Tessa Gabriel’s Birth Story
March 27 was fixed in my thoughts for so long – since the July afternoon when Ari and I stood in the bathroom and watched the pink words appear on a pregnancy test, announcing the eventual arrival of our first child. I marked the date on each of our calendars with exclamation points and question marks, and waited in breathless anticipation. But even while we hurried to complete the nursery and my nesting reached epic proportions – I woke at five one morning to hang curtains, and reorganized the attic one night after work – we tried to prepare ourselves for the very real probability that my due date would come and go without bringing a baby.
So it was quite a surprise when my water broke at 1:30 on the morning of March 11. I woke from a sound sleep to the filling of something spilling out of me and knew immediately what was happening. Making my way to the bathroom, I calmly told Ari that my water had broken. He sprang into action, gathering towels and bringing me the phone to call the nurse-midwife on call. Since I wasn’t yet having contractions, her advice was to get some sleep – we probably had a long labor ahead of us. Despite the logic of that advice, following it was impossible. Our minds raced with what lay ahead, and we gathered things to take to the hospital, trying to comprehend the reality that our baby was on the way.
We lay in bed in the dark, talking and worrying, and I began to cry. I knew that my expectations for this birth were high, and I was afraid that I’d fail to meet them. I was also deeply disappointed that our friend and doctor, Ann Trask, was on vacation. We had met her new partner, Deb Eisenberg, only twice, and I had never imagined that she’d be the one to deliver our baby. Tears and snot flowed down my face, and so did blood. Bloody noses had plagued me throughout my pregnancy, and I was having another one as my labor began. It was actually a blessing – stopping the blood and cleaning up gave us something to focus on, and I felt much calmer by the time we finished.
I was having regular contractions by 3:30 am, and by 4:30 they were coming minutes apart. The nurse-midwife recommended that we go to the hospital, so we called our dear friend Maddie. Maddie, in school to be come a midwife, had been a regular consultant throughout our pregnancy, and we had asked her to be with us for the birth. S we all got up and dressed, Maddie came over, the nurse-midwife called the hospital to tell them we were on our way… and my contractions slowed to ten minutes apart. We weren’t ready to go to the hospital yet, so we sent Maddie home and, amazingly, went back to sleep.
When we woke up at 7:30, my contractions were stronger, but still about ten minutes apart. Our childbirth education teacher had told us that while she couldn’t tell us when we’d need to go to the hospital, she could promise that we’d know when we weren’t comfortable staying home. We hadn’t reached that point, so we did a bit more nesting while waiting for the doctor’s office to open. Ari, who had good-naturedly humored me throughout our pregnancy, cleaned the bathroom and vacuumed the nursery while I organized books on the nursery bookshelf. By 9:30 I had eaten breakfast, called Ann’s office, and updated Maddie on our plan to go to the doctor. Maddie arrived as Ari was pouring a bowl of cereal for himself, and I announced that he would not have time to eat it – my contractions were getting stronger, and we couldn’t stay home any longer.
As we drove down Taylor Street, I called our parents to let them know that the baby was coming. My mom’s reaction was priceless: she giggled hysterically and kept saying, “Really?! Ohhh!!” Ari’s mom was much more subdued and overwhelmed. Both grandmothers were packed and on the way to Maine in a matter of hours, and they arrived within five minutes of each other later that evening.
My doctor’s office was not far away, but things changed on the way there. I had my first really uncomfortable contraction at about 9:45. I squirmed in the front seat, unable to find a comfortable position, and Ari struggled to hold my hand and shift gears at the same time. When we pulled into the parking lot, I was moving very slowly and beginning to realize that I really was in labor. Being at the doctor’s office was surreal: I had spent so much time there during calm, relaxed check-ups, but the familiar routine had an immediate edge now. My blood pressure was fine, my weight had dropped an amazing four pounds since my water broke, and Deb’s examination revealed that I was already five centimeters dilated. It was time to go to the hospital.
When we arrived at Mercy Hospital at 10:30, my contractions were right on top of each other, leaving me no time to catch my breath or steel myself for the next one. We were quickly ushered into a room in the Birthplace – a small one rarely used for labor and delivery, we later learned, but the only one available, since eight babies were born that day! – and the nurse’s examination suggested that I was almost completely dilated. This quick progress panicked me. Until that moment, I had assumed that I still had hours and hours, that my labor would slowly and gradually progress, that our baby’s birth was still a long way off. Even my intense, close contractions hadn’t pulled me into the reality of a quick labor, because I didn’t know what to expect. But I knew what being completely dilated meant, and I was suddenly scared.
