Birth Story

The Birth of Ezra Judah Frankel
July 28, 2006

At my 36-week prenatal visit I had my GBS swab done, and while I was undressed I asked the midwife to check to see where I was. I had been feeling a lot of pressure. She said I was 2 cm dilated and 50 percent effaced, which was great news. I’d had a feeling all along that this baby would be born early.

On July 27, 2006, I had my 38-week prenatal appointment with Gazelle, my favorite midwife at The Birth Center. I told her that the night before I had been out to dinner with my mother- and father-in-law and I started having some stomach discomfort, and I had diarrhea during the night and that morning. She didn’t really seem convinced that this meant anything, and didn’t want to get my hopes up I think. Baruch and I got in the car and drove home, and as we were turning onto our street I felt a contraction. It was exactly 5:30 p.m. I wasn’t sure if it was really a contraction, or maybe just a braxton hicks, or maybe my imagination!

As I was getting out of the car I felt another contraction, and I told Baruch. I still wasn’t sure, though. We went into our apartment and Baruch started timing the contractions. They were very irregular, but pretty close together; some were as close as two minutes apart, and others as much as ten minutes apart. I wasn’t convinced that I was in labor. I sort of felt like I wanted to be so badly that I was convincing myself that I was.

Baruch and I went for a short walk to see if that would make the contractions more regular. It was a lovely, warm July evening. With each contraction I leaned on Baruch. We came back to the apartment, and I walked around the living room some, and kneeled on the floor leaning over onto the sofa. (I had spent a lot of time during the end of my pregnancy in this position to make sure the baby would be positioned well.) In a way I felt like I was willing myself to have contractions because I wanted them! They continued to be very irregular, some very short and some long, some very close together and some far apart. The entire time I was visualizing my body changing to prepare for birth--my cervix opening, etc. I was thinking about the birth stories in Ina Mae's book, and Ina Mae's advice. I'm sure all of this played a significant role in what a wonderful birth we had.

Finally I decided it was time to call The Birth Center. I called the answering service and was told that Holly was on call and she’d get back to me. I continued laboring leaning on the sofa, and I was even trying to read a book. After a while I realized that nobody had called, so I called back. I was told that actually Gazelle was on call! I was so happy to hear that. Gazelle called back and said that she’d just changed shifts with Holly. I told her about my contractions and she felt that they were still pretty irregular, so she suggested I take a warm bath and call her back in a while. So I said okay and hung up, and then I realized that I couldn’t take a bath because our toilet was backed up and the landlord said the plumber wasn’t in to fix it! I hung out some more and kept having contractions and finally called back Gazelle. She seemed ambivalent, but asked if I wanted to come in. I said yes, and she said she’d be there in 30 to 45 minutes.

Thankfully I’d already packed my bag (in retrospect I packed way too much!), so we got some more stuff together and got ready to head over to The Birth Center. The ride there wasn’t too bad, even though I had some contractions. The whole time I was still wondering if I was deluding myself, because although I felt the contractions they really weren’t horrible or painful, just strong. It was all pretty surreal; I wasn’t in labor long enough to really come to terms with the fact that I was in labor! When we got to The Birth Center it was just after 10:00 p.m. As we were getting out of the car I had another contraction and I leaned on the car for support. A man was walking into the back door and he said, “We were just there a few hours ago!” (Later I found out that this was Haile’s fiancé, and she had just given birth to her son Ethan.) Gazelle saw us and told us to come in the back. We went into one of the rooms, and Gazelle said she’d check me first to make sure I should stay. She didn’t seem so sure, since I hadn’t been in labor all that long and my contractions were really not following any pattern. When she checked she got this look on her face, and I said, “What?” She said I was 8 cm dilated and 90% effaced, and that the baby was pretty low! That was very exciting to hear. Gazelle filled out some paperwork while Baruch got the stuff from the car. On the paperwork it says that we were officially “admitted” at 10:30 p.m.

Gazelle said she’d hurry and run the bath for me so I would have time to be in it! I hopped in the warm bath, which felt so nice. I was on my side a lot, but I also got on my hands and knees. I did this to try to bring more contractions. The entire time I felt like in a way I was having to will my body to be in labor. Gazelle said that I might feel a pop or rush of fluid if my water broke, but I didn’t feel this. She also said I might start feeling pressure like I needed to use the bathroom. After a bit I did start to feel this pressure. In between contractions I was smiling and really enjoying myself. The bathroom was dark and Gazelle had lit a candle, and it was quiet and peaceful. Gazelle said I was doing such a good job and that I looked beautiful, which made me feel great. Baruch seemed to be in awe, and he brought me mango-flavored Rita’s Water Ice. Gazelle said her daughter had also had mango Rita’s Water Ice at her birth, which I thought was funny. Finally I felt like getting out of the tub, so I did. I peed and then I got on the bed and Gazelle checked me. I was almost fully dilated and 100% effaced and the baby was quite low. I was sort of sitting up in bed, semi-reclining, and I had a few contractions this way that were painful. I don’t know if this was transition or if it was just my position. This was the most difficult part of the labor. I started to feel very nauseated, but I wasn't throwing up. The contractions were so much worse because of the nausea. After a bit I decided to make myself throw up, and I did, and I felt so much better after that. I got back on my hands and knees, but sort of angled so that my bottom was far down and my arms were straight and my head was up. I was comfortable like that.

