One year ago we first held our little Jamesie- I can't believe it!
On April 12 last year I had an *overdue* doctor's appointment-- first thing Monday morning. Since the little guy was late and I was heading toward complete physical misery, I asked Cody to come with me, and said I would drop him off at work afterwards. Well, at this routine appointment it was discovered (not by me!) that my water had broken at some point earlier! I only had 2 cm (out of 10) of fluid left for the baby, so my doctor said, "go home and get your things, I'll meet you at the hospital-- we're having the baby!" I said, "today? right now?" Although I had really wanted to avoid an induction, I was OK with it at this point b/c I knew the Baby couldn't stay in there without fluid and that we had a serious risk of infection at this point.
We came home and while Cody gathered our bag I snuck off to have a last meal b/c I knew they wouldn't let me eat once I got to the hospital (I would later tell a nurse when I was alone with her, "I won't tell anyone if you go get me a chick-fil-a sandwich right now"). We hugged Sean as our family of 3 one last time and bounced into the car, giddy with excitement. I texted and called all I could on the 5 minute (bumpy) ride to the hospital. Once there, Cody carrying 2 pillows, the Bose and iPod, two overnight bags and the Boppy pillow, I told everyone we saw, "we're having a baby!" Master of the obvious.
We settled into our room nicely, and began the induction just after 12. However, things did not go well, and before I knew it we were descended upon by a team of doctors and nurses, manhandling me into every imaginable (and some unimaginable) positions, saying the baby's heartrate had droppped too much-- maybe he was on the cord, or maybe the contractions were just too much. They quickly stopped the pitocin, gave me a shot of something to stop the contractions and we waited for Baby to recover. Later, I was told we had 5 minutes to get his heartrate back to normal, and he responded at about 4 minutes... about 60 seconds away from another c-section, which likely would have meant c-sections the rest of my life. We were praying to St. Gerard with everything we had, and he interceded for us! I also felt the prayers of all of our family and friends we had enlisted earlier in the day--thank you!
After the first try, we couldn't try pitocin again until the operating room was available in case I had to be rushed in for the dreaded surgery. The OR opened up around 4, so we started again about 4:30. For the next 4 hours, we watched movies (17 Again with Zac Efron--when you're in labor you get the remote!), watched Jeopardy, did the sunday crossword puzzle, chatted on the phone, and didn't really feel much more than the Braxton-Hicks I had been having at home. At 8:00 Law and Order came on, and I can usually easily lose an hour in an LnO episode. But, despite the compelling drama and realistic court scenes, at 8:30 I strangely wanted to turn it off b/c my contractions had become too distracting and too intense to think about anything else. I rocked in the rocking chair, sat on the birthing ball with cody in front of me and my mom behind me. During the intense contractions I would count with Cody, tap my feet and my fingers until it was over, and just tried to let my body do its thing without my mind getting in the way. It felt like knives were ripping my stomach open. Then, after about 40-60 seconds, it would be gone, and Mom, Cody and I would go back to talking about high school, family, tennis, telling old stories, wherever the conversation had dropped off 40 seconds ago.
During all of this we had Elton John on the iPod-- familiar enough music that I didn't have to think about it, but the lyrics were just enough to distract me. At 10:00 pm, the doctor on call said I was about 3 cm, and I lost it, collapsing on the bed, sobbing-- how could all that work only bring me to 3 cm? 7 to go? Impossible. I gritted my teeth and dug in for a little longer though. At midnight I started throwing up from the pain. I begged someone to check me and tell me it would be over soon. A nurse said I was 6 cm at 12:15 a.m. At that point i begged for an epidural-- picturing myself laboring like this until the morning. I was exhausted and literally shaking with pain-- in between vomitting. My mom and Cody for some reason didn't believe me that I really wanted drugs. I went to the bathroom and came out, determined to sound sane and calm, and in my most reasoned, logical voice said, "I have thought about my decision, and i stand by it. I would like an epidural now." by "now," I meant, within the next 90 seconds, because I am not doing this one more time.
I sat down on the edge of the bed, determined not to look at the co-conspirators who were keeping the drugs from me until the anesthesiologist arrived. At one point I said (in very calm and reasoned voice), "I know a lot of very tough women who have had epidurals," and "An epidural will not make my birth experience any less beautiful." I was laying it on thick. I dare cody to try to talk me out of it now. Vomit.
