Bayan Aliyyih: the story behind the birth

Gladys about 7 months into pregnancy. This is the point at which people we met began to tell Gladys that she didn't at all look 7 months pregnant and perhaps ought to try to look a bit more miserable, or at least more misshapen and exhausted.

Some friends believed that Gladys would translate her adeptness in pregnancy to actual birthing, supposing that 2 hours or so might bring Bayan into the world. But nobody could have guessed how the actual birth would unfold....

We expected the baby on 1/9/9. We were sort of hoping. So when her due date arrived (1/6) it was business as usual. Same for 7 and 8, but we went to bed on the 8th with great anticipation. So I awoke with interest (and despair) at 4:45 am. Gladys was behaving strangely, her knees making circular motions as though she had to go to the bathroom. She summoned and I rose, proud that my fledgling resolve to be useful had won out over a long and well-developed sense of reluctance to ever leave bed before sunrise.

She walked me into the hall and hung at my neck in a very strange dance, Gladys seeming to participate in a foreign world and rhythm. The possibility occurred to me that she may have the baby on the living room floor. She went to the bathroom and I began to stuff anything within reach--relevant or not--into the bag we'd packed for the hospital. I called the midwife.

The doorway to her right was where Gladys nearly decided to have the child. Gladys's expression at this point in labor bore little resemblance to what is in this photo. Still beautiful, but labor brings a different quality to beauty.

Rather I called her paging service but fortunately she called back immediately asking how far apart were the contractions. It was hard to tell since there seemed to be just one contraction and it had legs. Gladys took the phone and took on her Doctor's voice, telling Tamara that the contractions were continuous and that the baby was already crowning.

Perhaps you will wonder how Gladys knew that the baby was "crowning" (that the baby's head was entering the birth canal). I have to step back in time. I learned later that Gladys had awakened about 2:30 am, felt uncomfortable and was in and out of bed. Since she hadn't slept much during recent weeks (due to the growing human being within her), Gladys took the discomfort in stride. Plus, Gladys deems herself far too tough to fuss at the first sign of labor. She wanted to be certain the baby was coming.

By 4:30 the contractions were intense enough that Gladys could not ignore them. So she did what any reasonable woman would do. Rather, she did what any reasonable woman who is also a little deranged or else stranded on a desert island might do. She slapped on her surgical gloves, assembled her doctor's kit, and checked the dilation of her own cervix.

Only trouble is that she couldn't learn anything about the dilation. Our baby's head was in the way. Gladys said that she felt the hair on top of the head and no cervix at all. Gladys then felt the desire to push, but figured she ought to wake me first. Gladys's second urge to push prompted the call to the midwife. When we did, the midwife was as surprised as I to learn that the baby's head was at hand (Gladys's). She suggested Gladys call 911--there was no way we'd make it to the birthing center, and the midwife was in Queens. Gladys however was calm and said she thought she could make it. So the midwife scrambled and we scrambled, hopeful of meeting at the hospital before our baby made our acquaintance in person.

Birthing center room. Note the sadly unused jacuzzi bath. It was tough to justify the husband taking a nice soak in the tub when not done in the spirit of helping a wife in labor to relax.

We got off the phone at 4:55. I dressed, I dressed Gladys during her contractions, grabbed carseat and bag, hailed a taxi and rode the 40-some blocks to St. Luke's. Gladys spent the cab ride trying not to have the baby on the vinyl seat. We made it. Gladys then took 10 steps or so before her knees buckled. She couldn't walk more in the midst of the pain. So I ran to the emergency room for a wheelchair, claiming that my wife was in labor. (I hadn't considered that, when an excited husband enters an emergency room at 5:15 am in this way, nobody would actually believe my daughter's birth was imminent. I'd guess that a betting line among those assembled in the emergency room would be about +/- 16 hours based on the urgency which was incited by my news.) No paramedics were sent out, nobody stirred at all really. I did get a chair and ran down the street with it to fetch my wife who was still down on the pavement.

The midwife was less than 10 minutes away. One cannot enter the birthing center without the midwife--no one is on call to deliver babies. So after months of preparing to have a natural birth at the birthing center (no iv, no meds, no taking the baby away, a midwife we know and like already, etc), we headed in expecting to go to Labor & Delivery. But just before we got into the elevator, Gladys's contractions paused for a moment, giving her new resolve to go to the floor of the birthing center and wait for Tamara.

We went to the wrong floor, then the right one, then nearly had the child in the hall. But in the final moments Tamara arrived, we went into the birthing center where a beautiful room was prepared, the midwife and a nurse undressed Gladys, finally told her that it was okay to push and within 3 or 4 minutes after that point (during which their only comments concerned how well she was doing and that she should try to "slow down" her pushing) our little girl came into the world.

We walked into the birthing center about 5:30, they got her to the room, undressed her and prepped her in about 4 minutes and the baby came 4 min later at 5:38. Fortunately, the baby came out very healthy--at least all the early signs suggest so--and very calm and happy. It occurs to me that people will think that Gladys was lucky and she was. But she was also wonderfully brave, wonderfully cognizant of the baby's chance at life rather than her own need to suffer, and very much in pain for the hour or two before I woke and certainly the 53 minutes after.

It was wonderful, and very strange to be awake only 53 minutes and to have seen so much. Gladys is somewhat open to the idea of waking me a full hour before the birth of our next child. Please, freely encourage her in this regard.