Labor & Delivery

Gloria Naylor asked me, “Kim, how many people read your blog?”
I thought to myself, thousands, but I responded with “about fifteen.” If I’m lucky.
On Friday, January 25th, Gloria Naylor celebrated her birthday with me at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. I gave her some pens and a journal, a writer’s perfect gift. In the journal I glued one of my favorite pieces of writing from my blog, “Run through Cramps.” And I put a picture of me and Jacob. So vain. Gloria commented: you want to make sure I know who you are, huh?

Birthdays- Jacob’s will always be amazing to me.
I’ve been carrying around my birth story and telling it here and there. Other people have told it. In fact I went to a new mommy group at someone’s house and while I was washing my hands a woman was telling my story to the dozen people at the table. I came out and she gasped, that’s her. “Hi,” I said. Nice entrance for the latecomer to the mommy group.
I decided to write it down. I had Bart edit it. And here it is:

My due date was November 19th, 2007 and I planned to work until November 16th. I am a public high school teacher and my students and colleagues were very concerned about me delivering early. I assured them that I would not deliver early and I was fine working.
The week of the birth I didn’t go to school on Tuesday, November 6th and I washed a few of the baby’s new clothes to pack in my suitcase. I put a few things in the bag for myself but I wasn’t packed entirely. I encouraged my husband to pack too. I also created the “Labor Tunes Playlist” on ITunes with about 80 songs to help me through labor. That Tuesday was the 38 week doctor’s visit where I was told that I was two centimeters dilated and 60-70% effaced. I asked if I would deliver early and the doctor said no, every case is different and this could mean nothing.
Friday, November 9th My husband Bart and I spent the evening filling each other in on the events of the week. We went to bed around 11:30pm, which was much later than usual for me. At 2:30am I went to the bathroom and noticed a clear mucus discharge. Hmmm, I thought, the mucus plug, a sign of labor. I tried to go back to bed but felt uncomfortable. I got up around 3:15am and went to the bathroom again; this time I dry heaved and then there was some bloody discharge. Once again, signs of labor.
I started to prepare for the long haul. In my mind it would be eighteen hours. I went into the kitchen and ate half a banana and cut the other half up for a bowl of cereal. I never had a chance to eat that bowl of cereal.
I rushed to the bathroom to throw up everything in my system. Then the intense sensations started. It was about 3:45am. I took a long shower. At this point I knew I was in labor. After the shower I moved from room to room to deal with the aching pains. It seemed way too fast and I lost any sense of time. I decided to wake up my husband; it was 5:00am at this point.
I keeled over the bed and said, “Bart, I’m in labor.” He was dumbfounded. In his mind he had eighteen hours also so he started packing and deflating the birthing ball and uploading the Ipod with my “Labor Tunes” play list that I made that Tuesday. I summoned him to time the contractions and they were only about 25-35 seconds. But they were right on top of each other. In childbirth education class I recall the teacher saying that contractions should last a minute. At some point I asked Bart to call the doctor. The doctor told us to rush over to the hospital.
But at that point I transitioned; my water broke in the second shower that I sought for relief. I told Bart to leave the bathroom and I howled. This was the most raw primal scream that could ever come out of a person. I felt the throbbing rectal pressure and I pushed. I held onto the towel rack and screamed again. Our apartment building was built in 1928 and all the walls are concrete. I was confident that no one but Bart heard me.
Knowing that the baby was coming and I had to go to the hospital, I grabbed my robe to wear. I now moved out of the back bathroom (which is in the master bedroom) and went to the hall bathroom.
“The baby’s coming!” I yelled.
Bart replied, “The baby is not coming.”
I called him to come back and have a look. He saw the crowning head and ran out to call the doctor again. She said, “Call 911.”
While Bart was providing all the basic information to 911, I pushed again and the head was out. I made my way up the hall to the office, where Bart was on the phone. I turned into the room and pushed again.
The baby flew out and hit the floor. Bart quickly picked the baby up and cleared out his nose and mouth. Bart told the people on the other end of the phone that his wife just had the baby.
“Sit down,” he commanded. And I sat. I held my screaming baby and sobbed. I couldn’t believe it. In the meantime Bart was directed to tie off the umbilical cord. He ended up using a snippet of my sneaker shoelace to tie off the cord. (How he found a string that fast is beyond me!)
The doorbell rang and the police came into our apartment. They moved the hallway table to clear way for the gurney.
EMT showed up.
“Congratulations Ma’am,” they said to me.
And “Sir, you’ll need to wash up,” they said to Bart.
When Bart came back they cut the umbilical cord. They took off the towel and sweat pants that we had wrapped around our son. They put us in a Mylar heat blanket, the kind a marathon runner receives when he or she finishes the race (I ran NYC marathon in 2001). How fitting. My little champion pushed his way into this world with a power I never knew could happen.

I was later told that this is called “precipitous labor,” or fast labor, which happens in less than three hours. My childbirth educator actually called to apologize for not mentioning the slight possibility that this could happen.
The little bump that formed on Jacob’s head disappeared before we left the hospital. He checked out as a healthy baby and he still is; we are fortunate for that. Jacob’s birth certificate arrived and the Name of Facility reads as our address and the attendant at birth is his father. It’s nice to have concrete proof that this is what really happened.
Wow.

I feel compelled to share my story. It's intense and the emotions well up every time I retell it. Now you can do what you'd like with the story. Thank you for reading this.

Music: "All Together Now" The Beatles- Yellow Submarine