The Circle of Life: A Birth Story
9 years ago today, we lost my dad to mesothelioma. It was the worst day of my life. It feels like these nine years have both flown by and simultaneously dragged on. This day is always hard to get through, but this year it feels especially heavy. My dad loved babies, and oh how he would have simply adored mine. Everett was born 8 years and 8 days too late to meet his Grandpa Tom. And that will never really feel okay.
So because this day is extra hard, I want to talk about the best day of my life, to bring it a little sunshine. One year and two days ago we found out we were pregnant. 245 days later, on September 29th, we welcomed our baby boy into the world at 9:58am.
From about 35 weeks on, we knew he was breech. About 3% of babies are breech at that point, and throughout our whole pregnancy journey we seemed to hit the statistically improbable—so this was no different. We prayed that he would turn on his own, but our little boy was stubborn. We could have opted for an ECV (external cephalic version) which would have been a manual turning of baby, involving some drugs and pushing on mama’s tummy. It had a 50/50 shot at being successful—in which case I would have been induced right away. If not successful, a possible outcome was that it would put baby in distress and I’d be rushed into an emergency c-section. The odds weren’t convincing enough, so at 37 weeks we gave in and scheduled a c-section—still hoping baby would turn.
We chose our c-section date carefully. The doctor said any time in week 39, which was Sept 28-Oct 4th. Initially I was very set on the idea of having an October baby, so I thought perhaps the 1st or 2nd would be nice. But then we realized something: our health insurance started a new year on October 1st. In my last post I talked about healthcare in the US, and didn’t elaborate on how ridiculously expensive it is here. Sadly, an October baby didn’t make sense financially. Read that again. Financially. That should never be a factor in determining any kind of health care for yourself or your family. You want to talk about privilege, let’s discuss how having access to affordable and quality healthcare is strongly linked to employment. Anyhow, I digress. We chose the 29th because the 28th was a professional development day for me--too easy of a day to waste leave time on--and the 30th is Chelsey's brother Kiel’s birthday. So it was settled. Almost.
In the final weeks of pregnancy, I started experiencing gestational hypertension--high blood pressure. This resulted in close monitoring by my care team--several extra appointments, and even one 4 hour monitoring session that had a 50% chance of ending in baby being delivered early. We watched for other signs that, coupled with the high BP, would indicate preeclampsia, but they never followed. At my appointment just 8 days before our c-section was scheduled, the doctor explained that essentially there was a formula that said that since I had had so many high BP readings during my visits, he should take me downstairs to have the c-section right now. He agreed to let me wait it out, since 1) I was well and healthy otherwise and 2) I had another appointment Thursday. Thursday’s appointment was fine--BP still a little high. Friday night my BP was higher than it had ever been--so into the hospital we went. After an hour of monitoring, my BP had gone down, and they sent us home. Honestly, had they offered to take him just then, we would have said yes. We also agreed that if we ended up back at the hospital over the weekend, we would just ask them to go in and get him.
But we made it through the next few days without incident. On Monday, I had my last ultrasound, confirming that baby was still breech. After work, we finished packing the hospital bag and talked about the fact that we couldn’t believe that tomorrow, we would be parents. As directed, that night I showered with a special presurgical soap, put on clean PJs, and climbed into fresh clean sheets, for what would be my last night of uninterrupted sleep to date. Chelsey recalls being nervous “because our lives were changing and there was a lot of unknown”, but also excited “because we waited for a long time for him”. We took the classes. We read the books. But nothing could have prepared us for the next day.
The sun rose on Tuesday morning, September 29th. As the rest of the world ate breakfast and prepared for a day of work as usual, we gathered our things, took one last look around at our old life, and headed off to the hospital. We checked in at 7:30AM for our 9:30AM surgery. I remember a feeling of calm settling in as we waited and talked with the L&D nurses. They explained how the day would go, answered our questions, and introduced us to other staff we would be working with. Our nurse’s name was Sarah, which is always kind of cool :) I changed into the gown and got hooked up to all the familiar monitors. Chelsey remembers that the nurses had trouble getting my IV in--after months of drinking a ridiculous amount of water all day long, 8 hours of NPO had made my little veins tricky critters. Aside from that, everything else was going smoothly.
Although we had spent a good deal of time coming up with a detailed birth plan, most of it was for a vaginal birth. Coming into a scheduled surgery was a much different feeling--a familiar one, if you know my history with sports injuries. It turned out that much of what was on the birth plan was done as the standard of care, but there were two things that I wanted to make sure we were clear on: I wanted a double layer stitch to close my uterus; barring the need for immediate emergency care, Chelsey was to be the one to cut the cord. Although this surgery was to be a much different surgery--never had I been awake on the table--I was confident that it would go just as well as every other one had--and with a much more fun end result. Quite honestly, the only thing I was feeling anxious about was the spinal block, which I knew would be very uncomfortable.
