To catch up:

Prelude

Part I

Part II

So I managed to get down the elevator and to the sidewalk. It was REALLY HOT outside, and there were people hanging out on the front steps and walking down the sidewalk. The midwives were piling their giant suitcases on the sidewalk while Kadie was getting Janet’s truck. I was leaning on our car having contraction after contraction feeling like I was now going to just have the baby on the sidewalk. Janet put a Chux pad on the back seat. It seemed to take FOREVER to get everything ready to get going, but I have no idea how long it really was. Finally we were ready. I got on my hands and knees in the back seat, Paul drove, Janet came in the passenger seat with us, and Kadie took Janet’s car. Kathy didn’t come with us since we would no longer need a second midwife, but apparently wandered around West Philly looking for her car, which she misplaced :)

The drive to the hospital was Paul’s favorite part of the whole day. We raced through West Philly traffic, Janet directing Paul to go ahead and turn on red lights and pass cars. She thought he’d be nervous, but she instead had to hollar a couple of times, “It’s not a game of chicken!” as he drove on the wrong side of the road. At one point he went to pass a trolley and it turned out there were five or six trolleys all lined up for some reason. He went to the wrong side of the road and went around all of them, with Janet yelling out the window, “Woman in labor! Get out of the way!” I luckily did not see any of this, since I was on my hands and knees in the back seat, still pushing. Janet kept saying, “Don’t push, Arielle! Blow! Blow through the contractions!” ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?! For any of you that have not been through this, let me tell you, there is NO WAY to stop pushing at this point. It is completely involuntary and forceful. Blow, my foot. There was no way blowing was going to stop me from pushing.

Eventually we managed to get to the emergency room entrance. Paul parked in the ambulance parking spot, and I heard later they didn’t like that too much. I walked through the ER like a tightrope walker, feeling like I was about to explode. We had to check in with the ER person, and he had a million questions. Janet rattled off answers as quickly as possible, “I’m Janet Lewis certified nurse-midwife this is Arielle Jungwirth in second stage labor full term  homebirth transfer for meconium her birthdate is x-x-xxxx we’re meeting Mamie Guidera in L & D SHE’S ABOUT TO HAVE THIS BABY CAN WE GO NOW!?” or something like that.

They brought out a wheelchair. I took one look and said I could not sit in that thing under any circumstances. At first the guy seemed to think that was okay, but maybe he got afraid for his job or something because he changed his mind and said that he couldn’t let me walk up to L & D while in labor. Whatever. I briefly considered telling him “too bad” and walking anyway (it’s not like they’d wrestle me into it) but I didn’t have enough brain space to get into an argument. It still ticks me off that they are so afraid of getting sued that they’d force a laboring woman into a wheelchair (it hurts so much to sit during labor!) against her will, so I kind of wish I refused just for principle’s sake. Hopefully I never get another chance to do this one over, though. The one perk of having to sit in that darn wheelchair is that I was in so much pain from it that the orderly practically ran me up to L & D. I know I couldn’t have walked that fast. Some guy in the elevator told Paul he had to go to registration first while I went to L & D. Paul said no politely twice, then finally firmly said, “I’m going with my wife, thanks.” There were several times during labor that I was glad Paul was there to be the boss, since I was in no condition to do so.

The next part is all kind of fuzzy. We got to a labor room and at some point Mamie was there, and Kadie came back after parking our car (we obviously couldn’t leave it in the ambulance spot). Nurses were asking us lots of questions and putting information into the computer. This was really annoying to have to answer all the same questions AGAIN, as I’m leaning on the side of the bed, pushing still. Next time I plan to pre-register at the nearest hospital, even though I really hope I never end up in one again, just in case, so we don’t have to go through the whole process while in second-stage labor.

Mamie suggested I lay on my side on the bed. I told her I couldn’t get on the bed, but somehow I ended up there. I ended up pushing him out in this position, on my side on the bed. It wasn’t a bad idea, but I think next time I’m going to insist on being more upright. I didn’t feel like I had enough leverage in that position and still felt like I was pushing against gravity. My only leverage came from pulling on the bedrails REALLY hard, so hard that my arms and back were more sore than anything else for the first few days.

It ended up being a far more chaotic and busy birth than I had hoped and planned for. There were three midwives, several nurses, Paul, and eventually a pediatric team standing by. But I was to focused on having a baby to care much, and everyone there was helpful and supportive. He was finally born at 5:40 pm and Kadie caught him. Paul cut the cord and after checking him out for a second told us all he was a boy. He was handed off to the pediatric team to be suctioned for meconium. This part is the part I regret the most about the birth, although maybe regret is the wrong word since I think it was an appropriate precaution. I hate those photos of births where the first time the mother sees her baby is after he is cleaned off and clothed. The photos of the poor baby screaming while he is poked, prodded, washed off and wrapped up the moment after he’s born always make me cry (which is why I’m not posting any of those). I really wanted my baby to be given right to me, for him to see me right away. Sadly, what I had been afraid of was exactly what happened. Thankfully, they were very fast and, even better, he had inhaled no meconium and did not have to have his lungs suctioned. They only suctioned his mouth and nose and checked him out before wrapping him up and giving him to me.

He was perfect. I’m sure every mother thinks so, but he really was :) He looked at us as if to say, “Oh, there you are. I was looking for you.”

James Benedict, the morning after his birth