Ricki Lake on giving birth without meds

After so many months of preparation, in the end I never had a chance to surrender except to the hospital’s schedule. I was never in control. I had wanted to feel everything, but all I remembered of labor was fear and panic. I had blocked out the glory of pushing my baby into the world so much that I gave Sandy credit for delivering Milo. Why the big disconnect?

Suddenly I was very interested in birth. I became a birth junkie. Two months after Milo was born, I started going to birth conferences. I wasn’t planning to have another child right away, but I wanted to educate myself. I read everything. I never studied like this in school. Back then I never cared enough about what I was learning. For a little while I got it in my head that I wanted to be a midwife. It’s my calling, you know? When I told my family and friends, they thought I was insane. They pointed out this wasn’t realistic for a talk show host who hadn’t managed to get an undergraduate degree. Nutty, I know, but it shows how much birthing Milo opened up my world. This country makes mothers feel so bad, so inadequate, even at the moment of the births of their babies. Yet everybody at the birth conferences was so pro-mother and pro-baby, and the conferences were so much about honoring them and fighting this uphill battle against what has been happening in for-profit childbirth. I began to believe (and I’ve had a lot of arguments with people about this) that how they are born affects who babies are. I realized the process was so important to me. If I were to have another child, I wanted to do it my way. I wanted to have the people around me that I felt comfortable with. I wanted to be in an environment where I felt completely safe and at home. And I didn’t want my baby taken away from me. I didn’t want any intervention that wasn’t necessary. I felt that I could only have it my way by doing it at home.

Video   Ricki Lake promotes choice in childbirth May 1: TODAY’s Meredith Vieira talks to actress and former talk show host Ricki Lake and film director Abby Epstein about their book, “Your Best Birth.” Today show

Five years later, when I was pregnant again, I met Miriam Schwartzchild, a midwife with a really great reputation in the home birth world. We connected. I was comfortable with her protocols. I told her my goal was to have a positive experience and to remember everything — every contraction, every position, every feeling. Miriam completely understood my desire to have a water birth at home. She was so relaxed, as if this was not a big deal. I loved that she came to my home for my prenatal care. We’d drink tea and talk while Milo came in and out and asked his own questions. A friendship grew. By the time I went into labor, I was so comfortable with her. There was no question that this was what I should be doing. I was eight days from my due date when my water broke early in the morning as I sat on the toilet. It happened to be the first day of Milo’s very first summer day camp. It was so amazing to think that he was going off to camp and chances were pretty good that he would be coming back to meet his new brother. My doulas came to our apartment first and Miriam came around eleven o’clock. In the early stages of labor we played Scrabble. We sat on the floor and I would take breaks between contractions.

We were about to choose letters to begin another round when I had to stop because my labor started to move pretty quickly. Just at the moment when I had picked a blank, the ultimate letter, I had to quit! I got to know every corner of my apartment that day. I positioned myself in every room of my house: on the floor, in the bathroom, throughout the hallway. There were moments, many moments toward the end, when I thought I couldn’t do it. The phase they call “transition,” when I was going from seven to ten centimeters, was the most challenging time. That’s when you’re not f------ around anymore. You’re dead serious and you’re in pain. I remember specifically being at the sink in my kitchen, my chin resting on the waterspout, and thinking, “I cannot do this anymore.” I heard an ambulance go by and I said, “There’s my ride. Get me out of here.”

Miriam looked me in the eye and reminded me of the reasons I chose to be at home in the first place. I needed someone to tell me I was right and this was right and exactly what Rob and I wanted. After that, I surrendered to it. When I did that 100 percent, things moved very quickly. Shortly after that, the head started coming out. Miriam said if I wanted to have my baby in the water like we had discussed, I had to get in the tub right away. In the tub, I pushed for thirteen minutes, three contractions. Then Miriam told me to reach down and touch my baby. I placed him on my chest and he stared right at me with his eyes wide open. We got out of the tub and into the bed. They talk about the high you have with a natural childbirth. It’s so true. I had all this energy. I mean, I was flying. I was so psyched. I wasn’t tired at all.

My whole labor was nine hours start to finish. Right after, I was on the phone calling everyone and having food delivered, having friends over. I did all of this as Owen nestled in my arms nursing. After nine months of sharing my smell, voice, and heartbeat with him, I didn’t want him even two inches away from me. Only after two hours did Miriam ask if she could check him over and weigh him. It was so huge. I still can’t believe I did it. And it’s not just what my body did in giving birth; it’s that I went against so many people around me. I chose to go against much of the advice given to me, went the opposite way and did what I wanted, and it turned out even better than I expected. No one can take that away from me. I also think I gave Owen a gift. I did something for him that will affect him no matter who he is. I’m grateful and hope he’ll grow up to be grateful for that too. I admit that so far neither one of my boys has taken me aside to thank me for his birth. At least neither of them has ever said that he is sorry he was born. Not yet anyway. I love both of my boys so powerfully that the words I can summon up to describe that love sound puny by comparison. How Owen was born is part of the many things I love about him, but I don’t love Milo any less. I love them and their births that brought them to me, but I also love how giving birth to them allowed me to grow as a woman.

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