The Night We Met
Revisiting Isla's birth story as she turns two next week.
A few weeks before Isla’s arrival, my husband Ian and I had prepared for our home birth by putting plastic sheets on the bed and a bunch of supplies from our midwives’ list into a box in our room. Things like a cutting board and mixing bowls from the kitchen, blankets and hats for baby, lots of towels, and on and on. We’d also packed hospital bags because, well, just in case. And I’d stuck some post-it notes to the mirror in our bedroom to look at when I needed some words of encouragement during labor. Among them, “how wild it was to let it be” from Cheryl Strayed, one of my heroes, “we can do hard things” from Glennon Doyle, and my personal mantra for childbirth: “I am present and fearless.”
My contractions started around 12:30am on Monday morning, August 31st (basically Sunday night). I’d hit the 39 weeks mark at midnight so we were officially one week from due date, baby and I. I’d had some indication that labor might be near throughout the day on Sunday, but plenty of those signs can also happen weeks before labor, so I didn’t go to bed that night expecting anything to happen. Even once I got out of bed and thought, “these might be contractions,” I still wondered if they might stop and start on and off over a few days. I began to time them at about a minute each and ranging from 6-10 minutes apart. I was up most of the night moving and showering and timing the waves with a little rest here and there. I practiced a meditation I’d written where I focus on each of the parts of myself involved and how ready each part of me was for labor. My mind with all it would need, ready. My mouth to make sounds and to advocate for myself, ready. My heart, my lungs… and on and on.
There hadn’t been much of a change in pace or intensity by 4:00am but the contractions stayed consistent, so I decided it was time to alert our care team. Both my midwife and doula suggested to keep doing what I was doing and to check in in a few hours or with any changes.
More bathing and pacing and resting, and then I put on the playlist I’d made for labor. This turned out to be one of the best tools I had. I’d picked 3 hours of songs that I liked to move to and mostly had emotional connections to, and baby and I had listened to the playlist in the nursery a lot through my third trimester, so a song would come on and I’d tell her, “oh, you know this one!” It was a great thing to focus on and a call to practice movement. Between contractions I would sway and dance to the music, and when a contraction would rise I would lean over the bed or wherever I was standing and “ooh” and “aah” while I breathed my way through it. Over and over again. Sway, dance, sing, talk, breeeeeathe.
Around 11:00am my contractions were more like 5 min apart and each still about a minute long. My doula, Natasha, came over and one of the midwives, Jennifer, came to check my cervix. I was at 3cm dilated and 90% effaced. Jennifer left since I still had a ways to go but Natasha stayed a while to guide me through some positions to help progress before she also left for a while. Ian and I went downstairs to the living room and I kept pacing between and breathing through contractions while we watched an episode of Game of Thrones. During those couple hours my pain got worse but the pattern didn’t change. I started to think things weren’t progressing and became scared and doubtful of myself. How much longer could I do this? Could I do it without intervention? Without pain medication? Without good rest? I was struggling to remain present and fearless. I was afraid, and I badly wanted a break.
In tears, I texted Natasha about how I was feeling. She came back as did one of Jennifer’s midwife teammates, Chelsea. Chelsea checked my cervix and I was surprised and relieved to hear I was at 6cm. This was the start of active labor, so I was progressing after all! The increasing intensity of my contractions was getting me somewhere!! This news gave me a renewed spirit and confidence in myself and my ability to get through the remaining hours and what was to come.
Natasha encouraged me to relax my pelvic floor during contractions, which made it feel worse but was best for continuing my progress. Resting made the pain worse too but I also needed rest, so that was a hard thing to balance. I took rest when I knew I had to, and otherwise was back to moving and swaying to The Lone Bellow, Hozier, Lord Huron on my playlist, or working with the poses and activities Natasha assigned to me. I walked up and down the stairs swaying my hips dramatically. I sat and leaned forward on piles of pillows. Natasha or Ian pressed on my back or against my hips to help relieve some of the intensity and open my pelvis. And the waves kept coming.
