It finally crossed my mind to post the rest of Susu's birth story, 4.5 years late. Since you probably don't remember the first two parts, you can read them here and here!
Today we get to the birth itself!
39 weeks 5 days was Sunday, August 20, and Becca and her family sweetly hosted us for lunch that day. It was uncomfortable to sit and uncomfortable to walk, and I wondered aloud “Am I going to be holding a baby next Sunday?” “Yes. You are,” Becca assured me. The next Sunday I very well could have been 40 weeks and 5 days pregnant, but those encouraging words lifted my spirits.
That evening in church, I had my first contraction. I knew it was real! But no other contractions came, so then I questioned whether it had been real!
The next morning was Monday, August 21—one day before my due date. I slept until about 8:30, then woke and had a contraction while I was still in bed. I had another in the shower about 20 minutes later. Was today the day?
All my previous labors had started at night and with drama—twice with broken waters and once with precipitous labor. There had been no doubt that something was about to happen. Now perhaps I was having the textbook experience of contractions slowly building? During the day?
I started tracking them with my phone app. I decided to cancel school for the day and spent some time cleaning the house in case Becca would be taking over. While I was moving around and vacuuming, my contractions were getting closer and the app started telling me “go to the hospital!” Exciting! I didn’t think I was having quite enough labor for that, but it was exciting. The next thing I did was to spend some time detangling and braiding the older girls’ hair. I spent about 45 minutes sitting on the floor with them (reading Angelina Ballerina books, I remember!) and during that time I had zero contractions. Now the app alerted me that I was having false labor, so I started thinking that maybe today was not the day after all.
I have a very strong memory of what happened when I took out the trash a little later. When I came back through the dining room, I had to lean over on our counter-height table with a contraction. It was deep and low and I started to moan instinctively through it. That was when I knew it was serious labor. It was time to start calling people!
Now, Monday, August 21, 2017 was a very exciting day in the U.S. because of the total solar eclipse which would be visible. My instagram feed was full of people sharing their viewing contraptions. In Durham, we were expecting about 93% of the sun to be obscured, but many people we knew were driving a few hours to where they could experience the totality. We had been pretty low-key about it; we couldn’t travel with baby’s due-date the next day. Johannah had predicted that baby would be born on eclipse day, which I had privately laughed off as pure sentimentality. By late morning, however, John had gotten interested enough to build a pin-hole box and we decided just to see what we could see.
Meanwhile, I called Becca (the babysitter) who had to interrupt her kids’ first day of homeschooling, send her nanny child home, and drive 30 minutes before getting to me. Thank you, Becca! When she arrived around 12:30, I was contracting on hands-and-knees, but still able to function pretty well in between!
I had also communicated with the birth team by now—doula Johannah and midwife Shannon, who turned out to be on call. We might have waited to contact Abi until we got checked in at the hospital, now that I recall. Johannah and Shannon were both cautiously encouraging when I shared my contraction pattern so far. Judging from noise in the background, Shannon sounded like she was hanging out at an eclipse-viewing party and casually asked me what my “goals” were for this birth. “Um, not to have the baby in the car!” We told Johannah not to come until we were sure I was getting admitted. But I knew it was about time.
Now, my dear husband, who firmly believes that babies inconvenience people on purpose just because they can 😂 was finally getting excited about the solar eclipse as I was telling him we needed to go to the hospital. I threw our viewing box into the back seat with the birth bag so we could have it. Besides that and the fact that Becca’s day had been turned upside down, the timing was quite amazing. Johannah could be there, Abi could be there (it was her last available day!), and Mom would be here tomorrow. Our whole ideal birth team plus maximum Grammy time! And an eclipse birthday, just as Johannah had predicted!
I could handle contractions ok in a sitting position at this point, so I settled into the passenger seat of the Civic and put on some makeup during the drive (the only birth I ever did that! Also the only daytime birth and the only professionally photographed birth of my 5!). We realized while we were driving that we hadn’t eaten lunch, so I encouraged John to detour past Wendy’s first. We were approaching the maximum point of the eclipse while we were in the drive-thru line, so after we got our food, we pulled into a parking spot and got out the viewing box. I’m thankful for that memory! I leaned on the car for two contractions, which were getting harder, so once we got some snaps, I was eager to get back on the road.
We arrived at the hospital a few minutes later, around 3 p.m., and the daytime bustle was surreal, as if we were simply here for a scheduled appointment. I opted out of the wheelchair ride but as we entered the double spinning door and headed toward the elevators, I had to wave down my husband and the man carrying our bags to wait for me. I was considerably slower than both of them!
Once upstairs, I got checked into the little triage room and changed. They usually make you sit in the bed on the monitors for twenty minutes before coming in to check on you, but for whatever reason, Shannon skipped that step and checked on me right away. That was a kindness, since my go-to position for this labor so far had been hands-and-knees, and most definitely not sitting in a bed! “I’m probably 4-5cm dilated,” I had predicted to John in the parking lot earlier, but I was trying to guess low. Shannon tilted her head and looked up at the corner of the room as she evaluated me. “6 cm!” she declared. Yay! That cervical check would be the one-and-only of my entire pregnancy and birth—also a big yay. Shannon looked over my birth plan and we discussed my eagerness to try the tub this time! A middle-aged nurse with an elegant updo and an equally elegant accent helped direct me to the labor room and handed me off to a cheerful young nurse with brown hair named Katie, who would be my labor nurse. She started the multi-stage process of sanitizing the tub for me while I settled onto a birth ball in the labor room. She hooked me up to the wireless telemetry monitoring system and started my IV antibiotics for Group B Strep. I was grateful that, even now, no one was pressuring me to be in a bed. The ball was so much more comfortable.
