I don't want to forget

I stood in front of Nate in the hospital room, no makeup, leggings and a tank top, my hair pulled back.

"You're beautiful," he said, smiling at me.

I looked down at myself, unimpressed.

"I'm not even wearing makeup."

"You're just a natural beauty then."

At a moment when I was in pain from surgery, had a postpartum pooch and knew my husband had seen me in very ungraceful moments, the fact that he said I was beautiful was music to my ears --- and my tender heart.

His words seared themselves into my memory and endeared him to me even more.

This moment and so many others in the past few weeks have been small, but at that moment and in others I have stopped and just tried to soak it in, tried to make a memory. I don't want to forget the light in his eyes when he told me I was a natural beauty. I don't want to forget the feel of my baby's peach fuzz head against my lips as she falls asleep on my chest when I lift her to burp. I don't want to forget the silly, pursed-lip face she makes right after she eats and stretches.

I don't want to forget.

Having a newborn is crazy. It's surreal at times. It is already going so quickly.

That is one reason I write these blogs, because I don't want to forget.

Meeting our girl: Part V

The doctor was exactly right that I could feel tons of pressure, pulling, but I didn’t feel any pain. It was only a couple of minutes until the doctor said, “Dad, do you want to watch?”

Nate leaned taller and looked over the barrier as I heard the doctor say, “Look at all that hair! Wow, she’s big. She just keeps coming out.”

I turned my head to the left and tried to get a view of my daughter as she was looked over by the nurses. Just past Nate, I saw a little leg go up in the air and I smiled as I saw a fat roll on the thigh.

She has fat thighs like I did. And tears started to flow.

The anesthesiologist looked at me. “Are you in pain?” I shook my head. “Are they happy tears?” I nodded and smiled as I watched her. Finally, they held her up a bit so I could see her scowling face.

Then I heard from behind the curtain, “Well, that could be terrible.”

What? My concentration switched from our infant daughter to trying to hear what was going on with me.

Nate looked at me, “Are you OK?”

I shrugged my shoulders a bit and looked at him questioningly. “I think so.”

A few minutes later, the nurse looked at me, and I think she could see that my focus was still on listening to the doctors about what was going on with me. “Are you OK?”

“Am I OK?”

The doctors called out for the anesthesiologist to give me medicine, and then another kind of medicine. She gave me a shot of something as well.

We heard later that I have an anatomically off body and that an artery that is supposed to run next to my uterus actually curves in front, and it was cut during surgery. I lost blood and hemorrhaged to the point that my doctor later told me “Your uterus looked like shredded meat.”

As they were repairing me, I gave it to God. I looked over at you at prayed, Lord, if it’s my time, please take care of my baby.

Thankfully, it wasn’t my time.

They brought you to me and placed you on my chest for some skin-to-skin time, and we took our first family photo. I talked to you, and I could see those dark blue eyes looking at me with questions.

“She recognizes your voice, doesn’t she?” Nate asked.

“Yeah, I think she recognizes my voice but not my face and is trying to figure it out,” I said.

My upper body had continued to shake badly throughout surgery and was still shaking with you in my arms. They took you and gave you to daddy while surgery wrapped up, and nausea set in. You and daddy left to another room to weigh you and check you over, and I vomited as the operating room was cleaned up.

Doctors and nurses congratulated me, and I tried to respond, but I felt horrible. They transferred me to yet another bed and wheeled me down the hall into a room where I could see you. I just wanted to throw up and feel better, but there wasn’t anything in me and I laid there feeling miserable. Your wonderful daddy was holding you with a big smile but looked at me consolingly as I felt about ready to pass out.

The anesthesiologist kept giving me more and more Zofran to combat the nausea but nothing seemed to be working.

Finally, I felt like I could open my eyes.

“Do you want to try to nurse?” The nurse asked.

I nodded and sat up a little in bed.

They placed you in my arms and tucked you under the covers with me, and we attempted to nurse a little bit.

The nausea quickly went away with you in my arms.

Meeting our girl: Part IV

I continued to feel contractions only in my right side. They tried to prop me up so that medication wouldn’t only affect one side, but they also didn’t want to lay me on my back so that your heart rate wouldn’t drop again.

