(Finally) the birth story, with a long prologue (warning: graphic photos included)

As Antonia turned 4 months last weekend, I found myself looking back to the beginning.  I never posted Antonia's birth story for a few reasons.  The obvious one was lack of time/energy, but there were other ones.  I was disappointed with the way it went down- I wanted a really natural birth and ended up with a VERY complicated c-section with more than a month of recovery time.  It's hard to start out as a parent so far from the ideal you were hoping for.  That is compounded by another reason: the birth story is really an ending of sorts to a longer chapter.  When Antonia was born, I posted on Facebook that it took almost 42 weeks and 40 hours to get her out.  I could have added that it also took about 3.5 to 4 years.  That's how long it took from the time we started trying to have a child until we finally had this amazing little one.  It was a very dark time for us, where we were told time and time again that it would likely be impossible for us to conceive given damage that was done to my ovaries through years of illness and multiple surgeries.  I was never told that this could be a ramification of all I'd gone through and it felt like the cruelest punishment after years of hurt that goes with a crippling chronic illness.

We didn't talk about it much with others as infertility still feels like it carries a shamefulness and I think it's really hard for people who haven't experienced it to understand the pain one feels when you can't have a baby.  "Why don't you just adopt?" or "Just relax and have fun" or any other number of well-meaning but ultimately unhelpful commentary can be the normal response, but it just scratches at already opened sores.  As thoughtful, intelligent adults these options had of course occurred to us but didn't work for a number of reasons, some of which I'll detail below.  It all just served to make us feel even more alone.  My only comparison is to dealing with years of unremitting, unrelenting Crohn's disease where parts of my body were removed in many hours of surgery followed by months of slow recovery.  Infertility was at least as painful.

We traveled far and near to find a doctor who was willing to give us a real shot at making this work.  After one failed IVF cycle locally, my first reproductive specialist kicked us out saying "When you have a chronic illness, you just have to accept that sometimes life sucks."  Hmm...  Such a wonderful and thoughtful insight, but somehow we weren't satisfied.  We then consulted by phone with a much-lauded specialist in Colorado who said that we had only a 10-15% chance at success.  Since (given their reputation) they were supposedly our best shot, we went anyways.  We spent two grueling weeks in Colorado with what was (in my opinion) a grossly mishandled cycle at what was supposedly the best clinic in the country.  On my 32nd birthday, I went under general anesthesia and woke up to find out that we had absolutely nothing to show for two weeks of treatment, hotel rooms, airfare, heartache.  Once again, we were told I was "such a hard case" and it just wasn't going to work.  I remember looking at my Facebook "happy birthday" messages at the end of the day, many of which said "hope you had a great day!"  Little did anyone know how far that was from the truth but I didn't bother sharing that truly, it was one of my worst days ever.

Still, we forged on.  We found a doctor in New York who specialized in my problem.  He wanted to try a new approach. We agreed because at this point, "different" definitely sounded good.  And so we went.  Our first IVF cycle there (3rd overall) went better than the others, but didn't work.  On the fourth try, we were about ready to give up.  Infertility had ruled our entire lives for so long and it was exhausting.  The problem was that we didn't really see an alternative- we couldn't afford domestic or international infant adoption (insurance was paying the lion's share of the IVF cycles), I knew I couldn't stomach the pain that often goes with foster adoption and I wasn't ready to use donor eggs but living child-free felt impossible.  So, we went into our last IVF cycle weary, exhausted, sad, but not knowing what else to do.  When I found out that we finally had 2 good embryos to transfer I started bauling on the surgical table.  I suddenly felt this weird, alien peaceful feeling. There was certainly still fear and angst, but I was steady in a way that I hadn't been before.  I decided to do a pregnancy test every morning to test out the hcg injection I had been given to help release the eggs (hcg is also the hormone that makes pregnancy tests turn positive).  About 5 days later, I figured I was hallucinating when I thought I saw the test line get ever-so-slightly darker.  Then again the next day, and again the next.  We were in disbelief.  Then I went in for a blood test.  It was a sunny day in May and I was out in the backyard when the phone rang.  It was the clinic.  My hcg was high.  I was really pregnant!  I cried hysterically.  They were tears of relief, tears of worry (would this last? Could this really be IT??), tears of fatigue after all these years of being willing to sacrifice everything for this one seemingly unobtainable thing.

I loved being pregnant.  Well, except for the last 2 weeks.  I was over it by then :).  I went into labor at 41 weeks and 3 days pregnant, 2 days before I was to be induced.  My contractions started at 2am when I woke up feeling like I had to pee but didn't.  And then again... and again...  I decided to get out of bed at 5am to time whatever was going on.  The contractions were not coming at regular intervals but most were coming about every 5 minutes apart.  Our friend Carrie (who is a midwife and was serving as our doula) came over and provided lots of support as I labored at home.  We took a walk, used the birthing ball... I felt like I was having a lovely, natural labor.

