A word of introduction:
Why do I want to share this story? There is almost nothing about Samuel’s birth that went how I had thought it would go. Processing through this story has been challenging for me, but also surprisingly easy. There are so many narratives about birth in our culture. I recommend (and will continue to recommend) this article. I am working to claim this birth as our story and writing helps me to do that. I share it because I believe in the importance of sharing even birth stories that are labeled as negative or traumatic.
A quick word about our story - like most parents, we researched every decision and made what we felt was the absolute best decision for ourselves and for our baby. For us, that means we planned to have a home birth. Home births, particularly in the United States where emergency medical care is available when needed, are incredibly low risk. We had an exceptional story. However, we still believe home births are an excellent option for some families. Negative comments about this will be deleted. Thank you for being respectful of our decisions and our story.
Trigger warning - this is the story of a traumatic birth experience. We are all okay now, but if birth trauma is triggering to you, you may wish to avoid.
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| Our first meeting. This is you at one day old. I hear that most women are shocked upon seeing their baby - "Wait, how did he/she fit inside me?" I think I might have an extreme case of that. |
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| Just for fun, let's go back to this photo, taken two days before the one above! (Insert jaw-drop here) |
Dear Samuel,
We had just met at the end of the last little chapter of this tale. Here’s what happened next…
I wondered if and hoped that the sound of my voice would create some kind of reaction, so I watched your face and body closely. But morphine is a strong drug, and you did not stir at all. “Can I touch him?” “Absolutely,” said his kind nurse. I gently placed my pointer finger in your hand and with my other fingers, closed your palm around it. I stroked your hand. It was much larger than I was expecting, and not as cold as I thought it was going to be. Then I just stood and took you in. The machines, the wires, and the glimpses of you underneath. I kissed the tiny hand. (Caleb was graciously holding my pee bag at this point, or maybe I had found a place to hang it up.)
Your head was extremely cone-shaped from the birth. You had not had a bath yet, and had bits of dried fluid around your hair, adhering it to your head and making it look both dark and curly. Your head had several electrodes in so they could watch your brain activity. There were bruises on either side of your head from the forceps, but I couldn’t really see those yet. Your head was too big for their biggest C-PAP hat, so they had cut one into a headband. You had an IV line into your umbilical cord stump and a variety of other wires to monitor your heart rate and oxygen. There was a tiny blood pressure cuff with a dinosaur around your ankle. Your whole body was extremely swollen. “He doesn’t even have rolls,” I thought. “He is just puff.”
I felt the same fierce love for you I had felt all through pregnancy, but I didn’t yet feel a strong connection. And of course, I also thought, “Wait. He was inside of me yesterday?!” I could hardly imagine how you had fit. I am told that all moms experience this phenomenon, but it seems like it might be stronger with an 11 lb baby.
Caleb and I stood next to you and talked about the gravity of deciding on a name for someone. I still really hadn’t seen your face, which is what I had thought I needed in order to name you. But we knew we’d have to wait two or three more days before we could see your little face, and that seemed like an awfully long time to wait. Fortunately, there were only three names on our boy list. And only one of them fit you - Samuel. Your middle name, Joseph, was not even a question since there are important Josephs on both sides of the family.
“Do you want to tell him his name?” I asked Caleb. Caleb nodded and took a few emotional seconds to collect himself. We held hands. “Welcome to the world Samuel Joseph,” he said to you with tears in his eyes. “We love you so much.”
Shortly after that, I got tired and so we returned back upstairs to the ICU. We spent the rest of the day there, me pumping every two hours, Caleb going between my room and yours with the pumped colostrum on the flanges, which he would swab the drips inside your mouth and around your gums with a sterile Q-tip. Because we hadn’t planned on going to the hospital, we had very limited things. Relatives brought Caleb a change of clothes and he showered in the NICU. Finally, we hunkered down for the night, Caleb back on the floor, me in my bed, with an alarm set to pump every two hours. Around 3am, our nurse came in with an aide and announced that we were now going to be transferring rooms. “Now?” we asked. I had a hard time waking up, but Caleb jumped up and packed all our things. We moved downstairs and into a spacious labor and delivery suite with an in-room bathroom and shower. The nurse downstairs got me all set up with an ice pack and some other nice amenities for my sore and swollen underside and it felt so magical. ICU nurses are some of the best in the hospital, but they do not have the expertise of a L&D nurse in caring for women’s sore parts postpartum. Caleb got an upgrade from the floor to a pull-out bed and slept deeply. I tried not to wake him when I woke up to pump the next two times. The L&D floor was quiet and dark and restful. Our room was large with a wall of big windows. I took a shower here. We had some misadventures with the catheter, and wondered if my bladder nerves were permanently shot - having more than 1 liter in there can ruin the nerves’ ability to function. The best part of moving to this floor was that you were just a wheelchair ride away, rather than an elevator. We had a wonderful nurse who I’ll call Jillian, that was attentive to our needs and also quite chatty. We visited you several times throughout the day.
