RUACH.

Move printer from office to home, check. Vote, check. Tracking contractions while standing in line had me so excited! But I tried managing my expectations. My mom refused to accept that Braxton Hicks contractions weren’t the real thing and had announced to most of Galveston County that her first grandchild was almost here. On top of that, my childhood best friend, Whitnie, had been in town for work and extended her trip in hopes I’d go into labor before she flew back to New York. No pressure, ha.

On my way home, mom calls to excitedly inform me that she, my sister and my aunt were on their way over since I was in labor.

Me: “Mom! I really don’t think this is the real thing. The contractions are not consistent and this doesn’t feel like labor. Stop telling people that!”

Mom: “Girl, we have to BE WITH YOU tonight! You’re in labor!”

So I call Whitnie to explain that while it’s very unlikely I’ll go into labor, she’s welcome to spend the night too, since apparently it’s a party. Around 6:30pm all five of us go on a walk around the neighborhood. My friend Christian’s mom said she’d done jumping jacks the night before she went into labor, so I tried a few reps. Terry had date smoothies in heavy rotation for weeks after learning those help prepare your cervix for labor. I’d been taking evening primrose oil and doing lots of squats and the nursery was all set. I felt ready.

Lamaze class was the best decision.

Around 2:30am I woke up feeling like I’d peed on myself. When you’re nine months pregnant, this is NBD. A sneeze, a cough, a hard laugh… aaaand I needed to change my undies. I go to the bathroom and then get back in bed. But I wake up again with the same sensation. This time, however, it was a LOT. Was this thicker then urine? I change again and find myself sitting on the edge of the bed in thought. As if this were a movie, Terry all of a sudden turns to me out of his sleep and asks what’s wrong. I explain what happened, and he says we should call the hospital in case my water is slowly breaking. I’m against this idea because I was barely feeling any pain and the #1 rule from our Lamaze class was to labor at home as long as possible. In hindsight, Lamaze class was the best decision I made in supporting my unmedicated birth intention because it taught me how to labor and what to expect (more on that later).

Let me back up. I didn’t know unmedicated birth or natural labor was such a big deal until I got pregnant and folks would ask. I thought it was much more common, but people’s shocked responses quickly taught me otherwise. One of the biggest forms of push back I received happened to be from my OB-GYN. When I arrived at one of my appointments with my birth intention printed out, she dismissed it and said we’d discuss it when I was further along. When that time finally came, you could cut the tension in the room with a knife. It felt weird that she was so uptight about this, but it was important to me to labor naturally. I’m so glad Terry came to each appointment. He helped back me up in those moments where I felt so vulnerable and exposed. I later found out my particular OB-GYN was known for being “C-Section happy,” and while C-Sections absolutely work for many women, it was not what I’d ever envisioned. The thought of an epidural made me more nervous than natural labor. I wanted to feel and to work it out myself, as long as the baby and I were healthy. So my OB-GYN begrudgingly suggested I take a Lamaze class “if I was serious about all of this.” I took detailed notes in class and converted them into a 12-page “D-Day Plan” for my birth team which included details on stages of labor, my birth intention, hospital information, etc.

So when Terry suggested calling the hospital, I hesitated because it didn’t seem like I could be anywhere close to 5cm. I thought we’d drive all the way there and have to turn around in morning rush hour traffic. Or they’d want to keep me there and put me “on the clock”, meaning I’d have about 24 hours to deliver the baby, and if I wasn’t progressing at their pace, they’d want to give me interventions that I wanted to avoid. I ultimately obliged because I’d tested positive for Group B Strep, which meant that I had bacteria in my vagina that was no problem to me, but could harm the baby if he passed through before I received antibiotics. So we couldn’t risk accidentally having the baby before then. If my water broke, I had to immediately go to the hospital.

We call the hospital and they agree I should come in to get checked just in case. So we casually begin getting the pre-packed hospital bags and pillows in the car, and I decide to try and calmly tell my family — who are littered around my living room in sleeping bags — what’s going on in hopes they would stay there until we got back from the hospital.

Me: “Hey Whit, sorry to wake you. It’s not a big deal, but we think we need to go to the hospital to check that I’m not in labor, but I’m probably not, and we’ll be right back”

Whit (alarmed, confused and with big, half-asleep eyes): “Um… okay…”

But before she could say anything else I hear mom getting all hype and bustling around. Terry had delivered the same news to her, but there was no chill. Mom is going in about me getting white towels, lots of white towels. I think she imagined me going into labor in the car. I’m not sure why the towels needed to be white. All of a sudden, as I’m sitting there on the couch with Whitnie, I feel it. My eyes go big and I’m trying to explain to her while it’s happening that my water is breaking – for real this time. I walk/run to our bathroom and remember feeling my feet hit the tile. I look up toward our bedroom door as Terry appears. WOOOOSHH! Terry and I lock eyes as it’s happening, both realizing how important it is that we get move on.

I decide that maybe I should eat, so I get a massive bowl of cheerios. Brilliant. Mom throws like 12 large, white towels into the car. And some in Whitnie’s car (no joke). On the drive to the hospital, I implore Terry to stop for food for him because I’m not sure when he’ll be able to eat. He looked at me like I was crazy and said he had snacks.

We arrive at the hospital around 5:30am and once in the room, to my surprise, the nurse checks my cervix, and I’m already 5cm dilated! This was huge. The goal was to labor at home as long as possible and to get to the hospital after I was at least 5cm. Managing labor to this point reduces C-Section risk by 50%. The contractions had become more intense, but were still very bearable. I was asked to stay in the hospital bed while I was treated for the GBS and other tests were run. This made me antsy because it felt like things were slowing down. Once the tests were finally done, I pulled out my birth intentions. I had decided to call it an intention instead of a plan because I wanted to stress to the nurses and hospital I was absolutely flexible in case of an emergency, but that I did have an intention. The nurse didn’t quite know what to do with my weird requests, but she hesitantly obliged and around 7:26am I was finally freed to walk around the room and labor on my yoga mat and birthing ball, as Lamaze class had taught me.

