Taran Nicholas Blasy
Born on March 5, 2006 at 4:25am
8lbs. 1.5oz.

Submitted by Wendy Blasy

I've read many MANY birth stories over the years, and they usually fit into one of two categories:  those women who dramatize everything and scare the crap out of expecting moms, and those who glorify the miracle of birth, minimizing the unpleasant details to concentrate on the pleasant ones.  I'm just going to be honest--not dramatic or careful, but honest.  I have no interest in making everything seem hunky-dory for those of you who want children--mostly because I told myself it would all be hunky dory, and that didn't help.


So Friday morning marked the first sign of labor, with show and all that fun stuff. So I was in tune, waiting. Had a couple of contractions on the way to see "Good Night and Good Luck" (an apt title) and they continued throughout the movie. After managing to sleep somewhat, I woke up at 3am with contractions 5-6 mns apart, painful but tolerable, and eventually I woke Travis up and we called Paula, who said it was very early labor, and we sat around the house watching TV waiting for things to pickup.


Since we had to go to the center for a birthing class at 3, T and I decided to go a little early, get checked, and probably not leave without a baby. I was 3 cm, and Paula encouraged us to walk and try to bring labor on stronger. Now, in my narcissism I thought I knew all there was to labor, so I thought I was handling labor quite well--it was painful but I could breathe through them just fine. Everyone kept complimenting me on what a great job I was doing, and I felt great doing it, because even through the level of pain was more than I'd expected, I was still in control of it. For now.


At this point a contraction felt like the gradual hardening of my entire abdominal region with concentrated pain (think like when your whole leg falls asleep after you've sat on it for half an hour, then you move it and feeling creeps back in but moving it is UNBEARABLE--that's as close as I can compare... that or severe menstrual cramps, but that doesn't quite do justice.) As things progressed, add back pain to it--which T helped by rubbing a raquetball on my back through contractions--and then, eventually, pressure. But more on that later.


As labor got tougher and Paula and Karen set up the tub for my waterbirth, it started to look so good... Paula checked and I was 4-5 cm, and I asked if I could get in the tub yet or if it might stall my labor. She said she thought my pattern was well established and go ahead and get in.


BLISS... the hot water was like an epidural, just like they say. It's not that the contractions are less, but that you relax so much that you don't tense up for them, and bear them much easier. I spent a few hours in the tub, thinking about dialating and bringing the baby lower, spending my time spreading my pelvis and doing all the lovely techniques I'd read about. I got more and more uncomfortable--I remember being too HOT--every contraction left my face burning and my ears felt like fire. So I was in a hot tub and T kept a cold washcloth on my face and tried to keep me cool enough.


Eventually, a few hours later I got impatient; labor hurt so much more that I was sure I was near transition. I asked Paula to check dialation, for which I had to get out of the tub. On the bed, with contractions hurting like hell (they hurt worse when I laid down) she checked and found: still 4-5 cm. At this point, I lost it. I had been quite the champ, breathing and panting and being fairly silent, but now I started to moan and whine and complain. In my head, I was thinking exactly what I should not have been: my body does not work. All this time, no progression--it must be his presentation. I convinced myself that because he was posterior at last check that this was hindering labor and would ultimately result in my laboring for many more hours before having to get a C-section. My knowledge of how things work ultimately made things worse for me, as I essentially stopped trusting what Paula was saying and became convinced that having the baby naturally was just never going to happen. I didn't voice these fears at first as I knew they'd be debunked; I just cried and writhed through each contraction, complained loudly whenever Paula had a position she wanted me to try (she had me walking miserably up and down the stairs, standing and--the worst--laying on my side in bed. In bed I remember crying and begging her to let me get up because I couldn't stand laying down. It was also at this point I started saying this is never going to happen, let's just go to the hospital.. I told poor Travis that they could stick the biggest needle they could find in my spine if it would make the pain go away. Had I been thinking clearly I never would have said that, knowing T's worst fears of labor were of my begging him to take the pain away, which I began to do. He got very quiet from this point on as, if I dare say, the animal in me took over.


