Day 467 - The Arrival

The sweet swaddling phase only lasted about two weeks but oh it was cute while it lasted. 

It's been just over 7 weeks since Haven arrived. That's weird to put into words because its difficult to remember life without him. It's the most surreal thing to watch the baby you've been loving, carrying, and anticipating go from a nudge (or painful rib kick) to a tiny human in your arms.

That day changed my life forever, and I want to share it with you.

He has some of the best faces. This one was telling me he was less than pleased with the socks on his hands.

It was 3:30 am, Friday, May 2nd when I woke up to use the bathroom for the umpteenth time that night. I had stopped counting how many times I woke up to use the restroom about three months previously as once you top 10 in an 8 hour period you just kind of give up. As I was stumbling toward the toilet, I felt a sharp pain in my back and rolled my eyes. More gas. Awesome. Thankfully, it seemed short lived and I was able to return to bed easily. I woke up about 30 minutes later with the same sharp gas pain, but as it quickly went away it occurred to me for the first time that perhaps it might not be gas. I hoped to wake up again shortly. I did. I smiled and waited for Anthem to wake up for work so I could tell him. Haven was coming.

It was 4:30 am when Anthem woke up for work. I looked at him sleepily and tell him I'm pretty sure I'm having contractions, but they're so mild he should go to work anyway and I'll call him if they get worse. After all, this could last for days. He was not tampered by my cautiousness, though. He immediately perked up. "Really? Contractions?"

I smiled. "Really." He went to work and I tried to watch Grey's Anatomy and fall back asleep. Two hours later, however, he was on his way home. I needed him with me as they got stronger. I got dressed, we put the finishing touches on our overnight bags, and went for a walk. They hurt, but they were not close enough together to go to the hospital. So we paced the block to speed things up, both of us excited beyond words that we would be meeting our son soon. We joked, we spoke of our anticipation, of our longing for him. We hoped. It didn't take long. We were at the hospital and I was 5cm dilated by 11:00am.

He can give me that look all day long, I'm not going to stop taking his picture a thousand times a day. 

It's weird, being admitted for labor. I had two straps all the way around my torso. One keeping track of my contractions, the other monitoring Haven's heartbeat. They gave me an iv to keep me hydrated, and just in case they needed to give me anything else. It was burdensome, having so many wires around me. That was the only part I didn't like. It seemed like forever, though it was only about a half an hour until we were in the labor room. Thus began the realization that we were going to use absolutely nothing that we had packed in our labor bag. The playlist we had spent hours on was forgotten in the bag because I was concentrating so hard on the contractions. No movies either to distract me.

It hurt. But it was manageable. So long as Anthem was by my side, I could do this. The hours passed slowly. It seemed forever before it was 2 pm and they were checking me again. I felt crushed when they told me I hadn't dilated anymore. And that my doctor was leaving at 6 pm and wouldn't be back until Monday. They asked if I wanted them to break my water to try and speed things along. I agreed.

This was the first time he discovered his thumb. He was not a fan. 

That's when it went from doable to horrible. The contractions became unbearable, and my pain tolerance jumped out the window. I filled two vomit bags. The contractions were 2- 3 minutes long with less than 30 seconds in between. To me, they felt constant. By 3:30 pm I was begging for a break, for a breather. They checked me again and said I was only 7cm. This could last for hours. I asked for iv pain medication, just to catch my breath, just to get a second wind. I got lost in the weeds. All I could think about was the pain. They explained how I could only get them once an hour, and if it looked like Haven was going to be arriving imminently, I couldn't have them as the drugs could make him lethargic. I nodded, desperate to get any form of relief. As fate would have it, as soon as she finished administering the pain medication into my iv, I felt like I needed to push.

Someone checked me and told me to stop, that I was only 7cm and pushing could hurt me and Haven. But I couldn't stop. I was trying, but going against that need to push had me sobbing and crying out that I had to push. My doctor was outside the door, getting briefed by a nurse when she heard me crying out that I had to push. She came in to check for herself, and thank God she did. She took one look, not an exam; she didn't feel me, just a glance before saying, "Oh! We're going to have a baby!"

She was in a dress and heels. Apparently she had just finished giving a lecture and was checking her patients before she left for a conference in Dallas. That didn't stop her from gowning up. I looked at Anthem. "Really?" I asked and he heard all the desperation behind that word. "We're going to have a baby? He's going to come? The pain is going to end?"

He kissed my hand. "Really."

That's right. My child can blue steel it up all day. 

Then a flood of people entered the room and suddenly the lights got super bright. I remember being vaguely aware that I was exposed to an entire room full of people but I genuinely couldn't care less. Haven was about to join us. And then another contraction had me crying out. The doctor told me I was  9.5 cm and she was going to stretch that last .5cm manually so I could push.

I pushed, screaming in a way that I can only describe as the most instinctive, gutteral sound that has ever come out of me. The books were right about this part. After all this pain, being able to push made me feel better. Not a reduction of pain, but the knowledge that it'll all be over and being able to actually move things along. Anthem gripped my hand as I squeezed his. He held my head up, chin to chest, to help me push. 

"Almost," the doctor told me. "I can see his head. You'll feel the ring of fire soon, and then it's just a few pushes more."

I felt the 'ring of fire' but I would call it a 'ring of mild inconvenience' compared to every other pain in my body. And then his head was out, which, by the way, feels incredibly strange. Two more pushes and then his whole body slid out and it was over. The doctor clamped the umbilical cord immediately to make sure Haven got as little of the drug as possible into his system, and before my eyes (though the memory is a bit blurry) Anthem cut the cord.

Chillin without a care in the world. 

Haven was quickly checked out to make sure the drug was not affecting him. It wasn't. He was alert and healthy, and the vernix was rubbed in. He never left Anthem's sight. It was a whirlwind. Within a few minutes Haven was on my chest and feeding. He latched immediately. I vaguely remember the doctor telling me that the placenta had passed (we were unable to take it with us as the cost of legal fees - in Texas you need a court order to bring it home because its a biohazard - and the cost of having it dried and ground were too much) and she was stitching me up. Thankfully, I didn't require an episiotomy and had only a small superficial tear that required a single stitch. 

But in the moment, all I could see was our son.

Honestly.

Our beautiful, pink, alert, nursing son. Anthem and I just stared at him. We'd made him. He was ours. And he was amazing. His dark grey blue eyes looked up at us. Our Haven had arrived and our lives were forever changed.

He did this half smirk thing for a solid week before he gave us a full on smile. How you doin?

At 4 days old he started trying to hold his head up. For the past week he's been smiling more and more, and starting to babble. Today he rolled from his back to his side, though he couldn't quite get himself onto his stomach. He's amazing, and we're obsessed. Welcome to the world, Haven.