The Story

Here's the little guy.

Tobias Elliot weighed in at 9 pounds and was 21" long. He arrived at 8:59pm on January 19th, a mere 50 hours after labor began just as I was heading out to a rehearsal in Eugene.

We were so jazzed- packing up our stuff and getting ready to drive up to a hotel in Portland, I remember thinking we'd finally know what it would be like. Labor, meeting the kid, becoming irrevocably and forever a muthah.

We arrived at the Hilton, and I was having fairly regular contractions. The midwife on call at OHSU had given us the excellent but almost impossible to comply with advice to sleep until morning and give her another call if contractions came 5 minutes apart for a couple of hours in a row. I didn't so much sleep as sort of meditate, breathing in and out and trying to loosen up all the muscles still within my control.

In the morning we called Mom and Dad to meet for breakfast at Mother's- both because of the perfection of the name and because it's one of those places that makes Portland all Portlandy. Contractions were still coming about every 10 minutes, but most were not too bad and only a few made me really sit still and wonder how I was going to do if they got stronger.

Having eaten and chatted and adrenalined ourselves just a bit, we commenced the Great Portland Walking Marathon of Labor, 2006 edition. For the next 5 hours, we shopped the downtown mall, jaunted (I can make up words now, I've been through labor.) to Powell's Books and back, bopped over to Starbucks, and back to the Hilton where the midwife recommended we sleep for a bit after trying some shockingly unsexy nipple stimulation. At that point I was cranky, tired and felt unhappily like the time I was getting that stomach virus in Pakistan. Timing the contractions became depressing as they came together for the holy five-minute frequency for just about 2 hours and then spread right back on out to 8-9 minutes. They got a bunch stronger but still, they were not measuring up- J put it just so when he said, "Dude, what is UP with your contractions?"

So I decided to call it a night and lay down after Rachael arrived and we put in another mile on the hotel's treadmills. It felt like giving up.

Just then...

I had the worst, longest, meanest contraction ever invented. And then I thought I was going to be ill and then I started full-body shaking so hard even my jaw was jumping. J moved quicker than I have seen outside of the Incredibles. We thought the slow-down was maybe the Natural Alignment Plateau and the shakingness was maybe Transition. It was time to go.

We got up there and of course, I felt better and the contrax slowed down once again. Still, I felt like I should have gotten a prize because I was 5 centimeters and they told me we came in at just the right time. I slept a bit and then there they were again- super long >2 minutes contractions followed by (resting just would have been too conventional) marathons of sickness. Now that I think of it, it really WAS like Pakistan.

This went on for a long while, during which they suggested even more abjectly desexualized breast activities. In the morning they checked me and after 41 hours of labor and a full night of various versions of full-body contractions, shakes and sickitude, I was... drumroll please... still exactly where I had been when we checked in to the hospital. I thought about ordering an immediate c-section or a mallet, either of which would have felt great just fine in comparison.

Now most folks told me about barfing in labor, and the consensus was that as soon as you felt nauseated and got it out of the way, you were headed right on down the chute to pushing. This is what I had in mind as we left the hotel, 11 hours back. There had been no pause in any part of the unpleasantries and as they told me about my lack of progress, they also told me they were worried because I probably had an infection of some sort, and my temperature was bad for the kid. We deliberated a bit, and I fessed up: I was completely worn out. I told J I could have handled EITHER the contrax OR the sickness with no damned progression, but to have it all and then not get anywhere- I was depressed.

I decided to go for the Pitocin to see if it could make the contractions DO something. I got through 2 contractions with it, but the barfing also increased when I couldn't imagine it had any room for growth and I called for the dreaded epidural. They had already given me an IV for fluids and had stuck some anti-nausea stuff, fever reducer and an antibiotic in there for good measure- we were out of other options.

The next part of the day was seriously lovely. I don't mean to sound like I think epidurals are great. I still really wish we hadn't had to take that option, but being able to sleep and to eat ice chips and to chat with people- it really IS priceless.

They finally had me where they wanted around 7:45, and I pushed for just over an hour. My parents, Rachael, two midwives, a nurse, and 3 people from pediatrics were there and seriously sounded like they were watching a great sporting event. I almost started cheering me on myself. They're right about pushing being the coolest part, and feeling good.

When the kid finally arrived, they weren't able to put him on my chest or let J cut the cord like we had hoped because the pediatric group whisked him to the other side of the room. He was purple, but his color improved almost right away and pretty soon he was crying like a pro. After what seemed like forever, J carried him over and put him on my chest, the little beauty.

And that’s the story. That last moment, when the baby is there, the team is cheering, your body is finally done, and the world has been changed forever- it does defy understanding and overwhelm every other thing I have ever done.