Baby Benjamin's Birth Story

It's 12:34am as I begin to write this post, marking today as the day our baby boy turns three weeks old. As season two of Outlander plays on my television, he is contentedly nursing the night away, clothed only in his newborn-size diaper that his skinny little body is quickly outgrowing. Looking at his sweet face, eyes closed and body relaxed against mine, I can't help but observe how much he has changed over the last three weeks. It's been a bit hazy, this month of September, but I remember the night of his birth like it happened just yesterday.

Thursday, August 30th, I hit the 38 week mark. I had a pretty normal day at work. My kids were working on their personal narrative essays, and I was able to sit at my desk and conference with them for most of the day. I was grateful, because that entire week I had been dealing with horrendous allergy symptoms, had mostly lost my voice, and had even bruised a rib from all the coughing. After school, I stayed late to finish gathering my maternity leave documents (assignments, tests, etc. to accompany my typed plans) and complete the mandatory district online trainings (that were actually overdue... oops). When I got home, I felt like garbage, so I took about 2.5 hours to veg on the couch and do absolutely nothing else. By the time Patrick got home with dinner, I felt worlds better! We ate chicken pad thai and chicken cashew stir fry while we watched an episode of Somebody Feed Phil, one of our recent Netflix favorites.

The hours passed, and it was time for me to get ready for bed. When 10:00pm comes and I'm actively winding down, you know I'm exhausted. Just before 10:30, I was about to get out of the shower, and I felt a blob of mucous and then what I thought was a small gush of fluid exit my body. While I thought for a fleeting moment that it might have been my water breaking, there was no way to tell because of the fact that I was in the shower! I let the thought go, figuring that if it was my water, it would continue; heck, at this point, maybe it was just the baby pushing on my bladder and I accidentally peed! I was only 38 weeks and I wasn't having any contractions, so it probably was a false alarm.

Well, suffice it to say that it became apparent rather quickly, as I got out of the shower and more and more fluid poured out of me, that this was definitely not me peeing myself. At this point, I knew I need to tell Patrick, but things needed to be done... I hollared to him through the bathroom door and asked him to switch the laundry from the washer to the dryer... only when that was done did I tell him that I thought my water broke. Hah!

So my water had definitely broken, but I was having absolutely zero contractions. Like, a whole lot of nothing was going on - not even Braxton Hicks contractions that I'd had for the prior 12 or so weeks. This was never in the plans, so I didn't know what exactly should come next. While we thought I might need to go to Labor & Delivery, we wanted to check with the on-call nurse before making an unnecessary visit. I called around 10:30pm, and she called back, saying the doctor said I should go ahead and go into to L&D. With that news, we knew it was "go time," as Patrick put it. Before we left, though, both of us had a task to complete: Patrick packed his hospital bag, and I got into Google Classroom to open up my students' assignment for their final draft of their essay (I had forgotten to do it earlier that afternoon; I didn't know what was going to happen once we got to the hospital, and if I had to have a c-section, the assignment needed to be up and running before they had to turn it in). The last thing I did before going to the hospital was teacher stuff. Go figure!

The music that played on the radio as we made our way in the dark to the hospital was fantastic. Aerosmith, Prince, and Queen. We pulled up to the hospital at 11:03 (I don't know why I marked the time in my brain, but I did). We had a bit of trouble getting into the building because we forgot to go through the emergency entrance due to it being after hours, but someone let us in the normal doors, thank goodness. We got checked into L&D and they hooked me up to the monitors. I still wasn't having any contractions, but baby's heart rate was fine. I was still dilated to 3cm and 70% effaced like I was at my appointment on Wednesday (I was 2cm, 70% at 36 weeks; 2.5cm, 70% at 37 weeks; 3cm, 70% at 38 weeks). A little after midnight, they admitted me and moved me over to a delivery room. We were staying. We were going to have a baby!

Because I still wasn't having any contractions, my doctor wanted to start me on a low dosage of pitocin. As much as I didn't want any pitocin, I knew it's what was best for my baby, so they started the drip around 2:00am. Patrick and I were totally wired from the adrenaline, so he read some of Narnia to me as we passed the time and tried to relax enough to sleep. My nurse came in and out every so often to check my vitals and monitors, and she showed me how to unplug myself from the IV and monitors in order to wheel myself to the bathroom as needed. Boy, was that fun. I loved wrapping cords around my neck and hobbling across the room while actively leaking amniotic fluid all over the floor (cue major eye-roll here).

Patrick and I both fell asleep around 3:15am, so we got a whole 45 minutes of sleep before my contractions began and woke me/us up every few minutes as they progressed. Just as we would start falling back asleep after one contraction, another one would start, so we knew those 45 minutes were about all the sleep we were going to get. Somewhere around 5:30, my nurse came in to check my progression. At this point, I was 6cm dilated and still about 70% effaced. She contacted my doctor, who then suggested (if I was okay with it) inserting an internal monitor to see just how intense my contractions were; I said okay because I really had no idea whether I wanted it or not, and it seemed to be beneficial. About 20 minutes later, the nurse came back and tried to insert the monitor - unsuccessfully, I might add, because 1) my cervix was still not in the exact right position to make it easy and 2) I had a major contraction as she was trying to insert the monitor. Boy, that was fun, too, trying to breathe through a contraction as someone's arm was up my lady parts! Oy. When that didn't work, my nurse said she wasn't going to put me through that again, and I readily agreed.

