On the evening of Dec. 8th, I was a week past my due date.
I was oscillating between feelings of peace that baby would know when to come, and anxiety that somehow, the moment would never arrive.
We had had brunch at Bandida's earlier that day, after my second stretch and sweep at the hospital to try and get things going. We ate corn bread muffins with honeyed butter. He and I at the corner table, with a view of the Drive. Then, a cold, cold walk around Trout Lake to wake baby up. When we walked across the crosswalk at 12th, my insides twinged for several seconds -- not unlike a cramp. I brushed it off as nothing, it felt so small and miniscule, and instead worried that the sweep hadn't worked, the walk hadn't worked, that baby would need a jumpstart from the hospital to arrive. At 10 days overdue, they recommend starting the induction process and I only had 3 days left. My due date felt like a deadline that this perfectionist was struggling to keep calm about.
I don't remember what I ate for dinner. But, I googled "what if I have to be medically induced?" before I went to bed. Fret, fret, fret. I really didn't want to be induced.
At 1am, I woke up feeling the same twinge-y cramps I had had on and off the day before. They had unceremoniously gone away many times previously, so I thought nothing of it. I lay awake in the dark, noticing these sensations ebb and flow.
At 3AM, Bryan woke up and I was squirmy, albeit stoic. Still brushing it off as nothing. He decided to time them, and they were irregular, but certainly not going away. He bit his tongue as I remained in denial about what was happening, and held my hand as the 'twinge-ys' (no, not contractions -- they couldn't be contractions, right?) got more intense.
In the pitch black night, we decided to forgo the bed for the couch, and I remember seeing the dense fog surround the houses and trees outside our window, and heard a gang of teenagers party and holler across the street at the elementary school.
I remember thinking, is this it? It can't be. It feels alien, but also normal and not out of control like it looks in the movies.
"This is not like what it is in the movies" was to be a refrain that echoed in my head for many moment of this birth.
B lay on the rug at my feet, and clutched my hands above. I would close my eyes and try to rest in between the surges of intensity, and then arch my back and squeeze him tightly as they rose like a wave. So there we were, him falling back to sleep every 5 minutes, and then us both tensing and muscles coming alive as I gripped his palm for 90 seconds. Resting. Bracing. Resting. Bracing.
//
In the presence of fear, there might be a moment where you dig your heels in and decide to stay and fight.
I learned sometime during that hour that I had powerful tools at the ready. From my time in theatre, I had my breath and my double-bass resonator from deep in my belly. So every time a contraction threatened to knock me over, I would reach down deep and ommm like a didgeridoo. (A more beautiful image than a cow, but yes. That too.) It was something to concentrate on, and it let me not unravel completely. There was an urge to panic and shriek, but the deepness of that resonance reminded me of ritual, of prayer, of strength.
From my time now as a counsellor, I had my mind. I let it be my ally instead of my foe. I repeated to myself variations of:
I can do this.
I am doing this.
Each one done is another step to meeting baby.
I envisioned that I was a bird, or a surfer, cresting this wave. In these visions, I was strong and powerful and free.
I think what I was doing, really, was surrendering.
Something I had read when I was really scared of labour helped. I tried to experience the sensations of the pain and contractions, without being tied up in the suffering part of it.
Surrender, without suffering.
Daylight arrived.
I had retreated to the bedroom to distract myself from the steadily increasing-in-pain-holy-fuck 'twinges' by watching Sex in the City on old, scratched DVDs on my lap top. I couldn't concentrate, and as I struggled to keep up with the old familiarity of Carrie and Big, the surges were starting to take my breath away. I cried. I shut off the lap top.
It seems ridiculous to type this, but I still didn't think this was labour.
Labour. It's so big. It's what you have been waiting 9 months to reach. So when it arrives, and there's no omniscient narrator announcing: this is it!, a person like me can't be sure. I mean, Bryan was sure. But you don't listen to your spouse when important things are happening, do you?
I began to need to be doubled over on my knees, bracing against whatever furniture was nearby. An aerial shot tracking us might see B trailing me from couch, to bed, to chair, to baby's new dresser, back to bed.
He said: I called the doula.
I asked: Why?
