Edith

The problem with being almost 42 weeks pregnant is being almost 42 weeks pregnant makes you fucking crazy. 

Mentally, all you can do is think about labor and babies and your body. 

Physically, every little twinge—or hours-long, middle-of-the-night prodromal labor session—reminds you that you’re about to do something Very Very Painful and oh God why did we want another baby, this first baby was perfectly fine and she sleeps great and only talks back occasionally. 

It also makes other people fucking crazy. People suddenly want to know how dilated you are (no idea), and why you haven’t found success with their pet old wives’ tale about naturally inducing labor. They make a very specific, dramatic “WHAT??” face every time you see them—still pregnant, yes!—and scramble to find new, exciting questions to ask you. (At the end, everyone suddenly becomes fascinated in what hospital you’re going to deliver at. Why? Who cares?)

After blowing past my estimated due date (“estimated” is the key word here, folks) and then past when Cecilia was born (41+1, also no particular picnic to reach!), every single day after was… sucky. 

I tried every. Thing. And nothing worked to send my otherwise perfectly normal body into spontaneous labor. 

I’d planned a homebirth with experienced, qualified midwives. I knew the evidence around going past due, and I also knew that if I were going to be medically induced I’d have to check into a strange hospital, and work with strange providers, and maybe have a great experience—but maybe not! Pitocin isn’t always fun for everyone, and I resented the fact that I hadn’t needed it the first time. Why wasn’t my body doing what it was supposed to do this time? 

I decided I wanted my membranes ruptured so we could get the show on the road. And if it didn’t, then fuck it, off to the hospital we’d go. I had a biophysical and NST the morning of the Great Scheduled Water Breaking to make sure everything was okay. And my gut was right—time for baby to come out. There wasn’t any fluid left in there, and finally I had an end in sight. My midwife came over to my apartment around 4PM with her birth assistant, and she took a gander at my cervix. I remember she looked right at me, laying back in my own bed, and said, “stupid baby.” Because this dumb baby was SO low and SO ready to come out, and there was NO reason why they hadn’t come yet. 

She broke the bag of waters and nothing happened, because there was nothing left in there. And then we waited. I hung out on the birth ball and my husband and I chatted with the birth assistant and watched cooking videos on YouTube while my midwife did a virtual checkup in Cece’s room. 

After an hour, contractions had started. REAL CONTRACTIONS. The midwife and birth assistant consulted with us, and decided they would run home to eat dinner and then see how I was doing. So off they went. 

Within an hour, I knew things were happening, so we had the doula come over. She is also a homebirth assistant when she’s not doing doula stuff. That meant, worst case, she could easily help catch the baby and keep everyone safe until the midwife could come back. I did my usual in-labor stuff: sitting on the ball and laying on my bed with someone massaging my lower back. Taking showers. Questioning my existence and swearing I was done done DONE after this one. 

Contractions started getting really hurty, really fast. My first labor was textbook: 15 hours start to finish. Painful but regular, manageable contractions I could breathe through. Pretty clear transition. Painless pushing (except for the ring of fire and tearing bit, but the actual contractions disappeared when I started to push). Well, this one was kinda fucky. 

Contractions were pretty close together, sometimes pretty long. I couldn’t visualize my way through them—instead, I just focused on keeping my vocalizing low. I felt very lucid during labor, whereas last time I was on another planet. The midwife and birth assistant made it back, and the party started. 

People filled up the birth pool in my dining room. Other people checked on the baby and made sure all the homebirth supplies were in the right places. Once the pool was ready, I got right in. I’d heard that you shouldn’t do the pool too early, since it’s where you want to end up if you’re planning to deliver there. But I knew things were ramping up quickly. And the pool was the best place in the world. I could get through each contraction leaning over the side of the pool, usually squeezing someone’s hand. Then I’d relax onto my back or side for a minute and float. I think I got into the pool after about 4 hours of labor, and pretty quickly after that I started feeling pressure. I didn’t have an urge to push yet, so I kept doing what I was doing. 

Contractions were getting nearly unbearable, and I hated it. I HATED it. I was telling myself I couldn’t do it, fantasizing about epidurals. Cursing every single stupid moment of hubris that led me to think giving birth in my fucking apartment was a good idea. But another big part of me knew that was transition talking. Last time, transition was probably only a few minutes. But this time, it felt like forever. 

