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You can read Lisa’s account in her weblog.

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The pregnancy, to this point, was a period of ups and downs – it’s amazing how quickly one’s outlook on life changes when one takes charge of a life whose existence relies on you.

A week had passed after Lisa’s due date, and Lisa was getting more worried as each day passed, even though the midwives assured her this is a common occurrence for first time mothers. With this mounting worry, we decided that the following weekend we would try to induce Nora into external existence with a myriad of natural methods. Lisa was already consuming evening primrose oil; for spicy food I made a batch of my usual lasagna, with extra (fifteen cloves) garlic, and we also tried nipple stimulation and intercourse.

I don’t think we’ll ever know what really caused Lisa to go into labor.

Around three thirty a.m., or so I was told, Lisa awoke to lower back pain. Lisa customarily was unable to sleep through the night, so it wasn’t uncommon for Lisa to head downstairs and leave me to my dreams while Lisa tried to fall back asleep.

I awoke at 11.30am. I remember thinking two things: first, it was nice to sleep in after weeks of getting up early to work on the house, and second, thank god for Sunday. I was looking forward to blowing the day off and getting back to work on Sunday, which in my mind justified the sleeping in.

Lisa informed me of the back pain. Lisa associated the back pain to spasms, which at the time wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Lisa had a concentration of weight in her belly, hadn’t been able to sleep on her back or her stomach at all, and had to continually flip her body from side to side throughout the night because her hip kept going numb. On top of this, the bed was too firm and the couch was too soft, so there was no position and no place that was comfortable to her.

Because of Lisa’s back pain, we basically decided to veg in front of a Scrubs marathon on Comedy Central. Lisa’s back pain was worsening, coming in waves every quarter hour it seemed. It was around 7pm where I finally broached the idea that it might be contractions. Lisa insisted that they weren’t, but agreed to time them anyway. Roughly around 9 pm, the contractions were regularly occurring thirteen minutes apart.

I’d like to mention here that the very notion that the contractions were occurring at regularly spaced intervals completely blew my mind. OF COURSE, I knew that this would be the case; however, Lisa’s uterus didn’t have a stopwatch – this was a wonderful demonstration of the evolution of labor over thousands of years into a well refined process. At the time, Lisa didn’t seem to appreciate this observation, which of course was fair.

From nine p.m. to two a.m. consisted of the following: Lisa would sit with me and watch t.v. When the contractions came, Lisa would hand me whatever she was eating, I would put it down, pause the t.v. and then help her up. From there, I was vigorously rub her lower back while she closed her eyes and clenched her teeth. It was remarkably mechanical and we were pretty quiet throughout all of it. At two am, the contractions were bordering between five and six minutes apart, so Lisa suggested I get some sleep for the long haul. I slept for exactly one hour, at which time I woke up to Lisa screaming in pain.

Once I got downstairs, at 3am the contractions were exactly four minutes apart. At around 4am, we made the call to the birth center, where they told us to come on down. I quickly showered, ate, packed, and we headed out. I knew everything was moving much too slowly for Lisa (she told me as much), but I was determined not to have one of those sitcom-esque episodes where I rush through the house and forget some important detail.

We arrived at the birth center around 5.30am. Lisa was checked out by the midwife (who in a past life wasn’t so nice, but in this particular instance was exceedingly pleasant) who found her to be 4 cm dilated – we were official, and weren’t going anywhere for what we learned later the next twenty four hours.

It’s at this point where I stopped regularly looking at the clock.

For about an hour or so Lisa subjected herself to a nice hot shower while I dozed on and off – a difficult task, because the midwife kept entering and leaving the room, and insisting on using ninja like stealth in doing so. I appreciate the sentiment, but you can imagine how disconcerting that was.

Once Lisa exited the shower, Lisa more or less became uncommunicative. Of all the methods of dealing with the pain, I didn’t quite expect this one so for the next several hours I would simply try something that I thought I would appreciate if I were in that much pain (one time, I stepped on a rusty nail. It went halfway through my foot. That was my muse).

Initially, Lisa would simply say ‘no’ if she didn’t like what I was doing. After a while, Lisa simply slapped me if it wasn’t working. Somewhere in between this, a nurse who held the labor classes arrived. She reminded Lisa (and I) that she should be controlling her breath. This is the first point of comedic hindsight – whenever she said something Lisa didn’t like, Lisa extracted her revenge by digging her nails into my skin.

Fair enough.

The first midwife had left, and was replaced by a midwife who I also didn’t like. Sadly, she was still mostly a jerk, but in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t particularly matter. She received her comeuppance later on.

The first midwife suggested sterile water injections, which the second midwife echoed. Lisa finally opted for them. The second midwife warned that the injections would sting ‘a little’. Lisa’s pain to this point was limited to moaning and rocking back and forth while she leaned against me, so imagine my shock at her blood-curling scream and her knuckles going completely white from clutching my hand so tightly. She repeated the process three more times, which made Lisa forget the current contraction completely.

