As of December 27th, I still wasn't feeling any "different" in the waiting game for the baby. Mr. Darcy had gone back to work the day after Christmas, and so my mom went with me to the doctor's appointment that I had that morning, at around 9:30. The doctor's visits were weekly at that point, and they usually tended to be brief and to the point: I would have my weight and blood pressure taken, the doctor would check on a few other things, and then I would be sent on my merry way after they'd made certain to answer any questions that I might have. Quite basic and uncomplicated. Mom and I had made plans to drive over to where my dad worked, so that we could meet him for lunch and give me an opportunity to--yet again--get out to walk and see if it would prompt Little Miss Princess to start thinking about making her grand debut.
This doctor's visit took a different course from the others, however. The nurse-midwife who was seeing me that day told me that the baby's heartbeat sounded a little low when she had listened to it, and she would like to monitor it for a bit, just to make certain that everything was all right. She assured me that there was nothing to be concerned about; the baby's heartbeat most likely sounded lower than normal because I hadn't eaten yet that morning--bad, whoops, I know--and because I had just been lying down on the exam table. Mom came to sit with me while the nurse started a stress test for me, hooking up a monitor to my tummy to chart the baby's heartbeat while I held a little clicker in one hand and pushed a button on it every time that I felt the baby move.
We waited for about twenty minutes, with the nurse-midwife checking in on us every once in a while. Everyone kept reassuring me that everything was all right, that I didn't need to be worried; everything was fine, and this was just to be cautious. After a while, though, the nurse-midwife told me that she wanted for me to go on over to the hospital--which is a mere two-minute drive down the road from the doctor's office itself--and they would have me monitored there for a bit longer. Well, all right, I thought, as my nervousness began to edge towards something closer to panic. This is kind of scary...
I'm still thanking the Lord that Mom had gone to that doctor's appointment with me that day. If she hadn't been there to talk to me and reassure me and tell me that everything was fine--if the doctor had seen something to be really worried about, they would have sent me to the emergency room straightaway, not to the maternity ward to have more monitoring done--I know I would have been an absolute mess. And to think that I had almost decided to go alone that morning! Fortunately, I wasn't alone, and as I sat in a room waiting to be checked in, the frightened tears started, and Mom sat by me and prayed with me, and told me that she had had one of these very same tests done, and nothing had come of it. Eventually, I was admitted and taken to a room, where I was once again hooked up to a heart monitor. And then we waited.
Over the next forty-five minutes, two different nurses came in to check on me repeatedly. Mom called my dad to let him know what was going on, and told him that we might be a bit late for lunch, pending my release from the hospital at the word of the doctor who was on call that day. She also called one of my sisters who was at home, telling her that we might need for her to bring the bag of things that I had packed to the hospital...but we weren't certain yet. I delayed calling Mr. Darcy for the time being, not wanting to have him worried about us while he was at work, especially if nothing came of the test and I was released shortly. The nurse told me that it looked as though they would be releasing me soon, and brought me some apple juice and graham crackers.
I must note a few things here.
#1: At the time, I was a fan of apple juice in the slightest. Apple cider, yes. Sparkling apple cider, yes. Hard apple cider, of course. But not apple juice. However, I was extremely grateful to have that apple juice to drink at the time, and much later, I would be even more grateful, but I'll come back to that later.
#2: I had not had anything to eat that day, except for a glass of Ovaltine, that apple juice, and those graham crackers. Ordinarily, I would eat in the morning, but on that particular day, I hadn't left myself time for anything more than the Ovaltine before rushing out the door for my doctor's appointment.
I suppose it was somewhat for the best, however, because...the doctor came in about fifteen minutes after the nurse had brought me my snack, and told us some rather surprising news. I had already been informed that I was having contractions--about two or three minutes apart, I think it was, and I was unaware of it because I wasn't feeling the contractions at the time--but now the doctor told me that because the baby's heartbeat was dipping every so often, they wanted to proceed with admitting me to a delivery room and inducing labor. Lil' Princess was going to be...ahem, gently encouraged...to make her debut into the world, out of a concern for her safety and health.
