Baby story

I wrote this in an attempt to hold tightly to the memories of my daughter's birth. Yet, it's as if the words don't effectively convey how special the birth was....the first time I've ever felt like words are not enough...

It was a birth scene I thought only happened in the movies. Several minutes of pushing and out came a slimy infant.

In the throes of intense contractions, I arrived at Winthrop-University Hospital on Long Island at about 10 p.m. on Veteran’s Day, November 11, 2010. At 10:13, I gave birth a to a healthy baby girl.

G’s speedy entrance into the world culminated the best 9 months of my life. After a nausea-filled first trimester, pregnancy was bliss. The bigger my belly grew, the better I felt. I relished the attention and welcomed with awe the changes of my body. I continued running, going to the gym and wearing heels. And I worked up to the very end: the night she was born came after a long, deadline-pressure day in the newsroom. I even got a phone call with copy editing questions while in the elevator of my apartment building – a call I didn’t answer because it came in the middle of a wave of contractions.

I had arrived home from work at 7:45 p.m. It would have been later had I not pestered an editor to hurry up and edit my story so I could call it a day. All day, I had ignored very mild contractions, thinking it was just from the stress of scrambling to reach sources on a holiday while cobbling together a story that would meet editors’ expectations by deadline. My Thanksgiving due date was still two weeks away.

At home, I sat on the sofa next to my grandmother, who had arrived from Hawaii with my mother just a few days earlier. She recounted how a midwife delivered all eight of her children at home in rural Philippines. I stood up and felt a gush of water.

All the childbirth information I had read or learned in classes escaped me at that moment. I couldn’t remember if my water breaking meant it was time to go to the hospital or call the midwife.

I knew I wanted to labor at home for as long as possible, so I called the midwife and told her my water broke but I didn’t feel any pain or contractions. Hang out, eat something light and call back in two hours, she said, predicting that’s how long it would take for my contractions to be several minutes apart.

During dinner, my contractions were about six minutes apart. They were bearable enough, so I took a shower. But the contractions started coming faster and with more pain. Somehow, I managed to shave my legs and condition my hair. In the bathroom, as I slathered on lotion, the contractions were two minutes apart. I told my husband, mother and grandmother that they should get ready to head to the hospital.

I called my midwife and told her the contractions came sooner than she predicted. She said she’d meet us at the hospital.

Because I anticipated that labor could take upwards of 18 hours, I debated whether my 86-year-old grandma should come along. She assured me she could tough out a long labor. Months earlier, I had put together a play list of music for labor, so I insisted my husband pack up our portable speakers.

We finally locked up and waited for the elevator to the garage. I know it was 9:17 p.m. then because that’s when the phone call with copy desk questions came.

My husband behind the wheel, I gripped the handle over the passenger seat as we traveled along the Grand Central Parkway. The contractions were brutal – I wanted badly to rip off the seatbelt, jump out and curl up on the median of the parkway. I had planned to have a natural birth, but the pain was enough to make me reconsider getting an epidural.

When we arrived at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, I jumped out of the car and squatted on the grass in front of the hospital. It was a chilly night, yet I was sweating. My husband parked the car as I waddled through the hospital entrance toward labor and delivery.

My midwife, ready in green hospital scrubs, stood smiling, waiting for us. A reassuring sight throughout my pregnancy, I knew that when I saw her she would ensure I could stick to the plan of having a drug-free delivery. She guided me to a spacious delivery room and upon entering I immediately began to peel off my clothes in an attempt to cool down.

I felt so comfortable around the midwife that I jumped onto the bed as if I was in my own home. I was already fully dilated, she said. It was time to push.

My husband stood to my right while I grasped his waist, closed my eyes and bore down to push with all my might. Some four or five pushes later, I felt slimy skin slid along my legs and a wiggling baby was plopped onto my belly. I didn’t yet know if it was a boy or a girl. But all through my pregnancy I had a strong feeling I was growing a daughter, despite everyone – even strangers on the street – who swore I was carrying a boy.

