Mary Makes Babies

On Healing

When I went through my first miscarriage after having my son my instinct was to get pregnant again as fast as possible. I wanted to believe that being pregnant again would erase the pain of my loss. In a way, I saw having another baby as a cure for my grief, an emotion I desperately wanted to escape.

I remember asking a friend who had lost a baby right before having her daughter if it would work. Would the pain go away when I had another baby? She told me, "Yes and no." She said that she'd never forget the pregnancy she lost, but once her baby was born she stopped thinking about her "baby in heaven" as often. She became focused on her love for her daughter and was able to stop fixating on the pain and grief of her loss.  

I wouldn't end up experiencing the joy of my rainbow baby for three more years, and only after losing three more babies, including Sidney's twin. By the time I had Sidney my expectations for erasing grief were much lower. I didn't expect my baby to take away the pain I'd experienced. I knew by then that nothing really can - that the grief of losing a child (even a potential child) is something that a mother must learn to carry forever. The trick isn't to hide from it or make it go away, but to accept the pain, to tuck it away into your heart where you can reach it when you need to without getting in the way of finding love and joy in the present.

Like just about everything with motherhood, the actual experience of having a rainbow baby has been a bit different than I could have guessed. My love for this beautiful baby is a slow burn. I feel like when I had Charlie my heart exploded daily with layer after layer of intense emotion, but this time around that emotion is coming in a slow, steady stream instead. I think part of it is that I'm distracted by caring for two children at once, but another factor at work is that I'm still not fully healed from my heart being broken over and over again.

There is still a part of me that is holding back, that is afraid that I will blink my eyes and she will disappear. Part of me is still scared of how much I love her.

The thing is that hearts don't heal overnight, no matter how beautiful and perfect the balm. It's a slow process, but I can feel that the wheels are in motion. Late at night, when we are rocking together in my silent bedroom my thoughts tend to drift. I find myself realizing things and connecting dots. I am learning to forgive myself and forgive my body for the times it failed me. I'm learning to grant myself the same compassion I so easily offer other mothers who have lost their babies.

"I'm sorry this happened to you." Until now I don't think I've ever really said it to MYSELF. Last night I did, and that's when I realized that Sidney isn't healing me in the way I had dreamed she would so many years ago. She is not an emotional eraser or a tiny genie here to grant my wishes. She was not born to solve my problems.

She was born to be loved, and as with so so many things in life. Love is the answer, and I'm realizing that it's finally time for me to learn to love myself.

Like so many women, learning to love myself has been something I have struggled with for my entire life. It's not necessarily that I dislike myself or that there is anything particularly wrong with me. It's just that for some reason I don't believe that I am worthy of the same love I pile on others. But how can you forgive someone without loving them? How can you support someone or make their wellness a priority without loving them? You can't - not properly.

Now that I have a daughter I feel a huge responsibility toward her. Life in a female body is never easy, and I long to give her the tools to navigate this world with confidence, courage, and joy. I know from experience that the best way to teach your children is by example. If I want Sidney to have the tools for a happy life I must first get them for myself. 

She was born to be loved, and I love her so. There's no way I'm sending her out into life unarmed.

Lucky for me, love begets love, and the more I feel for my children the easier it seems to be to extend that love to myself. I've got a long way to go before I get it right, but I have the best motivation in the world. This heart WILL be healed, and I will be the one to heal it.

 

Sidney's Birth Story (Part Three)

Continued from Part Two...

The sensation of the epidural was a little odd. My lower half wasn't completely numb. I could still feel the sensations of my uterus contracting, for example, but the pain was totally gone. The pressure that began mounting once baby started to push her way down the birth canal was hard to ignore, but it didn't actually hurt anymore. I guess the best way to describe everything would be to call it surreal.

Shortly after my water was broken the doctor checked my cervix again to see if she could tell how far the baby had come down. This is when things really got interesting. I remember her looking concerned, then reaching in again and saying "I'm not supposed to feel a nose."

