The process of trying to conceive can be so emotional and overpowering, it is only natural that many of those in the trenches cope with these struggles and their deepest hopes by realizing them in dream-filled sleeps. Many of my friends have told of dreams about yet to be realized children so real and vivid, they simultaneously give them feelings of hope at the possible future and despair and their very real present. During my years of struggle, I only ever had one dream of myself as a mother that I can recall. Some of it was nonsensical like most dreams but it also had one very simple, emotional moment in which I was nursing a baby girl and it felt so incredibly tender and real that it stuck with me.
When I was finally and truly pregnant with my amazing daughter, that dream came back to me and I knew that I wanted to breastfeed her when she was born. I also knew that it isn't always as easy as plopping a baby onto your boob and I wanted to learn more about the nursing process so that I could be as successful as possible. I won't lie, I was insanely intimidated and daunted at the huge task and throughout pregnancy I did my best to soak in information from friends, books and even a class taught by a lactation consultant. I set a goal to breastfeed exclusively for the 1st six months. I also always reminded myself that breastfeeding isn't easy and it isn't life or death. If for any reason it wasn't working for her or me, it was ok to move to something that worked better for us.
And in the beginning it really wasn't always easy. Thanks to an emergency c-section and some concerning swelling in her head after birth, Eliana and I were apart for the first few hours of her life. I can't even remember the first time I tried to nurse her. But I do remember the days at the hospital of her crying desperately for nourishment without the slightest idea of how to latch onto my breast to get it. It was frustrating and challenging for both of us. Luckily, I had some amazing nurses and one physically helped me figure it out. It would have been awkward but the result negated any weirdness and for the first time ever I successfully fed my daughter. It was incredible.
I have had a few other bumps in the road since then: engorgement, plugged ducts, difficulty pumping, and a near bout of mastitis that I spent days fighting off. It wasn't always fun or easy and it was definitely never glamorous, but overall, I got lucky and Snow Pea and I fell into a good routine. We reached six months and the introduction of solids faster than I could have dreamed, and while the demand for the breast went down the more food she ate, and her growing awareness of the world was changing the dynamic, I saw no reason to stop just yet. So we continued our nursing relationship and I hoped to make it another six months.
I was so thrilled when I made it to a year. By then we were down to 3 feedings a day, first thing the morning, after her afternoon nap and right before bed. It had become far less demanding than when we started, but now a year later I felt ready to wean. Snow Pea wasn't a sweet, peaceful baby anymore. She wiggly, distracted and precocious. She had started demanding milk by tugging on my shirt and whining at me during the day, biting my nipples when she got bored or wanted to switch sides. It was frustrating and exhausting.
So again, I did my research. I talked to friends who had been there and read up and just weeks ago introduced cow's milk into my daughter's diet. She hated it at first. She knew what she wanted and it didn't come in a plastic cup. But it literally only took a week of offering a cup after her afternoon nap before she decided this was good stuff and at 13 months she has officially dropped her daytime feeding. My plan setting out was to wean from this feeding first and then the other two, one at a time, over the course of a few weeks. I was by no means in a rush. Now it seems though that my body has begun deciding for us that time is just about up.
Earlier this week I nursed Snow Pea after her bath, just as I have for months now and realized that I felt almost completely empty. My poor girl was trying and trying but I had nothing to give her. She was miserable, screaming and crying in hunger and frustration. I had to do what was best for her needs and I gave her a bottle of plain milk that she hungrily sucked down before contentedly passing out. And then I cried.
I thought I was ready. I was the one who decided it was time to wean, that encouraged her to transition away from needing my body to feed her, but now that it is actually happening, it is more emotional than I ever anticipated. My body has nourished hers for nearly 2 years! For 9 months she lived and grew inside my body and for the last 13 my milk has sustained her. Being unable to do for her what I have done her entire life made me feel a little bit heartbroken, like she was growing too fast and didn't need me anymore. But it also made me see that she really is weaning herself even more than I'm weaning her and as hard as it may be, I need to follow her lead and let her have this bit of independence. My child is becoming just that, a child. She is no longer an infant and she is ready to move on from our nursing relationship.
