights and I tried to rest between contractions, but everything inside me did *not* want to be in that bed.  They capped my IV and taped it to my arm and let me roam as I pleased.  With Rembot, since I was on Pitocin, I had to be tethered to the monitor.  Having straps around my abdomen and IVs in my arm were so cumbersome.  Being able to move about freely was sweet relief.  A cervix check showed that I was at 5cm.

Contractions started getting more intense, longer, and closer together.  I stood for most of them, or leaned over on the bed, breathing through them.  And then I started whining.  “I don’t know if I can do this.”  I went to the bathroom to pee for, you know, the millionth time.  I came out of my room, looked at Mallory and said, a la college frat boy, “Dude.  I need drugs.”  Jack stifled his laughter to avoid getting an elbow to the ribcage.  Mallory knew I wanted another epidural-free birth, and she knew me well enough to know that it was time to push me a little bit.

“Five contractions.  Go get in the shower, and after five contractions, if you want an epidural, we’ll get the epidural.”  I didn’t really want the epidural, but I was fighting the fear that things were going to get so intense that I’d experience Rembot’s birth all over again.  And five contractions seemed like it could be an eternity.

I got in the shower and let the hot water hit my back.  Two contractions in the shower.  They hurt, and I decided I was done with the shower.  Dried off and headed over to the bed.

Another contraction.  I was tired, and I found myself drifting into that place where everything almost seems like a dream.  I couldn’t focus, my eyes couldn’t focus, and it was almost as if things around me were swirling.  At this point, I knew I had to focus on something to get through the contractions to keep from feeling like I was drowning in them and drowning in the pain of them.  I mustered up some renewed determination, and I focused during the next contraction.  I – and I admit, this is going to sound creepy – stared at Mallory through the next one.  Bore my eyes right into hers.  She knew what I was doing – that I needed the focal point, but I just felt like I was the weird mouth breathing kid in Science class.  (I later relayed this to her, which she laughed off.  Totally normal.  Maybe she lied to me.)  Focusing helped.  So did breathing, keeping my mouth open, my jaw relaxed.

Five contractions over.

“Let me check you.”  Going from standing up to lying down on the bed for a cervix check was the very last thing I wanted to do.  And the idea of possibly having to take a contraction while lying on my back seemed impossible.

“You’re there.  You’re 9 and a half.  Wait…”  Apparently part of my bag of water (<—that sounds so gross) was still intact.  Mallory broke it.  Contraction.  I rolled over to my side and the contraction overwhelmed me.  I tried to breathe through it.  The idea of being numb from the waist down sounded so good, but I was fully dilated and there was no way an epidural was going to happen.

So I did the next best thing.

I cried.  Like.. the angry kid cry who wipes his tears after missing the last shot during the basketball game.  He walks away and kicks rocks.

I assumed that the “pushing” stage would be like I pushed with Rembot.  For a solid two hours, on my back, not having any sleep in over 40 hours.  I told Mallory that I could not stay lying down for one more minute, and marched off to the bathroom to pee (or so I claimed).

I was tired and felt like a wuss, and I felt embarrassed for feeling like a wuss.

I didn’t actually go to the bathroom.  I just sat on the toilet and cried.  I wanted privacy.  I knew I had to muster up some courage, and I wanted to muster it up alone.  Jack came over to me, and I alternated between wanting to hug him and have him comfort me and wanting him to leave me the heck alone.

And then I felt the baby drop.  I yelled.  Mallory ran in and checked.  I was fine, she said.  Nothing yet.  Hang out and cry if I want to.  She gave me privacy and suddenly even Jack’s hand on my shoulder seemed like an invasion of space.

Breathe, breathe, breathe.  My body knew.  My brain knew.  I’m going to have this baby right now, and there was no way I was walking towards a bed.  I stood up, lowered my hands, felt the urge to push, and did… and screamed.  It was guttural, so said Sunnie.  It was beastly, so said Jack.  I’d rather describe it as neither, but I’m trying to write an honest story.

Mallory, the doctor, and the nurse ran in.  The baby was crowning, and I felt the urge to push again.  My hands against the toilet (ew), I propped myself up on my arms.  Jack supported my back, and the nurse and the doctor were at my feet while Mallory guided Sharky out.  Another beastly (thanks, Jack) yell, and a command to “Push, Roo, push!” and Sharky was out.

The toilet as my lovely chair, I had her against my chest, not quite believing what just happened.  And holy mother, did that hurt.  I sat, holding her, catching my breath as they checked her.  Jack next to me, and Sunnie, camera at her side, completely sobbing.  :)  Somehow, we managed to film everything after the first twenty seconds or so.

Be warned.  If you’ve only seen babies after they’ve had a few baths and are well secured in some footie pajamas, this video might be a little too startling for you.  I tried to tone down the graphic parts with a little video editing.  But, still.  Fair warning.  Oh.  Also.  I’m a little nudey.  I mean, I’m covered up, but I’m a little nudey.

And now after that looooooong disclaimer.  Here you go.

Oh, sweet little face. :)  I’m a very lucky Mommy.