It’s a cold and cloudy Sunday morning, and I was woken by the adorable coo’s and sucking noises from my baby girl starting to wake up letting me know it was time for her to eat again. As I looked at the time, 7:36 am, I couldn’t help but feel a bit nostalgic. It was exactly two weeks ago that I gave birth to our little girl, and in such a short period of time, she has completely changed my life. I have often wondered to myself, “What did I ever do before you? And how can I love someone who is so small so very much?” This is just a story of how two became three – our story…
Throughout my entire pregnancy I envisioned the birth of my little girl over and over. My husband by my side, the doctors down at my…well… vagina yelling and for me to push. I imagined them lifting her up and seeing her face for the first time. I imagined a natural birth the way God intended and I was so sure that’s how it was going to play out. I told myself a million times I was going to be strong and not get any of the drugs or painkillers for no other reason than my ridiculous fear of them. I told myself I was strong and that despite my fears, I could do this whole labor and delivery thing that women have been doing since the beginning of time.
The last four weeks of my pregnancy I had an OB appointment once a week where my doctor checked my cervix to see if I had made any progress. And each week I was becoming more dilated and effaced. Three days before I went into labor I was three centimeters dilated and 90% effaced. My doctor said, “You are good to go! I don’t know what she is waiting for!” I had originally assumed I’d give birth late as that seems to be the norm, but by 38 weeks I wondered if I’d go a little early because I was making so much progress. Every day was a waiting game and I was having cramps and braxton hicks wondering, “Is today the day?!” I also worried every day I wouldn’t know when it was actually time to call the doctor and head to the hospital because it seemed like I was constantly having contractions of some sort. Of course ask any women who has given birth and they’ll tell you, “Trust me, you’ll know!”
I remember waking up on Valentine’s day morning feeling like, “This is it!” I was so crampy, I kept losing pieces of my mucus plug and just felt different. My husband decided to work from home that day just in case. Then came February 15th and I was still pregnant, but I still felt the same as I did the day before. I was still questioning how I would know. I was officially worried that I’d be that chick on the news with a story of giving birth to her baby girl on the bathroom floor. It being Valentine’s weekend, the barre studio where I take classes weekly was having “Man up to the barre” classes all weekend and I had signed my husband and I up several weeks prior figuring if I was still pregnant we could go. So, we got up and I dragged his behind to barre class. After that we went out for lunch and I kept saying I didn’t want to travel too far from home; I just couldn’t help but feel like “real” labor was right around the corner. We were in for yet another New England snow storm so after lunch we made our way home and got comfortable on the couch watching movies, and at 4:30pm I started having contractions.
From 4:30pm to 11:30pm I had contractions, but they never went into a synchronized pattern. I’d go from 5 minutes to 10 minutes to 7 minutes back to 5 minutes to 13 minutes…so on and so forth. I did this for seven hours, but during the last hour I was becoming very uncomfortable. At 11:30 I got up to use the bathroom and started bleeding. I immediately went into panic mode, yelled out to my husband that we had to go and I grabbed my phone and called my doctors answering service line and spoke to the doctor on call. He assured me it sounded like what I was experiencing was my “bloody show” and that I was in fact in labor and to head to the hospital. So, in a snow storm, off we went. When I arrived at the hospital they confirmed the bleeding I experienced was completely normal (my bloody show) and that I was 7 centimeters dilated, but I still wasn’t in an active labor pattern. I was having a prodromal labor and the nurses were shocked at how dilated I was for not being in an active labor pattern. The doctor on call examined me and suggested I get the epidural and then start on Pitocin to get my contractions going in a normal pattern. Even though it wasn’t ideally how I wanted things to go, I agreed. Almost every women I have spoken to said they loved the epidural. I absolutely hated it. I mean I seriously hated it. So much so I asked the nurse to turn it down and that I didn’t think I wanted it at all, that I’d rather feel contractions. Even though my contractions weren’t in an synchronized pattern, they still hurt, a lot! But she convinced me that once my contractions were at two minutes apart I’d be screaming for them to turn it back on. So I got myself as comfortable as I could and tried to get some sleep. My doctor was coming on at 7am and I made it clear I didn’t want the Pitocin until he arrived because I wanted him to delivery my baby.