A nurse was called in to confirm the doctor's suspicions and yes, Sidney was situated face first in the birth canal. They called it "full facial presentation" but I've since heard it referred to more often as "sunny side up". They explained to me that this was a really rare presentation and that there was some danger involved. Baby was pretty much guaranteed to incur a fair amount of bruising (mostly facial bruising) on her way out which would also increase her risk for developing jaundice. Further, there was a concern about her neck being too stressed by delivery and her airway being compromised.

The big decision at hand was whether to keep trying for a vaginal delivery or to go for the emergency C-section. In this moment, I was pretty grateful that I had gotten the epidural because the thought of my baby being in any kind of danger already had me close to tears. If I had been going through crazy contractions while listening to this drama unfold I think I really might have lost it. Eventually Dr. Angry Hands was called back in to weigh in. Despite the fact that she had already traumatized me once before, she shoved her hands way up and knuckled my perineum yet again. Even with the epidural I could STILL feel how roughly she was treating my nether regions, so that says a lot.

Dr. Angry Hands decided that my pelvis was large enough to handle a sunny-side up baby and insisted that we try pushing before jumping to the C-section. I was very very nervous at this point and actually argued against the vaginal delivery at that point because I was just way too scared of anything happening to this baby to take even the slightest risk. She continued to insist, and so we compromised by agreeing to push for ten minutes. If no progress was made, or if the baby seemed at all in distress we would stop immediately and go for the c-section. I agreed, and on the next contraction started to push.

Her nose and mouth appeared after the very first push. A collective gasp escaped the room. My doctors, nurses, my sister who was acting as my doula, and my husband started to bustle around and shout encouraging words. Suddenly there were three times as many people in the room. I kept on pushing. Sidney's whole face popped out. My sister told me, in between contractions, how crazy it looked down there so I asked her to take a photo that would later blow my mind. 

Less than ten minutes later a tiny purple baby was plopped onto my chest. Just as I started to cuddle her close I heard someone yelling "clamp and cut! clamp and cut!" and suddenly she was gone - whisked away to a table across the room. I couldn't reach her. My legs were still numb and useless. My perineum had ripped almost all the way through, and I had just given birth. I was stuck where I was so all I could do was lay there listening for the sound of my baby crying. 

When that sound didn't come, I started to get really scared. Suddenly I remembered that my sister was nearby. I asked her what was happening. Was my baby ok? She tried to reassure me. I asked her to go take some photos for me. I hadn't even had any time to see her. Scott later told me that they had given her a breathing tube for the first five or so minutes of her life. Then they took it off and she wasn't breathing on her own, so they put it back on. When they tried the second time she was finally breathing, but she wasn't waking up. 

The doctors decided to try giving her back to me to see if she might perk up on her own before sending her to NICU. Luckily, she did. As soon as she got back to mama she started to root. I latched her on and she just kept nursing - for two hours!! She didn't end up going to NICU after all, and she even managed to avoid getting jaundice. 

All in all, my hospital birth experience was surprisingly great. I'd been nervous about it since I knew it would be SO different from Charlie's birth, but it ended up being pretty awesome. Even staying in the hospital was kind of wonderful. I was able to get plenty of sleep and spend two whole days doing nothing but caring for (and staring at) my new baby. Compared to being sent home just four hours after delivering Charlie this part felt utterly luxurious. I chugged water day and night, took showers whenever I wanted, and even had food delivered to my bed. 

I should also mention that the entire staff was incredible kind and helpful (besides Dr. Angry Hands who my vagina still has a grudge against.) A friend reached out to me a few days after Sid was born to check in on me and asked if I felt like the birth was traumatic. I thought about it for a moment and realized that for all the drama, it hadn't been. I actually felt pretty great! After Charlie's birth I suffered through insomnia, major anxiety, and PTSD style flashbacks. This postpartum period has been much kinder - just some migraines and vertigo! Both of which suck, but I'd take them over losing my mind any day.

