I wandered around Manhattan (for the first time since Em was born) with my dear friend Nico on Saturday. We had lunch outside at a café near Union Square and shopped until near exhaustion. (It was damn hot.) I got home just in time to watch the sky attack Brooklyn for several hours; the thunderstorms were awesome.

Unfortunately, due to uncertainty about where we’ll be living come December, I came home with only a ten dollar pair of sunglasses from Feline’s Basement and a small Father’s Day gift for Toby. (He enjoys making us both jam and cheese plates. I thought the nerd in him might find it funny as he sometimes writes code on graph paper.) I wanted to buy a whole lot more.

We had lunch with Brad and Laura yesterday. They are expecting a baby in July. She looks amazing, far better than I whenever I was that far along. Even her ankles looked great! Being with a pregnant woman made me realize how much I miss being pregnant. (Did I just write that out loud?)

I think I’m feeling this way lately because I’m nearing the time Em was born and will therefore fully exit a year of no longer being pregnant. I’m not sure if that makes any sense at all. I call this “The Overlap”. And usually, it’s a good thing. It usually helps me to get over something. For example, say a certain song reminds you of someone whom is no longer in your life making it difficult to hear. “The Overlap” requires listening to that song under new circumstances, with new people so that new memories are created.

I do this with food, smells, songs, periods of time, breakups, vacations, friendships, loyalties, bars, cities, towns, and now apparently pregnancies.

In this instance, however, it makes me a little sad. I’m really going to miss not being able to say, “Last year at this time, I was fully of happy hormones” or “Ndugu was kicking the shit out of me last year at this time!”

I’m not sure if that makes any sense. Maybe I’m a little nuts.

(Note to self: Must bookmark this post so that if I ever do become pregnant again I can go back at 8 months and read it and make fun of myself.)

This week should prove pretty pleasant. On Thursday we have dinner reservations at Gramercy Tavern. My mother is going to come for the day and watch Em. Toby and I are both looking forward to the night out, so much so, we passed on two R.E.M. tickets because the show conflicted with our dinner plans. A younger me would have kicked my ass for this. I simply adore R.E.M. I can’t even begin to tell you how much they mean/meant to me. But I think perhaps my older brother is the only person who will realize how crazy the choice I made really is.

I know this doesn’t make me very popular, but right now, I’d much prefer a quiet night out with my husband at a fine restaurant over standing in Madison Square Garden surrounded by thousands of other people who may or may not really give a damn about the band before them.

The times? They have a-changed, whether I agreed or not.

^{You should read this in order. Previous Chapters: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7}

Enough people have written me email or have left comments about my birth story to warrant some clarification.

For starters, I want everyone to know that when I think about my experience giving birth to Emory, I don’t think about it as a negative one. For me to see it as negative, something would have had to go wrong with Emory. And he was happy! His heartbeat never took a turn. He was totally fine throughout the entire ordeal.

I also want to talk about why I was induced. I have always had a steady blood pressure. My doctors have always described my blood pressure as perfect. So, whenever things drastically changed so much at week 40 my doctor was rightly concerned. Not only was I off the charts where blood pressure was concerned, but I was seeing little white fireflies in my peripheral every time I stood up. My doctor (who I trust with my life and my baby’s) decided it was time to take action. She gave me four days go “get things going”. If I came in after those four days and still had problems with my blood pressure, we should talk about scheduling an induction. Guess what? Four days later, things were worse.

I would not have scheduled an induction had there not been a medical reason for it. I was miserable toward the end, sure, but my discomfort wasn’t reason enough to induce. Because of my deteriorating health, Emory was at risk as well.

I also need to mention that I never really had a birth plan. A couple of people asked me why I never came up with one. I put a lot of faith in my doctors throughout my entire pregnancy and looked to them to decide what I should do. I felt both my baby and me were in excellent hands the entire time. While the actual labor may not have come off as smoothly as I may have liked, Emory was in very capable hands. I really believe that. Even when he was admitted into the NICU I felt he was safe and looked after. I will say this much: if we ever do have another baby, I won’t think twice about going back to that hospital. I would like to see that evil desk clerk fired first, but otherwise, I have no complaints.

More than a few people have hinted both passively and aggressively that I would have had a better time with a “natural” childbirth. That very well might be true. We’ll never know. But I get annoyed with how loosely the term “natural” is thrown around. In order for anyone to correctly use a word, we need a common definition. When does something become unnatural? Is human action, presence, or influence the source of the distinction? Medicine? And if it’s medicine at what point do you draw the line between “natural” medicine and all other? My point is that your definition of “natural” probably varies from another’s. Is anesthesia natural? How about using acupuncture as an anesthesia? Ice is pretty natural, right? How about being submerged in ice before a medical procedure? The truth is, the word “natural” is an empty rhetorical trick used to mask a lack of clarity or spin a simpler and more concrete distinction in favor of one side over another.

