Our meeting was quite unexpected, though I had naturally been expecting it for the past nine (ten?) months and had been feeling the impending arrival of the moment for almost two full weeks. The sheer spectacular nature of that moment almost let me completely forget, in fact, the agony of those weeks; now, one week later, the pain has almost totally faded from my mind so that I have to struggle to recall what the fuss was all about. The meeting itself, however, is imbedded forever in my memory. Details may fade, but I shall never, never forget the moment of coming face to face, for the first time, with my son.

Everybody, I'd like to introduce you to Little Bit, otherwise known as Samuel Gregory Richmond.

Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001
To: Eands@redhairedgirl.com
Subject: Nothing positive, but...

...I believe I lost my mucus plug sometime last night (ew...) I've been bleeding on and off for most of today, and contractions - nice big ones, entirely unlike the Braxton-Hicks I was having before - started near the end of my work shift today. We took a walk and now they seem to have stabilized around nine minutes apart, and around 50 seconds long.

I have to breathe through them a little bit, but I can only assume things are going to get a *lot* worse from here on out (hopefully). Eric called Joy, who suggested that we go to bed at our usual time (ha!), we'll need the rest for when things pick up.

Positive vibes, please.

I was feeling so naively hopeful that evening. Just think; I was going to be having a baby, and soon - perhaps even by morning! The contractions were hurting, after all, and they were regularly spaced. All of the books I'd read seemed to indicate that this was the hallmark of actual labor, as opposed to the "practice labor" of weeks past. Even my birth instructor had told me that, when it came to labor, I would know when it was the real thing.

And so, trustingly, I went off to bed, thinking that I would wake in a few hours to give birth. Imagine my disappointment when I awoke the following morning to contractions that had spread themselves out and become irregular overnight. They still hurt like the dickens, but I begin to see that I was not going to be in for the brief, easily manageable labor for which I had prayed.

Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2001
Subject: Slowest of the slow

No baby yet. Can you believe it?

By Saturday afternoon, after more walking and more contracting - which I was convinced had to be bringing me closer and closer to having a baby - we decided to have Barb come over and check me to find out how soon I should have Mom hit the road for the birth. She came over and delivered me the first horrible blow of the whole procedure: I was only one centimeter dilated, just like when Mary Ann had checked me the week before. Worse, the head wasn't even fully engaged and so was doing little to help make the contractions useful.

I was more than frustrated. I mean, I knew that labor was supposed to hurt, but I wasn't happy to learn that I was essentially hurting for no reason at all. Barb suggested that I take the contractions on my knees leaning over the sofa, which I doggedly determined to do. Mom, meanwhile, decided that I was in need of her help, and I was inclined to agree. She arrived late in the night, while I was in bed asleep, waking myself up by moaning and pounding the walls with each contraction.

Day Three: Mom, Eric, and I hit the stores to walk up and down the aisles in an effort to intensify the contractions. It worked; by late afternoon, in the middle of Kmart, I was having contractions every two to four minutes that almost brought me to my knees. After an hour of this routine, we came home and called Barb back over to check me again.

The head was now firmly engaged and I was dilated a whopping two centimeters.

I don't believe that Barb was happy to hear my moan of disbelief. In fact, she seemed just a little upset with me. "This is good news, Carrie!" she said with a frown. "Now that the head is engaged, things can move along much more quickly." She left us convinced that we should begin to see more action throughout the evening, if only we were to remain patient.

Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001
Subject: Sigh...

Do I even have to say anything more?

Watching Eric leave for work Monday morning felt like the hardest thing I'd ever had to do in my life. I'd been in pain since Friday afternoon, and the knowledge that life was moving on without me was terrible. Thank God Mom was here to step in for Eric; whenever a contraction would hit me, she would put strong counterpressure on my back while I breathed, rocked, and moaned. We kept going out and walking through the stores in our efforts to keep labor moving, but the pattern had been established: I would contract long and hard whenever I was up and moving, but in the evening, things would begin to peter, no less painful but becoming more irregular and widely spaced.