Since birth, Sidney has had some more ups and downs. She was super sleepy for the first few days and on the borderline for jaundice. She also stopped gaining weight as quickly as she should AND has been breathing much more rapidly than is expected for a newborn. She ended up getting diagnosed with a double tongue tie (just like her brother) and we were luckily able to have it corrected right away. Since then she has gained really well, and her breath has become more regular once she hit her third week. If it works itself out before she hits two months we'll be in the clear, but if not she'll have to get her heart and lungs evaluated. 

The fun never stops with these babies, haha. Overall though, we are both doing well and falling more in love with one another every day. Thanks for listening to our story. More mama thoughts and baby stories coming at ya soon.

Sidney's Birth Story (Part Two)

Continued from Part One...

The induction started off around 11:45pm on May 30. The process started off with something called a balloon catheter. This fun little device gets inserted into your cervix then filled with saline. It is used to apply gentle pressure to both the inside and the outside of the cervix which encourages dilation. At first, it doesn't feel like much is happening, but after an hour or two the pain becomes reminiscent of extra spicy menstrual cramps - the kind that would keep you rolling around in bed and calling out of work. 

I also had an IV started, which involved a fair amount of drama since my veins are not too fond of being stabbed. They literally jump away when a needle comes toward them. I've seen it with my own eyes, and have been covered in bruises from blow out veins pretty much every time I get an IV. Naturally, I was nervous about getting stabbed repeatedly while the nurses tried to get one into my arm, but I did not expect the process to trigger a full-blown PTSD breakdown.

But it did. I cried. I hyperventilated. In short, I lost my shit completely as the poor nurse tried spot after spot then finally called in a backup. The second nurse was finally able to get the IV into my right hand, but it hurt SO much. We tried icing it, and I decided to give it some time to see if I could learn to cope with the discomfort. But by the next morning it was terribly sore, so much so that I couldn't use the hand at all. 

Speaking of that night. Here's how it went. I spent several hours pacing around the hospital room while the balloon did its thing, then when the cramps finally started to mellow out I crawled into bed and did my best to get some sleep. Unfortunately, the monitors on my belly kept going in and out all night, making staying asleep difficult as every half hour or so my nurse would have to come in and adjust something. I did sleep a little bit though, and soon enough morning arrived.

The Obgyn on duty that morning came in around 7:45 am and removed the balloon. After a quick cervical check she let me know that I was now dilated to 6, which she seemed to think was great. Now that I was dilated enough the petocin drip could get started and labor could begin. In order for that to happen, I needed that IV. I knew that getting through labor without the use of my right hand would really suck, so I asked the nurse to please find another place to stick it in.

While they tried to move the IV I lost it again, and the nurse thankfully stopped stabbing and called in another nurse who was trained to use lidocaine while starting an IV. After a short break to recover my emotions we tried it and it worked like a charm, and they were finally able to hook up the petocin.

The first few hours of petocin were no big deal. They started me on a very low dose to get things moving, then increased the dose a little bit every hour. The early contractions came pretty regularly, but they were never super painful. By the early afternoon they had started to become more intense, but even then they never lasted very long. I was able to cope with them by walking, bouncing up and down on a yoga ball, and breathing deeply when they hit. 

When they really started to ramp up I asked Scott to pull out his guitar and we spent an hour or so practicing all the songs we could think of. It had been part of my plan to sing the baby out, and this was one part that really did go exactly as I'd hoped. Singing not only took my mind off of the pain, it also helped me control my breathing without even thinking about it. I would definitely do this again and would recommend it to anybody who loves singing and making music. 

For the most part, this portion of labor went really well, but I ended up having another emotional meltdown when one of the doctors came in to give me a cervical check. Now I've had cervical checks before (I've had a whole baby before, in fact) but I was NOT prepared for what this woman did to me. She shoved her hand into me so fast and so hard that my entire body was shoved up in the hospital bed. I shrieked in pain and shock, and was clearly in distress, but she did not stop. Instead she kept right on going - shoving her fingers into my cervix, and digging her knuckles painfully into my perineum.

I cried my eyes out. It felt like I'd been assaulted. I couldn't catch my breath. I was shaking and crying and just basically a big mess for a while. Eventually I got  hold of myself again, but having two meltdowns in one day was already leaving me feeling exhausted and unhinged. It robbed my of my confidence and my courage, and for the life of me, I just couldn't get those things back after that.