It worked for just one contraction. For one contraction, Lisa was able to basically handle on her own, and was even able to talk through it. The next contraction, no such luck.

It was here when things started going downhill. First, the contractions seemed to get stronger. Secondly, Lisa insisted on leaving the window open because she was hot. I should also mention that firstly, it was the coldest day of the year, somewhere below 0F, and secondly, Lisa was in fact naked. On top of this, Lisa couldn’t find any position to deal with the contractions – she went from leaning on me to pushing me away, leaning on the bed, and then leaning on the birthing ball, sitting on a stool to the floor, and repeated this process ad nauseum. After the contractions got stronger, they increased in frequency. At one point, for ten minutes, Lisa had one contraction after another with no break in between. It was at this point that the midwife decided to check Lisa’s progress.

Lisa hadn’t really progressed. Lisa was still 4 cm dilated, though the baby had dropped down a bit further. This was at around 10am, over twenty four hours after the labor had started. To say that Lisa was devastated was an understatement. At this point, the midwife suggested a mild narcotic to get Lisa some sleep, since staying awake wasn’t helping her. Lisa agreed.

While the midwife went off to prepare the concoction, this began the hardest point for me in the labor. Lisa started sobbing, and calling herself a failure. Obviously, for anyone to go through this much pain for such a long period is not a failure, and I told her as much. But to see her so heartbroken, so devastated, and for me to not be able to even remotely ease her pain was killing me.

When Lisa was at only 4 cm after four hours, the midwife and the nurse stopped being so talkative with me. I began fearing that they were thinking that Lisa may need an admittance to the hospital. I kept asking so many questions that the nurse and midwife stopped visiting as frequently, so I followed them and asked them more questions. It was basically the same question in different forms – ‘so, now what?’ and their response was always measured and vague. However, I was already paranoid so you can take that for what it’s worth.

The midwife returned and injected the medication. After fifteen minutes, Lisa had a glassy eyed look about her and had difficulty standing up. A few minutes after that, Lisa lay on her side in bed, and started drifting off. She said to me in a distant voice, “Kashi, it hurts so… much” and then fell asleep. Here, I started sobbing profusely while I lay next to her, and continued to do so for… quite awhile. I had never felt so powerless in my life.

Lisa would wake up for a contraction and then immediately fall back asleep. Every time she had a contraction, I would provide some light touch massage.

After an hour, or an hour and a half, we awoke to our birth center neighbor screaming in agony. Comical hindsight point number two – just like in the sitcoms, some people do in fact scream while pushing. She was screaming all sorts of things, at the top of her lungs no less. I didn’t realize Lisa was awake until she said “I think I’m ok with the labor right now.” Sadly (we’re mean people, I guess), we both shared a laugh at her expense. But, her pushing didn’t last very long – we heard a screaming baby nearly twenty minutes later.

The midwife came back after the neighbor had her baby. Lisa had progressed to five cm, and it is here that she suggested manually breaking the bag of waters, to which Lisa consented. At 1pm, it broke.

I read that the water was about a cup or two of clear liquid. It didn’t seem that way. After breaking the bag, Lisa gushed. Lisa sat up after a few minutes, and gushed some more. And after standing, she really gushed. It’s certainly not akin to urinating. I don’t think there’s any good way to explain water flowing that quickly.

For what it’s worth, Lisa did not want me to be seeing this. I love her for trying to keep the romance for the future, even in labor, even after all our adventures in Puerto Rico and elsewhere. While I was still upset at the narcotic incident, this was incredibly fascinating.

After breaking the bag, Lisa headed to the jacuzzi. It helped for about a half hour, after which point Lisa was in too much pain and nauseous to continue using it. Lisa stood up, tried showering, and that didn’t help. The showerhead was removable, so I had Lisa stand at the far end of the tub and I sprayed her back in strokes, which helped until I accidentally stopped when the midwife showed up. Lisa completely freaked out and insisted that she get out of the tub at the very second. I learned here that I should make no sudden movements and above all else, do not stop doing what works, under any circumstance.

Lisa had progressed to six centimeters, after another examination. It should also be noted that when we first arrived, they found the baby’s heartbeat in one sector of Lisa’s stomach, and after the narcotics the heartbeat was in another sector. Apparently the baby had turned onto her side, but they didn’t mention this until after the baby was born.

Lisa had gone completely uncommunicative after this exam. She didn’t even slap me anymore. Lisa basically was naked, leaning over a stool in the bathroom while I alternated between an ice pack and a hot compress for the next hour. Lisa was so silent, she didn’t even let on she was still having contractions. I was convinced she was asleep, but her eyes were half open.

After another exam, Lisa was dilated at 8 cm. It was here the midwife suggested I let Lisa do exactly what she wanted, which was lock herself in the bathroom and scream in pain. Comical point in hindsight number three – from the outside of the room, while Lisa was banging on the toliet and moaning, it sounded like Lisa was having difficulty… ah, using the facilities (mind you, I didn’t think it was funny at the time). Lisa wanted desperately to go to the bathroom, but couldn’t because of her fear of pushing the baby out. Lisa was in and out of the bathroom, alternately telling me to leave her and alone and begging me to be next to her two seconds ago.

