Ramblings: Luna Marlena's Birth Story

Years and years ago, when I was a mere teenager I told myself that one day I would have a daughter and would call her Luna. In the years that followed I did not have a daughter, but did acquire a tiny little cat that I called Luna and who stayed with me for many years until she passed away from old age. And then I got pregnant and at 21 weeks we found out I was expecting a little girl. C. must have read a blog post that I had written one day in which I mentioned the above story, and told me that we should name our daughter Luna. Marlena (pronounced Mar-lay-na), is a nod towards Marlene Dietrich, my favourite actress and an inspiration. I love names that end in “a”. And we obviously chose right because her name fits her perfectly, although she has also kept the nickname of Munchie as it has followed her out of the womb and into our arms…

Luna Marlena was born on April 9^th of this year, 8 days after her due date. Even though a premature birth was always something that I had worried about in the back of my mind all throughout the pregnancy, I had a gut feeling that she would not be in a rush to get out and would probably make it right up until they scheduled to induce me. Her due date of April 1^st came and went and I was scheduled to be induced on April 8^th. I had mixed feelings about being induced, and really wanted her to come naturally, but it was hospital policy to not let anyone go for longer than 41 weeks. And when I got to 41 weeks I was ready to give birth! I had some false labour contractions three days before, but nothing else, and when I woke up on April 8^th at 6am I knew that she would finally be born within the next 40 hours as I was going to be induced that morning. Of course it all wasn’t going to be THAT simple, as my waters broke just before I got into the shower… Hence the fact that there was no time to take a photo of me at 41 weeks as everything became a little more urgent at that point! Seeing as I had been having what I thought were Braxton Hicks contractions all weekend (based on what the doctor had said on the Friday at the hospital after my baby stress test), I had no idea if labour was going to be long or short now that my waters had broken. We got stuck in traffic and it took us 90 minutes to get from Flushing to Fort Greene. I remained somewhat calm – to be honest I was more worried about making a mess in the cab and being late for the 8am appointment than being in pain (I am British after all). Thankfully little Munchie decided she was in no real hurry to make an appearance, so I got settled in at the hospital and checked out by the doctor on duty. 

The idea at that point was to wait and see if the contractions I was having were getting stronger or not before giving me any type of induction medication. I had a birth plan, but it really wasn’t set in stone – I was only intent on making sure I had the option for an epidural if I felt like it, but that I had the choice to not have any pain medication if I didn’t, that I could breastfeed exclusively without having to worry about anyone feeding my daughter formula if I had to have a c-section, and lastly, that I would only have a c-section of absolutely necessary. To be honest I had no idea what to expect so wasn’t going to put any demands on myself or on my child. Through-out my pregnancy I had always hovered between being worried about everything and just listening to my body and knowing that everything would be OK if I were healthy and happy. I was right. While pregnancy was all too real, especially when I started really showing, the actual idea of child birth was totally surreal. You mean a baby was going to come out of me? I know it’s been done a million times before, but not to me. So it was basically a “let’s see what happens when it happens” part of my life, and as soon as my waters broke I was excited, scared and actually composed. I had been waiting so long to meet my daughter and it was finally time (and the acid reflux towards the end of my pregnancy was driving me insane).

Unfortunately, even though I was having contractions they weren’t really doing anything and my cervix was literally still closed a few hours after I was admitted. Due to the fact that I had lost all of the amniotic fluid that morning I wasn’t allowed to leave the hospital bed (not even to go to the toilet which became really annoying. Why would I, extremely healthy person, need to use a bedpan?! UGH). The doctors decided to give me Pitocin to speed up the contractions and make them more affective as well as antibiotics to ensure that there was no risk of infection to the baby. Three hours later and I was only 1cm in and the contractions were getting a lot stronger. I was also exhausted and hungry (make that starving, all I had managed to eat that morning was a small bowl of cereal). They won’t let you eat or drink anything just in case you have to be rushed into surgery – even when you plead with them. I wasn’t even allowed to suck on boiled sweets. Only ice chips… By 3pm or so all I wanted to do was get some sleep and not have to use a bedpan so I decided to go for the epidural (and I am really glad I did for this birth, I think I may opt out with the next one though, more on that later). The anesthesiologist was lovely and took her time putting the epidural in to ensure that it worked, and I understood why they asked you to do it sooner rather than later – it takes about 30 minutes to do and you need to remain super still, which is quite impossible when you are having contractions every 5 minutes. By 4 pm my lower body was completely numb and although I could feel the pressure of the contractions, the pain completely disappeared. As did any ability to move my legs – I needed to ask C and my mum to help me move if I needed to change positions. It was around this point that I realised even more than I ever had before the depths of my love for both C and my mother – there was no one else that I would have been comfortable with having there all the way through, and at the same time couldn’t imagine doing it without them there. I knew at that point that this is where you realize there is no room for modesty in childbirth and that you don’t really care anyway – for someone who hates people even hearing me pee it still shocks me today how I just didn’t care what I looked like during labour – all that mattered was that I was able to give birth to a healthy and happy little girl and that my boyfriend was there to witness and live through the whole thing.