It was a strange day, with relatives coming and going, coming and going. Fortunately we had a big room to host all these guests. Around 7pm, I was pumping with the help of the lactation consultant, when we learned we’d be moving again - this time to the Mother-Baby unit. We loaded up all our things once again and moved to a much smaller room, with a view of a wall. More relatives showed up, but graciously agreed to stay with Caleb in the waiting room while I finished pumping. As I sat there pumping, with the lactation consultant, I took in my new room. On the dry erase board was a pre-made template that was designed for someone else. Under “GOALS”, it said “Stay pregnant.” That made me smile.This ward was not as quiet as Labor and Delivery. I could hear tiny newborns crying outside my room. Suddenly I was overwhelmed. The lactation consultant was saying something else when suddenly my eyes filled up with tears. She stopped. “I just… am hearing all these babies and I wish that I was hearing my baby cry.” I blubbered. “I’ve never even heard him cry.” She swiftly got up and shut the door, muffling the cries slightly. She comforted me and then explained that this ward was even closer to you. Any time I wanted to see you, I could. Caleb or a nurse or an aide could push me right over and I could pump in your room where I could see you, even though I couldn’t hold you. “Yes, I want to do that,” I blubbered through tears. It hurt deeply. Around this time, Jillian, our nurse from Labor and Delivery, came in with our new night nurse. They finished their rounds, but having seen my tears, she stopped in the waiting room on the way out to her car. “You should go be with your wife,” she told Caleb, and he came quickly, ever supportive.
(Eventually, they change the template of my dry erase board to something almost as painful as hearing the babies crying. It now read, "GOALS - Breastfeeding, Skin to Skin, Bond with Baby". I tried to ignore them, but they stared me in the face when I was in bed. I made sure to always pump with my back facing them.)
That night, I pumped sometimes in your room and sometimes in my room. We had some poop misadventures (mine) due to an overdose of laxatives. The next day was Sunday, and your dad and I requested a day with no visitors. We needed time to think and process everything we’d experienced so far. It turned out that was a great decision for you. You had been fighting to warm your body temperature back up, and we could no longer touch you or make any noises in your room. We had to keep all stimulation to a minimum, so it was dark and quiet. I could still pump in there, but we couldn’t talk to you anymore. I would stand at your bed and hold my hands up and try to just surround you with my love. I would picture you in a bubble of love and light and try to transmit to you that you were safe and loved. “I promise that once you are done with this treatment that there are so many hugs and cuddles and wonderful things waiting for you.” I thought at you.
Between those hard moments, Caleb and I talked a lot and had texting breaks where we would both sit down and text various people updates for a given amount of time. Because of the complications with my bladder, I had to monitor my fluid intake and output. Every two hours, I practiced walking, pushing the wheelchair down the hall, through the doors into the NICU and to your room to pump. The first trip exhausted me and I had to be wheeled back afterwards, but I quickly gained strength. A nurse mentioned to me that I didn’t have to keep wearing the hospital gown if I wanted to put on my own clothes. I laughed. “I didn’t bring any clothes!” I told her. And I loved wearing that gown. It was so convenient for pumping and having a catheter.
At one point a strange thing happened - your dad and I started to feel like we were on vacation. It was extremely strange, but there we were, having an intense experience outside our normal life, bonding together. We were well-supported by the hospital staff. We didn’t have to think too much about meals. We did worry about our chickens - constantly looking for a volunteer to please collect eggs, make sure they had food, water, were locked up for the night, let out in the morning. We hugged often, and sat as close to each other as we could. We even watched a little bit of The Office or maybe it was Gilmore Girls on Netflix. I kept telling him how luxuriously wonderful my back felt now that I wasn’t pregnant. I kept telling him that I was pretty sure I was the exceptional case and that I had magically gone back to my pre-pregnancy weight (I had not) because LOOK HOW SKINNY I AM NOW THAT I’M NOT PREGNANT. It’s amazing what losing 11 lbs of baby (and, you know, everything else that goes with it) does for your self-image!
Towards the end of Sunday, a funny thing started to happen. Caleb and I had been going to your room together. To go into the NICU from Mother-Baby, there was a secret back door that was locked. There was a phone you picked up to ring security. Whenever Caleb would pick it up, he would say “I’d like to go to the NICU, please.” and they would open the door. When I started going by myself, I would pick up the phone and say the same thing. I must have looked *extra* suspicious on the security camera in my hospital gown carrying my pump parts and catheter bag, because they would never just let me in. “What’s your name?” they’d ask. “Which baby are you going to see?”
Over the night from Sunday to Monday, they had started to warm you up. It was a delicate and carefully monitored process. At this point, we didn’t know what the status was of your brain damage, or if you would respond well to warming back up. The pace was very slow, about half a degree every few hours. As they warmed you, they also slowly decreased your morphine and hoped to also bring you off of oxygen. If you showed any little blip in your temperature, oxygen levels, or any sign of morphine withdrawal, the process would pause. It could take up to 24 hours. I chose to pump in my room instead of yours for two of my night time pumps to minimize stimulation even more. When we went in to check on you Monday morning, we weren’t sure what to expect. But the whole process had gone exceedingly smoothly. They had been able to warm you at the fastest pace. You were finally warm and in your incubator with the lid on. You were still only wearing a diaper and covered in wires, but now your arms and legs were spread out, relaxed instead of clenched. Your cheeks were rosy. And the best part? Today we would get to hold you.
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