Birth: You Can’t Plan It

The morning my daughter was born the sun rose, birds chirped, and I timed contractions. Then I called my doula, whose job it was to ensure that all doctors, nurses, anesthesiologists, surgeons, friends, family, and husbands, stick to — The Birth Plan.

In case you’re unfamiliar, The Birth Plan consists of detailed instructions for how your baby will enter this world. It is formulated in the comfort of your living room while you and your doula sip tea and admire each other’s pedicures. The actual birth takes place in a greenish room where instead of chamomile, you would accept heroin from a street dealer should one conveniently appear.

After having suffered through childbirth, most women would worship the doctor who offers a cesarean. Not me. I wanted to actualize my womanhood. I needed to push that baby out. Having had a cesarean with my first, I opted for a VBAC, and in so doing also made my choice for minimal pharmaceutical assistance.

“Natural childbirth was fine, honey,” my mother said. “But that was before we had the drugs.”

For hours I labored according to The Birth Plan. I breathed, counted, and groaned. It sucked. I got stuck in the bathtub, unwilling to move. Even when the water got cold I wouldn’t budge, but remained there moaning like an injured cow. The contractions came so fast and lasted so long that it seemed like one continuous, gnawing, increasingly unbearable pain.

After eight hours, the pain brought me to my senses. I agreed to the drugs. Just a little mind you – just enough to take the edge off. But Demerol is a gateway drug. Forget nature, I wanted the needle. My Grape Nut eating, placenta-keeping doula was disappointed when I requested the epidural, but supported me anyway. It was, after all, a legitimate stipulation in Plan B, paragraph 3 of The Birth Plan.

I spent the next several hours turning from side to side, elevating one or another part of my body, and visualizing my baby descending the birth canal. (WAY easier when you’re high!) But my baby didn’t want to come out. We would get her just to the brink and she’d twist herself so that we thought she’d be stuck up there forever. After hours of monitoring and changing position and measuring, we decided to get her out.

My husband smiled, the doula frowned. I surrendered. Nurses shaved me and counted instruments, then rolled me to the OR. Suddenly I felt a sharp popping sensation unlike the slow and steady agony of labor. When I told the doctors, eyes opened wide and the surgeon ordered the nurse to check the baby’s heart rate. Again.
“You’re going under,” the doctor snapped. I watched the mask cover my nose and mouth.

***

Before I was fully aware, someone handed me a wriggly, sweet smelling, bundle. Her fresh skin peeked out at me from beneath soft flannel. She squirmed in my arms and arched her disproportionately large head toward my breast.

I couldn’t have planned it better.