Gracie’s Birth Story: Easy Like Sunday Morning

New pregnancy rule: Never anticipate the birth of your baby prior to your due date. I know due dates are not precise and your mama gut sometimes knows better, but Skylar ruined us by coming 16 days before her due date. I barely had started to look for signs of labor when she came darting into the world. Her birth was a quick trip to the hospital. All experienced mamas said I was fortunate to have had such a quick birth, but I couldn’t shake the shakes I had for 24 hours after the sheer trauma of having a natural birth with very little psychological prep for natural labor. So, this time, I’d be ready.

I read Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth and the Bradley Method. I was fairly prepared to have a home birth if Gracie decided she needed to come out with haste. But then, in the wee hours of Sunday, December 1, I woke up with some cramps. Nothing horrible, but I thought, “Huh, this could be it…”

Funny how certain you feel of yourself when you’re in labor, like “I’ll NEVER forget how this feels” then the next time through it, I wondered if every contraction I had was the real deal. I didn’t want to shrug anything off because that’s what got me into the pickle of having no time for that epidural I’d wanted with Skylar.

I woke up with Skylar at 6:15 a.m., had a cup of coffee and started timing contractions. Yep, these were all four to five minutes apart. I casually mentioned to my dad (My dad is an angel who swooped into town a week prior to Gracie’s birth and stayed for a week after, spending a gazillion hours with our spunky 3-year-old…he’s a rare man!) that I felt different and quietly kept tabs on my contractions. At 7 a.m. I felt quite certain this was it, so I woke Matt up and told him to pack. I was going to take a shower. We moseyed out the door around 7:40 a.m. and calmly checked into triage.

“You’re 4 cm.” our nurse said. “I’m 50/50 on you…” she said regarding whether to admit us or not. I had already told my doctor how quickly Skylar came, so I texted her that morning before my shower to let her know we were heading in. She had just returned from one week in California for Thanksgiving the night before, so I think God wanted our sweet Dr. Moreno present at Gracie’s birth. My doc talked to the nurse and said, “We’re admitting her.” Contractions grew stronger in triage and then were really coming on as we migrated to our deluxe-sized delivery room.

We told our nurse, Priscilla, that we didn’t have time for an epidural with Skylar so if she could apply pressure to the anesthesiologist, that’d be great. Our nurse tried her best to hurry things along but I felt like the anesthesiologist was a bit too cavalier in the beginning. When contractions came on, he continued to ask me questions…I didn’t understand how he couldn’t read the pain and focus on my face…was he really expecting me to listen to him and answer a question right now? I hoped my face expressed my strong desire to dull some of the pain. I think my doctor deliberately didn’t do a pelvic exam until after the epidural was administered because she knew what she’d find…a completely dilated mama.

I got pricked and epiduralized at 10:15 a.m. I didn’t know if I was thrilled yet…I had done so much prep for natural labor this time, I wondered if I was taking a riskier road by opting for the epidural. Those midwife authors are good at telling you all of the risks associated with epidurals and hospital interventions. I tried to remain objective, but some of their experiential knowledge was making me question modern medicine as I had my back painfully needled.

The anesthesiologist came back 15 minutes into my drip to check the progress of the drugs. He pressed ice to my left leg and asked if it felt cold. It did. On my left side but not on my right. I panicked a little. Was I just going to have time for half of an epidural? Bummer. The doc said to roll onto my left side and see if gravity could help disperse the drug to my left side. Part of me started to regret the epidural. Feeling the pain just in my left side felt like a more concentrated sampling of labor pain. I knew Gracie was coming. My left side was really hurting. My water still hadn’t broken though.

It was 10:35 a.m. My doc checked me. I was 8 c.m. She looked at me calmly and said, “OK, we can either wait a few more minutes for the epidural to kick in more or I can break you water and we can meet your baby.”

Let’s meet her, I said after a few minutes deliberation. I was still hurting. Matt had control of my IV bolus. He could give me a fresh hit of drugs every 10 minutes if necessary. Again, I didn’t love having that control. I just wanted a light epidural, so I could push with some feeling of control and just not be a primal screaming banshee. My doctor helped Matt and I decide pushing the bolus button was a good decision for the next 30 minutes because I’m kind of a big girl.

