I never made it back to work.
Eric and I utilized that weekend to see a movie, pick up things at Home Depot, and still do quite a bit of relaxing--I didn't want to over-do it. Apparently, it didn't matter what I did; my baby wanted to arrive ahead of schedule.
Sunday evening, I had intended to go to an art supply store to pick up crafting supplies for the nursery. I didn't go and had a strange stomach ache. This was about seven in the evening. I ate red beans and rice and curled up to watch The Help. The pain wasn't exactly intense, but it wasn't going away. I dealt with it and tried to go to sleep.
I couldn't sleep. This mysterious cramp in my stomach was getting worse and not going away. I went to the bathroom and saw that I was spotting. An awful feeling crept up--something was wrong. Had I done too much this weekend? I called the on-call doctor, who informed me that the spotting could just be the result of my cervical exam two days before. "Just keep an eye on it," she said, without a drop of concern to her voice. I would watch it, but my intuition told me it was something more even if I didn't really want to believe it.
We started to time these pains. Eric said that he was concerned that they were contractions. "Remember the class? How they said it could feel like gas pains?" I remembered that, but I also remembered that they were supposed to feel like a squeezing, a menstrual cramp--and that you were supposed to see your stomach moving. None of that was happening. Still, it was painful. I knew I wasn't going to sleep, and so I told a bath instead and it did help my pain--sort of. It was still there and now we were finding that the pain was coming and going every twelve minutes. Indigestion doesn't do that.
I called the doctor again and they told me to come down to the hospital. I kissed Pandora's sleeping cheek--I had a feeling that something was going to be different the next time I saw her. Gustav watched me with weary eyes. In my vision of birth, I had imagined a perfectly packed suitcase. I was going to have a labor playlist, massage tools, and my own nightgown. We didn't bring any of these because we weren't prepared to do this so soon.
At the hospital, they found my cervix now at a three. My "contractions" were not registering on the monitor, again confusing me to believe that maybe something else was happening. The nurses shot that down. They may not see the contractions on the screen or feel them with their hands, but they saw me wincing with pain and my cervix changing. They were absolutely contractions. Doctor's orders: stop them.
They gave me orange pills, muscle relaxers, to try to stop them. Now, I haven't even taken a Tylenol during this pregnancy. I was extremely cautious, even with supplements--and I definitely don't do "medicine." Although, at this point, I just didn't want to have my baby arrive before she was ready. I didn't want to see her hooked up to tubes and machines. So, I took the pills--and the contractions continued. I already had an IV jabbed into my vein, they were dropping "nutrients" into my body and I wasn't allowed food. They added magnesium to my IV regimen. IVs were not part of my birth plan. Nothing that was happening was part of my birth plan. I was starving, concerned, wondering if I should contact my doula at three o'clock in the morning. I didn't want to be restriction, my arms getting tangled in IVs and wires. I wanted birth tubs, chosen songs, and a relaxing environment. Not this.
The magnesium didn't stop the contractions, either. The nurses offered an epidural.
"You're having this baby today."
I refused the epidural. Nothing was going as planned--that was the one thing I could still control. I could still have my natural childbirth. Well, as natural as it could be with IVs and pills and being forbidden food. I did find out why food is recommended. At some point during the labor, I can't really remember when, I threw up all of my dinner and snacks. It was the most violent retching I can recall. Eric held a trash can below my open mouth, while I lost red beans and rice and jalapeño jelly mixed with tofutti. I would not have eaten those things if I knew I was going to be laboring or puking.
Most of the labor is jumbled in my mind. I remember the clock changing quickly. Time went by so fast, even when each contraction seemed to last so long. The contractions never felt like what I had imagined. I refused an epidural several times. The nurses were shocked that anyone would refuse it. At the end of my labor, I felt like I couldn't do it anymore. I considered pain medication at one point, and asked when would be too late. They told me it was already too late. I didn't really want it, but at some point the pain becomes so intense and forceful that I doubted myself. Could I handle this daunting task of delivering a human being? Especially when I didn't expect it so early?
During this time, Eric was the best support person I could have hoped for. He massaged my lower back and head, even without the planned massage tools. I looked up once, towards the end, and saw his own eyes brimming with tears. He removed my bedpan, right before my water broke--a strange sensation of a balloon swelling and then exploding from beneath me. That was when it became real for him. They told me not to push. I felt--now remember birth is not pretty--like I was going to have to poop. That was my worst fear about the labor process--pooping all over the delivery table. That feeling was a baby, pushing her way into the world. It took a total of two pushes.
Two huge bright lights were blinding me. There were faces swarming. Nurses, my doctor, NICU representatives explaining what life would be like with my baby taken away from me. They were ordering me not to push, not to do this. Then:
"Look at your baby."
There was this grey wiggling person, still attached to me via the umbilical cord that they quickly clamped and removed. Strangers picked her up and checked her vitals. Eric alternated taking photos with my phone and our nicer camera. Someone--a nurse?--brought her to me--wrapped in a blanket and topped with a tiny beanie. Her eyes were closed and she had the most perfect face I had ever seen--but I didn't cry, like I had expected. I still didn't believe what had just happened.
She, Tallulah, was seven weeks and two days early. Our house wasn't unpacked. Our doula wasn't there. We didn't have a strategically packed suitcase. I didn't get my post-birth skin to skin. My baby was taken away and put in a different corner of the hospital.
It was incredibly difficult. It still is. I'm thankful that Tallulah is healthy. I'll be even more thankful when she is ready to come home.
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