Birth and first time parenthood during pandemic
Dear Diary, my last posting was in October 2019 when I was about 3 months pregnant. After 4 years of waiting to try for a baby, then 8 months of actually trying, I got fertility testing and found that my thyroid hormone (helpful for getting pregnant apparently) was slightly low. I start taking levothyroxine and, after a night of oysters followed by great sex, I was pregnant. I was so excited to finally be expecting.
The pregnancy was fairly uncomplicated, and in April 2020, our daughter was born and it was the most surprising rude awakening of my life.
Now that my daughter is 4 months old and sleeping through most nights, I finally have the energy to write the story of her birth into this germ-ridden world that has closed itself off to us all.
I scanned my last post briefly, chuckling to myself a little over the “anxiety” I was feeling in my first trimester. Ha ha. Look at me now, world!
In April, well into the pandemic, my water broke early in the morning before I went into labor and I saw my birth plan dissolve before my very eyes. Wait! I’m supposed to labor before the water breaks! That’s supposed to happen at the end! Now what do I do?! I didn’t have a contingency plan for this …
Very slowly, my contractions began, leading to a very long, drawn out early labor. After much consideration, I invited my doula into my apartment with her mask on to help get my contractions going. I was hoping to get deep into active labor before going to the hospital, but since my water broke before my labor started, the clock was ticking on how long I had before needing to go in for an induction. Infection risks rise daily if your water breaks too early, so doctors usually want you at the hospital for induction within 24 hours after your water breaks. And as a neonatal ICU nurse, I knew what infection could do to a baby, from a simple 2-day course of IV antibiotics to full-blown blood infection leading to hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy requiring cooling and possibly ECMO (a machine pumping oxygen into the baby’s blood, bypassing the lungs aka “life support”).
But then here we were in the midst of this crazy pandemic, “covid tents” set up right outside the ER of our selected birth hospital. So which infection do we risk? Isn’t that what life has been since March 2020, trying to figure out how to mitigate risk?! I didn’t want to spend more time than I had to at the hospital, so, much to the chagrin of my doctor and OB friend, I chose to labor a little longer at home than was ‘recommended’ . I was a health professional after all, I could do this for a little longer, being careful to check my temperature, fetal movement and odor of amniotic fluid seeping at a steady rate down my leg onto the floor pad.
However, since my labor kept stopping and starting, not making much progress, we ended up going to the hospital about 40 hours after my water broke. The staff was very happy to see us and noting that I was only 3cm dilated, they started me on Pitocin right away.
My nurse asked, “Do you have a birth plan?” Briefly thinking of my 1 pager in my purse which requested no Pitocin and no epidural among other things, I chuckled to myself and stated, “Not anymore.”
Thankfully, my husband could stay with me at my birth, though my doula could not. Thankfully, my nurse did not require me to wear a mask as I heaved and ho’d my way through each contraction. As the Pitocin dose ramped up, and I could no longer get into optimal birthing positions with the fetal monitors attached. Standing? Sitting? It all hurt like hell. So I asked for morphine.
Ha, what a joke, morphine. I got a shot in my butt and a dose through my IV, which maybe felt like a fun high for 20 minutes, but it all went straight to my brain, not my laboring uterus. Labor is no joke. Having run two marathons, I thought I had a high pain threshold, I thought I was prepared for it after all my yoga, walking and squats I faithfully adhered to in my final trimesters— but I was wrong. Soooo wrong. And my doula wasn’t there to coach me, my husband was exhausted. I was exhausted and in crazy pain because Pitocin hits your uterus like a rhinoceros (I imagine). So fuck it. I asked for the epidural.
What relief! Barely felt the nurse anesthetist place it and then suddenly no more pain, my toes tingling. I felt like such a pansy, but at that point, all bets were off. At this point, I just wanted to have a healthy baby and possibly avoid c-section, and that meant saving my strength for pushing.
With the epidural, I was able to sleep and so was my husband. The nurse positioned my hips wide with a peanut ball for continued progress in labor, and by the time they checked me again 9 hours later, I was dilated to 8cm. Two hours later, I was at 10cm and pushing. I pushed for 3.5 hours, absolutely feeling that part of it, the massive stretching of my perineum. I knew that with every push I could tear, even if I felt like I wasn’t making progress. My husband was awesome. My nurse was an incredible cheerleader, and I’d be damned if I didn’t have this baby on her shift so she could see the fruit of her “labors”.
Finally, a half hour before shift change, my final push brought forth my daughter. I had a second degree tear, the sewing up of which was actually more painful than the birth.