My first nurse was lovely – she came to check on us every hour on the dot, was really friendly and answered all of my questions. As the baby was still faring well and had a healthy heartbeat they just continued to give me Pitocin, antibiotics and check on progress every 4 hours. I managed to doze off a little, as did my mum and C in their uncomfortable chairs. My lovely, wonderful M. came to visit and smuggled hard candy into the room so that I could try to alleviate the heartburn I was feeling, but by this point I started to feel really woozy and completely out of it. My day time nurse was replaced by the evening nurse, who wasn’t as kind or friendly, and didn’t come in nearly as much. I knew that they had monitors at the nurses’ station anyway, so I wasn’t too worried about anything bad happening… But it would still have been nice to have someone who appeared to actually give a damn! By 7pm I still wasn’t even at 2cm and I started to worry that I was never going to be able to give birth naturally. The doctors reassured me that I still had a lot of time, that everything was going OK and that I should relax, so I tried to do just that. Not easy when you have a bunch of wires coming out of your arm and back, no feeling in your lower body and are then told to wear the oxygen mask, even though your acid reflux was so bad you wanted to vomit. The nurse also started to worry me because she said the oxygen was for the baby – making me immediately think that the baby didn’t have enough oxygen! All this sounds just delightful, I know… It wasn’t that bad, just very strange for me, seeing as the last time I had been in hospital was for my own birth. I was just very happy that I was in the best hands if anything happened to go wrong, and was honestly not expecting to feel comfortable at all… It all still felt very surreal. Kind of like an out of body experience to be honest!

By 11pm when the doctor came back I was worried that there wouldn’t be a change yet again, but I had jumped to 8cm! The doctor seemed pleased, but said he would come back to check up on me around 2am, and told me to sleep. I tried, but I couldn’t sleep – not with knowing that my little one would be born at some point that night! The doctor also told me that severe acid reflux is a sign of imminent labour, therefore a good sign, and to not worry about it. I’m sure that if they had let me eat it would have been better though!!! Argh! More dozing… More watching the movies that were playing on the TV (I honestly can’t really remember what the movies were, and I couldn’t really focus on anything at this point, not on the TV, not on the magazines or the books I had, and definitely not on any type of meaningful conversation!). I’m so glad that C and my mum were there, even though they were probably exhausted and bored. It was reassuring that they could be my voice if for any reason I couldn’t use mine anymore, and that they were there to hold me when I felt awful and in pain. 

Just after 2pm another doctor came in to check me, said that I was ready and told me how to push and then disappeared. At this point I was wide awake and ready – but had no idea if I was supposed to start pushing immediately, or wait for someone to come and assist me… I asked the nurse that question when she came in to change the heartbeat monitor paper and she mumbled that I should be pushing and walked out again. At this point I started getting a little distressed and teary – what, was I supposed to push my baby out by myself?? What was the point of being in hospital?? My mum called the nurse back and she finally transformed herself from zombie into a wonderful human being and stayed with me, helping me to practice my pushing technique. The problem with the epidural is that it’s sometimes hard to determine when the contraction starts so you don’t always know when to push. You have to really focus, and if this is your first child you have nothing to compare it to. The woman in the room in front of me was obviously having a difficult labour as I could hear people going in and out for ages, and the woman in the room behind me had been howling in pain for hours, so I guessed that the night doctors weren’t ready for me to give birth right at that moment as they were busy, hence the fact that nobody actually told me that it was really time (even though I was ready?!).

