Monday, 1:00 A.M. “This may be a bit uncomfortable,” she says as she reaches two gloved fingers into my cervix and makes a circular sweeping movement. She’s not wrong. I clench my jaw and resist the urge to snap off her fingers using the strength that comes from doing months of kegels. The young doctor, whom I had only met twice, is stripping my membranes.
I am a whopping one day past the due date with my first child and she suggests using this procedure of separating the bag of water from the uterus to help “move things along.” She also schedules me for a Thursday morning induction if my water doesn’t break before then. None of this is in the plans for my birthing process. But this is my first rodeo, and I have no idea how quickly plans get crumpled up into a little ball and thrown away-usually at your partner-during the real deal.
Thursday, 6 A.M. My water breaks. I sit on a towel as my husband and I make our way over to the hospital and check in. What had been leaking out slowly up until that point, gushes out all over the floor in triage. I stand there holding my hospital gown closed and apologizing to nurses as they put a doggy pad down in the bed and hook me up to fluids. Everyone is optimistic that the labor will move along quickly since my water has broken and they have me hooked up to Pitocin.
12:00 PM. I’m set up in a private room hanging out with my husband, and whichever visitor has taken their turn. My parents, sister, in-laws have all come. This will be the first grandchild for both families. The contractions are minimal and I worry that my body is not progressing, but the nurses reassure me and crank up the dosage of Pitocin.
3-4PM: I am finally feeling some contractions. They’re not intense or regular, but I know they’re there. I naively think that whole labor and delivery might not be too bad.
7PM. I feel like I’m dying. The contractions are consistent and intense, and every two to three minutes, it feels like my body is going to rip in half. I’m trying to breathe through them while my mom and husband offer worthless tidbits of information like, “You’re halfway there,” (reading the monitor), and “You’re doing great!” I can only keep this up if the kid comes soon.
10PM. Fuck natural childbirth. Order the epidural, shove that needle into my spine, and make all of this pain go away.
Friday, 12AM. Epidural sets in after having a giant needle shoved into my spine not once, but twice, because, “Oops, that looks a little off.” Who cares? The pain is gone; I am numb from the uterus done. We dim the lights in the room so I can rest before it’s time to push.
1AM. Nurses rush in, flip on the lights. Tell me to turn on my side, put an oxygen mask on me, tell me to turn on the other side, then get on hands and knees. The baby’s heart rate is dropping too drastically without recovery time. The take a syringe full of something and stab it into my arm. Whatever is in it, brings my labor to a complete stop. My Doctor comes in and “highly recommends” a c-section for the well-being of my baby. Of course I agree. I want to cry, but I don’t.
2-3AM. I’m being prepped for surgery. I am stretched out on an operating table, naked from the waist down, cold, and tired. I listen to the prep team talking about music until the sheet goes up and my husband comes in. They don’t let him film the surgery, which is bullshit, but he complies. “Pressure, lots of pressure” I keep hearing. I’m shaking so much my teeth are shattering. My anesthesiologist puts another blanket over my arms and chest, but the shaking doesn’t stop.
4:07AM: “It’s a boy!” my doctor shouts. We didn’t find out beforehand. My husband squeezes my shoulder, and whispers something in my ear. I am so overcome with emotion. But I wait, I hold my breath until I hear his first cry. And then I hear it, and the tears slide down the sides of my face. A nurse holds him up for us to see. My husband gets to hold him first, but he brings him close. I kiss his sweet, calm face. I had never before seen such a beautiful face. I pass out while the Doctor finishes sewing me back together.
I wake up back in the delivery room, and they bring the baby to me for skin-to-skin bonding. All is finally right in the world. And my heart opens up a door to a love I didn’t know existed. None of what happened had been in my birth plan or any of my visions of what it would be like to bring a life into this world. Neither was our trip to the NICU later that night because my son had elevated levels of white blood cells, indicating some kind of minor infection. For five days, he had to stay in the NICU because a five-day round of antibiotics has to be closely monitored in newborns.
So I spent most of those five days hanging out by his bassinet, holding him, rocking him, trying to figure out breastfeeding. One visitor at a time could come in with me. The NICU had a necessary feeding schedule: every four hours. Sometimes it felt like we had just finished nursing, burping, and changing when we had to start all over again. After one particularly stressful session, I promised him and myself that there would be no schedules to follow at home.
At least not the “feeding by the clock” kind of schedule. But I let go of a lot of things in that moment: I gave up on the premeditated expectations I had for myself, or my baby. I gave up on thinking that everyone else had a better plan for my child and me that differed from what I felt instinctively. Had I tapped into those instincts a week early, I probably would have turned down my Doctor’s offer to strip my membranes, and my water would have probably not broken so long before active labor began.
There may have not been a c-section, or an infection (infections can occur when the water is broken for an extended period of time). There are so many variables and possibilities that run through your mind. I could have walked that exact same path, regardless. At the end of those five days in the NICU, I was able to take my healthy baby boy home with me, and that was ultimately the only goal I had.
But from that point forward-for the most part-I gave up on expectations and well-meant advice. My parenting comes from a place of instinct and love. It doesn’t always work perfectly, but I did go on to have two successful VBACS, unmedicated. And I have three kids who are fairly healthy and happy.
I breastfeed, I sleep with my babies, I let them play in the dirt. Sometimes they eat it. Sometimes they pick out outfits that look like they fell out of a recycling bin. Sometimes they meltdown in public arenas. I fight off the pressure to care what people think about how we raise our kids.
I can’t say that I gave up on all parenting goals, though; I would love to watch these tiny, happy, kind humans grow into bigger, happy, kind humans. I do everything that I can to inch our way to that goal. Even if that means growing up, moving from “mama” to “mommy,” and then just “mom.” Even if that means leaving one day to have adventures of their own, each one taking a part of my heart with them.