Stella's Birth Story.

Stella Marie was born on the stormy evening of March 9th, 2011 in Atlanta, GA at 7:56PM. In attendance were several loving people, all women except for her father, Anthony.  Her grandmother Laura Noble helped her into the world, along with our doula, Shari Aizenman and Midwife Anjli.

 Stella’s estimated “due date” was 3/6/11 a Sunday. It was a pretty day and your dad and I decided to take it easy and be close to home but we did got to Yola & Nafez’ for dinner. That was the last solid night’s sleep I’ve had. That evening Anthony and I talked about calling my mom in Seattle to have her come out soon even though the plan was to call when I began labor. I guess I had a feeling I’d be having a baby soon! I called her first thing Monday morning and she said she could come out Tuesday even though there was snow on the ground in Denver, which we had kinda worried about. I started having inconsistent, light contractions on Monday afternoon with a lot of period-type pressure. Myrna said she thought I’d soon have a baby, maybe Tuesday. So did I but Stella wasn’t quite ready yet. Monday night I was very restless and having inconsistent contractions (I was still calling them “cramps” because they felt like period cramps & I was so excited but not holding my breath that it was the real thing). Tuesday morning rolled around and they dissipated. All Monday I did house chores, took care of the animals, even took out the recycling. I wasn’t sure if I was doing it because mom was coming or because I was truly getting ready for labor. Anthony and I drove to the airport at about 8 to pick up mom, chatting excitedly the whole time. When we got back to the house here in Peoplestown, we made homemade pizza had a glass of wine and chatted. That night I was even more restless and “crampy”. At about 5:30AM, Wednesday morning, I couldn’t lie down anymore so I went downstairs to watch about four M.A.S.H. episodes with Brando. We hung out down there letting everyone sleep for a good 3 hours. I made tea, ate some banana bread and waited for Anthony and mom to awake. Still feeling a little less comfy, I decided to take a bath. Anthony slept right through my Jacuzzi soak, even with the jets on and the bubbles overflowing. It was wonderful. I had lit a candle and felt the baby moving around inside of me. I knew she was considering making an appearance soon. Anthony finally got up and asked if he could help me out of the tub. I started talking to him about calling Shari, which I soon did to give her a head’s up that I was in labor.
The morning was beautiful and cloudy. Mom and I and Anthony hung out talking and listening to music while my contractions firmed up in consistency. We soon began to time them. Someone called Shari and she and I spoke again, maybe around 11am or noon, and I asked if she could swing by and evaluate me. The weather at that point was absolutely a full blown southern thunderstorm. Shari arrived soon after, soaking wet from the storm and she jumped right in to start helping me deal with intensifying contractions. We all kept hanging out in the living room listening to music, snacking and chatting (I was beginning to not want all that anymore). Shari wanted to see the nursery so we headed up there and I sat in the glider while Shari pulled up a chair. She noticed a book my aunt Jo gave us called owl kids, she said she loved that book and read it to me, which was very sweet. Meanwhile the storm outside grew more intense as did my contractions. I utilized absolutely none of my breathing techniques from the childbirth class. After the book, I felt like getting back in our Jacuzzi, which is where I labored until we left for the hospital at around 3:30PM. I had a flashback of when Anthony and I looked at the house before it was ours and I told him I’d have our baby in that tub – I wondered if that was a premonition. So did my mom who was downstairs and listening to my increasingly intense roars. We did soon pack up the car and set out to the hospital, each bump was a mountain of discomfort. [Before we left, in response to my not looking forward to the car ride, Shari reminded me that the hospital had “great ice” and “never-ending hot water”. It was something to look forward to I suppose.] We pulled up to the front and had gotten separated from mom & Shari so Anthony helped me into the lobby where the wheelchair was wheeled to me, I plopped down into it and Anthony had to go move the car so wheeled myself up to the 7th floor. I’ll never forget the looks on people’s faces as I did this – hilarious. I was wheeled back to a room with a western view of downtown Atlanta.
I was strapped into a fetal belly monitor to make sure baby was okay (“she’s a happy baby!” said a nurse) and for the nurses to look at the contractions (my mom later told me she was distressed when the nurses mouthed the word “moderate” to her in describing them). I really had begun moaning during each contraction at that point. It was also at that point that I began to ask for “a little something to take the edge off”. Shari assured me that we could visit that idea when Anjli arrived (I knew she was just putting me off but I went with it). The nurses rolled in the deep, inflatable birth tub and began to fill it. About that time is when Anjli arrived. As soon as she walked through the door, I asked her for “a little something”. She said “I’ve got a little something for you – the tub!” I was thinking “whatever” and patiently waited while the pool filled and my contractions kept rolling in.
