Speedy Stella

Emily started feeling positive energy Friday morning -- contractions that were a little stronger, a little more real than the Braxton-Hicks contractions that she'd been feeling for a while. We talked about whether or not I should even go in to work. I did, and that was for the best, because the rest of Friday was pretty quiet, and I was able to get a lot of work done. We took a long walk out to the ocean that evening to try and develop those contractions into something more -- it was pleasant, the crisp windy air was nice, but we went to sleep that night with nothing more than a quiet optimism that something might happen soon. We had no idea.

Emily woke me up about 4:00 that morning. Her contractions were stronger, and definitely more regular. She wanted to get walking again. We called my mother, who came over to stay with the sleeping Mather. At 5:30 we walked outside and met our doula. We paced the long blocks of the Sunset for an hour and half. As we walked, Emily's contractions grew stronger and stronger -- at first, she was walking through them, but eventually she was stopping when they started and shimmying her hips to get through it. The sun was slowly lighting the sky.

Morning walk, unplugging the plumbing.

We started timing the contractions. They were starting less than two minutes apart.

We got back to the house and started packing up bags and eating snacks. At this point we weren't in a hurry (even though we should have been). Things went a little more helter-skelter when Emily's water broke during a contraction while she was standing in the living room. The contractions went from strong to immense, and Em felt the sudden and powerful desire to push. But we were still in the living room.

We loaded Emily into the car. Under our doula's advice, she stayed on her hands and knees rather than sitting in order to keep herself from pushing. I was still a little ignorant of the urgency, so as I got behind the wheel and started driving, I told them that "I'll drive slowly and carefully". Our doula replied, "Actually, you need to blow through some stop signs". So I did, with Emily shrieking like a siamang in the back seat.

The drive took ten frantic minutes. Then only thirteen minutes passed from our arrival in the hospital's emergency entrance to the birth of our second daughter. The staff seemed to know exactly what was going on when they brought the wheelchair out to our car to bring Em in -- they blew past the check-in area, took her straight upstairs, into the first open labor/delivery room and got her in the bed still in her street clothes. By random chance, the midwife with Emily's OB practice was still in the hospital from his shift the night before (he was supposed to be on his way to the airport, but he was still there because no one had relieved him, and Emily was pushing so he just jumped in...) and he caught Stella after Emily made about three good pushes. I got to watch the whole thing, from the moment Stella started crowning to when she wriggled out messy and triumphant.

It was hectic, it was wild, it felt like something from a movie. It was something completely different from the difficult, induced labor that led to Mather's emergency c-section four years ago. One of the saddest elements that lingered from that difficult delivery was that neither of us got to be present -- Emily was unconscious under general anesthesia, and the medical staff did not allow observers into the operating room so I was out alone in the hall when Mather was born. This time, both of us got to be witness to our daughter's birth. That did a lot to heal old scars.

Stella was thrust into Emily's arms seconds after her frenzied birth.

Another difference from that trip four years ago was our stay in the hospital. Because Emily's recovery from the c-section had been difficult and extended, we had to stay for five days. This time around, we checked out after one, bringing Stella home so we could just get going on our lives.

So far Stella is content, unfussy and gentle. Mather is thrilled and proud to be a big sister. Emily is thrilled and proud too -- she finally got to experience childbirth under her terms, without medicine, without monitors, relying on the strength of her own body. I am proud of Emily, proud that she stood up for what she wanted, proud that she achieved her dream of a natural delivery.

Pink and powerful.

Four years of fear of what attempting a VBAC would risk. Four years of fearing another c-section. Four years of questions about whether Emily could start laboring naturally. Having to hope we wouldn't go past the due date and be pressured into a scheduled incision. All gone, washed away in an early Saturday morning of delightful madness and blown stop signs, eight days before that due date.

The calm after the storm.