“Unless you want me to deliver a brain-dead baby, you need to get hooked up to the monitor.”

Around 8:06am my OB-GYN walks in and she is not happy (as you can sort of see in one of the pictures below). Her exact words were “Unless you want me to deliver a brain-dead baby, you need to get hooked up to the monitor.” This is probably a good moment to tell you that I really do love my OB-GYN as a person. She is a wonderful human, she just had a bad moment. I imagine her training taught her differently, and we simply had different birth philosophies. The truth is, I probably should have transferred to an OB-GYN more open to natural birth, but I thought I was too far along, and had been told I was “high-risk” because of an autoimmune issue, and this was my first pregnancy… so I just stuck it out. And I’m glad I did. I’m glad it worked out this way because I think it helped us both. You’ll see.

With the monitor plugged into the wall, moving around and laboring naturally became much more difficult. I’d get in a position that felt right, but we’d lose the baby’s heartbeat on the monitor because he had moved. My OB-GYN said she would check on me after lunch, but I knew I’d see her sooner. I decided to lay the hospital bed down flat and move my birthing ball into the bed. This would allow me to release my weight more without hurting my knees and elbows. And that is when things changed (9:00am). The contractions went from “Okay, I can handle this” to “Dear Lord Jesus.” This is the transition phase. It’s very intense but usually lasts only 30 minutes to an hour. I had to really focus on not holding my breath and moving my shoulders down from my ears. I tried wiggling my toes and breathing deep. Interestingly, I’d learned all of these techniques through my yoga practice over the years. Breathing deep in hard positions. Focusing on my breath. I’m so glad my friend Alisha invited me to that first hot yoga class years prior. Yoga had become a deep, soul-enriching practice, and though I couldn’t go as much while pregnant, everything I’d learned over the years came back to me in this moment. This is probably a good time to explain RUACH. My birth team wore RUACH t-shirts and I wore a RUACH bracelet “push present” from Terry. It’s the Hebrew word for “Spirit of God” and indicates creative activity. In the Bible it generally refers to wind, breath, mind and spirit. It’s the breath of life God breathed into Adam in Genesis. I love everything about it. I’m probably gonna get it tattooed on me one day.

So I’m in the hospital bed leaning on the birthing ball and all of a sudden start to bare down. I wasn’t trying to, it was just happening. The nurse had been out of the room for a long time, and I’d been instructed not to push if I felt the urge. I didn’t want directed pushing, but I also felt I didn’t know what I was doing, so when I began uncontrollably baring down, I told Terry. Well I thought I told Terry. I assumed he could read my mind and hear the strain and see my body pushing itself, but when I realized I wasn’t telepathically communicating properly, I yelled, “Get the NURSE! It’s coming out!” My mom lept from her seat in a panic and rushed out of the room to get the nurse who wasn’t at the station. When she finally arrived and checked me I was TEN centimeters dilated. TEN! Whoa! I felt such relief that we were finally here! I could tell the nurse was pretty freaked out and thought she may have to catch the baby. Her eyes were huge. When my OB-GYN finally arrived (9:26), she walked in and threw her arms in the air and said “I’m gonna have to tell people about the birthing ball trick! That really works!”

Others come into the room and begin preparing all the things. I’m back sitting in the hospital bed, when, to everyone’s surprise, things start to slow down. The contractions that had been rapidly getting closer together were now gradually backing off. In real life, in this very moment, my OB-GYN offers a shot of Pitocin – a drug that helps stimulate contractions. I don’t think either Terry or I responded. Maybe he did. I just remember staring speechless at her. “While, yes, Pitocin would help speed things up, we are SO CLOSE to the end. And if you’d let me move around, the baby would probably be here already.” That’s what I want to say now, looking back, but in that moment, I was only thinking of my baby. The pain had gone away. I don’t remember any pain at all in the pushing phase. I was in this blissful, peaceful state where I was just super focused on breathing and pushing and preparing to finally hold my little human in my arms.

Then I feel it.

“THE RING OF FIRE!” I exclaimed to everyone’s surprise. I’d learned in Lamaze class there is an intense burning sensation that happens right before the baby is about to be delivered. It’s when your labia and perineum stretch around the baby’s head as it prepares its exit. I was so excited because I knew what it meant. This is why I feel so strongly about being educated about your birth process. Had I felt the Ring of Fire and not known what it meant, I would have freaked out and tightened up. Instead, that moment felt powerful and purposeful.

I pushed for about 15 minutes and at 9:46am Michael Terry Williams III was here! I couldn’t believe it. I’d done it! When I look back at videos I laugh at how “high” I was in that moment.

Me: “I’m amazed. Women are amazing you know? God is amazing. Jesus helped me. Did you know that? I felt the ring of fire…”

I was telling all of the nurses and workers how incredible their jobs were and how insane it must be to experience this everyday. “This is what you get to DO!” While I had skin-on-skin with my little baby bundle, my OB-GYN worked hard to make sure everything was okay with me. My uterus wasn’t contracting back like it should, and I was losing a lot of blood. They would have to pack me. She did all of this quickly and efficiently and while it was pretty painful, I was glad to be in the hospital environment with this unexpected scenario. My OB-GYN looks me in the eye, and I remember her words verbatim, “You did it. All of the hard work you put into this happening the way you wanted… you pulled it off.” I was surprised and grateful and elated. I told her how I had Jesus and Terry and my amazing birth team and her. I thanked her for the advice to attend the Lamaze class as that advice was the real game-changer.