Such a happy moment to have my daughter placed on my chest, to finally meet her after months — years — of waiting for a child! I was absolutely elated to hear her cry. And I was still convinced that parenting would be a piece of cake. I’m a neonatal nurse practitioner, after all! An expert! I would have this baby down pat! Haha. I had been warned by friends but of course I didn’t listen.
HOME.
We brought her home and I had so much anxiety, from whether she was breathing during sleep, getting enough when I fed her, if she was too hot or too cold, would she pull the blanket over her face and suffocate? And then my own pain from labor, my body extremely exhausted from all of it, my vagina sore and bleeding, the amount of blood, how was the tear healing, was I sitting okay, the pee ritual: having to spray myself with warm water instead of wiping, then apply a fresh Tucks pad on top of my “padsickle” — this wonderful ice pad that feels like heaven on an inflamed, raw vagina — pull my mesh undies over it and repeat every 2–3 hours because that’s how much they want you to pee! I had to stay on top of my pain meds, setting an alarm for the soonest I could pop a Tylenol or Motrin or Percocet — the last of which was not adding any benefit to my horrible constipation, another source of anxiety and problem that lasted well into my second month.
The breastfeeding ritual was a feat in and of itself. My milk wasn’t coming in and my nipples were not ‘everted’ enough for my daughter, so I had to use special shields to help her latch, then pump whatever drops I could muster, then feed it and some formula to her with a syringe attached to a tube. Every 2 hours. It wasn’t quite the simple 10 minute breast feed, sleep-when-she-sleeps-no-problem-I-won’t-be-exhausted situation I was hoping for. Several times I was so tired that my husband had to prop me up to feed her again. Much to my horror, I fell asleep with her sleeping on my chest once and then proceeded to have nightmares of her rolling off me for several weeks after that, even though she was safely in her bassinet. It was all I could muster to get out of bed in the midst of a deep sleep to feed her. Often, I was on the couch and my husband was in the bedroom for several days so that he’d get enough sleep to care for us all during the day. I would watch episodes of West Wing or the Great British Baking Show while she sucked in order to stay awake during the hour-long feed before slugging us both back to bed.
For the first month or so, we managed family and friend visits via zoom, having to care for this newborn alone. It was very hard to do it without support. We had cooked a bunch of meals for ourselves the week before I went into labor, freezing it all. Some friends hopped on our meal train with grub-hub gift cards, restaurant delivery and a few home-cooked meals. I had wonderful lactation support — the two of us could actually go in together with our daughter, which was such a gift.
Suffice to say, it was a much rougher ride than I anticipated, and there were many tears and regretful thoughts of why on earth did we think we could raise a small child when it’s so damn hard and WHY DID NO ONE WARN US?! What were we thinking?! It was all I could do to shove these thoughts away. What was I going to do? Return her?! But I was very much afraid of the path I had chosen and could never turn back from. My identity, my Self, was being ripped from my body in a way I never would have imagined. It wasn’t nice. I missed playing music, writing, walking in nature — all those elaborate self-care rituals that were now totally vaporized. Would they ever return?
When we couldn’t take it anymore, we drove down to my in-laws’ home an hour away and stayed with them for a week. They were incredible, holding our daughter most of the day in between feeds and sleep so that I could sleep. They were sheltering from the pandemic in a way that made us comfortable to sort of ‘pod up’ with them. This is why parents come to stay with you after you have a child. I get it.
PRESENT DAY
Now, four months later, we are well into the pandemic and parenting. It’s still difficult to navigate both at times, but not like the beginning. Motherhood is wearing more easily on my shoulders. We have a fairly good routine with feeds and sleep, my body is healing, and I have taken back some of my time, all that writing, music, walking outdoors — bit by bit. I enjoy bringing my daughter with me. I do yoga every morning to keep my back strong in picking her up, she watches while practicing her own “baby cobra” on her tummy. My husband got a new job a few weeks ago, finally “back at work” online from home — it’s actually nice that he can check in on us, change a diaper, give a feeding, just say hi.
Soon, we are moving from our one-bedroom apartment to a larger home further from the noisy construction surrounding our building (’cause what else do landlords have to do during pandemic?!) and more crowded parking in our current neighborhood (no thanks to more people buying cars to avoid public trans and more restaurants taking up parking spots with their little “parklet outdoor seating”). The wildfire smoke has cleared these past few days, so we can go outside again. Things are looking up.
These are the bubbles of hope and joy which we cling to as we weather the harder, lonelier days as new parents. That, and every week our daughter seeming to build a new skill like rolling over or babbling, her smile chasing away the darkness of postpartum misery and creating more room in my heart for her sweet presence. Yes, the beginning is rough, but it gets easier and so much better. I take a deep breath and release control. Turn a new corner. Walk a new and exciting road. Parenthood.
