Birthing Lisel Blossom -- part 4

Sooo, where was I almost one year ago when I was in the middle of telling y'all my birth story?

Ah yes, I was in labor, and had been for about 17 hours. And I was having a blast. I mean, there was some pain, yes, but it wasn't that extreme. It was getting more intense and yet not overwhelmingly so. I was breathing through it -- dancing through it with my husband in fact.

I felt like I was made for this.

Like I was the original earth mama.

The doctor thought my water had broken on it's own and so I thought I must be in transition. The pain was increasing by little fits and starts, but it was oh so doable.

What had all those women throughout history been bitching about? This was easy.

The doctor came in for an exam, and while she was, um, examining (Hey Grandaddy!) she did the darndest thing.

"Hmmm," She said, "I guess your water didn't break on it's own. Mind if I break it."

"Sure," I said, figuring what the hell right?

And with was seemed like the slightest slip of her fingers, she broke my water.

And I suddenly understood.

In an instant, and when I say instant I mean that a millisecond would be an overestimation, everything changed. I went from Earth Mother to panicked individual without a clue as what to do. Because suddenly, there was pain -- pain the likes of which I'd never experienced. It was immediate, all encompassing and really very...painful.

And I had no idea what to do.

Now, I really wanted to have an unmedicated birth because, well, I thought it would be cool. I wanted to get inside the pain of childbirth and have that exclusive experience that all mother's have shared throughout all of human history. But I was pretty sure I couldn't do it on my own, so Dave and I hired Debra Day, a wonderful local midwife who also does labor support.

Up until the time my water broke, she had pretty much been hanging back, as Dave and I seemed to have in under control.

But suddenly I was out of control and way out of ideas.

"Help me!" I whimpered.

And like a superhero out of comic book by mothers, for mothers, Debra Day swooped in. She put her hands on my abdomen and gave me specific instructions what to do. Breath into her hands. Focus on my breath.

And like a super hero, she saved me.

For the next four hours, I was in transition. For those of you who don't know, transition is when the baby is making her final descent through the birth canal. It's typically the most painful stage of labor.

I've tried to describe this pain, and the best I can do is characterize it as rolling. Or maybe roiling. I imagine it's how the ocean feels during a particularly strong storm. It's punctuated by contractions, which, if I remember conrrect were less like the sharp stabbing pains that people seem to have in the movies, and more just an intensification of this general feeling of rolling/roiling pain.

The pain stripped me down to my core, to what I have come to think of as my animal self. I didn't speak so much as moan. My eyes were mostly closed. I became very...basic.

Dealing with the pain became my primary concern. I did breathing excercises. I felt best when I could move about. I found that hanging on Dave whilst moaning during a contraction was very effective.

I was no longer a paragon of labor love. In fact, I tried to run away. I bolted. I'm not not sure where I was was going or what my plan was, but all I knew was that I was done with this particular situation. I didn't get more that half a foot from where I was before Debra and Dave caught me and talked me down.

And I made a decision that yes, in fact, I did want medication. I reasoned with my self that thought I had wanted a natural birth, it was just too hard and therefor I was going to ask for medication and get it and that would be just fine.

When I asked the doctor for the meds, she explained to me that it was too late for the really good ones. And this is where I got lucky. She encouraged me to continue without them. She knew I wanted a natural birth and knew I could get through rest of the labor without meds.

Thank you Donelle Oliver!

In the end, I was completely naked, sitting on a chair in the shower. Dave was spraying me with warm water. When I felt a contraction come on, I would stand up and lean on Dave. And when the contraction passed, I would sit back down.

This went on for quite a while.

Did I mention I have an amazing, incredible, super husband?

Well, I do.

At some point, I stopped progressing, dilation wise. I think I was stuck at like, 8 centimeters. And I realized something. I was afraid to become a parent. It's not that I didn't want Lisel to be born, it's just that I was scared of letting go of my past, and entering the this unknown future where there was going to be so much at stake. And so, between contractions, I tried to get down with letting go of all that fear -- the fear of the loss of the Elizabeth that was, the fear of meeting the daughter I was soon to take care of and the fear pf meeting the mother I was soon to be.

And when I let go of that fear, my labor started progressing again.

Then, after four hours I was ready to push. And it was the weirdest thing. Suddenly, I was back to the modern Elizabeth. I could open my eyes and I had a sense of myself. I could crack jokes. I was kind of awesome.

For my first push, I let out a monster scream, like they do in the movies. It was my right, right?

"So you know all that energy you put into screaming," said Debra "Put it into pushing."

Ummm, no scream. No one had told me about that.

So for my next push I didn't scream. Instead I made a crazy pushy squishy face.

"So, you know all that energy you put into making that squishy face," said Dr. Oliver, "Put it into pushing."

