Birth was, well, not at all what we expected and completely the opposite of what we planned for. On Monday, July 13 we went in for the 41 week fetal stress test, which is typical in post-due babies. I expected everything to be fine, since the baby felt strong and active. Unfortunately, the very first thing the technician noticed was the small amount of fluid in the amniotic sac. It was described as “a 2” when it should be “a 15.” It was so dramatic that we were scheduled for an induction and checked in immediately. I was pretty scared at this point, especially since inducing labor typically means using pitocin which makes laboring naturally almost impossible. After quite a few tears on my part, we started the induction. First we used some minor pharmaceutical induction measures and a mechanical induction measure that succeeded in accidentally breaking my water. We waited for a few hours to see if labor would progress on its own after the broken water. For a while it looked promising with regular contractions, but then they tapered off. At this point my midwife told J and I that she was concerned that if we didn’t go into active labor immediately then we could be putting major stress on the baby. Already the baby was in low fluid levels, and then with the broken water we were facing the potential of cord issues. The whole thing bothered us quite a bit, since the further and further down the path of interventions one goes the harder and harder it is to go back. It’s pretty much a one-way street and we had planned to avoid driving down that street altogether.

However, our #1 plan was to have a healthy baby, so we went on Pitocin at 10 am Tuesday morning. I labored (with the AMAZING support of J and my Momma) for about 2.5 hours before I threw in the natural childbirth towel and begged for an epidural. Fortunately the nice anesthesiologist gave it to me. By this point I had progressed from 1 centimeter to 6 centimeters, so it was really encouraging that the Pitocin was working. A few hours later I was at 8, and shortly after that 9 centimeters (at 10 centimeters I could start to push). Not so encouraging during this time was a) the epidural didn’t entirely take so I had pain in a section of my right hip during contractions and b) the babies heart rate started to dip during the contractions. This concerned the midwife that we might have signs of cord collapse. Since I was dilating so quickly I wanted to wait and try to push the baby out, however it became more and more apparent that the babies heart rate was not getting better and was in fact, getting worse. Long story short, after some agonizing minutes, hard conversations with our midwife and a team of doctors, and some soul searching between J, Mom and myself, we went in for an emergency C-section. The kicker for me was I asked the team of doctors how long before I met the baby once we decided and they looked at me and said “the room is prepped, and we will get you in there and the baby out in 20 minutes.” Wow – they really meant it.

The C-section was very, very scary and I won’t go into details about it, but suffice it to say that neither J nor I were emotionally prepared for it. Fortunately we had a wonderful, caring team of nurses, midwives and doctors around us who held our hands, answered our questions, and handled everything with the utmost professionalism and concern. We have a number of very, very complicated emotions about the whole experience but I do have faith that we were in good hands.

Once we saw our beautiful baby every bit of fear, anxiety and anger went out the window. Our baby girl is perfect and worth all of the stress! Right after she came out J went over to the table with her and called back to me “she’s perfect!” I’ve never fallen in love that quickly before in my life, but from the moment I saw her our little Clare Elizabeth had my heart in her tiny little hands. J is head over heels himself, and the most wonderful father imaginable. I’m recovering from my surgery, so he’s been primary caregiver and our little bundle of joy wants for nothing. He’s already the swaddling, calming and diapering pro. He’s already a wonderful husband, but now he’s a wonderful father as well. We’re also supported by my parents, who have been nothing short of amazing taking care of both of us physically and emotionally.

Beyond all of it, our little Angel is wide-eyed, alert and very calm. Oh she fusses and cries, but for the most part a good swaddle and a little bit of cuddling takes care of it. I might be biased, but I think she’s the perfect baby.

Big thanks to all of the family support! I’m not sure when we’ll start having visitors (we’re still reeling a little bit from our birth experience, not to mention being new parents) but when the time is right for us we’ll welcome as many visitors as want to come and meet little Clare.