Welcome to the World

This is not the birth story I’d hoped for, but it was perfect in its own way.

On Tuesday, March 26, I had an appointment to see my OB. She checked me over and said that things still didn't look like they were advancing. She told me that we would see each other in a week if nothing happened sooner. It was then that I mentioned something that had been bothering me all morning: I had barely felt any movement that day. At almost noon, and especially after sitting still in the waiting room for a while, this was starting to become a concern. I also had woken with the vague sense that the baby hadn't moved all night either, though whether or not this is true, I have no idea. My doctor also seemed a bit concerned, so she told me to go have lunch and come back in an hour for fetal monitoring.

When I got back to the clinic, they strapped some monitors around me and gave me a button to press every time the baby moved. We could hear his heart beating on the monitor. The doctor told me she was going to lunch and she’d be back to check on the results in 45 minutes. For the first 15 or 20 minutes, we were relaxed, listening to the baby’s heart, chatting and laughing. After a while, my lower back started to hurt. I was really uncomfortable lying on the exam table. I didn't want to mess up the test, but eventually caved and asked Cris to help me find a more comfortable position. Nothing helped. Deep down, I knew that the only thing that would help was to get up and walk around.

The pain subsided after a minute, but came back even stronger. By the third time, I started to ask myself: are these contractions? I’d had a couple of mild contractions earlier on, but they didn't really feel anything like this. From everything I’d heard, I guess I was expecting labor to start slowly, but these were the first contractions I’d had all day. My doctor had just told me that she didn't think I’d be ready at least for another week.

The doctor came back and confirmed my suspicions. I was 2 cm dilated. She told me we should plan to get to the hospital around 8 pm. That was at about 2 or 2:30. As we were talking, she and I both noticed that the contractions were already getting closer together. Based on that and how intense they were, she said to keep an eye on things and go to the hospital sooner if we needed to.

At home, we packed for the hospital…. Well, Cris packed; I sort of stumbled around helping, telling him where to find things, moaning. I took a shower. That helped a bit. I timed my contractions for a while: 40 seconds long, every two and a half minutes. We were all packed and ready a little before 7 pm. I decided that it was time to go.

When we got to the hospital, I was 6 cm dilated. The room they brought us to was super cozy. It already had a little bassinet in the corner. There was something really uplifting about seeing my baby’s little bed when I walked in the door.

My doctor was attending another birth, so the nurses called her with updates on my progress. Since I was still a little sick with the flu, she told the nurses to give me IV fluids. Now, lying down is really not a great position to be in for labor. It’s much more comfortable to be up, moving around, changing positions than stuck on your back. However, lying on your back is a favorite position for putting in an IV. Unfortunately, I have the world’s most invisible veins. This results in a lot of misses when it comes to drawing blood or inserting IVs. Normally being stuck with a needle multiple times or having it wiggled around in my arm is enough to piss me off. On this occasion, I was perfectly willing to tolerate as many sticks and jabs as it took, if only they would just hurry the hell up. With each contraction, I felt more trapped and agitated. All I could do was breathe and try to tune it all out.

Cris, the doctor and the nurses alternated rubbing my back during contractions and cheering me on. Time became a meaningless concept, as it seemed to stretch on forever and fly by all at the same time. I tried to stay focused on what I had to do and breathe.

At 8 cm dilated, the doctor came back in and checked my progress. The baby should have been pretty far into my pelvis at this point. He hadn't moved since that afternoon when I was in her office. We decided to try breaking open the amniotic sac, figuring that maybe there was a lot of liquid and not enough weight on the baby to help him move down. When my water was broken, I tried to push the baby down. It was like trying to push a house off its foundation. The doctor asked me what I wanted to do, and I told her that as long as the baby was still okay, I’d like to wait a bit longer and try some different positions. At this point, I was pretty sure I knew where this was going, but I wasn't ready to give up yet.

She got out her little doppler wand to check on how he was doing. He was not okay. Every time we’d heard his heartbeat, it was like a little hummingbird heart. This sounded more like someone with hypothermia. I felt my breath catch in my chest and then several things happened simultaneously. “Vámonos,” I said in a surprisingly level voice. The doctor got out her phone and started calling people to come in for the surgery while reaching back in to try and change the baby’s position. Cristhian was frozen in place, ready to pounce the moment someone said “go”.

Fifteen minutes later, I was in the operating room down the hall. Everyone was prepping for surgery. They shaved my bikini line, put in a spinal block and painted me with disinfectant. As one of the nurses was swabbing my abdomen and legs, the spinal block started to kick in and it felt like little strokes of electricity up and down my skin.

They put up a curtain, so I couldn't see what was happening, but at some point they were pushing down on my abdomen to get the baby out of the incision. I was rather surprised by how much labor was involved. I felt like I could hardly breathe for a second, and then I heard little baby sounds. The anesthesiologist called the time of birth, 23:12. All I wanted was to see and hold him. Eventually the pediatrician brought him over to me, but only for a moment.

Nearly two hours passed between when he was born and when they had me stitched up and back in my room. At that point, the baby was pretty hungry. The pediatrician had suggested giving him a little bit of formula, but Cris asked him to wait and let me feed him as soon as I could. Had the c section been planned, I probably would have been able to feed him sooner, but as soon as they had me back in bed, my doctor came in and helped me get him latched on. Given that it was our first time and I could hardly move, we did alright, but the latch was pretty bad.

If I had it to do over again, I would have had more conversations with my doctor about what to do in case of an emergency cesarean. We’d talked about skin-to-skin and nursing right away, but in the chaos of everything that happened, Seamus ended up spending his first couple of hours under the heat lamps. He ended up getting pretty cold and almost certainly would have done better snuggled up with his dad’s body heat keeping him warm.

