I breathed Indigo out in three soft breaths. Although I was in a delivery room at Samitivej Hospital, I only saw my husband Craig, who was at my side. It was totally still, the lights were dimmed and I could hear the sound of my deep inhales and the long exhales, like the breath of the sea at night. The nurses and doctor stood close to the wall at the door and Kate, my wonderful doula, stood quietly on the other side of the bed. I felt only joy and ease at that moment. On my hands and knees, I let my daughter lead the way. And by our third exhale, she had slipped out, easily and effortlessly. The doctor stepped forward only to catch her but immediately handed her to me and I brought her to my chest in a sweet embrace. She and I looked at each other for the first time surrounded by a peaceful quiet, as thick as a blanket.
The most amazing detail, however, is that a mere half hour before, I almost gave birth to my daughter on all fours in the back seat of a Toyota Wish as we hurtled passed Soi Cowboy lit up by gaudy neon signs and crowded with gawking men, tired bar girls, and yes, even a baby elephant posing for photos with smiling tourists. I took a mental snapshot of that moment, filing it away for when the blinding pain of my surges and the intense desire to push was no longer wreaking havoc on my mental capacities. Thankfully with the Mario Andretti-inspired driving skills of my husband Craig and the calming words of Kate Besleme, my doula, we managed to reach Samitivej Hospital in time for a birth even more peaceful and perfect than I even imagined and hoped for.
Indigo has had a very clear sense of who she is since the moment she was conceived. She is strong willed and kind hearted but can show the tenacity and fierceness of a small ferile cat when she wants to. From her inception, she has tried to eclipse the limits of her petite body with a larger than life personality. In the womb, she swirled her potion of morning sickness, food cravings and exhaustion that felled me to my knees for the first five months of her existence. She happily carried on doing her thing; filling her days with back flips and practicing her martial arts and punctuating my nights with elbows and knees playing chicken with my lungs and kidneys. Speaking of chicken, that is all she wanted to eat… evvver. Some days she would be so annoyed that I would have the audacity to attempt to ingest anything else at all that she would make me throw up the three sips of water I managed to choke down or even prove her point of who was boss by making me gag and vomit when I was brushing my teeth. She has a powerful sense of what she wants and when and how she wants it, which is why it came as no surprise that despite my pleas and prods and prayers, she refused to come out for what seemed forever.
My due date came and went. And as a prenatal yoga teacher I was familiar with overly eager mommies-to-be just desperate to have their baby out of their belly partly to ease their own discomfort but mostly to meet the little person who already ruled their world by their perfect, pink, plump, tiny pinky finger. I had told hundreds of expectant mothers that a due date was just an estimated guess and nothing more, that their babies would choose their birth day. My son Kim had been eight days late but somehow I believed – or perhaps convinced myself – that Indigo would be early. So when a week passed after her due date, then eight days, then nine, then ten, I was in tears and convinced she was never coming out. Even when I was 40 weeks pregnant with Kim in the dead of winter in Washington, DC, I felt overheated all the time. This time around, it was May in Bangkok. I felt like I was living in a sauna wearing seven layers of clothes with the heater on day and night. I was beyond ready and felt as though there could not possibly be enough space for the two of us to continue like this. This tiny girl was winning the battle over my body and I could only scratch my itchy, enormously swollen belly and keep the air conditioning blasting day and night, despite my husband’s chattering teeth as he slept curled up in the fetal position under a wool blanket.
Then eleven days past her due date, she decided she was ready. And there was no slowing her down. I was cooking dinner for Kim, Craig and I around 6:30pm, we sat down to eat by 7 and my contractions started to feel more insistent. As Craig got Kim ready for bed, I distracted myself by clearing up. By 8:15 my surges had gone from every 15 minutes to every seven. In between two surges, I tucked Kim in bed and told him I would probably be in the hospital when he woke up in the morning but that he could come visit me – and his new baby sister – as soon as he woke up. I kissed my baby, who would be a big brother soon, then stood under a hot shower to ease the pain of my surges. I called Kate but told her not to hurry since I had really only started labor and my contractions were so irregular. She said she would nonetheless start to slowly make her way over.