As she left, she told me that she would be around but she would let me be for a while. 

"If you feel your contractions change and you feel the need to bear down and push, call me and I'll come back."

I had no idea what that sensation would feel like... the need to bear down? So I asked.

"I've never done this before. I don't know what that feels like. How will I know when my contractions have changed?"

"Oh, trust me, you'll know. You'll feel a lot of pressure and the need to push. You'll know."

So I took her word for it.

Lo and behold, 20 minutes after she left, I had another contraction, but this one felt SO different. The amount of pressure I felt was intense, and she was right - I definitely knew that these contractions were different because I wanted to push. I needed to push! Because I hadn't had an epidural and I was having all back labor, I was able to sit on the edge of my bed between contractions while Patrick stood in front of me. As a contraction would happen, I would stand up and lean into him until the contraction passed; he was literally my pillar of strength through this entire birthing process.

These new contractions brought out a new side of me that I had never experienced, and the noises I made were noises I had never made in my life. It was very much like the movies - I was making these intensely primal sounding moans, and I knew they were loud. It was almost as though I could hear myself making these sounds, and I knew how intense and horrendous they sounded, but I wasn't going to stop because it was what felt right as I breathed my way through each contraction. 

When this contraction hit, I told Patrick that this time was different. "Call the nurse. Call the nurse. Call the nurse." He pushed the little button on the side of the bed and the receptionist came over the intercom.

"Uh, yeah, we need a nurse in our room right away."

"Okay, what do you need?" she asked.

I was quick to chime in because stuff was about to hit the fan. "I NEED A NURSE, NOOOOW!"

"Alright, she's on her way." She could clearly tell that this was no request for something small.

When my nurse arrived, she checked my progress again. "Well, it looks like you're ready - you're at a 10 and completely effaced!" I had gone from a 6 to a 10 in 40 minutes. Holy mother of God, YES, this was it, and thank heavens because the need to push was REAL. She made some calls, including to my doctor, and the room started flooding with people. The lights were still off since I had been laboring in the overnight hours, and I watched from an other-worldly perspective as nurses filed in making all their preparations, setting up the warming table, etc. The contrast of light and dark combined with the hustle and bustle as I tried so hard not to push through my contractions felt like something out of a film noir.

Doctor Wayman, my magnificent OB, was walking into the building at this point, and good heavens, it felt like she wasn't going to make it, but that woman had perfect timing. As soon as she was in my room, it was time to push. She coached me through what to do with my nurse on my left and Patrick on my right. Between the three of them, I had the most incredible support. After three or four contractions, it was time for baby Womack to come into the world. I'm telling you right now that just before my last push, I whimpered because I felt like I had no more strength left with which to push. But push I did, and the most incredible moment of my life happened.

"Look down, momma! Look down!" Dr. Wayman shouted to me.

I looked down. "I can't see anything. There's a blanket..."

"Look down! Keep looking! Push!"

All of the sudden, this goop-covered head of a teeny tiny human being appeared in my line of sight. All I could see was this blueish-reddish profile and lots of goopy hair, and a baby started crying as it was pulled out of my body.

"It's a boy!"

I swear to you, all I could say was, "Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!" over and over again. "We have a baby. We have a son!" I told Patrick.

After a couple of minutes of clearing out baby boy's airways and pushing the blood through the umbilical cord,  Dr. Wayman pushed a pair of medical scissors and the umbilical cord his way.

"Dad? Want to cut the cord?"

This still makes me laugh when I think about it, because this moment was so classically showcasing both my doctor's and Patrick's personalities. She's a straightforward, no-nonsense kind of woman. Patrick just stood there for a heartbeat and then did what he was asked to do - something I didn't expect him to do in a thousand years because holy moly that man hates anything bloody or medical. But he did it! We had a son!

I don't recall a ton after that moment because I had my son, my baby boy, snuggling away on my chest. He wasn't crying or rooting around, so I waited to nurse him and we just snuggled. They delivered my placenta; that was weird - I was still contracting but I didn't even feel it, just felt more of an ebb and flow, probably due to the massive adrenaline rush. My doctor also gave me a small episiotomy (she asked if I would rather that or tear, and I chose this), so she was administering a few stitches. After that, it's all a blur. At some point, they took our baby boy to the warming table to get all of his stats and returned him to me promptly.

When it was all said and done, that was the fastest night of my life. 8.5 hours after my water broke, and only 3 hours after contractions began, we welcomed our baby boy into the world.

Benjamin Iver Womack was born at 7:01am, 7lbs 2oz, and 20 inches long. That morning, our lives were changed forever.

Happy birthday, Benjamin! / 8.31.18

Deliriously happy / 8.31.18

First family photo / 8.31.18

10 days of this sweet love / 9.10.18

Two weeks old! / 9.14.18

Sweet clasping hands / 9.14.18

Three weeks old! / 9.21.18

Three weeks of this sweet baby boy in our lives and it all still seems so surreal. I feel more like myself with every passing day, and I was pretty much "recovered" by the two-week mark. This job is tough, and the sleepless nights are long, but I wouldn't exchange a second of it because I just feel so blessed. I thank God every single day for a healthy baby boy and the fact that I get to be this sweet boy's momma.