I’ve told the story a million times already, but I haven’t written it, and I do think that matters, for me at least. If you’ve heard it already, feel free to skip like, waaay down.
The morning of Saturday, February 1, I woke up at 8am sharp. My water had broken. I was very much in denial of this because I was only 32 weeks and 4 days pregnant, and there was absolutely no reason to think that our son was going to come early. But the volume of water soon convinced me that we needed to go to the hospital. Had we packed a bag? No. Well, I had tossed a couple things in a duffel: our baby’s coming home outfit, pajamas, socks. So V quickly threw some more stuff in and we were off.
At the hospital, the fluid tested positive for amniotic fluid, which the nurses told me meant I would not leave the hospital until I gave birth. It…definitely took me awhile to absorb that! We were not prepared! AT ALL! It went way beyond the hospital bag. We had been trying to find a new apartment for weeks without success, and we’d bought little more than clothes and some small odds and ends for the baby. We hadn’t taken any of the birth or parenting classes we’d signed up for. All of this we had said we’d do in February.
We were eventually transferred (via ambulance! very exciting!) to a different hospital with a more sophisticated neonatal intensive care unit. All of this time I wasn’t having any contractions, at least not that I could feel; their monitors did pick some up but I was none the wiser.
At the other hospital, we were admitted and tried to prepare ourselves for what could potentially be a very long stay. I was told they wouldn’t let me go past 34 weeks – so about another week and a half – but that they wanted Baby to stay inside as long as possible so his lungs and brain could mature more.
In the spirit of preparing ourselves for that long stay, the next day V went home to get more supplies: snacks, clothes, cards to play rummy, etc. I had started to have some discomfort and feel the occasional contraction, but things still felt very, very early stages – I did not think I’d be having the baby that day. However, of course, it was not up to me. V called me from home to ask about something and while we talked, my pain levels really started to go up and I got off the phone. I squirmed around for a little while – no more than a half hour – before finally calling for a nurse. By this time my legs were shaking and the contractions had hardly any time in between. A doctor checked me and said I was fully dilated to 10; a few hours ago, they had checked and my cervix was completely closed. Basically I went from 0 to 10 in about 30-45 minutes. I asked for the epidural, as had always been my plan. I texted V to come back immediately.
They wheeled me into the operating room – at 2:45pm, I remember very clearly – because apparently no clean labor rooms were available at that moment. I’d never been in an OR before. It was extremely bright and the room was filled with over a dozen people almost immediately (it is a teaching hospital). My legs were jumping all around totally out of control. I was sobbing because of the pain, but also because it was not supposed to be like this. I was alone! No husband, no doula, no parents, no nobody. I was terrified. Thankfully, both V and our doula showed up as the epidural was being administered.
Let me pause for a moment to sing the praises of that epidural. My God, you guys. It was everything I dreamed it would be and more. I felt 10000x better. The needle going in wasn’t pleasant, but I’d do it a thousand times over to get that relief. No question. V and I talked and joked around and I was able to calm down immensely.
The crowd in the OR thought I’d give birth like immediately since I had dilated so fast, but the epidural slowed things down (or maybe not – things slowed down, maybe it was the epidural or maybe something else entirely). They moved me to a clean labor room. The next several hours I pushed…and pushed…and pushed. I’d had no preparation for this, I really didn’t know what I was doing. Our doula and the nurses and doctors were all very encouraging. The pain still wasn’t that bad, even when pushing…until shit got really real and Baby was crowning. THEN the epidural seemed to fail me and I was beside myself and saying I can’t do it, I can’t do it. Of course, that’s when he popped out, all 4 pounds and 5 ounces of him, at 9:09pm: our Ashwin Daniel.
And he’s been in the NICU ever since. They laid him on my chest for approximately six seconds before taking him away. He is what they call a “well baby”, a preemie who is healthy but for the fact of being born too early. We are so thankful for that.
The NICU, it should go without saying, is not awesome and there’s plenty of things I don’t like about it: the sterility, the uncomfortable furniture, the bad cafeteria food, driving back and forth every day, the awful incessantly beeping monitors that make you think your baby is always on the verge of having a seizure or something. But…and I’m sure you know what I’m going to say…we are so fucking fortunate. He’s in the best NICU he could possibly be in; it has private suites for each baby/family; the food is cheap, if not delectable; we live close enough that the daily commute is totally manageable; the monitors keep him safe. Many of the other NICU parents are living in the hospital full time because they’re from Spokane or one of the islands or even Alaska. I can’t even imagine that. We get to go home every night and try to be normal, even though that’s difficult.
The main thing Ashwin needs to do before we can bring him home is learn how to eat. Honestly, before this, I kind of thought babies were born with an instinct to suckle but I have since learned over and over again that this is not really the case. Currently he gets most of his food – my breast milk – via feeding tube. He gets a little more when we are successful bottle feeding, and a wee bit more when I am successful breastfeeding. Luckily breast pumping has been going well enough that he is exclusively consuming my breast milk – that said, pumping sucks, and the only thing that’s worse is actual breastfeeding.
I’m serious. I know a lot of women go on about how glorious it is, feeding your baby with your body, and what a fabulous bonding experience it is, and so on. Ashwin and I…are not there yet. Most of the time he’ll take a sip or two and fall deep asleep. When he does latch, it’s painful. Between him and the pump, my poor nipples have really taken a beating these last three weeks. Everyone says I have to be patient, that it takes time. I get that. But there is nothing pleasant about it for me so far – except one photo we got of him latched on and looking up at me with his big beautiful eyes. That one is great.
I have oh, so much more to say, but this has gone on long enough and I’ve got things to do. I pump every 3-4 hours…around the clock.
Sconnie Molly 