Missing in Action for 3 Days!

Last time on "At the Tabony's Crib".... Hunter wrote "Don't worry, we'll be back with more details on the birth as soon as we get rested up."

Ha. Ha. Rested? What is this strange foreign word? We will never speak of it again. Clearly, this is never going to happen. We thought we were busy before. Again, hahahaha! Or should I say "Aha!"? This is why all our parents are crazy. Everyone ponders what it is that made them that way... when the answer to that question stares back out of the mirror every morning.

Where was I? Oh yes, the birth story. So, Cierra's motto is "I will not be stopped." Sunday, three days before her due date, she had on her calendar an all-day conference in Greensboro, NC, around a 2 hour drive from our house. Knowing Cierra's motto, I was not going to be able to keep her from going, so I slipped into protector mode and offered to drive her. True to Murphy's Law, during the morning session she discovered that her chair was wet, but she held off until the lunch break to call me in from the car and let me know. Then she had me sit and watch her have lunch with the other veterinarians and trade gossip back and forth for half an hour. Finally I said, "Woman! If we are not on the road for home in 5 minutes, your water won't be the only thing around here that's broken!" Well, I didn't exactly say that out loud, I tapped it out in Morse Code on her leg under the table. Once we were in the car, I felt much better. Cierra wasn't in any pain and I was excited... in the next little while I would meet my son!

We got home and Cierra puttered around the house, trying to keep moving and encourage the onset of labor and was rewarded with light contractions. We started timing them, and were encouraged to find that some of them were 60 seconds long. We even started to think that these were real contractions. Ha. We would meet those very soon.

Here's a little hint for anyone who is going to go through this process anytime soon. They tell you that when a woman goes from early labor into the real first stage, she will go from excited to serious... so I was analyzing her behavior for little signs that she was serious. I thought that maybe she was. But the forces at work here are not subtle. I think that what the textbook should have printed was "she will go from excited to SERIOUS" This is not "I am serious, clean out the garage before you play golf." This is a whole new level. A complete personality transplant. Shades of gray need not apply.

So anyway, I hadn't recieved that hint and began to get anxious that maybe we were really progressing. Some of the contractions were 90 seconds long and had started to become painful. I called our doula, Jennifer, and she headed over to our house.

I should pause here to explain something quickly. After copious research, Cierra decided that she wanted to attend classes in the Bradley Method of childbirth. Briefly, this is a birthing method that encourages women to be coached through natural childbirth by their husband-coach, forgoing all medical intervention unless medically necessary. I would never have sought this out... not only is it not mainstream, but it is a big time investment... 24 hours of instruction over 12 weeks. Plus, being the husband-coach sounded like a lot of pressure and responsibility, during which I might have to faint or glimpse blood, most likely not in that order. But after attending the classes I was fully on board and excited to have our birth be a Bradley Method Experience. Jennifer was our teacher and we felt that we could really benefit our birth experience by hiring her as our doula, a person who acts as an experienced supporter and guide during labor and birth... kind of like a midwife without the medical training.

Jennifer arrived around 10pm and we labored for several hours. We took turns applying counterpressure to Cierra's back. The contractions were getting more intense. When a hot water bottle proved too difficult to apply, a microwaved tube sock full of dried beans became a good way to help relieve some pain. Due to a tiny hole in my sock, it was also a good way to spread uncooked beans around the house, some of which we are still finding.

We labored all over the house... up and down the stairs, in the bed, on an exercise ball, on the floor, in a chair. Cierra put her head down and powered through the intensifying discomfort. Finally, around 3 am we decided that we should call the hospital and head in to deliver. We packed up the cars quickly as Cierra began to report an increasing pressure in her tailbone, and I drove over 70 mph with a hand on her leg as she moaned, sure that if I let up on the accelerator during the 15 minute drive, she would end up delivering in the car and seriously damaging my psyche and the resale value. We got there and they checked Cierra, then told her she was dilated to 2 centimeters.

We were shocked. 8, 6 centimeters was what I was expecting. 4 would have been a disappointment. 2 was like heartbreak. We thought we were seeing the finish line, but it was just one of those tables where they throw Gatorade at you and tell you to get back on the course. Tests for amniotic fluid came back negative... so the water was likely unbroken... and with such little dilation, the hospital wasn't even sure we were in labor (of course, we knew it was the real thing). They had us walk the halls in the maternity center for an hour, Cierra crumpling against the wall in pain as we helped her through each contraction. At the end of the hour, we checked her again... 2 to 3. A measurable change, but barely. Whoop-de-doo. Given the option of admittance or going home to labor in a more comfortable environment, we chose the latter and headed home. I fixed eggs for all three of us and then it was time to regroup.

