Becoming A Mom

Disclaimer: I will go into details about labor and birth that some may find triggering. Reader discretion advised.

Let me preface this by saying I have always wanted children ever since I was a little girl. When my husband I decided we were ready to start trying to start our family, I had strong feelings about what time of year I thought would be best to have a baby (April) and what time of year I did not want to be stuck inside with a newborn on maternity leave (winter). Also, my husband is a hunter, so he didn’t want to have a baby during hunting season (fall). So that left us with a very little window of opportunity (looking back, we were so naive lol!) That being said, I think we started trying to conceive late summer/early fall of 2018. My timeline is a little hazy now. It didn’t happen the first few months of trying and I knew I didn’t want a winter baby so we took a little break and said we would try again in the summer. Well…. that didn’t really work out because I found out I was pregnant with our first around the middle of April 2019 which meant we most likely conceived on April’s Fools Day. Using my period tracker app, it gave us an estimated due date of December 26, 2019 (yes, the irony is not lost on me). The timing was not ideal at all. We had a lot going on that spring; I was graduating from SNHU and my family was planning a trip to Mexico. I didn’t know the first thing about being pregnant or what my next steps were, so I started by calling my OB/GYN’s office. I was surprised when they told me they didn’t even want to see me until May (conveniently around the time when I was traveling to New Hampshire to graduate then Mexico). So, I scheduled for the week we would get back from all of that. I was so nervous about something bad happening to the pregnancy. I also wasn’t thrilled about having to tell people about the pregnancy as early as we did for the same fears, but it would’ve been hard to come up with a fake excuse as to why I wasn’t drinking alcohol on vacation at an all-inclusive resort. Luckily, with what I do for a living and where I was working at the time, I was able to perform ultrasounds on myself quite regularly. And on May 3rd, 2019, I saw my daughter’s tiny flicker of a heartbeat for the first time, which gave me so much reassurance. However, we didn’t know she was a girl until she was born (BEST DECISION EVER! 10/10 would recommend keeping gender a surprise until birth).

I LOVED being pregnant. I only had very mild morning sickness in the early weeks but as long as I kept a little something in my stomach, I never got sick, just slightly nauseous. I remember being more exhausted than usual and would take naps after work pretty much every day. I craved cotton candy ice cream once. I had round ligament pain at one point and stretched to take care of it. As the weeks went on, everything was going smoothly, pregnancy was progressing as expected. The only things my doctors were concerned about was my blood pressure (which was only ever mildly high when I was at the office). They had me buy a cuff and take it myself at home where it was always normal. I was not the healthiest before getting pregnant and may have had borderline hypertension due to being overweight. I was really confused when they labeled me high risk, because to me, everything felt fine. I had passed my glucose test. And I felt as though they were over-reacting when it came to my blood pressure. And consequently, being labeled high risk, I had to do twice weekly testing (NST and BPPs) which was really quite annoying but I liked being able to see baby often so never really complained. Then, at 37 weeks they said, “You have to be induced at 39 weeks or you WILL get preeclampsia and put you and your baby at risk for very serious complications and possibly even death.” Being a first-time mom, their fear mongering techniques worked on me and I agreed to the latest induction date they would allow, which was the evening of Sunday December 22st, 2019.

After registration, being poked six time to get an IV, and getting hooked up to all the tubes and wires we settled in for the long induction process (thinking we would be holding our baby in 24-48 hours). They started by giving me a vaginal medication to work overnight. That did seem to get things going because I was feeling uncomfortable contractions and couldn’t sleep very well. My timeline may be a little off now but I don’t think they started Pitocin until Monday morning. Slowly increasing it every 1-2 hours with regular contractions happening all day and through the night. Tuesday morning (Christmas Eve), we took a break from the Pitocin and labor essentially stopped. I think I only made it to like 3-4 cm dilated. I didn’t know this at the time, but it was because my brain was not receptive to the fake oxytocin (Pit). My uterus was contracting but I was never really in true labor even though I was starving, exhausted and in pain the entire time the Pit was running. At this point, they gave me the choice to stop the induction process and go home, give my body a break and maybe things would kick in on their own and if not, I could come back for another induction on Saturday. (Side note-my blood pressure was normal the entire time I was in the hospital). This is what we decided to do, hopeful to not need another induction. My family was staying at our house in anticipation for this baby, so we had sort of a makeshift Christmas dinner that night, then they left. We had tacos on Christmas day because that’s all we had energy to make. Then, Saturday came and no sign of labor starting on its own so back to the hospital we went for round two of induction.

That meant another IV, more continuous monitoring, another attempt at internal medication, more Pit. The same thing happened, I was having strong contractions, with little progression. I was walking the halls. I was bouncing on the birthing ball. We were hearing baby after baby be born in the other rooms surrounding us, wondering when it would be our turn. We had our essential oil diffuser going. They didn’t allow me to eat anything other than popsicles because I was being induced. At one point I threw up from the pain. I tried getting in the tub. That only lasted like 30 seconds. I couldn’t sit still long enough to relax. The next morning, they broke my water. Things started to go down hill from here. Breaking my water made the contractions more intense. This in combination with going through this process for days now, I was physically, emotional and mentally drained. I was running out of gas. I asked for an epidural. This helped tremendously and allowed me to get some rest. The nurse regularly rotated me on the peanut ball in bed. Shortly after getting the epidural, they needed to give me oxygen because baby started having heart decels. I remember taking this personally and crying because I blamed myself, thinking it was my selfish decision to get the epidural that might have been harming my baby. After about 24 hours of my water being broken, I still had only progressed to 7 cm. This is when they labeled me “failure to progress” and recommended a C-section. I was devastated. I felt defeated. But at the same time I did not have the energy to continue and just wanted this whole experience to be over and to meet my baby already. I threw up again, they prepped me for surgery, my husband put on his bunny suit and they wheeled me to the operating room. The anesthesiologist was humming Trampoline by SHAED. The operating room was so cold and I was shaking uncontrollably. I felt like the epidural was too high and soon I wasn’t going to be able to breathe. And at 4:21 am on New Year’s Eve our baby was held up to the surgical drape and the doctor announced: “It’s a girl!” She weighed 7 lbs. 2 oz and was 21 inches long. I couldn’t even see her in the operating room because I was too busy getting sick again. Then in the recovery room I didn’t feel comfortable enough to hold her right away because I was still shaking so badly and I didn’t feel an immediate connection to her. I was still processing needing to have a C-section and all the emotions that came with that. I was so hurt and angry and felt like a failure as a woman. I felt as though my body and my doctors betrayed me.

It took me a long time to be accepting of how that birth unfolded. I had to forgive myself for not knowing what I didn’t know back then and just learn from it and move forward. And also realize that my birth has no weight in my worth as a mother. My daughter still loves me even though she wasn’t born naturally. My husband doesn’t think any less of me for not pushing our daughter into this world.