Welcome back my friends! It’s 1:21 AM on MARCH 11, which means that it’s officially Maddy’s Birthday :’)
But it’s still post 5 of 7 so I’m going to try to crank out two posts right now so that I can end the series tomorrow still on time.
For post 5, I just want to do a short recount of what was happening exactly ONE YEAR AGO at this time. Aka, what it was like going in to labor and how it went.
It’s crazy because even now when people talk to me about my labor, I really glaze over the story quickly because I was so shocked at how hard recovery was, but the funny thing is that leading up to recovery, I was TERRIFIED of pushing. A month from Maddy’s due date, I kept asking myself and those around me “what if I can’t do it?” I always got the same responses “you can do it,” and “if I can do it, you can do it.” I’d say thank you but in the back of my mind I’d question… DO I REALLY GOT THIS?!
Then 2 weeks before I delivered, I started watching pretty graphic labor videos from my hospital class and that’s when the real fear kicked in. I watched real women laboring for hours and screaming their lungs out as they pushed and excretions spewed out. It was wild… but honestly, for me, it was good to just prepare for the worst haha. That’s lowkey my motto in life, just stay pleasantly surprised that everything turned out/is going better than expected haha.
Anyways so here we go!
Last year on March 11 at 1:30 AM…
We had just finished a dinner with my mom who came to town 4 days before. I was getting checked weekly at this point because I had been dilated 3 cm for 2 weeks and at the last check up the doctor told me I was at 4cm, she could stretch me to 5cm. If you’re not sure what this means, basically 10cm is big enough for the baby to come out, 5/6cm is considered active labor. My doctor was shocked I was still pregnant so she scheduled an induction for actually a couple days before Maddy’s original due date which was March 17.
Tim had cooked me and mom a BOMB garlic spaghetti meal and I was watching a netflix special on this crazy cult (hahaha I love all things true crime). I was really uncomfortable by this time, consistently getting braxton hicks contractions and having a difficult time sleeping comfortably. I also was really having a hard time doing simple mundane things like going to the restroom and putting on clothes hahaha. But that night, Tim went outside on our patio to have some devotional time and while he was outside he sent me a video of it raining. He loves when it rains and he sent me a bible passage (Psalm 145). Fittingly, the passage is a David’s song of praise. Then he came inside around 1am he said to me “I think you’re going to give birth tonight.”
I WAS SHOCKED for two reasons. 1) He NEVER said this before even though I’d been dilated often the past 3 weeks, and 2) I was so scared.
He said he just got this feeling and a lot of it was because when he was outside in the rain, he just felt a sense of peace. Maddy’s korean name is 단비 (Danbee) which can be translated as sweet rain or showers of blessings. Something in me knew then, SOMETHING was going to happen.
Ive attached the photo of the rain from the video Tim sent me and I am dying at our screenshots because i’m reminded of a time that feels so far away when it was only one year ago!
Around 2:30AM I finally managed to fall asleep but was awaken by pretty bad stomach pains around 4:00am. I honestly thought that it was just a reaction to the garlic pasta Tim made. I was on the toilet, half groggy, but my stomach pain was increasing. I honestly was so tired that time didn’t feel real and I thought I was on the toilet for maybe 15-20 minutes, but when I finally checked my phone it was actually 5AM and I realized that maybe I should start timing the pain. In short, around 5:30AM I realized I had began bleeding a little and what I thought were garlic stomach pains were actually contractions because they were now 3-4 minutes apart and getting stronger.
I quickly woke up Tim and he wanted to wait for a bit. We both agreed that we didn’t want to make unnecessary trips to the hospital because we heard that was pretty common. But I think from the time I woke him up, I experienced 2 contractions within 2 minutes and Tim was READY. It was now 5:45AM and he ran to my mom to tell her we were leaving.
I think the whole time I was in denial. My water didn’t break but I knew the contractions were getting stronger. If i’m really honest, I think I was surprised how similar the pain felt to my normal menstrual cramps :’) I’ve always struggled with bad cramping but I guess it prepared me well for labor! I was shaking when I realized we were going to the hospital. In a previous post, I mentioned the encouragement my mom gave me in that moment, and it really did calm me.
On the 20 minute drive to the hospital, I didn’t feel a single contraction. I almost made Tim turn around but at this point we were almost there. As soon as we parked, they kicked in again. I had to pause twice as we walked in but I was still certain that since I was managing the pain decently, I probably wasn’t ready.
We checked in and it was so funny because the front desk ladies assumed that I was coming in for an induction because they said I was so calm and smiley. SPOILER ALERT: i’m smiley even through pain because i don’t know what to do with myself hahaha.
They sat me in a room and when the nurse came the check my dilation, she was shocked to find me at 6/7cm and immediately said “yep, Congratulations mama, you’re having your baby today! We’ll get you on the epidural right away.”
When I heard these words, I went into a DAZE. To this day, I really can’t describe the feeling of knowing you’re about to meet the baby you’ve been carrying for9 months. If I tried, it’d be something along the lines of excitement, fear, and uncertainty. AND knowing you are about to endure an extremely painful next several hours is scary too!
Me and Tim just kept looking at each other with wide eyes. Not exchanging many words other than “omg” and “are you ready?”
So then they wheeled me into my delivery room!
