Friday, July 30, 2010

Labor Hall of Fame

This past weekend, my friend J. had her baby and, simultaneously, my "Labor Hall of Fame" gained a new list-member - under "women who have made it through exceptionally difficult labors." What a woman!

On Friday morning, I checked Facebook and saw a post from J's doula - "Eight centimeters and doing well!" I thought, "Hurray! Even with a primip, we should be seeing baby pics by early afternoon at the latest!"

Not quite.

Early afternoon came... and went... as did early evening, which I spent with obsessive Facebook checks. No news, other than that she had been complete for a long time and was tired. As the evening wore on, Facebook got to be a mini-labor-stalkers' party, with all of us chatting and waiting for updates. Late at night, we concluded that either they'd had the baby and forgotten to post pics, or.... something.

It turned out to be the "something." I spent the night having terrible dreams about both J. and her baby, and then got up to find a post from J's doula t 4:00 a.m., saying that despite position-change work and other techniques, baby was not coming down and they were regretfully transporting to the hospital. Later that morning came a note that baby was born via cesarean at 7:30 a.m. that morning.

And I thought MY first birth (18h7m) was challenging! My friend easily doubled (or more) my labor time, quadrupled my active labor time, and something like quintupled (or more) my pushing time - oh, and after all that, topped it off with a jaunt to the hospital and major abdominal surgery. What a woman!

I will be meeting this special sweet little baby in two weeks and getting to meet with my friend as well. But in the meantime, my hat is off to her! Women in labor are so incredibly strong, and she is a very strong woman!!

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