The day I became a Mother
When I was pregnant, I watched a YouTube video, that showed a simulation of a baby growing inside the mother’s womb. Each detail was exciting to me, and I tracked where my baby was and where they would be in a few weeks. The video would end with the baby being pushed out due to contractions, and a real baby coming out of a woman and immediately placed on the abdomen of the new mother. This was the part where I cried uncontrollably, and I’m still crying to this day.
I was never into the whole, “birth plan” thing. Get me an epidural, and do what’s safe for my baby. That was the birth plan. I knew better than to expect some magical, crunchy mom moment of hipster perfection.
Creating a life is complicated, dynamic, and dangerous. There are too many factors out of my control to fuss around with this “birth plan” business. I resolved to be open to what my baby needed, what the doctors suggested, and what the situation was called for.
But there was one thing I wanted badly (besides the epidural). I wanted what the woman in the video had. I wanted to meet my baby, to hold her, to have her on my stomach or chest as soon as she came out. I wanted to see her that first few moments, have skin-to-skin time, attempt to nurse, but mostly just meet this new human that had been my hopes and dreams my whole life. I wanted to see my baby and be the first one to hold her. Maybe she would need to be whisked away, maybe I wouldn’t get to see her for very long, but that’s all I wanted, to meet her, to see her for the first time.
There are dozens of birth stories online, all of them talking about birth as an absolute trauma, and I figured mine would be no different. I read as many as I could. I expected total trauma, I even had my postpartum depression care plan figured out. And yet, nothing can prepare you. So, here is, yet another one, of how my beloved tiny human escaped my body.
I sang happy birthday.
It’s in the middle of the night and I know my baby is coming soon because I am being induced, at 33 weeks. My water has been broken by my doctor, I am hooked up to a line receiving pictocin, have had two cervical balloons, and the epidural is in-thank God! I am dilated, but not nearly enough to start pushing.
Labor is long, slow, it can last days, and I’m not nearly dilated enough. On the phone, my mom says it will be an easier birth because she is small, premature. My high blood pressure combined with the black spots in my vision says the preeclampsia that runs in my family has reached a critical point, and the baby needs to come out soon or else my organs will start to fail. So here we are.
The nurses check on me every couple of hours. I mention to one I feel a lot of pressure on my vagina, she laughs and says that’s normal during labor. I remember to tell myself to be patient. Labor can take days, let’s just relax and enjoy our last moments of rest before motherhood leaves me sleep deprived.
It’s in the middle of the night and I am trying to get some sleep. Big day ahead of laboring ahead. Will the baby come tomorrow or the day after?
The nurse comes to check on me like normal.
She does her check, and then leaves.
She is back. “We need to check you on your other side” she says.
I roll over as I am told, and suddenly, the nurse isn’t alone. Someone else, a woman, is there talking with her. They are looking at me, at my vagina, which of course I can’t see.
The lights flip on as women in blue scrubs run into my room, yelling loudly, with authority and purpose. They aren’t yelling at me, they are yelling at each other. It reminded me of one of those hospital dramas, where doctors run around and yell all sorts of crazy things in an emergency situation. I’ve never really seen it happen in real life before. Never seen this sort of urgency, the barking and yelling of orders. This is scary.
My partner is asleep in the room on the couch to the left. She wakes up, doesn’t say a word but gets up and gets dressed. Among the people yelling and running is my doctor. She is yelling orders, with panic in her voice. I don’t know what’s happening, but it looks serious. There is no time to be scared. There is no time for explanations. There is only time to be calm, and take orders.
My doctor, while yelling, runs up to me, and without any warning sticks her entire hand all the way up inside of me, not just my vagina, but also my uterus, which really really hurts. I take a deep breath, she finally addressedss me.
“There’s going to be some pressure” she says sternly and calmly to me.
“Yeah no shit” I think to myself.”Little late for that.”
“Doctor! ON THE BED, ALL THE WAY ON THE BED! ALL THE WAY!!!!” Yells, someone, a young woman in scrubs who is attempting to mobilize the bed, and the doctor half on it.
