Wednesday, July 9, 2014

The Baby That Changed My Life

 
I left Ireland 10 months ago. Last September, we came to the States for a wedding in DC and then to visit the family here in Florida. While here, I was frantically trying to line up interviews so that we could start the process of moving over here. Towards the end of my vacation, I was offered a job! I was finally moving home! After talking it over with Husband, we decided that I would go back to Ireland for a week to say goodbye to the family and our friends, and to help pack up our stuff.

During that week, our lives changed. I had a feeling. A very strong feeling. But I gave it time. You never know when you could be wrong about these things. And then one morning, I peed on a stick. On two sticks, actually. A girl’s gotta be sure. In that moment, my world flipped upside down and tears were inadequate to express my joy. We were pregnant.

Everything from that point was a whirlwind. I left Ireland for good. I came home and started my first job as an attorney. I Skyped Husband as frequently as possible because he wouldn’t be joining me for 2 months. And everywhere in between, I slept. My first trimester was all about sleep and not wanting to eat. I was not one of those girls who threw up 14 times a day, thank goodness. I was the girl who felt nauseated all day, but didn’t throw up. The girl who didn’t want to eat ANYTHING and whose sister, and eventually husband, had to bribe and force her to eat. I was the girl who went to bed at 8pm and was still exhausted for the entirety of the next day. I was the girl who went into bitch mode at the slightest provocation (or Husband’s lack of dedication to engage in a pointless fight), but I’m pretty sure that Husband was used to that after being married to me for 2 years. And then that trimester ended.

The second trimester was pretty uneventful. Kept working. Kept hating my job. Got my energy back. Finally started to gain weight, but very little. Did I forget to mention that I was also THAT girl? Don’t worry. I make up for it in the last month.

At the beginning of my last trimester, I left my job. I was glad to no longer have the stress and to be doing something that I enjoyed more. My energy had again depleted. We had just moved into a new house. But my excitement was rising. We had two baby showers: one thrown by my sister and two best friends, and the second thrown by my parents and aunt and uncle. They were both incredible. We are so blessed. We started receiving amazing gifts from our generous friends, and I started gushing over tiny baby clothes that I thought could never fit a real human being (by the way, one of these ultra tiny outfits was actually TOO BIG for my average sized baby).

I was finally gaining hard core weight. By the time Baby arrived, I had gained 38 pounds! A whole 25 pounds heavier than I have ever weighed in my entire life. Baby was bungee jumping with my sciatic nerve and so I would randomly have pains shoot through my hip and down my leg. Thankfully, this rarely happened when I was driving. My stomach was HUGE. Towards the end, the doctors got a little concerned that I might have preeclampsia. After some delightful testing, they discovered I did not, but ordered me to be a couch potato and work from home. Let me tell you. BOOORRINNNGGG. I spent most of these days on the couch, working, with reruns of Grey’s on in the background. I found I was only comfortable without any pants on. Husband didn’t seem to mind.

My due date finally came. And went. Four days later, my doctor decided we should go ahead and schedule an induction. So on Saturday, June 28th, we went into the hospital with our bags, nice and calm and laughing, thinking about what would be the best and most difficult parts of having a baby in our lives. We were there by 5:30pm, and by 7pm I was being pumped full of pitocin to start the contractions. I gotta say, I wasn’t in too much pain for about four hours. My friends were not happy about this. I actually told the nurse at one point, “I’m not feeling much. Let’s crank this up a bit!” Yeah, I would soon be eating those words.

Around 11pm, the second my parents and sister left for the night, my stomach exploded in pain. And I spent the next 7 hours trying to avoid an epidural and trying to find a relatively comfortable position for this torturous hell. Nothing worked for too long. Finally, I gave in and got the epidural. The pain was just too much. Thankfully, I went into this process being open to this option and so I wasn’t TOO disappointed with myself. But let’s real, I was pretty disappointed. Unfortunately, it didn’t spread properly. I had one basically non-existent leg and another leg that was sort of numb but attached to a hip that felt like it was being stabbed with someone’s backwoods knife. So they upped the dose and I fell asleep and felt literally nothing (not even the pressure I had come to expect) until around noon.

I was finally completely dilated and ready to push!! It was time to meet our baby! So we pushed. Well, supposedly. I don’t know what I was doing, but I couldn’t feel it, that’s for sure. And after every contraction and attempt at pushing, Baby’s heart rate would drop. This was starting to make me freak out, but I refused to let that fear take over. We gave it some time. Flipped me around to give gravity a chance to work its magic, and tried again. Again, her heart rate was dropping. We tried all kinds of positions. In fact, my doctor told at our appointment this week that I was her most persistent patient in that I wouldn’t give up on doing it naturally and we tried more positions that normal. Her heart rate was still dropping, and now it was starting to get dangerous. This time I was disappointed. We agreed to a c-section, which neither of us had wanted. But we both wanted our little girl and so we moved past the disappointment and prepared for surgery.

It was so weird. I could feel the pressure of them cutting me open, but couldn’t feel any pain. Husband was right next to me the whole time, being just as supportive as he had been through the entire process. I could not have asked for a better partner. And suddenly I heard her crying. It was the most amazing sound. I could not even begin to explain how that felt and there was no point in trying to keep in my tears. She was here. We had been waiting for so long. Exactly 41 weeks. They cleaned her up (after she pooped all over the place on her way to the table) and plopped her right on my chest for some skin-to-skin. I was in awe. Where did she get these amazingly pinchable cheeks? Who is born with such beautiful eyelashes? How can fingers so tiny give me so much joy? Please do not scratch me with your scary talonlike fingernails.

The rest of the day was a blur. Quite literally. I was so drugged up, I don’t remember much else. I can’t really remember if I was holding her in recovery or if she was sleeping. I can’t remember my first time nursing her. But again, I’m the girl that doesn’t care about that. I’m the girl who’s completely obsessed with her baby in the present. I’m sure that will change. At some point, I’ll reflect on everything behind us, and think back to her first steps and words and days of school. At some point, I’ll drop her off at college, and listen to her as she tells me about some guy who has totally stolen her heart. At some point, she’ll marry that boy and pee on two sticks of her own and I’ll think back to the day I found out she would be a part of our lives. But for now, she’s just my little munchkin, sleeping in her bouncer, smiling in her sleep and dreaming her dreams. And I love every moment of it.

1 comment:

  1. So honest, sweet and funny, I hope you are enjoying your cute cheeky baby, love your blogs,
    Ellonia

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