Deb was on her way, and Ari and Maddie worked to keep me calm and relaxed. I wouldn’t let Ari get more than 18 inches away from me – in fact, I held tightly to him throughout the birth and needed his full attention – so Maddie was an essential link in our communication with the nurses. There is no central monitoring at Mercy, so Pam, our nurse, was in our room constantly and quickly became a crucial support. Soon Deb was there too, and after she examined me she announced that though my cervix was extremely thin, I wasn’t completely dilated after all. I was both relieved – I had more time – and disappointed – it felt like I had lost ground. That sense of disappointment helped me realize how ready I was, and I felt more confident again.
The next few hours passed in a blur. Rather than steering my labor through a well-planned succession of coping strategies – shower, tub, birthing ball, focal point – I retreated into an inner, instinctive place where all the thinking and preparation I had done were irrelevant. I was aware of – and unbelievably grateful for – the constant support and encouragement I got from Ari, Maddie, and Pam. I needed each of them, and can’t imagine the birth without them, but I did not respond to them intellectually. Eyes closed or fluttering, unseeing, I pushed and pulled and counted on them and let my labor wash over me.
I do have some crystal clear memories:
Shortly after we arrived at Mercy, a very strong contraction brought me to the floor. As I lay there breathing through it, Maddie held my hand and smoothed my hair, and I realized how very happy I was to have her there.
During one particularly intense contraction, Ari leaned in close to me and held up our framed wedding picture – which I didn’t know he had brought to the hospital. His encouragement to think about us, about Squirrel Island, was one of the few things I actively responded to during my labor.
As my contractions got stronger and stronger, I remember saying that I wanted it to be over. I never even thought about asking for painkillers – I didn’t have the sense that they would alleviate the pain I felt. That pain seemed like an inherent, necessary part of giving birth, and what I really wanted was to birth my baby.
When Pam and Maddie asked if I was ready to push, I was worried that I didn’t know and wouldn’t know. Then, in one instant, I knew I was ready. As I struggled to learn what effective pushing felt like, three things helped me. Deb, Maddie, and Pam insisted that I try getting on my hands and knees, with my head against the inclined back of the bed. This position helped me focus my energy through my torso, through my uterus, to show my baby the way out. I still wasn’t confident about how to push though, so I thought of my friend Suzanne’s advice to think about pushing from my uterus, the same way you concentrate on a particular muscle during exercise. My cousin Brenda’s advice helped too. She said that pushing is a learning process, and that you get better at it as labor progresses. Indeed, there was a tangible change when I learned to push effectively.
While I was pushing, Pam and Deb attached the fetal monitor periodically to assess the baby’s heart rate. At one point, the monitor picked up my heart rate instead, and they were concerned because it was so much lower than expected. Deb reached for the fetal scalp monitor and began opening the package without explaining the situation at all. In that instant, I snapped back from labor land and advocated for my baby. All of the reading and preparation I had done paid off then – I knew what a fetal scalp monitor was, how and why it was used, and what the consequences were for the baby. I didn’t want one, and I said so. Deb responded that it was necessary; I said that it wasn’t, and that I didn’t want it. I looked to Maddie then – I had said all I could – and she calmly told Deb that I really didn’t want it, and asked that they try the external monitor again. Sure enough, they located the baby’s heart rate easily, and confirmed that it was strong and stable.
I pushed for about forty minutes, though I had no concept of time until the moment when our baby’s birth became imminent. Ari whispered to me that he could see our baby’s head crowning, and Deb suggested that I reach down and feel it. When I reached between my legs and felt my baby coming out of me, everything changed. Ari and Maddie later said that my eyes popped open, and I said clearly, “oh.my.god.” Feeling my baby – my real, actual baby – for the first time snapped my mine back into my body, and I continued pushing with all of my primal energy and a new intellectual determination. I wasn’t scared of anything, I didn’t even notice the pain, I just focused and pushed. With one tremendous push her head was out, and then her body, and then my perfect baby was on my chest, and Ari and I were crying and holding her and feeling so unbelievably amazed.
Holding our baby – the tiny person who had grown inside me for nine months – was unimaginably overwhelming. In fact, Deb had to suggest that we look to see if we had a son or a daughter – having a baby was enough at first. But we did want to know, and a glance revealed that we had a beautiful little girl – Tessa Gabriel.
Everyone tells you that the birth of your child is the best day of your life, and I expected it to be great, but I also wondered – wouldn’t it be painful and scary? Maybe it was, but that wasn’t important. I was made to have that baby, and I did an amazing job birthing her. Ari did an amazing job supporting me, and our relationship grew stronger throughout our pregnancy, labor, and delivery. I have never been so proud, so overjoyed, so completely full of love… I have never had a better day.