The best metaphor for pushing that I can think of is learning how to swing a golf club. There were lots of instructions, all of which needed to be done simultaneously, and few of which seemed intuitive. You know, in golf it's all "Keep your head down, and your shoulder's square and your hips...however you're suposed to keep your hips. And go!" With pushing it was "Lift here, pull here, push here but not there."

For my final push, I let out my second monster scream. But it really was my right, as the baby was making her exit.

I wish I had kept my eyes open and seen the actual birth, but alas, they were closed. You'll have to ask Dave, my sister, my mother, Dave's mom, or Dave's Dad what it looked like.

Oh, did I forget to mention that they were all in the room when I gave birth? I was naked as a jaybird, legs spread wide, and all I wanted to do was share the experience with whom ever wanted to be there.

It was awesome.

And then, Lisel was being placed on my chest. And I looked down at my daughter, who had just gone on a crazy trip of her own, and who was having her first experiences in this outside world, and I was just taken.

"We did it," I said to her. "We made it."

And suddenly, we were a family of three

Happy Birthday Baby

On Sunday, December 27th, our daughter, Lisel Blossom Sanger McQueen celebrated her 1st Birthday.

As the kids say. OMG.

We had a very small scale brunch type celebration, just Dad, Granpappy the birthday girl and me. The party is coming later. I think this will be the trend in years to come. Such is the fate of Christmas babies.


In honor of Lisel's Birthday I've decided to finish her birth story. I started it way back when she truly was just a little bean. I wrote part 1, part 2 and part 3 and then stopped before detailing the actual birth. Looking back, I can see I wasn't ready to share that intense experience with the rest of the world. But over the past couple of months, I've been sharing that story with friends who weren't around at the time.

And Lisel's Birthday seems like the most appropriate time to finish the story.

And so I will finish it. I'm giving myself a day or two to write it out right. So stay tuned for the final installment of "Birthing Lisel Blossom!"

Birthing Lisel Blossom -- Part 3: Going to the Hospital and We're Gonna Have a Baby

We’re back to the birth story!

After going to the doctors office and not having contractions, I got sent home. Luckily, the contractions came back in a regular way. It felt good knowing I was truly in labor.

We labored at home for a couple more hours. It was a sweet time, filled with West Wings, words of love and some cramping pain. At one point my parents and sister came by. I was surprised at how easy it was to hang while being in labor. You see, up until I actually went into labor, my only reference for the experience had been the movies. So I thought it would go down a little like this…

1) My water would break, and I would know it had broken because it would exit my body in a monstrous gush. At which point I would look at calmly at Dave and say “It’s time.”

2) Dave would run around the house in a total panic, grab our overnight bag and other birth related things, pack them up in the car and drive towards the hospital…forgetting me in the process. He would drive back to the house and hustle me into the car.

3) At this point I would be doing some kind of crazy Lamaze breathing to quell the intense pain I was feeling. Dave would try to comfort me at which point I would curse him

4) We’d run into the hospital, and almost immediately I’d be in a hospital bed, legs in stirrups, still breathing all Lamaze-like (he-he-he-hoooo), every once in a while screaming something at Dave like “You got me into this!!!! Damn you!!!”

5) A baby would be born. We would both cry.

Really the only thing that went down like the movies was that last part. Everything else was different. In fact, the first 18 hours of labor were kind of a breeze.

Like I said, my folks and my sister came by, and we talked and laughed. Every once in a while I’d check out to get through a contraction, and then it was back to visiting.

Laboring and Laughing

After they left, we called Debra Day, the midwife who we hired to help us with labor support, to come over. She was awesome. She checked the baby’s heartbeat, and we talked about whether or not we should go to the hospital. Her advice was to head down there before the contractions got too intense. That way we could check in and make the space our own before the real poop went down. Excellent advice.

At this point, I had been laboring for about 12 hours. The pain was pretty dealable. We went to the hospital and got checked in, and for the next six hours or so we climbed the labor hill slowly but steadily. The pain increased a little bit at a time, and the time in between the contractions was actually pretty fun.

Fun you say? Well, we had decided to go drug free on this adventure. And we also decided to let it happen pretty naturally. Luckily, the doctor who delivered us was down with that plan so there was no inducing, no early breaking of the water. Consequently, it was slow and steady build.

In between contractions I was pretty much me. I could chat with Debra and Dave. Debra also encouraged Dave and I to experience the labor as a couple, so periodically she would us alone in the room. We put on some music --a little Getz and Gilberto, some Marley, lots of Ray Charles. At one point even Dave put on the Paul Anka hit “Having My Baby” (What a lovely way of sayin'
What you're thinkin' of me!). We dimmed the lights and danced through the contractions. It was fun.