At that point, the hospital staff commenced getting me ready for an induced labor and delivery. I was hooked up to an I.V. to keep me hydrated while they started me on a pitocin drip to induce the labor process. I called Mr. Darcy then, and asked him, with a shaky laugh in my voice, "Um, honey...can you come here to the hospital now? It looks like we're having a baby today..." I got settled into my new accommodations--a rather spacious labor and delivery room--and soon enough, Mr. Darcy arrived...
And then the next thirty-four hours of labor began. The afternoon and evening of December 27th passed with both Mr. Darcy's family and mine coming by to visit with us during the wait, and then Mr. Darcy and I hunkered down to wait out the process through the night. My contractions went from unnoticeable to the "Okay, that's starting to hurt quite a bit..." level, and the next morning arrived with little change. The doctor arrived to break my water at around 7:30am, and the contractions went through the roof in pain level. I was a weeping mess until the anesthesiologist arrived to give me the epidural that I had practically begged for. I had been quite uneasy at the idea of getting an epidural; although I knew that I wanted to have that for the relief of my pain, it didn't take away my nervousness about the procedure. I'm a lot of things, but one of the things that I'm not is a girl who can blithely face the idea of a needle going into my spine. Fortunately, I had an excellent group of people who were working with me: the anesthesiologist and the student who was with him, and the nurse who was assigned to me at the time. I also had Mr. Darcy, who actually had me laughing--carefully, of course--during the procedure by quoting this video.
Don't watch this video if you don't get a giggle from absolute ridiculous and overt silliness--because that is precisely what the video is all about. And the song at the end may or may not get stuck in your head for a few hours...you have been warned. ;)
The epidural took all of a minute or two to work its magic on the awful pain of the contractions that I had been having, and I felt much, much better...which is exactly what I had been told would happen. Thank goodness too. Contractions are nothing to play around with! Even after that, however, it took the rest of the afternoon and the earlier part of the evening for me to get to the point where I could be given the go-ahead to start pushing. It was around 7:00 in the evening when I reached that point of labor. I was as tired as I had ever been in my life by then; I hadn't eaten since around 11:00 in the morning on the day before, and I had been in pain for many long hours.
Finally, after two hours of pushing and very little progress in the birth, I looked at my husband--about to cry yet again--and told him, "I can't do this anymore. I have nothing left." My energy and strength were completely gone; I had nothing to go on, nothing to fuel my efforts. I felt extremely weak, upset, and scared. I just wanted my baby to be delivered, safe and strong and healthy. Mr. Darcy turned to the nurse who was with us and said, "I think it's time to get the doctor. I would like to have a talk with him."
The nurse--who was a very sweet, friendly, and encouraging lady--immediately went to retrieve the doctor for us. He gave us a few options of how we could proceed in the delivery from where we were, and when we asked about the safest out of those choices, his answer was simple: a c-section.
Prior to becoming pregnant, I had always imagined that I would have to give birth by c-section. My mother had had my sisters and I by c-section, and we have a similar body build, so I had assumed for a time that that would be what would happen to me. My doctor--along with most doctors in this day and age, I would think--tried for the natural method of delivery first, and we had exhausted that option before anyone brought up a c-section. As it turns out, I do share the same type of body build as my mother--so giving birth naturally simply isn't physically possible for me. The baby literally could not get out through natural birth, because of my body's bone structure, because of the way that I'm built. Since it was now the safest method of giving birth to our baby, wherein her health and safety was guaranteed--more so now than the other methods--Mr. Darcy and I were quick to reply that a c-section was what we wanted to do. Mr. Darcy went off to inform our families and my friend, Micah, of what was happening, while everything was being prepared for me to go into the first major surgery that I had had in my entire life.