I soon was in the tub and stayed there for the bulk of the rest of the labor. It was a completely timeless & never ending space where I dozed during my 2 minute breaks between the earth shaking contractions. This was transition and the hardest part of the labor. Anthony, mom, Shari and Anjli were all huddled around me in the tub as I shook violently, gagged, coughed, begged, roared and slept, alternately. The few times I opened my eyes, the room was filled with beautiful sunlight and all of these loving faces were looking at me. Anthony was having a hard time, I think, at this point with my pain. I could see it on his face but he stayed there, holding my hand through the toughest contractions. My mom blew on my face and Shari put cold wet towels on my back as i started feeling really hot. The women remarked that I looked like a fertility goddess/mermaid floating in the pool. I wanted to cry it was so sweet but I probably already was for different reasons. I did manage to say “thank you but I don’t feel like one”. I also recalled not believing there was an actual baby there and I definitely voiced that, mostly by accusing everyone, including Anjli, of lying. Each contraction would rise and fall and I felt no progress was being made. So, I politely asked during each contraction if I could have an epidural. No one listened because it was transition. Anjli asked if I wanted to be checked and I agreed. I was 8 cm (although she told me 9 but I heard my mom on the phone and she said 8. Oh well.) More contractions, more monster moans (I did attempt to keep them low in pitch to help bring the baby down). It was starting to get dusky outside and I couldn’t believe the baby wasn’t here yet. As the contractions grew in strength, they also began to compel my body to push. I remembered not to waste energy on pushing until my body instructed me to, but it’s not even really an instruction – it really does it on its own if you let it. At this point I think Angli checked me again and found the baby in the birth canal, she asked me to feel and I did. It was a tight, slimy, smooth surface about the size of a nickel, maybe a little bigger. “It doesn’t feel like a baby” I remember saying. “That’s because your water hasn’t broken yet, she’s still in the sac”. I thought for a quick moment “how cool, I’m going to have a baby in the tub, fully enclosed in her sac”. But things unfolded differently. After a few more pushing-type contractions on my hands and knees in the tub, I heard a loud pop and my water broke. Everyone began to notice the pushing stage had begun and so Anjli asked me to lie on my lower back/bottom with my feet up on the side of the tub. This felt really hard and uncomfortable but she was trying to get me into a good pushing position. With each grand mal contraction, Anjli asked me to bear down and push after letting it build. Nothing seemed to be happening so Anjli felt my bladder. I was totally full and so she asked me to try to pee. Nothing. So, I was helped out of the tub onto the toilet where I was really not looking forward to being for the next big one but we had to drain that bladder. The toilet was torture. No pee and horrible contractions that did nothing because of my full bladder. It was baby’s head vs. full bladder bouncing off each other. So, I willed a cease fire, telling my body to slow down until they could catheterize me. I didn’t have one for a little while, long enough to get up on the table. I did have another one, unfortunately, as they drained my bladder which sucked. But as soon as they did, I instinctively flopped to my left side and lifted my right leg into the air. Shari said this turned the baby’s head in my body so she could come out. I then was told to get on my back, my mom behind me supporting, Shari and Anthony to my sides holding my legs and Anjli in the middle. I was told to curl around my baby, holding under my knees and to push push push and bear down. We did this 3-4 times and soon I felt a burning sensation – Shari exclaimed “this is the ring of fire, Shaneen!”. She was finally crowning. I remembered not to push but to wait a minute, hoping not to tear. Another big one came, I pushed as everyone encouraged me and I soon saw the top half of my daughter as Anjli worked to untangle her umbilical cord which was twice wrapped around her upper arms with her hands by her face. Shari and Anjli told me “take your baby!” I still didn’t believe it and said “no!!”. They again said “Shaneen, take your baby!!!” I reached between my legs to see a blue black wiggling creature, slipped my hands under her arms and pulled her from my body and onto my chest. The joy of that moment has outmatched any other in my lifetime. The love I felt for Anthony and her was incredible. I’m so proud of all of us for bringing Stella into the world in the most natural and safe way we knew how. Shari said “you didn’t do this so you could wear a badge on your arm for having an un-medicated birth, you did this so you could give your daughter the best gift of all: to let her write her own birth story. You let the mystery unfold on its own”. I have to say, although it took a couple days to get there, I have no regrets and would do it again. Magic. Agonizing and beautiful magic.