Around 7am I looked at the clock and felt more at ease because I knew my doctor must have been at the hospital by now. I was half asleep and I couldn’t feel a damn thing from my chest down. My husband was asleep on the uncomfortable bed next to me and I was wondering when they’d come in to start me on Pitocin. All of a sudden I felt movement in my belly. I couldn’t tell if it was my baby girl kicking or a contraction, but I looked back at the monitor that had both our heart rates and saw that my baby’s was dropping rapidly. I immediately started searching for the call button to get the nurse but before I could even press the button my doctor and a swarm of nurses were running into my room telling me to get on all fours. “I can’t feel anything!” I said as they all helped me into position. Before I knew it I had an oxygen mask on and I was looking at the monitor asking if my baby was OK… I remember saying I was so uncomfortable and the nurse said “It’s not about you, it’s about your baby.” I instantly felt guilty for even thinking that; of course it was about my baby, but I could barely hold myself up and was completely confused as to what was happening. I was barely awake, I couldn’t feel anything and I had no idea what was going on other than feeling sheer panic that something was wrong with my baby girl. My husband woke up to me on all fours with an oxygen mask on and with what he describes as a “broomstick up my vagina”… I guess the epidural made that part impossible to feel because I had no idea there was anything up my vagina. My doctor broke my water and was trying to get a better reading on my baby’s heart rate, but nothing seemed to be working and he told me he thought I was going to need an emergency C Section. At this point her heart rate went from being completely normal to dropping to 60bpm and spiking to 190; they couldn’t recover it back to a normal baseline. So before I knew it my doctor was saying to prep him an operating room immediately and I was getting wheeled down the hallway. As my husband was dressing himself in scrubs he was asking what was going on. He looked confused and scared, but somehow, I remained calm. I had no choice but to stay calm for her and had no time to panic. I had NO control over the situation and just had to go with the flow. When I got into the operating room I was put on a flat board and was switched to a table where I lied completely flat. There were two huge lights just above me and the sheet went up so I couldn’t see anything past my breasts. I was barely on the table when I heard them say the incision had been made and then moments later the nurse said, “Your baby is out and she is crying very strong, can you hear her?” I couldn’t hear her yet, everything was a blur and I felt a bit out of it, but then my husband told me to look back, there she was, getting cleaned up and I could see and hear her screaming. We both started crying and my husband said, “She is beautiful!” I remember feeling so tired and struggling to keep my eyes open. I even asked the anesthesiologist several times if it was normal for my head to feel so tired. I hadn’t realized until I was in recovery that I was given morphine. Forget having no drugs, now I was on everything under the sun! My husband got to hold her before I did, but as soon as they were able to, they put her on my bare chest and I cried again and kept saying, “She’s so cute!” I remember the nurse telling me to try not to cry because they were stitching me back up. The whole process was so fast and before I knew it; I was back in a regular labor and delivery room recovering and holding my healthy 21 inch, 8lb 3oz baby girl.
So many people asked me during my pregnancy if I had a birth plan. Every time I responded I said, “Yes, for us to both make it out healthy, safe and alive.” That may sound weird, but I was well aware you cannot plan a birth. You truly have NO idea how things will happen; my story is a true testament to that. And when I look back, it did go according to my plan, we made it out healthy, safe and alive. My doctor assured me just before going into the operating room and while I was in recovery that this was nothing I did. I was just about 9 centimeters dilated without any Pitocin still having a prodromal labor which is normal for some people, including several women in my family, but that something during labor put my baby girl into distress and they weren’t taking any chances. I’m incredibly thankful they didn’t. I thanked my doctor every time he came to check on me each morning during my recovery while at the hospital for getting my baby girl out safe. I’ve cried several times thinking about her birth, what could have happened and I cried writing this blog. Her arrival may not have been like anything like what I imagined, but I wouldn’t take back our story for one second. Just that experience alone made me stronger, and she is continuing to make me stronger and more patient every single day.
Adjusting to motherhood has been easy for me. So far she has been an incredibly good and content baby, and I absolutely love taking care of her and just snuggling with her every day. She has given new meaning and purpose to our lives, and she makes me realize even more that I was born to be a mommy. I was born to be her mommy.
This is just a story of how two became three, our story of becoming a little family. I wouldn’t change a single second of how our baby girl made her big debut into this world and more importantly, into our lives.
~Sparke