I am not positive how many weeks or days of breastfeeding are left. Will I even know my last nursing session with her when it happens? What I do know is that I am grateful to have been able to breastfeed at all and to have been able to do it for so long. I also know that I don't believe any of the media hype that I am somehow more or less of a mom because of it. I won't get into all that now, especially since I have already written a more at length post on the topic (which you can find here) but I do want to be sure that my words don't get turned into fuel for a supposed "mommy war". All moms that love and do their best for their kids are good moms, period. I have done what was best for my me and daughter so far and now that it is changing, I am looking forward what that means for us in the future.
If you missed how Snow Pea's labor started you can read Part 1 here or if you need to catch up on the sudden turn of events in her delivery, read Part 2 here. Once the call was made for me to stop pushing and get prepped for a c-section, my first thought was just one thing: water! I was so incredibly thirsty from all of the breathing and pushing I had been doing for the past couple of hours. The cup of water Chad was passing to me had barely grazed my fingertips when a nurse intervened and took it away. I nearly cried at that moment and I think she sensed my desperation so I was allowed one tiny ice chip before the staff began shuffling me carefully onto the the gurney for my trip to the operating room.
On the way, I was hurriedly trying to send a text to my friends and family across the country letting them know what was happening while also trying hold myself together in spite of my growing anxiety. Chad held my hand tight and kept reassuring me that despite my disappointment with myself, I had not failed and everything would turn out great. All too quickly we were outside the OR doors. My new nurse wasn't exactly patient with me or my emotions and despite my requests for one more minute to text my family and hug my husband, she told me to hand him my phone and sent him off in the opposite direction to be prepped as she wheeled me into the room. I had been disappointed when shift change happened but now I wished more than ever that my previous nurse was still on duty.
Once in the OR, I was shuffled onto the operating table and my gown was pulled up to my waist as the curtain was placed above my chest. My anesthesiologist arrived to re-do my IV and prepare me for surgery. As he worked and the nurses did their prep, I kept asking my nurse questions about what to expect. I was getting more and more anxious with every second and even though I knew a lot of the answers from having read the books and attending the classes, I felt as if hearing the answers again would somehow calm my nervous energy. Unfortunately, as I said my nurse wasn't very patient with my anxiety and I could tell I was getting on her nerves. it didn't help that as I talked I was staring at the door waiting for Chad to appear. I knew that he was really the only person that could truly make me feel any better.
Luckily, my anesthesiologist, Dr Thoughtful, was one of the nicest and friendliest people I have ever met and he did a great job of soothing me until Chad finally arrived. It had only been 15 minutes that we were apart but it felt like an eternity. I was so relieved to see him, and even though I was laid on the table with my arms out as if on a cross, I did my best to hug him when he swooped down to kiss me on the forehead.
Dr. Casual came in and asked Dr Thoughtful when the medication would be sufficiently in my system. He said I was all set and that we could start at 8:50pm, which was in about 10 minutes. I held onto Chad's hand and began directing my questions at Dr. Thoughtful. He said I could keep my arms unstrapped but I did need to keep them out and away from the curtain. He also told me that the anesthesia would remove all pain but that I would still feel tugging and pulling sensations. It seemed like within seconds I was feeling exactly what he was talking about. As soon as it started my focus seemed to turn inward and thanks to the drugs, I have very sparse memories from this point onward. I remember knowing that the incision was being made, and feeling the tug as my abdominal muscles were pulled apart. It didn't hurt but it did feel completely unlike anything I have ever experienced and I groaned with many of the pulls, largely aware that my insides were being tugged and moved.