All of a sudden, it was time. I walked across the hall to the OR, leaving Chelsey behind to get changed into what she called her “Covid suit”, while I was prepped. The OR was bright and bustling with activity, as our care team got things ready for baby boy’s grand entrance into the world. As the anesthesiologist began my spinal, my nurse held my hand and talked to me. She was impressed with my grit as I winced, but kept talking upon feeling the needle go in--and honestly, so was I, because uncomfortable doesn’t even begin to describe what that’s like. Before long, my legs started to feel warm and tingly. Having the lower ⅔ of your body go numb is the oddest feeling. I was promptly arranged into position on the table, and from there, things moved very quickly. So quickly, in fact, that the surgery started before Chelsey was even in the room! Luckily I had only a brief moment to start panicking before she was ushered in and directed to the stool near my head. Where had she been? I’ll let her tell it…
They took Sarah out of the room and I was told to wait 15 minutes to put on my “Covid suit”--a plasticy paper zip up jumper with elastic around the ankles and wrists. I had booties that I had to tie on. And then a different facemask--a surgical one. And a hairnet. I paced nervously. A couple of nurses came to check on me. They asked if I needed anything. I said no, I’m okay, but thank you (because I'm polite). I waited another 15 minutes before starting to suit up. As I went to zip up the jumper, the zipper split at the top! I was able to get it back down, but saw that the zipper parts had detached from each other. So I waited for what seemed like forever for the nurses to come back and check on me. Finally, Rett’s nurse came in and said, “Ready to go mama?”
“My suit won’t zip.” She searched frantically around the room for another one.
“Take it off,” she instructed, and left to get another suit. This was a whole process, since I was in a walking boot at the time, and the booties were tied over the jumper. “Just rip it,” said his nurse finally. So we did. She helped me into the new suit, but when I went to go zip it, the zipper was stuck at the bottom. I looked at her in panic, and she asked if she could help. She tried to dislodge the jammed zipper with no success, until she finally said, “We have to go!” We walked quickly down the hall to the operating room. As we pushed through the door, she ushered me to the seat by Sarah’s head, blocking my view of her since they had already started. I tried to peek but I couldn’t see anything.
It wasn’t long after Chelsey sat down that the surgeon said, “His butt is out.” Well yes, friend, we knew he was coming into this world butt first--will we be seeing the rest of him soon? And then-- “He’s out.” And I remember Chelsey saying, “Babe he looks just like you.” And me repeating, “He’s here, he’s here, he’s here.” And both of us crying. And this moment:
And then his little cry. Well, his big cry. They took him over to get him cleaned up, measured up, and tied up, and Chelsey went with him. This was the hardest part for me. I could hear him crying. I could hear Chelsey talking and laughing with the nurses. But I was stuck on that table while they put me back together. So again, I must defer to Chelsey to tell about this part.
“Do you want to cut the cord?” they asked. “Yes,” I said. The cord was pretty squishy and when I cut it; blood squirted out all over the baby. As the nurses cleaned him up and got him ready for us, all I could think was, “Holy crap, I have a baby!” They weighed and measured him, gave him a shot of Vitamin K, put some drops in his eyes, and did his footprints. His nurse encouraged me to take pictures as they worked. He cried the whole time.
Eventually my nurse came over to update me: Everett Thomas was 7lbs 8ozs and 21 inches of squishy goodness, with a head in the 86%ile (a moment during which I silently celebrated his breech position having necessitated a c-section!)
Finally, Chelsey brought him over in her arms, with the biggest smile on her face. My whole world--my family--was right there next to me. I had never felt such joy as I did in that moment. I hope to never forget that feeling as long as I live.
I could go into more detail about everything that happened over the next hours and days, but suffice it to say we were well-taken care of in the hospital by an awesome team until we left Thursday afternoon. I do want to point out one of my favorite moments that happened as we were being moved from L&D to postpartum. Some of you may remember that in my past life, I worked at this hospital (Aurora West Allis Medical Center, formerly known as West Allis Memorial). One of my very favorite things while I worked there was when I would hear “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” over the PA system. That, I was told, meant that a baby had been born. So as it turns out, there’s a button that makes that happen, and as the mama who borned the baby you get to push the button! It is on a wall on your way from L&D to Postpartum. Pushing that button and hearing the sweet tune made my heart oh so happy!
A long story, as all of mine tend to be. But if you've made it this far, congratulations--here are some bonus pictures from my very favorite day ever : )
