My birth: from balloon to baby in 3.5 hours

I thought I could handle physical pain well. For example, when I was at dance academy, the teacher would sit on my back every class to make me more flexible when I was 11. I would cry from the pain, but she didn’t care. Fingers crossed this isn’t allowed in 2024 anymore. But you could say that it toughened me up. Still, I wasn’t sure if I could handle labor pains. When I had a bladder infection once, I nearly ended up crying on the couch…

However, I wasn’t afraid of giving birth. One day, I thought, let it come, I’m looking forward to it! The next day, I thought, oh God, I have to push a watermelon out of my hoo-ha.
And a watermelon, that would be my baby if I went all the way to 40 or 41 weeks, the gynecologist said. Our baby had been above all growth curves throughout the pregnancy. Gestational diabetes, a large belly, and too much amniotic fluid; I had taken all the necessary tests to rule out other causes. That my partner is 2 meters tall and I’m 1.80 meters obviously just explained the cause of this “immense baby.”

At 39 weeks, I was scheduled to be induced, and I was okay with that. So, Friday morning it was done. A balloon was inserted. I had heard the scariest stories about it, but the insertion didn’t hurt. In fact, I hardly felt anything all day, and my partner convinced me that the balloon surely wasn’t working. The next morning, just to be safe, we packed the hospital bag in the car. “You never know, but we’ll probably be home in an hour.” Nothing could have been further from the truth. It was time to give birth.
Without feeling anything, I had already dilated 3 cm, and we were told to head straight to the delivery room. When the midwife came to check if my waters could be broken, I was already at 4 cm dilated. How was that possible? I hadn’t even felt a cramp yet.

My waters were broken, the contractions were induced, and I danced through the contractions. Literally, because I had a speaker with me and a homemade playlist. I hadn’t felt any pain and wondered if everything was working. Was I normal? Was the IV broken?
The nurse kept checking on me. According to my birth plan, the contractions were supposed to be gradually increased to avoid a contraction storm. But since I was still laughing and dancing, the nurse had had enough. The oxytocin was turned up a few levels, and suddenly, the pain came at 7 cm dilated. The contractions came one after another with no time to recover, and suddenly, I felt an overwhelming urge to push. I asked the nurse if I could start pushing. “No, you can’t, you’re only at 7 cm.” After I’d mentioned about 100 times that I really felt the baby was coming, she finally relented and checked my dilation. 10 cm! I could start pushing.

That childbirth is not easy is still a fact. It does hurt, after all. But that positive births without horror exist, I wish I had known that when I was pregnant. My labor lasted only 3.5 hours in total, the atmosphere was pleasant, I managed the pain well, and luckily my baby was far from an “immense watermelon.” But if you’re pregnant and stressing about your labor? It will be fine, you’re made for this, no matter what kind of birth you will have.

Still, I want to say: Mothers, I have so much respect for us, and I haven’t even talked about all we have to deal with postpartum…
“Being a mother is learning about strengths you didn’t know you had.”

Love,
Zoey Ivory