The birth part of a c-section is quicker than you can imagine, and suddenly Dr Thoughtful's hands were on my temples and he was chanting my name as he guided my face up to look into a mirror he held for me so that I could see the other side of the curtain. I stared into it and saw a curved little body resting on top of a sea of red. Snow Pea's back was curved up with her legs tucked under her with a swirl of darkened, wet curls on her head. I held my breath and stared at that mirror for what simultaneously seemed like a nanosecond and an eternity before hearing her very first life-changing cry. I let out the biggest exhale of my life as I squeezed Chad's hand and looked into his tear filled eyes. At 8:57pm Snow Pea was born.
As Snow Pea was cut free from my body, Dr Thoughtful told me I would feel a sting in my hand. I quickly replied "there it is" and that was it, I was in a medicated daze. No one had sufficiently prepared me for the morphine or it's effects. I felt like my body was trying to force me into a coma like sleep as I fought against it with everything I had and that feeling lasted for hours afterward. I hate that I was so drugged for the first few hours of my daughter's life. I can only remember Snow Pea's birth in bits and pieces and so much of it is so fuzzy in my memory, but thankfully the most important moments are with me, imprinted on my soul forever.
I don't remember Chad leaving my side but once she was in the warmer, the neonatologist called him over. He hadn't wanted to cut the cord, he thought it seemed unnecessary, but the doctor extended the scissors and being in the moment, Chad went ahead and cut away the length of umbilical cord still attached to Snow Pea's tummy. He talked to her and took pictures as she was weighed and wrapped to be brought to me. Once she was ready, he held her for the first time and carried her to me.
Like I said, I don't remember this time period but I know I was still being stitched up when he nudged her body toward my face so that I could see and hold her for the first time and that I do remember. As soon as her body made contact with mine, my free arm- the right one- wrapped up around her and held onto her as tightly as possible. I nuzzled my face into her body and just fell into that moment. Nothing else existed in those few seconds but her. There really are no words to adequately describe that first embrace. It was like time stood still and the whole universe just fell away. There was only my body holding onto her tiny little body and every ounce of pure love that has ever existed seemed to flow through me. I can't describe it as intense because it was so much more peaceful than that. It was what I always imagined a state of nirvana might feel like. I didn't think of her as my daughter or myself as her mother. I didn't think about my past or my future or even my present with doctors sewing up my insides, it just me and her and nothing else. And then Chad was there holding me and her together and it was just the three of us. In our own little bubble of joy and love, nothing else seemed to exist and even if it did, it didn't seem to matter.
The next thing I remember is being in the recovery room alone with my nurse as she checked my blood pressure. I was panicky inside wondering where my family was. Why wasn't Chad or Snow Pea with me? What was going on? I felt like someone had amputated my heart, they should have been there with me! It turned out that Snow Pea had a lot swelling on her head from having her head trapped during labor in addition to some concerns about her breathing so she was in the nursery for care and observation. Poor Chad was shuffling between my floor and hers, not sure where he should be. Finally, my hour of recovery was up and I was cleared to be moved to my room.
First, my nurse wheeled my gurney to the nursery so that I could see my sweet baby girl. I tried furiously to force my eyes open as I looked at her struggling to breath under the nursery warmers. I tentatively reached out to touch her and received a very wet, rattling cry in response. I realized my hands must have been freezing to her and quickly shrunk away as I apologized. I gave my fingers a chance to get warm before placing my index finger into the palm of her hand and stroking the back of my hand with her thumb. It was the first time I had made direct skin to skin contact with her and all too quickly it was over and I was wheeled into my room to wait until she was released from the nursery.
I slept off and on until they finally brought her back to me at about 1am. The neonatologist explained the tests they had done and told me that if the ultrasounds they planned to perform on her head swelling revealed any blood, that she would be taken to the NICU. I held my breath at that and prayed that wouldn't be the case. The nurses came again at 3am and took her for her first bath. Normally they do this in the room with the parents there to be a part of it, but they were still concerned about her and wanted to do it in the nursery and keep her in the warmers again afterward. I was so devastated not to be there for that and then again when I realized she had been alive for 6 hours and I had yet to feed her or even truly hold her, let alone name her!
