“If he doesn’t come by next week, we’re going to have to induce,” she said. “It would be no fun to push out a 10 pound baby.”
“Don’t worry,” I assured her. “We’re planning to see you at the hospital tonight.”
Damien’s estimated due date was the very next day, and I hoped he’d be punctual like his older brother. We discarded our home dinner plans and celebrated our “last meal” at a local Korean restaurant—I was convinced spicy kimchi would help.
In the middle of the night, I woke a couple times from an intense contraction here and there, but I wasn’t positive they were the real deal. Around 5am, a slew of contractions woke me again, and before I could fall back to sleep, Luca opened our door and crawled in between Joe and me, so my chances of dozing dropped to zero.
I got out of bed to drink some water, rest on the couch and download an app on my phone to help me time my contractions: About five minutes apart and getting stronger. I had to roll over to my side each time one came on—I physically could not stay lying on my back since it made the contractions much less manageable.
Just after 6am, Luca came out to the living room with a groggy Joe in tow. “Mama’s awake!” Joe said, sensing freedom. To me: “Mind if I go lay back down for a bit?”
“Uuuummm, maybe…?”
Joe tried to shake off his sleepy fog to understand.
“I’m timing my contractions,” I said once one passed, pointing to my phone. “Seems like this is happening.”
The news was more effective than caffeine. “Oh!” he said, sleepy fog swiftly lifting. “I had no idea what you were doing!”
Luca took the news in stride and, it seemed to me, relief. He’d been asking Baby Brother to come out for weeks.
I called the hospital to give them a heads up, and the woman on the phone suggested I come right away. “Since it’s your second birth, it could happen faster,” she told me.
Regardless, I wanted to wait for my doula to arrive. (And I wanted to eat some scrambled eggs and toast—who knew when I’d feel like eating again?) Also, I’m a fan of laboring at home as long as possible, which, in this case, wasn’t long. My doula got to our home at about 7am, and she observed me through a few contractions. I rested my arms on our big exercise ball while she squeezed my hips to relieve the pressure and instructed Luca to gently pet my back.
“You can do it, Mama!” Luca cheered.
I smiled.
During a break between contractions, remembering something funny Luca said a few days before, I asked, “Luca, what is your baby brother going to say when he comes out?”
“Freeeeedom!!”
The drive to the hospital, which is at the peak of the mountain that bisects Hong Kong Island, was excruciating. I would say this was the hardest—nope, second hardest—part of labor. It seemed ages before I felt the car even moving uphill. “Thank God! We’re going up!” I said from where I hunched over the backseat breathing through increasingly strong contractions.
The walk from the car to the maternity ward seemed to have doubled, and I repeatedly had to stop to rest on my doula in a sort of hunched hug—hunching was the name of the game for me this labor, and she was just the right height for it. I’m sure I gave her quite a workout; it’s no joke taking on the weight of a 40-weeks-pregnant woman.
But she did it instinctively and without faltering, and for what felt like ages since, even once we’d arrived in the delivery suite, I had to stand up—well, hunch—for the initial fetal monitoring. I could have been flat on the bed, but there is positively no chance I was going to willingly lay on my back for that amount of time. Contractions were far, far more challenging in that position.
As soon as it was possible, I jumped in the warm bath, where I spent a couple hours letting the waves of contractions roll and diving deeper and deeper into my own personal zone. My contractions were only two to three minutes apart, but somehow I was so focused that I slept between them. Slept, prayed and visualized the baby pushing down and my body opening up. Joe and my doula poured water over me each time a contraction washed over me.
Unlike with Luca’s birth, in my zone I felt lucid. Utterly aware of all that was going on in my body and around me. “Move down,” I silently urged my baby. “Break the water,” I told him, waiting for that popping gush that happened during my first delivery.
Time passed, but I had no idea how much. My water did not break.
I woke up. Just like that, for no apparent reason, I came out of my zone to chat with Joe and my doula. Joe fed me some Cheese-Its and juice. “My legs are shaking,” I told the doula. “That’s weird.”
She said that happens sometimes, during the transition phase. “Huh,” I said, laying back and closing my eyes, trying to go back into my sleepy zone. I felt impatient.
Since things were so calm, Joe asked if it was ok for him to run and grab a bite to eat from the cafeteria. “Don’t go far,” I told him, hopeful things could intensify any moment.
