As mentioned before, I had false labor for 3 weeks leading up to my due date and then for the 9 days after. Meh. So when I woke up at 3am on June 16 with a massive contraction, I thought perhaps this was the real thing. But when the day passed and things died down, I was disappointed again. I whiled away the time by baking an awesome strawberry-rhubarb pie, partly to raise my spirits, and partly to tempt baby to come out. Maybe if he/she knew what great stuff awaited out of the womb…? It was worth a shot.
Perhaps it was the pie, perhaps it was just time, because 8pm that night, the contractions began again – but this time they really hurt. At 12 midnight, we took ourselves into the hospital. The OB staff had just moved into the new wing and new maternity ward that afternoon, so things were a little chaotic as things were being put into place. Still, the staff was awesome.
As for labor, it’s pretty much what I’d heard. Massively painful in a way you can’t quite describe, lots of work, and yet, in the end, I would have done it again in a heartbeat just to have Eleanor. Oddly enough, after all the stories I’d heard of, “My labor wasn’t anything like what they said in the birth classes,” ours was strangely by-the-book. I mean, seriously, once it began, it was textbook. Yes, we did it naturally, no meds, which is entirely thanks to Elliott reminding me that I had said I didn’t want meds and had told him to help me not take meds if I asked. (And I didn’t just ask, I begged). Then again, thanks to Elliott (and an awesome nurse), I was coached through the worst of the pain, the pushing, and all that extreme stuff. It was crazy hard. That’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, hands down.
The whole natural labor thing was, on one hand, awesome. The pain stops as soon as you’re done and you have a lovely baby. The goal is SO worth it. And because Eleanor and I had no meds, we were alert, healthy, the labor had progressed well, and we had little trouble moving on into feeding and all that other stuff.
But still, natural labor didn’t leave me with the “RAR! I’m so awesome! I conquered LABOR!” feeling that so many women who have done it had described. I felt incredibly humbled by the whole process. In my interlude of begging for meds, I really felt helpless. Even when I finished, I was just sort of stunned. It was as if I’d gotten to the top of a mountain, only to realize that yes, I’d had a good team with me, and yes, I’d trained hard and planned well and kept going when tired. But any mountain climber knows that you’re always at the mercy of the mountain. The only reason you make it to the top is because it lets you get there. Far stronger women than I have been beaten by it. My respect for mothers – and the abilities of the female body - skyrocketed. When I saw my own mom hours later, the first thing I said was “Thank you for doing that for me.”
