William's Birth Story 2: Deliver Me

"Can I have an epidural?" That's the first thing I said. Actually, the first thing I asked for was a c-section. Me, the woman who's had four natural births, who avoids medication and medical intervention if at all possible. I wanted them to cut me open. Apparently, that wasn't an option. Something about recovering from major abdominal surgery. Like I cared.

I was horrified that they wanted me to have this baby now. Now? Were they serious? I was going to have to labor and push out my dead child? Were they high? Insane? Just sadistic and cruel? What?

"Can I have an epidural NOW?"

"You mean - before we even induce you?" The nurse blinked at me.

"I've been contracting for days. Believe me, I'm already in pain."

"Let me check you first."

So I let her. And irony of all ironies... I was 6-7 centimeters and 85% effaced... I was more than halfway there already.

"Do you still want the epidural?"

I shook my head and sighed. What was the point? All they'd need to do was give me a little pitocin, and he'd be here. Oh my god. My baby... my baby... the sweet, precious baby I'd been waiting to see and hold, he would be here... and he would lifeless, dead. I couldn't wrap my mind around it. I couldn't even begin to.

"We're going to move you down here, at the end of this hall, away from..."

She didn't have to tell me. This wasn't a joyous occasion. I was already in another world, separate from all the other mothers who were giving birth to babies who would open their eyes, wail, and take their first breath. I wasn't one of those anymore.

And so we went, my husband on the phone the whole way, trying to find someone to come and be with our children. We wanted them to see their baby brother, to hold him, say goodbye... but I didn't want them there for the birth. Not like this. Not like this. And all I kept hearing was his explanation, one person after the other, "I'm calling because... because the baby died... and we need someone to..."

I turned to my midwife and said, "I wish people would stop saying that out loud."

"What?"

"Stop saying he died."

She just squeezed my hand. I think she knew the level of denial I was functioning at. I had to...what else could I do? Both of my children were there. I couldn't collapse, I couldn't fall apart. And I still had work to do. One more thing. I had to bring my baby's body into the world and hold him for the first and last time.

I had never wanted to give birth in the hospital again, but here I was, putting on the hospital gown, getting up on the bed, holding my wrist out for the bracelet, the starting of the I.V. Four sticks and several large bruises later - I still have one on my arm the size of a deck of cards - the pitocin was turned on.

Our niece-in-law, S., arrived to be with the kids. She came in with tears in her eyes and I almost couldn't look at her. She hasn't had a baby yet - I'm sure it won't be long before they do (of course, I've been thinking that since they got married a few years ago...) but she adores kids. Ours love her - she plays with them, delights in them. She's a born mother - or nanny!

She went out to the waiting room, where our midwife had them corralled for the moment while I labored. And still, the contractions weren't that horrible. No worse than they'd been for days. The nurse asked when I started active labor, and I just looked at her.

Officially, active labor is labor after 4 cm. But I had no idea. No idea at all. To me, this didn't feel "active." It had never felt "active," and I realized... it was because he was gone. He was going, going, gone, and none of this labor was actively bringing my baby to me. It was just bringing me his body, an empty shell of what he could have been.

The doctor was kind - much kinder than I expected, given that we had planned a home birth, but here we were, in her delivery room. They took blood, urine, ran all sorts of tests, and everything was coming back negative. No infection, my blood pressure was perfect, no signs of...anything. I'd had all the early ultrasounds and tests done, too. The baby had been fine, perfect, no anomalies.

She broke my water, and I stared, horrified, at the meconium. So thick, so much. There was hardly any water left - and the mucus on her hand when she showed me her glove was a thick, curd-like orange color, and there was so much of it... what had happened? What could possibly have happened? For the first time I was really afraid... afraid of seeing him, of what he would look like.

She wanted me to try to push - I was at about 9cm, just a lip of cervix now. I'd pushed past that before, at least twice with two other babies. I was sure I could, and the pain and pressure now that the baby was lower was becoming unbearable. Besides...I wanted it over. I really just wanted it to end.

So I pushed.

"You're strong!" she remarked. "You're moving him right down."

God, that was hard. Hearing it, doing it. Flat on my back, I pushed, hard, harder, hard as I could, but I was pushing uphill. Impossible.

"I need to be up," I gasped as that contraction ended. "Hands and knees. Something else. I'm pushing uphill."

"Any position you want," the doctor said, and I almost laughed. How many OBs said that, I wondered. Not many. I turned around, waited for the next contraction, thinking gravity would help. This push would be different. But no...

No matter how hard I pushed, he wasn't coming, He was hardly moving. What was wrong? They kept telling me he wasn't very big. He'd only measured on ultrasound at 33 weeks...a tiny baby. I'd birthed a nine pounder, and he slid out like a fat, greased trout, easy enough. What was wrong?

"I'm still pushing uphill!" I gasped, shaking my head, turning around in the bed.

"It's okay," the doctor assured me, taking off her gloves. "Let's give you another twenty minutes, let the rest of the cervix open up..."

That was around nine-thirty, I think. That was the last time I looked at the clock. The contractions came harder, closer. This was labor. This was what I remembered. The baby's head, I felt his head, moving down, opening me, impossibly huge. The pain was incredible. Worse than any birth I'd ever had. I screamed.

"No, nononononono!" I didn't want this. I didn't want to be doing this, I didn't want to be here. "Please, someone help. Make it stop!"

My husband let me squeeze his hand as I felt my body begin to push. The baby was moving, he was coming, but it was slow and it hurt like hell.

"I should have had the epidural!" I remember saying that. I remember saying I didn't want to do it. I remember telling them I couldn't do it, that he wasn't coming, that he would never come. I said I couldn't push him out. I meant it. Not just that I didn't want to, but that I was physically incapable of this feat. It was like a bowling ball stuck between my legs, a rock, a boulder, impossible to move.

I remember saying, "Oh baby, baby, I'm so sorry... I'm so sorry, baby..."

And then I told them to get the doctor. "I want it out. Now!"

"Are you ready?" she asked, and I pushed. I pushed into and past the searing pain between my legs, I pushed until I thought I would split in half - I remember saying that out loud. My whole world was cracking wide open, and I was being torn apart from the inside out. It wasn't like any of my other births. It wasn't anything close.

This was something else, not a birth at all. This was a delivery, in the truest sense of the word, an execution, a function. I was doing it, and I was doing it all. There was no squirmy, wiggling baby helping me, arching his back, turning his head, negotiating his way into the world. It was all me, because what I was bringing into the world wasn't my baby anymore. My baby was gone.

And then he was here, his head out, then the shoulders, god so painful, so impossible, I couldn't do it, but somehow I managed, and the doctor was asking, "Do you want to see your son?"

And I held out my arms, and said, "Yes, give him to me," and they put him on me and I cradled him close, lifeless and still but so precious, so perfect.

I rocked him, such a tiny baby, like his sister had been, just a peanut, and whispered, "Oh baby, baby, what happened? What happened, baby?"

"He looks like me," M. said, and he was crying. 

And he did.

"But he has my mouth." I touched it, a perfect red rosebud, and that's when I cried, when I saw that little mouth that would never open for the nourishment of my breast, and saw his eyelashes, sooty black against his cheek, and knew I would never see them open.

This was our baby, William George, with all that thick, dark hair, and those long, delicate fingers. This was who had grown and moved inside of me, up until... when? Twelve hours ago? Twenty- four? He had been conscious, aware. He heard my voice. Did he know how much he was loved? Did he feel it? Does love pass through the placenta?

I held him, and I cried, and I knew he was gone from me, and nothing could bring him back again.