Owen's Birth Story

 Surprise pregnancies are comedic and terrifying. The afternoon I decided to go buy the test was the same afternoon I earlier found myself sitting down after a not-so-exhausting or uncommon morning… and yet I wanted – no, needed really, to just sit down, kick my feet up and... collect myself. The next thing I knew I woke up drooling on myself as the sun was slanting significantly lower in the sky. Pieces started to fit together… All the telltale signs and the light bulb went off, along with the accompanying thought, “holy crap.”

I bought the usual things at the store… stuff for dinner, things to make lunches for the girls the following week… And the pink box with the test in it. As John put the groceries away, unbeknownst to him I snuck the box into the bathroom, locked the door and pee’d on the white piece of plastic. Low and behold, I watched not one, but two dark lines appear. My initial reaction? Laughter. Oh, I got a good laugh at that test sitting there on the counter telling me I was pregnant. I mean, the humor of it really… After years of contemplating a fourth child, we had finally decided “we were done.” A point that was emphasized by the purchase of our large, and quite frankly (though I love him dearly) pain in the ass dog. I will admit, newborns still pulled at my heart. But we had experienced the heartbreak of early losses… We felt completely blessed by our girls… It wasn’t as if we were spring chickens any longer, and well… we were done. That was our decision: DONE.

The test mocked me on the counter. It wasn’t real... “John,” I called nonchalantly out the bathroom door. He was dealing with the chaos of the girls and organizing the groceries. “WHAT!?” he answered, in probably not his most cool calm and collected tone. Things were already out of control in our lives. This was not real. “Would you please come here and take a look at something?” I called. He met me at the bathroom door, his eyes saying I love you but wtf?? “Just go look on the counter…” I said. He looked. He knew. I saw him processing, and then… the smallest tiniest smile appeared. He said in mock seriousness “what did you DO?”

“This isn’t real,” I told him. He nodded and we went about our evening. That’s the funny thing that happens when you’ve been heartbroken before. It’s hard to believe a gift – an unasked for gift, could just… happen.

But when I woke up in the morning I was still pregnant. And after the weekend, I was still pregnant. I called my doctor, and after my visit she said I was still pregnant, and showed me the heartbeat to back it up. I really was. Pregnant. I was elated. And pretty scared.

The weeks went by, and milestones passed. Ultrasounds and blood tests confirmed that not only was I having a baby, it was a healthy baby – and a boy baby. As my jeans became impossible to button and my body was clearly changing I allowed myself to believe – this was real.

The time passed at light speed. I suppose that’s what happens when you have 3 other children to look after. Before I knew it, I was the proud owner of a rather hearty bump, feeling like I could pop at any moment.  At 39 weeks my blood pressure was escalating and my concerned doctor, in an attempt to get my labor rolling, “swept my membranes” like they have never been swept before. I tried to tell her that I wasn’t quite ready, my mom wasn’t in town yet, but she was already sweeping, and the contractions began almost immediately.

I went home and waited… And at 1 o’clock in the morning the first real-deal-keel-over contraction hit. I timed them for an hour before waking John up. By the time we were heading out the door 45 minutes later, it was on like donkey kong. The contractions were not only coming consistently, but rather quickly, and they were debilitating. In my previous pregnancies this intensity didn’t come until hours into labor, so just getting to the hospital at this point became of utmost concern. We made it (thank God) but not without me stumbling through the parking lot, grabbing on to ledges and taking breaks on benches to curse and get through the contractions as they hit. I heard John tell the front desk in the ER to *HURRY* with the wheelchair.

