The last few weeks before my due date I spent reading birth books and preparing for the arrival of my first child. I read Ina May Gaskin’s Guide to Childbirth cover to cover and pictured myself like the amazing earth mothers on every page, giving birth at the Farm in throes of pleasure and agony, all wrapped up in one another in one incredible, life-altering package.
Secretly, though, I wanted to be an earth mother. I wanted a natural childbirth. I thought it was the most heroic thing anyone could do, and I wanted to be strong, a hero. I believed anything else was weakness.
At the suggestion of a hypnobirthing book, I’d made myself affirmations and hung them around the house, where I repeated them like mantras each day. “Birth is an act of love” and “I will relinquish myself to the waves” and “I will remember to breathe.” Over and over I mouthed these words.
My wife and I had written a birth intention instead of a birth plan, acknowledging that sometimes things don’t go quite to plan and we might have to change course. I felt very mature about that. Secretly, though, I wanted to be an earth mother. I wanted a natural childbirth. I thought it was the most heroic thing anyone could do, and I wanted to be strong, a hero. I believed anything else was weakness. I wanted to be anything but weak.
My water broke at 2 a.m., after five days of early contractions. I woke up, suddenly aware that my pajamas were wet and my stomach was aching even more than it had been. I got up, went to the bathroom, and realized what was happening. My head was hazy—I’d only been asleep for about an hour. Ella and I had stayed up watching a movie, even though I was supposed to be getting rest. For the previous five days, I’d gone to bed early, thinking that it might happen at any moment. Tonight I’d finally relented. “Whatever,” I’d thought, “let’s stay up late and snuggle on the couch.” Now Ella was breathing deeply next to me and I was holding my wet pajamas bottoms, whispering, “Holy shit.” The room smelled musky and sweet, like dreams.
I woke Ella. She called our doula, Leslie. The contractions were getting more intense all the time, so I lay in bed in the half-light and tried to breathe. Tried to eat something, but I was far too excited to eat. Soon our baby would be here.
“Soon” turned out to be relative.
As we rode to the hospital in the back of an Uber, the sun rose over the East River in streaks of rose and gold. Manhattan was gleaming. I felt nervous but confident that I could do this. Women are supposed to just know what to do, right?
Things did not go to plan—or to intention.
After laboring actively for about 13 hours, my contractions were coming too quickly for me to collect myself before the next one. I felt like I was having the crap kicked out of me. I whispered to my baby, telling him that we were in this together. I tried to breathe the way I’d practiced. I growled, seeing myself first as a brown bear, then as a wolf. I murmured my mantras. I imagined myself opening up, tried to relax my muscles, tried to just let go. But it wasn’t working.
To truly give yourself up to the rip current, let it take you out to sea, and damn near drown you if it wants to. To trust that you won’t drown.
The midwife came in and said I was still only four centimeters dilated—six more to go. I went limp and began to sob. I couldn’t imagine continuing like this for much longer. How could I? I was being gutted like a fish. She gave me a firm look and said, “OK, honey, it’s time.” For the epidural, she meant. And it was time. I was shaking with pain, and with only about 40 seconds between contractions, I couldn’t take much more.
The anesthesiologist came in with an intern and explained that they’d have to give me a shot of a narcotic in the spine before administering the epidural, because I was shaking too hard. The intern did it, and it took him two tries. I sobbed the whole time, something wet and warm (blood? I’m still not sure) dripping down my back, holding Ella’s hand so hard that her knuckles turned white. My memory of this part is foggy, but I do remember whimpering, “Please, please, please, please, please.”
Once the epidural kicked in I slept for two hours. When I woke I was fully dilated and the midwife said it was time to push. Our baby would be here any moment. Everyone knows that pushing is only a matter of minutes. It’s the last part, the hardest and shortest part of delivery.
I pushed for three hours. I felt like I was being turned inside out.
Eventually, after getting some Pitocin (which I hadn’t wanted) and receiving an episiotomy (which I really hadn’t wanted), our baby came out in a single, hearty push. He was screaming at the top of his lungs. After a quick check to make sure his heart was fine (his pulse had kept dropping during the last hours of delivery), the nurse put him on my chest. Seven pounds of perfection and sweetness, so warm and gooey and beautiful. He nursed right away, his tiny head nestled against my breast. My wife and I cried, kissed his head. Stroked his arms and legs and belly.
Our baby was here.
His birth left me with a strange feeling of duality. It was, without a doubt, the most surreal, proudest, most powerful day of my life. It was also my most humbling, out-of-control, weakest, chaotic day. How can I be both ashamed and proud of this moment? And yet I am.
Anecdotally, I think this is true for many other women I know. Whether they wanted a natural birth and got an emergency cesarean or wanted an epidural on arrival and the baby came too quickly, forcing a natural delivery, birth is never in our control. Sometimes the stars do align. I know women who say their birth stories went exactly to plan, that it couldn’t have gone better, that they felt empowered.
But for so many others, to relinquish all control is terrifying. To truly give yourself up to the rip current, let it take you out to sea, and damn near drown you if it wants to. To trust that you won’t drown.
I think that by imagining myself as superhuman (think earth mother meets Xena Warrior Princess) in the weeks leading up to our son’s birth, I did myself a disservice.
In order to feel empowered by letting go, we need first to understand that asking for help is not weakness. Vulnerability is not weakness. Submission, surrender, release—none of these are signs of weakness. They’re signs of being human.
I think that by imagining myself as superhuman (think earth mother meets Xena Warrior Princess) in the weeks leading up to our son’s birth, I did myself a disservice. What could be more human, more animal, than giving birth? The first thing I should have done was to disconnect my ego and remember my mantra: “Giving birth is an act of love.”
Was it done with love? Then it was done right.
I’m working on letting go of the shame. I wish it had gone differently. I wish I didn’t wish it had gone differently.
Ella reminds me that this is both our baby’s story and mine. That this story says something about who he is. I like thinking about it that way. Even now, each time he learns a new skill (crawling, standing, cruising) he works intensely hard and then, all at once, he can do whatever he was trying to do. Which is sort of how he was born. We worked so hard, and then suddenly he was there. A screaming, gooey, gorgeous beacon of joy.