The staff quickly concluded that I had some kind of PTSD triggering going on so they promised they would get a different doctor to do my checks after that and reassured me that she would perform the checks more slowly and more gently. I'll never understand why slow and gentle isn't the standard, but I dud appreciate them trying to accommodate my needs after my run in with "Dr. Angry Hands". 

At some point in the early afternoon the doctors began discussing how and when they would break my water. Since I had a lot of excess fluid around the baby there was a concern that if the water was broken too quickly baby could turn or twist the wrong way. Even with all the measures they had taken to induce labor, Sidney still wasn't as far down the birth canal as they would have liked. She wasn't fully "engaged" as they put it. So, they decided to break my water using a small needle, which would allow the liquid to drain slowly, letting the doctors try to guide baby down in the correct direction.

As soon as my water broke everything changed. I went from having consistent but bearable contractions to going almost out of my mind with pain. One minute I was bouncing on a ball singing Bob Dylan tunes and the next I was laying flat on my back trying to disconnect my mind from my body. It was the only way that I could find to cope with that amount of pain. The contractions were so intense and happening so quickly that I couldn't fathom trying to get up and move around or even reach up toward a squat bar. It felt like it was all I could do to just hang on and keep living. 

That's when I made a decision I never thought I would have made. I asked for an epidural. At first, nobody seemed to believe that I really did want one. My husband called for the nurse when I asked him to call the anesthesiologist. The nurse thought I was in transition. The chorus of voices surrounding my bedside just kept singing "are you sure? are you sure? are you sure?"

I was sure. And I tried to explain it as quickly and simply as possible. "I've been through enough.", I said. And it's true, I have been. Losing four babies in the past three years has taken a lot out of me. I've endured a huge deal of both physical and emotional pain, extreme stress, doubt, and fear. I didn't need to feel every moment of this birth. I was tired. I had been brave long enough that I didn't need to prove anything to anybody - not even myself.

Oddly enough, I came out on the other end of this experience feeling brave and feeling strong for being able to ask for the help that I needed when I did end up needing it. I was scared to get an epidural because I was scared of giving up control, of not seeing myself as the tough birth warrior that I wanted to be. But I was brave enough to put my pride aside and give myself what I needed to make it through, and THAT was badass. At least, it was if you ask me.

Getting an epidural is probably not particularly fun at any time, but getting one toward the end of active labor was pretty freaking intense. Scott kneeled in front of my while I sat up in bed, legs dangled over the side, with my back curled over my belly while the needles were put in place. The process took about ten (very very long) minutes, during which you are not allowed to move whatsoever. Ten minutes meant about twenty contractions at this point, and I spent every one of them holding on to Scott's shoulders and leaving my body for the calmer air space above us.

When it was finally done I laid back down and waited for it to kick in. It would be another ten or fifteen minutes, or another 20 - 30 contractions before it was fully in effect. Since my body often requires a little extra medicine to numb up, the anesthesiologist ended up having to up the dose after ten minutes or so. Finally, the medicine kicked in and I could no longer feel pain below my waist.

OK, so I lied. Continue on to Part Three, in which I actually have a baby! (For real this time.)

Sidney's Birth Story (Part One)

So it has been a while since I last posted. The third trimester ended up going by much quicker (and ending much sooner) than I had anticipated. I kept meaning to sit down and write about what was happening, but I always seemed to end up working or napping or nesting instead. 

To make a long story short, my frame of mind improved considerably after going back on anti-depressants. Thanks to my little happy pills I was able to cheer up and soldier on. Another huge step in the right direction was changing my Obgyn. I finally admitted to myself that I just couldn't get comfortable with the doctor I had been seeing and moved to an all-female practice recommended by my sister.

This ended up being the best decision I could have possibly made. My doctor at the new practice immediately recognized an iron deficiency that was making me feel like garbage, and got me on medication to treat the nausea that had been stopping me from eating and drinking enough to feel well. On top of all that, I finally felt like I was part of the conversation when it came to my pregnancy. Feeling respected and heard helped to make me feel safer and more confident as well. 