Rhonda, the nurse from Labor and Delivery, calmly arrived with the wheelchair which I buckled into and in no time I was deposited in the delivery room. I was quickly in the gown and hooked up to the monitors… But the mf’ing contractions -- they were so close and ridiculously powerful. I closed my eyes and reminded myself that I could do this… my body was meant to do this… I had done it before… women do it all the time… I could manage the pain… Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. But it felt very unmanageable and what I wanted quite frankly was the anesthesiologist to come and make it all better. Rhonda kept quietly telling me, “you’re doing great, girl… you’re doing great.”   When I was checked, I was 5 cm dilated, and I was told I could get the epidural. In what felt a lifetime later, but what was really only 20 minutes, the anesthesiologist arrived and made the magic happen. Just as the contractions eased and I finally relaxed, feeling like I was dialed and all I had to do was wait for my little one to arrive, an entire team of people with Rhonda in the lead, bum rushed the room. “Get on your hands and knees right now,” Rhonda told me, “And push!” Though I had no idea what the H was going on, I did what she said because anybody could see she meant serious business. She then put me on my left side where I faced the wall and strained to hear from the bustling crowd what was going on. Then the on-call doctor was there and in a blur of voices I heard that the baby’s heart rate had decelerated. Not only had it decelerated, I realized, the galloping sound had altogether disappeared from the monitor. The one thing I processed in the midst of chaos and the growing team of people in the room was “we need to get this baby OUT.” The doctor broke my water, and there was more concern. There was meconium in the fluid, which not only meant the baby was distressed, but that he could – would be breathing in that fluid. There was more rushing, and before I felt even vaguely ready I was being told to push. The monitors were being watched with growing concern. I could tell the doctor was considering a c-section, which in all honesty I would have happily undergone. I would have allowed them to cut me open right then and there, and pull my baby from me that very second because I was terrified and I wanted him with me and safe. Because the love I already felt for him – this person I had only felt, and not yet seen, was primal and ferocious. I would have done anything. A pediatric team arrived and waited in the corner. I pushed with everything, praying for my baby to be okay and praying for him to come out quickly. I suppose having birthed three other children worked to my advantage here. Call it muscle memory call it what you will, but my body knew what to do and my little guy came – Owen Jeffrey… completely limp and not breathing. My other births were joyful, filled with tears of elation as our pink crying baby was placed on my chest and we locked eyes for the first time. This was nothing like that. The doctor started to put Owen close to me, but before I could even see his face the team of Pediatricians whisked him away. I saw his tiny limp body leaving me and my heart sank into a deep dark quiet pit. The room was silent efficiency. The doctors began working on Owen off in a corner where I couldn’t see. I couldn’t process the possibility that this little person I had grown and held inside me… my unbelievable miracle who came without me asking… could not be alright. And yet, he wasn’t alright.  I kept asking, “Is he okay? Is he okay? Is he OKAY?” I asked the doctor, I asked Rhonda, I asked John… over and over and over. The doctor nodded but was very non-committal with her answer. Rhonda looked very serious. And John, well John looked just as confused and horrified as I felt… And I suppose that’s what scared me the most – seeing John look absolutely unsure, shaken and scared. I could not have known, in that moment, that things would be “okay.” As I sit here typing in the calm early morning, I feel safe in the knowledge that my baby is sleeping peacefully just upstairs. He is warm and cozy in his monkey pajamas that say “bananas for mommy” on the chest. He has fabulously chubby cheeks and thighs. I have gotten to bask in his smiles and coos. I have had time to learn which cries mean hunger, and tiredness… I’ve had the pleasure of kissing his toes (1 million times) as well as his ears, his eyebrows, his dimpled knuckles and his knees… I’ve stood over him just watching his sweet face while he sleeps. But at that moment, as I lay paralyzed on the hospital bed with my baby out of view, I could not know that he would be okay.

Outside of the communication between the doctors working on Owen, the room was heavy and quiet. John paced back and forth – from me, to the table where Owen lay. For what seemed an unfathomably long time the doctors worked on him. Finally, I heard him gurgle and cough. Relief, relief, relief! He was breathing and the room seemed to decompress. Rhonda smiled and the doctor sighed as she continued to stitch me up. But was he okay? I hadn’t seen his face, his toes and fingers, his eyes… They were pumping fluid from his lungs while John watched. The woman working on Owen was talking to him. Slowly the team of specialists and support staff began to trickle off, until there was just Rhonda and the doctor who was helping Owen. “He looks great,” the Pediatrician told us with the first genuine smile I had seen. “We just want to x-ray his lungs to make sure they are clear.” And they did – x-ray his teensy lungs… and they looked perfect. Thank God.

Finally, I was able to hold my baby. They brought him to me, perfect as can be, and put him in my arms. I searched his eyes for the connection I always seem to magically tap into with my brand new babies, but realized as his eyes darted all over my face, and what seemed like everywhere else in the room, that he was just as scared as I was. The one message I tried to convey to him, with my heart that was breaking and filling all at once… with my eyes and with every last little piece of my bones was, “I’ve got you now.” I said it a million times to him, in my mind and with my eyes. And maybe a few times out loud. Soon he settled in to me, as I held him so very tight.

Without a doubt I felt God in the room with me. I felt a powerful sense of goodness and I know I was blessed to be holding my little Owen, healthy and sweet, in my arms. But when I thought about it later, I felt conflicted about this feeling. What about all the women who went through the very same thing, but were not able to take their baby home? Why weren’t they blessed with a positive outcome? I’m sure it is a question those mothers ask themselves every day… I can only say that I am so grateful that it was part of God’s plan to keep our baby boy with us. I still think about his arrival all the time, and it makes me shudder… It makes me realize how fragile and vulnerable I am, and how terrifying it can be to have children I love so deeply it could irrevocably break me to pieces if anything were to happen to them. But mostly… mostly, mostly it makes me indescribably thankful, for the gift of Owen.