Reinforcements showed up. Sister and Ken with grapes, miso soup, cookies. They heard me groaning, human, stripped of social niceties, as they came up the stairs. Becka, our doula, arrived simultaneously. Everyone was hushed, reverent. Later, they likened the feeling of the moment to be holy like a temple. I was of two minds: half embarrassed to be sounding so vulnerable within earshot of other human beings, half beyond caring about anything of this world.
I was getting close to labourland.
Becka got busy as she came into the nursery, where I was bracing against contractions by myself. She gave me strong, loving counterpressure during every contraction. They were surging pretty intensely by now. At one point, with her hand on my back, she said you know -- it's totally your call, but I think we could start heading to the hospital.
The hospital? I wondered. Already? It was about noon. She reassured me that given how hard I had been working since 3am, she would be surprised if they turned me away at this point (my fear.)
I said. Ok. Let's go.
Bryan breathed a sigh of relief. (He had not been successful thus far in convincing me to go.)
Things began to move in fast forward as soon as I made the decision. There was a flurry of activity and packing the car. I remember sipping my miso from a yellow mug.
I clung to my sister, and wept a bit. I was so tired. She shouldered my tears, and gave me strength to be strong some more.
We got into the car; me in front, B at the wheel, Becka in the back. I waved goodbye to my family on the sidewalk. Or maybe I didn't-- I don't know. Things are fuzzy at this point. I remember thinking, things will be different when I see you next. It was sunny outside, and I remember a couple walking leisurely down the sidewalk. It was bizarre to me that the world was still spinning, people were still living life, when ours was so clearly being blown wide open.
Lowering myself into the passenger seat, was difficult, to say the least.
I sealed my eyes shut. Contractions began to come rapidly, fairly close together as B began to drive. He steered us calmly, and with great intention. I continued to make very, very loud sounds. As we would roll up to stop signs, I imagined with a certain degree of horror that pedestrians and cyclists were gaping at the groaning pregnant lady in the green subaru. I willed myself to keep on being above the judgement of others, that it would make for a neat anecdote if passersby had the opportunity to witness this National Geographic moment in action.
(Later, when we compared notes, B said that we literally never stopped alongside a single soul.)
This was the longest car ride of my life. Somehow, Oak street felt like hours away as I felt every speed bump.
//
I don't have any pictures of these next moments as we arrived to Women's hospital. Maybe you can just imagine the comedy of Bryan filling in our paperwork and other people making small talk, business as usual, as I held both fists against the wall, wailing from deep in my soul. The juxtaposition of this versus that, struck me as ridiculous even as I breathed through the pain.
It was like, I hurt so much, I wonder how other people are still standing upright? Shouldn't we all be writhing on the floor?
My midwife examined me. I was 6-7 cm dilated. We would be staying. Baby was going to meet us, possibly even today.
From that fluorescent room, a wheelchair was summoned and B pushed me as my entourage followed closely behind. It is really difficult to endure contractions when you are sitting down in a wheelchair.
I remember my midwife whistling, and I felt a hot and annoyed at this detail.
WHY ARE PEOPLE NOT ALL WRITHING IN PAIN.
We finally got to our birthing suite, and through my squinted eyes, I noted how big and roomy it was. With relief, I got into the tub after Becka ran me a warm bath. B set up a picture of baby in belly, and our salt lamp, and left to pay for 2 hours of parking.
Midwife continued to hum under her breath. I tried to ignore her.
I sank into the water, and felt my whole body shift. The lights were dim in the room, and Becka and B continued to talk softly to me.
You are safe.
You can do this.
You are doing everything exactly right.
After each affirmation, I would repeat it to myself. It was my lifeline when the pain started getting very, very dark for me. I couldn't open my eyes any longer, and my voice was increasing in pitch and fear. Even surrounded by people, including the love of my life, I felt very alone. Not in a sad way, but in a -- no one but you is going to do this thing, so you're going to have to do this thing, alone-- kind of way.
During the huge contractions, I would struggle to flip around in the water to get on my hands and knees. After each one, I would turtle myself back to floating, facing the ceiling, exhausted.
At one point, I felt something torpedo out of me during a contraction with tremendous force, and I yelped. Is it the baby?
