Emmett's Birth Story

In Emmett's particular case, joy came in the afternoon - at 1:34 P.M. EST, to be specific, but I'm getting a little ahead of myself here. I wrote Lucy's birth story in an effort to remember as much as I could before time blurred the small details that make memories so much richer. I'm doing the same for Emmett now. So many delicious details of the day-to-day are lost to time, and I certainly don't want anything about the most precious days of my life to be blurred away, so without further ado:

After getting off to a shaky start, my pregnancy with Emmett transitioned to a calm period a few weeks into my second trimester. The changes and progress were as close to reassuring as is possible (although anyone who has lost a pregnancy will tell you, you'll never quite feel safe in any subsequent pregnancy, no matter how smoothly things go).  I felt good; people told me I looked good; he was healthy and growing; the blessings were abundant.

As the third trimester began, things were still going well except that I bore a slight resemblance to the Met Life blimp. People started asking me in December if my baby were due soon. "I still have about 10 weeks left," was met with looks of shock, sometimes even pain. "You poor thing." Former students were coming up to me in the hallway, "You look like you're about to pop, Mrs. Watson!" "7 more weeks, guys." "No way!" Even some of my co-workers would ask things like, "Are you sure you're not having twins?" "Pretty positive, but stranger things have happened." A car salesman (read: complete and utter stranger) even remarked, "You're having a boy, right?" "Yes, how did you know!?" "My wife and I have five kids. Two girls, three boys. Boys put the weight on you." OMG, I GET IT. Geez Louise, guys. People told me that boys always come early. People told me that boys always come late. People told me that I was huge and that there was no way my due date was right. People told me all kinds of stuff. I worked myself into a tizzy with Lucy listening to what people said and willing myself to have her on or before her due date, so I'd already decided not to do that this time. I adopted the attitude of, "Meh. Whatever. It's not like he can stay in there forever," and mentally prepared myself to carry him into March.

During the last six weeks of my pregnancy, I began swelling like mad. My weight had remained steady from October to December, but I began ballooning up from fluid gain each week thereafter. I had a headache that I could not shake no matter what I tried and a ringing in my ears that was deafening at times. After dealing with moody sixteen year olds all day, it was all I could do to mouth breathe my way out of the school building into the parking lot while my heart pounded like the feet of Black Friday shoppers vying to grab the last Shopkins off a shelf at Target. Once I miraculously managed to make it home, I would collapse into bed at the ungodly hour of 5:40 P.M. never to be heard from or seen again until it was time to wake up and do it all over the next morning. Even some of my most self-absorbed students noticed me struggling the last few weeks, which tells you something. 

When I went in for my 39 week appointment, I was certainly not shocked to see that my blood pressure (which is normally 100/60 or 110/70 on a stressful day) had skyrocketed to almost 140/90, the threshold for "Hmmm, your blood pressure is a bit worrisome." I was gobsmacked when the doctor (who I hadn't seen at all this pregnancy, mind you) declared me fit as a fiddle and tried to shoo me out the door. "But I feel like I'm going to drop dead at any moment." "Well, I don't think you will, and that's the important thing to remember." The baby's heart rate was also lower than it had ever been and was borderline too low, so I was completely panicked and almost in tears. As I checked out, I scheduled an appointment to come in the next day to see a different doctor. When said doctor examined me the next morning, she said there was no way she was letting me go back to work for the rest of the week. My maternity leave was to begin officially the following Monday, so I was relieved and breathed a silent prayer thanking the good Lord for second opinions.

Ironically, I spent most of that first "day off" at work making final preparations for/meeting with my maternity sub. When I came home and looked at the disaster that was my house, I thought, "Meh. I've got a few days before I'm due. I'll get it done," and made a mental schedule of what I needed to accomplish for the remainder of my "week off." My grandmother brought me lunch the next day, a McAlister's veggie pita. As we talked, she offered to come over the next day to help me accomplish the aforementioned mental list of tasks. "That would be awesome!" "Well, if you're not in labor that is." "HA! Yah right. I will NOT be having a baby tomorrow, I can assure you." "I don't know. That thing you ate for lunch looks like enough to send anyone into labor." I sat in baffled silence for a minute. "You mean the veggie pita??" "Yes! That looked crazy." "Grandma," I scoffed, "I'm pretty sure the rule is that you have to eat Mexican or something like that to induce labor, not a bunch of cucumbers, lettuce, and bell peppers with a side of ranch."

Well, someone can inform the people at What to Expect When You're Expecting to add McAlister's veggie pita to the list of foods that will induce labor. (Or my grandmother just has crazy psychic voodoo juju. Either way.)