That’s one thing no one really tells you, That labor can be fun.

And then the doctor broke my water…

Tomorrow. The most pain I’ve ever felt, and the happiest I’ve ever been!

Birthing Lisel Blossom -- Part 2: Shy Uterus Syndrome

At 8:30am, we figured it was time to let the doctor know what was up. I knew it wasn’t time to go to the hospital but maybe they would want know. Or maybe I should say, I wanted to tell them. We had been to the birth class, read the pamphlet, studied the book, but still when the rubber hit the road, we weren’t totally sure of protocol. So we called the doctor, fully expecting them to tell us to stay home and keep breathing.

But they asked us to come in.

Now, I’ll admit, I can be a bit of a hypochondriac. And during the course of my pregnancy, I had made more than a few false alarm type visits to the doctor’s office. It was those damn pregnancy books. Every time I read about some kind of problem that I could potentially expect when I was expecting it would send me into a worry tailspin and more often than not make me put in a call to the doctor.

Four months into the pregnancy we renamed this tragedy of a book and threw it away!

And on Christmas Eve I had an episode where I thought maybe my water had broken. So I went to the hospital. And got totally checked in and totally checked out. And it was a false alarm. I was pretty damn embarrassed. So embarrased that I swore Dave to secrecy. No one, not even my family, was going to know what a spazz I could be.

Which is all to say that when we went to the doctor’s office I was more than a little nervous. I mean, maybe I wasn’t in labor. Maybe I was just convincing myself that I was feeling regular pains, which I assumed to be labor. Maybe I was in a self-induced state of wishful thinking labor. With me, anything was possible.

And sure enough, I got to the doctor’s office and the contractions slowed down. I was a little worried, but not too worried, since I was still actually having contractions.

But then they took me to a tiny room, sat me down in a La-Z-Boy and hooked me up to a monitor that measured my contractions and the baby’s heartbeat. And for a good half hour I didn’t have one contraction.

Not a one.

I watched the paper printout spilling out of the machine. My line, the line that should have been all hills of contractions and valleys of the time in between was straight. I wanted Colorado and all I was getting was Kansas.

I tried to take my mind off of the fact that I quite possibly had psyched myself into some kind of false labor state. I had Dave read to me from a frivolous female oriented magazine about some blonde starlet I’d never really seen before. I cracked jokes and apologized to the nurses. I prayed secretly and silently to any and all higher powers out there to please make this be the real thing. And still nothing happened.

Dave and I then came up with the official diagnosis of shy uterus syndrome. Sometimes, your organs just get stage fright. Mine certainly did. Dave Say: Certainly everyone has experienced – or in my case, had a “very good friend” whose experienced – less than forthcoming bowels or a timid bladder. Right? My uterus was just not going to go out there and show the doctors what she could do. She stayed backstage while the cameras were on.

Luckily, as soon as I got up from the chair I had a massive contraction that almost buckled my knees out from under me. I was really in labor! Woo-hoo! For once, it wasn’t a false alarm

Tommorrow: Going to the Hospital and we’re gonna have a baby

Birthing Lisel Blossom -- Part 1: Breathing Through It

It happened. The deal that we had been waiting eight and a half months for finally went down. We’d never been through anything like it before. We had no idea what to expect. We had no idea what was coming. And then, suddenly, at 3 in the morning on the day after Christmas, there it was.

We were in labor.

We had just enjoyed a perfectly lovely Christmas dinner at my sister’s house – Dave, me, my folks, his folks, my sister Katherine, her husband Lynn and our good friend Lindsay Greene. Lynn fried a couple of turkeys, putting every organic/gourmet/brined turkey that Dave and I had ever made to shame. We ate the turkey and sides and pies until we were filled with Christmas cheer and then hung out in the living room singing Christmas songs while Lynn and Lindsay played along on the organ.

The unwitting grandparents to be
Singing Christmas ditties with no idea of what was coming

Of course, I had been on high labor alert for a while. But by the time we went home that night, I had pretty much let go of the idea of birthing a baby anytime soon. On Christmas Eve, my in-laws had come to town for a week. My father-in-law is a retired OB-GYN, and he was sure that I would give birth while they were here. I was not so sure. In fact, I was almost certain that their presence would ensure that I didn’t have the baby until after they left. After all, that’s the way the universe usually works, right?

Wrong.

What I didn’t know at the time was that my father-in-law has some innate birth ESP. When he was practicing he never missed a birth. He and my mother-in-law would be out to dinner and suddenly he would say, “I think we need to get home,” and when they got home, the call would come in: Mrs. Smith was in labor.

He actually predicted I would go into labor the weekend after Christmas.

Which I did.

Whoa.

But at the time, I didn’t know this. I was totally at home with at least one more week of pregnancy.

