The day I became a mom.
DISCLAIMER: I wrote this essay for my daughter but given there are not enough positive stories about giving birth I decided to make it public.
It was my dear friend Becca who changed my perspective on giving birth because when I had asked her how she felt a few weeks before her due date, she said that she was looking forward to giving birth. I hope that this story will change your perspective on giving birth. I’m excited for you.
They sometimes call it orgasmic birth. Somehow it feels like, once you manage to actually let go of wanting to be in control, birth is very close to what an orgasm feels like. Obviously, giving birth hurts. But giving birth is also an indescribable, intense feeling. Almost feels like stepping through a gate to a space in the unconscious.
And now to the actual story…
My very first trial contractions appeared about 2 weeks before my calculated due date. I’d heard that they feel like period cramps, and they definitely do. Very light ones. I ended up having these trial contractions almost every day. For a few hours. Sometimes they’d be every 7 to 8 minutes. Then every 12 minutes. Usually, they started at about 4 or 6 p.m. and then go at a pace of between 8 and 10 minutes. It was – I won’t lie – frustrating.
At first, I always thought, “Tonight must be the night!” After a week, I kind of knew that probably tonight wouldn’t be the night either.
I started texting with my friends that had given birth before. “How does it feel?” “Will she come soon?” I had so many questions. It was my friend Sarah from Salzburg who said something that eventually put me at ease. She said that every contraction during the latency phase is one less during the actual birth. It was what her midwife had told her. A balm to any birthing woman’s soul. And in my case, it turned out to be true, too.
My last appointment with my midwife was on the 23rd of April. I was really hoping I’d give birth before my actual due date because I didn’t want to go to my gynecologist for another checkup. In Germany, it’s normal to get a checkup on the due date and then every 3 to 4 days to monitor the health of the placenta and the amount of the amniotic fluid and to check on the general health and wellbeing of both mama and baby.
By that time, we were already in waiting mode. Mickey’s mama was arriving the next day to help with the household, with cooking, and with our baby during the first couple of days. So I was really hoping Rivet would join us soon. Yet, despite the (ir)regular contractions, I still found myself on the bus crossing the city for my last prenatal checkup at the gynecologist on the 28th.
“Your blood pressure is too high and you’ll have to get a checkup at the hospital on Saturday because we’re not open on the weekends. Please call them to make sure they’ll perform a CTG.”
So I called and got an appointment on Saturday. The latest COVID-19 rules were to come tested on the same day and – most of all – to come alone. Now, I had 2 more days to kill. Wait. Entertain myself.
On the 29th of April around 4 p.m. – just one day after my due date – I started getting contractions again. They were slightly more regular. Nevertheless, they too stopped around 10 p.m. At that moment, I no longer knew if I should laugh or cry. I had that happen so many times in the past few weeks.
However, this night turned out to be different.
I woke up again at 2:30 a.m. with contractions that were much more regular, every 10 minutes. And so I turned to Dr. Google, looking for an answer to what it means when a woman has regular contractions every 10 minutes. And there it was – for a woman giving birth for the first time, the latency phase takes about 20 hours. My contractions kept coming until the morning, so it felt like the birth was finally starting.
I learned during the birth preparation course that you shouldn’t interrupt this process because the body will just pause the process of giving birth. And so at 7 a.m. I called the hospital and asked if I really needed to come in. I told them that I thought we’d see each other that day anyway.
The midwife on the phone insisted. Given this appointment was requested by my gynecologist, they had no choice but to see me. And so I told Mickey he had to come with me – first to the testing station and then to the hospital. I was in no place to travel alone. I really needed support. We called an Uber, tested for corona, then called another Uber that took us to the hospital.
The midwife’s shift started at 10 a.m., just like my scheduled appointment. Franziska checked on Rivet’s heartbeat, on my blood pressure. She looked at whether my cervix was already opening. It wasn’t. Then the gynecologist performed an ultrasound and drew my blood one last time to check my iron levels. She also asked me to come back for another CTG on Monday at 9 a.m., which is when they’d decide if they needed to induce me. However, she also said that if I didn’t feel safe at home, if my water broke or if my blood pressure was higher than 160, I should come back immediately.
On the way out, the midwife Franziska said: “I have a feeling I’ll see you again today!”
“When does your shift end tonight?” I asked.
“At 6 p.m.”
“Alright,” I thought to myself, “at least someone believes Rivet could make an appearance tonight.” Even though, at that moment, my contractions were pretty much gone. It was just like they said: If you interrupt a woman in labor, the labor will likely stop. It did.