I hefted my bulk into bed that night, prepared to journey to the bathroom my customary thirty-two times just like every other night. The first half of the night went as planned. I would make my typical wild boar grunting noises as I struggled to roll over and get out of bed to shuffle to the bathroom in a fog. On my seventeenth or eighteenth trip to the bathroom (around midnight), I sat sleepily in the dark when I felt...something. (Skip these next few sentences if you don't want TMI. Like I said, I'm recording details, ALL the details in an effort to preserve for posterity.) I normally didn't bother to turn on the lights as I commuted back and forth from the bathroom because, let's be honest, who really needs to be awake for all thirty-two trips? But this time I decided to shine a little light on the situation. (See what I did there? So clever.) When I flipped the light switch and got my bearings, I discovered that the something I felt was very definitely and unmistakably bloody show. I got a little clammy because this didn't happen with Lucy and no pregnant woman really likes to see a toilet full of blood at any stage of pregnancy. I also noticed that the crampy pangs I'd been having were occurring at intervals. I grabbed my phone and called the doctor. "This can sometimes happen, but just monitor your bleeding and come in if it increases or if your contractions become stronger and closer together." I woke Patrick up. "Do we need to go to the hospital now?!" "No, I think we just wait and see what happens, but you may want to pack your bag." (I'd only been telling him that bag packing would be a good idea for a month now.) As he packed a random (and I do mean random) assortment of clothes and toiletries into his bag, I hunkered back down into bed. "You're not going back to sleep are you???" he asked incredulously. "Heck yes I am!" I'd made that mistake with Lucy. I got so keyed up at the first sign of labor that, sixteen hours later when I was still in labor, I was exhausted and starving. I wasn't making that rookie mistake this time. 

I woke up again around 2:45 and was significantly more uncomfortable. My contractions were stronger and less than five minutes apart, and (here comes TMI again), I'd filled up an entire pad. I woke Patrick up again and told him to activate the baby phone chain. I felt so guilty calling my poor dad at 3:00 in the morning. "Hullo?" he asked groggily. "Heyyyy. Whatcha' doin?" "Um, sleeping?" "Well, I hate to ask this, but can you come over to our house and stay with Lucy until she wakes up? I'm in labor." Needless to say, my sweet dad obliged and was at my house by 3:30. 

We arrived at the hospital about 3:45 A.M. The nurses in triage greeted me and asked if I was there for an Induction or a C-Section. I wanted to say, "Who the h%#* has to show up for a C-Section at 3:45 in the morning!?" but, instead, I politely replied, "No. I'm having contractions and bloody show." I can honestly say that I felt better about the whole hospital process the second time around because I knew what to expect. I knew what the triage process was like. I knew there would be waiting. I knew there'd probably be walking around the hospital for hours. I knew what the pain would feel like. I knew to be prepared for the loss of dignity and modesty that comes with giving birth. It was kind of comforting, which was good because that whole dignity thing going right out the window occurred almost immediately. The gown that I was given to change in to wasn't snapped or tied or anything, so it was like a giant sheet with no instructions and a bunch of things that looked like holes for your head but weren't. "Crap, I don't remember how to do this from last time." After fumbling with the gown for a few minutes whilst I was contracting and bleeding like a stuck pig, I popped my head out of the bathroom door and asked Patrick to call the nurse. She came right in and asked, "What can I do to help you?" "Well...this is going to sound really stupid, but I cannot get this gown figured out, and I need your help! Oh...also...be prepared because I'm butt naked." She laughed and strode right in to the bathroom, completely unfazed, and wrangled the gown into shape pronto. Can I just say that I love nurses? No, like I LOVE them. They are amazing people, and I am so thankful for the job they do! Just know that if you're a nurse, I love you. 

Anyway, I digress. I was hooked up to a monitor and so began the waiting. When I came to triage with Lucy, my contractions were three minutes apart. "Yaaaaaaas, I am having this baby in an hour," I naively thought. I was practically giddy when the doctor came in to check my progress, foolishly thinking he'd say something like 7 cm at least! When I heard, "You're about 1 cm," I almost died. In fact, I'm pretty sure I made the same sound that the horse on Animal House makes when it dies. They sent me walking around the hospital for hours to progress my labor and were about to send me home when my water miraculously broke on my last lap around the Birthplace. Needless to say, I was terrified of being sent home this time. As I breathed through contractions, I'd ask Patrick to look at the monitor. "Tell me what that one looks like!" "That was a good one," he'd say, or, "That one kind of petered out." And so passed an hour. When the doctor came in to check me, I held my breath. I knew I wouldn't be 1 this time because I'd been a 3 at my second opinion visit the day before. "You're about...4 cm at this point. We'll do an ultrasound to make sure your bleeding isn't coming from the placenta and then we'll do some blood tests. I'll let you labor for a few hours and then check you to see if your cervix has changed." I texted some wonderful women in my inner-prayer-warrior circle and asked them to pray that I'd progress so that I wouldn't be sent home. Then there was waiting. Ultrasound. More waiting. A little more waiting. Blood draw. Some more waiting. You get the picture. If you're pregnant for the first time and are expecting to rocket your baby out, go ahead and toss that dream out the window. 

