On Early Motherhood

I wrote these words when Nathan was about a week old:

 

Before I became a mother, I had all of these ideas and opinions about how I would raise my children.  Becoming a mother changes everything.  Suddenly all the things you used to be so sure were “the right way to do things” seem an acceptable compromise at best.  There are so many different philosophies of parenting and child-rearing that make it extremely difficult to know what the best thing is. To make matters worse, it makes it so much harder to trust my own intuition because I’m constantly second-guessing my decisions and responses.    

 

Now that I am several weeks wiser and more experienced as a parent-those of you with years of experience will laugh at me for wording it in that way-I feel very differently.  Yes, I still agree that having children of your own is a game-changer and brings about an upheaval of your preconceived ideas of parenting.  I also still agree that there is no “right way” of doing things.  Every child is different, and every parent is different, and parents can only do their best to blend their intuition with good research and information to respond to their child.   What I mean is that the overwhelming sense that I was doing everything wrong has passed.  In its place has settled a well-placed scepticism of all parenting styles and a confidence that I am Nathan’s mother and no one knows better than I how to take care of him.  Yes, I still wonder if I’m making mistakes as a parent, and undoubtedly I am, but I feel sure that I am doing more right than wrong.  There is wonder and confidence in knowing the difference between my son’s fussy cry and his “something is wrong” cry.  I feel so privileged and blessed everyday to know that I know these intimate little things about him that others don’t. When I look at his little face, I find such joy in knowing that I am going to get to watch him grow up and be able to look back at these moments like they were yesterday.  Everyone says the time flies, and I know the last month has flown by far too fast for my comfort.  There are definitely struggles and trials in these early days of learning how to parent, and sometimes I do still feel overwhelmed, but I am keenly aware that I know my son more than anyone else on earth, and I feel honoured to have that place in his life. 

 

The many faces of Nathan-the early days:

5 days old- milk coma face

7 days-cranky face

7 days-fishy face

8 days-sucking thumb

9 days-chilling in the carseat, on the way to the doctor

9 days-smiling

11 days-confused face

11 days-satisfied tummy napping face

18 days-ooo face

18 days-yawning face

19 days-sleeping on Ani Hannah

26 days-concentrating on colored rings

 

Nathan Emmanuel's Birth Story

The story of God’s most precious Gift in our lives

September 10, 2012

       
         When we first discovered we were pregnant, we started exploring different options and praying about what kind of birth we wanted to have.  We started looking around in the area and found a Christian homebirth midwife and after meeting her and her team and praying for a few weeks, we decided that we wanted to plan for a natural homebirth.  We felt confident that with a midwife who was prayerful and cautious, and the Lord in control of our birth, that everything would be fine.

                Leading up to the day of the birth, there was so much transition and chaos that I didn’t really have time to visualize the birth in a certain way.  This turned out to be a blessing because I have been known to build my expectations up and be disappointed when events don’t pan out the way I expected.  Up until early July we didn’t know where we would be living when we gave birth.  Then, in the weeks following, we were so busy transitioning and moving into our new house, as well as preparing for the new school year and being out for maternity leave, that there was little time left for making a firm birth plan and setting expectations.  In preparing for the upcoming birth, we gathered all the essential supplies we would need including an inflatable pool, and as the day approached, we prepared as much as possible.  

 

                On Friday, September 7, on the way home from school I started having contractions, however they were not painful and I wasn’t paying attention to how far apart they were.  My parents were on their way down for the weekend anyway so I was not worried about whether it was true labor or not.  As the evening progressed, I started paying attention to the timing of them, and though they were only lasting about 15-20 seconds, at one point they got to be about 10 minutes apart.  They were different from the previous Braxton Hicks I’d experienced because the pressure was much lower in my pelvis and I felt the baby coming down with each contraction.  I contacted my midwife and she suggested sleeping and seeing how the night goes.  While I woke up a few times with contractions, for the most part they stopped, however, I noticed that at that point, the baby was much lower than he had been that morning. 

