The last few weeks of pregnancy create the strangest
circumstance. Your whole life is about to change, you are acutely aware of
that, but there is no way to tell exactly when. A due date means almost nothing
really, and you could go into labor at any time. Experts say there are signs
that labor is imminent, but I didn’t really experience any of that until I was
in it.
On the first day of winter I woke up remembering the
contractions I had experienced the night before, and how they had teased me
into thinking that maybe I was going to have my baby—finally! Until they
stopped; and I had to go to sleep wondering when the day would really come,
because this had happened before. While I sat and ate breakfast with my family that
morning, I felt a couple of contractions about seven minutes apart. This was
around 9:30am. I figured that they were just going to stop again so I continued
to get ready for the day.
The first day of winter fell on a Sunday this year, and my
cousin Connor was giving a talk in his ward because he is leaving on a two-year
mission in a couple weeks. As I got ready to go to church I kept having
contractions, but I didn’t bother to time them because I didn’t really believe
that it was the real thing. As we made the hour drive to Highlands Ranch they
kept getting closer together and more intense. By the time we got to the church
they were every five and a half to six minutes apart. We sat and listened to
the Christmas program their ward performed and to Connor’s sweet message.
Afterwards we went to my aunt Alyson’s house for dinner and that is when the
fun really began.
It was about 3:00pm when my contractions really started to
hurt. They started coming every four and a half to five minutes and some of
them brought me to my knees. I will never be able to explain how good it feels
the moment a contraction stops. It’s like this wave of relief and almost
euphoria because it hurts so badly, and then it just stops. And you can breathe
easy again, and it feels. so. good. It is the weirdest thing.
By the time we finished dinner it was about 5:00pm. My
contractions stayed about four and a half minutes apart while we made the trek
home. Samuel was just getting home from work when my family and I pulled up and
I was so happy to see him! I burst
into tears as I wrapped my arms around him and buried my face in his neck. I
have never been so happy to smell his tea tree oil beard balm and feel his strong
embrace. I had wished so badly that he was with me that whole day, but since we
didn’t know if the baby was really coming
that day he decided to stay at work until things were clearly progressing. My
mom and sisters were already in town so they were there to help me, but still,
no one beats a husband’s presence.
At about 7:00pm I decided that I wanted to go for a walk to
help things along. I had been having contractions all day and I was over it! I
just wanted to hold my baby! So I put my hospital bag (that I had packed just
two days before, hash tag procrastinator) in the truck and told my sisters that
we would call them if I needed to go to the hospital and they could come pick
us up, then we started walking. I decided I wanted to walk pretty far and we
made a plan to walk the 3.1 miles from our house to Samuel’s sister Angela’s
house. So we walked and walked and walked, across parking lots, and a bridge,
through trees, and up gradual hills. And we ran at one point, across a street
with cars coming at us, and I think the drivers were horrified. I was.
I will never forget that night. It was so beautiful outside.
There was no wind, it was about 45 degrees, and at the end of our walk it
started raining so gently. It was picture perfect in everyway and it did not
feel like December 21st. The first day of winter is also called the
winter solstice. The word solstice comes from the Latin words for “sun” and “to
stand still.” Everything really was standing still for me that night. There
were things going on all around me, but I didn’t notice any of it. It was just
me; my mind, and my body trying to work together to bring a precious spirit
into this world. It was painful and incredible, all at the same time.
When we got to Angela’s I tried to relax. My contractions
were about every three and a half minutes now. They were lasting longer and
they were more painful than they had been all day. I took a bath and called my
sisters to come over so we could go to the hospital. I was so sure that I was
about to have my baby! We drove through the rain in the dark, and the street
lights glowed off the wet pavement creating what looked like little pieces of
sacred ground. It was a magical drive for me, because I was so certain that I
would be meeting my baby girl on the other side of it. When we got to the
hospital I checked in downstairs, and then a nurse came and got me in a wheelchair
and wheeled me up to the Labor and Delivery floor at about 9:30pm.
When Sam and I went to tour the birthplace at the hospital
about a month before, it was a ghost town. There were no expecting mothers in
the triage and only one or two rooms were being used for post partum care. Of
course the night that I went into labor the triage was at capacity and there
were five patients just from my doctor there! It was crazy. At the appointment
I had on Tuesday the 16th my doctor had checked me and I wasn’t dilated
at all, but he said my cervix was very thin. I had heard that if your cervix is
thin then you can dilate really quickly, so I was hoping to be dilated enough
to be admitted. When the nurse checked me in the triage she said I was fully
effaced but I was only dilated half of a centimeter!!! It was such a let down.