And... it's a good thing that I felt that way, because the last few weeks of this pregnancy ended up being full of surprises. My maternal fetal medicine doctor had warned me a while back that inducing early (at 38 weeks) was possible and that no matter how healthy everything looked he would not let me go past my due date. He joked that if I farted wrong he would make me have the baby. So, while I knew that delivering at 38 weeks was a possibility, I had kind of been expecting to get at least another week along before we actually induced. My blood pressure had been great, so what was the hurry, right?

At my 36 week Obgyn visit they told me that we would be inducing at 38 weeks after all. My cervix had already started to soften up and even though my blood pressure had remained in good shape, protein had started to appear in my urine and they felt like the safest thing to do would be to go ahead and have me give birth. I freaked out a little when it began to sink in that I would have to GIVE BIRTH in two weeks. I wasn't ready!! There was a bathroom to finish, a bedroom to paint, a month's worth of work to finish and schedule to pay the bills while I was recovering. Plus, I hadn't really started processing all the emotions necessary to deal with pushing a baby out of my body. But at least I had two more weeks to work on everything. Two more weeks!

When I visited my doctors the following week I found out that the induction would actually start the evening BEFORE I officially hit 36 weeks. That left me with one day less to prepare, and sent me reeling a bit. But the next morning when my Obgyn called I got thrown for an even bigger loop. The protein in my urine had increased and they didn't like the too-abundant amount of fluid around the baby. Instead of being induced next week, they wanted to start that night. I found out at ten in the morning and was asked to be at the hospital that evening at seven pm. 

OMG!! I tried my best to jam all of my panic away in the back closet of my mind and started making a list of things I needed to do in the next several hours. Call my mom, talk to my sister about watching Charlie, pack a hospital bag, write a birth plan, stick an  auto-responder on to my email account, cancel projects that were due that week, generally go crazy...

Somehow I managed to get it all done with enough time to spare to grab a quick dinner on the way to the hospital. Scott and I did our best to hash out our about to have a baby feelings over chips and salsa at a Mexican restaurant, then hopped in the car and headed to the hospital. We got a kick out of surprising our waitress. She asked when the baby was due, and I told her in about an hour. Her face! Haha.

We ended up arriving at the hospital right on time, which seemed miraculous considering I have been about 15 minutes late to EVERYTHING for the past two months. But then the nurse at the check-in desk forgot about us for 45 minutes and we ended up getting into our room about an hour late. Whoops! Luckily, no-one seemed too phased about adjusting the schedule, so there we were. The induction was officially underway around 10 pm. I'll share more details on that whole process in my next post.

Continue on for Part Two, in which I actually have a baby!

The Subversiveness of Grief

Today has been a doozy. 

The waterworks started when I came home from taking C to a birthday party and let the dog escape through our front door. This happens a lot. I can't really stop her since she is stronger than me, I suck at training dogs, and every time this happens there is a small child in the middle of the whole affair.

But, YOU try telling that to my husband, who seems to think I let the dog out for the sheer thrill of watching him chase after it. We exchanged some heated words in front of the house, made the neighbors blush, and then my eyes started to sting and I ran into my room to have a little cry. In Scott's defense, it is not very hard to make me cry these days, so it's not like he had to do much to encourage this result. But, if you happen to have any advice on NOT making your pregnant wife cry than please feel free to pass that along to him. As far as I can tell he must think making pregnant ladies cry is what all the cool kids are doing these days.

Anyway, I have been finding it harder and harder lately to recover from my sob-sessions, so it took me a while to get up and try to get on with the day. Scott had left for work, so I started to set up the changing table he had driven to get me that morning. I stocked the shelves with little boxes of cloth diapers, swaddles, and baby clothes, and while this was exactly what I wanted to be doing today, my feelings of sadness just kept growing and growing. By time time I was done it was like wading through quicksand.

