Birth Story: Delivering

The midwife sat directly in front of me, the nurse was on one side holding my leg and Josh on the other side holding my other leg. 

It took me a while to figure out how to push efficiently and correctly. Oftentimes it was me holding my breath and mainly pushing the veins in my head. The midwife told me I need to push down there or I’ll have bruises on my face the next day. I tried to imagine being constipated and pushing poop out. She told me to pull my chest up towards my legs and tighten my abdomen. It was not easy pushing in the correct way. 

 

Pushing in the beginning didn’t hurt, it just felt like a workout. They had me take a deep breath and hold it for 10 seconds while I pushed as hard as I could. Take a quick deep breath and hold again for 10 seconds and then repeat one more time. For a total of 3 times of pushing before I took a break.

 

The reason for the quick breath before pushing the second and third times is that the baby starts to move out during the push, but will rock back inside afterwards. So you want to avoid that by taking a quick breath to shorten the time of not pushing to get more momentum. 

 

Josh and I have done lots of athletic training and he coached me on how to breath while lifting weights. It felt a lot like that. Every time I pushed, my heart rate shot up to heart rate max. I was sweaty and in between pushing, I felt so exhausted that I could just close my eyes and fall asleep. 

 

At first, the midwife told me when to push. She monitored my contractions screen. “You push when you have contractions,” she said . Towards the end, I started to monitor the screen and pay attention to when the contractions were happening. I made the resting time shorter because I was sick of pushing and I wanted the baby out. 

 

Also, they told me there was another woman giving birth (we could hear her screaming, I did not scream like she did) and they wondered who was to finish first. I am very competitive so I pushed even harder.  She ended up giving birth before me, but I still used it as a way to motivate myself to push harder and longer. 

 

The midwife told me that he was crowning. I thought that meant just like one more big push and he was out. But it seemed like he was crowning for fifteen minutes before he was actually born. 

 

That period of pushing is what makes giving birth notoriously painful. The vaginal opening is stretching to its limit. It was so painful pushing in this last stage, I really had to motivate myself to do it. 

 

I used to train with my dad. Every weekend we biked and ran. These training sessions of biking and running lasted between an hour to an hour and a half. One time we biked 30 miles in 2 hours. There were a bunch of hills at the end and my dad kept telling me it was the last hill, until the next hill showed up. But every time helped me to pedal harder and faster. 

 

It was the same with pushing at the end, I think the midwife was insinuating that it was the last push...until the next one. The last few pushes I tried to push as hard and as long as I could. Then finally he came out. She immediately handed him to me and placed him on my chest. 

 

I thought he was going to cry right away or that she would spank his tushy so that he would cry. But it was actually maybe 30 seconds until he just started crying on his own. 

 

While he was on my chest, I still had the afterbirth. I don’t remember if I had to push or if she just put her hands inside and grabbed it out. I do remember that it was painful, but focusing on my son helped distract me from the pain. 

 

She asked Josh if he wanted to cut the umbilical cord, and he did. He said he thought it was going to feel tough, but it was actually soft and easy to cut. 

 

I had a second degree tear, so the midwife focused on stitching me up, which was also painful. 

 

I was in labor for 11 hours and pushed for an hour and 10 minutes. Through all that pain, I didn’t cry and I didn’t really scream. I made grunting sounds at the very end, but that was it. I was proud of myself for not crying because normally I’m a crybaby, but now that’s Samson’s job. 

Born at 3:55 am, he weighed 8 lbs and measured 19 inches.

Tell me about your children’s births in the comment section. I’m always curious about how it was for other people.