And then, around 3:15am, doctors and nurses poured into my room and started setting everything up. My bed suddenly became a labour chair, a huge light beamed down on me and three doctors crowded around, getting ready to deliver my daughter. The head doctor gave me a lovely speech on how having an epidural is a great way to control the pushing and therefore helps them to preserve to perineal area, which is always their aim (yeah… well that backfired completely, but no one needs to read about those kind of details) – and then handed the reigns over to the student and the intern. I started to push, and felt so strange doing it, C and my mum holding my arms on each side. I had a feeling I was never going to be able to do it, that the baby would get stuck – even though they kept telling me that the head was right there… Then all of a sudden I heard a short baby cry, and realised that my daughter was already crying while she was still mostly inside me, and in shock pushed her out in one go, head, shoulders and the rest of her body… She was already howling while C cut the umbilical cord and was whisked over to be measured and weighed and tested and cleaned and wrapped up. I was in shock – crying and laughing and not really believing that I had just delivered a baby, my own baby. My eyes still tear up when I think about how amazing that moment was, there is nothing in the world to compare it to. All I wanted was to cuddle my baby for the rest of time, but the doctors spent about 45 minutes fixing what they had to fix (and this is why I am glad I had the epidural), so C got to cuddle her, until one of the nurses said that they needed to take her to the nursery for more tests and to be cleaned properly. Thankfully I got to cuddle her for a few minutes before she was taken away. I was still pretty much in shock at that point – while the whole experience, from losing my waters less than 24 hours before to seeing her little body be pulled from me, still seemed surreal, all of a sudden everything was very, very real. The past 10 months had all culminated into this very moment: the birth of my daughter.

Luna Marlena was born at 4:13am on April 9^th, 2014 at the Brooklyn Hospital Center, weighing 7lbs 13oz, and measuring 18 inches, perfectly healthy and with a good strong pair of lungs and a full head of hair – looking like the spitting image of her dad (with my hair, hands and feet). A pure beauty. I was already in love with her from the moment I found out I was pregnant, so there was no exact moment that I felt like I fell in love, it was more like a feeling of not knowing how to express or communicate all the love that I felt once I had given birth to her. I felt completely gobsmacked and overwhelmed, and a little confused too – I didn’t know why they were taking so long to fix me and why I couldn’t go and join my baby immediately. We were reunited again an hour later in a room in the post partum ward, Luna fast asleep, and me unable to sleep because all I could do was stare at her beautiful little face and hold her tight in my arms. Even today, a little over a month later I still hold her tight and stare at her for hours, still amazed at how C and I created this perfect little human being who already has a strong character and who rules this house like no other.

It’s as if all I have done in my life was preparation for the next stage: life with the loves of my life, my daughter and my boyfriend, and maybe one day with another little blessing…

Ramblings: The Waiting Game

  

 The feeling of carrying a bowling ball in one's stomach...

So it’s been the waiting game for the past 5 days now… Will she arrive suddenly, will she take her own, sweet time making an entrance into this world, basically when she feels ready for it? I wonder what it feels like to be all squished up in there, with so little room to move nowadays. How can that be comfortable? Doesn’t she want to stretch her arms and legs out and open those eyes and see daylight? 

For 9+ months you go every day hoping you won’t see any signs of labour, no early contractions, no cramps, no waters breaking; and then you hit your due date and all you want to see is all of those combined so that you know that things have started and that you are finally going to be able to cuddle your child within a matter of hours or days.  April 1^st passed by and although I’ve been having Braxton Hicks, or “practice” contractions for a while, I have not had any signs of labour at all. So I was scheduled for a non-stress test at the hospital and everything looked fine. I got to see my daughter make kissy faces on the sonogram and was sent home with another appointment for the Friday morning (unless I gave birth before). The clinic where I have been going for pre-natal visits and the hospital are in Fort Greene. It was annoying enough when I had to get there from Bushwick, but now that it takes me ages to walk (waddle) anywhere AND we live in Flushing I literally have to leave with a 2 hour window, just in case. 

