Biggest Blessings

Just over three weeks ago, I was finally scheduled for an induction.

Giving birth during COVID-19 is absolutely terrifying. You have no idea from one day to the next what the hospital policies are going to be. Before being admitted, would I need to be tested? Will I get to hold my baby? Can I have my people with me?

I wanted a specific kind of birth story, and I got it, if not in a roundabout way. I wanted to have a natural birth, as little medication as possible. I wanted a “Red Tent” kind of birth, surrounded by women in a calm, soothing space (hahaha).

Birth goes in a million different directions on the best of days – every birth story I’ve read or heard has gone off the rails in some form or another. So, I figured I was ready.

Sunday night, March 22nd, I went in for my induction. They got me settled in – I had brought my own gown (which looked like a cute little gray dress), simply because I hate having things up close to my neck. I was happy to be there, optimistic – after waiting and worrying he’d grow too big for a vaginal birth, I was finally here and he seemed to be ready for a natural birth, even if I did have to go with cytotec and pitocin.

Once I was changed and in the bed, the nurse checked me…and checked me. It took a lot longer than I thought, and after she gave me a smile, and a moment out of the room, she announced I was 4 cm dilated and 60% effaced. I was having mild, sporadic contractions – what I had grown used to. So she said we’d wait and kind of see.

Two hours later, no change in how I felt, the nurse came in to check me again and called for another nurse to come check me as well. I was deemed the “Silent Dilator” – I was 6 cm dilated and 70% effaced! I was in active labor now – though I couldn’t really tell the difference. Up until then, the contractions had been barely there and completely manageable.

They told me to try and get some sleep and if I couldn’t, to let them know and I’d move around some. I was getting ready to call the nurse when the contractions finally subsided and I managed to sleep for about four and a half hours.

They checked me in the morning, 7 cm and 70% effaced, and pitocin entered the conversation again. My doctor went ahead and broke my water about 9 am, and the nurse said,”Okay, we’ll let that kind of settle and then we’ll get the pitocin going.”

My body said nope. This is happening now. I got out of bed and the contractions started intensifying. Mum and I played a few games of backgammon and put on Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. I used to wall to help me through the contractions. All of a sudden, I was crying through one and knew this was happening. As in: birth was imminent.

That pain is something I could never have imagined. I wanted a natural birth; I was getting one. I wasn’t sure I could have done anything to prepare me for what a contraction, a true contraction, really felt like. I used the birthing ball, the wall, the bed, the birthing ball on the bed. I wound up in the bed, as my feet were starting to ache.

At 9 cm and “we’re going to have you start pushing,” my mom, crying over seeing me in pain as I said over and over that I didn’t know what to do, I needed it to stop, told me that I could say the safe word and get an epidural. I said it, “Pineapple.”

I had the best nurse ever. We’d had the conversation earlier and she went right to it, telling me that I could do it, it’s not going to help much at this point, and baby is coming.

And that’s the thing – I remembered reading things and seeing stories about when the woman is ready to give up, the baby is ready to come.

My doc got set up and offered fentanyl to take the edge off and I, admittedly, jumped at it. I screamed through the pain and my doctor told me, in her calm, cool tone, that I needed to not scream, I was putting my energy in the wrong place. Then she said, “That pain you’re feeling right now? You need to not be afraid of it.” And I was, I had been absolutely terrified of it.

At 11:43am on March 23rd, 2020, Little Man entered the world and won my heart.
He has severe bilateral clubfoot, a head full of curly brown hair, and the sweetest little face I’ve ever seen in my life.

I had a 2nd degree tear and the pride of doing it almost completely natural. The recovery was rough, and I was unfortunately unable to breastfeed beyond a couple days as my supply just never came in.

But, my God, I am so in love with my Little Man.