I cried through my next couple contractions, partially because they really
hurt, but also because I was so disappointed that after 12 hours of
contractions I had hardly dilated at all.
“I’ll come back and check on you in two hours, okay? I’m
sorry; I know you’re in pain. You can get up and walk around, or just stay in
the bed, it’s up to you,” she said.
I was so sure that this was it—that I was going to have my
baby in the next couple of hours, but I wasn’t. It was frustrating because I
was the only one in that room even having consistent contractions; everyone
else was just hanging out and reading magazines, their contractions had stopped
and they were just waiting to go home. I kept having contraction after
contraction, but after two hours and a bunch of walking around the hospital, the
nurse checked me again and I hadn’t progressed at all. I am pretty sure I cried
and maybe yelled at the nurse when she told me I had to go home. I was in so much pain from being in
labor all day, and I knew that my contractions weren’t going to stop. I just
didn’t understand why they weren’t dilating my cervix.
“Just go home and try and get some rest,” the nurse told me.
Only that was impossible since I was literally contracting every two and a half
to three minutes. I was so tired. All I wanted to do was sleep. I really, really
wanted to sleep. I just couldn’t. So then I just wanted someone to knock me out
so that I didn’t have to feel any more contractions. Seriously. I kept
day-dreaming about falling and hitting my head, or someone coming at me with a
baseball bat. It’s funny now, but not then so much. I was just so frustrated
because I wasn’t even progressing. Nothing like being in pain for what feels
like no reason!
I hadn’t gotten very much sleep the night before either, and
I remember thinking that I could have the baby “any day but today.” “Just don’t
go into labor today,” I told myself, “any day but today.” Ha! That’s the way it
always works out, isn’t it?
So we went home at about 1:00am on the 22nd. Sam
had been working and been up since 2:00am on the 21st, so he went
downstairs to sleep and I sat up in our room with my mom while she tried to
help me relax and breathe through each contraction. I kept contracting for two
more hours about two minutes apart and they never slowed down, and they were
getting longer each time, so I told my mom that we needed to go back to the
hospital.
We got back to the hospital around 3:30am and I checked into
the triage again. I was certain that I had to be dilated more after all that,
but the nurse (same nurse who I yelled at -_-) checked me and I had only
dilated half a centimeter more. So I was at one centimeter—after an entire day
of labor. I was so angry. I was so tired and in so much pain and I had nothing
to show for it (I mean 1 centimeter is basically nothing). I literally felt
like I could not endure one more contraction…but they just kept coming, like
giant waves of pain crashing into me, knocking the wind out of me. My back
ached so badly, and I felt like I was going to throw up. The nurse said she
would come back and check me in a half hour, but if I wasn’t dilated any more
then they would send me home again.
I was so mad; I can’t even explain the feeling of defeat
that came over me. This was not how I pictured things. Actually, I had tried
really hard not to picture what labor or delivery would be like because it
freaked me out too bad. My whole pregnancy I just thought, “I’ll make decisions
as I have to and just go with the flow.” I never thought about not having a
choice. About being in pain and not being able to do anything but endure it.
When the nurse left, another contraction hit, but this one
hurt a lot worse. I was writhing in my bed, I couldn’t even sit still, and my
mom came to my bedside and told me that I needed to really focus on relaxing
when I had each contraction. I realized then that every time I had a contraction
I would tighten everything in my body and fight it, but I needed to just relax
and let it come. I said a prayer, asking for strength because I literally didn’t
have anymore left in me. And then had about 10 contractions before the nurse
came back. This time I was totally ready for her to tell me that we had to go home
again. Totally ready to have a major break down because I just couldn’t do it
anymore.
“That didn’t even hurt, “I said.
“I would be worried if you thought that hurt after the
contractions you’ve been having,” she joked.
Then the nurse came back and gave me some other pain
medicine in my IV until the anesthesiologist got there. And that was nice. Verrrrry
nice. It lead to me telling her that she looked like Kristen Wiig, and some
other embarrassing comments.