“Maybe we can put you on your right side? How has baby done with that?”

“Fine, I think,” I said.

However, within a minute or so of rolling over, your heart rate dropped and I had to turn back over. The put the oxygen mask on again, and the doctor came in.

“Let’s talk about a C-section,” she said. “I can’t give you Pitocin because baby is being naughty, and I see very little probability of a vaginal birth without fetal distress. We can give it a couple of hours to see if progress is made, but at that point it may be an emergency C-section.”

I looked at Nate, and he looked at me.

“I’ll give you some time to talk about it, and I’ll be back in,” the doctor said and left the room.

“What do you think?” I asked Nate.

“I think it seems silly to wait until an emergency C-section,” he said.

“I agree. If I haven’t done anything yet, I don’t think a couple of hours is going to change anything. We don’t want it to be an emergency,” I said.

The nurse came in, and we told her we wanted to go ahead and schedule the surgery, and it was set up for 9:45 a.m.

Nate changed into a white sterile suit, blue booties, a blue surgeon’s cap and put on his N95 mask. They put a floral surgical cap on me, and then a flood of people started to enter the room.

The anesthesiologist gave me more medication through the epidural --- which actually turned out great that I already had it in so I didn’t have to be put to sleep. More nurses came in to transfer me to a different bed that would take me down to surgery, and I was wheeled away, into the silver elevator and down to the first floor.

I began shaking involuntarily as I was wheeled through pairs of doors and into the white operating room where a mass of people began introducing themselves to me. They asked if I could move onto the operating table, but my legs were completely numb at this point, so I was no help.

I felt like an infant as they rolled me from side to side, onto a wooden slab to slide me then onto the operating table, and rolled me back and forth to then slide me back off of the slab. Blue cloths were draped around my stomach and a blue curtain hung up in front of me as Nate walked around the side and took his place on my left, holding my hand. Even with his mask on, I could see by his squinty, bright eyes that he was smiling.

“This is the doctor that is going to be doing the surgery, and I’ll be assisting,” my doctor told me, peeking over the blue barrier between us. “When it comes to it, you’re going to feel a lot of pulling and tugging. When we pull her out, I’ll basically be on top of you, pushing on you.”

Then they began tests to make sure that I was numb. When we discussed C-sections, I asked about that. I’ve had enough dental procedures to know that Novocain doesn’t really work on me, and I’ve felt everything that has been done. Anesthesia makes me nervous because I am afraid that I’ll feel pain.

However, they began to poke, prod and pull skin.

“Can you feel this?”

“I can feel pressure.”

“No pain?”

“No. Wait, there,” the last touch, I could feel a sharp pinch, and I heard one doctor say to the other. “That’s above the navel line.”

And then surgery began.

Meeting our girl: Part III

At about 5 a.m., I was struggling. My backup plan to natural childbirth was to have some IV meds --- fentanyl --- if needed. The nurse had checked, and I still wasn’t dilated past a 1, so I decided I needed some relief and got some fentanyl.

“This may make you a little goofy,” she said as she put it in the IV port.

A few minutes later, it apparently kicked in, because the nurse asked if I needed anything --- ice chips, jello, a freeze pop.

“A freeze pop!” I said.

Your dad laughed, realizing that the medicine had definitely kicked in as I thoroughly enjoyed the half of a red popsicle that was brought in to me.

When a contraction hit, I held it out to him, “Take this,” and I breathed through. “Can I have the popsicle back?” I asked when it was over.

The meds lasted for a little while, and I dozed off for a few minutes but then I started to feel more and more pain as the contractions came back and the medicine wore off. I reached out in my sleep to grab your dad’s hand as a contraction gripped me, then dozed off for a minute, then reached out to grab his hand as another one came on.

“I heard you had quite the night,” said nurse Kayla, when her shift came the next morning. “A seven-minute contraction? When they told me they gave you the medicine to start contractions, I knew that was going to happen. You already had such strong contractions yesterday afternoon.”

I was once again on the nursing ball, and she had suggested leaning against the bed for support, but I said that I was just leaning on your dad. I needed him there. It eased the pain.

