Birth of a little bird
So the last month of my first pregnancy was very full but mostly uneventful in the lens of the pregnancy itself. I finished my linear algebra class with an A (although I had cautiously taken it pass-fail so that A did nothing for my GPA, but I was happy enough with it). We did Christmas. I took my insurance license exam and passed on almost no sleep on New Years Eve . We did New Years. I took my leave from work coinciding with the new year. I spent a week very antsy and bored yet tired? Just waiting around for a baby to come. The doctor set up an appointment to induce just in case. I waited.
Then on the evening of 7th of January, I started getting contractions. They were crampy, like my whole belly was tightening up for a few seconds, but not unbearable. Boyfriend and I played Call of Duty for an hour or so. We timed them. They were still pretty far apart and it started getting late. I told him we should go to bed. He fell asleep and I dozed, waking up when I was gripped with a particularly strong contraction. At about 1am I was starting to get them pretty close together, so I woke him up and told him we should make our way to the hospital. We got the bags and made our way to his car and got in. Just before we left, he realized that he wasn’t wearing the right shoes (sidenote: this is very characteristic of my boyfriend both to have a proper pair of shoes planned for the delivery of his child, and to have forgotten to wear them thus needing to run in and change at the last second). So he ran inside to correct his footwear. As I waited in the passenger seat of his Jetta, my water broke. So after he got back in his proper shoes I sent him back once more to get a towel, and then we were finally off.
We arrived at a quiet middle-of-the-night hospital. We had previously toured so we would know where to go, and went straight for labor and delivery. At this point the contractions were pretty strong and getting uncomfortable, but I was able to breathe through them and felt much better when I was able to walk than I had sitting in the car.
They took me into triage and laid me on my back which made me pretty uncomfortable. The admitting nurse checked the fluid that pooled around my feet and confirmed that my water had broken. She checked my cervix and was surprised to see that I was already at 6cm, and noted this baby was probably coming soon. They took my blood pressure and it was high. This is when things went sideways. Because my blood pressure was high, they wanted to do a blood draw, and they also wanted to get me on an IV. I was having pretty significant swelling at this point, and I will give these nurses the benefit of the doubt that it was me and not them, but they could NOT find my veins. Proceed with fifteen minutes of various women sticking me with needles over and over in various locations while contractions racked me in the most uncomfortable position possible. I was in pain and I wanted to move, but they wouldn’t let me until they hit those veins that were alluding them. Finally someone called in the anesthesiologist, and bless his talented heart he got that IV in where it needed to go
At this point I was clearly in pain writhing on my back and groaning like a heifer in heat, and the staff are telling me they will get me something for the pain. As the doc finally gets my IV in yet another nurse stressfully announces that communication is down with the pharmacy and they are unable to get whatever opioid relief they had sent for. One of the nurses tells me they can just get my epidural now instead and in desperation I agree.
I didn’t talk about my birth plan in my previous posts, but I had decided on delaying the epidural. The reason being is the opposite of what I had been experiencing: being able to move is good for labor. It is good for getting the baby into position, it is good for working through the pain, and it let’s you do things that can give relief like get under a soothing shower or curl up in a child pose or whatever makes you feel better. When you are numb from the waist down, you can’t really do any of that stuff.
While I was desperate to ease my discomfort, I had been told this baby was coming soon. Everything in triage had been rushed. So much urgency to get me hooked up on my IV, get my blood tested, get me into the delivery room, it all felt like this was about to happen NOW. So while I went along without question when the epidural was suggested, I didn’t really feel like I wasn’t delaying it either.
I barely remember the epidural. I remember them swabbing me with numby stuff and telling me to be really still. I had so much fear of this big shot in the backbone during the months leading up to my labor, and it turns out it was the most insignificant part of the whole thing.
The epidural worked its wonders and I went numb. I was flooded with relief. I could no longer feel my contractions. The pain ebbed away and all of the adrenaline and stress melted off of me and suddenly I was in a nice dark room with my boyfriend in the earliest hours of the morning and I was exhausted. We called my parents and my best friend to let them know it was time for baby, and I slept.