As we waited, my contractions felt much stronger and closer together. One of the tasks on my mental checklist for my "week off" was to make a labor playlist, which obviously did not happen. "Music! I need music," I panted to Patrick during a particularly nasty contraction. "What kind of music?" "You know what kind of music I like! I don't care! JUST FIND MUSIC!" Naturally, we couldn't get Pandora or Spotify or any of our actual apps to work in the bowels of triage, so Patrick had to do some creative googling to find an app that would work. "Not that song. I HATE THAT SONG. Find something else!" Poor long-suffering husbands. (One of the songs that got me through a lot of pain that night was this one.) I continued asking Patrick to look at the monitor when I had a contraction (which was often at this point). I knew they were getting stronger, but they looked like little molehills on the monitor compared to the spikes we'd been seeing when I first came in. "This is crazy! These things hurt like the dickens, and they look like little blips!" When the nurse came in to check on me, she looked at the monitor and said, "You look like you're contracting well." "About that! These things are getting more intense, and I don't think that monitor is working! I sneezed early and he kicked really hard and then I kind of shifted and and and and it must've messed up the monitor because I just don't think it is working right!" She (being one of those amazing creatures that we simply call Nurse) looked at me amusedly and said, "Oh Honey, this thing doesn't tell us anything about the intensity of the contraction!" She placed her hand on my belly as I had another and said, "These feel pretty darn strong to me." I was relieved and validated. I thought I was punking out on some lame rookie contractions, but no. I am Woman, hear me roar. 

The doctor previously on call had left, so the "new" doctor came to check my progress shortly after 8:00 A.M. I held my breath as he checked me, praying that my cervix had progressed so they wouldn't send me home in the midst of these mega contractions. "You're at....(longest and most inconvenient pause ever)...an 8." Cue Animal House horse noise. "An 8!? You mean I dilated 4 centimeters in 2 1/2 hours!?" What I really wanted to say was, "Not sending me home today, Suckers." (Sidenote: If you need prayer, let me know. I'll get my inner circle on it because they almost prayed a baby out of me in less than 3 hours. That's some good praying.) I was only momentarily relieved that I wouldn't be sent home when I suddenly found something else more pressing with which to be occupied. "Oh gah. Does that mean I can't have an epidural!?!?!?!?!?" The doctor assured me that they would get me to a room and try to get an epidural before I reached the point of pushing. I thought they'd move me Hollywood quickly into a room, but alas. I called my mom and told her to hightail it to the hospital if she wanted to witness the birth of her first grandson. "You're at an 8!? And you're not in a room yet?! I don't think they're going to be able to give you an epidural!" "OMG, MOM. THANKS FOR THAT." 

I arrived in my room about 9:00. I sat on the edge of my bed breathing and grunting through intense contractions for thirty minutes as I eyed the bag of fluid that I had to have before I could get my epidural. I spent most of my contractions willing it to drip faster. I was tempted to look at Patrick and say, "Squeeze it. SQUEEZE THE BAG!" to get the fluid in faster, but I knew that 1.) it wouldn't work anyway, and 2.) it would just make Patrick uncomfortable to have to say, "No, you're crazy," to a woman on the brink of giving birth. Once the bag was empty, I gave it about five minutes before I hit the call button. "Can I help you." "Uh, hi, yeah," I began through gritted teeth. "I'm at least 8 centimeters dilated, am hooked up to no monitors, have seen no one, and would really like an epidural." "Your nurse is on the phone with the lab. I'll send her in as soon as she's done." A few minutes later, my nurse bound into the room like a blonde, curly headed angel. (If you don't remember, I love nurses.) She got me hooked up to the monitors, arranged me in bed, and delivered the most glorious news. The anesthesiologist was finishing in the OR and had one epidural before it was my turn. A visible wash of relief came over me. "Has your water broken yet?" she asked. "No." "Good. That's what's saving us right now." WAIT, WHAT!?!?