I asked to get back in the tub, and did. It was a relief, but not as great as it had been the last time. I was supposed to rest between contractions but couldn't for two reasons: I was dreading each coming contraction, and the third realm of pain in this ordeal--pressure--does not go away between contractions. In my mind, the pressure was the worst part of my labor process... just overwhelming pain low in the back of the pelvis.


Another annoying aspect of the whole process was food and water. In a hospital, women are not allowed anything but ice chips as a standard (though this is changing). I was encouraged to eat and drink as often as possible, and I had no desire to do either. Going into labor I expected to want to eat, and brought food along, but in practice I wanted nothing to do with it.  I was exhausted, panting through my dry mouth with dry cracked lips, trying to lick my lips but with no saliva, and still I refused water/gatorade when T put it in front of me. My brain was just too preoccupied to open and sip.


Throughout labor I had the constant impression that I was a bad laborer. Each time I complained about something Paula wanted me to do, or refused water, etc, she had to force-talk me into it--but I had no control over what came out of my mouth; it was just language communicating what my body demanded. Even though my brain was totally preoccupied with the physical ordeal of labor, my thinking brain was still humming in the background, and this possibly was another hindrance to labor. I overthought it.


Eventually she checked me and I was at 9cm. At last!  I was waiting for the urge to push. More than that--I was waiting for it to feel like I could even try to push, since the very idea was unbearable with all the pressure. It was still unbearable, but I tried to push, telling Paula I felt the urge, which I really didn't... I didn't know what "the urge" was supposed to feel like; I just felt like it might do something, for at this point I was dying to be done. So I started pushing in the tub, and got pretty frustrated because pushing hurt (with the pressure), was hard to do, and didn't give me the immediate results I wanted. I was impatient. I started pushing as hard as I could even when I wasn't having a contraction... I said I was, or kept going after one had ended, knowing this was counter-productive but not caring one bit. A few times I pushed so hard and so many times that at the end of a push I nearly passed out. My body held onto the ropes Paula had out for me, I pushed and pushed, and then when I let my breath out, everything just let go and I flopped back, still feeling the contraction and the pain/pressure but unable to think about it, unable to react to it... in a weird white haze that was actually quite nice. I would have stayed there if I could have. I think I remember one of those times kinda twitching in that haze; if anyone said anything I didn't hear it, but I remember wondering if I was convulsing, and wondering what Travis was seeing. Not that I cared--by this point I didn't care if I was buck naked (which I was), or if someone said C-section. I just didn't care... I had other things on my mind.


Pushing in the tub wasn't working (a large part of my brain this whole time was bemoaning my body the failure; having Paula make me get out of the tub and forego the waterbirth at this point was a huge disappointment, and honestly I was immaturely mad at her for changing my plans, and mad at myself for not being able to push a baby out.) She had me stand, hang on Travis and push that way, which would have worked but I could tell poor T was struggling to hold me up with my arms putting all my body weight on his neck. We went to the bed, pushed for a long, LONG time there, and ended up on a birth stool on the floor, and it was there Taran was born.


The best moments were hearing progress... when Paula could see his head, and said he had lots of dark hair, I just said "Good," and kept pushing. When we got to the floor she eventually got a mirror and showed me his head starting to come out, but it didn't look much like a head to me. I couldn't watch--both because holding my eyes open was impossible, my glasses were annoying and foggy, and the lack of swift progress was disheartening. Literally, a millimeter at a time, folks. Even T said he had to look away (he was down there watching, and still next to me too, with a glass and straw in hand to make me drink at every break) because watching each push was disappointing; he couldn't see the progress. If he only looked every 4th or 5th time, then he saw it.


