RO’s BIRTH STORY: The One Where I Almost Had A Baby On The Toilet

At 12:30 in the morning on January 23rd, I woke up to what felt like a period cramp. (Have I lost all the guys reading this yet?) I remember I sat up in bed to check my phone to see what time it was and then waited to see if I felt anything else. Sure enough, about 25 minutes later, I felt the same weird tightening. I slid out of bed and looked over the railing of our second floor to where Tim was still awake on the couch downstairs. I said, “Babe! I think it’s happening!!! I think we’re having a baby tonight!!” 

Narrator: It was not, in fact, happening. They did not have a baby that night.

As it would turn out, there’s this thing called ‘Early Labor,’ and the internet says it can last anywhere from 8-12 hours. My Early Labor lasted for 24. Every 15 minutes, I would have a contraction that would stick around for about 45 seconds. Thankfully, they weren’t super painful, just uncomfortable and nerve wracking since we didn’t know if they would suddenly start speeding up! The next day we decided to run some errands to keep busy, and I will never forget standing in line at the grocery store while I was having a contraction. It was very surreal to know that I was in labor (or so I was hoping) and no one around me could even tell!

After bouncing on my exercise ball the rest of the night, I ate way too much Papa John’s pizza, took a hot bath and got in bed.

Narrator: She would later tell the nurse that she truly regretted dousing her pizza in garlic butter sauce.

By the time I got in bed, I was starting to get a bit discouraged and thought maybe I was experiencing Braxton Hicks. Suddenly, though, I realized the contractions were happening faster. Within no time, they were about 6 minutes apart and Tim decided to call the doctor. She told us we could wait a little longer until I was 5 minutes apart so I wouldn’t have to spend as much time in the hospital, but since they had progressed from 15 to 6 so quickly we decided to start getting ready to go. 

Gracie was already sleeping, but I went into her room and had a quick cry while I said goodbye. Thinking about the fact that it would never just be the two of us again was more than I could handle. We got in the car and I tried to change my mindset and re-focus—this was our new baby’s big moment and I didn’t want to take anything away from that! I also kind of felt like I was about to run a marathon, so I was trying to keep my nerves in check and my eye on the finish line. 

We got to the hospital and they checked my dilation in triage before admitting me. I was 4cm and the contractions were really starting to hurt. We got transferred over to a delivery room and the nurse asked me about pain management. I told her I was going to try to do it naturally, but that my baby’s safety came first so that should be the priority. She was amazing and told me she wouldn’t bring up the epidural again unless I requested to talk about it. She also told me she could do intermittent monitoring instead of keeping me hooked up the whole time. This was a game changer as I had been really worried about being confined to the bed. 

Narrator: She should have been less worried about being confined to the bed and more worried about having the baby on the pooper.

The next three hours were a weird juxtaposition of having an out of body experience while also having the most intense sensations INSIDE my body that I have ever experienced. I already feel like I have post-birth amnesia, but I still remember thinking, “holy shit this IS the most painful thing I have ever experienced.” I’m honestly not exactly sure what I thought it would feel like—especially because I had felt contractions with my first before getting the epidural—but this time seemed different. 

It’s a take-your-breath-away kind of pain that starts deep inside of you and then creeps up until it fills your whole body. I didn’t expect to be able to feel the sensation of a contraction ‘coming on,’ but I definitely could. I read that some women use the analogy of a wave coming to shore to explain it and looking back this definitely makes sense. 

I couldn’t tell you how many contractions I had, how long they each lasted, or what my face looked like during the height of them (yikes). 

But I can tell you that I would have been begging for the epidural if it hadn’t been for Tim. He believed in me and it made me believe in myself. When I felt a contraction coming on, I would make him crouch in front of me as I sat on the medicine ball. I wrapped my arms around his neck and would hold on for dear life as he whispered in my ear.

Narrator: She would later realize that he had been squatting like that for over an hour and his legs had almost fallen asleep—thankfully she eventually realized that chairs do, in fact, exist, and had him sit on one in front of her instead.

I don’t think I have ever felt more connected to Tim. It was like he was trying to take some of the pain from me and put it into his body, and somehow it seemed to work. Each time I felt a contraction coming, panic would start to rise up inside me. But then I would grab onto him and he would tell me it was going to be okay, and I believed him.

At one point, I started to feel really nauseous and had read that smelling essential oils could help. I had brought essential oils for this purpose, but for some reason at that moment I didn’t think of them. Instead, I asked Tim if he would chew a piece of mint gum so that when I hugged him during a contraction I would smell it. I thought if I chewed it myself, I would throw up. Naturally this seemed like a perfectly logical plan. Thankfully he was a saint and did everything I asked (including when I kept asking him to skip Bruce Springsteen songs on our birth playlist—Bruce just wasn’t doing it for me that night!!).

