On birth...

The one decision that mattered more than any birth plan

Giving birth sucks. I don’t have to tell you that. Every woman who’s done it has said some version of it.

As women, we attempt to prepare. Writing detailed birth plans. Sitting in birth classes with partners, the instructors talking through the objective facts (diaper changing, logging feeds, swaddling a distinctly un-wiggling, compliant baby doll) that don’t really sink in until you are there in the middle of the night, mind blank. Online hypnobirthing classes. Organizing the nursery that mostly sits empty for a long while after birth, as newborns are basically attached to mama in the first few weeks.

But nothing truly prepares you for birth. It’s not the products. Or the plans. Or even the knowledge. It’s who is there to hold you steady.

As is the case with many first-time moms, I struggled with anxiety. Looking back, my anxieties were so abstract… distant questions such as of the person my son would become, not necessarily the early stages of babyhood. What will it be like to raise a boy? Will I ensure he develops the intellectual and emotional skills he needs to have a happy and fulfilling life? Will I foster his development to ensure he becomes a steady partner? What if he wants to play football? As an occupational therapist, the idea of my son entertaining the thought of sustaining mini-TBIs repeatedly before he is legally allowed to vote terrifies me. My husband and I joke that most kids are scared to tell their parents they want to try out for the school play instead of football, not the other way around.

At my 20-week scan, my son measured slightly small, but my doctor was not very concerned. By 34 weeks, that had changed. They suspected FGR and strongly pushed for a 37-week induction. What I thought would be a routine appointment blindsided me; my husband Adam wasn’t there, and I found myself in tears walking through the lobby.

In the car, I immediately turned on myself: There are women here losing pregnancies, and you’re crying over a common, preventative procedure. You work in healthcare. What is wrong with you? But it wasn’t just the news, it was the realization that I had spent months worrying about abstract futures instead of appreciating the (suddenly fragile) reality that my son was healthy. I think a lot of us do this…minimize our own fear the second we realize someone else might have it worse. I now have compassion for my past self, and am working on allowing myself to feel feelings of loss without comparison to others.

FGR, I learned, meant my body might not be supplying him with adequate nutrients, and he could do better outside than in. I understood the logic. I was still scared. After frequent monitoring and many texts, the induction was ultimately canceled. My doctor was then absent for the remainder of my care, and his replacement often seemed overwhelmed (once even referencing the canceled induction as if it were still scheduled). I felt for her, but it reinforced what I already suspected: the health care system, especially here, prioritizes volume over continuity. I corrected her gently, and we moved on.

All this context sets up my birth, as I am convinced my son was in distress for multiple weeks leading up to his exit. The heart rate readings were deemed fine, but the staff had a hard time operating the equipment, so I was sometimes dubious how accurate the readings were outputting. But I am certain my son Ellis eventually decided he was ready to make his debut, and he was going to do it quickly.

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In the early stages of my labor, I wasn’t sitting on a yoga ball or on all fours like the blissful British midwife recommended in my hypnobirthing course. I spent most of the first few hours standing, staring at the ceiling. I remember arching my back and grabbing my husband’s shirt to try to escape the pain, taking inhale after inhale after inhale (did I ever exhale?). Sitting was excruciating, standing was excruciating… I remember writhing and contorting to try to find any sort of relief but found none. I spent most of this time apologizing for some reason repeatedly, as if I was inconveniencing the staff at having to witness and deal with my pain. It was not until my epidural kicked in, that I was finally able to breathe and get onto the hospital bed. The pain was not gone, but it was no longer blinding.

I could finally utilize the comfort items my research had recommended I bring with me: Calcifer blankie (from Howls Moving Castle) lavender essential oil, and Adam’s phone playing instrumental jazz.

However, reader, the most important advice I can give you if you plan to have birth is to DESIGNATE long before your birth who you want in the room with you. Take no prisoners. If there is any doubt in your mind that your mom, or dad, or Aunt Linda, or sister, or grandma, or friend will not completely support you and decrease the burden birth will claw and gnash out of you, do not let them in the delivery room. Your birth is not a spectacle. It is not a party. It is not someone else’s milestone, or Facebook post, or anything else but the introduction of your baby to the world.

This fact is wholly underemphasized in preparing women for birth, and I am glad that my initial decision to include anyone in the room, but my husband was questioned and ultimately changed. Because undeniably, my husband Adam was instrumental at ensuring my son entered the world witnessing exactly what a partner should do for their wife during birth, and every other lifechanging obstacle they should face.