Still not feeling that "uncontrollable" urge to push, each time I really had to muster up the willpower to push through the pain. It was oddly satisfying, just in that I could do something other than breathe and pant and moan, but pushing still hurt. As I made myself push each time, I had to tell myself "Tear if you're gonna tear, rip open if need be, I don't care, just get him out NOW!!!" Maybe that's the uncontrollable urge.


What also helped, oddly enough, was my foggy impression that the baby was in danger. They checked his heartbeat between every contraction, and near the end it got a little low, so I got the o2 mask--another annoyance. At the end Paula was coaching me with such vigor that I heard an urgency in her voice, that he needed to get out NOW, so that helped me to not hesitate and push as much as possible. In fact, Paula kept telling me to take a break and rest for a contraction or two, but I wouldn't. Couldn't. Maybe that's the urge? Who knows.


And he came out. Can't describe it. Just way beyond what you ever thought was humanly possible, pain and otherwise. Just when you think "this must be the widest part" you find that it's just the start of a crown. When his head did come out I knew because I had the relief of a neck, but still couldn't look. Paula checked all around for a cord around the neck and I couldn't stand that... I think I yelled at her. Then he did some weird corkscrew thing and spun himself around... I don't really get it, but his body came out pretty slowly, not the big pop'n'whoosh you see on TV. Great relief, but now the cord was hanging there (I think it was kinda short) and that was bothering me too--the feel of it, I mean.


But now Taran was in my arms, conehead and all. He didn't cry. He was pink, and getting o2 from the cord, and Paula said he was breathing quietly, but he didn't want to cry. She suctioned his nose and mouth, flicked his heels and rubbed his back, and still he didn't cry. I wasn't that worried as she said he was breathing and was pink et al, but she did cut the cord and put him on o2 and kept stimulating and suctioning to make him cry. He did after about 9-10 minutes, and even then not for long. He just wasn't upset about anything.


Had to get on the bed for the placenta, which wasn't bad--especially since I had a new calm baby in my arms--but after it came out I heard Paula say, "We have a bleeder," and then for the next 10 minutes or so she was kneading my belly like bread dough, which REALLY hurt, and again I felt like she was mad at me for bleeding and was taking that anger out on me. I don't know why, I just kept feeling like she was mad at me, like I didn't do things the way I was supposed to, etc.  Then again, no one has ever kneaded my belly like bread dough before.


I had no idea what time it was, and was astonished to hear 4:25 am.  When Travis got to hold Taran (we call them "big T" and "little t") for the first time, t reached up and grabbed the glasses right off of T's face and waved them in the air. I wish I had video of that... but not the rest. I'd never, ever watch it again.


Having the baby at the birth center ended up being the best choice I could have made, given the progression and outcome of my birth.  Some people have been astonished to hear me say that, since 31 hours of labor and 4 hours of pushing doesn't sound to most people like a successful birth experience--not when hospitals can speed it up and alleviate pain.  I feel certain that if we'd been in a hospital I would have gotten pitocin since my progression stalled a bit around 4-5 cm.  I probably would have accepted the epidural because it would have been readily offered.  I probably would have had forceps/vacuum since they generally only allow for 2 hours pushing in a hospital, and if that didn't work, I could have ended up with a C-section.  To me, the most rewarding part of having an all natural birth is knowing I could very easily have been one of those women who walks around saying, "The doctor told me my pelvis is too small to give birth naturally," or "My baby weighed too much; my labor stalled, and I had to have a C-section."  Taran weighed 8 lbs 1.5 oz, and I gave birth to him without a single tear or scratch.. he just needed to take his time.

Being able to go home a few hours after giving birth was pretty cool too.  Some family came to see Taran and everyone kept having to tell me to sit or lie down, but I felt great!  Exhausted, but excited and not wanting to miss my son's first moments with any of his grandparents or with his new dad.  Amazing how you can sit and stare at a little creature for hours, even when you haven't slept in nearly 40 hours yourself.