150

For Emmy's 150th day I wanted to share something special to celebrate.

I've had quite a few friends and mamas who keep telling me that they know nothing about my birth story. I've wanted to share it for a long time but I wanted to wait until it felt right with me to do so. I think there are a few things I should be clear on from the beginning. One, I had an amazing birth experience with very little complications. Two, for the last few months I have struggled in being completely disappointed in myself and how my birth went.

If there's anything that I should have taught myself by now, it's that things never go as I plan. Seriously, if I had ever kept track of my life's plans and how they've worked out, I would confidently say that 95% of the time they never go like I want them to. And for some reason I've always struggled with that. It's taken me a long time to not only realize that I need a back up plan, but I need to be okay when I use that back up plan. Emmy's birth was a huge life changer. Not only because I got to meet my little bird for the first time, but because (even though it was months later) it's taught me to finally accept that things don't always go as planned, but that doesn't always have to be a bad thing.

The funny thing was, I didn't even have a birth plan. Nope. I had my midwives, I had M, and I knew that sooner or later that baby would get here. But I dreamed constantly of how I wanted it to go. My 'dream birth plan' was pretty much set in early pregnancy. I wanted an all natural, low stress, at home water birth. And as usual, the actual birth ended up being exactly opposite that. I early labored for five days, hardly able to sleep, with no appetite, and stressing constantly about my mom's arrival (When would she buy her ticket, would she make it in time, was she coming at all?). My midwife has talked me out of a water birth months previously and we ended up in an apartment complex where I was not comfortable giving birth. It was already everything I never wanted and I wasn't even pushing at this point. All stories need a beginning though, and I think the place that I'd like to start is the night before Emmy was born.

I remember being nervous and excited, but all of that's typical. It was Monday, February 4th, the day before Emmy's due date. Like every mama I just wanted to meet her. I knew that things would progress when the baby wanted them to, and I had spent the last five days or so reading books and taking things slowly. I was having real, painful contractions at this point but they just wouldn't progress into a pattern that could be timed. They would quicken up, start to get into a pattern, and then stop completely for a while. It was so frustrating and I just wanted everything to begin. At the same time, I knew that M and I would not get to have alone time for a long time after baby was here (She didn't have a name at this point!) so the night before my due date, we went out for dinner. We went out to a small Korean restaurant for some green tea and bibimbap (thumbs up if you know what that is!). I remember him helping me out of the car, I remember the snow and how it fell past the streetlamps, and I remember us getting a ticket for parking in taxi parking -- oops. One of the things that I remember most is us joking how the baby would come tomorrow, on her due date, just because my favorite sushi place was closed on Tuesdays and I had been saying for weeks that would be my first post baby meal!

I slept horribly that night. I'm guessing I didn't even get four hours of sleep from 9 to 9, I was hot and big bellied and the contractions were not kind! I decided that if baby could do whatever she wanted, mama was going to do the same -- I made plans to meet a friend at the mall and get lunch. I got in the shower around 10:30 AM and while washing my hair, started having really bad back pain. I remember thinking, no problem, I'll just stretch and maybe something will move back into place. I put my hands on the shower wall, turned my hips, and - pop! I froze. Was that my water breaking? I had read so many books on labor and so many moms said there was some kind of popping noise, like a rubberband snapping or a knuckle cracking. I was in the shower and couldn't tell what was going on. My heart was racing and I quickly got out of the shower and went back to our bedroom, sopping wet and covered in a towel and sat next to M. I sat there for a few minutes not knowing what to say. "Hey, baby. Do you wanna get up now?"

He grumbled sleepily and asked why. I replied with, "I think my water just broke" and I've never seen him get up so quickly in his life. All at once he was getting dressed and handing me my phone, urging me to call my midwife. I was still so unsure if anything had happened at all, because nothing was progressing. There was no gushing water ("It'll fill your shoes" is what my midwives always said) and the contractions were still here and there. I called Myriam to let her know, and she said she would be over in an hour or so. By the time she arrived, things were starting to get serious. My contractions were about five minutes apart, and the pain was really intense. She asked if I wanted to know how far along I was, and I was curious -- but only 3 cm along. She told me to take it slow, have something small to eat if I could and take another bath. She gave me the instructions to call her back when my contractions were 3 minutes apart, and I don't think either one of us expected me to be calling her back 40 minutes later. By the time she got to our house again, I had thrown up twice, and when she arrived I was curled up on the rug in the kitchen. M was amazing the whole time -- holding my hand, applying pressure, reminding me to breathe through each minute long contraction. Myriam checked me again, and I was only at a 4. Seeing what pain I was in and knowing that I had been having painful contractions for days, she suggested we head to the hospital to look into our options. She mentioned a shot of morphine to help, if it was possible she wanted me to get some sleep and rest before our baby made her grand appearance.

We arrived at the hospital around a half hour later. I remember being in the labor and delivery triage, where there are a few beds separated by curtains, listening to the scene unfold next to me. A young woman and her hubby had just come in and were telling everyone that her water just broke. Her contractions hadn't started and she was a chipper thing, making call after call to tell everyone she knew that her water broke. And here I was in the next bed over, groaning and cursing M every two and a half minutes. He kept jokingly telling me to keep it down, saying I was going to scare her! When Myriam next checked me it was around 3 PM, and by then I was dilated to 6 CM. She gave me two options. Have a shot of morphine and go home until I was dilated to 8, or have an epidural and stay in the hospital. I didn't know what to choose. My own mother, who was on her way from Florida, had three labors so quick that she never had time for an epidural. She was the first one who gave me birth advice, and it was "to get a f'ing epidural the moment you can" (maybe not the most reassuring or natural person, but at least she's honest). With the way things were progressing, I was worried that I may end up having the baby at home or on the way back to the hospital. I was exhausted, starving, and just wanted to meet my baby. And not to mention the back labor. I've had kidney stones, broken bones and been in all sorts of accidents, but in those moments it felt like someone was taking a hatchet into my back and digging it in deeper and deeper. As dramatic as that sounds it's true -- maybe I'm just bad at dealing with pain. So much for all the prenatal relaxing techniques we took classes on. 

