That's the first in a long line of assumptions I made before you that have been completely blown out of the water. Turns out, being a new parent is far more time consuming than I ever imagined, and I am now one of those people that actually struggles to get out of the house at all, let alone on time. But more on that in a later post.
For now, I just wanted to tell you the story about how you came to this Earth. Every year on my birthday Nana tells me the story about how I was born. Even though I've heard it nearly 30 times, it never gets old hearing about the day I made her a mother. So I'm sure you'll hear your own birth story several times over the course of your life too, but I feel the need to memorialize it in writing nonetheless for my own record keeping purposes.
You were due on June 23, 2013. As we approached your due date, there was virtually no evidence that either you or I were ready to go. I kept telling my doctor that I worried natural labor wasn't in the cards for me, but he said he had no reason to believe that I wouldn't go into labor naturally on my own or that I wouldn't be able to deliver you naturally.
Well your due date came and went, you still had not dropped, and my body still hadn't progressed at all in the way that it was supposed to in order to indicate that you were on your way. These days doctors don't like to let women go past 41 weeks of pregnancy because it can cause complications for moms and babies, so we scheduled an induction date for July 1st, 2013. The doctor told me that he thought there was still a good chance that I would go into labor on my own before that day however. This did not happen, clearly.
So on July 1st we drove to the hospital for our 6:00 AM appointment. I believe that it's more nerve wracking knowing the exact time you're going to go into labor, rather than just letting it happen spontaneously. Both your dad and I were pretty nervous that morning.
We arrived at the hospital and they immediately took us into a little room that was all set up for a labor and delivery. There was a hospital bed, and more importantly there was a little bed already to go with stuff for you, including a tiny hat, a tiny diaper, and a bunch of monitors. Within minutes of me getting into my hospital gown, one of the nurses started poking and prodding around my arm for my vein so she could insert a port. Well she struggled finding the vein and apparently that was too much for my already nervous self to handle, and I just about fainted right there on the hospital bed. The nurses quickly got me some water and a cool towel and waited until the color returned to my face before proceeding to find the vein in my other arm. Obviously my nearly fainting at a mere needle poking gave everyone the wrong impression of me. They assumed that given my weakness in that regard, I would never survive labor. They were right.
They started me on the all the bells and whistles in their arsenal to start the labor process. Without going into too much detail, the mechanical devices they used were painful and entirely uneffective. My body was still not progressing at all.
Surprisingly to everyone, we ended up spending the night in that room because nothing had happened. I wasn't far enough along to start the pitocin, so we needed to wait it out until the next day to start over. So your dad and I spent the night in the labor and delivery room, which meant that your dad slept essentially on a slab of concrete. And by "slept" I mean he laid awake all night long stressing about things...as did I.
The next day even though I still had not progressed much, they decided to start me on the pitocin anyway. Within a few hours I started to feel intense contractions about every 60 seconds. I'm not sure what I imagined labor contractions to feel like, but I admit that deep down I thought I could handle the pain. But let me tell you, when they come on that strong and there's hardly any time in between, there's just about nothing more painful that I can imagine. After about 3 hours of intense contractions I had had my fill of fun and asked for an epidural. Unfortunately for me I STILL wasn't progressed far enough for them to give me an epidural, and I was told I had to wait a little longer. Finally about an hour later one of the doctors came into the room and observed me contracting, and despite my body not being ready for an epidural the doctor made the merciful decision that I was indeed ready for the epidural.
Once I got the epidural things eased up quite a bit, but unfortunately despite my body have perfect and strong contractions, I still wasn't anywhere near ready to deliver you. At that point everyone had had it with this process. The doctors and nurses didn't have any other alternatives to get labor started, and my body (and my spirit) were completely wiped out. No matter what anyone did, it just appeared that this was not going to happen on its own. Finally finally finally the doctor made the determination 37 hours into this process that a c-section was necessary. At any other time in my life a c-section would have been a scary proposition, but at that point I couldn't imagine a more welcome announcement.
Within minutes of the decision being made to take you out by c-section I was being poked and prodded and prepped for surgery. They wheeled me down to the delivery room and told your dad to stay put and dress down into his scrubs.
