Once again, I write for memory’s sake. I hate the idea of forgetting a moment in time so special and significant.
We’ll rewind a bit, just to help get in the mindset of where we were.
The majority of my pregnancy with Essa was really easy. Very little nausea, or discomfort the majority of the time. While fatigue was a constant and heartburn came with a vengeance; there was very little to complain about.
That is until the last 5-6 weeks. Then it all seemed to kick into high gear. I went from being fine to suddenly being uncomfortable no matter what I did. Sitting, standing, lying down, it didn’t seem to matter; everything was miserable.
Not to mention, with Sam leaving for a 10 week training academy 6 days after Essa’s due date, I was just ready to be DONE.
So we’ll fast forward to February 6. To me, it was like every other stinking day going by, without a contraction in sight. At that point I had done everything possible to start labor, from jogging to scrubbing floors on my hands and knees to eating any spicy food I could get my hands on. Nothing seemed to do a thing.
Sam had come home from work and we were sitting in the living room chatting when all of the sudden, I felt my water break.
This was quite a different experience than with Lennox, as my water didn’t break until I was in the hospital already well into labor.
I went to the bathroom just to make sure I hadn’t involuntarily peed myself (pregnancy sucks y’all), and was quite positive my water had broken. I came out and told Sam who sat there for a second before he asked “do we need to go to the hospital right now?” I laughed and said “no way, I’m not even having contractions.”
So we waited. I finished packing my hospital bag and packed things for Lennox who would be going to spend the night at his grandparent’s house. Contractions started but were really nothing, so I didn’t worry too much.
A couple hours later we headed into the hospital, handed Lennox off to Grandma (Eleanor), and went to get checked in.
The nurse who checked us in informed us that it was busy night, and she was not kidding. We sat in triage from somewhere around 9:30pm-11:45pm before finally getting taken back to a room.
I was rather annoyed because we sat in triage for so long, but mostly that labor did not seem to be progressing in any real way.
Finally we got settled into our room, and we decided to try to sleep, since we didn’t know how quickly things would go.
Unfortunately, I only closed my eyes for about 30 minutes before real contractions hit around 12:30am.
I let Sam sleep as long as I could, but around 2am I woke him up. It was getting too intense to try to distract myself. As usual, he came in clutch and talked to me, told me stories and made me laugh as much as possible.
I was SO tired around 3am, and momentarily considered getting an epidural just so I could sleep. But I quickly dismissed that thought and determined to stick it out.
Around 3:55am the nurse came in and checked me and said I was about 7-8 centimeters dilated. She commented that I’d probably be having the baby in about an hour or so. That gave me serious hope. Haha.
However, I kid you not, about 30 seconds after the nurse walked out of the room I sat up and told Sam “oh my gosh, I need to push.”
He called the nurse ASAP who booked it back into the room and checked and was shocked to say I was at 10 centimeters. Quick side note, I had no idea you could jump from 7-8 to 10 centimeters in literally 30 seconds flat, but that’s a whole other thing. The nurse then told me I needed to wait to push until the doctor came. This is my one GIANT frustration with hospital birth. I did not like being told to wait to push, and there was little direction on what to do while I was waiting. I lost track of how I was breathing and commented that my hands were going numb to which I was told “you’re not breathing.” Trying to connect that to something logical whilst being 10 centimeters dilated and told not to push is asking a lot. But somewhere in the midst of that rational thought kicked in and I started taking deep breaths again and the numbness disappeared. After what seemed like an eternity (I’m sure it wasn’t) the doctor showed up and I got to push. 3 pushes and less than 5 minutes later, our perfect Essa was born.
She was little and petite and exactly right for us.
I said two things immediately after seeing her face the first time. The first was “she looks like Lennox!” and the second was “Babe, she is totally Essa.” That might sound dumb, but I like to see their faces before I know for sure if the name we picked out is right. As soon as we saw her, we knew her name was exactly right.
All in all, it was a very simple birth. No complications, tears or anything else. Just funny, because it went so slow until it didn’t. There was nothing until it kicked in, and then it was high gear. I rather imagine that’s like our Essa girl.
