Labor: An Impossible Poop

To induce or not to induce? I just don't want to be blamed if something bad happens to the baby

To induce or not to induce, that is the question. At week 39, my doctor kept recommending it.

Like I do with many medical things, I read about induction and scared myself. After my parents’ various chemo-related medical traumas, I was scared of a medical system incentivized by things other than my long term health. I just wanted to give birth effortlessly at home in a few minutes like a stray cat, no one but my husband around. But I was also scared of dying. These competing fears warred within me. I compromised by telling myself I’d go to the hospital at the last second in case I needed emergency surgery, but mostly labor at home.

Everyone said induction was super normal, better safe than sorry, that one study, etc. It seemed like everyone wanted me to induce, and I didn’t want to argue against the study, so I scheduled it.

When the time came, maybe I’d decide I wanted to do it. But I didn’t want to! So at the last second, I canceled it.

“We still haven’t tried everything,” I said. “Why is America so obsessed with that one study about inducing at 39 weeks? Reddit says other countries with better health stats don’t induce till 41 or 42 weeks. My mom supposedly gave birth to me at 43 weeks.”

We rescheduled.

When the time came, I canceled again!

“They’re not going to like that you keep canceling it,” my husband said.

“But I feel like I have to keep scheduling it. Everyone’s like, ‘What’s the plan if the baby doesn’t come in time?’”

“I support whatever you want to do.”

“Are you just saying that? What if I kill the baby? I don’t want to get blamed. If something’s wrong with it, promise we won’t tell anyone it was because I selfishly and willfully disregarded medical advice?”

“We’ll say it was a tragic accident that was in no way avoidable or predictable.”

Phew! Such a relief to not induce. I wonder if induction is like co-sleeping where Americans actually secretly do it, but lie about it, and the rest of the world is like, “Why are you guys stressing about this?”

Looking back, I think I pressured myself to make the choice with my head and not my gut or heart. For me, the gut and heart often take more time to hear than my brain, so when I feel pressured then I unconsciously start to bully my body to get on board with the “rational” choice, which just makes it harder to hear what the body’s saying. The more I pressure myself, the more my body resists, and the more allure “alt” theories hold.

As the days ticked by and our due date betting pool eliminated more and more players, I tried the various natural induction methods— ball bouncing, curb walking, yoga, spicy food.

I did things to keep my oxytocin up because that’s the labor hormone. Whenever my husband started talking about logistics or daycare forms, I’d say, “I can’t think about this right now. It’s lowering my oxytocin.”

I avoided anything that increased adrenaline because stress hormones delay and prolong labor. I felt a new sensitivity to these hormones and saw how Twitter increased adrenaline, so I logged out and watched Dune on repeat.

I listened to Elvis non-stop. When I was a kid, my mom’s love of Elvis had annoyed me, but now I found him comforting. I’d forgotten how much she’d loved him. I missed my mom.

“Are you guys impatient for the baby to come?” people asked.

“No,” I said.

“We’re not ready,” my husband said.

The only urgency I felt for labor to start was that I was sick of all the pressure to induce. We had to go to the hospital every day to check that the baby hadn’t fallen victim to my irrational, non-medically advised choice.

“I don’t need the fetal non stress test,” I kept saying. “I feel him kicking all the time.”

“Those could be kicks of distress.”

“Don’t stress me out right now. It’s lowering my oxytocin.”

Finally, during one of my 4am wakings, I felt a trickle of liquid down my thigh as I walked to the kitchen, took a photo of my mucus and blood in the toilet, and called the hospital.

“You should come in,” they said.

“I don’t want to wake my husband yet so maybe I can come in a few hours?”

They seemed surprised. “I guess that’s fine.”

Unfortunately, when we went in, they said, “We can’t find amniotic fluid. Mucus plugs aren’t *that* indicative of water breaking.” My cervix was still only 1 cm dilated, as it had been for weeks.

As we went home and I contemplated more radical natural induction methods, I complained, “I can’t believe I had an orgasm for nothing.”

Finally, on Amit’s birthday, the buzzing Braxton Hicks contractions I’d been feeling for weeks started radiating down my legs. Were these real contractions? It felt like PMS cramps.

Amit timed them getting closer together.

Having been disappointed before, I kept saying, “I’m not in labor,” but we turned back early on our dog walk, one of many sacrifices our dog had to make for this baby.

At the hospital, they strapped monitors to my stomach to check the contractions and the baby’s heart rate. The contractions felt like really bad period cramps.

Even though I had just pooped, I felt super constipated. The baby felt like a huge poop wanting to come out of my spine, but blocked by all my bones and organs.

“If labor is anything like pooping, I’ve got this,” I proclaimed.

It felt right to labor over the toilet and I think I made a lot of progress dilating my cervix in that environment and position.