On Tuesday, I woke to regular contractions for a change, rather than the odd ones that had required work to maintain on previous mornings. These were four minutes apart and a minute long, and a hot shower didn't help me to cope well. Out came Barb again, who hit me over the head again with the news that I wasn't much more dilated. I couldn't handle myself, I'm afraid, and the tears and anger came. This was never going to stop; there was no baby in me, I began to believe, just a violent parasite that would consume me from the inside out and not stop until I was dead from the pain.

Caulophyllum - a homeopathic form of blue cohosh, a contraction-promoting herb. Barb saw my misery and offered me the choice to take these little pellets every so often in the hopes that my body would begin to regulate the activity. I leapt at the chance to do something productive. By late afternoon, "productive" seemed the understatement of the century; I was beginning to really sound my way loudly through the contractions, and Eric was essential to helping me remember to relax and breathe. Late in the evening I began to get nauseated from hunger; homeopathic remedies are to be taken without food, so I hadn't eaten since lunch. Barb suggested a dinner break. Guess what happened during that time? Ahem. I went to bed even more frustrated than before, yet determined to see things happen the next day.

Wednesday morning: more caulophyllum. The contractions never regained the ferocity of the previous day, making me more and more anxious. Joy calls and suggests the tincture form of blue cohosh, along with tinctures of black cohosh and ginger. Nasty doesn't begin to describe the taste of these little liquids, and the ginger burned the underside of my tongue. Labor quickly became much more painful, but not much more regular; at least I could eat, though, as opposed to while taking the caulophyllum.

By late in the evening, I was feeling like a wrung-out washcloth, barely able to stagger off the sofa and onto my knees for the contractions. Barb called and made the executive decision to give my body a rest for a day. If only that had been possible, really; Thursday passed with fewer nasty remedies, but with continuing painful contractions. Thankfully, they were spaced far apart, giving me time to recover between each one.

...This morning: Barb arrives with suggestions. First we take Pulsatilla, just to get things started. Next on the order of business is castor oil. Unlike what I've read from other midwives, Barb isn't in favor of the 2-4 teaspoon approach; she prefers the *whole bottle*. I mix it with root beer, as was suggested to me by other people, and it promptly explodes in my face. I shake more gently, and down it with the help of a straw as Mom snaps pictures and laughs...

But the castor oil didn't have the desired results, either. I didn't even have to run to the bathroom until about four hours later. Barb called and told me to start nipple stimulation - five minutes on each side, and a break in between sessions.

(This was the beginning of the end of any hope I had of modesty, I think. It did wonders for preparing me to breastfeed in front of my father-in-law...)

By late in the evening, contractions were back and regular, even when I stopped the stimulation. Since we'd decided not to let things peter out this time, Joy came to the apartment and monitored my progress. When things started to sag once more, she put me back on the tinctures. After a while, Barb arrived and checked me: three to four centimeters dilated, and contractions were beginning to space out again despite my best efforts. Since I was looking very worn by this point, Barb suggested that we go ahead and fill the pool; if labor stopped, then I could use the rest, anyway.

At two in the morning, I woke up in the now-cold pool with few to no powerful contractions. Barb and Joy, who had been napping, woke up and helped me to bed. The apprentice midwife, who had arrived later that night, stopped to comfort me before she left. "Barb is convinced that this baby will be here by Sunday," she told me when I asked how much longer they would be willing to let me labor like this; after all, in only a few days I would be two weeks late, and I had seen the concern on their faces. Nicole's reassurances made me feel much better, and I was able to get a decent sleep.

Saturday morning, the contractions were back in full force. I called Barb, who conjectured that perhaps my body was having trouble maintaining the level of the hormones necessary to keep labor going; she suggested that I track down an herb supplement called Master Gland. We found some at a local health food store, and I began to take it. Almost immediately, things seemed to pick up speed, becoming a more regular five minutes apart and keeping rhythm constantly through the afternoon. I had made the decision not to be examined again until I was positive that things were happening, so we simply let my body labor all day; Mom and Eric kept rubbing my back and listening to me moan. I took a shower before bed, hoping to get relief.