Gazelle checked and said I was ready to push, but I didn’t feel like pushing. After a while like this she suggested breaking my water to see if it would give me the urge to push. I completely trusted her judgement, so she broke my water. It felt so strange to have all of that warm fluid gushing out. I still didn’t feel the urge to push, though, so I just started pushing with each contraction. This was around midnight. I felt like the contractions weren’t coming quickly enough, so at some point I was just resting and then pushing whenever I had the strength. It took me a little while to figure out how to push, since I didn’t have any urge to. Gazelle put her hand on me and that helped me feel how to do it, and I got the hang of it.

After a long time pushing I felt burning, and Gazelle said the baby was crowning. At some point she had gone into the hall to get the nurse, Sarah, and said that we were about to have a baby. She was surprised, because she hadn’t heard anything from our room. I didn’t really make any noise the entire time, which in a way surprised me. I pushed a few more times and reached down and felt the soft little head. It was amazing. Then I kept pushing and the head came out. Baruch was standing there watching in awe. He says that Ezra opened his eye and looked around when just his head was out! I pushed the body out, and the baby plopped into Gazelle’s hands. She passed him under me (I gave birth on my hands and knees), and I looked down and saw him and said, “he’s a boy!” I didn’t really register right away that this was my baby laying there! I quickly turned over (I think Sarah said something like, “look at her move!”) and picked him up and just held him and looked at him. Baruch came and looked at him too, and it was an amazing moment. He was bright pink all over; Gazelle commented that he didn’t even have any blue in his hands and feet. When he was rubbed he gave a few great big cries, but he didn’t cry long. He looked around and was so alert. After a few minutes the cord was completely empty and Gazelle said we could go ahead and cut it, so she clamped it and Baruch cut. Then about 10 minutes after Ezra was born I pushed the placenta right out with one little push. It was whole and very neat looking.

After a bit Ezra sort of started rooting, and I put him to my breast. Sarah, the nurse, helped us figure out how to get latched, and he sucked some. Gazelle and Sarah left the room and just the three of us hung out for about an hour, just getting to know each other. Then they came back to do his newborn exam. Gazelle said he was very strong, and he was so alert. He didn’t even look like a newborn, really. She said it was surprising that I had been only 38 weeks pregnant, because if anything he looked post-term! (I know the dates were correct; in fact, by my own calculation I wasn’t even quite 38 weeks yet!)

So that was the birth of Ezra Judah Frankel. I barely tore, only one small “skid mark” skin tear that Gazelle stitched just so it would heal more nicely. Some odds and ends: the birth was recorded at 1:30 a.m., exactly eight hours after I had my first contraction. I pushed for approximately 1.5 hours. He weighed 7 pounds, 7 ounces, and was 20 inches long. When the nurse (a new nurse, after the shift change at 8 a.m.) came in to bathe Ezra, she wondered if he had already been bathed, because for some reason he was born clean. Everybody commented on that–he was bright pink and completely clean. Ezra’s first diaper was a tiny Magic-All all-in-one. He peed all over me right when I picked him up for the first time, and he had his first meconium around the time of his newborn exam. After the exam he fell into a deep sleep, and Baruch went to sleep as well. I stayed awake just looking at him. I tried putting him in a bassinet by the bed, but I just wanted to hold him. I did doze a bit while holding him. In the morning I was up and about, and mid-day I took a shower and we left to go home. We were home by 2:00 the afternoon of his birth, and physically I felt great.

All in all, I couldn’t have asked for a better birth. I truly enjoyed the experience. It was not horribly painful, or horrible in any way. Aside from a few minutes during transition, I was never really not having fun. My only regret, and it’s a very small one, is that my water was broken artificially. I wonder if he would have been born still in the bag had that not been done. But that is so inconsequential, and I still think Gazelle made a good judgement in rupturing the membrane, because she thought it might make the pushing easier. I hope that my future labors (God willing) are as wonderful as Ezra’s was. In fact, I look forward to them.