When we got home, Mickey had to get a blood pressure measuring device for me so that we could monitor my heart rate as advised. In the hour he was gone, my contractions not only came back – they intensified. I was sitting in bed and I was struggling. Mickey knew something was up when he rushed in. He immediately attached the device to my arm, and we both looked at the alarming number of 164. At the same time, the app where I was keeping track of my contractions pushed a notification that I’ve had regular contractions every 4 or 5 minutes for over 30 minutes and better call the hospital.
If this wasn’t it, I didn’t know what would be.
And so I picked up the phone for the second time that day and called the hospital. Luckily, it was Franziska who answered. It felt so soothing to hear a familiar voice.
When I told her what was happening, she said we should pack and come in immediately.
“At least have a banana,” Mickey said. After first opposing, I eventually gave in and followed his order so that we’d just leave. I ate what felt like the most disgusting piece of fruit ever. But at least he was happy.
We then called a taxi for the second time that day. Mickey helped me put on shoes, and we brought our snack-filled suitcase and the empty car seat down. Standing by the side of the road. In the middle of the day. Mickey holding all our things while I was just bent over holding onto my belly.
“Is today the day?” our upstairs neighbor that usually takes our packages when we aren’t home shouted at us.
“I think so,” I said with a painful smile. I was just so happy when the car parked in the middle of the road, immediately understanding our situation.
Those 7 minutes in the cab were some of the most uncomfortable of my life. I was hoping my contractions wouldn’t stop again. But I didn’t want to make too many sounds either, knowing the taxi driver must have felt very uncomfortable about the situation.
At the hospital, Franziska was already awaiting us. She asked me to join her in the room next to the entrance. It was a yellow room with an examination bench, a bathtub, and a toilet behind a curtain. She asked me to lie down for another CTG before asking whether my partner was here. She then brought him in.
Afterwards, Mickey said that seeing me facing the wall, clearly in pain, made him very sad and helpless. He didn’t know if anything was wrong. And so he walked over and touched me gently on the head.
“I’ll have to do a PCR test,” Franziska said before putting a stick inside my mouth.
“Franziska, I’ll puke.”
She immediately handed me a plastic bag.
“One more.”
I puked some more, and the banana Mickey made me eat before we left the house came out. Finally. It felt like it had been stuck in my tubes. The puking was a relief.
After another vaginal examination, Franziska said that I was already 2 centimeters open and suggested I take a bath. I agreed immediately. Given we don’t have one at home, there was nothing I wanted more than to lie in hot water. She filled up the tub and added some lavender oil. Meanwhile, Mickey turned on music. Franziska turned off the lights. We were alone and listening to Kamari & Manvir’s “Chakras Awakening.”
Every time a contraction rolled over me, I sat up. Then I lied in the water again. We were in our own bubble. A bubble of intimacy and intensity. Franziska asked Mickey to press against my lower back whenever he saw I was having a contraction.
And so there we were. In perfect harmony. I sat up, Mickey pressed my back. I lied down again. Over and over again. Time played no role.
Eventually, I needed to pee, so I got out of the bathtub.
“Oh, good, you’re out already!” I heard Franziska from behind the curtain. She had just got back in, telling us I was in the tub for about 1 hour and 15 minutes. She then asked if she could check on me again.
“I have good news for you. You’re fully open already! You’ve done some work in that bathtub.” Usually, they say, for a woman giving birth for the first time, it takes the cervix about an hour per centimeter to open up. Somehow our perfect collaboration sped up the process by about 7 hours.
“I’ll now move you to the delivery room where you’ll have your baby. Our delivery rooms don’t have any windows because they’re in the middle of the building, so I’d suggest you take a walk to get some fresh air.”
The room we were in also had no windows. We didn’t know how late it was. We had no feeling for how it would be outside. Franziska saw I was hesitating and said: “It doesn’t have to be for long. You can just go around the block or into the garden on the backside of the hospital.”
However, I didn’t see myself facing other people at that moment, and I didn’t see myself having the strength to walk any significant distance.
“You know, fresh air sounds amazing. But I don’t think I’d manage.”
“Alright, would you like to have a water birth maybe?
“Oh, that does sound very nice,” I said.
“Okay, then let’s go to the other room.”
Luckily, the room was just opposite the one where we spent the first part of the birth, the phase better known as the opening phase. Now that my cervix was at 10 centimeters (fully open), the next stage of giving birth – the actual birthing – had started.