I took another shower at 2:30 that morning.

And another at six in the morning.

At about nine, I crawled back into bed and asked Eric to hold me while I labored. He held me tightly. About ten minutes later...

POP!

We called Barb and told her my water had broke; she suggested that we start filling the birth pool to get me into the water as soon as possible. Unfortunately, we hadn't un-filled it since Friday evening, so we first had to siphon away much of the cold water. I lay over the birth ball, moaning and breathing as well as I could while Mom and Eric raced back and forth with pans of water.

Barb arrived while they were trying to fill it with warm water. "It's not warm yet," Eric sighed.

"Carrie, do you want to get in?" Barb said.
"Yes," I nearly shouted.
"Then go ahead."

The water, tepid as it was, made a world of difference. I lay back against the edge of the pool between contractions and leaned over the edge during them. Eric was placed on "water duty," holding a straw between my lips after each contraction. He also was instructed to continually spoon yogurt into my mouth, though I was too tired to ask for food on my own.

When I began to push, I thought I was doing it too early. "I keep accidentally pushing at the end," I whimpered. "I can't help it!" The midwives were unperturbed, telling me to let my body do what it needed to do. After a few contractions, though, Barb did a quick check and told me that I was only about eight centimeters, and while the pushing was definitely bringing the baby down, I should try to hold off as long as I could, panting through the contractions until I could do nothing to stop the pushing.

That was the hardest part of the day. I panted hard through those few contractions, doing everything I could to prevent my body from trying to expel the baby too quickly and possibly damaging my cervix. Barb held my hand and stared into my eyes, breathing with me each time I felt another urge approaching.

And then I couldn't stop myself. There were two kinds of pushing urges, I found. First, there were the contractions that "encouraged" me to push along, feeling much better as I worked with the squeezing sensation. Then there were the urges that left voluntary effort behind; my body took control and pushed without and conscious effort or control on my end. I found myself almost afraid of the force wracking my body and pushing the baby downward and outward; there was no way I could have harnessed this effort, and I was completely in shock over how quickly events seemed to be moving.

For two hours I pushed, I was later told. Honestly, the time seemed to pass much more quickly than that for me; all I know is that suddenly the energy in the room began to grow as everybody began to tell me to "Push! That's great! Oh, that was a good one!" I reached down and felt between my legs and - miracle of miracles - felt something that was definitely Not Me. A head full of hair was beginning to make its appearance, and everybody was full of encouragement.

Exhausted, I remember asking Barb whether or not she thought I could get the head out with the next contraction. "Nope!" she said with all honesty. "But go ahead and try!"

If I'm anything, I'm competitive. A challenge like that one somehow worked its way deep within my mind so that when the next contraction did hit, a single phrase was going through my mind: "Out Out Out Out OUT OUT OUT OUT!"

Everyone began moving at once. The contraction seemed to last forever as I pushed and pushed for all I was worth, wondering somewhere in the back of my mind if it was really a good idea to be pushing so hard. Somebody told me to stop, but I couldn't hold back the tide; the head was moving out, burning and stinging. I remember little beyond the sensation and the noise; on the edges of my consciousness, I heard a splash - later to be identified as Barb actually falling into the pool next to me as she leaned over to grasp the baby's shoulders.

There was a brief moment after the head was out when I found myself wearily thinking, "Oh, no, I forgot about the shoulders," but before I could even blink I was pushing and he was out and on my chest. He was quickly covered with a towel, and for a few minutes I had no idea, nor urge to check, whether he was a boy or girl. He was slightly slow to start; I held his small blue form while the midwives spanked his feet and rubbed his back until he finally took a deep breath and whimpered.

It was 3:15 in the afternoon - about six hours since my water broke. It was Father's Day, which was what I guess Sam was waiting for in the first place. He's the sweetest little baby in the world. His hair is brown at the roots, blonde at the tips, and red at the temples. He weighed 8 pounds, 12 ounces, and measured 21.5 inches long. We're still working at breastfeeding, and I'm very sore, but everything looks wonderful.