Finally, finally I noticed real pressure, so I felt around with a finger and touched baby’s head. It felt HARD and close—only a fingertip away. I still wasn’t ready to push, but everyone started moving around with some urgency and purpose, and I knew we were close. I let baby come down until I felt more sure, and then let my body do its thing. Last time, I instantly knew I was ready to push, but I couldn’t do it. I ended up on my back, legs in the air, bright light in my business. And I hated it, and I tore sideways through the muscle. This time I wanted it to be different. 

So with each (very painful still, fuck) contraction, I let my body move around and bear down, pulling on my husband’s hands. After a few really good pushes, I felt the ring of fire. (I said “OW!” like I’d gotten a papercut or something.) 

My midwife was doing some counter pressure, but otherwise it was quiet and I was in charge. And I was done. So, so, so fucking done. So after about 15 minutes of pushing, I started a little pep talk to myself. And with one more contraction, I said “I can do it.” And I pushed her head allll the way out, and I reached down and helped guide her body out too. Then I pulled her up onto my chest and laid back and I was done. 

I remember I knew she was fine, because she was so present, and the cord wasn’t anywhere scary, and everyone was calm. But it took her a second to cry. When she did, everyone rejoiced. We said “hello!” and “welcome!” and “that was weird, right?” I checked and she was a girl. Of course she was! I’d known it all along. 

Usually birth stories fade to black once baby is born, but with a homebirth the postpartum time is sacred. I had four people help me hold Edith to my chest and then I climbed out of the tub. The placenta wasn’t out yet, so the five (six? five and a half?) of us shuffled down the hallway to my bedroom, and I climbed into bed and laid back. Then all of the afterbirth things happened right there, in my own bed. Everyone rotated around my baby and me.

Edith rooted around and instantly latched like she’d been doing it all her life. I asked for and received a shot of pitocin in my leg to avoid hemorrhage. The placenta came out and was plopped into a bowl that sat right next to me. I was checked over and stitched—just two little ones, mostly painless and easy. My husband cut the cord and then I dealt with the exceptionally unfun contractions as my uterus started shrinking back. 

The plan next was for me to get up and pee while the midwife did the newborn exam. But when I sat up, I fainted. Oops. They gave me a bag of IV fluids, hung from first my bedroom door and then the ceiling fan. I spent a very unsuccessful time trying to pee in bed, then after I got some energy back I made it to the bathroom and did it there. I was plied with food and drinks. The birth assistant and doula got the BLOOD TUB emptied and deflated and put my apartment back together. Edith was weighed and footprinted and then at 3am, after staying with me for hours to make sure I got my color back and my personality back and everyone was fine, the birth team headed out and Crowl, Edith and I went to sleep. And that was that.

Wilding out West

Our flash bang Cotswolds supermarket sweep continued with some of the area’s greatest hits:

Bourton-on-the-Water, The Slaughters, and Stow on the Wold.

The NAMES, the names.

Each town is cozy, cute, and full of beautiful buildings in that creamy Cotswolds stone.



I truly could not tell them apart at this point, either. Soz. Just imagine lots of tromping around in sheep-filled fields, going over tiny wee bridges, and tons and tons of tour buses. It was chilly and not particularly nice, so I shudder to think how crammed those places get in high summer. Phew.











Then we went to Sudeley Castle, which is another funny one. I feel like once you get used to the ol’ National Trust property, any privately owned places are going to be weird. This was absolutely no exception. Sudeley is known for being the former home of Catherine Parr, final wife of Henry VIII (to recap: divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived—huzzah it’s Catherine Parr!). It’s also had a strange reno with some dusty “exhibitions” that were not overly interesting. Either way, it was a quick visit and the grounds, with ruins from the original castle, were beautiful.





And finally, we started the somewhat inexplicably complicated drive to Wales. I don’t know. Neither of us had been to Wales before, and we saw our opportunity to take a quick jaunt out west and just put a toe over the border.



I’d found a very eccentric inn to stay at near Monmouth, so we made our way there. I’d love to go back and really SEE the place, but it was a nice taste of a region that is really fucking into dragons.