Contractions are wild! When you’re in them, there’s nothing to do but to ride the rise and fall of each one. Ooh, and ahh, and breathe deeply in and out, and just be there in it. Try to embrace it, try to relax within it, try to avoid bracing yourself against it. Be. Be. Be. And in between, I felt entirely and completely normal. They don’t linger, they don’t cast shadows. They’re there or they’re gone. Sway, dance, sing, talk about why I love whatever song is playing. Be be be.
Here’s a little bit of Brandi Carlile’s “The Mother” that just feels so written on my heart. These words carried me through, the music she and I danced to, as I became the mother of Isla...
Welcome to the end of being alone inside your mind
You're tethered to another and you're worried all the time
You always knew the melody but you never heard it rhyme
She's fair and she is quiet, Lord, she doesn't look like me
She made me love the morning, she's a holiday at sea
The New York streets are busy as they always used to be
But I am the mother of Evangeline
The first things that she took from me were selfishness and sleep
She broke a thousand heirlooms I was never meant to keep
She filled my life with color, canceled plans, and trashed my car
But none of that was ever who we are
Outside of my windows are the mountains and the snow
I'll hold you while you're sleeping and I wish that I could go
All my rowdy friends are out accomplishing their dreams
But I am the mother of Evangeline
And they've still got their morning paper and their coffee and their time
And they still enjoy their evenings with the skeptics and the wine
Oh, but all the wonders I have seen, I will see a second time
From inside of the ages through your eyes
Oh the wonders we will see, she and I.
Sway, dance, sing, talk, breathe. Be be be be be.
Late at night I was finally at 9cm and it was almost time to push. Around 11:00pm Chelsea and another midwife who had joined us, Maggie, coached me to wait for the urge and to push only when my body MADE me. Literally to only push when I couldn’t not push. So until then I let the urges come and go, I moved around trying to find the best positions to be in, but nothing helped much anymore aside from Ian pressing hard against my hips to open my pelvis, giving baby some room to keep moving, relieving the pressure I felt. I took another shower. I tried to take a rest. This was by far the hardest part. And then I couldn’t not push. Pushing finally broke my water! It took me a while to get the hang of pushing, to get the energy to the right place in my body during pushing to get her to move down.
In cycling class, when we’re sprinting or during arms, I practice this little bird thing. I imagine that my spirit is a little bird and I can fly away from my body while it does the hard work. I can go sit on the speaker, for instance, perched there, unfeeling, until my arms stop burning or my legs stop pumping as fast as they can. This was the opposite of that. I went so deeply inside myself that I was only and entirely my body. I was only what I could feel, and nothing else. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t think thoughts of doubt or tell time or talk about music, or even hear the music. I could hear and respond to commands like, “right here, push right here!” and I would move the energy of my push, of myself, to that spot right there where I could feel someone putting pressure on some place inside of me. I didn’t know who was speaking. I didn’t know anything else. Just, be right here.
Be be be be be.
Once baby got past my pubic bone and was close to out the voices had me control my pushes by pushing just a little at a time so they could help prevent tearing. I began to come up from the deep place a bit. I don’t remember it hurting as bad then and I was able to control those little patient pushes. I remember the warm compress to help prevent tearing and how good it felt. I remember seeing her head in the mirror when I could manage looking for a tiny split second, and then she was on my belly.
Isla.
They told me that she came out with her hand up by her face, which is still her favorite way to be nearly two weeks later. If it weren’t for that hand, the midwives said, I would’t have torn at all. The two stitches were worth it to revel in her independence, to let her begin life her own way.
Isla Dolores was born at 1:08am on September 1st, after 24.5 hours of labor, in the comfort of our home.
The song that was playing as she was born? “The Night We Met.”
I’m nothing short of amazed by the team at Vines Midwifery and Natasha Hilton at East Nashville Doulas for your roles in helping bring Isla safely into this world and caring for me and Ian before and throughout labor.