Today is my daughter’s 6th birthday, and just like every other parent on the planet, I cannot believe how fast my baby is growing up. Her personality is so fun. She loves everything and everyone. She is the extrovert in a family of introverts. (Which is good for us!) So in honor of the girl who made me a mom, I’m sharing her birth story.
My entire pregnancy with Savana seemed like a dream. Not in the “everything is perfect” kind of way, but more like reality never quite sank in. I was 29 years old, and to be completely honest, I was the biggest pessimist throughout my entire pregnancy. Four days after I found out I was pregnant I starting spotting and rushed to the emergency room because I thought I was having a miscarriage. Thankfully, it was something else completely, but I spent the remainder of my pregnancy convinced something horrible was going to happen. From the moment I found out I was pregnant, I loved my baby more than anything; my pessimism, however, stemmed from a combination of seeing the horrible tragedies that others have gone through in their pregnancies, and feeling like I didn’t deserve such a blessing in my life. I knew there was no “safe” time in a pregnancy, and I let these feelings hinder a lot of things I did while I was pregnant.
I was very excited about having a baby, but I never really let myself think about the future, including labor or delivery. I listened to friends tell me their stories of going through labor. It seemed like everyone had some kind of horror story of hours, even days, of being in labor. When you’re a first-time mom, everyone feels the need to share these stories with you. I would listen to all of the stories—and I would honestly empathize with what they had to go through— yet for me, reality never sank in. I’ve always had the “expect the worst, hope for the best” mentality. But in this particular instance, I never actually processed that my body would be having a baby. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. In hind sight, maybe I should’ve at least watched a YouTube video or two over breathing techniques. The one recurring theme that stood out from all of these labor stories that I heard: being induced means excruciating pain. That part I remembered.
My due date was the weekend of July 13th-14th, and despite my best efforts with every possible method of making my body go into labor, I made it through that weekend with no contractions or signs of labor approaching. On the morning of July 15th I called my supervisor at work to let her know that I had a doctor’s appointment and I would be in to work as soon as I was finished. At this point in my pregnancy, I was miserable… beyond miserable actually. My ankles were constantly swollen, I had gained a whopping 65 pounds, and I had been reduced to wearing the same 6 maternity maxi dresses to work for the past month and a half because nothing else fit me. So needless to say, I was not happy that I was going to have to go to work that day. I talked to my mom earlier that morning and she offered to go to my appointment with me; I picked her up from work a little after 10:00 and we headed to my doctor’s office. That Monday also happened to be my niece’s third birthday, so of course on our drive my mom and I talked about the obvious topic: how fun it would be if Hannah and my soon-to-be-born Savana had the same birthday. In an obviously joking tone I said, “You never know! We still have like 13 hours left in the day! It’s totally possible.” I laughed after I said it, because I sure didn’t feel like this baby was coming any time soon. We got to the doctor’s office right around 10:30. The appointment started off the same as any other, blood pressure- good, baby’s heartbeat- great, my weight- I’m a walrus. But all in all, everything was pretty normal. The nurse mentioned that the doctor might be open to scheduling me to be induced since I was past my due date. Ha! No thanks, I’m good. A few minutes later, around 11:00, the doctor came in; we did the usual talking first, then he said he was going to check to see if I was dilated, as I laid back I thought, please let there be some kind of progress down there, please. And then it happened. Before my doctor was able to check anything, I felt a sudden rush of, what I can only describe as warmth… what is that? Am I peeing? Ohhh, I know what that is. Then I heard my doctor, “Wait… your water just broke…” And had it ever. That sudden rush of “warmth” I was feeling was now everywhere. I looked at my mom, who was just smiling (and also laughing a little at the shocked expression on my face). I was NOT prepared for this. It just kept coming. What do I do? I had no idea. So I just laid there and waited for the flood to stop. And while I was lying there, that’s when it hit me. The reality that just hadn’t quite sunk in before: my body is about to have a baby. When I thought I was safe to move around a little, I sat up— even more fluid. I’m not sure why, but I thought this whole incident was embarrassing. A pregnant woman’s water breaking is nothing new, but still I was making a huge mess and there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it. My doctor, on the other hand, was able to find the humor in the situation and reassured me that there was nothing to be embarrassed about. It took a few minutes for me to get fully dressed, my shirt was soaked, but it was the only shirt I had with me so I didn’t really have a choice. Thank God amniotic fluid is sterile. My pants were dry, but I knew I didn’t have long before they became soaked also; there wasn’t much I could do about that either.
My mom and I headed to the hospital which was conveniently right across the street. I still wasn’t feeling any pain or contractions, just the more I moved, the more fluid came out. My mom pulled up to the Emergency Room entrance to drop me off so she could go park the car. By this time it was between 11:30 and 12:00, as I walked through the halls of the hospital, I tried to act as casual as possible. No one knows you’re in labor; you just look like a pregnant woman who is in the process of peeing her pants. It was obvious that I was not very good at comforting myself.