 

                All weekend, I was having similar contractions off and on, but never consistent or regular for more than an hour or two.  When Sunday evening came, it looked like I would be going to school the next day and said goodbye to my parents who were planning to drive back up to Northern Virginia on Monday afternoon.   When I arrived at school, everyone was shocked that I had come.  I taught my first class in the morning on the Real Number System, and then during my lunch break I noticed some spotting when I went to the bathroom.  After conferring with my mom and midwife, my suspicions that I had lost my mucus plug were reinforced.  This meant very little though because this can happen as much as a couple of weeks before labor starts.  I went about the rest of my teaching day, teaching my second class and then my 40 minute content support period, during which I found myself sitting due to some period-like cramps I was starting to feel.  When the students left I quickly started to finish making the copies for the rest of the week and making sure that everything would be in order in case I wasn’t going to  be gone from Tuesday, however, it started to get to a point that every few minutes I would have to stop and brace myself because the cramps were getting quite strong.  I called my midwife again at about 2pm and she said it was possibly real labor or false labor and to let her know if I notice them coming every 20 minutes or so consistently.  When I started writing them down, I realized they were coming about every 4 to 7 minutes, but were only lasting about 20 seconds, however, they were so different from the other contractions I’d felt that I really started to be suspicious that something was going on.  

 

                I had been in touch with Gibu, who was over at the Regent Library, and we had discussed waiting until my contract day was finished at 3:50, however, by 3:00 the contractions were getting so strong that I began to feel that it was important that I get home.  By the time I got to the car at 3:30 I was starting to feel extremely uncomfortable and uncommunicative during each successive contraction.  Gibu was very calm and adeptly coached me to relax and breathe through each contraction while stopping traffic to get out of the busy school parking lot.  During the 30 minute ride home each contraction got more intense and I found myself vomiting.  By the time we reached home, the contractions were coming only a few minutes apart and I couldn’t move or talk through them.  I made it through the front door and then had to crawl onto the floor and curl up.  The contractions were coming much closer together now, leaving me very little respite between them, and Gibu timed several at 50-60 seconds each.  At that point he called the midwife and my mom, who had been attending an afternoon meeting in Newport News and didn’t have far to come from. 

                I labored on the floor near the front door, throwing up a few more times from about 4:00 until everyone reached at 5:30 or so.  There was so much pressure in my pelvis that I couldn’t think about moving even between contractions and just wanted to stay put.  However, once others arrived, someone set up the pool with warm water and somehow they convinced me to get in it.  Laboring in the pool made a huge difference.  While the contractions were still coming quite close together, the warm water definitely helped with the pain.  At this point, I was starting to get tired because my contractions had been coming so close together, and was quite upset to find out I was only 5 cm dilated.  However, within the next two contractions (somewhere around 7pm) my water broke, bringing on stronger contractions and making me dilate much faster.  I started having contractions with involuntary pushing, and struggled not to push during them, but to blow them off as long as possible.  Finally, when they checked around 7:30pm, they told me I was fully dilated and could push with the next contraction if I felt like it.  I felt such relief just at the thought of being at that point finally. 

 

 

                In the days following the birth, I mentioned to someone that “we were laboring,” and they laughed saying “Isn’t it mostly you that was doing the labouring?”  The truth is absolutely not.  While the work was physically going on inside my body, I could not have done it without Gibu.  He didn’t leave my side the whole time except for a few minutes, and the contractions that came in that time were so much harder.  His steadiness and encouragement strengthened me to allow what was happening to come.  When fear crept in to discourage and make me doubt, he was right there to pray with me and give me confidence that my body was created for this.  As hard and as tiring as it was, I know I would have given up if it weren’t for him.

                Once I started pushing I was relieved because I thought it wouldn’t be long before I was holding my little boy.  I changed positions several times, because the midwives suggested that it would make him descend faster, however each successive time it got more difficult to move because of the intense pressure of the baby’s head.  Unfortunately, while the midwives could feel his head, he was progressing slowly and my pushing seemed to be doing little for the process.  Additionally, I was getting more and more tired.  At around 9pm it seemed that it would not take much more, however, after the next contraction and push, I felt some more of the waters come out.  My midwife said she was going to listen to the baby on the Doppler and I knew something must be wrong.  The baby’s heartbeat was strong and steady, however, she said that while, when my waters broke they had been clear, now there was meconium in the waters, suggesting that the baby might be feeling some distress, and increasing risk of aspiration for the baby in birth.   She decided that it would be best if we transferred to the hospital via an ambulance and called 9-1-1. 

                What followed was the most difficult part of our labor experience.  With each contraction, I had to blow off the urge to push (if you have ever given birth, you know that is no easy task).  When the ambulance arrived, they loaded me in and allowed both Gibu and the midwife to ride along with me.  It took us approximately 10 minutes to get to the hospital, during which, the midwife kept the Doppler on the baby to monitor his heartbeat.  At no point did it seem like he was in distress or even anxious.  I however, was extremely uncomfortable, trying to breathe through contractions while lying on my back in a retired rickety ambulance that was only put back into circulation because one of their newer ones was in the repair shop.  When we reached the hospital they wheeled me into the elevator and up to a labor and delivery room.  I was then expected to get down off the gurney and move myself to the hospital labor bed, again, not an easy task. 

