“The woman I am today wants to tell the woman I was on Monday that she is so ready and that what’s going to happen is more beautiful and transformative than she could ever imagine. That all sounds so cliche, so cheap and incomplete. Today I’m so grateful, so in love, so in awe.”
I typed those words in the notes app on my phone as Lucy napped on my chest, Hank snored at my feet and tears spilled down my cheeks. We’d gotten home from the hospital earlier in the day and our eager visitors had left for the evening. While I was still pregnant, a girl I’d gone to elementary school with gave me the advice to write everything down in those early days when everything is so intense and raw and stripped down. “You forget” she said, and she was right. Time passes and the sharp edges of those early days fade. So if your’e reading this and you’re pregnant, write it all down. I don’t know how many hours I spent tapping the keyboard with my thumbs in an effort to try and memorize those days. What I do know is I’m so glad I did.
I’ve written about a lot of things, but Lucy’s birth story seems so beyond words. Birth itself is beyond words. These words are my way of honoring our story. I hope you enjoy them.
For most of the last 9 months I’d been afraid that I wouldn’t feel that thing that mothers get all dreamy eyed when they talk about. There was a part of me that thought having a baby was the end, but what I know now is that it was only the beginning.
It was a sunny spring afternoon when my water broke in a scene like something from a movie. I had just finished cleaning the house or “nesting” as it’s called when pregnant people clean. Everything sparkled, candles were lit, windows were open. I was listening to a podcast and eating a snack of cheese and popcorn, waiting for Jeff to come home so we could go to the Blue Jackets game later that night.
With a heavy sigh, I fell onto the couch and kicked my legs out to rest, popcorn bowl balanced on top of my enormous belly. Then there was a “pop” as if a silent balloon had been broken somewhere deep inside my body. When I stood up, the floodgates opened. I called Jeff as I waddled to the bathroom, leaving a trail of puddles in my wake. “We’re not going to a hockey game tonight.” I said. “My water broke. We’re having a baby.”
The surprise and excitement in his voice were palpable across the airwaves as he said he’d finish up what he was working on and be home soon.
While I waited for him to get home, I made some cinnamon toast and googled “Is it safe to shower after your water breaks?” Taking a shower was probably the smartest thing pregnant me did for laboring me. Barely nibbling on two pieces of toast was easily the dumbest, but I didn’t know yet that this was only the beginning of what would be 30+ more hours of waiting.
After Jeff arrived home, we packed up the car, called our friends to come get Hank and made our way to the hospital. Jeff dropped me at the front door and a bored receptionist pointed me to the elevators as I proudly said “My water broke.” If twelve year old me heard a rumor that 28 year old me went anywhere for any reason with wet pants and wet hair, she would have passed out from second hand embarrassment.
Once upstairs with Jeff at my side, things moved fast. We went from intake desk to triage room to 2w03 in a flash. It was 5:00 in the evening and the nurses and doctors were changing shifts so everything happened twice. Introductions, vital signs, cervical checks. Even though my water had broken, I wasn’t dilated, which wasn’t the worst thing but wasn’t great. To speed things up, the doc on call recommended a “foley bulb” which sounded like a medieval torture device to me but a “great idea” to my nervous husband.
Turning my gaze from the doctor to Jeff with a look that suggested something between homicidal intent and murderous rage, I whisper-yelled “STOP.TALKING.” He stopped talking.
I asked the doctor if we could have an hour to settle in and make a decision and he happily agreed. At this point, my gown wasn’t even tied. I’d been walking around our room with my bare ass out as if it was normal so I don’t know why I felt the need to “get decent” before a nurse shoved a water balloon in my cervix, but that’s what happened.
During that hour, my mom arrived. The whole time I was pregnant I’d planned that it would be just Jeff and I in the delivery room. I was younger then and dumb as a box of bricks. When my mom walked in the door I asked her to tie my gown and made sure she knew that she was not allowed to leave.
An hour later, the balloon was placed and I went from 1 cm to 4 cm dilated in about 10 seconds. “It’s uncomfortable” Chelsea, our nurse, had said when I asked her if it would hurt and if pain meds would be an option. The foley bulb was uncomfortable like a migraine is uncomfortable. Except the migraine is in your vagina. Also, pain meds are not an option.
The next two hours were silent except for the sound of me moaning like a wounded animal and puking into a bucket. Every 30 minutes, they checked the balloon and would give it a gentle tug to see if it was close to falling out and every time I begged them to tug just a little harder and pull it right on out. After two hours they made me walk to the bathroom with this thing still in place and it fell out.
