A Quick Progression 6/11/2023

Today I want to relate the events of seven years ago this coming Tuesday. It is quite a tale.  I am one of the main characters, so I suppose it is my story to tell however I see fit.   I hope you all find it of interest. I don’t think I have told this story before, at least not here.  It’s an account filled with blood, sweat, tears and likely other bodily fluids.  That might sound a bit disconcerting and make you uncertain if you want to continue reading but I assure you it’s a worthwhile course of events I want to tell you about.  Also, I’ll clean it up. But it’s not just every day that a person starts the day as a member of a couple and ends it as a family of three. It’s a pretty big deal in basically all the senses of the word.

It all started ever so casually on a Sunday night. My husband’s sister was over, and we were watching some appointment TV that we enjoyed at the time. I can’t say it was a particularly unique day either. Nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. No birds had sung to me in a special way nor did an angel visit me to relate that something amazing was coming. I had just simply eaten pizza and as was tradition, the little girl in my belly had a dance party because of it. She still loves pizza to this day but then it was a sight to behold to watch my stomach roll and twitch whenever the sacred mixture of bread, sauce, cheese and meats were on the menu.  We had eaten dinner and I was lounging watching tv. I did notice a strange dull ache but, pregnancy does ridiculously weird things to the body so quite frankly anything out of the ordinary going on was not particularly notable. The ache continued but wasn’t unpleasant per se, so I ignored it.

Things changed around ten that night.  Suddenly what had been an ache became tight sharp pain that had clear intervals.  The problem is, if you’ve never had a contraction before, it makes it a bit of a challenge to identify them.  The thing that caused me to raise an eyebrow though was the fact that there were definite starts and stops. Well, I thought I was rather clever and had downloaded an app on my phone that was meant to time contractions and give you guidance as to when you should go to the hospital.  And this app would have been useful except for the fact that the things I was feeling that I assumed were contractions upon their beginning were the classic 5 minutes apart.

Now we’ve all watched the movies and the television shows that say 5 minutes apart is when you go to the hospital. So, what was I to do when that’s how everything began?  I muddled through the increasing pain.  Clearly my reality had not watched the same shows I had seen. I called labor and delivery in the wee hours of the morning, and they were unimpressed and told me to stay home. I learned later that they didn’t really think I was in labor because apparently, I could talk coherently through contractions.  I mean pardon me for my high level of pain tolerance.  Once I called again, they finally said I could come. I think they just assumed I was going to keep annoying them until they let me come whether this was the real thing or not.

It was still dark when we headed that way. We had made the obligatory phone calls. My mom had been at our house throughout a chunk of the night. My husband’s mom lives a roughly 3-hour drive away so he made sure she knew as soon as possible so she could begin her trip.  Of course, everyone at the hospital said it would be a lengthy process as first babies usually are.  All the travelers were told they had plenty of time.  There was one voice amongst all the experts that disagreed. The midwife insisted that I would have the baby quickly and predicted a time frame for the delivery.  It was not long before we got an education that the doctors and nurses were not the most knowledgeable when it came to the timeline that day.  My daughter had apparently decided she was fed up with her current surroundings and she had turbo boosters to make her exit.

I was very near to the point of delivering when I finally was able to get an epidural and even the anesthesiologist questioned why I had waited so long. I was a bit past the point of explaining myself in a civil manner, but my husband and mother assured him that we hadn’t waited but that things were progressing at breakneck speeds.  This escalation included my pain levels, and I will never forget them telling me that I was going to have to be still as they put a giant needle in my back. If had been capable of laughing, I certainly would have because I was absolutely certain that if I did not keep moving my body would do something indescribable. I didn’t know if it would turn inside out or implode but I knew it was going to be catastrophic.  Long story short, I was not still for my epidural. I managed to keep my torso still whilst I wiggled my leg sitting on the edge of the hospital bed. I had to. Keeping that leg moving was what, in my odd pain-riddled mind, was keeping me from breaking into pieces.  I know, that’s a strange concept but I doubt logic was my strong suit at that point.

We had gotten to the hospital a bit before sunrise. My daughter was born before lunch.  No lengthy first-time mom labor for me.  But then again, how long had the odd feelings I’d been having been me in labor?  Who knows?  I certainly didn’t. It was quite the adventure of all those in the know telling me one thing and the reality of what I was going through was telling me something else altogether.  The midwife had called it though. She predicted the birth almost down to the minute.  I had no clue what to expect and that was only the beginning.  That was seven years ago. Now I have a blonde ponytail helping me make goody bags for the invitees to her birthday luau.  I still have no idea what to expect even these days. I am certain of one thing though. It still is going faster than I ever expected.

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt