Stats: born 11 August, 1994, weighing 7 lbs., 14 oz. and was 19 in. long

My husband, Scott, and I conceived our first child about a month after we married.  I quit smoking as soon as I found out, when I was two days late. I was afraid of doctors and hospitals, so I didn't start looking until I was five months pregnant, but I took prenatal vitamins and read a lot.  All the female docs were "full," so I wound up having to call a male doc, but it turned out he had a certified nurse midwife working with him, so I got to see her for my pregnancy.  I was due in August, and Scott left in April to go to basic training for the military.  We hoped the baby would be late, so he'd be home for the birth, but it wasn't meant to be.  I had preterm labor and wound up on bedrest and Brethine (a drug to stop contractions-NO FUN!). My best friend Penny moved in with me, and my seventeen year old sister flew in to help out, too.  We all went to childbirth classes together, and I was the only one who's husband wasn't there.  I think everyone suspected I was a lesbian just making up an absent husband!  We thought it was a great joke. Anyway, the midwife took me off the Brethine at 38 weeks, and I proceeded to go everywhere I hadn't been allowed to go, but I didn't go into labor until three days later.  I woke up at four a.m. feeling wide awake and very aware and alert.  I wanted to scrub the kitchen floor SO bad!   But we'd been told in childbirth class not to wear ourselves out, so I didn't (thank God!). Instead I put on some music (Metallica, my favorite) and played solitaire. Penny woke up about four hours later, took one look and me and canceled her plans for the day.  We went for a drive, but I got tired after a while so we went home and went back to bed.  I woke up a little after noon and went to the bathroom.  I couldn't believe it when my water broke on the toilet!  I was so thrilled!  We went to the hospital, and the car ride was a nightmare. Every little bump felt like a huge pothole, and the contractions were so close together I couldn't even count them anymore.  When we got to the hospital, I had to go through the "is she really in labor?" deal.  I passed the test and got a room.

I don't remember a whole lot about the labor.  I fought the pain and wore myself out very quickly.  I took off the hospital gown about two minutes after the nurse left, and labored nude the rest of the time.  I paced around the room and sat on the toilet a lot.  I also loved laying on the floor, it was so cool.   My sister and another friend were watching tv at some point, a sitcom, and I was convinced the people on tv were laughing at me!  The tv went off, needless to say.  The nurse came in and asked if I wanted "something for the pain."  I politely told her "no."  She asked "Are you sure?"  I said "yes," through clenched teeth.  She came back later and asked again.  I just shook my head, in the middle of a contraction.  "You sure?" she asked.  I couldn't answer her.  She put her hand on my shoulder.  "Hon?" she pushed.  I blew up and screamed "NO!" and shoved the fetal monitor (I wasn't hooked up).  It was on wheels so it bounced off the wall.  Penny was right there, comforting me, but the nurse threatened to sedate me if I didn't calm down.  Time went by and I started to feel hopeless and desperate.  I wanted my cat.  Part of me was laughing at such a silly thought, but for some reason I wanted her there.  Instead I said "I want to go home!" and got up and stalked to the bathroom to sit on the toilet some more.  My sister said later that since the bathroom was next to the door, she was sure I was going to leave, completely naked!  Not long after that, I started feeling an urge to push.  The nurse checked me & told me I couldn't push until the midwife got there.  So I blew, but the urge got worse & worse, and by the time the midwife got there I had figured out how to push while blowing.   The midwife told me to push, so I just quit blowing.

For two hours I pushed.  I had been taught to take a deep breath & hold it for the count of ten, so that's how I pushed, with everyone in the room chanting "One, two, three..."  I pushed on the toilet and standing up.  I got an IV because the baby's heart rate wasn't great.  I pushed on my hands and knees and standing up.  They put in an internal fetal monitor because the heart rate was still not good.  I didn't want them to screw that thing to my baby's head, but I was so worn out I couldn't protest.  I squatted for a little while, and I really liked that, but for some reason they wanted me to stay in a squat between contractions, and I soon lost strength.  So I laid on my side, Penny holding my leg up for me.  I heard the midwife mention getting the doctor to use forceps.  I panicked and started to push without a contraction.

