The Day I Became Mama

Lately, I've been thinking about Mother's Day and about keeping an account of Ryan's birth at our local birth center. It's a story worth telling, since most people just assume that babies are born in hospitals. But I think that every birth is special and life-changing, regardless if it took place in a hospital or not. Zachary didn't come into the world the way I had planned. To be honest, as a first time mom, I didn't exactly know what the "plan" was. I do know that prior to his birthday, I was a completely different person.

When I was pregnant with Zachary, I didn't have the best medical insurance. Zachary was our biggest surprise and we didn't really know what we were doing. We'd only been married a few months. I was seeing a Pregnancy Nurse Practitioner as opposed to a regular Ob/Gyn and I was to deliver at the local hospital with whoever happened to be on call that day. It wasn't the best of circumstances, but I figured we'd be okay. Babies are born in hospitals all the time and I'd had a pretty easy pregnancy.

So 40 weeks came and went and Zachary had no plans of being born just yet. At my last appointment, I was scheduled for an ultrasound and an induction. All looked good with baby, so I was sent home to wait. If he didn't come on his own, I was to show up at the hospital for induction at this time on this day. It all sounded good to me. It was nice knowing that by a certain day, I wouldn't be so pregnant anymore. (I was huge, y'all.) So I went on maternity leave and spent that whole first week trying to induce labor naturally as best as I knew how. Still though, no baby. At exactly 41 weeks, I went in bright and early for my induction.

I always knew I wanted a drug-free birth. I don't really know why. I never researched medication or pain management associated with birth. I never took a birthing class or spoke with and any childbirth educators. It was just something I always knew I'd do. Well, I didn't really have anyone consistently by my side during this pregnancy as far as doctors go. So that plan went straight out the window when I walked into a hospital and was told I'd be hooked up to a pitocin drip to help start contractions. I knew nothing about what pitocin was, except that for some reason, people always got an epidural afterwards. So I made it clear that that was not going to happen. I was going to do this with as little interference as possible. That was the stubborn rebel inside me making her appearance.

So I sat in a hospital bed talking with my husband and other family members and waiting for active labor to start. Time seems to move differently when you're in labor. Sometimes it feels like time is moving so painfully slow. Sometimes, you check the clock and realize a whole hour has gone by and it felt like ten minutes. I only knew that we'd been there for a while because every so often, the shift change would happen and a new nurse would or resident doctor would come in to the delivery room to check my vitals or adjust my IV. Or they'd bring me ice or popsicles, since I wasn't allowed to eat. I was probably on my third L&D nurse of the day when contractions started to really intensify. My lower back felt like it was on fire. I wanted to move around to stay comfortable, but I had IV's everywhere and a fetal heart monitor wrapped around me. Just shifting to my side through off the heart rate reading and a nurse would have to come back in to readjust. I tried to be as cooperative as possible for the nurses who needed to check my stats.

Around early evening, things had gotten pretty intense. Contractions were too strong to talk through. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on each one and on getting to the end of the race. My husband could tell that we were nearing the end and asked all of our family to leave the room. Our baby was coming soon. I was probably around 8 centimeters when I asked the nurses when I could start pushing. I was having minute-long contractions with a minute in between. One thing I strongly dislike about hospitals is how doctor-friendly they are, as opposed to patient-friendly. There was a point when I knew I should be pushing, but the doctors weren't done setting up yet. Thankfully it only took a few minutes before I was allowed to push. They doctor told me how to position myself and the nurses helped me keep count. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Breathe.

Finally, after hours of waiting, our baby was born. I collapsed back in exhaustion and hunger. I heard his sweet cry and my husband checked on him while the doctors finished working on me. I had second degree tearing and needed stitches, so it was about a half hour before I could hold him. Thankfully, it was only about 13 hours of labor from start to finish. I learned later that induced labors can go on for over a day. It was probably another hour or so before I was sent off the to maternity ward to rest up and I was starving. It had been over 24 hours since my last meal. We had family come and meet Zachary and take pictures. Everyone rejoiced.

Around 1:00 in the morning, everything slowed down. Stephen was asleep on the couch in our hospital room. All of our family had gone home for the night. The nurses and doctors left us alone for a little while to rest up. In the silence, I held my sweet baby and started to memorize his face. His sweet little fingers and adorable cheeks. He had his daddy's features. It was just us for a little while. And I became his mama.

Looking back, I sometimes wonder how differently things would have been if I would've just let Zachary come when he was ready. Would I have had such a rocky postpartum period? Would my body have taken so long to recover physically? I don't know if his birth could've been better or easier, but I'm grateful that it wasn't worse. In the end, I walked away healthy and with the most perfect little boy. And the three of us became a family.

Hugs,
Destiny