We were all exhausted and so we were very happy to oblige when Cierra decided that she wanted to get in bed and labor for a while. She slept between the contractions and I slept beside her while Jennifer napped on our couch. After one or two hours of this we woke reinvigorated to the double-edged discovery that Cierra's contractions had reintensified. After a few hours of very difficult labor, I was relieved to hear Cierra say "I don't know how we're going to do this."

Wait. I know some of you are saying, "Hunter, you jerk! You're supposed to be her coach and you're happy to hear her doubting herself?" Well, the reason I was so happy to hear that is that the emotional signpost of late first stage labor is going from SERIOUS to self-doubt. I pointed this out to Jennifer and we took off for the hospital again, this time Cierra astride the backseat in Jennifer's minivan as the increased pressure in her tailbone kept her from sitting down.

In the hospital, one of the more experienced nurses recognized the signs of Cierra's progression and swooped in to save us from the reception desk/triage process (imagine a bored person asking about whether there's diabetes in your family history while you're crumpled on the floor, writhing in agony) . She took us straight to a birthing room and set us up with a fantastic nursing staff, Ruth and Jillian. They monitored the baby's heart rate which was right where we wanted it to be. Things began to happen very quickly once the doctor showed up. Cierra was 8 centimeters at that point, and the doctor offered to speed things up by breaking her water. Cierra only cared about getting it done quickly at that point, so we said "by all means."

What followed was the most difficult hour of the whole process. When the water broke, Cierra's body said "OK. It is now time to push." But the hospital will not allow you to push and it is not a good idea to push until you are dialated the full 10 cm. Now, I have not experienced this urge firsthand. But it appears to me that telling a woman in this stage not to push is like telling a drowning person "just breathe the water!" Apparently, blowing raspberries is the only way to stop yourself from pushing and Cierra understood this but she started to panic in the intensity of the moment. She blew some raspberries but then started to fall out of the rhythm of deep breath, blow it out, another deep breath, and in the agony and confusion started to push.

It's hard to explain the depth of this part of the experience. Cierra's one of the most self-assured, self-controlled people I know. But the force of nature that was telling her to push and the pain of the incredible pressure in her back was reducing her to some instinctual nature that just wanted to run away from all the agony there on that hospital bed. Her legs thrashed and her back arched as she tried to levitate away from the pain. I had to do whatever I could to help her from outside that pain, so I leaned in as close as I could and blew each raspberry with her, and when she faltered, I told her she could do it and how close she was to being done.

Finally she was checked for the final time and told that she was ready to push. She didn't waste any time... she pushed, and HARD. I've never seen anyone put that much effort into anything... it was like watching one of those strongman competitions where one guy pulls a school bus with the emergency brake on. After 15 or 20 minutes of pushing with Jennifer holding one leg and me on the other, out popped a little head quickly followed by a warm, wet body. As he started to wail, I turned into a sobbing mess, so grateful that we'd made it and that we were meeting our son for the very first time.

Jennifer was invaluable... I know we would not have done this without her. Thank you so much Jennifer! For everyone out there who thinks we are crazy for having done this Bradley method thing and that this sounds like torture to you, I completely understand where you are coming from and that's what I would have thought too before I found out more about it. It's really too much to get into here, but Cierra and I are very glad that we did it this way. If you are focused on wanting to achieve a natural non-Cesarian birth then the statistics of the Bradley Method outcomes versus the mainstream outcomes are really hard to ignore. That's the main reason why we did it, and we got the results we were looking for. Having gone through this experience together made me feel closer to Cierra than ever before. And Cierra bounced back so quickly I was simply amazed...

And it wasn't just me. Each of the medical professionals who worked with us during the birth came back to us during our short stay at the hospital and told us that it was an inspirational birth for them and how impressed they were with Cierra's strength and courage during delivery. For one of them, having worked in the unit for 6 weeks, we were the first natural childbirth she had witnessed, and she was really happy to have such a positive introduction to it.

Wow, this is really long. For those of you still hanging on, congrats. I must go to bed... we'll add some more of how we're doing with Carter tomorrow.