Labor Day

Every Labor Day, I can’t help thinking of the best and worst 24 hours of my life. The day my sweet angel was born and the worst pain I’ve ever experienced. 

My baby was scheduled to be born August 1, but the baby didn’t get the memo. Every week in August, I went to the doctor hoping she’d say it’s time and leaving disappointed when she said… not yet. 

I felt like a beached whale. There was no comfortable position I could sit or sleep in and walking was like lugging the weight of a car on my back. I never wanted to move.

By the end of August, the doctor was concerned the baby was growing too big for me to deliver naturally so she set up an appointment for me to be induced on Labor Day. 

The night before I couldn’t sleep. I was a ball of nerves with my mind racing, imagining the unexpected. 

I was really afraid it was gonna be very painful. But in the many minutes of my sleepless hours, as my husband sawed logs next to me, I rationalized that many women do this and do it more than once so it couldn’t be that bad right? 

At 5am the next morning the doctor broke my water and shot my arm with an IV full of miracle drugs to induce labor and make my baby pop out like a turkey thermometer on Thanksgiving day. 

For about an hour I was lulled into a false sense of security. Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad. Wrong! What they don’t tell me is the the drugs make contractions 110 times worse. And no stupid Lamaze breathing could ever prepare me for the pain. 

I felt like I was being cut in half, like a balloon that kept inflating and never popped. 

This went on repeat hour after hour. For some reason this baby did not want to come out.  I’d have ten minutes of intense pain followed by fifty minutes of absolute boredom, fear and anticipation of what was coming next.  

My husband plastered himself to the television in the room. When I asked for more ice chips, he actually asked me to wait for a commercial. Can you believe that I’m going through all this to give him a child and he can’t even give me some frozen water? 

After the first nurse shift change, I was getting anxious and hungry. You’re not allowed to eat for eight hours before you go in. And you’re not allowed to eat until you give birth. 

When she came to introduce herself, I asked for something to eat.

“Sorry, I can only give you clear liquids,” she said with a practiced sympathetic expression. 

When she left, my husband turned to me and asked. 

“I’m kinda hungry too. Do you mind if I go to McDonald’s?”

I secretly wished he would suffer along with me, but simply nodded to be nice. 

The nurse returned with a tray of chicken broth, a glob of no sugar gelatin and a dusty can of Shasta soda without sugar that they must have retrieved from the basement, it looked so old. 

“Wow, I didn’t think they sold Shasta anymore,” I kidded and she shot me an obligatory smile, probably missing my joke. 

I slurped down the clear tasteless liquid meal when my husband comes back sporting the mouth-watering aroma of a Big Mac and fries. 

I was appalled. “Are you going to eat that in front of me?”

He shrugged innocently. “Well, I don’t want to miss anything.”

By the next nurse shift change, with now 16 hours of labor under my belt, I was getting worried. 

When they broke my water, they said I had to deliver within 24 hours or they’d have to do a C section. I was on a clock and it kept ticking away like a haunting reminder of a schedule I had no control over. 

“Hi I’m Sandy. How are we doing?” The new nurse grinned while adding her name to the whiteboard in my room. 

I smiled back but what I really wanted to say was We are not doing anything? 

With nine hours to go, the contractions were harder but still only every hour on the hour, like the chime of a grandfather clock counting down the hours to the knife. 

Sympathetic, Sandy offered to talk to the doctor. 

She came back quickly and adjusted the iv. 

“Doctor said we can turn up the medicine to hopefully move things along. But the  contractions may be a little stronger,” she warned in an optimistic Mary Poppins tone. 

But all I heard was the word stronger, like it was covered in bright lights on a billboard. 

And she wasn’t kidding; stronger was an understatement. I went from intense pain every hour to now longer and more intense pain every half hour to the point where I was screaming in pain. 

“Screaming won’t do any good. You have to focus your energy,” Sandy advised. 

But I really wanted to scream. It was my only outlet so it did do something for me. 

Unfortunately the pain ratcheted up, accompanied by backaches, neck aches and new pains every time. 

Not knowing what to do, my concerned husband talked to Sandy. “Isn’t there anything you can give her for the pain?”

Sandy left again and came back with another addition to the IV. 

“This should help take the edge off,” she smiled. 

I don’t know what it was, but I have a low tolerance for pain and a high tolerance for pain medication. A little does nothing. 

But around midnight, I can still remember jumping on the bed screaming “Get out. Get out.” Was it a drug induced hallucination or real? I’ll never know, but the clock was ticking down and I was running out of time. 

A c section was surgery. A longer recovery and then any children after would result in the same surgery. I wasn’t a fan. 

When the doctor came to check again at 2am, I was still only up to 5 centimeters. 20 hours and only halfway to our goal. We were at our wits end. 

“She can’t go on like this,” my husband told the doctor. 

“OK, I’ll come back in an hour, if she’s not ready, we will do a c section,” the doctor agreed. 

Well, the baby must have heard that. Within a half hour I was at 10 centimeters and by 3am with one push my angel arrived and I realized why so many women do this multiple times. You may not forget the pain, but the reward is well worth it. 

(c) Suzanne Rudd Hamilton 2025