I could feel big contractions stretch and rip my cervix. It was amazing how much breathing and meditating instantly diminished the pain. Maybe I should’ve taken those orgasmic birth classes after all.

Was it the worst pain I’ve ever felt? Maybe? It doesn’t compare to times I’ve been stabbed in fencing because this pain wasn’t a sharp external pressure. Rather, it was an internal, radiating, shooting, escalating ache. It felt similar to the worst period I’ve had, where the pain was so bad I barfed and couldn’t walk.

I found hands and knees positions worked for me, but eventually I asked for fentanyl. I was curious to try this drug that’s ravaged our society, but it didn’t make me high or anything. It made the pain go away for 30 minutes, but I could still feel the contractions tightening my thorax, and it also made me barf within minutes.

“Can you get me that barf bag?” I asked Amit.

He shoved a garbage can towards me so roughly that it pulled the needle out of my arm and bright red blood spurted everywhere, staining the bed and my socks. Surprised, my bladder somehow let loose and I wet the bed. Discarding the trash can, I managed to reach and puke in a cool barf bag shaped like a huge condom.

A nurse eventually came in and wanted to change the sheets.

“You don’t need to do that,” I said. “I can’t feel it. I do want to change my gown though because it’s soaked in pee. Can I wheel my IV bag into the bathroom?”

“I can’t have you lying in blood for the next few hours,” the nurse said.

“I almost passed out seeing the blood,” Amit said.

Since fentanyl kept wearing off, I asked for an epidural. While I sang “Amazing Grace” along with Elvis and tried to ignore everything happening to me, a nurse put a catheter in me while a man numbed my back, pushed something against me hard, fiddled around, and then the pain went away. I could press a button to get a double dose, which I tried twice to no discernible effect.

Although they said I could sleep, I kept shivering and couldn’t. I assumed I was shivering because I was on drugs, but eventually I realized I was actually cold.

After 6ish hazy yet sleepless hours, a new set of medical staff came in and were glad that I was 8 cm dilated.

Nevertheless, the new doctor gave me the old spiel on how, “I prefer to induce or do a c-section to be safe because the baby could die inside you without us knowing unless we get it out.”

But there weren’t any tests or new info saying we should intervene, so I tearfully told her, “Your speech scares me. I don’t want negative information right now. I need constant praise even in normal life. I want you to encourage me and tell me what’s going well instead of focusing on potential dangers.”

“Oh no, I made you cry,” she said.

We forged onwards.

When it finally came time to push, I felt a surge of euphoria. The doctors remarked, “You seem really happy! You’re recovering between contractions really well.” I think my labor endorphins etc were strong because of my husband, and all the Dune and Elvis vibes I’d stocked up on.

More and more new doctors and nurses entered the room, all women.

“You’ll like this next nurse,” my 2nd main nurse said. “She’s really good.” Indeed, she did seem best at listening to me, explaining stuff in a convincing way that didn’t scare me, and staying positive. I tried to look her up later to see why she was so good, but there was no information anywhere about any of these people.

“Time to get on your back,” they kept saying.

“I really don’t like lying down,” I kept saying. “It feels like it’s pushing the baby back up. I would never poop in this position.”

But they kept insisting and the baby was still not out, so finally I was on my back in the archetypal gyno pose.

The doctors didn't seem to be timing my contractions in the way that I was feeling them. The epidural eliminated the pelvic pain, but I could still feel radiating thigh pain, so I knew when contractions were happening. The medical staff kept telling me to push at times when I felt it was fruitless “purple pushing” like this Youtube doula warned against, so I ignored them and pushed whenever I felt the urge. My reasoning was that it all seemed similar to being constipated with a 10 pound poop— you can walk and drink stuff to help it along, but there’s no point in pushing until your body is ready. The doctors didn’t appear to notice my defiance.

Later, when I told Amit, he said, “I can’t believe you didn’t listen to them about the pushing!”

“I told them I didn’t want to tire myself pushing uselessly and that I wasn’t feeling contractions when they were telling me to push.”

Maybe it would've been faster if I'd obeyed? Maybe the baby wouldn't’ve had that huge, lumpy, water bed of a blood blister misshaping his head from being stuck in my vag? Maybe he wouldn’t have pooped during labor, befouling his amniotic fluid and thus having to have it suctioned out of his lungs?

We’ll never know.

I started to grin uncontrollably. The nurses kept saying, “Wow, you seem really happy.” My body was pumping me full of something new because I felt euphoric, way better than the fentanyl or epidural had been doing.

Yet another new doctor came in and hung a big garbage bag under me.

The prior doctor hovered at my pelvis and kept asking, “Do you want to feel his head?” while Amit and I kept silently shaking our heads, “No.”

Suddenly, the baby flew out.

Next, I’ll write about breastfeeding.

I also wrote about pregnancy, the first month postpartum, and my first mother’s day as a mom.