Lev's birth story (part 4)

The delivery room was yellow. And tiled. And, in an example of extremely poor design, the loo was through an office and down a hallway. And those are about the only impressions I have of it. The hour I spent there was just a little too intense for good memory making.

In Ukraine, you often carry your medical records with you, so one of the first things we did was hand over a folder containing all my analyses, bloodwork, ultrasounds and results of prenatal visits. For some reason, the doctor chose not to read it. Instead, he kept asking me questions:

"How big did your last ultrasound say the baby would be?"

Pause for contraction.

"About 3 1/2 kilos? I don't know. It's written in the folder."

----

"How much weight did you gain?"

Pause for contraction.

"About 13 kilos? I don't know. It's written in the folder."

----

"Did your eye exam show that you can have a natural birth?"

"Yes."

"What was your vision?"

Pause for contraction.

"I don't know. It's written in the folder."


You get the idea. Evidently, he finally did, too, and started reading. I know he started reading, because pretty soon all the medical personnel started laughing. "You're allergic to buckwheat? How odd! Probably it's only toasted buckwheat that you're allergic to." And so on.

I'm pretty used to this reaction to my strange, strange allergy ... but I really couldn't understand why this was applicable to my current situation. Surely they weren't planning on feeding me?

While all this was going on, we also met our midwife. Turns out, she was the one who would actually deliver the baby. The doctor was just there to ask irritating questions, I guess? No, just kidding ... he did play a bigger role than that.

I love our midwife. I don't know her name. I would not recognize her face. But I love her. She:

a) Didn't make me use the fetal monitor. This meant I was free to roam, and didn't have to deal with an uncomfortably tight belt around my uncomfortably contracting belly.

b) When I said I didn't want pain medication, she bathed me in encouraging words and called me a little rabbit. (That's a tender nickname in Russian.)

c) Responded to my individual reaction to contractions. So, for instance, when she saw me jolt into a sitting position on the hospital bed, she said, "No, don't sit like that, this will be better." And then she rolled out the birthing ball. I'd tried a birthing ball with Dietrich, but it felt very unstable. This midwife showed me how to position my legs, plus she rolled the ball right up to the end of the bed, so I could lean on the edge. It felt stable -- and wonderful.

d) Left decisions up to us. My water hadn't broken. She and the doctor said they could break it, but I clearly was hesitant. So, they told me to think about it and let them know when I was ready. The midwife came back one more time to clarify the possible outcomes (longer but gentler labor if water stayed intact, shorter but more intense if it was broken), and then she did another wonderful thing for us --

e) She left us alone. For a good stretch of time, it was just Eric and I, working together, in that delivery room. When I finally decided I was ready to be done and that I wanted my water broken, he had to leave the room and go down the hall to find someone.

Here's where the doctor actually did something: He broke my water. But first he checked me and declared, "Your cervix is gone!"

"Oh great," I said. "That means I'm at 10 centimeters?"

"Young lady," he responded. "Ten centimeters, eight centimeters, 15 centimeters -- who cares? Your cervix is gone!"

He broke the water, checked me again, then said: "OK, I'll say nine centimeters. Tell me when you want to push."

The next contraction found me yelling, "I want to! I want to!"

At this point, the quiet ended. Lots of people rushed in. They were touching me and positioning me and basically throwing me off my game. I lost it for a minute, but the midwife yelled (louder than I was yelling) to get my attention, and quickly guided me through the pushing. I never felt like I got to the point of focused pushing, and Eric said the baby's shoulders seemed stuck and that the midwife had to pull pretty hard on him.

Still, just a few minutes later, Lev (middle-name-still-to-be-determined) Oldenburg was out and on my chest.

I couldn't see his sweet face, just his fingers and arms and legs. He was purple, but no one forced him to cry to pink him up. They just let us hang out together.

And then I really lost it. I started laughing. Cackling, actually. Loudly. My joy overcame my self control and all I could do was let it pour out of me. Lev was here. He was alive. Healthy. And, as an added blessing, I'd had the natural birth that I'd longed for. And I did it all in Russian. Crazy. Happy. Thankful.

In an unexpected twist, after about 30 blissful minutes with our little one, I was informed that I'd be knocked me out while they fixed me up.

While I was out, Eric had a moment of clarity while holding Lev. We had gone back and forth on a middle name for weeks. Since Lev isn't a common American name, we wondered if we ought to give him a plain-Jane middle name so that he'd have a backup option. While I understood that reasoning, I was holding out for Eleos, which means "mercy" in Greek.

When I woke up, shaking uncontrollably and wearing different clothes, Eric brought Lev to me and explained that, during their quiet first moments together, he had realized that Eleos was perfectly appropriate.

The medical staff slipped away, and we were left alone with Lev Eleos Oldenburg, who started nursing and hasn't stopped since.

And, today, nearly 10 weeks after his arrival, I feel the same way I did in the seconds after I first spotted his tiny fingers.

Crazy. Happy. Thankful.