“You have such a great support system,” the nurse said. “When I was induced, my husband and sister were there and they slept while I cried.”

The contractions were still incredibly strong, still coming in pairs ---- a contraction, one minute, a contraction, five minutes. It went like this again and again.

The nurse said she could have anticipated that my contractions would be crazy strong.

“You might want to think about an epidural. I don’t like to push them, and I love what you’re doing, breathing through them. However, if you haven’t progressed much more, we need you to have strength left to push later. Just think about it.”

It was morning, and the doctor came in to check my progress.

She grimaced a bit as she checked my cervix, “I can put you at a good 1.”

No more dilation. All those contractions and nothing.

“Are you ready for your epidural?” the doctor asked.

“She doesn’t want an epidural,” the nurse said. “I told her that we would need her later to push though.”

After their recommendations, I decided to get through my terror of the epidural needle in my back.

“I can’t do this for 12 more hours,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

“They are already on the floor, getting an epidural to someone else so they should be right in.”

The anesthesiologist came in to prepare, and she set to work. She told me that she would work fast, but there would come a moment when she wouldn’t be able to stop even during a contraction and I would have to breathe through. Nate told them that my contractions came in five-minute doubles, and they tried to work between them.

However, right as the doctor got to the part where she couldn’t stop, I felt a contraction beginning. I grabbed your dad’s hand and squeezed as I told the doctor, “I have a contraction.”

“Breathe through it,” she said, and I hunched forward as she worked, groaning and squeezing your dad’s hand about to death as I fought the pain.

One minute later, it happened again.

“Breathe through it,” she said.

I squeezed Nate’s hand hard enough that I saw him shake it out once I released it as the contraction passed.

It only took a minute or so until my left side was going numb. I felt a contraction, but I only felt it in my right side.

When I was feeling quite good, Nate looked at me.

“Do you mind if I eat something?”

“Of course not! Go for it.”

“It won’t bother you since you can’t eat?”

“Not at all. You could have eaten the whole time,” I said.

“You couldn’t eat. Solidarity,” he said, holding up a fist.

Meeting our girl: Part II

In the next few hours though, the contractions didn’t follow suit. They got worse and worse, although walking helped to ease the pain quite a bit. We strapped on our N95 masks, looped the monitor cords around my shoulders and took off through the halls --- me in my lovely blue flowered moomoo labor gown, pink floral robe and dark blue snowflake slippers that I had gotten for Christmas but saved for the hospital.

“You’d think they could pick something more flattering. That is really the most unflattering pattern and design they could have gotten, I think,” Nate said.

“I know, Tina got a cute pink polka-dot gown and I have this,” I said, referring to our friends who had recently had a baby in Colorado.

I had brought a robe and thought I would be concerned with looking nice still, but at that point, I really didn’t care. I knew your dad didn’t care what I was wearing either.

I dozed off in the middle of the night, and laid in a child’s pose position on the bed, trying find a more comfortable position with the contractions. I leaned back slightly at one point and felt a large thunk in the upper left side of my abdomen.

I furrowed my eyebrows and thought to myself, “Huh, did she just move really hard or…”

Then I felt liquid begin to gush out of me. I mean gush. I had researched so many times what it felt like to have your water break to see if that is what was happening, hoping I was in labor. Now that I felt it, it seemed a silly thing to look up. Dear goodness, it was obvious what was happening as the bed and a towel that was next to me quickly started to soak.

“Nate.”

He was asleep on the couch turned cot next to me.

“Nate,” I said louder.

No response.

“Nate,” I said louder, not wanting to bother anyone else in the ward at 2 a.m.

I looked at the remote next to me, debating on tossing it next to him to wake him up.

“Nate!”

He looked up.

“My water broke.”

He hopped out of bed. We tried to the nurse call, but like the other times we tried, it didn’t work. He stuck his head in the hall looking for someone at the desk but not finding anyone.

He finally got the attention of the nurses and they came in, “My water broke,” I said. “What do I do?”

They helped me make my way to the bathroom, stripped the bed and remade it with dry sheets.