Morning came and the sun rose over our new view. This time instead of an ocean scene, our window faced a building. But not just any building, we were just across the street from the very building where it all began. It was the building where my egg retrieval took place, as well as the fertilization of those eggs. It was the building where our embryos are currently on ice and where one of those formally frozen snowflakes was transferred back into my body on July 15, 2010. The embryo that stayed and grew and thrived and became our Snow Pea. When I was finally able to truly hold her, I showed her that building and told her what an epic ninth month journey it had been for to get to the other side of the street.
Then at long last, just before the staff member came to collect the paperwork for her birth certificate, Chad and I decided on our daughter's name. We already knew her middle name would be Sue, after not only my sister who has the same middle name, but also both of our mother's who are Susie (mine) and Sue (his). With that much family connection, there really was no other choice for me. Her first name however, we could never commit to during my pregnancy. Finally looking at her face to face though and feeling the enormity of all we had been through to get her here as well as the extreme gratitude at having her to love at long last, we realized only one name on our list would do. I am not a religious person but I do believe in a loving spirit outside of us. Eliana in Hebrew means "God has answered me" and after years of hurt, loss, hope and now finally holding her in my arms, I know that he certainly has.
If you read part one of Snow Pea's birth story, you know that my labor was induced a week after my due date, and that after a slow progression I had reached the point of labor when I was ready to begin pushing. Once it was confirmed that I was fully dilated, my nurse began focusing her checks on Snow Pea's position. She was at about +1 when I became fully dilated, and things were looking good. The nurse could see my baby girl's head and I was excited when she told us that it definitely was covered in hair! I myself was born with quite a puff of white hair, so hearing my daughter would be too made me feel connected to her, confirming that we had at least one thing in common right from the start.In addition to seeing all of her gorgeous waves, the nurse could see that Snow Pea was attempting to fit through an opening in my pelvis that was a bit more narrow than her head, which looked like it was beginning to cone in order to fit. Chad was a teeny bit concerned about having a cone-head baby, but the nurse quickly reassured him that her head was made to do this and we could have cute hats on her for pictures for the few days it normally takes for baby's heads to look a little rounder. After laboring down for an hour to give her little noggin a chance to move a bit farther down, I got into position and started pushing.
Contrary to what I have been led to believe by TV and the movies, there was not a lot of commotion during the pushing stage. It was just me, Chad and my nurse. We were actually both surprised by just how relaxed this part of the process really was. There weren't even any stirrups involved. Chad was by side holding my head as I curled my body into each push and my nurse gently tried turning and easing Snow Pea's head down. As they counted me through, I put every bit of focus and energy into sucking in one big breath and holding for a count of ten as I pushed, then blowing it out and repeating it two more times during each contraction. Most of the contractions anyway. Every once in a while we'd take a break so that I could rest or so that the nurse could check in with my OB, Dr Casual, who had been in touch with her all day.
I was doing exactly what I needed to during the pushing and Snow Pea was handling it perfectly, her heart rate never once went outside the guidelines. She was never distressed or tired and neither was I. We were both feeling great. The problem was no matter how well I pushed, or how much my baby tried to wiggle, her head just wasn't coming down. I tried laying on my side for a few pushes, because a change of angle can often do the trick, but that didn't work either.
After almost 2 hours of pushing and another shift change, I got word from my 3rd nurse that Dr Casual had arrived at the hospital. I was shocked and happy to hear he was there. When I had checked in the night before, we had been told that the on-call OB would be delivering the baby and since Dr Casual was not on call that weekend, we probably wouldn't see him at all until my post-natal check up in 6 weeks. But there he was, calmly strolling into the room as if he had been hanging out in the hospital all day. He sat down and casually said "Hey guys, how's it goin?" exactly the same way as he had at the start of every prenatal appointment. We chatted for a bit and then I began pushing again.