So on Friday I was overjoyed when I started feeling what seemed to be contractions at 5am. Regular contractions that weren’t unbearable but were definitely not painless. And even though I moved around, drank water, walked, ate something, they still didn’t go away. I had my last doctor’s visit where they scheduled me to be induced (on Tuesday), but there I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to wait until then because labour had started. Off to the hospital we went (poor C. hadn’t slept a wink as he had worked late, but came with me anyway just in case I had to stay in the hospital) – another non-stress test, another sonogram, both revealing that I was having contractions (so at least I wasn’t making that up). The sonogram technician said that everything looked fine, but if I wanted to go home without worrying I would need to come back in a few hours I should go to Labour & Delivery to get checked. An hour later and I was sent packing from the hospital (in the nicest way possible) with the advice to “walk a lot” and hopefully I would give birth before I was to be induced.

So back home we went, hoping that it would be hours and not days… No such luck, it’s now Sunday, I still have those contractions on and off, but no other signs, no intense pain or anything else… Obviously my daughter is quite happy being shy and stubborn and just waiting for HER time. I’m not really worried about it; I just want to finally hold her in my arms after all this time!! And there was I, worried earlier on in my pregnancy that she would decide to make a rapid entrance, waters breaking dramatically on the subway, ambulances and all that. I think it will just end up with me being induced on Tuesday and her arriving peacefully in the hospital the next day. So let’s see what happens! Apparently I was just the same with my mum, not in any rush whatsoever!

There is one thing that I never really thought about before I got pregnant, and that is that the only time I have been in a hospital as a patient was when I was born. And even then, it was a tiny maternity ward in a tiny hospital. I have absolutely no idea what a patient is supposed to do when they go to hospital, what they need to bring, how they are supposed to act and what on earth the order of all the different doctor roles are. For someone who loves hospital shows I am absolutely clueless about the seniority in interns, residents, attendings, doctors etc etc. All I can say after Friday’s visit in L&D Triage is that the nurses are always the nicest and kindest people, and I will be more than happy to just have nurses deliver my baby – especially if they are gentler than the residents! If everything goes according to plan then I won’t need a doctor anyway – just a midwife and nurses. Fingers crossed! And then hopefully that will yet again be my last visit to a hospital until I have another child. 

So in the meantime, I have been pottering around at home, putting butterfly decals up, watching more series on Hulu and Netflix (I’ve now learned all I could from Call The Midwife on Netflix) and rested (even though I still feel exhausted).  Mum got here last night which is wonderful, and I know that even if Munchie doesn’t feel like coming out just yet, she will have to by Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest. It’s pretty amazing to me that between me, my siblings, and now my daughter, we were (will be) all born between the last days of March and the first days of May. Spring babies! And all late too!

The next post may not be for a while… And it may just be random words forming somewhat of a sentence surrounded by photos. Let’s see how tired I really am going to get!

Ramblings: Happiness, Moving and Getting Closer to that Date

I’m so happy.

Despite the fact that it has snowed at least once a week since the beginning of the year, that the pavements are icy and slippery and despite the fact that the wind is bitterly cold. Despite the fact that my belly feels like it’s getting heavier by the day and despite the fact that I feel like my bones have expanded and I have become a clumsy woman with a waddle.

I’m so happy.

Every day I wake up and feel excited as well as nervous about the idea that we are one more day nearer the moment that I will give birth to our daughter, and therefore one more day closer to the fact that I am nowhere near ready. Or I don’t feel anywhere near ready. Mentally I have always felt ready, but practically I feel that there is so much more to do, so many things to fit into so little time. I know that everything will work out and I am forcing myself to stress out as little as I can about it. Which doesn’t make it too hard when I am walking around in such a state of happiness…

After signing the lease and then a lot of back and forth on getting the keys to the new place we finally have our new home in Flushing, Queens. It is fully renovated and cleaned and waiting for us to move in as soon as we can.  Our room in Brooklyn now looks in a state of distress, half full with boxes and half full with just stuff. My next steps are to cancel the electricity here and install a new account at the new place, find movers and decide on a day to move that is on the only day C. and I have off together, and then set up the new place in the way we want to before the baby arrives. That’s the really exciting part as we are really starting from scratch again, new couch, TV, dresser, tables… All furniture that we need to buy at some point in time. Nothing can be rushed though, for 3 weeks we practically lived like paupers so that we could pay the three months upfront for the apartment. Thankfully we work enough hours in a restaurant that we can eat most meals there, and I wasn’t too tired to take the subway home at 2am. The latter is only something I can do while still in Brooklyn as it’s only 6 stops away - once we get to Flushing I don’t think I will be doing the late nights anymore, so there won’t be the anxiety of having to find a cab that doesn’t charge you through the roof to take you to Queens…