I had slept for about 15 minutes in between contractions, and your dad had dozed for about 50 minutes, but at this point we knew we weren’t going back to sleep. After my water broke, my contractions got incredibly strong. The rocking chair was horribly uncomfortable, as was the bed. We finally found that sitting on a ball and leaning back into your dad was the best way to deal with the contractions that came in twos every five minutes.

I would lean back, and he would hold me up in his strong arms as the contraction torched through my abdomen.

“Remember to breathe,” he would gently say in my ear when I wouldn’t realize I was holding my breath. “You’re doing great.”

After one was over, he’d lean over and kiss my cheek.

Meeting our girl: Part I

41 weeks.

No dilation.

That’s where we were at when my doctor brought up induction and said we can wait, but I said let’s go ahead and book it. If there wasn’t any progress yet, it didn’t seem like any was going to be made in the next couple of days and I didn’t want to let it go too long to encounter any risks.

Your heart rate was just slightly low, 114-119 instead of 120-160, so I was sent to Labor and Delivery for a non-stress test to make sure everything was OK prior to induction. Your heartrate perked up when you started moving around like usual, and the monitor kept jumping with the contractions that I have felt regularly for months.

“Your uterus is ready,” the nurse, named Kayla, said. “Your contractions are better than the other gal here being induced.”

 I was sent home with a good diagnosis and a sheet that said induction would start the next morning.

We were going to get to meet our girl!

I called my boss and let him know that I wouldn’t be working anymore for a while, and my phone kept buzzing in the background. When I hung up, I realized my doctor had called and texted saying that Labor and Delivery had enough staff that I could start the induction that night.

Your dad was playing video games, “The doctor said we could start induction tonight.”

“What do you think?”

“She said it can be good to get some rest while the first process begins, so we might as well.”

It was 4:30 p.m., and we started to go around the house and make final preparations. We cleaned up the dishes in the kitchen, swept the floor, finished packing our bags. Your dad pulled out ingredients to make dinner and then looked at the clock, 4:45 p.m.

“I think we’re both a little antsy,” I said. “It’s like, what are we supposed to do with this time?”

So we finished a few other chores, and finally sat on the front porch in the sun and ate ham and eggs for dinner --- good protein and still light enough to not make me sick in labor.

We said good-bye to the dog, dropped some cardboard off at the recycling center and headed to the hospital. We put on our N95 masks, unloaded the car and headed to the east entrance of the hospital.

The door was locked.

I looked at the sheet again. It didn’t say where to check in, but we assumed it was the labor and delivery side. I called the number on the form and asked if we were supposed to check in on the east side.

“No, there’s no one there at this time,” a person named Diane, who I later learned is one of the labor and delivery nurses, said. “Go to the emergency entrance and you can register there.”

So we walked back to the red Explorer, put our stuff in the backseat and drove around to the other side of the small hospital. Masks, unpack, walk in --- this time the door was open and we could get registered. An EMT, who of course knew your dad, escorted us through the hospital and up to Labor and Delivery.

The doctor waited with supplies to insert a balloon through the cervix to inflate it and help start dilation. Unfortunately, my body was still not dilated enough to even get the induction started that way. We would instead take a pill to start contractions and try again with the balloon in the morning.

We played a quick game of cribbage and then video chatted with Mimi and Papa as contractions began. I thought the monitor was slipping on my stomach, because the fetal heartrate monitor started to drop.

“I think it’s picking up your heart rate,” Nate said.

We said good-bye to Mimi and Papa as nurses walked in with concerned looks at the fetal heart rate monitor that was now blinking in the 60s.

One nurse moved the monitor receiver around, and the heartrate still did not rise.

“Lay on your left side,” one said, and another took the oxygen mask off of the wall and put it over my nose and mouth.

Your heart rate started to go back up, and we learned that you are not a fan of me sitting up and leaning back. I laid on my left side until your heart rate was stable. Apparently, I had a seven-minute contraction that left you quite uncomfortable.

The nurses asked about my contractions, which were showing up strong on the chart, just like they had at my test that afternoon.

“They’re fine, no more pain than I have had in the past few months with them,” I said, and the nurse looked at me a little oddly, like I should be feeling worse.

She left and I said to your dad, “I feel like I should be in more pain. I don’t know if they’re not that bad or I’m tough!”