The Many Coping Mechanisms of Labor

Halcyon Yvonne, born 10:28 am pacific time, 7 lbs 6 oz, 21 inches long.

These are data points on a page, and capture nothing of the tumult and poetry of your birth. You came into the world gray and slippery, a tiny seal I pulled up onto my chest after ripping myself in half to get you free. The purple stillness of your face in the birthing mirror alarmed me, your shoulder stuck on my internal bones. I did not notice the blood pooling from my tears, I saw only you, the agonizing seconds before your first cry. I held you to me and tried to give you all you needed so that you would be calm and safe in the world that had been so rudely introduced to you. Soothed and in my arms, you looked up at me with dark-blue eyes, squinting into unfamiliar light. I tried to feed you. But the room started to go black.

I held onto you, flashing stars in my vision, and told the doctor: I’m crashing. For the next 2 1/2 hours, I was in and out of consciousness, the warm and vivacious Dr. Connor transforming into a drill sergeant, barking orders as she stitched me up. I heard them discussing my blood type, heard the order for a unit of blood. Observation, curiosity; that has always been a coping mechanism of mine. I listened to descriptions of me in the third person, trying to piece it all together. Once, I came to as a nurse held my face between her hands. Breathe, she was telling me; I heard Bess and Lauren talking to me too, opened my eyes, and then went under again. It was all I could do to focus as I had so many times on the rhythm of my own air intake. Breath: long a coping mechanism to calm the mind and remain present. I wondered if I would die. It threatened to pull me under, never to rise again, so I breathed, over and over, holding onto the thread of life. It was painful to hold on so tightly. I was aware of many people in the room, holding my legs up, covering me in blankets as my teeth chattered. I agonized over how hungry my daughter must be, heard a baby cry in the other room and lifted my head to weep: “where did they take her?” No, she’s here, they said, Lauren has her and she’s happy, she’s doing just great, focus on yourself.

I came to enough to watch Dr. Connor gather the plastic sheet containing all my blood. It sagged like a full trash bag. She was trying to put it into a biohazard trashcan, and I could see that it was catching and that it would spill everywhere. And it did, splashing on the floor into a large pool. I could barely make the connection that it all been inside my body such a short time ago. My blood pressure dropped to 49/29.

Finally, I was able to hold her again, tubes coming out of each appendage, a second unit of blood hurrying into my right arm. Two days later, still in the hospital, I began processing it as I curled my body around her tiny one. After an afternoon spent lonely and sad under the bilirubin lights, she held my arm with her two long-fingered hands, pulling me close to her chest. I whispered to her: I’m here, you’re safe now, I’m so glad I’m here, I’m so glad I get to be alive to take care of you.

You are the best and most perfect thing of my life, and the joy if it seems precarious as unknowns clamor for attention.

The difficulty did not begin with delivery. You know how in the movies, women announce they’re going into labor by splashing out puddles unexpectedly at a particularly crucial plot moment? In reality, only a small percentage of women’s water breaks before labor starts. Which is good, because in real life, it sets off a time clock on the probability of developing intraamniotic infection, which prior to antibiotics, often killed both the mother and baby. Research of scary things, that has been a coping mechanism of mine.

So my water broke Sunday the 19th, around 5 pm, catching me off guard since my due date was almost three weeks away. I’d been thinking of the solstice as the first day she was allowed to arrive, newly full term. I’m fact, with as big as she was measuring, the solstice would be ideal; I had been calling it in as an auspicious day since the previous solstice, before she existed. And yet I was still unprepared.

I’d planned a home birth, in my living room. After a sleepless night of mild contractions and anticipation, my midwife tried to jump-start active labor with cotton root. On my part, I tried everything from yard work to twerking. Dance: always a coping mechanism. See also: plants. The contractions became frequent and intensely painful, but without much progression. I projectile-vomited all the calories and fluids I’d consumed in the past 8 hours, hanging over the side of the birthing pool while Bess, my sister, Lauren, my friend, and Charity, the midwife, held a bowl and mopped the floor with old towels. 28 hours after my water broke, I transferred to the hospital. I am on the left side of crunchy, but when the epidural hit, I told the anesthesiologist I loved her. I couldn’t exactly sleep, hooked to beeping machines and with a blood pressure cuff going off every 5–15 minutes, but the relief of not feeling the contractions as the Pitocin did its thing was sweet rest. Early the next morning, the doctor told me I had all the signs of IAI; fever, and baby’s heartbeat had become irregular. “I guess antibiotics are better than dying,” I told my sister. By around 8:30, I was ready to start pushing.

Humor is a coping mechanism. As I drifted in and out of consciousness, clinging to my sense of humor was synonymous with holding on to life. Bess was telling the staff my blood type; I managed to ask: “is that what the blood draw said?” A nurse, happy to see any response at all, said “oh, you are here!”

“I’m an editor,” I said “I’m going to double check even if I’m dying.”

Community is its own kind of coping mechanism, and not so much coping as the way the world is supposed to work. Later, I talked to a curly-haired young nurse who looked familiar behind her mask, and she asked how my brothers were doing; she already knew my family. “I ran as fast as I could to get the blood,” she said, and I pictured it: her flying down the halls, red curls streaming behind her.

My brother Samuel and my dad ran errands as I labored at home, and I’ve never seen my little brother so nervous and businesslike; the two of them ate ice cream outside my house like guardian lions. My sister Bess attended to my every need before, during and after, taking shifts so I could sleep after the baby came. The rest of my family plied me with bone broth, organic fruits, kefir, kimchi, and most importantly, time … the time I didn’t have with a new baby demanding things every waking moment.

But joy, joy is the greatest coping mechanism of all. And even when it is precarious, it is like taking shots of fire from the furnace of life.

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