My doctor climbs on my bed with me, sitting on her knees and legs, doggy style at the end of my bed, continuing to hold her entire hand inside me. Valves on the wheels of my bed are released, someone grabs the IV machine I’m hooked to, and all of us, me, the doctor on my bed and her hand inside of me, and our entourage of hospital staff roll out of the room down a hallway with bright lights.
“Code C! Code C!” Yells my doctor. “There is a definite chord! THERE IS A DEFINITE CHORD! AND FOOT!” She yells. I want to know what is happening. However the best I can do, the most I can help, is to just stay calm. Stay Calm. STAY CALM.
“What is code C?” I ask someone close to my face.
“Emergency c-section” says that someone near me. A male voice, calm and gentle. Literally everyone here is a woman, they are in charge taking care of everything, the one person talking to me is a calm male.
“We would like to perform a cesarian on you” he says calmly to me. “That’s when…”
“I know what a cesarian is” I interrupt the man. “I fully consent to a cesarian, just please, do whatever is best for my baby.”
So much for a long labor. Great. I guess we’ll get this all over with now. With all the hollering and running around, I sort of figured a cesarean was in order.
I have no idea what the situation is, why they are performing a cesarian on me, but it sounds scary as hell and I want my baby to be alright. I want my baby to live. I want my baby to be okay, nothing else matters.
We are wheeled into a small room that is remarkably close to my hospital room. There must be at least a dozen women around me. They are all wearing blue, blue masks, blue scrubs, blue shower caps….Apparently the cesarian room was just around the corner, waiting for us.
“Hi, I’m the anastesioligist, I’m here to her to make sure you don’t feel any pain. You’re going to be awake, but if it gets bad, we’ll put you to sleep if needed” she says to me. She is on my left, next to blue machine. Behind the blue machine is table being set up by other people. A large blue hospital/paper tarp is being spread over me.
“Can you feel this? Can you feel this? Can you feel this?” People keep asking me.
I don’t know. How the fuck and I supposed to know what I can and can’t feel right now? My adrenaline is running super fast and I’m trying to stay calm and not move and I’m worried about my baby.
“I don’t know!” I say. “I can’t tell what I feel right now! Just give me lots of the juice okay? I’m a redhead!”
The male doctor is talking to me again.
“I think you’re fine, because they actually started the surgery two minutes ago, so if it wasn’t enough anesthetic we’d know by now.” Above the tarp are two very seriously looking women, dressed up like Smurfs, with stone dead expressions as they work quickly with heir hands. They are hyperfocused experts.
I need to stay calm. Panicking won’t help. I try to think of my daughter, I want to help her so bad, but I can’t move, I can’t do anything. I am helpless and so is she, I must trust them.
It’s her Birthday. Her very first birthday, she is being born right now.
There was one thing I can do, I can sing happy birthday. So I sing happy birthday to her. Happy birthday to my little girl as she enters the world. I sing happy birthday because I love her, because I want to be there for her, I want her to feel love, it’s the only thing I could do.
“Hey Sarah!” says a voice. It is Emma, my partner. She is wearing a blue shower cap, blue mask and a blue hospital gown.
“Hey Emma!” I say to her. I must catch her up, a lot is happening. “It’s our daughter’s birthday today, I’m singing happy birthday to her. Will you sing happy birthday with me?” Emma and I sing happy birthday, and in that terrifying moment, as our daughter entered the world, we were a family.
Is she out yet? I can’t hear her. I am scared, the baby needs to cry. She needs to cry so I know she is alive.
“Is she out yet? I call when my curiosity can’t keep its self in. She is out. But where is her cry? WHY ISN’T SHE CRYING?
It’s quiet, it’s small, but it’s there. My baby is crying. She is okay. She is alive.
It’s hard to speak, but I muster my strength.
“Emma gets to cut the chord!” I yell as much as my paralyzed lungs can handle. I want her to be a part of this. I see her over at the table. Emma gets to see the baby. Emma knows what she looks like.
“What color is her hair?” I call out. I want to see my baby. I want to see her so bad. The stupid blue machine to my left is blocking my view. She is on that table, with nurses and Emma running all around her. If only someone would move that stupid machine to my left…
“Black!” Emma calls back to me. Black hair. My baby has black hair. I am so excited.