After a few pushes, Dr. Casual told me that Snow Pea just wasn't coming down. He said that my pelvic inlet was narrow and my baby's head was not. Further complicating things, my tailbone has a rare trait in that it curves into my pelvic cavity, making the area even narrower and providing a nice bump for Snow Pea's head to get stuck on. Then he and the nurse uttered the word I had been dreading: cesarean. He knew though how much I wanted to avoid surgery if at all possible, and gave me the option of attempting a vacuum assisted birth. My labor was going perfectly and she would just slide out if he could just get her head past the lip that my tailbone had created. I agreed to it and almost instantly the room changed.
The nurse started breaking down the bottom half of the bed as more nurses and neonatalologists began crowding in. Suddenly there were three new people standing around my bed as Dr. Casual attempted to remove the internal monitor that had been attached to Snow Pea's scalp earlier in the day. When the monitor was being placed, Snow Pea's hair had caused some trouble, frequently knocking it loose and setting off the monitor's alarm each time it lost signal. Finally after setting off the alarm at least ten times, a nurse had re-attached it more securely, maybe too securely because now Snow Pea's hair caused trouble again. This time instead of being knocked loose by her mane, it was tangled up in it. Dr. Casual was gently trying to untangle it for quite a while before it finally came free, but not without taking a few hairs with it. We all chuckled at Snow Pea's "first haircut", as Dr. Casual began getting all of his tools ready.
Getting the vacuum into a good position proved challenging as well because of the coning on Snow Pea's head. It works best to have a flatter surface to attach to and more and more of her head was becoming pointy and swollen. Her hair also continued to make things difficult because it was so thick, not the ideal smooth surface for this procedure. But Dr. Casual knew how much it meant to me so he continued adjusting the instrument until he was able to get it right. Then it was time for me to push while he pulled. With the new and expanded team of medical staff in the room, it was beginning to feel and look a lot more like the "holy crap I am about to have a baby" delivery I had seen on TV. Chad was my biggest cheerleader but the rest of the team was also coaching me through each breath and contraction, telling me to "push down through my bottom" and to "get mad". If I hadn't been so focused on what I was doing, I would have laughed. But with the threat of c-section looming over me, I was giving each and every push everything I had.
I could tell that Dr. Casual was doing the same as he tried to simultaneously pull the baby's head down forcefully and gently. There were a few times when we was tugging and the vacuum shot free of Snow Pea's head and sent him flying backward from the force of it. We did quite a few pushes with the vacuum and my army of cheerleaders. All the while I fought back the fear that I was somehow doing it wrong and I was going to fail at giving birth. Finally, Dr. Casual said her head just wouldn't budge despite all of our best efforts and it was time to go into the OR for a c-section.
I couldn't accept it at first. I looked at him pleadingly, begging to try something else. Another position, something, anything to avoid the surgery. He looked at me with a slight sadness and told me this really was the only option we had if I wanted a safe, healthy delivery and baby. Despite all the pushing and even being stuck, Snow Pea had never been stressed. Her heart stayed strong and steady, but the longer we put through this, the more likely she would become distressed. It was better to do a safe, planned c-section now than to keep trying and be in a truly emergency situation. Chad asked one of the nurses what we would be doing had this been the situation outside the hospital or in the 1800s. She replied that we would've kept pushing until a terrible outcome would have ultimately resulted. That was all that he needed to hear to know that he was ok with the doctor's decision. I, on the other hand, was still freaking out in desperation and disbelief that I was being wheeled into the operating room.
But one way or another, it was time for Snow Pea to be born, and I knew that despite how I had wished things would happen, what was most important to me was finally holding my sweet girl in my arms, happy and healthy. So I took a deep breath and signed the consent forms for my c-section. I had been born by c-section nearly three decades earlier, so it looked like being born with a full head of hair wouldn't be the only thing mine and my daughter's births would have in common. And now it was almost time...