“It fell out!” I shouted “It fell out!” I pointed at the balloon in the toilet with something akin to pride, as if I’d done a good job and was just waiting on my gold star.
The relief was immediate. Back in bed, Chelsea started a low dose of pitocin to keep things moving and we listened to music while I sipped on the ginger ale my mom had snuck in from her house and my nurses pretended not to see.
It was around 10:00 at night and the adrenaline was making it impossible to sleep. I’d gotten the all clear for an epidural and the nurses told me to let them know when I was ready for it. With the foley bulb out, I was pretty comfortable, so I tried to sleep, and ended up spending the next several hours staring at the fetal monitor instead.
At 1:00 I was hitting a 6/10 on the pain scale and asked for my epidural because there are no trophies for not getting the drugs and I had no desire to get back to the 9/10 that I’d experienced earlier. Also, getting an epidural requires stillness and I know damn well that sitting still while breathing through a massive contraction isn’t in the cards for me. It was 2:30 when our nurse anesthetist came in.
“Do you know what you’re having?” He asked as he wiped my back down with something cold.
“Hopefully a baby.” I said, attempting to calm my nerves with sarcasm.
The procedure wasn’t that bed. To quote Chelsea, it was “uncomfortable”. It’s hard to describe, because it’s so unlike anything else I’ve ever experienced. The biggest surprise was the way my leg jumped off the table as the nurse said “your leg might…” and was met with a scream of shock that covered up the word “jump”.
After that it was smooth sailing. With the epidural on a steady drip and the initial adrenaline rush wearing off, I closed my eyes and slept for a couple of hours, while Jeff snoozed in a recliner. My mom had gone home for a few hours of sleep and more contraband ginger ale.
Most of the next day was fun. My dad and step mom came to visit, for a while. Then my best friend and her husband surprised me with a visit. I ate popsicles and drank my ginger ale while we talked.
In the early afternoon, I got the shakes. To control them, I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing while my labor and delivery playlist played in the background. I cried through “You” by A Great Big World. I was tired and ready to meet my baby, but I was also afraid that the instant love I’d been told so much about wouldn’t be there.
Not long after that, I spiked a high fever. We’d hit the 24 hour mark since my water broke, the point at which these things are common and most doctors recommend a c-section. Our doctors and nurses didn’t do that, though, much to my relief. Aside from the fever, things were progressing steadily so they gave me antibiotics and let me keep laboring.
I didn’t know how much would change over the course of the evening. As the nurses ramped up my pitocin doses, Lucy’s heart rate dropped with each contraction. My doctor arrived around 7:30, checked my cervix and decided to wait a little longer to make a decision. Lucy was in a funny position, sunny side up with her head tilted back, like she was tired of looking at their belly button and ready to see the world.
What happened next is entirely a second hand account, witnessed by my mother and Jeff. Apparently, Dr. Murnane braced himself against the end of my bed and was up to his elbow in my uterus in his attempt to get Lucy in a better position. I thought he was just fine tuning things, like the turn of a doorknob. My mom and Jeff confirmed later that this was not the case and that they will unfortunately never be able to erase the image from their minds.
Nothing was working as the clock struck 9:00 pm. I’d been in labor for almost 30 hours when Dr. Murnane decided that a c-section was the best course of action to ensure Lucy and I remained safe and healthy.
Jeff stayed calm as I broke down, a juxtaposition of how we’d felt during my pregnancy. Jeff had been completely freaked out about c-sections, mostly the reality of it being major surgery and the recovery it would require. I, on the other hand, thought it was just one way of many to have a baby. Not my first choice, but also not the worst thing that could happen.
When Dr. Murnane told me that he recommended a c-section I broke down. I was exhausted and convinced that there would be no baby. Also, I was so thirsty. I said to Jeff through tears, “A baby would be fine, but I’d rather have some ice chips.”
Ice chips would have to wait. They brought Jeff a stack of surgical garb to put on while they rolled me back to the operating room. It was bright and busy. The nurses were kind and relaxed, talking to each other about their days as they administered more drugs and stretched my arms and legs out on the cross-shaped table; this is my body, broken for you.
After nine months and thirty hours of waiting, a blade was raised by careful hands, a moment of hushed anticipation and held breath. A collective exhale and there she was, all slick and screaming and alien, and I was born again. Delivered from my fears of what I might lose, I rested in wonder at the entirely new world before my eyes, a universe contained in seven pounds of flesh and bone.
What they said was true. Every word. It’s a love like nothing I’ve ever known. And it’s all going by so fast. I couldn’t understand it before, but I understand it now.