Abi and then Johannah arrived, and we took some photos and enjoyed chatting about law school and home school. I had to pause and breathe during contractions, leaning into John’s arms, but mostly it felt like we were simply enjoying a nice afternoon visit with company! By the time my monitoring and infusion were complete and I was free to move to a different position, my greatest desire was to go to the bathroom and get a little more decently dressed. John helped me walk over and I had two contractions in the little room which were fairly hard. The birth ball relieves so much of the heaviness!
When I came out with John’s help, we considered what position I should try next. The tub was ready and swirling—all 8 or so inches of it. It was a nice idea, but I couldn’t imagine lying on my back right then in such a small place. I wanted to be on hands-and-knees but looked askance at the hospital floor and didn’t want to be flying around in the air on top of the bed. Johannah had a few different ideas, and in the end we settled me on the birth ball again, at the foot of the bed this time so I could rest my head on pillows.
It was now approaching 6 pm. I had been at 6 cm 2-3 hours earlier, but noone was remarking that it was “taking so long!” or anything like that. Actually, they were hoping to get me fully dosed on antibiotics for GBS before the birth. I do remember clearly thinking around this point that labor is not fun at all, and wondering why I ever had happy feelings about it!
“Do you want tea?” I specifically remember when Johannah asked me this because I was so pleasantly surprised. “There’s tea?!” She went to hunt some down. Of course the hospital selection wasn’t that impressive; I resolved to pack my own teabags for any future births. But what she did bring back was warm and comforting. A great idea.
Contractions were getting more and more intense and starting to get past me, so I requested the nitrous oxide. A man wheeled it in after a few minutes to have me sign consent forms and learn how to use it. They started to ask me to sit on the bed, but the instant I stood up from the ball, I sat back down. The difference was immense. “We normally ask the mom to stay in bed,” Katie said, “but with your experience…” She turned to John and Johannah, “one of you just keep your hands on her. And please promise me that you’ll climb up on the bed when it’s time to push!” The machine’s tubing just barely stretched to my spot at the foot of the bed, but it was a winning combination: birth ball, nitrous oxide and somebody squeezing my hips from behind. I could feel the contractions, but they were small—way down deep inside instead of overwhelming. I was basically whoozy and just flopped onto my pillows between contractions. I remember taking off my glasses and Johannah’s hand was there to take them without me saying anything. I think we were here for about four contractions, when suddenly
“I HAVE TO PUSH I HAVE TO PUSH I HAVE TO PUSH!”
I could feel the baby’s head RIGHT THERE and immediately flopped my belly right onto the bed and crawled up. John helped me get settled. Suddenly there was an unfamiliar female voice saying “My name is Dr. —- and I’m going to help you deliver your baby” but it turned out that we had a little more time than that. There had been a shift change, and midwife Kathy appeared very soon and asked “Do you want to birth the baby on your hands and knees?” “YES!” I replied, because moving at all did not sound comfortable or even possible. She then clearly explained that they would pass the baby up through my legs after she was born and then help me move to my back.
I was pushing! John had one hand and Johannah the other, and she was praying for me! They were there with sips of water for me. It took about four contractions to push her out—I always like to take my time with this. “I see eyes!” Kathy soon reported. And then on the next contraction, “There’s a mouth! She’s blowing bubbles!” I think she was also telling me to push more and harder, but she didn’t give a reason for this advice, so I stuck with what felt natural. Her head and shoulders emerged, and I still had another push to get the rest of her body out, which felt very long!
Finally done! They passed her through my legs as promised and Abi took a powerful image of that first hug. Then they helped me turn over and lie down, and we announced that her name was Susanna Providence! She was blue, so they told me to rub her, and the baby nurse who had come in started helping. Rubbing, rubbing, rubbing. I started to be afraid that something was wrong, but she soon pinked up.
“Wow, sweetie! You did great!” John whispered in my ear, and I was so pleased! It was really the only birth without the wailing and the feelings of being overwhelmed and out of control at any point at all.
After a while, John went home to help Becca put the girls to bed, but Johannah stayed with me, which was so nice. She was there to layer on extra socks and blankets when I was cold and call the menu line to order me food. She had to keep calling because there was a long line of callers waiting—I would have given up in the post-birth exhaustion and just focused on the baby, so it was a real blessing to have her do that. In the meantime she gave me the peanut butter and honey sandwich she had packed for herself. I came away strongly impressed that doulas are wonderful.
After the two hours of bonding and breastfeeding (thankfully there was no tearing again and no stitches needed!), the nurses started prepping us to move to a mother-baby room. It was time to weigh Susanna! They asked me how big I thought she was—“I don’t know, 8 pounds like her sisters?” They laid her on the scale—4.535kg. I didn’t have a sense for what that meant until they converted it. 10 pounds! On the dot! My biggest baby (by more than a pound) was also my easiest delivery. The midwife said she was impressed and I was so thankful. The whole birth team had been amazing and the Lord had just been so kind.
I’ve expressed some of these thoughts in Lilly’s birth story, my fifth birth, which I went into with the prospect of nitrous oxide and without a doula. I fully expected it to be rather easy, as well, and it wasn’t. Of course there are many points of differences between births and comparisons are mostly speculative. Still, I came home from Lilly’s birth determined that I would never again attempt an unmedicated birth without a doula. I think she made a significant difference. Volunteer doula programs like the one at UNC are amazing! And yet we know that the easiness of Susanna Providence’s birth, and all the factors contributing to that, were truly gifts from our God of Providence, who is always “looking out for” His children’s needs better than we could look out for our own. He must have had different reasons and lessons behind Lillian’s birth, but I know that He was still taking care of me and always will.
