It’s not called Labor for Nothing
by Alexandra Soiseth

Early on the day before my due date, preeclampsia looming, Dr. McGroary breaks my water. As he leaves, my birthing partners trickle in… the New York contingent, Pat and Megan (who God bless them, have been with me through hours of ‘birthing classes’) and the Canadian Crew, my sister Linda and best friend Margaret. They arrived last night to spend Victoria Day weekend with me.

As some very mild and almost unnoticeable contractions swing in and out, my New York world and Canadian world get acquainted, and soon we have the boom box plugged in and are singing Gloria Estefan’s song “Hoy” over and over again at the top of our lungs.

By eleven o’clock, there is some regularity and strength to the contractions, with more serious pain, and Margaret suggests a walk. So off we go, walking down the halls past rooms filled with new mothers and tiny, squeaking babies. We step to the side as a woman in a hospital bed is rolled by us into a room; behind her walks the father, carrying a baby.

We glance at each other but don’t say what we are thinking—no cesarean! But I know in my heart that we are pretty much headed that way anyway. Breaking my water puts time on the table—twenty-four hours, or the doctor goes in with a knife to take the baby out. After twenty-four hours, infection is a guarantee.

The room we’re in is huge; you could probably fit the dining room of a restaurant into it—well a small New York City restaurant anyway. But it feels blessedly like a living room, even though I’m told surgical lights roll out from the ceiling, like landing gear on a plane, when they are needed.

During the walk with Margaret and Linda, my contractions get lackadaisical and sporadic again, so I sit still for half an hour and they speed up. At 1:00 PM Dr. McGroary comes in and rocks back and forth on his heels, shoving his hands into his waiting pockets. “You know,” he says, looking at me and only me, “we might have to think about Pitocin soon.”

“I know,” I say. “But please let me try on my own for a little while longer.”

He nods slowly and speaks quietly to the nurse as he leaves. She’s an older woman, efficient and wrinkled, with a healthy dose of perfume to hide the smell of cigarette smoke. It’s on her hands mostly, and they make me think faintly about my mother; her thin, permed hair reinforces the similarity. But when she talks, she’s all Bronx.

My doulas arrive (there are two who will shift in and out) but it’s Margaret, mother of two and a doctor, whom I turn to when I’m wondering what to do next.
 
Throughout the afternoon we sing songs and talk. Linda sits behind me at one point while I’m on a ‘birthing’ ball and starts to French braid my hair. I ask her if this was what her labors were like, and she said hers went a little faster. With Audrey, her oldest, the water breaking was what sent them to the hospital. Her second and third births went superfast. “And there certainly weren’t as many people around when I gave birth,” she says, and I laugh, because it is kind of funny: Four friends, and two doulas, are here.

Everyone takes turns going out to eat lunch, and I get ice chips since I’m not supposed to eat during labor, just in case they have to take me for an emergency C-section.
 
As the afternoon drags on and there is no progress, I ask for an enema, which I’ve been told will sometimes get things going. Nurse Bronxie is skeptical, and she’s right—it doesn’t do much.

I keep changing positions, hoping it will help, but there is no progress.

By 5:00 PM the contractions are much worse, but still nowhere near strong enough to get Kaj out into this world, and this time when Dr. McGroary comes in and rocks on his heels, Margaret gives me a look that says, Time’s up.

The original IV site attempted by a shaky-handed nurse even before we were moved into the labor room has bruised up my left arm spectacularly. My Bronx nurse is the one who finally got an IV in, and it is through this site that a Pitocin drip is started. As she hangs the bag she says, “Now we’ll see some action,” and she pats me gently above my bruised left arm. She straps a monitor around my belly to keep an eye on the baby’s heart rate, and my time of walking around or getting out of bed is over. It doesn’t bother me too much because I’d pretty much stopped moving anyway. It seemed to only slow my labor.

“People hate my labor story,” Pat says when Margaret asks her about giving birth to Ali.

“Really?” Megan and Margaret laugh.

