We are wrapping up Levi’s first week of life. Sometimes I have to remind myself that he has only been on Earth for seven days—that Ether and I have only been parents for seven days. I don’t even know where to begin! I don’t know what to say. All I know is that you should never deny a mother’s instincts. I went into the last week feeling like his arrival was just around the corner, despite not being able to pinpoint on which day exactly he would come. I just felt like it would be soon. And this feeling really only came when I caught myself catching up on the last little bits of “nesting” the week previous. They always say that one of the signs that labor is impending is the last surge of energy that the to-be mother feels, which she channels into nesting. And that is exactly what I did. I nested! And he came! He came suddenly and beautifully. He took us by surprise and our lives have been forever changed.
My first big contraction happened on 9/28/17 at 1:48 a.m. I woke up feeling an extreme tightening in my stomach and my lower back. It hurt…a lot. Like, a lot. I thought that I needed to have a massive bowel movement, so I proceeded to the bathroom to try to poop. Nada. I went back to bed and laid back down, still thinking that perhaps I was just experiencing a massive contractions-triggering stomachache. I was able to fall back asleep—but only for another half an hour. At 2:21 a.m. I was again awoken by the same type of painful contraction. It hurt so much! I remember needing to breathe in and out really deeply. Oh man. It hurt. I have no idea how some women make it through the entire labor process unmedicated. I could never do it. I’m just a sucker for pain! The epidural has its own but it gave me so much relief during the last six hours of labor!
Anyways, after my 2:21 a.m. contraction, I decided that I needed to start recording down how frequently I was contracting. I also decided that I would factor in the contractions I had been feeling before going to bed (on 9/27/17): 9:58 p.m. 10:13 p.m. 10:33 p.m. 11:30 p.m. 12:30 a.m. You also have to understand that I remember thinking—right before I fell asleep—that because my 11:30 p.m. and 12:30 p.m. contractions were an hour apart, there was no way that that was true labor. I went to bed on Wednesday night (technically early Thursday morning since I fell asleep after midnight) completely unaware that I would have a baby in my arms within the next 24 hours!
A 2:31 a.m. contraction followed the 2:21 a.m. contraction. Then, 2:36 a.m. 2:49 a.m. 2:59 a.m. And on and on this went, with my contractions being 10-15 minutes apart. I laid in bed contracting on my own. I refused to wake Ether up for something that I wasn’t even sure was happening. I didn’t want to get our hopes up, and I wasn’t sure that I was mentally prepared to admit to myself that if this was true, active labor, that we would need to go to the hospital. So, I labored alone (without awaking Ether) for two hours. In the span of those two hours, the contractions began to become more and more intense. Finally, right around 4 a.m. I decided that I couldn’t just be in pain on my own anymore. I nudged Ether awake and whispered, “I’ve been contracting for the past two hours.”
Bless Ether’s heart. If I hadn’t been prepared to go into labor, my sweet man was definitely not prepared for me to go into labor!
After Ether woke up, things became real. My contractions began to increase in intensity and frequency. I had to get into cat-cow position (all fours on the ground) every time a contraction hit, alternating between that and leaning, on my knees, against the side of the bed. I know I said this earlier, but I still can’t get over HOW MUCH CONTRACTIONS HURT! Every pregnant woman always asks the question, “What does a contraction feel like?” and the answer is always, “You’ll know when you know!” Boy let me tell you—you will know when you know! I still can’t believe I felt those contractions for a straight 10 hours before my epidural. Makes me so grateful for the female body and the amazing things it is capable of doing!
As I contracted at home from 6-7 a.m., Ether and I stuffed all of our necessities into our hospital bag in between contraction breaks. Packing up our hospital bag seemed to do it: it became real to us. This was it! We had debated leaving to the hospital for three hours now, and we finally decided that my contractions were occurring frequently enough that it warranted a trip to Labor and Delivery. I decided to take a shower and asked Ether to bring a chair into the bath tub for me to lean on whenever a contraction hit. The shower made me feel a tad better, but I also remember feeling so uncertain and so scared. I didn’t want to go to L&D only to be turned away; I felt like I would be so embarrassed and disappointed at myself for thinking that my baby was coming. I asked Ether for a blessing, which he willingly gave, and I was still in shock that this could be it. I felt a million emotions that hour! Was Baby really coming? Was this really it? He was still 12 days away from his due date! Yes, he was full-term, but was this really happening?
When Ether & I got to Labor & Delivery at 7:30 a.m., they put us in an observation room to monitor how I was doing. A nurse came in to check how far along dilated I was. Only the very day before had I gone in to see my OBGYN, and at that check-up I was only a cm dilated. Lo and behold! That very next morning I had gone from a 1 cm dilated to 2.5 cm! My OB came in and told me that I was in active labor because my cervix had changed (+ I was contracting like crazy). This was it! I was going to birth my baby boy that day!
We were transferred to an actual L&D room about two hours later, and as I sit here and think back on my entire labor experience in the hospital that day, I am once again blown away by the tenacity of the female body in the pregnancy/birth process! I am also immensely grateful for Ether’s support. He held my hand through every contraction and allowed me to squeeze it as tightly as I needed to. He breathed through each contraction with me. On the outside it doesn’t sound like much, but to keep up with a laboring woman’s deep inhalations is no joke! Dries your mouth out very fast—plus he was standing by my bedside the whole time! For the entire 14 hours that I was in the hospital!