 I don't remember what discussion M and I had that led me to choosing an epidural. I don't remember being wheeled into a delivery room, I don't remember being hooked up to an IV or anything the anesthesiologist said before he gave me the epidural. The thing I remember most about this time is my midwife and I being alone in the room, and her looking over at me saying, "I think you made the right choice." 

Since I had chosen an epidural, my care was now in the hands of the obstetrician and the hospital staff. No one explained this to me before my decision, or maybe I was just too tired to have remembered it from a previous midwife appointment, but this is where I got lucky. The obstetrician on the floor was allowing my midwife to deliver, which Myriam noted was really rare in Kingston and it had never happened to her before. I don't think I could ever explain in words how much my midwives meant and still mean to me. I don't have any family in Canada and by the time my due date had arrived I felt like blood to these women. I trusted them with my life and my babies life, and I wouldn't say that about some of my relatives. The fact that Myriam was going to be able to deliver my baby and support me through birth meant a great deal. 

The next few hours were a blur. I was so tired and tried to sleep but either a visitor or a nurse woke me up every twenty minutes or so. I was also so excited that I just couldn't, I was almost delirious from running on no food and no sleep,  but I never felt more ready to give something my all. Around 9 PM I started pushing, and not being able to feel a thing, it was hard. I wanted my body to be in control but I had other people telling me what to do and when. Not to say that everyone wasn't absolutely amazing -- they were, but having someone else be in control of your body is not the same. I pushed for around an hour until they decided to let me rest again. It was around midnight when they came back in, and after another hour of pushing, the epidural was starting to wear off. Finally it was my body telling me when to push and the urges were amazing. At first they were small urges, but as the minutes ticked by I was able to tell more and more when to push. I specifically remember the obstetrician coming to check on us at one point and talking to me, and in the middle of her talking I said "shhh!" and gave a big push. 

Everyone was so supportive. M held my hands, my head, my legs, anything that I needed. He's always been reliable but I don't think I've ever felt so much overwhelming trust and love for him like I did in those moments. It's totally cheesy but looking at him while I pushed really helped, there was so much love between us (my midwife Susan said we were one of her favorite couples ever, but I think she says that to everyone!) and there was nothing better than having someone who I care for so much to support me. He has always been the calm center of my crazy storm, and I think things would have gone differently in the birth if he hadn't been there. 

Around 1:40 AM things quickly changed. We could all see the top of the her every time I pushed, but in between that her heartbeat was starting to drop. They had me change positions a few times but it wasn't recovering quick enough. I don't even know what's the lowest that it got down to, I remember seeing it at 72 before M changed sides and blocked my view (probably intentionally). I remember holding his hands tight while the machine's alarm continued to sound, asking him a few times a minute if she was going to be okay. He reassured me every time, but within minutes the obstetrician was back in the room. They turned down the machine while the team chatted with my midwife. The baby's heart rate wasn't coming back up. The obstetrician was explaining to us now that if she wasn't out in a few pushes then they would need to use the forceps to assist her. She started explaining the possible side effects, including bleeding under the scalp, and at this point I stopped listening. I knew I could do this and I needed to get it done quickly. Something in me just changed and I felt more determined than ever. The epidural had worn off by this time And after that it only took three pushes for our baby to be in my arms. 

She didn't cry very much, just a few short  cries before she nestled onto my chest. She was just as exhausted as I was and didn't want to nurse, just laid there quietly in mine and her daddy's arms for hours and hours. She had been born at 1:45 am, missing her due date by mere hours, was 7 pounds and 7 ounces, and the squishiest, most beautiful thing i had ever seen. I don't remember anything happening around us during this time (except the stitches, oh how could I ever forget about that!). I mostly just remember M, me, and our new little Emmy bird (she looked like an Emmy, and so she was -- although we didn't officially register her name for about a month!). We were discharged hours later and went home with our not-even-day-old baby where we belonged. We found out later that the change in her heart rate was caused by a compressed cord, along with her being in distress. She was not the happiest of camper to come into this world -- not only did she poop all over me within seconds of meeting me, but she literally cried for a day straight after we brought her home. Luckily she has grown into such an amazing happy girl. 

So that's our birth story. A little dramatic, a little unexpected, and something I will remember for the rest of my life. The pure overwhelming joy I felt, even though I was exhausted and starving, when I got to hold my baby in my arms after months of feeling her dance, kick and hiccup in my stomach.. Nothing can describe it. I do wish some of it had gone differently. I wish that I had gone with my first instincts of wanting a water birth. I wish that I hadn't gone through days of early labor and been so exhausted, but I know I couldn't help that. After battling my decision to have an epidural for months, I have accepted it. It doesn't make me less of a woman and I still gave birth naturally. I am happy that at the end I was able to feel my daughter being born, and not at all surprised how much easier it was to give birth when I could feel what my body wanted me to feel. I struggled a long time with how things went and it took some self pitying and regret, but one day while watching Emmy sleep in my arms I threw away all the negativity and time I was spending on bringing myself down. I made this beautiful thing and I brought her into this world! She's here! The way she was birthed does not define what type of mother I am or what type of child she will be. In the end, all that matters is that she got here safe and happy. I've always told her that she's been trouble since day one, but we wouldn't have her any other way.