Emma’s birth was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. It reshaped me in ways I didn’t know I needed. It helped me understand and see things that had once been a mystery I knew I needed to solve.
I haven’t written or “blogged” in a very long time, so this feels a little foreign but I want to share this because, well, I feel like it…. And that’s the best reason. I haven’t felt like writing or sharing much after I had my first baby, Autumn. There was so much going on and we all went into COVID lockdown when she was just a week old. I had bad PPD and everything happening around me made it so much worse. But this is not a story about that. This is a story about my beautiful Emma June’s entrance into the world.
We were scheduled for an induction at 2AM on the 21st of April. They had us call an hour ahead to make sure there was availability because that’s how overbooked they were. We were told to come back at 5AM instead. Beds were scarce. So we got more sleep and ended up getting to the hospital around 6:30AM. I was so nervous that when the nurse said, “Hi, my name is Leanne.” I timidly responded with, “Okay.” She walked us to our room where I changed into that oh-so-familiar hospital gown. It was while I was changing in the bathroom that the trauma from my first birth started to resurface. The bathroom looked the exact same (I guess they all do) I started to remember the pain as a stared at the silver railing and the crack between the door and the wall where I once had my hands as I was writhing in pain. Looking back, I was definitely underprepared and I really should have done some research or practice for labor and delivery.
I came out and made a joke about that bathroom bringing up some crazy memories. Sean sat next to me on the hospital bed as I signed my name and initials on some paperwork and we were told that my doctor would be in shortly to break my water. The nurse left the room and Sean went into the bathroom. It was my first moment alone as I laid there on the hospital bed in that dim-lit, quiet room. I felt myself getting anxious so I thought I’d try this meditation video that my friend Brittney had sent me the day before. I pressed play, closed my eyes, tried to do the breathing exercises, and then the trauma hit me full force. I hit stop and the tears came flowing. I realized then that I couldn’t relax, I had stuffed the pain and the trauma from my first time around deep, deep down for the past two years and here I was about to do it again. I knew the pain of labor and birth and I didn’t want to do it again. I was so scared. There was no option but to face this all again. I cried in a way that made my chest hurt. At the same time, both Sean and the nurse walked back in and asked what was wrong. All I could manage to say through my ugly crying was, “I’m just having a really hard time right now.” Sean knew just what to do and got the JBL and started playing my birth playlist. There are certain songs that will always be comforting to me and that’s what helped me calm down. Music always helps calm me down. I wiped the tears from my eyes and finally began to get my breathing under control. My doctor and NP walked in shortly after and excitingly said, “Hellooo it’s baby time!” I don’t think that they could tell I had been crying.
Next thing I knew, my doctor had this long stick-looking thing which she used to break my water. It didn’t hurt at all and it was pretty clam – very different than my first experience with that. With Autumn my water didn’t just break, it busted… all over the poor nurse trying to help me. It was like a giant water ballon bursting and it went all over the place. I’ll never forget that sound and the nurses face as she got soaked.
We started Pitocin at 7AM. I can’t remember now if we started it before or after my water breaking – that’s why I should have written all this sooner! Anyway, I was pretty nervous since I had never had pitocin before. I was supposed to get it with my first, but the cervadille (a cervix softener) that they had me put in the night before my induction was enough to put me into labor. No one was expecting me to go into active labor with the cervadille so no one was ready, not the nurses, not the anathesiologist… that’s a story I still need to tell.
So with that said, I let the nurse know to please have the epidural ready this time. She let me know the anathiesiologist was about start making rounds and asked if I wanted to get it a little early. After what happened last time, I said yes. While I was getting the epidural in my back, more trauma resurfaced. I was beginning to tremble a little bit as the last time I got an epidural replayed in my head. I was grateful for the fact that I was getting the epidural in a calm, no-craziness environment. Still, the anxiety crept back in and I knew things were going to start moving faster now. I couldn’t stop the little shakes I was getting because I still very much believed this was going to be insanely painful. The epidural started to work and the contractions got stronger. I winced just a tiny bit during one contraction and they asked me, “You can feel that?” I said yes but it was super manageable. They said they didn’t want me to feel anything and gave me an extra dose… which they should not have done because then I got so numb that I felt like I was going to have a freaking panic attack! I couldn’t move my legs and the numbness was starting to creep up into my chest! You really don’t know how scary it is to not be able to feel your body until you have felt it yourself. It is absolutely terrifying. Talk about anxiety. But you know what? That was the only thing that you could say went the least bit “wrong” during the whole process. I had them stop the medication because I wanted to at least feel SOMETHING.
While we were waiting for me to fully dilate, I was checking Instagram and texting my family on my phone. ON MY PHONE during labor… that was crazy to me. Very new concept to me. It was all so calm.
Then it was time to push. I couldn’t feel anything because I was still so numb, but my doctor and nurse told me when to push and I tried to remember how I did it last time. I couldn’t get over how calm everything was. Just Sean, my sister taking pictures, my doctor and nurse in the room. No fire drills this time.
It finally hit me that this time was going to be different, it already was so different. The excitement – a new, very special excitement began to come over me. I suddenly wasn’t worried about anything else other than meeting my baby for the first time. I felt gratitude unlike anything else. The song, “The Years” by Henry Jamison was playing as I was thinking all this and as I watched a single tear roll down Sean’s face. She would be here soon and life never felt more beautiful.
Her head was out and right before the last push my doctor asked if I wanted to pull her out and onto my chest. I was not ready for this at all and I think I said something like no I can’t haha but she assured me I could and urged me to do it so I reached down and pulled my little Emma June out and onto my chest. The happiest tears fell from my eyes and it felt like all was right with the world again. It felt like I had been waiting for this moment I just didn’t know it. Emma felt like mine, like she was always meant to be. We fell in love with her the second we laid eyes on her and she’s been a source of happiness ever since.