Cracking

...the CODE, get it?

Alright, so. Last we joined our heroes, we were making our way onto a train headed north west-ish of London to rent a car and head out into the... drizzle. English weather, man.

Bletchley Park is around the corner from the car rental place, which is also across the street from the train station. So if you're interested in seeing where Alan Turing worked, and where men and women devoted years to breaking Nazi codes during WWII, you definitely don't need a car to get there.

We got there right as the doors opened (startled the nice old man nearly to death) and had the place to ourselves. My only real Bletchley knowledge all comes straight from The Bletchley Circle and The Imitation Game. But it turns out those both do a pretty good job of painting what it was like to live and work in secret for years on end.



I have one single picture of the property because it was gray and chilly, and there's nothing overly picturesque about concrete bunkers. Also, as someone who barely passed math, I'm admittedly not interested in the intricacies of codes, code breaking, and early computing. But the people who work there are PASSIONATE about sharing what they know. So I could see how someone would easily spend an entire day exploring the grounds.

The two non-math gals did a quick pass and headed out to Stowe.

Stowe! Now we're talking.

Stowe is one of the most stunning gardens I've ever seen in my life (it's Capability Brown, so). And the nearby non-National Trust Stowe HOUSE is actually a boarding school that offers tours.

And what you will learn on said tour is that the school has four different houses. With different colored ties. Is this reminding you of anything?



The little binders on the stairs! Because kids live there and leave their shit lying around! God I was in love.



From Stowe we drove to Blenheim Palace, which is a huge motherfucker of a place to visit.

The deal with Blenheim is it's the seat of the dukes of Marlborough, and Winston Churchill is a relative in there somewhere. It's also extremely touristy—Bill Bryson, my grumpy road trip icon—warns of the weirdo upstairs wing where you go through some kind of automated museum thing? We opted not to check it out and I'm happier for it.



I love visiting houses where the family still lives, because it feels... well, alive. It's also interesting as an American, because the Vanderbilts married into the family back in the Downton Abbey days. So it's a piece of my history, too.



Then we cracked on to the Cotswolds.

I'd found a cozy-looking little spot, The Wheatsheaf, in one of the less insanely overrun places in the region. And it was perfect. We wandered around the town for a bit, then had a refreshing drink (or five), followed by a fantastic dinner.

Cecilia Louise

I woke up 41 weeks pregnant and decided today was the day I was hanging a shelf.

So off we went to Lowe’s, a mile and a half away, on foot. That was the advice: go for long walks.

There was lots of advice, turns out. Eat spicy foods. Take evening primrose oil. Do acupuncture. Have sex. (Did I need to be uh, into it, or was the actual penetration enough?) (Have you ever tried having sex while 41 weeks pregnant?)

Whatever it was, I did it, and still here I was, 41 weeks pregnant and staring down the barrel at risking out of the birthing center or needing an induction.

I started having contractions in the lumber aisle, and these ones weren’t the fun, exciting contractions I’d been flirting with for a few days. No, these ones felt like the worst of the worst-ever period cramps, the kind that made you curl up and put on a frowny face and whine to yourself about fucking men and their fucking bodies that didn’t have to FUCKING DEAL with this kind of shit.

We got home with the wood and the brackets, and while I put up the shelf by myself, the contractions stopped.

Fuck. This. I took a little bit of castor oil—the final thing on the list of advice—and went to bed very, very pissed off.

-

I woke up at 1am in labor.

They say you’ll know when you’re in labor (but how?? HOW WILL I KNOW?) and it’s true. I did.

I took a nice, hot shower as more of an experiment to see if that slowed anything down, but it didn’t. So I went and sat on the birthing ball in the living room and bounced. Bounce bounce bounce. During my labor preparations, I’d always envisioned listening to books on tape or a podcast during early labor, but the sound of other people talking was suddenly unbearable. So I bounce bounce bounced in silence so my being awake wouldn’t wake the neighbors.

The contractions were a lot like the lumber aisle ones—shitty—but I could deep breathe and bounce my way through each one, no problem. I took another shower and the water was absolutely lovely. I had another few contractions in there, but they barely registered.