I have to highlight, however, what I feel like was the second most tender moment that Ether & I experienced together in the hospital, after Levi’s birth.
I had made up my mind from the very beginning that I was going to get an epidural. Ether and I had attended a prenatal class on it and we had seen how big that darn epidural needle is. We knew very well what the epidural procedure would be, and it wasn’t like I was going into this blindly. For some reason, however, right before it was time for the anesthetist to come in, I had my first breakdown. All I could think of was the giant needle that would go into my spine. It was going to be the biggest needle ever to be placed into my body, and that. Freaked. Me. Out. Ether & I said a quick prayer together but I was basically sobbing the entire time. My emotions were getting the best of me, and I didn’t know how to calm myself down. (Looking back, it was also probably because I was so tired! It had been 9+ hours since my labor had begun and all the contracting and 9+ hours of “what-if-this” and “what-if-that”s were getting the best of me.) Anyhow, the tears didn’t get any better when the anesthetist finally did come in. He talked me through about what he would be doing, and that only freaked me out more. Only later did I also find out from Ether that he was scared as heck in that moment too. Ether hates needles, and he himself was fighting back tears as he watched his wife deal with the biggest needle of her life. I’m probably over-dramatizing this epidural scene, but in that very moment of fear, Ether pulled through for me. Supported me. Comforted me. As he always does, in everything. I am so grateful for my first main man.
After the epidural set in, I continued to dilate a little faster than before. I had been stuck at a 3 or 4 for about five hours, and the epidural was meant to help my body relax so that my contractions could kick in at a more forceful pace. The nurses also hooked me up on Pitocin, which likewise helped to keep things moving. It was the strangest feeling to look at the computer monitor, see that I was contracting, but not feel anything! Talk about anesthesia (the epidural)! And talk about that Pitocin! Luckily my body reacted well to these drugs. While I had to keep waiting a few more hours before I would finally get to a 8, 9 or a 10, things sped up very quickly after all the medicine.
One of the final stages in labor is known as transitional labor. We learnt in prenatal class that every woman reacts differently when at this stage. Some women cry out loudly, some women go kind of crazy (literally), some women are simply quiet. When I entered this phase, my body couldn’t stop shaking. I was literally shivering from feeling so “cold”. It was a combination of the numbness of the epidural and my body prepping itself to give birth to Levi. When at this stage, my contractions finally picked up, and before I knew it, I was dilated to an 8.
Everything after my 8 cm dilation was a blur. It all happened so quickly. One minute the nurse was telling me that she would call in the doctor “shortly;” the next minute, that “shortly” turned into right then and there. I just remember her leaving the room to go talk with the doctor, and immediately after she left I felt this strange, intense, wonderful, beautiful feeling that my baby was coming. Despite being completely numb from the waist down, I literally felt like a giant poop was fighting its way out of my bum. I knew that that feeling was my baby’s head pushing against my pelvis, and I felt like that catheter that had been placed inside me was going to slip out of my butt by itself—which it wasn’t supposed to…unless your baby was coming. I looked up at Ether and said with a look of 100% seriousness, said, “Get the nurse. He’s coming. He’s coming. I feel like my catheter is about to slip out. He’s coming.” Ether grabbed the nurse, who checked me again and confirmed that I was a 10. It was push-time, baby.
Giving birth has got to be one of the most amazing parts of life. I am touched to tears every time I recollect that last, sweet hour of pushing Levi out. I knew he was coming. I could feel his head move further and further down the birth canal, and although it was hard for me to push with such strength—it had been 19 hours of labor!—I kept pushing anyways. I pushed and pushed and pushed and just thought of my baby squeezing his way out of my body. Ether stood by my side and counted out loud for me, “1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-push!” over and over again. Before I knew it, the doctor was in the room, by the bottom of my bed. He told me that I needed an episiotomy to prevent further tearing, and by that time I didn’t even care anymore that my woman part was about to be scissored open. I knew it would help my baby progress down the canal and I was all for it. I kept pushing as Ether kept counting, and soon the doctor told Ether that he could see baby’s head + hair! Ether looked down, saw the top of baby’s head, turned to me and told me what he saw, turned back to look down, and wha?! Baby was out! Ether described it as lightning fast. One minute baby’s head was poking out, the next minute the doctor stuck his hand inside me to pull baby out, and baby came flying out!
I did it! 19 hours of labor and I did it! Levi let out his first cry and I just sobbed. Did I really just give birth to another human being? Was my baby really here? After 9 months of carrying him, was he really here with me?
I am so grateful—so, so, so grateful—that although I labored long and uncomfortably, that there were no complications throughout the entire L&D process. I know that some women have a harder time than others, but I just want to say that all women who give birth deserve a trophy—regardless of how fast, slow, easy, or difficult their birthing process was. I am thankful that Levi is here with us to stay. He is the next best thing to have ever happened to me, after Ether. I love my little family. And I love this little human who made me a mother.
love, Kim