In this new room, there was the birthing chair – a big upholstered blue chair – and a huge birthing bathtub. Both had ropes hanging from them to pull yourself up. Then there was a bouncing ball and a chair for the partner. On the side next to the entrance door was a baby examination station with a light, a scale, etc. to perform the first checkup after the birth. On the wall was a big photograph of a flower. The lights here were dimmed, too.
Mickey brought over our things and left them in the corner. I started bouncing on the ball with my head down on the delivery chair.
Thinking back, it all feels very hazy. Every contraction felt like a wave. And with every contraction you know that the arrival of the baby is a little closer.
“I have to say goodbye now. It’s the end of my shift,” Franziska said to us. “My colleague will take over from now on. She’ll be with you in a few minutes. I’m just handing over my shift to her.”
We knew that it must be a little before 6 p.m. Maybe 5:30 p.m, which is the only “time stamp” we have.
“Hi, ich bin Sandra und ich werde euch durch die Geburt begleiten,” the new midwife said. She very quickly switched to English after she noticed Mickey and I speak English,, which made Mickey feel more comfortable.
I asked if I could go to the toilet, which was in the room we had just come from. However, it was occupied, so with my naked butt, I had to walk all the way to the gynecologist’s examination room on the other side of the corridor to pee.
Shortly after I returned from the toilet, I felt water on my feet. It couldn’t be pee. I just did that. So I said: “Sandra, I think my water broke. Yes, Sandra, I’m quite sure my water just broke.”
“Are you comfortable on the chair?” she asked.
Things started happening so fast. There was no time for a water birth because filling up that tub takes quite some time.
The gynecologist quietly arrived in our room. Turns out that a gynecologist must be present during the final stage of birth in Germany. Luckily, it was the same doctor that examined me in the morning. It was still her shift and probably the end of it. She was there with us to watch.
There were 3 reasons I decided to give birth at the Urban hospital:
It’s a midwife-led delivery room. The gynecologist assists the midwife and only steps in when asked to.
They have a very low C-section rate, which they even out with how often they use a suction cup to help speed up the birth at the end.
As a team, they have a really great sense of humor, which was very obvious during the info night I’d attended. Back then I already knew that if I was in pain, I at least wanted a team that really is a team and circumstances that make it unlikely I’ll need a C-section.
Once my water broke, I sat down on the chair. I was sitting up so that they could reach my vagina and check on the position of the baby. Then they asked me to kneel. Then I sat up again. The contractions were coming in waves; however, because I was in labor now, the conversation changed.
“When the next contraction comes, try to breathe through it. I’ll show you how,” Sandra said. She pulled her lips into a big U and breathed out loud. I followed. In the moment, I was glad I had done so much Kundalini because I understood the different forms of breathing. Yet I was also very glad Sandra just made me repeat all the things she was doing. It’s not like it’s easy to think clearly in the moment – or really to think at all.
Usually, when you hear conversations about giving birth, it’s a lot of pushing. Monitoring Rivet’s heartbeat, it kept dropping. So instead of pushing, I was advised to breathe through most of the contractions. “The next four contractions, please don’t push. The birth is going too fast for the baby. We need to slow it down for her.”
It’s so intense to breathe while your entire body wants nothing more than to push. But at the same time, knowing Rivet’s life was on the line, the seriousness of the moment gave me a mission. And so while my entire body wanted to push, I was manifesting not to but trying to really breathe as consciously as possible.
Obviously, there was a certain element of pain. But the responsibility, the intensity, the pressure were much more top of mind than whether it hurt or not. The pain was secondary. Rivet’s life and her healthy arrival was the most important thing in the universe.
“Okay, on the next contraction, you push for very long. When you feel it’s coming at you, you breathe in and then you push without stopping.” I took a breath and then with a loud bear sound I p-u-u-u-s-h-e-d.
“Okay, next time maybe not as loud. You’re going to scare the baby.”
I must say, after so much breathing and trying not to push, I was worried I didn’t have the strength to push like they asked me to. But also, obviously, my noises didn’t make their shift enjoyable.
“I can already see the baby.”
“Really?!” I asked in awe.
“You’ll have to breathe through the next 3 contractions again,” Sandra said. “Alright, now, again, you’ll have to push as long as you can and ideally a bit more quiet this time.”
I laughed. “I’ll try.”