Around 3am, I decided this was all Officially Happening, so I woke up my husband. I told him I was in labor, that I needed the midwife’s phone number, and he could go back to sleep since he’d need his rest. He handed over his phone and immediately passed out again. Hmmmmm MUST BE NICE.

My midwife was at work (it’s funny having a completely alert, coherent conversation with someone at 3am). She gave me a few things to look out for and instructions on when to call her back. After I hung up, I went to try and pee—unsuccessfully, because having a baby head squeezing its way down cuts off the ability to pee—and finally FINALLY had the bloody show I’d been waiting for. (W000 mucus!)

I labored by myself for another 2 hours. Bounce bounce bounce. Shower. Bounce bounce bounce. Shower. And at 5am, I decided it was party time. I woke up the husband, and he called the doula.

-

For the next 5 hours, I moved between my favorite spots in the apartment:

From sitting on the ball and leaning forward onto a stack of pillows on the bed

To standing and swaying over the dining table

To taking a very hot shower

and back again.

My doula had brought a magic heating pad, which I loved on my lower back with some counter pressure.

-

So. What do contractions feel like?

Contractions feel like the entire space below your breasts and above your knees is being wrung out like a wash cloth. It’s a wave, with a crest that is unbearable—you can’t do it—and then it fades away again to nothing. There is zero pain in between in each contraction.

Standing up and moving around made the contractions much, much worse, like twisting a knife or flicking lemon juice on a paper cut. My whole body shied away from the pain, but I knew the harder things got, the closer we’d be to having a baby.

I’d done a lot of mental work during my pregnancy to prepare for an unmedicated labor. I knew it was something my body was designed to do in theory, and I wanted to see if I could do it. There are lots of reasons not to want an epidural (and of course lots of reasons to want one) but at the end of the day, I’d never been in any real physical pain before, and I wanted to experience birth as fully as I’d experienced pregnancy.

So each contraction, I pictured myself diving headfirst into a wave. If I’d tried to hold back, the wave would have hit and drowned me. So I released myself to the pain, and took each contraction as it came. I also just moaned a lot.

-

Around 10:30am, I knew it was time to go to the hospital. Contractions were pretty steadily 3-1-1, and even sitting on the ball wasn’t helping me cope anymore, so we called the midwife. She let me know verrrry delicately that the birthing center was full. There’d been a snowstorm, and the change in pressure had sent a lot of women into labor. (Seriously it’s a thing.) She asked if I wanted to wait.

No. No I did not want to wait.

The husband got a Lyft, our doula grabbed some of our shit (bringing a car seat felt awfully presumptuous) and I stepped into some shoes and headed down the stairs in between a contraction.

The next hour was probably the worst hour of my life, because it suuuucked.

Our poor, doomed driver rolled up in a mini van. I kneeled on a seat and hugged the back of it, facing the rear of the car. I’d learned in birthing class that it’s common for labor to slow down or stall when you head to the hospital, because you leave the cozy, safe den of your home and your body reacts accordingly. Not this guy!

Nope, I moaned loud and long the whole time as I rode (hah) each contraction. The driver was pretty freaked out, so he drove FAST and hit allll of the potholes and speed bumps. Every single tiny jarring motion was torture.

It only took 15 minutes to get through the tunnel, and as we screeched up to the hospital, I climbed out and barreled through the doors. The front desk took one look at me waddling in like a penguin on fire and pointed me to the elevator.

Up up up we went, and the doors to the fucking labor and delivery ward were sealed. “Shift change!” the doula sang, as she elbowed them open. I burst in again and, unlike the guys downstairs, not a person on L&D gave a single fuck about my state.

I guess having pregnant women burst into your place of business multiple times a day dampens the panic you might once have felt.

Someone brought me into triage, which is the actual worst fucking place in the entire world.

The nurse left me a bag for my clothes and a hospital gown and socks. I stripped down blindly, out in the open, stuffing my clothes into the bag, and then turning around, trying to find the now-disappeared nurse.

“WHERE THE FUCK IS THE NURSE” I bellowed, and she came resentfully back.

She had me lay down on my back and strapped a fetal heart rate monitor on. I was instructed to be still for twenty minutes.

