Polly's big day.

I don't want to wait too long to write Polly's birth story. I feel like the most accurate birth story I wrote was Lars's, which I wrote the day after his birth. Theo's and Ida's I wrote several weeks after the fact, and by then I'd forgotten a lot.

Word of warning: this is kinda detailed--though I've left the goriest details out--so if you're squeamish about childbirth and bodies and stuff, you'll probably want to skip this particular post.

A few weeks before my due date, I started being extra grumpy and demanding. I was having painful contractions, but they were not close enough together to mean anything. I felt exhausted all the time and could barely make it up stairs. I had no energy to do any of the things I wanted to do. I forced myself to go for long walks with Lars and to the rec center to swim laps, both of which helped. When the oak tree in front of our house started shedding its weird little furry things, allergies took over and I was 100% miserable. Finally on my midwife's advice I started taking Zyrtec and magically felt much better, if a little groggy. I slept all night and was also forced to nap every afternoon since the Zyrtec made me so sleepy.

By the time my mom arrived, I was not only feeling better, I was also feeling more energetic. I was still convinced that my baby would be so late that the birth would barely overlap with my mom's visit. So I decided I needed to take steps: I was going to force this baby out. The day she arrived, I had walked three miles, mostly uphill, pushing Lars in the stroller. 

The next day was Saturday. She and I went to Theo's baseball game, then Ida's swim lesson, then for a two-mile walk around the neighborhood. When we got back and I was still feeling discouraged about labor ever happening, my mom suggested I start a project. I decided a good project would be mounting some shelves and reading lamps on the boys' bedroom wall next to their beds. Soon enough it became apparent that this project was almost exclusively going to be Matt's, so since Matt wasn't the one who needed to go into labor, I got out some paint and began painting the basement stairway. When that project ended, I painted part of the boys' bedroom ceiling. When I got tired of painting I moved outside, where the kids were all playing with the neighbors, and I spent a couple of hours transplanting some old flowers and planting some new flowers. I raked and mowed the lawn. I watered all the outdoor plants. I cleaned up debris from the side yard. 

Finally I came in and got the little kids ready for bed. (Theo and Matt were at Theo's swim practice.) When Ida was almost asleep I remembered I had wanted to use the leftover stairway paint for touchups in her room, so I turned her light back on and did the touch-ups while she sleepily chatted to me about her day.

Matt and Theo got home, Theo went to bed, and Matt and my mom sat talking on the couch while I vacuumed and then made cookies. We all joked about how hard I was trying to induce labor. Finally we went to bed a little before midnight. At 1:45 I woke up to painful contractions. I wondered, "Is this it?? Could walking and painting and mowing the lawn and vacuuming and making cookies possibly have worked??" But the contractions were unevenly spaced and I wasn't sure they were doing anything. I tried to fall back asleep and couldn't. I went downstairs and sat on the yoga ball through a few contractions. I ate a cookie, which made me feel sick. Contractions seemed to be getting a little worse, but not any closer together, and I was lonely and tired downstairs, so I headed back up with the ball.

By 4 a.m. I decided to wake Matt up and tell him this was it. He got up and got dressed, talked me through my contractions, called the doula, and gave me a blessing. I finished packing my hospital bag. Nicole arrived by 6ish. I still wasn't sure what kind of labor this was going to be because the contractions still seemed so far apart to me, and they were really painful but I was totally lucid and aware and talking in between. She had me try a few things, standing up and doing hip circles instead of sitting on the ball by the bed with my head on a pillow (which I had been doing for all the contractions by that point). I started to cry. Matt went downstairs to wake up my mom. By the time he got back, Nicole suggested that we should leave. She called the midwife and let her know we were coming. I still thought I might have an entire day of labor in front of me because I felt so present and aware, unlike in my previous labors when I felt out of control and out of sync with reality.

As a side note, I really loved my doula. She was the same one who helped me during Lars's labor. She told me exactly what to do the entire time, how to vocalize, how to move, and for someone who felt a little bit paralyzed with fear (as I did) this was so important. I can't emphasize enough how critical it was for me to have such a supportive doula in order to get through contractions. I wonder if that's why these contractions felt so much more manageable and why I was so lucid in between.

We arrived at the hospital by 7 a.m. and checked in. Walking in felt so weird because I could feel the baby moving down. I had already told both Nicole and Matt that I was nervous about letting the baby move down. I guess it's funny that I got so nervous about birth happening, since the previous day I had been doing everything I could possibly think of to make it happen. I had a big contraction in the elevator and the woman standing next to me smiled and congratulated me.

We made it into the room--after I signed several forms using what felt like all of my strength to form the letters of my name--and people started sticking needles and IV locks in me and putting monitors on me. The labor nurse was the cheeriest, happiest woman I think I've ever met. The midwife was one of my favorites (I went to a large group practice with I think 7 or 8 midwives) and I was glad she'd be the one helping me. I found out a few minutes later that she had to leave, but the one replacing her was my other favorite. Everyone was so encouraging the whole time. The nurses, the midwives, the OB-GYN resident (or was she a student? no idea) who had come in to observe and help. Everyone kept telling me that the baby's heartbeat sounded great (which I loved because during my past labors I hardly remember thinking about the baby, I could only focus on the contractions). The baby felt low and I wanted to push but it seemed way too soon. I told them that and they all encouraged me to do whatever I felt like and that when it was time to push I would know.

Someone asked if I wanted to get into the tub. I knew that waterbirth was an option but I hadn't really thought about whether I wanted to try it. I still had no idea how far along I was in labor so I thought I'd try out the tub for a bit. It felt pretty good. The midwife checked me (7 centimeters) and said it was probably still early to push but to go with whatever felt right. The midwife and nurse both asked me if I wanted to have the baby in the tub and I couldn't decide, but I guess I decided by default by just not getting out. I made it through several more contractions in the tub, and slowly I started partially pushing through them. After one ridiculously long (it felt about 3 times as long as the previous ones--maybe it was a few contractions in a row with no break, I don't know) I began pushing for real. Once my water broke, Nicole and Matt supported my arms and I began the last few pushes. 

On the second to last push, the baby's head came about halfway out before the contraction ended, and that, my friends, was the weirdest sensation I've ever had. I was still so lucid and it struck me how crazy it was that I was squatting there in a tub, surrounded by people, with my baby's head halfway out. One final push got her head and body out all at once. Matt grabbed her and handed her to me. (He told me later that her face was under water for about 3 seconds between her actual birth and when I held her in my arms.) They wanted her head out of the water for air, but her body in for warmth, and I was shaking with relief and disbelief, so I really didn't have the strength to hold her out in front of me and check whether she was a boy or a girl. So I just held her for a few moments until someone (Matt, I guess?) helped me hold her out so I could look. I saw that she was a girl and started crying. My first thought was how happy Ida would be to have a sister.

It wasn't quite 9 a.m., and only a few hours before, I had been baking cookies and vacuuming and painting and frantically worrying that the baby wouldn't arrive before my mom had to go back to California. Not only did she come, but she came on her due date, on Mothers Day, after the best (still painful but so much better than the others) labor I'd ever had. And she was a girl. And my third Sunday baby in a row. (All my VBACs were Sunday babies. awesome) 

I couldn't love Matt more and I couldn't love Polly more and I couldn't love any of my sweet babies more, than I did in that moment when I held Polly for the first time and knew for real that I wouldn't actually be pregnant forever (there went my Guinness Book of World Records plans); that labor wouldn't last forever; that sometimes life is hard and then all of a sudden for a few minutes it is easy; that sometimes I just get blessings without having done anything at all to deserve them; and that I would never forget this beautiful, perfect Mothers Day.