I had instructed my mom (who was in the waiting room) to pop in at some point and give me a pep talk. I knew Tim would be supportive of me not getting pain medication, but I also knew he would want me to do whatever I felt was right at the moment. I wanted my mom to come in and be my hype girl—to tell me that it’s not going to last forever and that I can’t quit now! She did just that and it was the perfect timing. 

As I mentioned, because I didn’t get an epidural, I didn’t need to be connected to the monitors the whole time. This meant that the nurse would periodically come in to hook me up and make sure the baby was okay. On one of these occasions she decided to check my dilation as well, and we were all surprised to find out I had gone from 6in to 8in in about an hour. Things were definitely progressing rather quickly. It was also at this time that I had the brilliant idea to go to the bathroom. 

Narrator: She had been given strict instructions by the nurse that if she felt like she needed to go to the bathroom, that it probably just meant the baby was coming so she should NOT, in fact, go to the bathroom. 

I remember Tim was standing by the nurse as she was on the phone calling my doctor. The details are a bit hazy, but I vaguely remember whispering to Tim that I was going to go to the bathroom (no big deal, just one last attempt to go number one before I had kid number two). Well, it was actually a big deal. 

Tim came into the bathroom and said, “Babe – just remember that the nurse said you might feel like you need to go to the bathroom, but it could mean that the baby is coming.” 

“No I know, I just need a little bit longer. I’ll be right out.” (Pretending like I was of sound mind and completely sane when I definitely was not.)

Tim went back outside and the nurse came running over to him. She asked him how long I had been in there and told him they needed to get me out of there NOW. 

Just as they were about to come back in I had the most intense contraction of all the contractions I had ever felt, which by then was a fair amount. This one felt different. While it was happening, I grabbed the toilet bowl with my hands and lifted myself up, and in doing so I knew something didn’t feel right. There was a very strange sensation happening between my legs and I was scared to look down.

Narrator: She would have been very scared had she actually looked down, as the baby’s head was crowning. One good push and she (unwillingly) would have had a water birth—a toilet birth, if you will.

Hearing my scream, Tim and the nurse barged into the bathroom. They each grabbed me under my arms on either side of me and carried me to the bed. When I laid down, the urge to push was so intense I couldn’t think of anything else. It felt as if I was put on this Earth solely to push that baby out. But my doctor wasn’t there yet so the nurse told me to try everything in my power to NOT push. Essentially she was telling me (in the nicest way possible) to suck the baby back in. WAIT WHAT?! 

I think I almost started crying as I was begging for them to let me push. The nurse pulled the emergency cord behind my bed and about 10 nurses came running into the room, but still no DOCTOR. Finally, when they realized the baby was coming whether I wanted it to or not, they sent for the on-call doctor at the hospital. That doctor just so happened to be sound asleep when she was called. She literally had to put her glasses on and run down the hall, still in a daze to deliver our baby. 

When I saw her walk into my room, (I had no idea who she was as she wasn’t my doctor but she looked doctor-ish enough) I started pushing. For some reason I remember as clear as day that she was still putting her gloves on as she bent down to catch the baby. 

Narrator: She also, sadly, remembers as clear as day the animalistic scream she made when childbirth humbled her with the ring of fire. Which, in case you are wondering, is most definitely, very, very real.

When I say that she caught the baby, I’m in no way exaggerating. On the last push, the baby actually catapulted from my vagina and landed half in the doctors hands and half on the bed. The sound it all made is something Tim and I still talk about to this day. Tim has actually described it to people by saying it was like ‘the scene with the alien in Men and Black.” 

We were all so frazzled at that point that no one really said anything in the seconds after the baby was born. I think the first thing that came out of my mouth was, “Is the baby okay?” and the doctor said yes. The next thing I said was, “What is it?” Since she wasn’t our doctor, she didn’t realize we were waiting to find out the sex. 

The doctor said, “What?” and I said, “Is it a boy or a girl?” and she said, “OH! It’s A GIRL!”

Narrator: Rosalind Abigail was born at 4:55am on Friday, January 24th. 5 pounds, 13 ounces and 21 inches. Thankfully, for everyone involved, she was not born in the toilet. 

Having a baby for the second time was such a trip because I honestly thought I knew how I was going to feel. But there’s just nothing like it—even the birth of another child doesn’t prepare you. I couldn’t believe how tiny she was. I couldn’t believe that one second she was inside me and the next second she was cuddled up in my arms and I was kissing her face. She was perfect. 

