Share Your Story - Birth Stories: Remembering to Breathe

Welcome to the Share Your Story event: Childbirth – Your Stories

This post was written as part of the Share Your Story event hosted by Kids in the House. Our contributors have shared their stories, struggles, and wisdom about the unforgettable yet unpredictable event that is childbirth.

My baby was crowning, my obstetrician was knitting, and my husband was holding my left leg up in the air.

This wasn’t how I’d pictured it. None of my Lamaze classes had covered what to do when your doctor was more concerned with the sweater she was making her cousin for Christmas than the infant barreling down your birth canal.  I hadn’t had my heart set on any specific birth plan– a labor and delivery nurse I know once told me that by walking into the hospital with a rigid birth plan, you were pretty much guaranteed disappointment – but I certainly hadn’t intended on my husband being so close to the action. I’d wanted him by my head, stroking my hair and murmuring supportive phrases into my ear.  Not catching the afterbirth.

Lucky for my doctor, the prospect of meeting my baby had wiped all animosity from my heart. It was too full already. I didn’t know if it was a side effect of the epidural, a result of many hours of no sleep or food, or hormones, but I was feeling really weird. I mean, duh; giving birth can make you feel a little off, but there was a surreal element to what I was experiencing that extended beyond the obvious. So I focused on the music, a cheerful Trey Anastasio song that was part of the playlist I’d created to accompany my son’s entrance into the world. It was just so strange; for nine months, I’d been listening to these songs on my iPod as I walked my dog, imagining the moment my offspring and I would lock eyes in a moment of perfect understanding and love. I’d wanted to time it so that Snow Patrol’s Open Your Eyes was starting just as I began my final pushes – the lyrics, about pulling someone out of a dark place, seemed eerily appropriate.

It was cheesy, yes. Having two miscarriages will do that to you. I’d pictured my future child in a war, fighting to break through and become an actual living, breathing baby. He was stuck in this dark place and I would finally get to pull him into the light. And in doing so, pull myself back into the light, too.

I won’t lie. I hated pregnancy. Not for the typical reasons – yes, the cankles and heartburn and weight gain were less than joyous, but I was grateful for all of it. It had been taken away from me not once, but twice, and even at this very moment of impending delivery, I had trouble believing that pregnancy=healthy baby. My losses had left me with a mistrust of my body and a deep, inescapable fear that something would go wrong, which was not a pleasant state in which to spend nine months. Just to make things a little more complicated, we’d agreed to be the subjects of a major online documentary on pregnancy; I was constantly trying to be the perfect model of prenatal bliss that the cameras wanted me to be. I’d spent so long holding my breath, that I’d forgotten how to breathe.

Speaking of breathing, my ineffectual OB was saying something about that very act. She’d finally put her knitting needles down and ambled over to my bed. “Okay, take a deep breath and hold it…now push…Did you do prenatal yoga?” she asked.

It took me a minute to answer her as I was, per her instructions, mid-push. “Yeah,” I panted.

“Why?”

“Oh, I can always tell,” she laughed. She still hadn’t relieved Steve of his leg-holding duties. Apparently my exercise habits were more important. “You’re a good pusher. People who do yoga always are. I can see the head already.”

“Really?” I cried. This was the moment. The one I’d been waiting for. Cue the Snow Patrol. But I couldn’t ask my husband to change the track, obviously. Trey kept on singing…

Inside I see a tiny piece of me

Spread out on the pages I once knew

Lawlessness abounds, just listen to the sounds

As the night speaks to a woman I once knew

“Yep, there it is. He has a lot of hair! Let’s see if I can braid it,” she murmured, finally paying attention to what was happening between my legs.

Steve and I laughed nervously. We weren’t sure she was kidding.

The labor and delivery nurse was staring at my doctor incredulously. She shook it off, turned to me, and suggested that I might want to give another good push. “I think you just need one more!” she said encouragingly, with a pointed look towards Dr. Distracted.

I mustered up the energy for one big push, and held my breath. And then I exhaled.

And with little fanfare, and the completely wrong music, my son Leo was born.