The next few minutes were a blur. As soon as I got to the nurse’s station, one of them came out to meet me. She walked me back to my room, still no contractions and no pain. I changed into my hospital gown; definitely not the best looking thing to wear, but it was dry so I was happy. The nurse asked if I wanted to walk around for a little while to see if I could “get things going.” I was down for anything to speed up the process. I just knew this was going to take a long time. I spent less than 30 minutes actually walking around, it definitely got things going. It started with some minor back aches, nothing too painful at first but each one was definitely more intense than the one before. After standing around and leaning against the wall for a while, I decided it was time to go back to my bed. The contractions were definitely in full effect at this point. I lost track of time for a little while. The contractions were getting painful. My doctor came by around 1:30 to check me (for the first time since he never got the chance to at his office), I was at 5 centimeters. It was at this point that he asked the big question, “Do you want an epidural?” I had been thinking about this for a while… I knew I didn’t want to be completely numb throughout the labor process; the thought of that just freaked me out. But I also didn’t know if I really wanted to feel everything. What I wanted was somewhere in the middle, but what I said was, “Sure! Let’s go ahead and do that.” If the stories I heard from other moms had taught me anything, it was that labor was a long process and the epidural would probably wear off by the time I actually had to push, so I thought why not try to be comfortable for a little while before all this goes down. The nurses started the IV of fluid that I needed to have before I could get an epidural. During all of this, the contractions continued to get more and more intense. I cannot even describe all of the pain I was feeling; the pressure was so strong at this point. I was getting nauseous. I figured out really quickly that if I didn’t move, didn’t talk, just laid in my bed and concentrated on my breathing, I could get through these contractions… but that didn’t happen very often. If I moved even the slightest bit, the pain was overwhelming. There were people in and out of the room at that time. Some family. Friends. I don’t remember. I was in pain. And it was borderline excruciating. The contractions were almost constant at this point, just back to back. During one of these contractions the blood pressure monitor on my arm started tightening. Oh hell no. I started ripping the monitors off my body. I didn’t want anything touching me. I wanted to throw up. I felt weak. Why can’t I handle this? Women have been giving birth since the beginning of time. I’ve been in labor for a few hours and I’m about to lose my mind. I was disappointed in myself. Why didn’t I go to a Lamaze class? Finally the IV bag was empty and I could get an epidural. Although it seemed like an eternity had passed, it was only 3:30 when the anesthesiologist came in. Two hours had passed. That’s it. Everyone was asked to leave the room for this part. This is when I discovered just how amazing the nurses in Labor and Delivery are. My nurse helped me sit up, and told me to lean over so the anesthesiologist could do what he needed to; she was nothing but comforting and supportive. As soon as I sat up to get my epidural, I immediately felt better, and for a moment I thought about telling him to wait on my epidural, but since everything was already set up, I decided to go ahead and get it.
As soon as the anesthesiologist was finished, I immediately started feeling better. Within 5 minutes, I felt amazing. I almost didn’t care that I had made such a big deal about labor pain. At 4:00 the nurse said she was going to check me again, I was expecting to still be at 5cm, but I was really hoping for 6 or 7cm maybe. Fingers crossed. The nurse checked me and with a confused look on her face, she looked at me and said “Well, would you like to know why you were in so much pain?” Of course this question was intriguing. “You’re at 9 centimeters.” In 2 ½ hours I went from 5cm to 9. Nine. This is going to happen today! At that moment, I felt a rush of different emotions. I was ecstatic; I was so close to having my baby. Then I was mad, I couldn’t believe I was that close when I got an epidural. I was almost there. The nurse’s suggestion was to just relax for an hour or so and let the baby progress on her own. So I did. The next two hours were pretty uneventful. One of the nurses came in at around 6:00 and suggested that I try to push to see how close I was. After one push, it was go time. She started getting the stirrups on the bed ready, and had another nurse get the doctor. My mom and my sister came back into the room (or maybe they were already there… I can’t remember) and of course about 5 minutes prior to this is when Steve decided he needed to go clean out his truck. Perfect timing. So after about 3 or 4 failed attempts by Jenni (my sister) to call him on his cell phone, she took off across the hospital to hunt down my husband in the parking lot. It wasn’t long before she and Steve were back in the room. Jenni doesn’t waste time.
This next part was the most surreal… the pushing. I had obviously never given birth before, so I wasn’t even 100% sure I was accomplishing anything when I was pushing. That was, until about 10-15 minutes in, I looked over to my mom and sister and saw their faces. Both of them with their eyes as wide as they could possibly be and their hands covering their mouths… I just took that as a sign that things must be progressing. And where was Steve? He was right by my head, and he didn’t move. Holding my hand, with his other hand on my shoulder, he didn’t even try to look at what was happening down there. Honestly, I didn’t blame him. I had two more big pushes to go, and that was it. At 6:21 pm on July 15, 2013, my sweet Savana entered the world. And she was perfect. The most perfect baby I had ever seen. The nurses laid her on my chest and I just looked at her. Is this possible? This is really my baby? It was amazing, overwhelming, and terrifying. Then almost immediately, my head started getting fuzzy, my ears started ringing, and I was nauseous. So nauseous. Ohmygosh, I can’t throw up on my new baby! Fortunately I was able to let someone (I don’t remember who… a nurse, maybe?) know what was about to happen, someone took Savana, and someone else held a barf-bag by my face. Yes, my magical moment with my perfect newborn baby lasted a total of two minutes before I started vomiting.
The joys of childbirth.