Then I had the strangest sensation.  I felt like I was underwater, like everything was moving in slow motion, and I couldn't hear anything very well.  Then I felt the presence of all these women, within me.  I was surrounded by them, and they were all pushing.  I could feel the way they were pushing, and it was different than the way I had been pushing.  I had been pushing with my head; they were letting their bodies push.  I started to push the way they were pushing.  They put an oxygen mask on me, for the baby, again.  It made me feel like I was smothering.  I pushed some more.  I felt my hips spread as my baby's head pushed through them.  It was excruciatingly pleasant.  I kept pushing, with all the ladies around me pushing with me.  There was a burning sensation.  I heard the midwife say something about an episiotomy because of the baby's heart rate.  What baby? I thought.  This isn't birth, it's Hell.

The next thing I remember is a voice floating through the water at me. "Debbie, do you want to pick up your baby?" the midwife asked.  I reared up and burst through the surface of the water.  Everything was suddenly clear, no more slow motion, and I could hear everyone talking again.  I reached between my legs.  My baby's head and shoulders were out, nothing else.  I grasped him and pulled him the rest of the way out of my body, and laid back down with my beautiful son my chest between my breasts.  I was wrong, this was Heaven, not Hell. "He looks just like Scott," I said.  I wanted my husband there so bad.  I stared at my baby and thought of my aunt.  Her son had died when he was eight.  I once had thought I had an idea how horrible that was.  I didn't.  I looked at my perfect angel and thought "Oh my God, she LOST this."  I felt like a fool.  I thought of my mother.  So this was how she felt about me!  This was how she loved me!  I couldn't believe how terrible I had been to her!

It was 6:47 at night, just a few hours after my water had broke.  It felt like an eternity.  I talked to my husband on the phone, who sat in the hallway of a dormitory two thousand, five hundred miles away and cried.  A couple of times someone would walk by and I would hear them say "Hey, your wife have the baby, man?" and Scott would say something tough and proud. We named the baby Thomas, after my dad, and Scott, after my husband (of course).  I nursed him some, and my mother-in-law, sister, and friends held him, while the midwife gave me one stitch for the little tear I had.  They wanted to move me to a postpartum room and take him to the nursery for his tests and bath, so I showered with the help of a wonderful nurse.  I almost didn't recognize myself in the mirror.  My eyes were swollen and puffy and so bloodshot the whites were completely red.  My sister went to the nursery with the baby, because I hated the thought of him being away from me, but when we got to the postpartum room, she showed up without him.  I had to threaten to go get him myself before they brought him to me, all clean and bundled up and institutional.  I took him out of the bassinet and held him, and found out that they weren't going to feed me.  It seems that since the cafeteria closed at seven, I would have to wait for breakfast, which would be served at six the next morning.  Penny got me some gross fast food, that I couldn't eat much of, and one of the nurses scrounged up a couple of apples for me.  The apples gave me really bad gas, which got everyone worked up because they thought it might be an infection.  Finally a really sweet nurse massaged my tummy for me until it passed.  They kept telling me to put the baby down and go to sleep, but I couldn't sleep, I was so high on the whole experience.  I sat up until four a.m., when I finally dozed a little. We went home around five the next day.  Tommy met his Daddy for the first time a week later at the airport.  When we got home, Scott just sat and held him, watching him sleep.  He was as fascinated as I had been!
 

Tommy is now four years old and has two brothers, Sam and Ricky.  I will submit their birth stories as I find the time.  I believe now that the "ladies" who helped me push were my ancestors.  I guess some would say this was just the way my mind interpreted my instincts taking over, or it was from the exhaustion, but know what I felt and they WERE there with me.  Thanks for reading.   ~ Debbie (debbiemom)