Suddenly a wave of nausea turns over me.
Oh shit.
I’m going to be sick. I can’t move, or sit up, or even roll to one side. I am stuck lying on my back and I can barely breathe. If I throw up, where will the vomit go? Not out, it will go back in, stay in my throat, unable to let air in. I can’t move, and I need to throw up.
“I’m nauseous” I tell the people near me.
“TURN YOUR HEAD!” Yells a nurse to me. “TURN YOUR HEAD TO THE SIDE!” I turn my head to the right. But it’s not enough, even with my head turn to the side, I realize now that I can’t turn my body and the vomit won’t leave, it will fall back into my throat. On top of that, my neck feels tingly, which reminds me…
“We’re giving you something for your nausea” says the anesthesiologist.
“Okay” I tell them. “I’m allergic to compazine. I’m allergic to compazine, No COMPAZINE!” Compazine is an anti-nausea medication, and the last thing I need is the anaphylaxis it caused in the past.
Already my neck feels tingly, like the anesthesia from surgery is making it’s way up my toward my throat. Will my throat freeze also? Will I not be able to breathe? Or will I choke on my own vomit? Neither situation is ideal.
Someone finally realized that I might want to see my baby. There is talk of holding up the baby in the air so I can see her. There was even talk of moving the machine so I could see her, they took their time but they finally got there I guess.
This was it, I was going to see my baby, I was going to have the big moment. I was so excited! The moment I’ve waited for since entering the hospital, the moment I’ve waited since I heard I was pregnant, the moment I’ve waited for my entire life, I get to be a mom and I want to meet my baby.
Then the nausea hits me again, I don’t want to throw up, not now.
Then I realize…
The excitement of seeing my baby, combined with God knows what hormones, the drugs from surgery, the adrenaline from stress, is making me throw up. I’d happily throw up if I could, it’s just without the ability to move, I could die. Two options, see baby and risk my life, or not.
No, I can’t see my baby right now. I can’y see, feel, or touch my baby, not if I want to live to raise her. If I see my baby now, it might be the last time I ever see her.
Heartbroken, I turned my head to the side, the right side, the wrong side.
They held up my baby for me to see, on the left and I turned my head to the other side.
“No, I can’t see my baby right now, I’m too excited” I tell them. Slowly, I do my best to stay calm and not throw up.
There it was, the moment I didn’t have. The moment of holding my baby after she was born, the moment where I get to meet her. I didn’t get it. Instead a gaggle of nurses and Emma left with her on a cart, joyously, carefully taking her to the NICU. Doing what’s medically best for her no doubt.
Later I learned that Emma got to do skin to skin with her soon after.
The room started too thin with people. Maybe now I can finally ask.
“What happened? All I know is the nurse was checking in on me, and then suddenly everyone was in my room.”
“It’s not the nurses fault” someone says to me. “She just discovered the problem.” Oh shoot, now my inquiries were being taken personally and I would have to do control damage.
“No I didn’t think it was her fault, that’s not what I meant. I’m grateful for her and all of you and how you just saved my baby. Thank you so much. I meant, what happened, why did we need the cesarian?”
“The baby flipped over, she was breech, and her foot was hanging outside your vagina” someone finally tells me. Later I would learn it wasn’t just her foot, but also the umbilical chord. I imagine that poor doctor literally had been holding my baby’s foot and the chord inside of me until she was pulled out during the cesarian. How surreal.
The whole thing took maybe 7 minutes. So much for a long labor.
I wanted to hear more but everyone seemed tired and didn’t want to talk, they all slowly left. I was wheeled into a dark grey room with lots of machinery, alone with my nurse. It felt like the engine room of the starship enterprise. It was the most depressing moment of my life, all alone, intense hormonal changes, wanting my baby who was taken to a room far away, paralyzed, and trying to sleep. It was impossible. But that is another story.
Looking back, all I can say is: I sang happy birthday to her, and I’m glad I did, because it was all I could do. I missed that moment to have her on my stomach, to be the first one to hold her, but at least I was the first one to sing to her.
Thanks for reading.