The first hour in the delivery room is really a bit crazy. You get poked and prodded as they begin to situate you. I don’t have a hard time with needles, so I was okay, but I did begin to realize just how vulnerable I began to feel. I actually didn’t opt for an epidural at that moment because from my sister’s experience, I thought I could be laboring the whole day still. So I wanted to get the epidural when I knew I couldn’t handle the pain anymore but a little later because I still wanted to move around. My seat of choice was the yogaball and I was bouncing around. We were texting some friends, laughing and making jokes but also we both were carrying partial nervous energy and partial peaceful energy. It doesn’t make sense when I retell it, but that’s exactly how it felt. Tim helped me as I had contractions, applying counter pressure and giving me a hard to squeeze. At this point, I still wasn’t screaming and the pain was strong but still manageable. We had the sweetest nurses who I am so thankful for, and they were laughing because they thought it was so ridiculous how smiley I was and I loved their calm and light energy.
At around 10:00am, the contractions were coming in QUICK at about 1-2 minutes and Tim, who was applying counter pressure on my back, said his thumbs were bending all the way back because my back was like a rock hahaha. I thought okay, hopefully i’m at 7cm/8cm now so I feel okay about getting the epidural. So I asked for it!
Now, I know a lot of people have different beliefs about epidural, but I knew I was going to get one. The process was a lot less scary than I imagined because I couldn’t see or feel a thing! Once I got the epidural, I was bed bound and a catheter was inserted and most importantly, i was PAIN free!! I was all smiles and began playing Catan on my phone hahaha. So ridiculous, I know.
All this happened around 11:00am. I was exhausted, but felt a little relief post epidural. I think even though the pain wasn’t as bad as I expected, from minimal sleep the night before, I realized how exhausted my body was so the break was much appreciated. When they checked me post epidural, everyone (mostly me) was surprised because I was at 9cm. A doctor came to break my water and they were planning for me to actively push by 12. The nurse coached me through some practices pushes and said she’d be back soon to begin. I was 10cm dilated, baby was in the right position, Tim and I were happy! Super smooth sailing right? WELL THIS IS WHEN IT GETS A BIT HECTIC. But before I start that, here’s the last picture of me and Tim as a family of 2 before Maddy was placed into our arms. All smiles.
At 1pm I began to push!! After several pushes (which nothing happened) they checked my temperature and realized I had a fever. Now, I didn’t feel sick and I was a bit confused but they had to go into sepsis protocol. My temperature was .2 above what was considered okay. Quite unfortunate because sepsis protocol meant that we had to pause and they needed to check everything. Lots of people came in drawing my blood, I was given additional antibiotics through my IV and we couldn’t continue until I was cleared. 2 hours later, we found out it was a UTI, not too serious, but now it was 3pm and I was exhausted and running on no food and no sleep. We started the pushing process again and I just couldn’t get it. I laugh now because obviously, I pushed Maddy out and Tim and I have funny stories to tell. But in those HOURS of not being able to push her out, I really felt so frustrated and helpless. I couldn’t feel my lower region because of the epidural, and while you don’t feel pain, you feel a LOT of pressure. In the 3 hours of pushing, I threw up, I pooped, and I pushed out tears. I typically take pride in being able to just be strong and do things but I was so humbled throughout this process. Tim was helping me a lot, holding my hand, lifting my back and giving me leverage. The pushing process was also made longer because the regular straps for monitoring baby’s heart beat wasn’t working. They had to try and use different mechanisms to make sure they could hear Maddy’s heartbeat. Tim was so encouraging and so were my amazing nurses, but at hour 2 of pushing Tim came close to my ear and he said “you’re doing a great job but YOU GOTTA PUSH!” HAHAHA That was the first time I think I looked at him during the process and he was SWEATING. I laughed so hard and to this day it’s one of my favorite things about the delivery process. For someone completely unfamiliar with pushing you may think… what the heck.. how can you push for 2 hours? Well 1) You have to push during a contraction because that gives you the best leverage, and 2) you’re really pushing for about 5-10 seconds with breaks in between.
My issue with pushing wasn’t that I wasn’t trying. I WAS TRYING SO HARD. I just wasn’t pushing in the right areas and definitely not enough to get Maddy down. At 5:50pm, Maddy had made her way slowly down and I was still pushing. I think they asked me if I wanted a mirror and originally I said not till the end, but the nurse thought maybe it would help me to see. Once the mirror was placed and I could see Maddy’s head, I pushed much better than I had before and then at 6:10 the nurses had to actually tell me to stop because the doctor wasn’t in the room yet and baby was about to slip out! Miraculously, I was able to hold off for a bit, and right at 6:20pm, my doctor walked in, put on a gown and was ready to catch her. A bunch of people were in the room (sepsis team, NICU team – since Maddy had a single umbilical artery) but I didn’t notice anyone because I was looking at Maddy’s head and really holding in a push. Finally, right as my doctor sat down, I had so much pressure I told my nurse “i’m so sorry but I HAVE to push.” and just like that, Maddy slipped right out. I felt so much relief physically and emotionally. I just closed my eyes and I listened as I heard Maddy cry for the first time.
It’s truly an experience the minutes following baby entering the world. All of a sudden they throw baby on you and begin to clean like crazy. My body was shaking, Maddy was crying, and the doctor was pulling out the placenta and stitching me up. It’s a lot to process but when they placed Maddy on me, all those fears of not bonding or feeling detached melted away. Every second I spent pushing her out was worth it. Tim cut the umbilical cord, they checked Maddy and she was healthy so all of a sudden everyone left and it was just us three, the doctor, and our nurse. In that quiet moment I kept looking at Maddy and I said “thank you Jesus” because really in that moment you can’t help but praise the one who got you through it all.
And folks, that’s how it happened! Maddy was born healthy, she was born after 3 long hours of pushing. She is our little miracle and I can’t believe all this happened exactly one year ago. How far life has come since then. I was so afraid of labor, but what a blink it was. Thank you Jesus for sustaining us. Thank you amazing doctors and nurses who guide women through this every day. Thank you Maddy for being my baby. I would go through this all over again 100 times knowing you’d be at the end of it.