My birth experience wasn't perfect, but I’m really happy with how it turned out. My doctor and my husband both advocated for me throughout the process. There is a small chance that I could have had a vaginal birth if my water hadn't been broken, but it’s very likely that things would have gone the same way or gotten even more dangerous.

The hardest part of this process has undoubtedly been the recovery. There are times when a medically assisted birth is necessary and I think that my case is a good example of that, but I would recommend avoiding it whenever possible. What I've gone through in the couple of weeks since my baby was born has been far more painful than anything I experienced during labor. The only thing that makes it all worth it is my healthy, happy, beautiful baby boy.

The Final Descent

Just when I began to feel I would have to choose between eating and breathing, I woke up one morning to a pleasant surprise: my belly was a little lower than it had been. I looked down and it seemed a bit further away. I double checked in the mirror, but had to confirm with Cris before I was entirely convinced. My belly was definitely dropping. I took a deep breath and it felt easier than it had in weeks.

There are some definite advantages to my new body composition. In addition to no longer feeling like I’m going to suffocate, I can finish a normal sized meal, I've hardly had any heartburn and it’s much harder for Baby to get his/her foot wedged under my rib cage, though not impossible..

However, as with all the joys of parenthood, there are some drawbacks. The further baby gets from my rib cage, the further she/he gets into my pelvis. This is good. It means we’re getting closer to B-Day. But it hurts like a bitch. The weight of baby on my lower abdominal muscles and pelvic bone is like a constant workout. When I get up after sitting or lying down for awhile, I feel as if I’d been going hard on the thighmaster and bicycle crunches. Not that feeling you get right after you work out, but the one you get the next day after your body has had a chance to realize what you did to it.

Now that space is at a premium, Baby can’t move around as much. But head movements, however slight, are all up on my cervix. Years ago I had to have my cervix biopsied to double check some abnormal cells. This is a comparable feeling. When baby hits a nerve, it’s like a bolt of electricity running through my vag. It’s worst when I’m walking, which is something that I've been trying to do as much as possible because it helps prepare Baby and Momma for labor.

At this point, Baby’s arrival is just a matter of time. One way or another, he/she’s gotta come out within the next few weeks. So far, I’ve managed to keep my skin intact, but I’m starting to feel like my muscles are tearing apart. I’m really hoping for sooner rather than later, or at least before anything breaks. But if Baby still has important things to do before birth, I guess I’m willing to wait.v

The Countdown

Okay, this blog post has taken an absurd amount of time for me to write. My brain no longer functions in any sort of way that seems to make sense to other human beings, but the baby gets me. Do you think that’s part of the biological imperative?

Now that we’re far enough along that baby could easily survive outside of the womb, I’ve started to relax a little. Only a little, but it’s something. Parenthood is stressful as fuck. Just keeping another little human alive seems pretty daunting, but I also have to keep her/him healthy, safe, fed, clothed, happy (relatively), and all of that without losing him/her/my mind. Jesus.

I don’t think it helps much that our upstairs neighbor had to have a cesarean 3 weeks ahead of schedule because she’d been losing amniotic fluid for god knows how long and the baby was at risk when they finally realized. Seriously? How many minor tragedies can be avoided in the span of 9 months? Life is a damn miracle.

A couple of months ago I read a ton of shit on pregnancy forums about “nesting”. This is the process that expectant mothers are supposed to go through to prepare their space (read: life) for the new baby. I came across this because a bunch of women with similar due dates (April) were all starting to do it. MONTHS AGO. Am I the only person in this forum who has bought almost nothing, doesn’t have a space cleared out, hasn’t put together contraptions and furniture, or stockpiled diapers?

Now that we’ve had a baby shower and got a bunch of baby swag, I have finally started eyeing a space in the closet that I think I’m gonna clear out. But that’s it. I’m just thinking about it. And what if the baby is born tomorrow? Well, then I think Cris is going to have to come back home at some point to do laundry ‘cause we ain’t even got shit washed yet. And I think I’m okay with that. Because what if I go on leave next month and the baby doesn’t come for another couple of weeks after that? What the holy hell am I going to do with all of that time if everything is done?

The one area of my life that I have been frantically preparing for B-Day is work. I pretty much started the year prepping materials and plans and diagrams in the event that a sub had to step in unexpectedly early. I mostly started early, though, because there is just a fuck ton to do. I would rather leave someone with all the tools they might need to succeed than just let them figure it out on their own, especially if I’m coming back within a few months and would only have to clean up after the experiment. The only problem now is that I still don’t have a sub… for the second time. Twice I’ve had someone accept the job only to later turn it down because they’d found something else. I get it. You get offered a job that doesn’t start for a couple months and something else that starts now comes along, of course you’re gonna take it. But have these tricks not heard of a telephone? Call somebody and let them know if you don’t want the job anymore. Because when you said you would take the job, I stopped looking for someone else!! The last person didn’t let us know that she wasn’t taking the job until the first day she was supposed to show up to train. Come on. I think the solution is to give my classes via skype from my bed. I’m giving jobs away here, but if no one wants them, fine!

Six weeks until baby comes, four until I go on leave. I’m counting the days. Each morning I feel a little heavier, or look a little bigger. I’m not so much “expecting” a baby in the modern sense of the word so much as I’m “esperando,” the equivalent in Spanish. Waiting. Waiting for baby to drop into position. Waiting for a sign. Waiting for this part of the journey to be over and the next to begin.