I lose track of time here. I don’t know how many hours I slept. My parents showed up at some point. Brittany drove down from LA and came in the morning of the 8th but I don’t remember what time. My boyfriend got a migraine. He ate crappy Carls Jr from down the street, and vomited in the delivery room bathroom. Their presence is a blur. Only three people were allowed in the room at a time, so sometimes it was my parents, sometimes one of them with Brittany, my boyfriend was always there of course. They hovered and would sometimes be at my bedside, rubbing my back or my leg. I was comforted by having them there, but also they seemed far away, almost like I was scary to them and they didn’t want to get too close. I yearned for someone to hold me, but I’m sure it wasn’t easy with me being hooked up to wires and tubes and all.
In between it all I was visited my nurses and doctors. I wasn’t allowed to eat, but I could have popsicles. They would turn me from one side to another to keep the epidural from pooling on one side or the other. They would take my blood pressure, they would take my temperature, they gave me medicines. At one point a nurse checked my cervix and said I was 4cm. This still confuses me to this day. Did I reverse? Was the first nurse wrong in her estimate? How did I go backwards in dilation? The epidural had lessened my contractions and this lovely nurse told me with unveiled contempt that I wasn’t even in labor and if my water hadn’t broken they would have sent me home.
After awhile someone came in and noted that frequent checks of my cervix increased the chance of infection, and since I hadn’t progressed in my labor they recommended starting on Pitocin. While I had heard nothing but horror about Pitocin, I was feeling tired and oddly guilty that I had been taking up everyone’s time to nap in the delivery room, so I agreed.
A few hours later I was having contractions again and I was feeling them. I kept smashing the epidural button and at some point it maxed and I was still in pain. An anesthesiologist came in and topped me off. More hours of contractions. Slowly I progressed again up to 8cm. The epidural wore off. I was topped off again. They upped my Pitocin. My contractions started getting very strong. They were having trouble monitoring my baby from the belly band and placed an internal monitor.
Somewhere in the late hours of the 8th I was back in pain again. The pressure in my pelvis was tremendous. I felt like I was holding in the largest poo I had ever needed to take and I just wanted to go. I had been stuck at 8cm for hours but everything in my body was telling me to push. I didn’t think I was pushing but I kept getting scolded to NOT push and that if I did push I risked rupturing my cervix. For some reason I correlated the pain with the internal monitor. I was sure the thing was making my contractions more painful. I begged for them to take it out. Around this time I began to run a low grade fever of about 100.
Another anesthesiologist came in and told me that the doctors were recommending an emergency C-Section. My fever meant I was risking sepsis, and I was still sitting at just 8cm. My baby was positioned backwards, with her spine up against my spine, when ideally her spine would be up against my belly button. We were both under tremendous strain but she wasn’t budging through my pelvis at that angle. The anesthesiologist told me that the epidural would be less and less effective since I had already been topped off so many times. I cried and nodded. She let me know that the anesthesia for the C-Section would feel different, and might feel like I can’t breathe because I wouldn’t feel my lungs expanding, but she assured me as long as I could talk I could breathe. She got down beside me and held my hand. She put her face close to my face and she told me to think of a calm spot where I would feel safe. I told her I thought of the beach. She asked me if I liked margaritas and I told her I do. She told me to picture myself on my favorite beach with a margarita in my hand. She told me to think of the smell of the sea and the taste of the drink and the cold glass in my hand. She pulled my mind out of the room and onto the beach and I began to ease in my pain and lose the unbearable feeling of helplessness that had gripped me. I wish I knew that doctor’s name. I would have loved to have sent her a thank you note and I would send her Christmas cards forever. She was an absolute angel when I needed one badly.
I remember describing this to my best friend later, and she had noted that she looked around at the rest of them in the room with me and they felt she was calming them down too. I didn’t voice it because I had no interest in guilting anyone, but I wondered if that doctor wasn’t looking to them to tell them THIS is what THEY were supposed to be doing rather than spreading around the comfort.... I took a birthing class and in the first one I had my mom with me and the doula leading it taught this exact technique for the partner of the pregnant woman. I went home and told my boyfriend about it (he had to work that night) and it was reviewed the following class. Yet neither my mom nor my boyfriend did anything like this during all those hours. I don’t blame them when suddenly in that stressful situation, and I certainly wouldn’t expect bestie to know it, but damn that shit WORKS. If I ever end up in delivery with a friend I’m jumping right in and doing the damn thing because as intimate and awkward as it might be feel it really is effective. I only wish I could have had my own wits about me to understand and voice what I needed at the time.