However, while sitting on the bed waiting for the magic man (anesthesiologist) to appear, I all of a sudden felt a baby trying to come out of me. I said, "um, something's not right. Something is coming out of me!" and a swarm of nurses descended on me again. I didn't even know anyone else was in the room...it was like they had bugged the room and heard me from outside and ran in. Someone said, "do you have the urge to push" to which I responded "Oh Yes." I heard Cody say, "my son is not coming into the world listening to Elton John," and he changed the iPod to James Taylor. It still hadn't registered that the Baby was coming NOW, so I was still begging anyone who would listen for drugs. My mom had to explain in no uncertain terms, "there's not time, the baby's coming now!" To which I said, "I can't do this!" She said, "yes you can!" I turned to cody, "I can't do this!" He said, "yes you can!" At this moment I was not looking for encouragement. I was looking for someone to
believe me, someone to say, "you're right, this is crazy, there's no way you can do this. Lets figure out a better way." Unfortunately, the nurse did not say this either.
At this point the Resident doctor on call came in. She was my age, with long brown hair, and reminded me so much of BFF Jamie Chioini, who was at the time chief resident of her group, and was also delivering babies. In my laboring stupor, all I could think was, I played soccer with Jamie in high school. She's my age. This girl played soccer with someone in high school, she's my age. (FYI, I would have been infinitely more happy to have had Jamie deliver the baby). As I'm having this thought, I say to Ms. Resident, "I want my doctor." Ms. Resident then puts a plastic bag over her hands (I later found out it was to go on the bottom of the bed), and says, "I have to deliver this baby now." Lucky for her, I had a contraction at that moment and couldn't vocalize, "oh hell no-- you are not delivering my baby into a plastic bag." Cody read my face though and knew exactly what I was thinking. I started hyperventilating, and someone put the oxygen mask on me. I refused to push the baby into Ms. Resident's plastic bag. Asthma attack on the horizon.
Just then Dr. Villers, doctor extraordinaire, our savior, came into the room, with an air of relaxation and calm that changed the entire tone of the room. Cody described it as "She could have been sitting in our back yard drinking a martini she was so calm." I figured, if she's this calm, I guess nothing is wrong. Up to that point I was sure that I was in so much pain it couldn't be normal, an something was drastically wrong. Dr. V said something very wise which helped me a ton. She said, "I'm going to ask you to push and its going to hurt. You're not going to want to push because its going to hurt, but you just need to do what might seem counterintuitive-- you're going to have to push against the pain when I tell you to." That helped, because, oh boy did it hurt, and oh boy, i did not want to push. I understood what she was saying, but I responded, "If I pass out, can you pull the baby out yourself?" At that moment, I wasn't making sure they could do it
if I hyperventilated too much, but that was actually my PLAN-- hold my breath, pass out, the pain is gone, they pull the baby out without any effort on my part. Wake up, baby is here. Dr. V responded, "I'm not answering that." Thank you.
I started pushing at 12:30, and Jamesie was here at 12:57. It was honestly the quickest 27 minutes of my life, except maybe the World Cup game I saw in France in 1998--that went by really fast. In between pushes I said to Cody, "I can understand getting pregnant again by accident, but
never again on purpose." Pushing was scary (terrifying) and painful and a blur, but it happened really fast and I realized the harder I worked the faster it would be over--kind of like running a really long race. When they put Jamesie on my chest, I laughed hysterically. Then I cried/laughed...tears and snot and sweat all over my face, but laughing like I'd never laughed before, and shaking all over! He was here and he was beautiful! 30 minutes later I was already saying, "next time, lets do X, Y or Z." I didn't let anyone hold my dear boy for a good hour while I enjoyed him. Finally they weighed him and passed him around the room-- I thought he had to be the most beautiful baby any of these doctors or nurses had ever seen. They must be incredibily jealous of me.
12 hours later Cody and I each wrote down our top five names--first and middle-- and passed them to eachother. The only one that appeared on both of our lists was James Martin Groeber. It was perfect for our sweet baby. Cody turned the iPod back on and 'Sweet Baby James' was the first song that played, unintentionally on our part.
It was a beautiful day. I swore I would never describe that terrifying and excrutiating experience as "beautiful," but it was, and that's all I think when I reflect back on it. That, and how blessed we were with God's protection. I had a VBAC, with Pitocin, with a crazy exercise-induced-anaphylaxis issue. From the moment we found out we were pregnant back in July '09, I entrusted the pregnancy to Our Lady, and asked that she shield us with her cloak of protection. I felt her through our "beautiful," terrible, wonderful experience and today I say, Thank you, God for my little baby!
*update*: We went to mass today to celebrate Jamesie, and I told Sean we were going to say "Thank you, God for Jamesie." A few times throughout mass he asked me "We going to say Thank you God for Jamesie?" I said, yes yes, we will. At the very quiet moment after the Eucharistic prayer and before we go up for communion, Sean decided, well, no one else is saying it, so I guess its up to me, and yelled: "Thank you God, for Jamesie!!!!" That just about sums it up!
