Since today is all about our little T, I thought I would share the story about the day he was born. My kids seem to feel the need to enter the world with a little drama ;) Last year, on March 1, I waited all morning for a phone call from the hospital. I was supposed to get induced..... finally. I waited all morning and then finally ran out of patience early in the afternoon. I called the hospital myself and was told that there was no room for me today and I would have to wait until tomorrow. Grrrrr. But then, around 5:00pm the hospital called back. After confirming that it was me on the phone the lady on the other end said, "Would you like to have your baby tonight?" I hung up (after saying yes, of course) and immediately called Dean at work to get him to hightail it home. After kissing L goodbye and sending her off with my mom, Dean and I finally arrived at the hospital at 7:00pm. By 7:30ish they induced me with, what has become know in our house as "the gel". This gel is supposed to help things move along naturally. Typically, after administering "the gel" you stay in the hospital for about an hour to be monitored and then you get sent home and told to come back when you go into labour naturally (usually within a few hours). I was super hungry at this point so Dean and I decided that when they sent us home we were going to go out and get something to eat. Well, I was 42 weeks pregnant and starving, so right after getting "the gel" I sent Dean to find a food court and bring me back some food. He was gone for about 10 minutes when I realized that we were not going to be sent home. I was having rather uncomfortable contractions every 3 or 4 minutes. They got worse quite rapidly so I started texting Dean and telling him to get back to me. The nurse came in, looked at my chart and said, "We will observe you a little longer and then you can go home". I started at her in utter amazement...... how could a nurse, who worked on the labour and delivery floor not recognise a woman in labour. By the time Dean got back I was sweating up a storm and had decided that I was too tired to have a baby today and that we should just come back tomorrow. When he realized that contractions were coming every 2 minutes he very sweetly broke the news to me that going home was no longer an option. Yes, I already knew that, but with every contraction that hit I was reminded of my labour with L that, to this day, I can only describe as horrific. Even though I knew I was in pretty serious labour, we could not convince the nurse. Finally another nurse came by, took one look at me and got things rolling to get me officially admitted. About two hours after they put on "the gel" I finally got into a very nice private room. I immediately met the nurse that was going to be with me during labour and she asked if I was thinking about having any pain relievers. I told her that I wanted an epidural, NOW. She gave me a look that said, "Ok there, you wuss". I kidd you not, she really did. Well, that looked was wiped right off her face after she hooked me up to the monitors and realized that my contractions were less than 30 seconds apart. The anaesthesiologist was there withing five minutes and about 10 minutes later I happily realized that an epidural was going to work this time. Hooray!! This was the point where I became perfectly calm..... cause I couldn't feel a thing.
A few minutes later my doctor and her intern arrived in the room. My nurse showed her the printout of my monitors and all three of them sat and stared for about five minutes. This was the point when Dean and I knew everything was not alright. The doctor calmly explained that since my body was reacting so aggressively to "the gel" which caused my labour to come on so fast and furious the baby wasn't having enough time during contractions to recover. They broke my water trying to rinse out "the gel" but my body did not slow down the contractions. Then they gave me angina medication to attempt to slow things down. This also did not work. So, my doctor told me that they were going to move me over to high risk so that I would be closer to the operating room, just in case. Well, as soon as they wheeled my bed around the corner into high risk I saw my doctor in scrubs and a surgical cap. At that point, I knew. Then, instead of putting me in a high risk room, they put me right into the operating room with at least 15 other medical professionals. It felt like chaos. They continued to give me angina medication but it continued to do nothing but make me feel loopy. Then they started to take blood samples from the baby's scalp (yes, he was still in me) to check his blood oxygen levels. Then, in one last ditch effort, my doctor tried using a suction and had me push. I was only 8cm but I pushed like there was no tomorrow. I wanted that baby to come out. The last few moments I remember involved my doctor throwing the suction on the floor and saying "We're done", I remember hearing someone telling Dean that he had to leave, and I remember someone telling me that they were going to take good care of me. I remember feeling surprised (I really thought I was going to push that little sucker out) and confused. Then....... I realized that I was feeling very very sleepy. I looked up at the nurse next to me and said, "Are you putting me under??" Then, nothing.
According to Dean, about 60 seconds later he heard our baby cry. But, I wasn't there for that moment. I was somewhere else for the next hour and a half. I woke up in a big room with two nurses talking quietly at a desk nearby. I could feel that I no longer had a baby in my belly, but I had no memory of it coming out. I called the nurse and in a haze asked if I had my baby. She told me that I did, indeed have a baby. "Is he OK?" was my next question and all I really cared about. Once she told me that my baby was fine then I found the nerve to ask, "Was it a boy or a girl?" She replied, "It was a boy." I remember hearing those words but not understanding. I asked three more times and each time she responded, "Yes, he is a boy". I was still not comprehending. I was supposed to have a girl. No one ever told me that but I was sure of it nonetheless. I was going to put sweet little matching dresses on her an L and she was going to wear all those adorable little outfits that L had grown out of so quickly. Where was my little girl? I was sure the nurse had made a mistake. Shortly after that, and after some drug induced conversation I had with the nurse regarding how it was a good thing I bought a one piece bathing suit last summer, Dean came into the room. He was beaming from ear to ear. I asked him several times what our baby was, and he assured me that he was a boy.... Dean had seen his "boy parts". I was still not sure what to make of the situation but the sheer and utter joy on Dean's face gave me some reassurance. Then, they brought me that baby. They brought me a baby that I did not remember delivering. A baby that I thought was a girl, but was indeed a boy. A baby that had been in the world for almost two hours but had never met his mother. I held him with shaky arms knowing that I loved him, but not sure how I was feeling. I only held him for another few minutes before my shaky arms could no longer hold him steady. Shortly after they brought me and my baby upstairs to a room and left us there, alone. Dean could not stop beaming and I was slowly coming to terms with the fact that I was not present when my baby was born. Beside my bed was a sweet little boy that I should have already been holding for hours but instead, I only just met him. It was strange..... it was different. It was so so different with L. I heard her first cry, I held her moments after she was born, I smelled her, I felt her.
Fast forward a year. Today there is a little boy sleeping in his bed. Tomorrow morning he will wake up and he will be one year old. I may not have heard his first cry, but I sure have heard many more throughout this past year. I may not have held him right at birth, but I have rocked him to sleep, held him in the middle of the night while he was sick, cuddled his owies away, and smothered his cheeks in kisses. I have spent days and minutes and hours holding him and smelling his freshly washed little head of hair. I have felt him grab onto my legs signalling to me that he wanted to be in my arms. I may have missed those few first hours, and yes I would like to have them back, but this past year I have been his mother. HIS mother. I love having a little boy.
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| Photo by Tammy Engel |
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| Photo by Tammy Engel |
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| "Look what I found my the recyling bin!!" |
Thank you for sharing this story. I love hearing birth stories - there's definitely no two alike! And I love the pictures, especially the naked-in-boots one. Happy birthday T!!
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