In that moment, I noticed Sandra and the gynecologist exchanging a look and the gynecologist turning to me: “We’ll use a suction cup. Only a small one. But we need to speed up the birth because the heartbeat keeps dropping and we now have to act fast.”
She took out a small device with a round plate and a suction mechanism and inserted it into my vagina, which felt a little uncomfortable.
“With the next contraction, I’ll pull on the suction cup and you’ll push, okay? We’ll get the baby’s head out together.”
“Okay.”
A few minutes later…or maybe just a minute later, when the next contraction wave rolled in, I did as advised and pushed, and suddenly a red, bloody head appeared under the suction cup.
I was lucky because my friend Becca let me see her birthing video, so I knew that once the head is out it only takes one contraction to get the full baby out.
We were almost there.
With the next contraction, Sandra was suddenly reaching out to my arms with a tiny little human in her hand.
On my chest, Rivet started crying immediately. I looked at the clock. It was 7:43 p.m. – less than 2 hours after my water broke, she was out. A miracle.
“Who wants to cut the umbilical cord?” Sandra asked.
“He does.”
“I do of course.”
We said simultaneously.
Only later Mickey asked if I saw that she had her umbilical cord around her neck, which is what had been causing all these issues.
Sandra gave Mickey the scissors, and I noticed that it was quite a strength exercise to snip through the cord.
Then they turned to me again. “On the next contraction, I’ll gently pull on the umbilical cord and you’ll push out your placenta.”
I must say, at that very second, pushing was the last thing I wanted to do. I was holding our tiny, skinny, wrinkly baby. I didn’t want to push anymore. But just like they said, the next contraction rolled over and I pushed. This was the first time I consciously registered pain as the big bulk of an organ slowly appeared between my thighs.
Both the gynecologist and the midwife turned on the light to determine whether the placenta came out complete or whether a piece of my placenta got stuck inside me. Afterwards, the gynecologist performed a vaginal checkup and decided to stitch up a scratch inside my vagina to ensure there were no additional places where I’d lose blood, given my already low iron levels.
In other words, I didn’t tear. Using the dam massage and the EPI-NO had paid off.
“Mickey, could you please give me my vest?” I had brought my thick Yorkshire jumper to the hospital, knowing if my water broke on it I’d be okay. Yet here I was, my entire body shivering, completely overwhelmed by what just happened. I felt so cold. My thighs shaking.
“Would you like some food?” Sandra asked. We kindly declined; as vegans, we didn’t think hospital food was what any of us wanted to eat in that moment. Luckily, we had brought bread and hummus with us and ate most of it within minutes.
“We’ll now leave you to get to know the baby.” The midwife and the gynecologist left. Probably they needed to attend another birth that was happening simultaneously in another room because they didn’t come back for at least 2 hours.
Meanwhile, Rivet was sucking on my nipple. She was wearing a tiny hat and was under a blanket. Still covered in blood and my vaginal fluids. I was filled up with oxytocin. Mickey and I both in disbelief over this powerful, intense experience we had just conquered. From my perspective, it was the most beautiful moment of our relationship. We did it together. As a team. It felt so empowering.
Around 10 p.m. the room started filling up again. Sandra came to look at Rivet and measure and dress her, and another nurse came to accompany me to the bathroom.
“Let’s try to go to the toilet, okay?” She kindly offered me an arm, and suddenly reality hit me. Up until now, I felt like I could pull up trees. Within a second, I felt like the weakest person on the planet.
I slowly moved to the side of the delivery chair, holding onto the nurse’s arm. She gently led me back to the room with the bathtub. I sat down behind the curtain waiting for the pee to come in.
“Are you okay in there?”
“I think so.” The pee was coming. It wasn’t much though.
“I might not be actually.”
The nurse opened the curtain, reached out her arm toward me. Next thing I remember was lying on a bed next to that toilet.
“I knew I was right to have the bed prepared here in the room for you.”
I didn’t even notice she did all that, but I was very glad she tucked me in and pushed me out of the room and back to the delivery room.
“Someone passed out,” she announced when we got there.
“That would be me.” I smiled. I was exhausted but also incredibly happy Rivet was finally here.
Mickey collected our things that were scattered around the room. A man came to bring us up to the postpartum station where we got to stay for 2 nights. Listening to calming music. Feeling in awe of what we just experienced. I’m yet again crying as I’m rereading and finishing this story. I’m glad I wrote it down because now, 6 months later, I’d most likely not remember most of it in such detail. It’s been 6 beautiful months with Rivet, and I’m so excited to have many more with her ahead.