I think what people mean to say when using the word “natural” is without the use of pain management drugs or an epidural. In such a case, it would be more productive to use a term such as “birth without pain management drugs.”

I did not choose to go about childbirth without the epidural. I was frightened. I hadn’t ever done anything like it before. I hadn’t been around women who had. I know of two people who nearly lost a baby because the baby swallowed meconium during labor. And still one more person very close to me lost a baby this way. I couldn’t imagine going through nine months of pregnancy, growing attached to a baby only to see it die. The idea still terrifies me. Also, there are no known downsides to the use of modern pain management drugs aside from stepping on the toes of ideologues.

One person asked me if I felt that having doula would have made things different. I don’t know. I asked my mother to be there for my labor and delivery because she went through all three childbirths differently. My older brother was born by use of an epidural. My mother was induced for me and she was then given both narcotics and an epidural. (Which is the most preferred state when dealing with me.) And my younger brother was born without the use of any drugs or anesthesia at all. I felt (and still feel) that she was a perfect person to have around. I also wanted to share it with her. Had I been able to have more than two people in the delivery room I may have entertained the idea of hiring a doula. But it never came to that. I knew from the beginning that I wanted both my mother and my husband in the room with me.

Looking back, however, it would have been nice to have a person I’m not close to around to tell me that what I was going through and how I was feeling was perfectly normal especially after the baby was born. I really beat myself up for weeks following Emory’s birth. If doulas can be hired for that purpose, I suppose it may have been helpful. But I always thought that the doula’s role is to keep a woman from agreeing to something during childbirth that she may not have agreed to under more rational circumstances. Since I didn’t have a birth plan and I’m known for changing my mind and wholeheartedly believing in said change, a doula sounded like she could become more annoying than helpful. I’m stubborn and rather pigheaded when I need to be. I probably would have pissed off a doula and fired her midway through my labor. (Granted, this is all based on what I have heard a doula is hired for. I could very well be proven wrong about a doula’s role in all of this.)

If it’s NOT a doula’s role to make a woman feel as normal and comfortable as humanly possible after giving birth, there is a huge market for a person like this. I really could have used NOT a lactation consultant, NOT a birthing coach, NOT a midwife, I could have used a sane someone who’s been there before. I would have benefited from someone telling me that it’s OK if I can’t get the hang of breastfeeding. It’s OK if I am afraid to hold the baby right away. It’s OK that I feel like I dismantled any previous version of my life and that one day I would learn to how live the new one. I wanted someone to grab a hold of my head, shake it clean and let me know that everything I was going through was entirely normal and the sadness would one day subside. Instead, that role was filled by several hundred voices from the Internet.

If we do have another baby, I will likely go about things differently. I would like to avoid being induced unless it’s absolutely necessary. If my blood pressure raises again as it did with this pregnancy, I might asked to be watched closely by a doctor to make sure we’re both ok instead of being induced. If it doesn’t work out that way, I might ask that they NOT give me the epidural until I am further dilated. (The reason they didn’t give me enough Pitocin the first time was because they had no way of judging how intense my contractions were.) If that can’t be done, I might ask for the internal monitor from the get go so they can judge how much more Pitocin to administer.

And yes, for all those out there with a boner for a childbirth without the use of narcotics or an epidural, I might give that a try as well. Now that I know what happens, now that I’m no longer terrified to give birth, I might give it a shot. Who knows. I don’t want to make an absolute plan. If there is one thing I learned from all of this is that all of it is entirely unpredictable. I planned on so many things before I actually had the baby and when I returned home with him, I was barely able to accomplish one of them. And the seeming failures made me feel even more depressed. I really beat myself up over my failures and spent little time rejoicing in having a baby.

If you take anything away from this post and the 7 chapters I wrote over the last couple of weeks it’s the following statement:

The mental aftermath hurt far worse than the days I spent in the hospital.

And I went through that both drug and epidural free.

^{Previous Chapters: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6}

It was 2:30 AM and I was exhausted. My body shook uncontrollably. My mother had warned me about it earlier. I was ready for it to happen, but I wasn’t ready for it to happen before I gave birth. No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t get the shaking to stop.

“Breathe, Michele. Practice what we learned during Lamaze class. Do your hee hoos.” TobyJoe began to breathe. I thought about my favorite yoga instructor Kyra and everything she taught me about relaxation. I followed his lead. After about a minute of hee hoo-ing, my body stopped shaking. But as soon as I thought about it, it would start up all over again. From that point forward, I decided to go about things as mindlessly as possible.