We are now into the single digits, with 9 more weeks to go. I love how so many of my regular customers at work take a real interest in how the pregnancy is going and love to chat about it and hear updates. I love how everyone at work is excited to see the growth and excited to finally meet the baby. I also love how surreal it still seems to this day. Even after I finally managed to put my registry together another pregnant friend and I were walking around baby stores exclaiming how we still couldn’t believe that this was us, deciding on the best type of stroller rather than the cutest new party dress. I am pretty sure that I will always talk about the best party dress to pair with a Doc Marten boot, but nowadays I’m more into what type of sleepwear I want to dress my daughter in when she comes home from the hospital with me.

C. and I went for a tour of the Labour and Delivery department of Brooklyn Hospital the other day as that is where I will be having the baby if all goes to plan (and I really hope that it does).  It’s a lovely hospital (if you can actually say that about hospitals…). Not that I have much experience of hospitals – the last time I was in one for myself was when I was born. My knowledge of hospitals comes from the TV show ER. But I am determined to have my baby in a hospital. I want to have my baby naturally, but I want to be hooked up to monitors and have access to pain medication if I want to, and also be surrounded by people who can help if something goes wrong. Of course I am hoping that the delivery will be as easy and as great as my pregnancy has been – but who can predict that? Walking around the labour and delivery rooms, and then seeing the rooms that you stay in after the baby is born reassured me a lot, and made C. feel more nervous. This is all very very real now, even if it still feels surreal! The lady who showed us the rooms asked me if I had a birth plan, to which I just responded “Umm… delivering the baby here?” Should I be writing one of these? Yes I want to breastfeed so I suppose I need to write that down so people know. At the same time I am hoping I am going to be fully conscious so I can voice all of this myself, and I also don’t want to set a rigid plan that probably isn’t going to work out anyway. I want to be flexible and make sure that whatever happens is the best for me and the baby. 

Ah, before I forget, as a gift to ourselves (amidst all of the stress of finding an apartment and really not having any money to spare) we booked a 3D ultrasound in a place in Midtown. It really wasn’t too expensive, especially seeing as my Medicaid is covering for everything else and this really was a little extra, just because I wanted to see Munchie again… We went to Goldenview Ultrasound and booked the Silver package. It was a really lovely experience, although I would only recommend it to women whose placenta is not anterior – it’s much harder to get a clear picture of your baby if they are hiding behind the placenta all of the time! The technician was lovely and tried all sorts of techniques to get Munchie to move away from the placenta, which she was cuddling like a teddy bear, as well as take her hands away from her eyes. She finally moved in the end and we got to see her lovely little face, her chubby cheeks, her little hands and her big feet! I do have to say though, that seeing your baby that way is a little creepy and they look a little deformed. It’s a little scary and quite wonderful at the same time!!

I do have to apologise… Over the past few months I have pretty much only posted about being pregnant and having a baby. I have just been so consumed by all of this, as well as trying to work as much as possible and relax when I can that my writing has totally fallen by the wayside (which is also the most common excuse I always have whenever I start slacking in writing). It will get better… Once I have a little more time. But will I have more time?! Maybe I will be able to get a few sentences in here and there between baby feedings? Maybe I will be so overwhelmed by motherhood that all I will be able to write about is how much I love my daughter? (I kind of already know that is going to happen). We will see. In any case, there are still many stories and reviews and essays to come out of me, enough ideas for more than a lifetime of writing. In the meantime I am just going to keep them as ideas and hope to bring them to fruition in the near future. The first plan must be moving my blog over to my own domain and finding a template that suits me. Decisions, decisions…

In any case, despite the next impending snowstorm and despite the fact that I really wish I didn’t have to work for these next couple of months, I am still so happy. I feel like there is so much happiness that is still inside of me, waiting to get out and I can’t wait to share it with everyone. Well everyone who deserves it anyway ;)