I looked down at her and first noticed a full head of matted black hair. Nurses put her on the warmer and I began to shiver. After delivering the placenta, the midwife grasped my hands and kissed them. I couldn’t stop thanking her.

My bundled daughter was returned to my arms and marveled at her long fingers flailing – the first signs of myself I could see in her. The anesthesiologist came into the room. “I guess you don’t need me,” he joked about not having to administer the epidural. Even if I had changed my mind about a natural birth, there would have been no time for the medication. There wasn’t even time to put my chart together or to put on my hospital identification bracelet. I glanced across the room and saw the speakers my husband was in the midst of setting up. We ended up using the play list upstairs in our room – the list serving as a soundtrack for our first memories as a family.

I immediately tried to nurse her. Breastfeeding was something I looked forward to all throughout my pregnancy. But her long, wild fingers got in the way. I decided to try again later and not rush her.

Because I was bleeding heavily, I had to stay in the delivery room longer, while the baby went upstairs with my husband to be cleaned. I still had some after-birth contractions, yet I felt amazing. I felt awake and vibrant and ready to conquer any challenge.

It was about 2 a.m. when I was finally in a hospital bed upstairs, my baby sleeping in a bassinet next to me. I was grateful hospital staff heeded my wishes to have the baby stay by my side in the room.

I didn’t sleep at all that night. I tried repeatedly to nurse her, yet she couldn’t be roused from a deep slumber. Nurses tried in vain to help her latch on but assured me a lactation consultant would help in the morning.

I wanted so badly to nurse her, but I tried not to panic. My roommate was a young Pakistani woman who had just delivered her fifth child. She spoke little English, but was able to tell me that nursing would come naturally.

I watched the clock tick on as my baby continued to sleep. Sometime in the morning, a Eucharistic minister arrived to offer communion. I accepted, finding the familiar ritual comforting. She put the wafer in my hands and recited a Hail Mary. “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.” It was upon hearing those words that I realized: I am a mother.

At precisely 10 a.m. – the start of family visiting hours – my husband showed up with the midwife. She gave the three of us lots of hugs and tried to help with the breastfeeding. She said not to give up.

A lactation consultant spent hours with us, resulting in only one successful feeding. A pediatrician later determined that baby’s delivery was so quick that she swallowed a lot of amniotic fluid and was therefore quite full.

At home, she began to nurse voraciously – and hasn’t stopped since.

The first few nights were relatively calm, as she woke up several times for a feeding and changing. But one night, the bouts of loud crying arrived.

To see us through our bedroom window would have been quite a sight: My pajama top drenched in leaked milk, disheveled hair, while I danced the hula in the early morning darkness.

In a moment of sleep-deprived desperation, I found that hula seemed to be the only way to calm my baby.

After attempts at feeding, a clean diaper and rocking in my arms didn’t work, I fumbled for my husband’s iPhone and set the Pandora app to the Hawaiian music station. In frigid New York, miles from the warmth of my familiar island home, now faced with all the uncertainty and trepidation that comes with cradling a crying newborn, the lower half of my body instinctively swayed to the music. The basic movements of the dance I had learned as a child lulled her to sleep.

I imagined her as a little girl, bare feet planted on the grass and long, dark hair down her back, signing along to the Hawaii state anthem that I learned as a child. The image was so clear to me that I vowed she would grow up with the same sun-drenched island childhood I enjoyed.

My daughter is now 9 weeks old. There are times when even the hula doesn’t calm her down. There are times Dominican bachata or Argentine rocker Andres Calamaro does the trick. And there are the nights when nothing seems to work – the hours drag on and the sun comes up before she finally calms down.

I am able to tough out those long, frustrating nights because she gave me a labor and delivery free from suffering, a memory that I can look back on with fondness. I am blessed to be able to look on the experience for inspiration on this long journey as mother and daughter that will be filled with music and warmth and good days and challenging nights.