At the hospital, we made our way to the Labor and Delivery floor and got checked in. Because I had delivered our first baby at this same hospital, they had all of my information in the system so checking in was a breeze. We were giddy with anticipation and, unlike my first experience arriving at the hospital to have a baby, I wasn’t having any labor pains yet so I was able to happily chat with the people we met.
Once we were settled in the delivery room, I explained to the nurse that I was planning to go as far as I could without medication, possibly all the way through to delivery. The nurse was very nice, but seemed to err on the side of medication. She offered it several times throughout the morning and each time I told her, “I’d like to keep doing what I’m doing.” My contractions were still very minimal so she wanted to start me on labor inducing Pitocin right away, but I wanted to see what my body would do. I went hours with little progression, and finally the nurse told me that the midwife wanted me to start a little Pitocin to try and help me move along. Because my water had already broke, they start to worry about possible infection. I felt it was best in my situation to go ahead with the medication.
The Pitocin kicked in immediately. I started to make progress and was able to begin using the breathing and visualization that I had learned in my birthing class to get through contractions. It was hard but I felt I had a lot more left in my tank. The nurse checked me and I was at a 5, so she suggested giving me a little bit more medication to keep me going. I felt the nurse was being pushy about upping my Pitocin dose like she was in a hurry to get me delivered and out of there, but I didn’t disagree to upping the dose. I could tell I was past early labor, but was unsure how far into active labor I had gotten. James walked around with me and I leaned on him during contractions, all the while he helped me unplug and plug back in the cords for the monitors so I could use the bathroom over and over.
After many more contractions and what felt like forever, I told James to call the nurse and get the epidural coming. I was calling it quits. Last she checked me I was at a 5. I figured, at best, I had made it to a 6 and there was no way I could make it through transition and pushing without the pain blockers.
At this point, I look back and wonder why the nurse didn’t check me before the epidural was placed. She hadn’t checked me in a couple hours, and when the anesthesiologist came in, I was shaking through contractions and told him, “I’m so nervous. I don’t think I can hold still enough for this.”
“Oh, you’ll be fine,” he said to me, then turned to the nurse and asked, “Where is she at?”
“I haven’t checked, but last was a 6,” she replied.
I sat on the edge of the bed and gripped the mattress and as hard as I could to try and prevent any movement while he placed the epidural. Luckily he was fast, and the nurse told me to lay back to be checked immediately after the epidural was placed.
“Oh, you’re complete!” She was obviously surprised at this finding. “Okay, let me call the midwife.”
Something about that last dilation check must have struck a nerve, because as soon as she said she was calling the midwife, I felt the urge to push and knew I had made it through transition and was onto the pushing phase. “I need to push right now! I’m feeling like I need to poop!” I blurted this out several times in a row. I remembered the online birth instructor saying that you’ll know you’re in the pushing phase when you feel an urge to poop, and I thought if I said this enough times the nurse would get the gravity of my need to push and deliver my baby already. Instead, she argued with me.
“No! Don’t push. The midwife isn’t here yet.”
“But I need to push right now!” I was truly not able to hold back.
“No, don’t push yet. Just hang on.”
“Isn’t there someone else here who can deliver my baby?” I remember asking this while gasping for breath between contractions, so it came out mumbled and I’m not sure the nurse actually heard me.
The midwife and other members of the delivery team arrived right then, and I was finally allowed to push. It was roughly 15 minutes from the time the epidural was placed to the time our son entered the world. He was here! But he was so quiet. He barley made any noise at all and I wondered if he was okay. This was in stark contrast to the our daughter’s birth. She cried very loudly upon entering the world, and I remember the distinct thought: I know this cry. I know her. We have met before now.
They handed me our son while they tried to finish cleaning everything up, but the placenta was being stubborn and had to be manually extracted. I also required several stitches. At first I was annoyed that the nurse hadn’t checked me before the epidural was placed because I had been in transition and about ready to push. I had basically delivered without any medication! But looking back I’m glad she didn’t check me because I would have been denied the epidural. And I would not have wanted to muscle through that manual placenta extraction and subsequent stitching without the numbing effects of the epidural.
We snuggled our boy, took photos, and called Andi to let her know her brother had arrived. I was so relieved to have pregnancy over. The delivery team took our baby to the nearby table to clean him up and get his stats and vitals. James followed with phone in hand ready to take a million pictures of our son’s first moments. I laid there recovering from all that comes with delivery. Everything had went really, really well and overall, I felt amazing!
After all the medical staff had left and we had the room and our baby to ourselves, James asked me, “Do you think he looks like he has Down syndrome?” This was totally out of left field to me. I looked at James with a scrunched up, “what in the world” face, and said an emphatic, “no.” To me, he looked just like his sister did at birth with a little less hair.
He was perfect, but I was still trying to make sense of how different it was meeting him for the first time. I wanted to recognize his cry like I did with Andi. I wanted to feel that instant bond, but honestly, the bond was not there. I cuddled him close and studied his face and tiny hands. He was so calm. I noticed his pinky and index fingers were curved inward and thought it was kind of strange, but no one had mentioned it so I figured it was no big deal. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something “different” about him.
“So, Cooper James?” James asked me. I had been firm that it was James’s job to name our son because I had picked out our daughter’s name.
“Ya,” I said, “if that’s what you want.” I smiled at him. I was so incredibly happy at that moment. My heart was more full than it had ever been. My last baby. The delivery had been perfect. He was perfect. Life was just perfect.
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After all the commotion of delivery was over, the adrenaline of giving birth wore off and I started getting the chills. I was also very light headed and weak because I hadn’t eaten in nearly 24 hours. James packed up our bags and helped the nurse get me into a wheelchair to move us down to a recovery room on the Mother/ Baby floor. I was holding Cooper but starting to see stars. I was happy to get into a fresh bed and be handed a cold cut sandwich.
Once settled in our new room, a nurse came in to check on us and Cooper. Her’s was a familiar face. James and I grew up with Marlee and her family in our small town, and she had even been our first Mother/ Baby nurse when Andi was born six years earlier. We chatted about life while she looked over our new baby. As she did, I was still bothered by the lack of connection with my son. I kept studying his features and kept coming back to his crooked fingers. I felt uncomfortable just thinking that there may be something different about our son, and I didn’t want to point it out, but finally I asked, “Marlee, I noticed his fingers are a little crooked. Is that weird? Do a lot of babies have that?”
“Oh ya, babies are born with all kinds of things. It’s probably no big deal and he’ll grow out of it.” Marlee has a small town accent that takes me right back to where we grew up. I loved that she was there that night. Her response put my mind at ease about anything possibly being different about Cooper, and I trusted it fully knowing she was the one that worked with babies every day.
We settled for the night, unaware of the life changing moments ahead that would leave us reeling for weeks just trying to find some kind of normal to grasp onto. We had no idea the magnitude of the news and tsunami sized waves of emotion that was coming for us the next day.
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