                Once the nurses checked me in and set me up with the fetal heart monitor, I was left to labor down on my own.  At around 11:15pm the new nurse from the shift change came in and helped me push through the next several contractions.  It was clear that I had been pushing ineffectively and the nurse coached me in trying to get me to push the right way.  I was getting more and more tired and remember thinking “I just wish they could cut me open and get him out!”  I started to doubt that I could do it, and at around 11:30 the nurse suggested calling the doctor and having her use the vacuum extractor.  My midwife, also concerned that I was getting so tired, encouraged me to go ahead.  They called the doctor and I continued to push with the support of my mom, Gibu, the midwife and nurse to try to bring the baby down further while waiting for the doctor. 

                The doctor arrived around 11:45 and my hopes for avoiding a September 11^th birthday for my baby were gone.  The doctor introduced herself and had me push a few more times with her.  I remember thinking “Why is she making me do this, when she knows I wanted the vacuum extractor!”  However, she also knew that I had wanted a homebirth, and that I would have wanted to birth my baby with my own strength.  At that point, I didn’t think it was possible, but I remember my mom saying she had seen the baby’s head and the doctor saying that I could do this and encouraging me to push through the next few contractions.  At this point she told me to let go of Gibu (I had been clinging to him with each contraction) and focus on pushing out the baby.  This gave Gibu the chance to run around and catch the baby as he slid out at 11:50 with the next several pushes.  Yes, there was pain, but I was so grateful that the doctor gave me the opportunity and encouraged me to do it on my own.  Once he was born they laid him on my chest for a few short moments while Gibu cut the cord, and then whisked him over to the paediatrician in the room because he wasn’t breathing and was covered in meconium.   They cleaned him up and gave him some oxygen while the OB got the placenta out quickly (apparently I was bleeding pretty badly and she was concerned) and stitched me up. 

 

                After about 20-30 minutes, they finally gave me my son to hold and nurse.  As I stared into his beautiful face-the nurses were right, he has his father’s dimples and curly dark hair- I fell deep into love.  His wide eyes were a blue-grey (since then they have darkened to brown) and staring up at me in wonder.  He turned his head at the sound of his daddy’s voice to see the man who had been talking to him all those months.  His little fingers and toes left me amazed and awed at the little creation that had been inside me for all those months (I was also relieved to see he got his father’s fingernails, not my awkwardly shaped ones). 

 

My midwife apologized that things didn’t happen the way we had hoped at home, but all I could think was that the whole experience, while not what we had planned for, was guided by God and His hand was in the whole thing from the beginning.  The doctor on call (who by the way, brought a gift for the baby) was one who values natural childbirth and actually did some training with midwives in a previous hospital.  She had excellent bedside manner, asking me how Gibu and I had met in the time she was massaging my uterus (a painful process important for clamping down and preventing postpartum haemorrhage) and doing stitches.  I so appreciated the way she believed in my body’s ability to give birth to our son naturally, even when I had started to give up.  The nurses, too were very encouraging and kind, knowing that we had originally chosen to give birth at home.  One nurse even stayed on an hour and half past her shift change to see the baby and make sure everything went well.  At the end of the day, we were so grateful to have our healthy baby boy in our arms that nothing else mattered.  Yes, I feel I missed out a bit on not getting to bond with him in the first 20 minutes of his life, but it was clear that we needed to be in the hospital, and I am so grateful for my midwife’s wisdom and the calm way in which she made the decision.  We are also extremely grateful that we got to labor as long as we did at home.  The whole process helped us fall more in love with each other and I appreciate and respect him so much more.  In spite of all the nerves he had exhibited leading up to the day, he was so calm and strong during the labor, which was just what I needed.  It brought us so much closer as a couple because we brought this baby into the world together.  He was my partner and the only one in the room (there were also 3 midwives and my mom) that I cared about or noticed. 

 

                We named our son Nathan Emmanuel because he is a gift from God.  Everything about him is perfect and beautiful and we feel so blessed every day.  Emmanuel means “God with us” and is a reminder to us of how God’s presence has been with us through this whole last 14 months of transition from India to the US.  Not a lot has been consistent for us, but the presence of God and his blessings in our lives have not failed.  We pray that our son would be a blessing to others as well and would take God’s presence wherever he goes.