And then, at three in the morning, I woke up with what I thought was some kind of post Christmas dinner gas action going on. I expected that it would work itself out and I would go back to sleep, but it didn’t go away. And this minor cramping pain kept advancing and receding and advancing again. I got out the iphone and starting timing the advances. They were coming kind of regular-like. I kept watch for an hour and when they didn’t go away, I woke up Dave.

It was 4:30 in the morning.

I don’t know what I expected labor pains to be like, but I’ll just say they weren’t what I expected. They were cramps, and in the beginning not very bad ones. Dave and I hung out in bed for a while. We called our doula around 5:30. She told us to get some rest. Great advice, and if when we do it again I’ll definitely try and get rest early on, but at 5:30 in the morning, with real honest to goodness labor pains coming on, there as no rest for us. There were only deep breaths and sweet words.

For the next four hours we basically did just that. Contractions, deep breaths, some giggles and The West Wing. In a way, those DVDs were kind of our anchor. The show connected us to the pre-baby and post-baby world. Oh, Jed Bartlett and friends, how much we owe y’all!

Our backup labor support team

Tomorrow: The uterus with stage fright

Lisel Blossom Sanger McQueen

She's here! May we introduce you to Lisel Blossom Sanger McQueen.


She was born on December 27th, at 1:17am. She weighed 7 pounds 2 ounces, and was 19 1/2 inches long.

We're absolutely over the moon. We'll definitely be posting more soon about her arrival, but for now, just know that we're in a state of happy we didn't even know existed.

Love,
Elizabeth and Dave

2 Centimeters

This past Tuesday, Dave and I went to the doctor. This week actually was the first in a string of last visits to our OB-GYN. Throughout this entire pregnancy, we’ve gone in to see her once a month. Then last month they told us she needed to see us once every two weeks. And in this final month, she has requested to see us once a week. This concentration of visits to her office signals that we are almost there. This baby is coming. Soon.

Anywho, this past Tuesday we went in for our first last visit. I thought she would probably check me to see if I was dilated in any way, but I had no expectations that anything was actually happening. I mean, I was just over 36 weeks—not even full term by today’s 37 week standards. I hoped something was happening, but expected nothing.

And then she told me I was dilated 2 centimeters.

This is my baby and me at 2 centimeters

2 Centimeters! Dude!

Now, I’ve never been pregnant before, but I literally have read the book and seen the movie (and taken the class, and talked to the many mommies), and from what I understand, the ultimate dilation goal is 10 centimeters. So 2 centimeters, well that’s 20% of the way! I realized I was actually on the road to labor. My body had been prepping me for the trip, and I didn’t even know it.

Dude!

The doctor told me that this didn’t mean I’d deliver early. In fact, she couldn’t even venture a guess at when I would deliver. She said these things, but I didn’t hear her. All I heard was – 2 centimeters! 20% of the way!

Dave and I drifted out of the office in a happy daze. Well, I was in a happy daze, I think he may have just been in a daze...

Dave writes: Actually, what I was thinking about was how an early baby was going to mess with my very carefully crafted schedule. Who was going to sub my gigs? What was I going to do about my scheduled recording sessions? We needed to pack the hospital bag. I haven’t put the spare on the baby bus yet. Doesn’t this baby know WE HAVE A PLAN ALREADY?? Then I gradually realized that this meant those plans might fade into so much iCal dust and were going to see little our little girl very soon. And that was cool too.

We were actually going to have a baby. Dude! A baby!

I immediately went on super high labor alert. Every baby wiggle meant she was assuming the birth position. Every minor ache or pain was a sign of early labor. Sure the doctor had said she couldn’t predict when the baby would come, but I could. And the baby was coming right now.

It’s now Saturday morning, and I’m sitting in bed, surrounded by the millions of pillows that are required to help me sleep at night, and I’m still very pregnant. I’ve not gone into labor. I’ve not even had any fake-out labor pains (the books say they’d feel like real ones only they wouldn’t be a regular intervals). My water hasn’t broken. Right now, I’m just waiting.

I wish I could tell you that I’ve turned a Zen corner, and I am at home with the idea that the baby will come whenever she’s ready. That I’ve realized that my job is to treasure these last couple of days or weeks of pregnancy, rather than sit with baited breath waiting for my child to arrive. That I am cool, man.

I realize all these things, and sometimes even believe them. The rest of the time, I’m wondering if this gas pain is maybe not a gas pain, but maybe a labor pain. Because, dude, that would be so awesome, and I am so ready for labor and so ready to meet my baby girl! Let’s do this thing!!!!!

Maybe I’m not cool in the traditional sense. But I’ve decided that accepting the uncool is the actually the new cool. And hey, it’s just how I roll when I’m 2 centimeters dilated.