Just to recap:
-I was having life-altering, minute-long contractions every 3 minutes
-I had been walking around or bouncing for the last 10 hours—not laying on my back
-Neither my doula nor my husband were allowed to be with me
-OW

Because it was such a small hospital, I was also only separated by a curtain from a pregnant woman who had fallen hard and wasn’t feeling her baby move anymore. My heart breaks when I think about her. I hope everything ended up being okay.

At some point, my midwife came in to check me. FINALLY AN ADULT WITH A DEGREE EVERYTHING WOULD BE FINE! My heart lifted at the sight of her. Let me just say here: midwives are the best. They are so loving and calm, but also so capable and ready to Do This. Also the best? Doulas and nurses and birthing balls and heating pads.

6cm. The midwife was jubilant. I, on the other hand, was almost hysterical from the pain.

The nurse came back to give me a hep lock (one which, I must point out, was never used, and only served to irritate me during labor and after, when I attempted the Herculean task of breastfeeding a newborn for the first 50 times). I asked if I could go back on the ball for the rest of monitoring, which she allowed. She also asked when my waters had broken, and I realized my legs were wet. “Uh, now?”

They let my husband in, and I was. Over. It.

“I can’t do this, I’m done, this is too hard, bring the midwife back.”

He tried to keep me calm, but I had hit the wall. It hurt too much, I was too tired, there was no WAY I was going to have a baby without every single millilitre of sweet, sweet modern medicine injected into my spine.

We agreed I’d decide after they put me in a room. And anyway, my midwife was nowhere to be found. Once I got settled, I focused again.

I spent the next hour or so bouncing on my beloved ball. I was facing the bed, with the doula holding my hands across it, and my husband supporting my back with a heating pad.

That’s where I went through transition, the crazy last stage of labor when all bets are the FUCK off, and the baby moves all the way down into position. Transition is when women completely give up. It’s when they try to get out of the room. When they bargain or laugh or weep.

My transition was a little bit of everything, but it was very internal. Each contraction hit one after the other, without any chance to catch my breath. My doula asked, “it’s still the same contraction?” and I knew something intense was happening.

Then it was time to push.

-

Pushing is another one of those things you wonder and worry about recognizing beforehand, but suddenly I knew it was time to push and the contractions just stopped.

(I know logically they didn’t stop, but they basically ceased being the center of my world and I felt no pain.)

I told the doula it was time to push, and she found the midwife. The midwife was skeptical, but she took one look and agreed that, oh yes, it was time to push.

They had me hobble into the delivery room. It felt like I was carrying a bowling ball with my kegels.

And then! I tried pushing every which way. If this were a movie, pushing would be a hilarious montage of me first on my hands and knees, then on one side, then the other. Standing, squatting, trying to push (or pee, for fucks sake) on the toilet. Nothing was working. The movie would have a shot of me in the trenches, pushing with every muscle in my goddamn body—with O Fortuna blasting—and then cut to elevator music as my midwife, doula, husband, and a nurse stood around, chatted, and held my legs.

My kid would crown during a push, then pop back in every time I stopped. What a nightmare.

At least the playlist in Hell was good, because I made it.

The midwife had a little pep talk with me. She said my baby was ready, and it was time for me to push her out. They gave me a catheter to drain out all the pee that was blocking her final descent. They wheeled over a mirror and I could finally see what they meant when they said to push a certain way, in a certain place in my body. (Spoiler: they tell you to push in your butt. They basically tell you to poop, guys, which is why, very often, poop actually comes out.)

After 90 minutes, I did one final push that felt like my eyes were exploding and my body was ripping in half.

And I pushed Cecilia Louise out. She had the umbilical cord looped twice around her neck. The doula very nicely took some gory action shots, which I still haven’t quite been able to look at. But the gist is that she came out in one push and I tore, and then they put her straight onto my chest and she was perfect.

-

What happens immediately after birth is sort of funny and weird: Cecilia cried and cried, which everyone said was good. She was so HOT and smelled so strange, like a frog dissection (which I SAID out loud and everyone kind of awkwardly laughed off). She latched right away, and I tried focusing on that instead of on the really terrible process of birthing the placenta (my midwife: “push a little bit more?” me: [pointedly ignoring her]) and getting stitched up with only a very small, ineffective shot of local anesthesia.

