Here is the story of how our second, amazing human was brought earthside.
I’ll start by saying that my pregnancy was awful and I was counting the minutes until the baby came out. Luckily, nothing was wrong with the pregnancy itself, but not only was I pregnant, but Gabriel was a toddler, we had a puppy, and I was endlessly sick with multiple viruses, including covid. At one point I had cold and flu symptoms for 7 weeks. My SI joints were in pretty bad pain, I was swollen, I was exhausted and having insomnia, and I was just SO large. I could not WAIT to get this baby out.
So naturally, he took his time. I was due on March 28th, and my contractions began on March 27th at about 2am. Manuel came flying into the room at about 1 in the morning. He woke me up and I was immediately angry because I couldn’t fall back asleep and had been having such bad pregnancy insomnia. I felt a little hot and nauseous so I decided to get up, take some Gravol and a Tylenol, and have a bath. While in the bath I started to feel more off and just couldn’t calm down enough to get myself comfortable. I got my large self up and out of the tub and started feeling sick to my stomach and then I lost my mucus plug as well as a bit of water. I immediately knew that my labour was starting. Not long after, I started experiencing contractions. I remember the midwives saying that once the contractions start, to take some Gravol and Tylenol and try to get some sleep, but there was no rest or sleep to be had. I began timing my contractions and they were pretty consistently 4-5 minutes apart right from the beginning. After about an hour they became even more consistent and were about 1 minute long. Manuel woke up and I told him I was in labour. He said “yessss!” and I had him take over timing my contractions, since they were getting too intense for me to be able to focus on the timer. Contractions were coming in every 3 minutes at 1 minute in duration pretty consistently after about an hour-ish of them starting.
We decided to call Manuel’s mom Vicky to come over to be here for Gabriel and Cedar (the pup), thinking that by time she got here, we would have a plan with the doula and midwife. So Manuel then called our doula Joshuelle, who agreed to meet us at the hospital. He called the midwives (funny story, I couldn’t find where I had saved the emergency pager number and I was so out of it from the intensity of the contractions that I couldn’t focus well enough to realize how I had saved it, but somehow we found it) and they said we should head over to the hospital.
Vicky arrived here around 4ish in the morning. I tried to eat some oatmeal and drink some fluids but the contractions were just too intense. Every time I moved, a new contraction came on harder and longer. I had to bum shuffle down the stairs and to the front door. We got to the car and I remember being so uncomfortable in the less than 10-minute drive to the hospital. We got there and Manuel loaded me into a wheelchair and Joshuelle took me up to admissions while Manuel parked the car. The midwife Sarah brought us in and had me change. She checked me out and determined my water had not actually broken but confirmed I was fully effaced and 3cm dilated. They took me into a labour room and things got real.
I opted for an unmedicated/natural hospital birth, but was open to using medications if required. I started off with squeezing a comb in my hand and laying with the peanut shaped birth ball between my knees. I changed positions (which I hated, because nobody warns you that moving actually brings on the biggest contraction you’ve experienced so far). When that stopped working, I moved to using the TENS machine. I was so freaking exhausted that, believe it or not, I actually was falling asleep between almost every contraction, and waking back up again just to breathe through it, only to repeat the cycle over and over. Sarah and Joshuelle got Manuel to eventually help me into the jacuzzi. But I was only allowed to stay in there for 45 minutes because they needed to be monitoring the baby’s heartrate and couldn’t have the monitors off for more than 45 minutes. I remember completely passing out in the jacuzzi between each contraction and feeling so much more relief being in the tub. Getting out was a chore because of course the contractions were still coming harder and faster, and now I knew what was coming. I got back onto the bed and I think I went back to using the TENS machine for a bit. The pain was extremely intense. I counted my breaths and used affirmations to help keep me grounded. I barely opened my eyes. Eventually, with Joshuelle’s advocacy, we switched to using nitrous oxide, or laughing gas. Let me tell you, it did not make me laugh. BUT, it did completely take the edge off and it was a total game changer. Even Manuel noticed how well it worked for me. I figured out how and when to inhale just before a contraction started and I could relax a lot better once I had it on. Still, I was in and out of sleep.
It was around lunchtime when I felt the… ejection reflex? kick in. It was like the urge to push but my body was naturally pushing for me. I felt like I couldn’t control it, similar to that feeling when you have to throw up. Your body just contorts and gets it out for you. Of course it started happening when Sarah was on her lunch break and a nurse was overseeing. The nurse wanted me to try to hold off from pushing because it wasn’t quite time yet. So I tried my best to breathe through it even though everything in my body needed to start pushing. My mind was telling me this was great, that after a few pushes, the baby would be out and it would all be over. The midwife came back from lunch and did a quick check, but I was still not fully dilated. I think I was around 8 and a bit cm dilated. She said if my body was telling me to push, I could, but I risked having some inflammation, and probably other things which I can’t remember now. So I just listened to my body and pushed when I felt those major reflexes to do so. They did not happen each contraction so I pushed when it was time.