The anesthesiologist arrived, and I'm pretty sure I heard the Hallelujah chorus come on the radio station app...or I may have been hallucinating at that point. If you've never had an epidural, lemme' tell ya', you'll love it. I'd wanted to go natural with Lucy, but her 98th percentile head and sunny-side-up position nixed that pretty quickly. To any mother who has given birth naturally, I say...fist bump. You are a warrior princess who could tear a New York phone book in half with your bare hands, and I respect you immensely. To anyone who has to have an epidural I say, do not let anyone make you feel bad. Western Medicine is awesome, and I highly recommend embracing it when you need to do so. Natural or Medicated, you're still giving life to a human being, and that's pretty dang awesome, so let's all just get along and support each other. Back to the epidural story. Sorry. I felt instant relief...for a few minutes. Before the anesthesiologist left, he asked how I was doing. "My left leg is gone. My right leg and hip are still feeling significant pain, though." He assured me that I'd get full relief once the drip really got going. "It's very rare, maybe 2 or 3 cases out of 100, that an epidural isn't effective."

Welp...if there were a casino game called "Will this be one of those 2 or 3 epidurals out of 100 that isn't fully effective?" I would win. I'm so special.

My nurse felt like the way the baby was positioned was probably blocking the medication from getting to my right side, so she wonderfully and dutifully turned me over and repositioned me about twenty times to try to get me some relief. Alas. Her efforts were in vain. You could've sawed off my left leg with a chainsaw, and I probably would've slept through the whole thing, but I could've danced a Ginger Rogers tap number with my right leg. I could move it, bend it, wiggle my toes. All that jazz. (I made another dance reference. Did you get it?) By the time the doctor came in to check my progress, I was shaking from pain. The only thing I wanted was for my Mom to play with my hair and rub my back. I didn't even care what song was playing on the app anymore. I was fully dilated, but the doctor said that the baby's head was unusually high up and that he was face up instead of face down. "Oh GAH," my inner monologue began, "This kid's head must be even bigger than Lucy's, and she ripped me a new one (literally!)! I'm probably going to have to have a C-Section!!!" He broke my water and said that he would let me labor down for about an hour and then re-check me. My wonderful nurse told me she'd do everything she could to try to get the baby to turn and descend. She rolled my half deadened body over every few minutes or so in an effort to move him around and down. I prayed and prayed that he would cooperate and descend through my contractions.

There is power in the name of Jesus because I had a good feeling when the doctor returned to check my progress. (Figuratively, of course. Literally, I had bad feelings. Very, very bad feelings! MAJOR OUCHHOMAHGAH.) Since I could feel half of what was going on, I could definitely tell that something was happening in my pelvis (because it felt like it was going to explode out of the right side of my body), and, sure enough, not only had he fully descended, but he had also turned so that he was face down. (As someone who has delivered both face up and face down babies, I highly recommend face down.) They readied me to push, and my doctor gave me a couple shots of local anesthetic so that I would at least have some relief on my right side. After ten minutes of pushing, Emmett Oliver was born. 

After losing my second pregnancy, I distanced myself emotionally from the pregnancy this time around. I remained cautiously hopeful, but I prepared for the worst. From the get go, I was leery of another miscarriage. Once I passed the threshold for miscarriage, I worried about pre-term labor and birth. Then I worried about stillbirth and cord accidents and placental abruption. It was almost like I wouldn't let myself believe that this was real. When a very real, very alive baby was placed on my chest, it was surreal. I finally felt at peace. I could finally breathe. He was here, and he was perfect.

Because I was so afraid of losing another pregnancy, I tried to hide it for as long as I could. We told our parents, and a few close friends figured it out pretty quickly, but I didn't publicly announce anything until after the 20 week mark. Even then I didn't really want to. I just wanted to post a photo of a newborn on my Facebook once he came with the caption, "So this happened. Sorry for the late notice." More than one person who is close to me told me I'd regret not relishing this pregnancy. I didn't take weekly bump photos like I did with Lucy. I didn't document the progress of the nursery. I wouldn't even let myself buy baby clothes until I was almost halfway through the pregnancy. While it's true that there is somewhat of a pang of regret about the above, the thing I regret most is not using the opportunity to witness fully. I always thought I'd sing praises from the top of my lungs when I finally got pregnant again, but, to be honest, I was too afraid. While I can't go back and regain that time and opportunity to witness, I can start now.

I won't rehash the things I've posted on previous blogs, but believe me when I tell you every fibre of my being was crushed when I lost the second baby, and it took me a long time to be "okay" again. I had to surrender my desire for another baby completely before I could move forward. But I am here to tell you that if you lay even the most hopeless, bleak situation at the foot of the cross, it will be redeemed. There is absolutely nothing that is so broken that God cannot redeem it. Trust me. I'm holding redemption in my arms right now. 

"Test me in this," says the Lord Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgate of Heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be enough room to store it."

((Malachi 3:10))