Linda is behind me, giving me a lovely light massage on my shoulders. Megan is massaging my feet. Margaret is sitting to my right, where the monitor for the baby is. She reassures me occasionally that the baby is doing fine.

“I had no pain,” Pat says. “Granted, Ali was six weeks premature, but the only reason I knew I was in labor was that I had an appointment that day with my OBGYN, and when he did an internal I was seven centimeters dilated.”

Margaret talks about her experience with Christian, her oldest son, how she pushed him out on the strength of an enormous vomit. Linda talks about how giving birth to Audrey was hard, but what she doesn’t tell them is that Audrey was stuck and Linda screamed in pain for hours because they couldn’t give her an epidural, either. There was a slightly nightmareish feel to that delivery, Linda would tell me later, because no one was really sure why the baby wouldn’t come out.

It is now, under the influence of Pitocin, that everything begins to get kind of underwater. There is no doubt for me now what a contraction feels like, rippling, ripping, burning, cramping through my pelvis. It is what branding must feel like for cattle, again and again. For hours and hours I breathe deep and puff puff puff the air out, through the evening and into the night. I find a place on the ceiling or the wall as I feel a contraction coming. It’s just an echo at first, a tingling, and I say with dread, “Here we go again.” And Margaret takes my one hand, Linda the other, and I find my comfort spot and stare at it as the contraction takes me over and I breathe in—a long, long deep breath.

No one told me this, but I come to realize that this is the breath that makes it possible to survive the pain—not the puff puff puff of the outgoing breath, but the deep, calm, strengthening power of the incoming breath.

I rest during the spaces between, dipping into a hazy dream as Linda and Megan and Pat and Margaret and the doulas move in and out of the room. I am aware at one point that Linda has been gone a long time.

“Where’s Linda?” I ask, looking around stupidly.

“She just went for a break.”

Another contraction is on its way when she stands beside me. “There you are,” I say, relieved, missing her. But then I begin to panic because she is standing between me and the light fixture I have been using as my focal point for the last half hour. “Move move move,” I say, panicked because if I can’t look at my spot, I won’t survive the pain. If I don’t start my inward breath at the exact right moment, I will begin to whimper and gasp and suck in short breaths—“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god I can’t take it”—and Linda says, “Sorry sorry sorry, did I hurt you?” And she leaves again and I don’t see her for a long while.

About 1:00 AM, I go pee during a break. The doula helps me to the bathroom, dragging the IV pole, but a contraction catches me before I’m seated, and I stand and tremble, staring at the juncture where the bottom of the toilet meets the floor.

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” the nurse says to me as I sit down. She throws a look at the doula. “There are other options.”
 
I know she means an epidural and I’m tempted, but not really. I want to do this on my own. I don’t want a cesarean. I shake my head and she walks out.
 
At 3:00 AM, when the doula is out of the room, Margaret stands beside me during the hollow space between contractions and says, “You know, there’s no shame in an epidural. You’ve been going a long time, and there is still the pushing.” She looks at me so softly that I want to cry. She brushes the wet hair from my forehead. “You need some rest.”
 
I nod and say, “Oh god, here comes another.” And we clasp hands and I grunt and feel stars exploding in my brain until it passes and I lie back to rest.
 
The nurse comes in to check on me a little later. “How are you doing?”

I say, “I want an epidural now.” Margaret is right. I am utterly exhausted and I feel that soon even the breathing won’t save me. Soon I will die from the pain.
 
The doula sends everyone out and looks at me in the strangely quiet and empty room. “Are you sure? You asked me during our first meeting to check with you to be sure. Are you sure?”
 
“Absolutely,” I say, resolutely, because I have no doubts now. I have gone as long as I can on my own.
 
The anesthesiologist is sent for, and this is the period that is hardest to take. I don’t know if the pain is actually worse, or if waiting for it to be over makes it seem worse. I don’t have any real concept of how long it is before he gets there, and then I sit on the side of the bed, curving my spine as I curl over my large belly and try to stay as still as I can, even as a contraction hits.
 
