This is an account of Benjamin's birth (yes, though I had my doubts, he was finally born), picking up where I left off from the last post:

Wednesday, 10 Oct. Donald and I made yet another trip to Chapel Hill. We met Maureen at. . .I don't remember what time now, but sometime in the morning. She examined me and, lo and behold, the Foley catheter, while it hadn't fallen out, had made some difference to my cervix. She estimated that I was between three and four centimeters dilated. This was great news. Only one problem: I was no longer contracting.

Initially the plan had been to immediately admit me to UNC and get the induction process going. Unfortunately, UNC was having a rush of pregnant women delivering babies, so Maureen went with Plan B, which entailed officially admitting me to the birth center and using homeopathic methods of inducing labor.

So after going downstairs (to the birthing rooms), Maureen started pumping me full of blue and black cohosh. Every 30 mins I would take a shot of the two herbs mixed with distilled water. It tasted like. . .nothing really. She also bound my belly up in a sheet (in hopes of pushing Benjamin down toward the exit sign) and had me walk. Donald and I took a nice stroll down a little wooded road behind the birth center, but by midday it had gotten warm enough that I no longer felt good being outdoors, so there was quite a bit of sitting, or lying down, doing nothing.

Hours passed. Still no contractions.

Liz and the kids showed up around 1 or 2. My Dad and Carol showed up, too, after awhile. My mother came for a little bit. We watched a movie. At some point Maureen finally convinced me to drink castor oil. I'd made up my mind that I wasn't going to go that route, having read nothing conclusive online about its effectiveness, but I let her talk me into it because, I mean, what the hell, I wasn't doing anything else, might as well give it a try.

It really wasn't so bad. She mixed the oil with coca-cola and then had me chase that concoction down with a Reese's cup. I held my nose so I couldn't really taste the oil, but nothing was going to mask the consistency. Urg. But the peanut butter cup made it all better.

I expected it to work immediately, but it didn't. No effect whatsoever for. . .two hours or more. And then it really wasn't the horrific event that I imagined it would be. (The Big Mac and french fries I ate for lunch probably had just as much to do with the gastrointestinal issues I had as anything!) Coincidentally, though, shortly after the effects of the castor oil began, contractions also began. (My theory on the castor oil thing is that I eat enough oil and other rich stuff--cream, butter--that castor oil was not a big deal to my system.)

It was. . .5:45ish and we were sitting around, doing nothing much (which is what we did most of the day) and I started having mild contractions. Once the contractions seemed as though they were around to stay, Donald started timing them and they were fairly consistently five minutes apart. At this point, Maureen had been bugging UNC for a room and we were waiting to get the word from the hospital that we could come over.

Somewhere around 7:30, when it was obvious the contractions were around to stay awhile, Maureen had me go for another walk. Everyone came along and we walked around the block. As were coming up the back side of the birth center, I could hear someone calling my name from the parking lot. UNC had called to say that they had a room and I was to get there ASAP. So, scramble, scramble, we got up all of our stuff and headed down the road to UNC. Donald dropped Suzanne (a GSK co-worker and licensed masseuse whom I'd "hired" to be my personal masseuse during labor) and me at the door and we went and got into the room while he parked the car.

They started pitocin almost as soon as I got into the room, but Maureen said that they didn't give me much at all, so I don't know how much of the labor can be attributed to pitocin and how much to the fact that my body had started the process itself, but not long after I got to UNC the contractions really started to get intense. Very intense. Extremely intense. So intense that at one point I wished that I would die rather than endure the pain. If it hadn't been for Suzanne massaging my back and Donald letting me lean my forehead into his hand, I'd have never been able to handle as much of those contractions as I did. They were bad. I'd never experienced anything like with William or Lizzie because I'd gotten an epidural earlier in the process.

I had to get an epidural this time, too.

I still feel kind of like a failure because, I mean, here I was going to have the all natural birth experience at the birth center, no IVs, no monitors, no pitocin, no epidural. . .but there I was, laid up in the hospital, monitor wires everywhere, IV line in my hand. So much for my plans. But I thought, well, the least I can do is have a birth with no pain meds. However, despite all the awful contractions, I just wasn't dilating. And the pain. . .the pain was wearing me out. So I eventually gave up there, as well, and had an epidural. I must admit, it was wonderful to see the contractions spike on the monitor but not to experience them. Still. . .

Oh well. The best laid plans. . .

So, anyway, around, I don't know, sometime early morning on the 11th, I started feeling the contractions again. Nowhere near the level of pain as before, but no longer was I able to sit back and watch them happen on the monitor without being able to feel them. Eventually I told Maureen that it felt as though the baby had lodged himself smack between my legs and that I thought that a push or two would be a good thing. After examining me and discovering that I'd finally made my way to 10 centimeters, she agreed. The time was somewhere around 5 a.m. Donald was on my left, along with Lizzie and Liz. Suzanne was on my right, helping to hold my right leg.

I pushed.

And I felt him move down.

I pushed again.

He moved some more.

I pushed again.

I could feel him there, crowning. Maureen had me feel his head with my hand. He couldn't stay there, it hurt too badly.

I pushed again.

This time I don't know what part was where, only that the pain was unbearable and he had to get out of there. Had to.

I pushed again.

And again, taking only a moment to catch my breath.

It was 5:39 a.m.

One more push. . .and there he was! On my belly instead of in it. All 10 pounds of him. Wet, slimy, stunned. Glorious. Beautiful. Gorgeous.

Our son.

Benjamin Radcliff Zepp.

I'm in love.