So shortly thereafter parents and best friend were ushered back to the waiting room, while boyfriend and I were prepped for surgery. We were separate while he was washed up and given scrubs, and I was wheeled into another room. I was introduced to my surgeon and yet another anesthesiologist. He explained that I needed a spinal rather than an epidural because I needed to be numbed further up my abdomen than the epidural had done but that he could administer through the same port. He gave me the medicine and waited a few minutes. After awhile he tested for sensation and I still had feeling on my belly. He seemed astonished that I would feel anything, gave it a few minutes more and tried again, and I felt it. He poked me with a needle, saw me jump, and shook is head in disbelief. I needed yet more drugs. My labor and delivery nurses painstakingly propped me into a seated position and barely kept me from wobbling as the anesthesiologist administered the spinal.
Then I was NUMB. I lost all feeling in my abdomen. Then my neck. Then my face. I could feel nothing. I was wheeled into the operating room and met back up with my boyfriend who sat just behind my head to the right of me, with the anesthesiologist sat directly behind me. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t move anything. I couldn’t feel myself breathing, and mentally ran over the angel anesthesiologist’s words over and over like a mantra in my head to avoid falling into a complete panic. I cannot describe how awful this type of paralysis is, to be fully conscious but unable to feel or move anything. The anesthesiologist asked how I was doing, and with horror I realized I couldn’t talk. Suddenly my mantra seemed shaky since I couldn’t talk maybe I wasn’t breathing??? With tremendous concentration and effort I mouthed that I can’t talk. He couldn’t understand me, I tried again. His eyebrows wrinkled in concern and he assured me I was alright.
I was so exhausted from the effort of trying to stay calm. I don’t really remember much about what was happening during the surgery. I vaguely remember my boyfriend looking anxiously back and forth from the operation to me. For some reason I remember a sheet being laid over my face, but that might have been the anesthesia/paralysis instead of an actual sheet? At one point the anesthesiologist seemed to notice my effort and let me know it was ok if I fell asleep. I think I dozed then, but probably not for very long.
Then I heard her cry. A tiny high pitched sigh of a noise in the middle of conversation and machine beeps and I was flooded by relief. My boyfriend left my side and I waited in my drowsy immobility for them to bring her to me. The moment didn’t come. After a few minutes my boyfriend’s worried face reappeared in my vision. He told me that she had come out with fluid in her lungs and they were taking her to the NICU. He asked me if he should stay with me or go with her, I whispered for him to go.
And then I was alone with a room full of strangers. I had no more worry or panic left in me. I was filled with a lonely apathy as I dozed in and out of consciousness. I remember the casual work-place conversation between the surgeon and attending nurses and doctors as they chatted about the colleges they attended. It seemed so surreal and a part of me was sure I was dying, that I had exerted all I had to give and was slipping away and that it was ok because my daughter was born and alive her dad was with her and he would do whatever needed to be done.
After however long I had been sewn up and was wheeled to yet another room for recovery. Slowly the anesthesia wore off enough that I was able to speak and move my head to look around me. I was in a long line of empty beds and one of the nurses that had been with me sat typing at a computer. The nurse let me know I was to rest there for some given amount of time while she monitored me and then I would be taken to my room. I asked when I would be able to see my daughter or if she knew anything about her condition. She told me she wasn’t sure but it would be awhile until I could see her because they had to wait for the anesthesia to wear off completely. After what seemed like an excruciatingly long time, my boyfriend came in to see me.
He showed me a picture of my baby. The first time I saw her was an image on my boyfriend’s cell phone. She was so tiny with a surprising amount of dark hair and big alert dark eyes. She had tape across her face holding a breathing tube in place. My heart ached to see her. It didn’t seem real seeing a photograph of her. I was supposed to be with her. How could she be ok in some other room on some other floor far away from her mother. I cried with joy in seeing her and sadness at how far away she seemed. We looked at each other and we both agreed that we now knew what to name her. All of her hospital labels and plaques said “Baby Girl Phelps,” but her birth certificate would eventually read Rosalie Jenn Enriquez.