When the anesthesiologist walked in I remember being really
confused. Partially because of the pain medicine they had given me—it was
making me blurry—and also because he was dressed like a farmer. He was
seriously wearing a navy blue plaid flannel, and jeans. And boots! Like, who was
this guy? I instantly trusted him and liked him, but wasn’t he supposed to be
wearing scrubs? Was he really
supposed to be sticking a giant needle in my back? But he did, and it didn’t
hurt at all. I didn’t even feel it. Or maybe it only hurt so much less than the
contractions I had been having that it felt like nothing. I don’t know. But it
was fantastic.
If you’re pregnant and wondering about an epidural, get the
freaking epidural. Do it. Seriously. It made the whole experience so much
better. I know some people have really short and easy labors and maybe they
don’t even really need one, but I don’t think I could have made it without one.
Plus I was much nicer after I got it. My first nurse who had been in the triage
with me all night left at 7:00am, and I wasn’t that nice to her before I got
it, but by the time she left I was so sad to see her go. She checked me right
before she left and I was almost dilated to a seven, so my doctor came in and
broke my water, but then he had to leave to another delivery, so I just tried
to sleep. And also took a bunch of selfies? (Pain meds, I blame the pain meds).
When my new nurse got there I fell in love with her instantly.
She was the best. She was on top of her game, and she made me feel like a
million bucks. She turned the monitor so I could watch my contractions, because
after the epidural all I could feel was pressure, but I didn’t know how big
they were unless I was looking at the monitor. I think I got my epidural around
5:00am or so, and after that until 8:30am I slept off and on as the nurse came
in to check me and/or the monitor. After the epidural I was able to really
relax so my contractions dilated me pretty quickly and I was at a 10 within a
few hours. When the nurse checked me she was like, “Woah, you’re ready and so
is that baby! Her head is right there!”
Buuuut my doctor was delivering another baby a couple rooms
down and so I had to wait. And wait. His other delivery ended up taking so long
that the nurse actually came back without him and had me start pushing until
the baby was crowning. I’m telling you, I really loved that lady. She was so
patient and the best cheerleader. It also helped that I had my husband holding
one hand and my sisters holding the other hand. When my doctor came in to
deliver, things went so fast. I ended up only pushing for 23 minutes total,
including my time with the nurse. It was amazing. The whole experience was so
perfect. I feel so blessed that everything went so well. My doctor and nurses
were the best! I could not have asked for better care. And the room was filled
with people I love. The love in that room, especially right when I had the
baby, was almost tangible. I wish that I could have just scooped up that
feeling in a jar and saved it.
I will never forget meeting my baby girl for the first time.
When I sit and think about it I can still feel her warm, wet skin on my hands
as I grabbed her and pulled her onto my chest for the first time. Remembering
the sound of her first little cries still brings tears to my eyes. And all the
feelings I had come back so quickly when I think of that morning, at 10:26am
when my life changed forever. That morning I saw my whole world in one tiny
baby girl’s eyes. Complete with a full head of black hair, just like I knew she
would have. And she was mine. She was
my daughter; God had allowed me to
create her. She was mine in a way no one and nothing else had ever been before. She was glorious, all 8 pounds 7 ounces and 21.25 inches of her.
No one can prepare you for motherhood. Nothing anybody says will ever describe the kind of love that you have for your baby, and the experience that it is to birth a soul. I have never felt a more powerful emotion and I don’t believe I ever will. My heart felt like it exploded when Naomi came into this world to join our family. Having her here with us the last couple weeks has been the best time of our lives.
There is something that happens when you have a child, that
you can’t physically feel, or see. It is a knowledge you acquire of all the
mothers in the world and why they do what they do and love how they love. You
become painfully aware of your ignorance and your naivety; and all the things
you didn’t understand when you were living under your parents’ roof suddenly
make sense. And your mom becomes your biggest hero, and your birthday holds so
much more meaning, and you see your dad differently too. It changes you in a
way only becoming a parent can change you, and it’s life altering.
It feels like yesterday that we met Naomi for the first
time, but it also feels like she has been with us forever. Not a day goes by
that I haven’t thanked my Heavenly Father for giving me this sweet little
spirit to care for and raise in love. My heart is so full of gratitude for her
presence in our home. Naomi has brought so much love into our lives, not just
for her, but also for each other. I love Samuel in a way that I never would
have known possible as I watch him love our daughter. It is fitting that she
was born on December 22nd.
After the darkest day of the year, every single day since, she and the
sun have brought more and more light into our world.