Meanwhile, Craig was an incredible support. He reminded me to breathe through each surge and not to think beyond those 30 seconds; he reiterated that each surge was bringing our baby girl closer to us. In between each contraction he was running around getting preparations ready: getting our bag to the door, the car seat, making arrangements with our maid but always back for my next surge to hold my hand and to let me burrow my head into his shoulder to dispel some of my pain. By the time Kate arrived at 9:15, my contractions were rolling like huge waves, one on top of each other and I felt the need to push. Kate said either we could try to have the baby at home or try to make it to Samitivej. I wanted to go to the hospital but my legs buckled under me and I could no longer walk. Craig brought a blanket (which fittingly enough had been an anniversary gift from my sister and was engraved with our wedding date) and he helped me crawl onto the blanket. He then dragged me on the blanket through our apartment to the elevator and through the parking garage where he and Kate helped me into the backseat. Thankfully, we did not run into anyone in the building so we did not have to explain why we looked so absolutely insane.
It was during the car ride that Kate’s presence and guidance proved invaluable. The need to push was so intense I was consumed by it. Kate told me in her inimitable, serene tone to just ask the baby to wait ten minutes more. She asked me to speak to the baby and when I did, when I stopped panicking and being completely overwhelmed by the surges and the urge to push, and I sensed the tiniest bit of space. I breathed into that space and felt my panic subside. Craig drove as quickly and calmly as he could manage but each time we hit one of Sukhumvit’s many bumps and potholes, I genuinely feared Indigo would pop out and could not help crying out in pain. Kate advised me to look up and not down as I was doing; she guided me to imagine upward movement in my body, as if all my energy was moving up. Again, she offered exactly what I needed and I felt a respite from Indigo pressing downward.
We got to the hospital and an attendant brought the wheelchair and did not seem to understand that when Craig and I were asking him: “Faster please!” we meant it, until I let out this very loud wail and then he was sprinting across the hospital and up to the birth unit. Kate had gone ahead and was trying to get things ready but the on-call doctor wasn’t even there and the two midwives were totally unprepared for us. Kate had been phoning the birth unit for the past 40 minutes without a response. I wanted to go straight to the spa-like birthing room I was shown on my look-see visit (and had been dreaming about) but the midwives insisted on checking me first, despite my insisting I needed to push already. When they heard I had only been in labor for two and a half hours, I think they thought I was exaggerating! As soon as they checked, however, they informed us (in a slightly nervous way) that the baby’s head was visible! They directed me to lay on my side with my legs crossed until they could find the doctor which made me panic as I absolutely and truly needed to push so badly at this point. I felt like I’d been holding the baby in for over half an hour and she was not going to wait another second. Finally, they found an on-call doctor and they said I could push.
As soon as I heard that I could push, suddenly, I became totally calm and quiet and was just smiling at Craig. I said to him, smiling, “We’re going to meet our daughter.” Later, he told me that my expression and my eyes just got very soft and all tension melted away. The lights were dimmed and everyone was quiet as I got onto all fours and with my first long exhale my membranes burst and I just breathed Indigo down. The midwives and doctor just stood back not interfering once through the entire birth. Without one groan or scream (unlike nearly every Hollywood birth scene) and with a smile on my face, I looked down and saw Indigo emerge with my next two deep exhales. I looked at both Craig and Kate and beamed, it was a surreal, perfect and absolutely sacred moment. Indigo did not cry and as I drew her into my embrace, she blinked her eyes slowly, her first breaths quiet and easy. For all her strong will, she eased her way into the world with incredible grace, as quiet as a whisper. Her birth took exactly three breaths and lasted only nine minutes. After over nine months of the uncertaintities, the joys, the fears, the rollercoaster that is pregnancy, her birth was literally as easy as breathing. It was a moment of beauty, of pure, unfiltered beauty, natural, heavenly and of this earth all at once. It humbled and honored me, made me feel connected and inspired, and surrounded by, breathed by love.
Joung-ah has agreed to answer selected questions about her birth experience. To read further or post your own questions, visit this forum thread.
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