One more exam was performed, and this time Lisa was fully dilated except for a lip blocking the way. The midwife reached in, moved the lip, and decided it was time for pushing.

The pushing went by very quickly (relatively speaking). It started with Lisa on her back, while I held up one of her legs and a nurse held up the other. Lisa pushed. This lasted for two pushes, until Lisa decided she was better off on her side. Lisa then pushed from her side for the next forty five minutes on her side.

Initially, Lisa moaned during pushes. The nurse and I began insisting that she instead focus on the push instead of vocalizing her pain, and this is where Lisa was a true hero – she literally stopped making noise all together. After forty five minutes of the side pushing, Lisa was asked to lay on her back. Lisa turned to me and said that she wanted the baby out of her. It wasn’t so much a statement as how she said it.

Once she was on her back, Lisa bit her lip, grabbed her own legs and pushed with all her might. We kept asking her if she wanted a break, and every time she shook her head no. The only time she made any noise was when she answered by saying ‘I need to push’.

At the same time, I was pretty much no help. The baby’s head crowned, and all I could say was ‘ok! Ok! Ok!’ The midwife and two nurses had a good laugh at my expense, but again – that was a baby’s head! A baby’s head!

After several more minutes of pushing, the baby’s head was almost completely out. The baby was gorgeous. My first observation was ‘I can see the head, but her eyes are closed and she isn’t crying’. My second observation was ‘my god, she’s incredibly beautiful!’ and finally, ‘holy jesus, that baby is big’.

The midwife yanked the baby out, and Lisa was done! They immediately brought the baby to Lisa’s chest, where she started crying (of course). The first the baby did? She grabbed my finger. I had asked Lisa for months whether she would grab my finger, and of course the first thing she did was just that. I sobbed. My god, was she beautiful. The whole process was amazing, simply amazing. Comedic point in hindsight number four – Nora promptly pooped all over Lisa’s arm.

Remember the comeuppance? Everyone below Lisa’s torso was drenched in blood and fluid. I mean completely drenched, especially that uppity midwife.

They clamped the umbilical cord and after a few short moments, I was able to cut the cord.

It wasn’t over, though. Lisa was bleeding pretty heavily, so in the interest of repairing Lisa, they took the baby away to clean her up and fix Lisa. Everything from this point forward was extremely fuzzy, so your forgiveness please.

They took the baby to a warming table, where they cleaned here and put her in some warm clothes. I watched and took pictures, while the baby cried.

Here occurred a third miracle (first being the birth and second being the finger grabbing). For months, ever since the baby developed ears and was able to hear, I spoke to the baby through the womb. I would sing, read stories, but mostly just talked. As the baby was crying, I went to the baby, looked her in those beautiful eyes and simply said ‘Hi Nora!’ and she stopped crying. After getting permission to pick her up, she and I were inseparable.

In the meantime Lisa was given a shot of pitocin so that she would produce the placenta. The placenta was massive – bigger than the pan they put it in. And the cord, was an oddity as well – it wasn’t knotted, but it had small bunches, as if it were knotted, or as if Nora thought it was play-doh and made a sculpture. None of the nurses nor the midwife ever saw such a thing.

The bleeding didn’t stop. To give you an idea of the amount of blood, I was standing by Lisa’s head and still managed to get drenched from the waist down in blood. Half the room had blood all over it.

It appeared Lisa had a fairly sizeable tear, so on top of the delivery of the placenta, Lisa required stitches and other chemicals. Throughout it all, Lisa had a serene look on her face and had her eyes locked on Nora. I brought Nora to her mommy as frequently as they would let me. Remarkably, after her initial crying fit, Nora didn’t cry. She simply watched everything with great interest with those big beautiful eyes of hers.

After these proceedings and after everyone left the room, Nora was returned to Lisa’s chest where the two had their cuddle time. And yet again, I started sobbing, but this time not in sadness but extreme joy: for the baby, for finally coming out and being so intensely beautiful; for Lisa, for Lisa, for the labor finally ending; and finally, for finally drawing a close to the pregnancy.

At some point I found myself on the floor laughing hysterically. I don’t remember why or how I got there. I do remember Lisa saying ‘Kashi, you’re covered in blood and lying on the floor. If someone were to come in right now, they’d think something is very wrong’.

It’s amazing how lucid and calm Lisa was right after giving birth.

Lisa isn’t big on pain. It was a big decision to have the birth done naturally, without an epidural, and she came through with flying colors. The baby was huge, yet that didn’t stop her from pushing that baby out. I’ve never been more proud of anyone or anything than I was with Lisa that very moment when that baby was crying on her chest, clutching my finger. Lisa is my wife, the mother of my child and most of all, my hero.

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