The first epidural doesn’t work on the left side, so he redoes it. Even the second doesn’t work properly, though they turn it on high. But the third try is the winner, and as I lie back in the dark cave of a delivery room, it seems as if a light fills the room as the pain recedes. Perhaps it’s so late in the night that it’s actually dawn, but when I look at the spaces between the pulled curtains, it is still dark outside. Margaret pulls on my penguin robe, Linda puts on my sweater, and everyone scatters for some sleep. My nurse turns out the lights and I sleep, too.
 
Dr. McGroary has been at the hospital all night, sleeping somewhere, and he comes to see me regularly. But at 8:30 AM, it is Dr. Bakas who comes in to wake me up. He sits beside me on the bed. “So, how are you feeling?”

“Better since the epidural.” I smile.
 
“You got some rest?”
 
“Yes.”
 
“Well, I think we might want to think about pushing soon.”
 
I am afraid. I don’t feel ready. I don’t know why I think that, but it seems as if this whole exercise has been about my forcing this baby to do stuff she isn’t ready for. Maybe it’s because I can’t feel the contractions anymore, but I look around for McGroary. He’ll understand. He’s been here all along and has seen this sluggishness, all yesterday and last night.
 
The nurses begin to take the end of the bed off, and by 9:00 AM the ceiling panels slide open and lights do indeed swing down like the wheels of a plane before it lands.
 
“You’re still here?” my Bronx nurse asks with a smile as she rigs a bar over the bed for me to pull on as I push. I smile back at her and test the solidity of the bar. “So, do you feel the tightening? The urge to push?”
 
“I guess so.” I say, though I don’t really know what she means.
 
She puts her hand on my belly, waits and waits, and then says, “There. Feel it?” And I actually do now. There’s a pressure in the back, as though I’m about to have a bowel movement. Then it is gone.
 
“Good, well, that’s when you want to push.”
 
I nod.
 
Everyone gathers around. My legs are up and open. “Push!” someone says, and I do.
 
“No, that’s not right,” Bronxie says. “You’re pushing with your head, holding your breath like that. Feel it deep down. I know it’s hard with the epidural, but pretend that you’re having a bowel movement; push like that.”
 
“But . . . ” I start to say, but I don’t know how to express what I’m really worried about. I’m afraid I actually will have a bowel movement.
 
“Don’t worry,” she says. “All women feel the same, and yes, you probably will have a bowel movement, but we’ll wipe it away and on we go.”
 
So I let go fully and push and push, not quite getting it right but trying over and over. After an hour or so, I ask to pull on the bar across the bed, but that doesn’t do anything and I lie back again.
 
Much later Margaret says, “There she is! I can see her head!” McGroary squirts oil around to help lubricate her exit, and for a few moments I have new energy and push harder and harder as Pat yells, “Push! Push!” I try, but the baby just doesn’t get any further.
 
The nurses rotate; some kneel on the bed beside me and help by pushing on my stomach. “Try this,” one says, twisting a towel and slipping it over the bar above me. “Pull on this.”
 
Somehow four hours pass in this way. I am hot. My head is pounding and my face is burning. Every two minutes someone says, “Push!” and I do. McGroary comes back at some point and Bakas comes in and out, a pained look on his face. I hear him tell Pat that he finds this part so hard; he really hates to see women in pain this way.
 
This pushing part seems to belong to the nurses, who ask me to try first this, then that. Four different nurses cycle in and out, and I am aware that while I continue in this monotony of pushing, these nurses have moved around the ring of labor-and-delivery rooms and delivered other babies.
 
At some point, McGroary stands beside me and feels my fevered forehead—he must be thinking about cesareans. It is way past twenty-four hours. I’m thinking about it too now, and it’s hard to summon up any of the determination I felt when we walked around and saw the woman wheeled in on the bed. I envy her now—done, like that—and all the women in the adjacent rooms, and their doneness.
 
He says to me, “Perhaps I should turn down the epidural. I think it might help you to feel the urge to push.”
 
The memory of last night’s labor pains jolts me. “I have to be honest—that scares the shit out of me.”
 
He smiles at me a little. “It’ll be okay.”
 
I nod because although I am afraid of all that pain again, I also trust him.
 
