Plum Descending. Her birth Story.

Three months ago to the day (to the hour actually), I was being prepared to have a baby.

I had waited three months in a hospital bed for that very day, October 6.  That day marked my 34th week of pregnancy, the point in which the doctors felt it was best to induce.

I feel like I lived a separate mini life during those few months in the antepartum wing of the Labor & Delivery ward.  Being forced to slow down, stay put, cross my legs, and read books was a dream come true for the first couple of weeks.  Once the fear of having a very premature baby subsided, I secretly enjoyed the fact that I was there, considering it the next best thing to vacation.  Friends and family came to visit, sent mail, loaned books, made Netflix suggestions, brought food, and cared for the family I left behind at my house.  I loved my circuit of nurses.  Especially my angelic day nurses.  I felt like we were friends, although some may call that Stockholm Syndrome.  Even the hospital food was palatable for a while.  I would excitedly thank the ladies who delivered each meal multiple times a day.  They would answer "you're welcome" in a knowing tone that really said, "Pace yourself, Mrs. White.  You may be here a while."

Sure enough, within a few weeks I was homesick.  I read all my books.  Watching movies alone in an uncomfortable hospital bed was not nearly as fun as watching them with a loved one on a cozy couch.  The hospital food lost it's charm.  I missed my girls terribly.  I wanted to get out of the bed and go for a godforsaken walk.  I waved at two pigeons outside my window.  Seriously.

The point at which I truly lost it was when my mom brought me a Garden & Gun magazine, right about the time the seasons were changing.  There were glossy pages dedicated to apples & pies & apple pies.  My doctor walked in and said, "So, what are we looking at today?"

"Garden & Gun".

"I love G & G!  What's this issue about?"

"Pie.  It's about pies and pie season.  And apple picking.  I should be picking apples, and making pies."

It was my first meltdown of several.  This particular doctor, a young, obviously very intelligent woman, said (as she pet my arm while I cried), "It's going to be okay.  You know, if it makes you feel any better, I've not only never picked an apple, but I've never made a pie."

I told her that she needed to get her priorities straight.  Saving babies' lives was noble, but an apple pie from scratch was the height of existence.  She didn't argue.

And then she said, "You know what the great thing about being pregnant is?  There's always an end in sight."

And she was right.  Suddenly, week 34 showed up only days after telling my other doctor that "I know my rights!  I am calling my lawyer, and then I'm going home."  (He reminded me that I was not incarcerated.  Just on bed rest.)

The day before induction was filled with mixed emotions.  I was obviously excited.  But I was equal parts terrified.  I was knowingly, although under the advisement of medical professionals, having a baby 6 weeks premature.  I knew there could be complications, but I couldn't bring myself to think too hard about it.  The decision had been made, and after the Cervidil was put in (also known as the cervix "ripener") there was no turning back.

I was warned that the Cervidil was not going to bring on labor.  In fact, I should not be discouraged if it took a couple rounds of it in order to ripen my 34 week old fruit.  (What's with all the fruit & flower metaphors anyway?)  If the Cervidil did work, the actual induction would happen early the next morning.

Terry came late that night, after grabbing a change of clothes from home, and after writing Fiona & Neve the most touching letter I've ever read.  It was simply a letter reminding them of our love.  But I couldn't appreciate the gesture, because at the same time he was finishing the letter at home I was beginning to feel contractions.  They were minor, but they were real.

Once he arrived at 11:00pm, they were coming in thirty minute intervals.  I kept looking at my monitor to see a visual correlation to what I was feeling.  I was feeling mountains, but I was seeing hills.  Whatever I was seeing or feeling didn't even matter.  My night nurse was pretty insistent that I was not, could not be in labor.  She gave me another Ambien to make me go back to sleep.

After an awful night of very little sleep, I was having these non-contractions every four to five minutes.  They were tolerable, but they sure as hell felt akin to labor pains.  The monitor showed no difference.  The hills were still hills, and when the doctor came to check me, I was at a very sad 1.5 cm.  It didn't make sense.  I felt like the biggest wimp.

My doctor left.  His parting words were, "I will see you soon, but not too soon.  Get some rest."  Seconds after he left, I felt like I had to go to the bathroom.  The nurses asked me if I had to go No.1 or No.2, to which I answered either in my head or audibly, "I'm not sure.  Maybe both.  Maybe both and a baby".

It's a very odd sensation to have people who are experts in their field tell you that you're not having a baby while you are very much having a baby.  Perhaps this is all too telling of how impressionable I am, but I believed them.  So, as I was pushing in the bathroom, it didn't occur to me that the thing I was pushing was a baby.  Nothing happened.  It took me a long time to get back to the bed, but by the time I did I was transitioning.  I finally lifted my leg, and said, "Something is happening".

The morning was a blur.  And I know there was much more that happened in that time that I can't recall with much clarity.  I vaguely remember Terry playing DJ from a nearby recliner.  I remember making stink faces as certain songs played during contractions.  But other than that, so much of labor was blurred by the fact that I didn't know it was labor; contractions falling by the wayside as I fretted over how impossible it would be to go much longer if it were really only the beginning.

The thing that I will always remember more than anything was the expression on my dear nurses faces as they looked over at me, laying on my side with lifted leg.  If you've ever watched The Little Rascals, you may be familiar with the face that Buckwheat makes when he's surprised.  His whole face sort of shifts into big eyes and dropped jaw.  That was what I saw on their faces, before I ever saw the baby.

I looked down, and there was her head.  One nurse gently placed her hand over her head and said to the other nurse, "Get any doctor in here now", and then, "Dera, don't push".  I remember saying, "I'm not doing anything.  The baby is doing what she wants".  She was here, and there was no doctor.  And then the room was filled with NICU nurses, swarming around all corners of the room.  I have no idea if things were happening in seconds or minutes, but from where I was laying it seemed like it was all happening in slow motion.  A baby came out of me without me knowing.  Then a roomful of serious looking nurses are all around me.  Then I remember thinking, "she's not crying", and then saying it.  I also remember saying other panicky things- "Is she okay?", "Why isn't she crying?" and so forth.  And then I remember a woman in a Lakers tee shirt running into the room, and she introduces herself to me as Dr. Williams.  I will always laugh at the idea that a women who may not have been an obstetrician delivered my baby.  She could've been a vet.  Maybe she had a doctorate in Philosophy.  It didn't matter, because she was up to the task.  She immediately pulls the baby up and onto my chest.  And that's when I heard her cry.  Music to my ears.

The rest of the room, the hospital, the world faded away, as I held the source of the most beautiful sound in the world.

It's not that the events that followed were not worthy of writing here as well.  It's just that it seems silly to rehash the NICU feelings.  Of course I was sad, and of course it was hard.  Having to leave your baby at the hospital is hard enough under any circumstance, but it seemed especially ridiculous after my long stay as a pregnant woman.  "Now you're throwing me out?  And I have to go home alone?"  It seemed like a cruel joke.  I had so many mixed emotions in those two weeks, as I was finally reunited with my older girls and yet distracted by the primitive bond that I had with this tiny new love left behind.  In the big scheme of things, two weeks was a blink of the eye.  As I type this, she's nestled next to me in bed.  She's three months old today.  She's twelve pounds, and she's already smiling and cooing.  She's healthy, she's happy, and my girls hold her and hug her and change her as if she's been here forever.

This is a drawing done by our dear friend after Frances (Plum) was born.  It's called "Plum Descending".  While we have very few photos to show for the morning's events, I am so grateful to have this.  Thank you, Jake.