My baby turned two months old yesterday. I can’t believe it has already been 60 days since I was holding him for the first time in the hospital. I remember thinking how much he looked like his daddy. I remember feeling calm; happy. I was ready to learn how to be a mom.
I was due on November 24. But my Mom had a feeling about the 11th and we thought the 17th had a nice ring to it. (that was actually my original due date so I thought it was more accurate) So, my sweet mom came up from Utah on the 10th—just in case the baby decided to come then. Well, he didn’t. He didn’t come on the 17th either. For those three weeks, my mom and I just went to movies, shopped, talked and walked. We read and read, mostly baby books specifically: “What to Expect When You’re Expecting,” which became our bible. She told birth stories and we talked everything through.
I was never one to do well with medical things. I passed out during my kindergarten shots and then again when I got my cholesterol checked in third grade. I even fainted when I got my ears pierced…there was a needle involved. So…I was a little nervous that I wasn’t going to be able to handle the whole labor and delivery. For months I was mentally preparing myself. I watched YouTube videos of every kind of birth technique---even the c-sections. I decided that I wanted this baby bad enough to go through all of this in order to get him here. I just wanted it as natural as possible. The less needles the better. The synthetic medical treatments freaked me out more than natural childbirth. Pitocin. The doctor breaking my water. The epidural. I realized it wasn’t the pain or the natural things your body goes through in labor that scared me. It was the modern involvement.
I figured my body would know what to do. It had come this far. So why not let it run its course and get this baby out.
Well…Cameron had other plans.
I was contracting every night for three weeks. Wake-me-up-in-the-night contractions. But nothing. They would last for two hours from 2 a.m. to 4 then it would stop.
The baby wasn’t dropping. At my due date appointment, the doctor said I had one more week maybe two! (My Mom and I decided that Dr. Edstrom had put a hex me, so the baby wouldn’t come before the Dr. got back from China.) The problem was I was running out of November. I had made a decision to quit caregiving in December to recover and take care of the baby…well, if I don’t work I don’t have insurance. So, I had everything figured out that the new insurance would start on December 1. The difference between a November birthday and a December birthday was going to be about $10,000.
…sigh….
There went my natural delivery. Bring on the needles. The Pitocin. The epidural. Everything I didn’t want.
I remember the night I mourned my “perfect” childbirth. I was up in the night with more contractions. When I went to the bathroom the contractions had slowed down and I knew it wasn’t it. I knew I wasn’t going to be having this baby like I wanted to. I wasn’t going to feel all the sensations of the most miraculous human experience. I wasn’t going to conquer childbirth and join the ranks of the women warriors.
I knelt down on the tile floor and just cried. I cried and cried.
When I was done mourning and feeling bad for myself, I realized this was the beginning; the beginning of the sacrifices. I had to do what was best for my baby. It didn’t really matter if I got what I wanted out of this delivery—all that mattered was that he made it here safe and healthy.
I was at peace with being induced and at that moment I knew I would be at peace with any decision the doctor made in order to bring me my baby.
On Saturday morning at 5 a.m., November 28, 2009, I got packed for the hospital. Ben gave me a blessing of comfort and strength and we drove to the hospital.
It was the most surreal experience. We had imagined the chaos of my water breaking and the contractions building. But this was nothing like that. We were calm and joking around. We made jokes with the nursing staff and smiled the whole time.
I still didn’t want too many needles and drugs so I brawled Pitocin all naturale (well, minus one dose of loopy drugs that I kept referring to as my two glasses of wine)…for 12 hours! The Dr broke my water and did some other odd balloon procedure to manually dilate me but nothing worked. The baby without a name would not drop.
Finally, at 8 p.m. when the nurse told me it was going to be another five hours at least, I got an epidural. The anesthesiologist, Dr. Brown, had the most calming personality. When he walked in the room I knew I could trust him. I felt this calming feeling and I knew I could handle a needle going into my spine. Me! Remember, the one who passes out during health class! Yes, I felt calm enough to sit still and not faint. And I didn’t. It was a little miracle in itself. My mom and my wonderful nurse helped me through it. My epidural was just enough that I could still feel my legs but no pain.
After that I was able to sleep. As I was lying there, all the sudden a group of five or six nurses flipped on the light and burled into the room. Something was definitely wrong. Three nurses twisted and pulled me into all sorts of different positions, while another nurse messed with my IV and the two more watched the monitor screen. The baby’s heart rate was dropping. Normal fetal heart rates are at about 170 and my baby dropped to 60.
The mood in the room was no longer lighthearted. I began to cry, but I quickly pulled in the tears and tried to stay calm. “Everything was going to be alright.” Then my mom started her worried eyes. And Ben stared out the window, trying to distract himself. He was really upset but he didn’t want to cry. He knew that would upset me. Watching him, I felt grateful that we had waited these four years to have a baby. I know him. I know he was caring and praying for me. But he couldn’t hold my hand at that moment. He knew I didn’t need him to hold me. He knows when I need him to hold me and I didn’t need that right then. All I needed was for him to not cry. We couldn’t lose it. We had to keep it together. Ben later told me he thought for a moment that he might lose our little boy.
We carried on for a few more hours. But with every hard contraction the baby’s heart rate would drop. Never as low as that traumatic time but he was in distress. We had been in labor for 18 hours, when the doctor advised a C-section. The baby was turned out toward my hips instead of faced down and he couldn’t turn. The doctor said the baby was still a little high to turn him manually and with the heart rate dropping it would be too much for him anyway.
Even though I wished I could have delivered him, I knew a C-section was best at this point. They wheeled me into the operating room. A sterile, white room with huge bright lights on the ceiling. I was strapped to the table with my arms outstretched. As I was waiting for Ben, I started to panic. I couldn’t handle this room without him. Dr. Brown was there again as the anesthesiologist but I didn’t feel the calming aura until Ben came into the room. He held my hand. He knew I couldn’t do this without him. Ben looked me in the eyes and I didn’t have to say anything. For a moment he put his hand on my head and closed his eyes. Still without saying a word, he was giving me a blessing just at the moment I needed it. I don’t know exactly what he said but I could feel the spirit of comfort overwhelm me that everything was going to be alright.
Then, I heard him cry.
My baby was here.
All I wanted to do was see him. From across the room, I finally got a glimpse of my little boy and I started to cry. I was so happy to see him. I loved him so much already and felt like I knew him. He was my boy. We had already spent nine months together. I knew he got the hiccups in the afternoon and slept a lot in the evenings. I knew he got up at 2 a.m. and was going to have a hard time sitting still. But more than anything I knew he was going to make me and Ben happy.
And he really does. I love my sweet baby Cameron.