He turns down the epidural, and the need to push is much stronger, but I am so tired now that it’s hard to conjure enough strength to do much about it. A little more time passes, and I begin to shake uncontrollably and cry. “Can you get Dr. McGroary?” I ask Margaret.
 
More pushing, and when I open my eyes he is beside me. “I can’t do this anymore. I need help.” I try not to sound pathetic. I can’t actually get myself to say I’m ready for a cesarean, but that’s what I mean.
 
He nods at me and goes over to talk to one of the nurses, and they all leave for a while. Margaret is on my left, and Megan and Pat are on my right. I haven’t seen Linda or the doula for a while.
 
“It’s okay, Mrs.,” Margaret says. She looks up at the monitors that track how the baby is doing. “She’s okay. All this time, she’s been okay.” I feel the automatic blood pressure cup tighten on my arm, and I look over to see that my pressure is still crazy high: 170/105.

“Okay,” McGroary says as he comes back in with all four nurses. Bronxie says, “Sit up a little more,” and she kneels beside me on the bed. I can feel McGroary squirting warm water and wiping me clean. I learn later that he was trying to get rid of some of the olive oil he used to make the way slippery.
 
“On the next push, Alex, we need you to give it everything, okay?” Bronxie says right in my ear, just for me. McGroary has something that looks like a miniplunger, and I can feel him placing it on the baby’s head and pulling a little to see if it is suctioned on tightly.
 
“Ready?”

I nod. I hunch over, taking short, quick breaths to prepare. Then I feel it come, that urge to push, and I take a deep breath and everyone says, “Push!” McGroary grunts a little as he pulls, but I’m hardly aware of it for the rushing in my head as I puuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuusssssssssssssssssssssh and something goes pop. McGroary stumbles backward and I fall back from pushing. “Too much oil still,” he says to the nurse beside him. “Can you get me another clean towel?”
 
I have a moment or two of rest when I disappear into myself. Then we are all poised, the plunger attached, and I take a deep breath and push again. Bronxie and another nurse are on the other side of me on the bed, pushing down on my belly, Margaret and Pat help me roll my shoulders forward and hunch over, and McGroary pulls. For the first time all morning, I can feel movement, and I look down to see her emerge, finally, dark wet hair, red with blood, and a long body that comes and comes out of me like a red ribbon. I see McGroary put his finger under the plunger and pop it off, and suddenly she is there, landing crossways in his arms. A nurse is cleaning her and I look at her, this baby of mine. How long and thin she is, like an arrow. For a moment I think, Thank God she has Olaf’s build. Good for her. Lucky for her.
 
After hours and hours of sameness, everything is moving and changing suddenly. Baby Girl Soiseth is on my chest for just a second as they cut the cord; then she is gone, under the warm lights in the corner of the room.
 
I can’t stop crying. “I did it! I did it! Oh my god!”

Margaret and Pat and Megan are all crying, too, saying, “Good job!” Patting my arm and pushing the wet hair from my face.
 
“Where’s Linda? Where is she?”
 
“I’ll get her,” Pat says, and I’m quivering and still crying and I can’t stop. Bronxie says to me firmly, as she tries to put a thermometer in my mouth, “Okay, that’s enough. You have to stop crying now.”
 
I gather my strength to stop, and then Linda is there. “I did it! She’s born!” I say around the thermometer, and Linda is crying and holding my hand. “Where were you? Were you here when she was born?” Linda shakes her head.
 
It is only later that Pat will tell me Linda couldn’t bear to be in the room a lot of the time. It was too hard for her to see me in pain; it frightened her.
 
With Linda beside me, they bring Kaj over, all clean and wrapped in a white blanket. I can hardly see her through my swollen eyelids, and she blinks at me through the vitamin K cream. “She’s beautiful, Alex,” Linda says.
 
“Welcome to the world, Baby Girl Soiseth.” And Kaj and I squint at each other until the nurse takes her away to the ICU to monitor her temperature. “Don’t worry,” the nurse says. “She’s perfect and healthy. But she has your fever.”