Believe it or not, despite the pain, I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t scared when the staff started flipping me every minute or so like a rotisserie chicken. I wasn’t scared when my son’s heart rate was constantly dropping/spiking/dropping/spiking. Because he wasn’t. He stood to the left of me, holding my hand and counting my breathing aloud. He did not sit or leave the room for the entire 9 hours. That steadiness didn’t start in the delivery room. It started years earlier. He set a foundation for this loving trust that was built long before this September morning.

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In an almost cosmic force of magnetism, I was able to single out and latch onto the nerdiest individuals in my cohort of OT students within the first few weeks. The first was a tall redhead named Gabi whose roommate had just started a Dungeons and Dragons campaign and was looking for players; the first night we met, I felt an immediate kinship to her as if we had already been friends for quite some time. The other was a quiet blonde with glasses, who I also felt immediately at ease with who was interested in trying DND out. He was attractive, male, sweet, and nerdy? My immediate reaction was to file him away as “taken” or “gay” until I had received evidence otherwise, or else I would surely encounter disappointment.

We had both moved from our respective home states to, coincidentally, the same sketchy apartment complex. This proximity gave my 22-year-old self the courage to suggest we carpool to game night every Friday at our mutual new OT school classmate’s apartment. Adam had never played, so I took it upon myself to mentor him… we needed a healer, so I got to work helping him build his cleric.

Now, one thing I did not expect to meet in OT school was my future husband. Occupational therapy is a very female-dominated field, and I had resolved that it was near-impossible to meet a single, attractive man in person. However, my experiences with online dating went about as well as it does for many people—horribly. Tinder, Bumble, Hinge… I had tried them all, with results ranging from unsuccessful but amusing one-offs to the quintessential crying on the bathroom floor. Thus, my expectations were low. Obviously, I cannot summarize the entirety of our 7-year relationship, but I want to emphasize how I knew Adam was the logical selection for best partner and future father of my children.

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Our relationship suffered a rocky start. We were the classic set-up of the woman moving too fast (once I had realized he was in fact, heterosexual and single) and the man who realizes he is not ready for a relationship for *insert reason here*. He sat me down in person and told me the reasons he wanted to remain friends instead of continuing a romantic relationship until he could sort his feelings out. I nodded solemnly, resolving to hold in the tears until he left. I was already internally mourning the budding friendship of talking about movies on our way to carpool, thinking I had ruined it. Guys just say that they want to stay friends, right?

However, Adam meant it. He remained annoyingly dependable despite my best efforts to fall out of love with him. I began to ask him increasingly unreasonable favors or requests that far extended the boundaries of friends. (“Could you pick me up from church? I decided to walk uphill in the snow instead of driving, but I don’t think it would be safe to walk back…” “Can I stay at your apartment? I lost my keys on my run…” “Can you pick me up from the tire place?” “Gabi and I were thinking of using the hot tub at the YMCA, want to join?”) I waited for the polite excuse, deflection, or even most frightening of all, the verbal, terse acknowledgement that these requests were violating his request to stay friends instead of romantic prospects.

But they never came. He remained unwaveringly dependable and gentlemanly, answering the phone and showing up for me every single time… and it frustrated me to no end. I’ll admit, the hot tub request was petty on my part. I remember it was after another failed attempt at online dating; the athletic dietetics student who previously referred to me as his “bumblebee” (the pet name he gave me since we met on Bumble) was now, again, no longer interested. I agreed that we were not compatible in the long-term (way too into guns and sports), but the rejection stung, and thus I sought to ease that rejection with male attention from Adam. I made sure to wear my black bikini. He remained polite and chatty as ever; the three of us passionately discussed the frustration with the disorganization of our program at the time. But I remember his attention was specifically direct that night in the hot tub, and I was placated that he may have residual interest.

And I was right! After months more of friendship, we realized we were in love during an intimate evening of another fake “double date” with our couple friends to see the movie Alita: Battle Angel… they were always on a date, so everyone always assumed Adam and I were as well since we were with them. He confessed to the reigniting romantic feelings and that he had processed his hang-ups that were keeping him from pursuing a relationship. That was 7 years ago, and I am so grateful that we both were stubborn and decided to take the scary leap of love. And you know what? He hasn’t changed since then, and he showed up in the ultimate way in the delivery room.

You would think he had witnessed a hundred births before. His calm was my constant companion throughout my birth, which was why I wasn’t scared. His steadiness during this experience solidified my choice of Adam as my husband.

As my doctor laid my son on my chest, the relief and happiness I felt for his life and safety was magnified by the happiness I felt for the family I was bringing him into. Adam was the most important decision I’ve made towards creating a wonderful, safe, and fulfilling life, which is the greatest gift I could ever give my son. And I knew, in that moment, he would always be there to hold us steady.