They gave us time to just sit and marvel. They took Cecilia’s footprints and weighed her, and probably did the Apgar (which I’m still SO mad I didn’t hear). They cleaned up the absolute horror show of blood and other fluids. A nurse helped me stand and step into a mesh underpant. If blood grosses you out, sorry: but what they do is fold a puppy pad into a hot dog shape, then put two industrial size maxi pads on top of THAT end to end. And the whole contraption gets soaked through in about an hour after birth.

Then I sat in a wheelchair with Cece in my arms, and off we went to the recovery room and, you know, life.

Escape to the Country

Alright, you guys know the drill by now: There's nothing like a road trip through the English countryside with your mother. So after the first official road trip of '15, Mom and I set our sights on a sequel. And boy did we deliver.

While last trip was incredible, there was also looots of driving. So this time we made a monster map of our UK Bucketlist (I also added the National Trust's official map as a layer—do not be alarmed). And planned out a route that would only require a few hours driving a day, at the very most. The only disappointment was that we booked the flights before I realized Downton Abbey was CLOSED the whole of our trip. AUUGHHHHRRRRRGGGGGGGGGG. I guess I'll have to go back.

The 2017 itinerary as follows:



Three nights in London, staying at the beautiful Hoxton Shoreditch.

Then taking the train from good ol’ London to Milton Keynes. From there we’d pick up a car and see Bletchley Park. Then we’d drive to the Cotswolds, stopping at Stowe and Blenheim Palace on the way to the Wheatsheaf Inn.

Then we’d spend the morning seeing Bourton-on-the-Water, The Slaughters, and Stow on the Wold [can we TALK about the fucking NAMES of these TOWNS guys], hitting up Sudeley Castle, before dipping our toes over the border into Monmouth, Wales.

After a morning visit to Chepstow Castle, we’d hightail it allll the way to Kent. Because we were going to stay in Hever Motherfucking Castle for two nights. With a side jaunt to Chartwell, Sissinghurst and Canterbury for good measure.

THEN after the Penshurst gardens (would love to go back and see inside, waaah), we’d head back to London for two nights. And Mom, adventuress that she is, would continue on to Scotland while I winged my way back home.

It was PACKED but we did it. GLORIOUS.



Here's a few routine tips:
1. If you're American, join the Royal Oak Foundation. Membership runs from about $35-75/year and that grants free entry to all National Trust properties. If you visit just two properties, that pays for itself.
2. Reserve an automatic car, even if you drive stick. There's nothing like the mindfuck of driving on the wrong side on teeny tiny country lanes. I can't even imagine trying to shift with my wrong hand, too. And if you also don't drive often (me), see about picking up the car outside of the city center. We ended up with a cheaper car and no traffic—plus a little trip to Bletchley.
3. England in the spring is a total toss up weather-wise, but you're almost certainly going to need wellies. I packed TWO PAIRS and made use of them even on dry days, because we did a fair amount of tromping through the fields.
Want to see what we got up to in London?

The first stop was Kew Gardens. I had my new Fuji x100S, so you may notice some uh, slight quality difference between those and the iPhone shots.



Return to a common theme: start every day with a full English, and refuel in the afternoons with tea and sconces. It's science.



Then, of course, some Borough Market.





Had a little wander around the Wallace Collection.



And then a trip to Notting Hill.

Part of the trip was to celebrate my 30th birthday. And so I give you: A pearl necklace present.

I scheduled a birthday lunch at Brawn, smack dab in the middle of Columbia Road during the flower market. It was incredible. But the best part about the market is, you have to find it first.



We all know I'm a sucker for markets. So the next one was the Sunday UpMarket.



Then Leadenhall—which is pretty boring on Sundays.



And THEN it was time to see Romeo and Juliet at the Globe. I'd seen King Lear there ages ago (highly recommend springing for a seat during the tragedies), but this was infinitely more interesting. They modernized it and incorporated way more audience interaction. So with my mulled wine and bag of wine gums, I was happy as... well, a clam.



Next stop: Bletchley Park, home of the WWII Codebreakers and many ducks.