I don’t remember crying in the moment because everything seemed to have happened so quickly, but when I looked at the picture above I realized we both have tears in our eyes. I remember feeling SO. Freaking. Proud. Proud of myself and my body for being such a badass, of little Ro for knowing she was ready to get the eff out of my womb, and of Tim for being our rock. Our family had grown a whole entire heart’s worth and we were so happy and smitten it didn’t even seem real. Our little Ro Ro was here and we haven’t stopped smiling since. 

1. Even though Ro didn’t end up being born into the toilet, she actually was born covered in her own poop. Apparently sometimes babies pass meconium (their first poop) while still in the womb and it mixes with the amniotic fluid. The whole thing is very strange because it’s GREEN. So when Ro landed on the bed/the doctor caught her, there was a bit of a splash of green fluid that went EVERYWHERE. And she was covered in green goo too! Cute, right?

2. I will say that I did a fair amount of research about natural labor before mentally committing to trying it. With my first labor, I had gone into the hospital to be induced thinking that I would ‘give natural labor a try,’ but I had done zero to prepare. When I received Pitocin and the contractions started coming fast and furious, I felt pretty embarrassed about asking for the epidural. Looking back, I realize that a lot of factors go into each birth and a lot of them you can’t control (like getting induced), but you CAN control doing as much research as possible to prepare yourself. I swear by the book Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth, although it is a bit hippie-dippy mishegas as Schmidt would say on New Girl. 🙂

3. Women will often talk about the ‘high’ they feel immediately after giving birth. While I definitely felt happy to not have Ro’s head literally ripping my vagina apart, I don’t remember having a particular sensation of pure elation. I think the last bit happened so fast that it was a lot for my mind to process. If I’m being completely honest, I think I actually felt more proud of myself in that moment than in love with my new baby. When I held her in my arms for the first time I couldn’t stop thinking, “Holy shit what just happened? Did I just do that?” This was different when I had the epidural, though, because I do remember feeling complete bliss after that labor since it was all more controlled and less stressful. 

4. Although I did prepare for a natural birth, I still feel like I wasn’t prepared enough. You can read every book, read every birth story, and ask everyone around you a million questions and there is still nothing like experiencing the real thing. I feel like everything was SO FAST. Obviously not when I was experiencing contractions, because that felt like forever, but the whole process went so quickly. I had so many things that I had wanted to do and try and I never got around to them. I brought a diffuser that I never actually had time to set up, which seems crazy considering I was in active labor for 4 hours. I had also wanted to take a bath during some of my contractions but things progressed too quickly before I could make it in there! My advice is to go in with a plan, but have a lot of different options to get you from A to B. 

5. There are a few things that I think got me through the birth. I will list them now: 

1. The exercise ball was my saving grace. No other positions felt right. 
2. I brought slipper socks and wore them right up until I started pushing. Something about wearing them made me feel more comfy and relaxed.
3. Smells. Bring mint gum, bring a diffuser, bring your favorite smelling lotion. Like I said, I forgot to use the diffuser but during contractions I was SO sensitive to smells, so smelling the mint gum and my lotion really helped me.
4. Music—bring a bluetooth speaker. Create a couple different playlists that have different genres of music. Do some slower songs, some faster songs, some country, some rap—make sure you have options. For some reason, I was very particular with what music I wanted to hear so I kept having Tim skip through songs on our playlist until I found one I liked.
5. Think through your support people. Give each person a specific job. For me, Tim was my coach and the one who got me through the contractions. My mom was the breath of fresh air who came in and pumped me up to finish strong. Also be clear with the nurses—do you want them to keep asking you about the epidural or to not mention it all? Do you want to be continually monitored and in bed or do you want the freedom to move around your room? You are also allowed to ask them for birthing balls, peanut balls, towels for the bath, mirrors, birthing bars, etc. etc. My advice is to ask for it all, just in case!
6. Baby’s safety should always be the priority. Try not to get so focused on having a natural birth that you lose sight of what is most important—a healthy baby and a healthy mom!

6. Will I try to have an unmedicated birth next time? I’m not sure. I haven’t decided yet. Like I said, the ring of fire is pure hell. But I will say it was 1,000% worth it. I don’t regret any of it and if I’m being completely honest with myself, I think I probably will try to do it again. Nothing compares to it because it’s all happening so quickly, but you’re just SO PRESENT. It sounds strange, but I felt so incredibly connected to the Earth and to my ancestors during those final pushes and I will never ever forget how proud it made me feel.