While I concentrated on my breathing, the doctors and nurses filed into the room. It was like something out of broadway play. They were so well rehearsed, so organized, the finest ballet dancers haven’t ever been so in sync. Some wheeled in equipment, others brought in clean towels. Each person had a specific role in this organized production. Not one person ran into another, they just reacted, or acted. Before I knew it, a mess of people were all around me. Dr. Kauffman, my 7-months pregnant doctor, sat down at the foot of my bed. My husband stood at my right knee, my mother up near my head. The doctor who talked me into staying 27 hours earlier stood by my left knee. Still others milled about the room waiting for their cue. Someone had opened up the adjoining room – the room where Emory would be cleaned and warmed. They were ready. But was I?

Earlier, I had been told that it would take me three hours to push. I prepared myself for that. I asked the nurse if I could have a Pedialyte ice pop for strength. I wondered if the ice would feel good against my heartburn as well. Toward the very end, the heartburn became unbearable. And the pain made me nauseous. I looked at the clock. It was after 3. The baby would be with us by dawn. I hoped.

I saw a bolt of lightning from outside. “Was that lightning? Is it storming?”

“It’s really bad out there. There’s thunder, lightning. It’s torrential.” Someone assured me.

It was a perfect backdrop, the greatest of encores, for that particular performance.

Everyone took their position. The doctor instructed all the newcomers (my husband and my mother) what their roles were. The woman at my left knee told me what I had to do and when I had to do it.

The last 45 minutes I spent pregnant exist in my memory in pieces. I don’t recollect things in any definitive order. I know that it took me a few times before I understood how to push. At first I was afraid to push too hard because it felt like I had to take a massive crap. (Which is exactly what’s supposed to happen.) Between contractions, I grabbed an ice pop or the oxygen mask. But nothing became more glorious than sucking on that damned ice pop. It was my reward for every other push. The oxygen was a have-to. I ate two popsicles before getting Emory out. They were the best things I had ever eaten.

If the birth of Emory had consisted of only the last couple of hours I would have had the greatest birth story tell. I had an epidural, sure. But the right hand side of my body felt everything. I mentioned before that this became a blessing in disguise. It ensured that I work harder because it hurt. And since I had feeling, I also knew when each contraction was coming before the machine beeped letting the doctors know.

I had worked myself up over labor. And it didn’t end up being that hard for me. It didn’t hurt as much as I would have thought. (Although, I am sure had I been totally epidural free, it would have hurt a whole lot more.) I had prepared myself for something terrifically difficult and painful. And it simply wasn’t. When it came time to push, I had something to focus on, something real. I was no longer a spectator of my own labor; I became an active participant in the production.

It took me 45 minutes to get Emory out. I think we counted 9 pushes. That included the amount of time it took to get the hang of it. For me, the pushing part of labor wasn’t difficult at all; it was the induction, the wait, the failure to get things going, the hunger, the heartburn, the wait again, all of that proved very trying and difficult.

On push 8 in room eight, the doctor asked me if I wanted to look at Emory, whose head was almost completely outside of my body. I said no. But then my mind turned on again and it sent me a message, “Do this. How often do you get to see a human head poking out of your vagina?” So I did. I looked down. And that’s the first time I saw Emory.

He looked just like you’d imagine, which is to say freakishly weird and alien. He looked unreal. His head was a little beat up. But he was alive and well and it was only a matter of time before I was to hold him.

Push 9 was the last push. I felt him come swooshing out along with a lot of other stuff I won’t talk about. They held him up. I looked at the umbilical cord, which was shockingly beautiful. It looked like blown glass – a piece of perfectly purplish spiral-blown glass.

“Do you want to cut the cord?” Dr Kauffman asked Toby.

“Sure.”

Emory was freed from me by the man who helped me create him. He was wrapped in a blanket and then immediately placed on my belly. There wasn’t a tear in sight or a sound in range. He just looked up at me with those great big dark eyes.

“You are perfect. You are perfect. Hello, little person! You are perfect! It’s so nice to meet you! Hello!”

And then he was gone again.

The room looked like something out of an episode of CSI. It was that messy, like, over the top messy, staged even. Blood was everywhere. It was a mess. Earlier, one of the nurses made Toby lay on some sheets. She had joked about what she had seen on the floor of that very room. We laughed at the time. But, wow! Was she ever right. It looked like someone had died a gruesome death. There were clots, red towels, red gauze. The characters that had filed in so perfectly earlier were now covered head to toe in blood. Until that moment, I had no idea how much birth could resemble death. Replace tears with smiles and gasps of shock with gasps of joy and you have birth.

As they stitched me up, I fell back into my pillow and I looked toward the window again. I let out a sigh. The city was being beaten by thunder and struck by lightning. A tornado touched down in Brooklyn for the first time in a century. The subway tunnels flooded. Millions of people were rudely awaken by that storm.

And in a room on the 4th floor of a hospital along the East River, my son Emory was making his first appearance on a stage called life.

^{Part of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). I will continue this story every day until it’s finished. Each chapter will live in a section titled The Birth of Emory.}