I had to wait a full day before I was able to see her. I was taken to my recovery room with a massive TV and was revisited by my parents and best friend. I was told with amusement how my mother viewed the photo of my daughter the first time and squealed with delight, “a little Mexican baby!” The day dragged on, I gained sensation and then discomfort but wasn’t in too much pain. I was only anxious to meet my kid. Eventually a nurse said I should be able to see her soon, but they had to find someone to take me down in a wheelchair. This maybe took a half hour to an hour? I’m not too sure, but it felt like forever. I remember being irritated that my boyfriend couldn’t do it since he had already been down to see her several times and was perfectly capable of pushing a wheelchair, but some protocol required a professional to do it.
Finally, a nurse came in to wheel me down. I was so anxious going down the elevator, rolling down the hall, getting checked into NICU, getting a name tag... just let me see my baby already! At last I was wheeled into a tiny room with a little plastic crib and encountered a male NICU nurse holding my daughter. He handed her to me, I know he told me that she was doing great and should be released to be in the room with me soon, that she had been drinking a bottle, encouraging me to nurse, etc, but all I really remember was the shock of seeing her for the first time.
It’s impossible to put into words. To say it was a “rush of love” in the way I so often hear described by new parents falls flat. That sounds too cuddly, too mushy, too soft. This feeling was fierce. My life revolted away from everything it had been in an instant. In one moment my whole world tipped on its side and revolved around this one tiny person. I was faced with all of the joy and love inside me and all of the fear and anxiety inside me all at once, with a deep knowledge that this was to be the way it was for the rest of my life, and she was looking up at me and SEEING me. She was laid on my chest against my skin and I was so overwhelmed with relief that we were finally together I could have stayed there in that tiny room holding her like that for an eternity.
I don’t remember what roused me into leaving eventually. I know it took about another half of a day for them to release her from NICU to stay with me. My boyfriend and I alternated carrying for her, making our novice attempts at swaddling her and changing her diapers. She wouldn’t latch and I began what would become a grueling 8 week journey of constant pumping and an eventual frenectomy in my determination to breastfeed that eventually paid off.
We had a few visitors, friends and family from both sides. All were taken aback at how CUTE she was. I kept thinking I was obviously biased but I heard it from everyone. Nurses would pop in unscheduled just to look at her. I was told over and over that she was the cutest baby in the hospital. One nurse in particular was so doting I joked with my boyfriend that we had to keep an eye on her or she’d walk off with her one of these stops. I forget that often newborns spend their first few weeks rarely opening her eyes, because my daughter was constantly looking around her. It seemed like she was able to see much more than newborns are able to, because she would snap her eyes in the direction of sounds and voices like she could see across the room. She had a musical high-pitched cry unlike how most newborns cry as well. When the resident pediatrician made her first visit, my daughter cried at the touch of the cold stethoscope, and the doctor gasped, “she cries like a baby sparrow!” From that moment on she has been my Little Bird.
It was nice having the staff to assist in taking care of my baby while we were there, but it became apparent pretty quickly that the hospital stay wasn’t going to be restful. Of course I had a newborn to feed every few hours and tend to, but I also had nurses stopping in every few hours to give me medicine, take blood, take blood from the baby, take my blood pressure, etc. After four days I couldn’t wait to go home. They told me I could stay for a few more days, but I politely declined and was so so so happy to finally get back in my boyfriend’s car and take our baby home.
Now that it’s a few years later and I’m facing a second delivery, I’m just opting for the scheduled C-Section. Of course every labor is different and my doctor has assured me that the risk is minimal should I choose a VBAC, but I given the shock, pain, and trauma of the first one, I’d rather just skip all that and deal with the recovery I’m familiar with. As hard as it was, it was worth it of course. My daughter is a constant delight. Watching her grow and learn and develop her own personality is just a never-ending amazement. I am looking forward to finding out how similar and different her brother is going to be.