A few minutes after that I was prepped and ready to go and they finally brought your dad in to sit next to me. And then as quickly as that, we were within minutes of finally meeting you.
It's funny the things you remember, and the things you forget. Part of why I want to write this story is that there are just some things about those moments on the evening of July 2nd that I never want to forget. I worry that if I don't memorialize things now, I will forget many of them because I was in such a drug induced stupor at the time.
One of the most poignant memories I have of that night was just seconds before you were born. I was lying down behind a big blue sheet, and despite there being no less than 20 people in the room at the time, including your dad, I felt remarkably alone. The surgeon was talking to the residents about what she was doing, the anesthesiologists were busy monitoring their machines and communicating with one another, and the nurses were busy doing their own thing. Even your dad was somewhere in his own world. But what I want to always remember is that within seconds of you being born, one of the nurses who had paid such special attention to me the last two days and whom I cared very much for, reached out and held my hand as I became a mother for the first time. She looked intently in my eyes and squeezed me tight, and then I heard your cry. It was one of the most humane, mother-to-mother experiences I could imagine, and still makes my eyes a little watery when I think about it.
The other thing I want to remember is your cry. It was so loud and so focused. Everyone in the room gasped collectively because you were "so huge!" (the surgeon predicted you would be 10 pounds). The anesthesiolgist leaned over me and told me that I was his hero after seeing the size of the child I just birthed. Of course, I couldn't see you at this time, I could only hear you, but after everyone's reaction I was left wondering if I had just delivered a circus freak of some sort. Finally they called over your dad to cut the umbilical cord, yet I still hadn't seen you. Your dad eventually came over to me and told me that you had lots of dark hair, and that he thought you looked like me. But I still couldn't see you. The whole time I just kept worrying that you were 15 pounds or something. When it was announced that you were only 8 lbs 4 oz, I could tell everyone else was disappointed but I felt immense relief for some reason. The reason everyone thought you were so huge was because you were really long--22 inches.
FINALLY, after what seemed like hours but was probably only 5 minutes your dad brought you over to me and I got to see you for the first time...even though I couldn't hold you. I want to remember your dark, deep eyes. I want to remember how calm you were once you were wrapped up. I want to remember how you were rooting around to eat something, and how I felt this instinctive urge to feed you but I couldn't because I was strapped to a table with my abdomen being sewn up.
Eventually they sent your dad to the recovery room while they finished up with me. I was shaking almost uncontrollably at the time, which they said was a result of the adrenaline and drugs. It was still about another hour or so before they wheeled me to the recovery room and I got to hold you for the very first time. I can't really describe that moment here, but I do hope that I can remember it forever. It was probably the most special moment of my life. Actually, it was definitely the most special moment of my life, and the most surreal.
Your dad had already sent a text message to all of our family with your picture announcing your birth. Grandpa Paul had been going crazy with anticipation for the last two days and was about to lose his mind. Ironically, the picture went through to everyone's phone but his, and I'm pretty sure that his head exploded at that point.
And then after a couple of hours, we were taken to our room where I recovered for the next four days, and we worked on getting to know you.
That next day I was informed that I have a faulty uterus and that I probably will never be able to delivery a child naturally. The doctors who told me that did so as compassionately as possible, apparently believing that not being able to delivery naturally would make me feel like less of a woman or something. She obviously didn't know who she was talking too. Frankly, I got a taste of labor and have no need to do that ever again. Plus, now I get to schedule my subsequent deliveries of your future sibling(s) which very much appeals to my need to control my life...which is especially important to me now that you have single handidly eliminated my ability control anything about my life.
It was a steep learning curve in the hospital (we're still on that curve), but thanks to a couple of extremely competent nurses who were life savers, we were able to get a lot of things figured out with you. We had a lot of really frusterating moments, but far more wonderful moments. In fact, I think really fondly on the time our family spent in that little hospital room. It was a very intimate, meaningful time for us.
And that's the story of how you came to be. Even though it was less than a month ago, that time in the hospital feels years and years behind us. It's true what they say, that once you have a baby it's hard to imagine what life was like before.
Even though life was a little easier and a lot less messy before, I am a pretty big fan of our little family of three and wouldn't send you back for the world (even though I threaten to do so often at night when you want to eat for the 18th time).
We love you.
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