No baby. My midwife, with a look of concern on her face, said maybe it's time you get out of that tub. I think your water just broke.
My water had broken underwater.
//
Things moved swiftly at this point.
I rose, unsteadily to my feet in the tub. I stepped out. Towels were wrapped around me. As I moved a footstep towards the bed, I shuddered with the supernova of a massive contraction.
Midwife became a warrior, a general in a battle, and said: you get over to this bed right now. You are not having another contraction. You are not going to have your baby on this floor.
Yes ma'am. Thank god, she had become in charge.
I climbed, with help, onto the bed. I faced the wall as everyone else huddled behind and around me. B's hand was ever ready on my back, or trying to offer me coconut water. I was oblivious to everything except for the pressure mounting within me.
There was wailing. I will not lie to you and say that it didn't hurt. It is the weirdest mix of being as close to death and birth in the same breath, as I have ever known. I felt like I was going to die, that I might be in mortal danger, while simultaneously feeling like I would never feel this alive again.
Midwife said, when baby comes, I want you to reach down and we will pass baby towards you.
Later, as we compared notes again, B and I shared the same sentiment and bewilderment that she was saying this to us now. I literally had just begun feeling pushing sensations, and we both thought that it would take a long time. Like in the movies. The hours of pushing, you know? So we were like, you are so weird. Tell us that later, when it's time.
10 minutes after this sentence, and a few pushes later, I felt the ring of fire.
Oh my Lord, I thought. She was right. From my reading, I knew the ring of fire feeling meant that baby's head was crowning. BABY'S HEAD WAS CROWNING.
She told me that I was a good pusher. Too good. On the next urge, she wanted me to pant instead, to slow down. I tried my best. It is really hard to slow down a bowling bowl that has begun to make its quick descent down the ramp, man.
Suddenly, midwife motioned for Bryan to come over to my rear. I heard Bryan shout: Oh my god!
He was seeing the top of baby's head.
In a blur of heat and sound and electric bolts and lava and volcano and adrenaline, I pushed one last time, reached in between my legs, and they placed what felt like a slippery sack of jello in my arms.
I don't think our 2 hours of parking had run out yet. It was 3 o'clock on a sunny afternoon.
I could smell time stopping, or taste time, or was touching it. I had never felt more like I was knee deep in the present moment, as I gingerly flipped back over with this warm, sticky bundle in my arms.
I peered down as the feeling of jello became the vision of a real, gorgeous, pink, squirming little baby with fingers, and toes, and just oh my god.
Oh, my new God.
That face says everything, doesn't it?
Looking down at that beautiful being was the most human moment I've ever had in my life. All of the pain receded into the background, I had no awareness of how many staff were in the room with us, and I just drank in the little nose, the rosebud mouth, the darkest eyes.
I was dumbstruck by the knowledge that I was holding my baby while my husband stood beside me.
Someone asked, is it a boy or a girl?
We had forgotten that that even mattered. Bryan looked down and said, it's a boy.
Our boy!
(I knew it.)
A note on being a woman:
I felt so high, for so long after this. Never mind the extensive tear and millions of stitches because of how fast he came out. I had faced a fear and my body had reclaimed a birthright that womankind is more than capable of. It was as if this act had erased every moment in my life previously that I had ever felt weak, or small, or powerless.
What I want to say to you is: I am powerful beyond measure.
Do you hear me, women? What I am saying is also: you are powerful beyond measure.
No matter how your babies come into this world.
What still can bring tears to my eyes, three months after the fact, is just how strong and awe-inspiring our bodies are, and how under celebrated this fact is. WE GROW HUMANS IN OUR BODIES. WE THEN (MAYBE) PUSH HUMANS OUT OF OUR BODIES. Why is the world not run by women?
I will try really hard to never doubt my power again.
In regards to birth announcements, I was careful not to say: my baby was born on...
Friends. I birthed my beautiful, dreamy baby on December 9th.
Because, holy fuck. That verb is in the active tense, not the passive tense. Ok?
So that's it. The birth story of Kai Bennett Liu-Green.
But as I finish writing this, I also think: it is the birth story of a woman named Joann Liu.