By this time the second midwife had joined the team, it was disgustingly hot in the labour room (everyone was complaining about it), and I was dripping sweat. I remember trying to push on the toilet, pushing standing up, pushing on my knees on the bed, and just pushing and pushing, and the baby was not coming. I was so exhausted and I could feel my pulse racing. It felt like I was exercising in a sauna. I just kept mentally telling myself the baby was almost here and to keep going.
I was on my knees holding onto the back of the hospital bed when things started to change: Sarah suddenly became more stern and more direct and told me the baby needed to come out with the next push. I was pushing so hard with every contraction, but could not move that baby out. She told me she needed me to turn around immediately and told me where to put my legs and where to go. Before that, I didn’t really listen to her direction, and just did what I felt was right for my body, but I could tell by the tone in her voice that this time I needed to do what she said. She kept telling me the baby needed to come out. Manuel said he could see the baby’s head but try as I might, I just could not push him out. The baby was so low that they couldn’t track his pulse. The had a monitor on his head but it wasn’t staying on (I think??) and they kept reading my pulse rate of 170+ beats per minute, unsure if it was my pulse or his. In a directive tone, Sarah told me that she was calling the NICU team in for backup and the baby needed to come out now. Sarah was trying to stretch things out and facilitate the baby coming out but it wasn’t working. It turned out that he had shoulder dystocia. I didn’t know it at the time, but his shoulder was stuck in my pelvis and was causing him to be stuck in there which was why I was pushing for almost 2 hours before he finally made his appearance. Things were becoming so stressful that I was pushing even when I wasn’t having contractions because I wasn’t fully comprehending the directions, and the room was becoming tense. I just kept pushing and pushing trying to get him out. I was in fight or flight mode, sensing the change in the room, and the urgency with which she spoke.
She said she needed to do an episiotomy. This was a pretty big fear of mine, knowing I was completely unmedicated and had all my feeling down there. I remember saying “Noooooo” and Joshuelle asking if there were alternative options. But Sarah was adamant that it needed to happen because the baby needed to come out. So she made the cut and I remember a gurgling sound just coming from my throat. At the same time I had a contraction and a huge gush of fluid came shooting out. I heard a snapping sound and out came the baby! I was breathing like I had just run a marathon and they put him on me for immediate skin to skin. They had Manuel look at the baby to determine the sex and, for a second time, he shouted, “IT’S A BOY!”
Now after that stress you might think I’d be relieved but I was so worried that something had gone wrong, all I could say was “But he’s not breathing..” I felt a bit of panic but Sarah gave it a bit of time and soon came the breath. I don’t know if he cried right away or not. I got to hold him right away and they started cleaning things up. They took him for measurements and he weighed 8 lbs 9 oz. My only words were, “Jesus, no wonder why I was so miserable,” and someone laughed. He measured 21.75 inches and was born at 1:52pm, about 12 hours after my initial contractions started. He was perfectly fine and healthy!
Of course that wouldn’t be the end of things yet. I still had to push out the placenta and get stitched up myself. I opted at this point for a small shot of something.. pitocin? to help the placenta along. I just didn’t have it in me to be worried about potential risks or waiting another eternity for the afterbirth to happen.
At some point, Sarah informed me that the tool she used for the episiotomy was not sharp enough (WTF!) and so it actually just made a preliminary cut, and the contraction then caused a tear. It was a third degree tear which required internal stitches by an OB. Luckily it didn’t go all the way to the bumhole but it was still a pretty big tear. So I was stuck waiting in the hospital bed with my legs up in broken - yes, broken - stirrups, for another hour for the OB to arrive and then she had to stitch me up. It was at this point that I just lost all my composure. I was completely exhausted, sore, cut, hot/cold/smelly, and I just wanted to hold my baby. But because I didn’t have an epidural, I needed to get a local freezing and I was still using the laughing gas to help cope with it, so they didn’t allow me to hold the baby while all that poking and prodding and gas inhaling was happening. So I was shaky and crying and in a lot of extra pain while Manuel did skin to skin with our Theodore.
Eventually that all passed and I was allowed to get more comfortable and have that golden hour with my baby. I got to eat and got immediate heartburn, which I was so displeased about, because I thought it was going to disappear as soon as the baby came. My pulse and blood pressure were still really high so they wanted to monitor that. I was hoping to be able to get a same-day discharge but they recommended that we stay one night for monitoring. As soon as the next morning came I was asking for a discharge. My pulse and blood pressure were still high but coming down gradually. The baby was in great shape and otherwise so was I, so they let us head home by lunchtime.
I remember hoping that I was going to have that flooding feeling of love the same way I did with Gabriel, but for Teddy, it was much more gradual. We brought him home and he got to meet Cedar who immediately loved him. Then after a few hours, Vicky came to meet her grandson. She brought Gabriel home from daycare and he got to meet his “baby brudder.” We let him hold his brother and snuggle and it was the most heartwarming moment. We decided to name him Theodore Johnson. Theodore was a name we liked, and Johnson was a nickname my mom called my dad, so it was a way to honour her life, since we lost her to cancer 2 years before.
And now, Teddy is 7 months and Gabriel is 2 years and 10 months, and we are a whole family with two built-in best friends. The boys adore each other and Cedar loves both of them too. And we’re tired but we’re happy.
And so it is. XO.