Maybe I got the epidural a little late, because I still had 10 minutes of thinking “I’m going to die.” But I think it’s exactly what I wanted. I knew where Gracie was. I felt the big “descent”.

Both Gracie and Skylar were born at a teaching hospital. I remember requesting no students for Skylar’s birth but ultimately, I have no idea who ended up in that delivery room. It seemed crowded. This time around, I pretty much left it up to my doctor. I trusted her and if she felt like Gracie’s delivery was an educational opportunity, that was fine with me.

From my Bradley Method book, I knew it was good to close my eyes through the most painful contractions and attempt to melt into the bed. I was opening my eyes in between but it felt awkward in the pushing stage. There were probably 9 people in the room and it was utter silence other than my grunts. I never thought I’d be self conscious while pushing out a baby, but I realized I was on stage halfway through. I was too panicked during Skylar’s swift delivery to recognize the number of strangers in the room, but this time, I was aware. So for the last 20 minutes I just closed my eyes or focused on Matt and my doctor. One resident came up to introduce herself mid-contraction, probably 15 minutes before Gracie was born. I suppose it was a nice gesture but at that point I thought, “Please don’t make me look at you and say ‘Nice to meet you’ right now.” The only person I really wanted to meet was my Gracie girl!

I pushed for 17 minutes and I felt like I was in a sci-fi movie. Everything (aside from me during contractions) was so serene and controlled. I was just a birther from “The Giver”. My doctor was a master. She counted for me during each push and kept a steady stream of encouragement flowing.

I asked my doc if she kept count of the babies she’d delivered. She laughed and said “No, but sometimes I wish I had.” She delivers between 200 and 300 babies PER YEAR. And she’s been at it for 22 years. That blew my mind. But during the delivery, her experience was evident.

She told me when Gracie was almost out. I don’t know if any mom can properly recall the 10 seconds from the baby exiting to the baby being placed on your chest. Even with the epidural, that part is a blur. It’s a few seconds of complete amnesia brought on by the utter miracle that is birth.

I didn’t cry when Skylar was placed on my chest and I didn’t cry with Gracie either. I think my feeling of relief trumped my emotional response to new life. Matt might have cried. He probably cried. He has the softer heart in our marriage. 🙂

I thought I might be more emotional this time, given the loss of my mama in February. The knowledge that she won’t know or hold this baby. My dad and I talked about the two weeks he was in town; about how surprised we were that there wasn’t a thick fog of grief around the whole first child born without her Mimi situation. He said it well. She wouldn’t want us to be mourning in a time of jubilation. She would have been the most excited person on the planet to meet our Barbara Grace.

Matt and I found out baby number two’s gender early; at 11 weeks. A nurse called with the blood test results. To Matt’s and my shock, we were expecting another girl. Nothing about my first trimester felt like Skylar’s, so I just assumed, “there’s a boy in there…making me feel like I could puke on cue. Little rascal.” To be honest, we were disappointed. We wanted one of each. I selfishly feared another girl would steal my bff Skylar away. I never had a sister to contend for my mom’s affection. But families of sisters tell me this is a silly concern.

God wanted us to have another girl. I’m not superstitious or caught up in cosmic coincidence, but I like to think my mama tagged my our sweet Barbara Grace in heaven and said, “you’re it.” She showed up on a pregnancy test a little over a month after Mom passed.

Ecclesiastes 3. You’re probably familiar. “To everything there is a season, a time to every purpose under heaven…..

² A time to be born, and a time to die;

⁴ A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

In 2015, my mom started a list of “daily doodles” or mom thoughts to send to her “darling daughter”/yours truly. I won’t share all of her secrets but the first scribble on her brainstorm list (which my dad discovered and shared with me) was “God has no problems, only plans.” The last was “dance daily.”

As much as I hate that my mom’s departure was part of a grander plan, I think that’s how Mom would want us to think of it. And her “dance daily” reminder wasn’t just a cliche– she actually did some little peppy jig daily; whether it was cheering us out the door into the car or doing self-invented aerobics to her Cyndi Lauper album.

Right now my daily dances are with one of my two girls in my arms; occasionally an embrace with my large husband turns into a sway too. I miss my Mom’s maternal warmth more than ever, but I know she’d want us to dance to celebrate the miracle of another daughter. Another Barbara. I look forward to telling Barbara Grace all about her incredible namesake.