Mr. Darcy was able to stay with me during the entire c-section delivery process, which went very smoothly and--surprisingly enough--pleasantly. I was wide awake through the whole procedure, though a blue surgical curtain was put up to hide our view of the c-section, and Mr. Darcy and I were able to talk, joke, and laugh together with the team of hospital staff that was with us. Finally, someone told Mr. Darcy to hurry and get out the camera that he had brought into the operating room with us: "Take the pictures, take the pictures! Hurry, you're going to miss it!" My husband snapped picture after picture on the phone, holding his hand over the curtain, and suddenly he exclaimed: "Oh--Cait--she's beautiful! She's so beautiful! Even more than I imagined she would be!" (Which was quite a lot, because we had seen her image on the sonogram that I had had done when I was sixteen weeks pregnant.) My heart racing, I strained to hear...waiting...and waiting...and then...
I heard my little girl's voice for the first time.
She didn't cry very loudly, or very much. But I heard her, and I cried tears of joy as I felt my entire being absolutely glow with joy. Mr. Darcy hastened to follow the nurse out of the room with our newborn daughter, so that they could go and have her cleaned up and attended to. I felt a pang of sadness through my elation then, because I wouldn't be able to see my baby in the very first few seconds after her birth--but soon enough, they let Mr. Darcy bring her back into the room, all swaddled up, wearing a little crocheted pink and white hat over the little pink-, white-, and blue-striped stocking caps that they put on babies at the hospital.
As my husband held our precious little girl close to me, so that I could see her at long last, I stared into her perfect, red little face, and couldn't contain my awe and wonder. Squinting her little eyes, she looked back and forth between her father and me, as though she was somewhat grumpily contemplating her new surroundings and the strange pair of beings that were gazing at her and talking to her.
We were given a few moments with her before the nurses ushered Mr. Darcy and the baby out of the operating room, so that I could be, ahem, patched up and attended to. It was amazing; I had just been through my first surgery, and it was a big deal, as it was a major abdominal surgery...and it hadn't been bad at all! I was so surprised, relieved, and even thrilled at this. I had undergone a c-section, and it had been a smooth, even pleasant process--at least, as pleasant as surgery can be.
After that, I had to wait an agonizingly long forty-five minutes in a recovery room before I was finally taken to a room in the hospital's mother and baby ward. I had never felt so eager in all of my life as I felt when the door opened and a nurse came in, wheeling one of the little carts with the baby's crib on it. Finally--finally!--my daughter was placed in my arms, and our family and Micah filed into the room to see us. Pictures were being taken left and right as I stared down at the sweet little face and hands that peeked out of the blankets that she was wrapped in. Those moments were one long blur of amazing, all-consuming, beautiful, joyful emotion; I cannot begin to describe how I felt then, because it all defies the power of humanity's words to tell. I'm a mother now. I'm a mommy. My baby is finally here. This precious little human being in my arms is my daughter. This is her. She's here.
It has been a little over a month now since our little rose's birth. She is an extremely healthy and strong little girl--every day she surprises and delights us all with her always-developing expressions, sounds, and strength. She's been trying to hold her head up on her own almost since birth, and she is exceptionally alert and bright-eyed. She shares a lot of features with her daddy's side of the family: his big blue eyes, his full lips, his long eyelashes, even the cute little slightly pointed curve on the outline of her ear. (I call them her elf ears...they're so adorable!) When I watch her sometimes, I can see some of my own expressions on her little face: the way she will raise her eyebrows, or the way she will pout or scowl. Her spirited, smart little personality is all her own, however...she is a combination of her daddy and me, and yet a completely and wonderfully unique work of art from God's hands.
There's something that I tell her, from time to time: that God took all of the sweet, pretty, nice, and wonderful things in the world and put them together, and made her, and then He gave her to us. And though the allusion to the poem about "sugar and spice and everything nice" is somewhat just an affectionate mention of a lovely old nursery rhyme, I truly do believe that the Lord has given my husband and I the most immeasurably incredible and beautiful gift in this little girl. She has challenged us, changed us, and been the greatest gift and blessing that I have been given in my adult life, since the Lord brought Mr. Darcy into my life.
And to wrap up this incredibly long and detailed post, I will simply say that becoming a mother has been a fantastic experience for me--that my labor and delivery were an epic adventure, but a wonderful epic adventure at that--and even though I had a long recovery time and some pain, it wasn't bad at all. I look forward to the time when we will give our little rose a sibling...
But not for a good, decent lil' while. ;)
À bientôt!
--Cait
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