Birth

We wake up at 6am. I slept some, but honestly, not much. She’s coming today. 

I make a small cup of black coffee that I don’t finish and have some water. We wash sheets and towels, finish packing, and get in the car.

We’re going to the hospital.

I drive, wanting to enjoy the last time I’ll do that for a while. There is traffic, but we manage to go around and get there without too much delay. Walking into the hospital feels like dreaming. I’m not going to be pregnant anymore when I leave.

We step into an elevator and a nurse says, “Labor and delivery?” 

“Why, do I look pregnant?” I reply.

He laughs. “Sorry to break it to you, but it’s obvious.”

We get checked in, and I’m taken back to my labor and delivery room. I’m told to change into a hospital gown, and it hits me - this is happening. I’m going in for surgery and they’re going to cut a baby out of me.

I start to get nervous. But I change into the gown.

The nurse comes in to get things started and another draws blood and starts an IV in my right arm after a failed jab on my left. Then the anesthesia resident comes in and goes over what’s going to happen. He is nice, and my nervousness increases. 

I’m scheduled for 10:30 AM, but my doc is ready a little early. I am asked if I would like to walk back myself or if I’d prefer to be wheeled back in a bed. I decide I want to walk back myself. It feels more in control, even though the outcome is the same. And in the moment, I imagine that it communicates something to everyone else and to myself: I’m capable. I can do this.

We head back. My partner hugs me before I walk myself to the OR. He and my doula will join me after the epidural is placed. 

So back I go, and it’s a real honest to god operating room. I don’t know what I expected, but here I am. Bright lights glittering across steel instruments, white tile, everyone standing around in hair nets, masks, and gloves. It’s cold and sterile, and I feel small. Deep breath.

They instruct me to sit on the operating table, but I need a stepping stool to get there. They have one of those, so I climb up onto the table, and they put monitors on me in preparation for anesthesia.

Nervousness is now anxiety. The reality of what is about to happen is buzzing in my periphery. I am going to be awake for major abdominal surgery. I am brought to the realization that if I think about this very much, I’ll panic.

So I decide to not to that, and instead, just do one step at a time, as they tell me, without thinking of what’s next. 

I’m asked to hunch over, and say to my nurse, “I’m about to fall off this motherfucker.” I guess making myself laugh is the most helpful and soothing thing I can think to do. She steps forward and I lean into her as they put Lidocaine in my back. It stings like hell for a few seconds, but it’s quick. Then the strangest pressure as they thread the epidural into my spine. I keep breathing. In and out. One thing at a time.

During pregnancy, my friends and I joked that the pregnant experience becomes so undignified in its progression that by the end, whatever debased thing that happens manages to be tolerable. 

As I’m helped to lie back, I am treated to a humbling view of my spread open legs in the concave surgical mirror as they quickly and unsentimentally shave my upper pubic region and then roll orange antiseptic across my convex belly. Then I’m poked with needles. 

Well then. It’s no shitting on a table, but I imagine the polite lack of acknowledgment of a bizarre moment is similar. More weird for me than for them.

I can still feel the needles and say so. I get nervous again. They up the epidural and lean me back. The sensation of numbness travels further up my abdomen (I will be told later that they had to do this for my mother, too - red hair thing, maybe). 

They test again. “I can feel them messing around,” I say.

“She’s poking you with something pretty sharp. Can you tell?”

“No.” 

They let my partner and doula into the room, and they arrange themselves by my head. My doula takes photos as she is inspired and plays the playlist I quickly curated while waiting. 

The surgery begins without any fanfare, or even acknowledgement, really, and my doula lets us know. I can already tell by the sensation of pulling and tugging in my abdomen. It is weird, it is uncomfortable and unsettling, but it is doable. There isn’t pain, per say, but it feels challenging to draw breath in the most intense moments. It is the closest I have ever come to mortal injury. 

I breathe slowly and lock eyes with my partner. He strokes my head and reassures me. Later, he will tell me that my heart rate stayed steady, but my blood pressure jumped around wildly. It was managed well with medication. The pressure and tugging gets more intense and I am sure they must be close. I keep breathing, closing my eyes to center and locking eyes with my partner to calm.

“She’s almost here,” he says to me. 

And then the pressure softens and I hear her cry. “Short cord!” I hear someone declare, which accounted for a small delay in getting her up to where I could see her. It is probably also why she wasn’t able to turn over from breech position. But then the doctor lifts her up over the sheet and I see my daughter for the first time. Unconsciously, my arms start to reach up for her, but it ends up being more of an uncoordinated flail. “Oh my god!” I gasp. My partner and I begin to weep together and he puts his forehead to mine. “What the fuck,” I laugh. He laughs with me. 

They take her to the warming table to clear out fluid that I didn’t get to squeeze out for her, she poops for the first time, and they begin sewing everything back up. The pressure from that is still noticeable and uncomfortable, but it’s different, and I have a powerful distraction looking for my girl across the room. 

I start to feel a little nauseous, and say so to the anesthesiologist. 

“I think I’m feeling some nausea?”

“Okay. We gave you something just now, so that should help. And also some of that feeling is just because…” the anesthesiologist trails off.

“My guts are out?”

“Yes,” he says seriously.

A resident laughs.

They then place her on my chest, and we gaze at her while my surgery finishes. She cries, disoriented and uncertain in this new cold space. Then she relaxes as the familiarity of my warmth settles her.

I feel uncertain, too. Flat on my back and unable to feel below my waist, I am not in an ideal position to put my arms around her. It will be the first of many moments to come in which I feel awe and inadequacy at the same time.

Once I’m stitched up, they put her in a bassinet and roll us both out of the OR and into recovery. There, she nurses for the first time and I just focus on that for a while. Recovery will be hard, painful, exhausting, and at times, dehumanizing. My time at the hospital will be difficult.

But this moment is good. My daughter lives and breathes. My baby is here.

If you enjoyed this post, feel free to Buy Me a Coffee Here