On top of crying at every opportunity I have been exceptionally cranky and angry over the past couple of months. I've joked about it, but it's actually been a little bit over the top for my tastes. I find myself snapping at my husband and even at my son constantly. My temper is super short, and before I even know what is happening I'm raising my voice. Even out in the world with strangers I find myself losing patience quickly. The cashier at the grocery store feels stand-offish, the lady at the kid's thrift shop is judging me, the stranger on Facebook is making comments that compel me to start a fight. I don't feel like myself, because this isn't how I usually navigate the world.

At first I chalked it up to hormones. I mean, pregnant ladies are notorious for being cranky, right? But a few days ago I saw a quote that got stuck in my mind. 

Anger is often grief that has been silent for too long.

First the sentence sat in my mind, then it simmered, then it sunk, like a brick, down into my brain and I finally got it. Of course I'm angry. I lost a baby. ANOTHER baby. I lost a fifth baby. And it hurts like hell, still, and maybe putting away all of those sweet little onesies and miniature socks forced me to face what is probably one of my deepest fears. The fear that it will never stop hurting - even when I am finally holding my rainbow baby in my arms the pain will still be there. The loss will still be there. My heart is just permanently cracked - and no amount of beautiful healthy babies can fix it.

I knew that, but it's one thing to expect something and another to experience its proof. I'm just a little while away from having another baby, and I should be really happy right now. I should be nesting and celebrating, and trying to enjoy the last couple of months of experiencing pregnancy. I should be relishing every kick, warmly chuckling over my discomfort, and basking in gratitude that this is FINALLY HAPPENING. But it's hard to do all of that while carrying this weight of grief around with me - especially when the grief has been disguising itself as anger. 

I'm furious at my husband for not missing our other twin, Bebe, like I do. It's lonely to grieve all by yourself, and if he is hurting like I am he doesn't tell me about it. It isn't surprising, of course, the babies we lost never felt real to him the way they did to me. He didn't know them like I did. He didn't have a CHANCE to love them like I did. They were ideas and those ideas vanished. Loving an idea and loving another human life just isn't really the same thing. If I'm going to be mad at Scott for not grieving like I do than I should just go ahead and be mad at my whole family, the whole world. And maybe I am actually.

The only other person that I think really felt the last loss as intensively as I did hasn't even had his fourth birthday yet. I can't exactly lean on him for emotional support. He still brings up Bebe, and his random explanations to strangers about how he "used to have two sisters but one had to go back to heaven instead of being born" is a really great for ripping my guts out.

(Also great at ripping my guts out: questionnaires/pamphlets/receptionists that want to know how many pregnancies I've had. Why does EVERYONE want to know this?)

But Charlie is one step ahead of me. He acknowledges the loss, and how sad it made him, while I keep charging along determined to be happy no matter what. So while I was stocking up my bedroom for our newest addition it finally hit me (like a truck) there should be TWO co-sleepers. There should be TWO little bundles of onesies to fold, and TWO infant car seats to get a hold of. Seeing these things set up in my room don't make me as happy as I thought they would. Instead, they look lonely, because Bebe's half is missing. 

Bebe is missing.

And people, I hate to admit this too, because I thought I was stronger than this, but I am scared. Like really, truly, irrationally, scared. The closer we get to the end, the more afraid I am that something horrible is going to go wrong, or be wrong. I'm scared that she won't make it at all, or that she'll be born way too early, or with serious health problems. I'm scared to death and it's getting harder and harder to push off the fear and find any peace.

So that brings me to a place where I realize that I need to lady up and accept that my feelings at this point are complicated at best. I'm taking the pressure off of myself to celebrate or happily prepare. Instead, I'm going to take a minute and grieve the losses that still hurt, lick my wounds a bit, and then try to re-group so that I can try and meet this baby with the joy she deserves to see from her mama. I canceled my pre-baby party, I'm taking a break from nesting, and I'm going to see if I can just focus on healing a bit more for now.

I will probably also find myself a therapist to try and navigate this whole crazy nut that just cracked open because mama can't afford to cry all day.

But first, one more bellyache. Why can't I just be a normal person?!! WHYYYYYYYYYYY????? WHHAAAAAAAA!!!

Ok, I'm done.