Building On Our Experiences

This Birth Story Sunday you get TWO birth stories in one! Bonnie Cortez is a Life-Cycle Celebrant and Officiant, wedding couples and providing baby naming ceremonies to Chicagoland families. She shares with us the special births of her 16 and 18 year old boys. Enjoy.
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With HEART,  
Hillary

Family and Flow 
by Bonnie Cortez of Chosen with Bonnie

My boys are now 18 and 16, but their birth stories are as real as if they happened yesterday. With Jonathon, my older guy, I went in not knowing much of anything about birth. I had an amazing midwife, Carol Hirschfield, who kept me at ease throughout my pregnancy. Two weeks prior to his due date, I had a difficult time sleeping. We had gone out for Korean food that night and I was up watching Janeane Garofalo’s stand-up. She referenced the movie, Backdraft, and made a quip about how her life story would be titled Back Fat, which made me snort as I nestled comfortably into my own comfy folds. Pregnancy had inspired a softening of my body that made me all the more huggable. But I digress. I couldn’t sleep. Janeane was cracking me up. I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. I had asked my massage therapist friend, Lydia, to come over and do a little massage prior to the big show. She came over early to get started. As things got more intense, I called Carol and she said I was welcome to come in. What I didn’t know then is that triage can be a very uncomfortable place for a laboring mom. You are asked to remain fairly confined for about an hour while your contractions and the baby’s heartbeat are monitored. Not fun. Just breathe and hire a doula. She’ll get all creative about how you can make the most of that hour. This, too, shall pass. 

Gary, Jonathon’s dad, and I were finally ushered to our Labor and Delivery Room, There was a wooden rocking chair that looked inviting, so I sat and rocked and rode out the contractions. Those contractions felt like some invisible, unstoppable force had overtaken my body. That force was beginning to become stronger than I felt I could bare. My friend, Lillian was crouched by my side, whispering in my ear. She was so encouraging. I had attended her home birth not long before. She made labor and delivery look natural and like something I could do, too. When her beautiful daughter was born, I was on Lillian’s bed helping her push through the last act of the big show. What I didn’t know then was that my labor and delivery were going to look a bit different. 

Though the rocking chair was comforting and Lillian’s soothing voice was the only clarity that broke through the holy-crap-this-is the-most-intense-sensation-I-have-ever-felt-in-my-life moments, I decided I wanted the Epidural. I will tell you that the way I was able to manage my labor post-Epidural was like night and day. Looking back, I know that I was experiencing the pain I was feeling because I was dehydrated. It’s amazing how a solution as simple as drinking water can make such a difference. Dehydration can significantly affect how our bodies operate and perceive pain. I discovered this dehydration was the cause of that overbearing pain upon reflecting on the sequence of events later. Prior to getting an Epidural you get a saline drip. When that started coursing through my veins, I actually felt incredible. Finally able to poke my head out from behind the pain, I asked the nurse if she had added any pain medication to the IV. She said she hadn’t and I realized that my body was screaming for hydration and I just didn’t realize it. If I had had a doula with me, she would have made that observation and she might have encouraged me to labor longer before getting an Epidural. As it was, I learned as I went. 

As labor progressed more and my friends gathered around. At final toll, we had 11 people in the delivery room. Our cheering section was comprised of my college friend, Kathleen, high school friends Lydia, and Donna, my sister, Joy, Gary’s sister, Paula, Gary’s mom, Billie, my friends, Lillian, and Sonia and my niece, Danielle. My mother-in-law, who had five children herself, had never experienced birth from this perspective. Having her there was incredible. She was able to witness her grandchild being born, her son as support person and she was able to relive her most recent birth experience. At one point Carol asked, “Do you want all of these people here?” I said I did and we labored on. When it was time to push, my sister held one leg and Gary held the the other. It took 45 minutes of listening to the cues Carol gave me to bear down and use my breath to help me gain the strength and control I needed to push and release simultaneously (not an easy trick). At 9:00 p.m. on February 20, 1998, Jonathon Dylan Cortez was born. He had an insistent tiger’s cry and a pouty lower lip. His dad shielded his newborn eyes from the light and I kept saying how surreal the experience felt to me, in between coos of “What? What, honey?” as I attempted to console my newborn baby. 

My niece, Danielle, who was 9 years old at the time, was a bit freaked out when I delivered the placenta. A baby she expected, but a bloody blob doing its best imitation of a spleen, not so much. She said, “Ew! What’s that?” Carol explained that it was the placenta and that it looked intense but that it was a really incredible thing. With that explained, Danielle went into full on caretaker mode. She was one of the first people to hold Jonathon. She saw his lower lip quiver and she said, “Look, he’s shaking!” Her compassionate observation and her front row seat to Jonathon’s birth set the stage for her own birth story years later. She is now the mother of three and I was her doula for her first. The way we participated in some of the most precious times of each other’s lives was incredible.

My birth with Van, my younger guy was much different. Intent on building on my first experience, I did more research and discovered Hypnobirthing. I was initially sceptical that my therapist, whose voice reminded my of my grandmother’s, was going to have the skills to get my resistent mind engaged. She had me drooling in no time, however, as she walked me through the first visualization. When left to my own devices, I was diligent about my practice, getting cozy in a lounge chair each day to listen to my Hypnobirthing CD. I sank deeper and deeper into relaxation as I visualized a stone sinking into a calm pond. I imagined soothing colors around my belly as I rode out contractions. This practice made sleeping much easier throughout my pregnancy and it really connected me to my body and my baby. The hardest thing for me to wrap my mind round was that my body and my baby knew what to do. I just had to sink into that.

As Van’s due date drew near, I made sure to continue to eat and drink enough. Two and a half weeks before Van’s due date, I went out for Mexican food, a cuisine I had never cared for, but had developed a taste for during my pregnancy. That has stayed with me to this day! I had a dream a few nights before I went into labor in which Van came to me in a rush of water. I felt really connected to him, and very much in touch with my body and the birthing process. The day of his birth, I woke from a full night’s sleep, had breakfast, lunch and plenty of water. I called Carol and she said it did not sound like I was in labor, so I could take my time coming in. I don’t even remember triage with Van. I was really calm and felt like I was floating. I labored in the shower, the only person present was Gary. I had hired a doula, but this labor felt so different, I didn’t call for support until much further along in labor. Ultimately, things went so quickly she didn’t even arrive until 15 minutes after Van was born.

But back to labor. Things started to get intense in the shower and I called for an Epidural. The only time I felt pain during labor was when I was asked to lay down to have my cervix checked for dilation. My last check, just 15 minutes earlier, showed that I was at 5 cm. This time, the anesthesiologist, who was prepped to get the Epidural started, instead said, “You’re 10 cm. It’s time to push. Feel free to hold my hand.” I screamed just like Michael did in that scene from The Office when he was told that Toby, his nemesis, had come back to work after being away. Then I continued screaming the way you might if you were told that a thorny watermelon was about to eke out of your vagina like a bat out of hell. I wasn’t ready, but you never are and the pressure was insane. But less than five minutes later, Van was born as my water broke and he came to me in a rush of water just like in my dream. As soon as he was born, I felt nothing but joy, nothing but wonder. 

Birth is a wild ride, and once you’re on the other side, you’ll have an incredible story to tell. The people who come through you have such an impact on your life, as you will on theirs. Happy birthing, warrior women. I can’t wait to hear your stories.