I had been having false labor like I have never had before. Hours of continuous, painful, early-labor-type contractions that would last from about 4 to 8 almost every afternoon. My last two babies all came at 39 weeks, so I told my mom and dad to come right before 39 weeks because I was afraid they wouldn’t make it. Little did we know they would stare at me for 11 days before I went into labor at 40 weeks and two days. We went on multiple walks per day, but I had a feeling not to try any natural induction methods. I have a few tried and true ways to get my labor going and I felt a hard no. I couldn’t figure out why, but I felt okay. I had moments where I felt like I was losing it, but mostly I felt calm. The hardest part was being watched like a ticking time bomb.
A few days after my parents got into town, my sister and dad had some aches and chills with a temperature staying in the 99s. They still had energy and felt fine, they mostly had those symptoms at night. Angeleah then had some hip pain she couldn’t shake, but didn’t think much of it. When she lost her sense of taste and smell, we got nervous it was COVID. Her husband, Greg, started developing the same symptoms about two days after them. We got my dad tested first because he was the most high-risk because of his age and a recent pulmonary embolism. He tested positive on my due date. We couldn't believe it and couldn't stop laughing. You see, I was supposed to have a homebirth. It was something I had always wanted to do (it is equally safe as a hospital birth when you are low-risk) and because of hospital restrictions, my mom wouldn't be able to come to the birth in the hospital. I had always wanted my mom there, and she has never made it in time. There wasn't a lot of research on newborns and COVID so going into the hospital where all the COVID was seemed strange, so I figured what better time than now? Well now we had the virus in the house. Both houses. So we laughed.
My midwife obviously couldn't come intentionally expose herself, so we switched back to the hospital and just in time, because at five in the morning on Tuesday, June 9th, I woke up to contractions. I was elated. They were STRONG, but I had had good contractions for two weeks that stopped after a couple hours so I kept my expectations low and sent Jordan to work. They slowed down to 20 minutes apart, but they felt like active labor contractions, not the early ones. They were so far apart that I didn't know if I should go in or not. They say not to come in unless they are at least five minutes apart, but these were strong, painful, and few and far between. I called my sister and she said, "Carly. You are passed your due date. Go in. They are not going to send you home." Duh. My mom stayed with the kids and my sister drove me. They checked me and I was six centimeters dilated (huzzah!), so they admitted me. One reason I have unmedicated births is because my two epidural births have paralyzed me, made it impossible to push, and didn't provide enough pain relief to make it worth it. My unmedicated births were much easier to get the baby out, but Moira's birth was a little traumatizing. She got stuck and broke her collarbone and there was a lot of screaming and waking in the night reliving the worst moments of it. So I prayed and prayed that I could get a good epidural this time, and if I was going to get one, I wanted it to be fast because I was already at a six. But miraculously, and I mean miraculously, my labor stopped. They did my COVID test (which was negative), they had to test my platelets because they were low and too low means no epidural, they had to move me from triage, etc. All of this took almost three hours, and not one contraction. They then gave me a spinal-epidural, which was different than I had ever had and it worked beautifully. They broke my bulging water to get my labor going again, and I watched on the monitor as I had contraction after contraction after steady-close-together-contraction and felt nothing. It was glorious. I was giddy. They told me it was time to push, and this is where the epidurals don't shine for me. I have a really hard time pushing when I can't feel anything, but I was doing better than the previous times. My midwife really helped and moved me into a better pushing position. The only other problem was the drugs in the epidural were making me soooo sleeeeepy. I just felt so good and warm and frankly, high, that I had no oomph to push. So I seriously took little catnaps between contractions and after one seemingly longer nap, I woke up with determination and rejuvenation and he finally came out. Samuel Isaac was born at 2:50 pm, 9lbs 13oz. 22.5 inches long which tons of light brown hair and bright blonde roots. Big boy also broke his collarbone, but I didn't have to feel it this time! In hindsight, I think I felt like I shouldn't try to induce my labor because then he may have come when we were at the height of COVID in the houses and didn't know it. We also would've unintentionally spread it to my midwife and her assistant and they would have spread it to their other vulnerable mamas and babies. I also would have had to push out an almost TEN POUND baby at home. Instead, it was the most pain-free labor I have ever had. I feel truly blessed. Another tender mercy of our families getting COVID is my parents had to stay with us for over three weeks instead of their planned 10 days. This turned out to be the biggest blessing of all when my mom died three months later. Words cannot express my gratitude for being given that extra time.
When Sam was a couple weeks old, I was crying in my closet because everything was too much. Too much tired, too much love, too much milk in my breasts, too much joy, too much noise and needs from the other children, too much achiness, too much gratitude. Having a baby feels like that, but its oh so worth it. I love him. I love him. I love him.