“Hurry back,” my doula agreed.
Joe opted to stay.
I couldn’t go back to sleep. I didn’t want to. Was it lunch time already? I wondered. Why isn’t my water breaking?
“Let’s do this,” I told myself and pushed up into a deep squat in the bath. As I expected, contractions intensified right away. One contraction even triggered my expulsion reflex: My body pushed.
“It’s time to get out of the bath,” my doula said, after that one.
I wrapped in a robe and removed my soaking swim suit top, stopping every couple minutes to breathe deeply and rest on my doula’s shoulders.
I was out of the bath by about 11 or 11:30am, and I spent the next half hour or so trying to find the right position. I climbed up on the bed and tried something new each time my body got tired or a contraction was too strong in a certain pose: standing, squatting, all fours, lying on my side, resting my arms on an exercise ball or the back of the bed. It was hard to stay in any position for more than one or two contractions—a couple times the contractions were strong enough to knock me out of my focused zone, and my face would contort with a moan.
“Don’t start that now,” my doula urged. “Just keep doing what you’ve been doing.”
I listened. Thankfully, I’d chosen a doula whose voice I could trust when the time was right. If that gorgeously accented Australian timbre told me to do jumping jacks, I might’ve tried.
My doctor materialized, though I didn’t notice for a little while. “Oh, hi,” I said when I noticed she’d been quietly observing me from the end of the bed. She never rushed me, but she told me she was attending another patient loboring in the next suite over.
When I decided to rest on my side for a minute, the doctor and midwife both stepped out to check on the other woman, who was also moving into the final stages.
But then, my body wanted a position change. I decided to switch to all fours, but right between lying and fours, as Joe was helping me shift on the small bed, a contraction hit, a real doozy. A pushing contraction like you wouldn’t believe. I was deep in a squat on the bed, with Joe in front of me to make sure I didn’t tip over. “He’s coming!” I announced.
Then, man, the contractions were coming. Still two minutes apart, but I was pushing hard core.
The doula pulled the emergency cord and ran out to find my doctor and midwife. I’m sure Joe and I were alone for just a few moments, but it felt like eternity. We didn’t speak at the time, but Joe was strategizing how to keep hold of me while catching the baby, and I just knew we’d be doing it alone.
With a sudden flurry, the doula and midwife ran in.
My water broke. I could feel the baby’s head.
Joe held at least half of my weight, supporting me through delivery in the most literal fashion.
The baby crowned.
When Luca was born, his head began to crown and then suddenly appeared between my legs with one sudden contraction. This is what I expected.
This is not what happened.
“His eyes are out!” my doula or doctor—I can’t remember which—told me.
Contractions were still two minutes apart, so I waited. And, yes, I could feel a baby’s head in my hips. Did you ever notice how long two whole minutes can be?
Also unlike my first delivery, this time I got verbal: “Oh my gosh!” I breathed near Joe’s ear. “Oh, man. Come on, baby!!!!!”
The best one of all: “Please don’t go back in!”
“His nose is out!” someone said after the next contraction.
Then two minutes. Two eternal minutes. I tried to push between contractions—this boy was coming out if I had anything to do with it.
“Wait till you feel the downward pressure,” my doctor urged.
“You wait!” I told her… in my head.
It felt like a hundred contractions, but I’m sure it was five or six. Probably fewer.
The midwife told me later that the other laboring woman had been so afraid our shared doctor would be in my delivery suite when her time came that she stalled at about 8cm. Once she heard I’d delivered, she was so relieved she rapidly dilated to 10 and popped out her bundle of joy about 10 minutes after I did. Labor is such a mental game: Fear can slow it down, relaxation can speed it up.
While the midwife and doctor were busy with the other woman, Damien showed us something miraculous: the breast crawl instinct. My doula set him on my stomach and we watched while he began to bob his head around, rooting. He found his fist and sucked on it. Then, he moved his knees, pushing himself up to my chest (and thus kneading my abdomen, which helps stimulate the uterus in its effort to contract to normal size). He then rooted around until he found his goal, latched on naturally, all by himself, and began to nurse.
I felt both emotional and numb as I watched my second son doze off in my arms for the first time. I didn’t yet know how this new creature would change our family, but I knew I was grateful.
I told Joe a funny thought I’d had while laboring in the tub: “I can probably do this one more time.”
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