Nothing as Planned Part III: Labor and Delivery

Originally published 5-8-08

For a lesbian expecting a baby conceived with a gay man, things were surprisingly normal.  Sometimes my partner Kira accompanied me to my prenatal check ups, and other times bio baby daddy, whom I will call Sperm Donor, came along.  I recall only one kink at the OB, when I corrected a technician who referred to Sperm Donor as my husband.  Later a doctor looked at my file and whispered, “So the father of the baby is not your husband?”

All was well, until I was 10 months pregnant and had not given birth yet.  I knew that the later the birth, the greater risk for C-Section, and I did not want a C-section.  Our urban hippie Lamaze instructor had drilled home her militant anti-anesthesia, anti-Cesarean stance, lambasting the Beverly Hills housewives who conveniently scheduled their surgical deliveries.  Every terrible scenario she painted when a birth plan went wrong ended with a C-section.

So Kira and I packed my overnight bag with all the prescribed things to relax me so I could have an easy, drug-free, natural delivery.  There was the lavender massage oil, which we had to shop all over LA to find; my CD player and James Taylor CDs — okay, make fun, but he mellows me out; tennis balls in a sock to roll on to relive back labor; and a book with guided visualizations to cope with the “intensity” — never “pain”– of labor.  

According to plan, Kira and Sperm Donor would take two hour shifts in the delivery room.  We hired a labor doula who would coach us through the process.  When the baby was born, Sperm Donor would cut the cord.  We had an adapted birth plan for our alternative family.

Then we waited.  Week 39 came and went.  Nothing.  Everyone had advice on how to get the party started, and I tried it all.  Spicy food, swimming, squatting, bouncing on a birthing ball, crawling on all fours, and, as my doctor suggested a bit too excitedly as he smiled at Kira, nipple stimulation.

Finally, at 41 weeks and four days, I went into labor, and there I stayed, for three days.  Yes, 72 sleepless hours with contractions averaging 10 minutes apart.  I practiced my breathing and Kira counted the minutes between each contraction until they were five minutes apart.  

Cedars Sinai Medial Center was only seven minutes away from our duplex in Beverly Hills adjacent adjacent; Kira got us there in four. I hobbled to registration while dialing Daniel on my cell.  For days his heart raced each time my number came up on caller ID.  The anticipation was over. “It’s time,” I puffed.

But it wasn’t time.  “Two centimeters,” the nurse said.  “You gotta dilate to 10.” If I were admitted at this early stage I risked impatient doctors inducing labor with the drug pictocin, which, as Lamaze Nazi had warned, would lead to more “intensity,” an epidural, and then the dreaded C-Section.

Back home we watched the clock again until contractions closed in three minutes apart.  Six hours later, we were back at Cedars.  “Still not dilated enough,” said the nurse.   

Back home again, I was slammed every few minutes with increasingly intense contractions.  I called our doula for advice, but she was attending another birth.  We were on our own.  I couldn’t take it anymore.   I checked in at Cedars and uttered those words I thought I’d never say, “Give me an epidural.”

The needle in my spine was not so bad after all, and not feeling the contractions and getting a little rest was worth it.  Sperm Donor and Kira paced the halls while I snoozed.  But six hours later, the baby was still not budging.  The doc broke my water to get things going, but that did nothing.  Then she ramped things up with pictocin, then more pictocin.  Eight hours later, still nothing.  We couldn’t wait any longer.  The baby was showing signs of distress.  The doctor called it.  Emergency C-Section. 

Being at one of the nation’s premier hospitals that regularly delivers A-list celeb babies, I was shocked at how it seemed like my medical team was doing this surgery for the first time.  Nurses were scurrying in every direction; doctors argued over my drug dosing; tubes were pulled out accidentally; the OR was ready for me, and then it wasn’t.  I was in the middle of ER, the reality show.

Then the hammer came down.  Only one person was allowed in the OR with me, no exceptions.  This is something we did not anticipate in our birth plan.  A nurse instructed Sperm Donor, whom she assumed was my husband, to suit up in surgical scrubs.  I was whisked down the hall, and from my gurney I saw the double doors to the OR close with Kira standing outside helplessly.

I pleaded to nurses with deaf ears trying to explain our family dynamics.  As my arms were strapped down to the operating table, Crucifix style, I mustered all the calm and composure I could amidst the chaos.  I steeled my voice and spoke with the conviction of a woman about to undergo emergency major abdominal surgery in which I could die: “I need my partner here with me.”   

Finally I was heard.  The anesthesiologist pulled down her surgical mask to reveal dark red lipstick.  “Your partner?”  With authority that I will always remember as absolutely heroic, she turned to the charge nurse and ordered, “Get her in here.”

Minutes later, as I shivered from the cold of the OR and the anesthesia in my spine, Kira was beside me, holding my hand.  Sperm Donor waited outside watching through the window of the OR door.  While a routine surgery, a C-Section is not a pretty sight.  Once the incision was made, doctors stretched, pushed, shoved and pulled from behind the surgical drape, rocking and jolting my whole body.  At last, with a mighty heave, he was out. 

His thin cry turned into a soulful wail as my baby boy was taken from me to a metal table nearby where he was examined and cleaned.  Tears streamed down the sides of my face as I lay unable to hold or comfort him. Sperm Domnor was brought into the OR to see the baby.  He took video and snapped photos and announced the birth on his cell phone to his mother on the line from Brazil. 

The doctor with the dark red lipstick swaddled the shaking and screaming infant and handed him to Kira who brought him to me.  In a weak voice, I spoke my first words to my newborn son.  “Welcome Stephen.” 

In an instant his cries hushed.  He turned his head, and with watery eyes looked at me and was at peace.  Kira wept as she looked down at us both.  “He knows your voice,” she said.

As we packed up to leave the hospital three days later, Kira picked up the leaking Ziplock that had held the frozen Gatorade ice cubes that I was supposed to suck on during labor.  The sticky florescent golden liquid had spilled onto the untouched JT CDs and unopened massage oil.  Looking at the luggage full of unused birthing gear I sighed, “You know, we packed for a whole different camp.”

From his conception to his arrival into this world, nothing about Stephen had gone as planned, but here he was, and all the twists and turns to get him here did not matter anymore.   Now it was up to us to raise our child the best we could.  And we have big plans for him.