Still the contractions were irregular but getting stronger.  Finally at around 1am the next morning (almost 24 hours later), I started trembling which is a sign of "transition".  I went to the bathroom and my water broke.  There was meconium (baby poop) in the water which is fairly normal for a baby later than 40 weeks, but still something to watch so we headed to the hospital.  I was 5-6cm dilated.  Not bad but I felt like I should be done by now!  We labored on and nothing was changing.  The baby wasn't descending, the contractions were still irregular and I was tiring out.  Finally, even though it wasn't in my "plan," I decided to try Pitocin (a medication that can help to make contractions stronger and more regular).  After a while, I had dilated a little more but she still wasn't descending.  I was even more tired.  I realized there was no chance I would be able to push the baby out with this little energy, so I agreed to an epidural (again, not so much in the original plan).  Carrie, Andy and I finally slept.  I hoped this would be it and she would slide right out.  Again, not so much.  We dialed up the Pitocin to almost max dosage and still nothing.  Finally the writing was on the wall.  My OB and I had a long talk.  More than anything, we had wanted to avoid a c-section because I have so much internal scar tissue that it was a risky surgery.   But one way or another, we had to get this kid out.  So, they wheeled me into the surgical suite.

The surgery lights were blaring and it occurred to me that I wasn't going under for this.  I started freaking out to the point where I was shaking and vomiting.  How was I going to do this???  Fortunately, my OB had asked a midwife to come with me into the OR.  She and a nurse anesthetist started talking to me.  I frankly don't even fully remember what they said but an incredible calm came over me to the point that, when Andy and Carrie were allowed in the OR, they asked if I'd been given meds to calm down.  I realized it was strange that I was that calm so I confirmed with the nurse anesthetist that I had not been given any sedatives.  Throughout the surgery my OB talked to me through the curtain, the midwife and nurse anesthetist kept soothing me, as did Andy and Carrie, and many faces throughout the OR kept making eye contact and nodding that all was okay.  I was surrounded by a really amazing, supportive team and don't know how I would have gotten through it otherwise.  (Amazing photos to follow were all taken by Carrie). 

My OB started cutting very slowly and cautiously and realized that due to my scar tissue, she would intentionally need to cut through my bladder to get the baby out.  There was no other way (except to cut through bowel and that was the worst possible scenario).  I started to get anxious as my OB called for back-up and the medical team in the rather small surgical suite got larger and larger.  About an hour into the surgery, she let us know that she was going into the uterus to get the baby.  I held my breath.  Immediately we heard a loud, strong cry and Andy and I started crying with our little girl.  She was absolutely covered in meconium (aka baby poop), but didn't seem to mind as she was looking up at my OB when she opened the uterus.

Her APGAR scores were 9 and 9- an over-achiever already! They wiped her off and put her on my chest between my head and the paper curtain.  She was awake and alert and so, so beautiful.  We decided that Antonia Madeleine was her name.

I was shaking and weak so Andy held her.

She needed to be examined so Andy took her out of the OR, but my surgery was to last another 3 or so hours as a team of surgeons, nurses and other medical personnel repaired my bladder and uterus.  Finally, the surgery was over.  They took out the epidural and told me it would likely be a while before the medication wore off and I would start feeling pain but unfortunately they were wrong and it started almost immediately.  But I was again reunited with our Antonia to do some skin to skin time.

It was a long week in the hospital.  I was in a lot of pain and on a lot of narcotics.  I got very anemic and needed to be transfused with 2 units of blood.  Then I became really edematous (swollen with fluids) to the point where I could barely walk because my legs were so swollen that I couldn't bend my knees.  I had to have a foley catheter which again made it hard to walk.  I got a wound infection.    It sounds silly, but one of the hardest things was that all of the stress from the birth gave me a cold sore so I couldn't even kiss my baby for the first couple weeks until it healed due to her fragile immune system.  It was hard to wait so long to meet this little one but not to be able to shower her with kisses.  Unfortunately, I had expected a bumpy course if I needed a c-section and that's what I got, but my OB would come sit on my bed and we'd talk through it a least once a day.  She was an incredible calming presence.

Antonia did great, except she lost more than 10% of her weight while we were there.  This meant we needed to pump when I wasn't breastfeeding and feed her some breast milk through a catheter to supplement her feedings.  We were up pretty much around the clock trying to make this work.  It was an incredibly exhausting week, much of which is hard for me to remember because of all the narcotics I had required.  When we were finally cleared to be discharged a week after Antonia's birth I was still so swollen that I didn't have a single pair of shoes that would fit my very large feet and I couldn't wear pants because I still had a foley catheter.  On a freezing cold day in February, I walked out of the hospital wearing socks and a mini skirt. 

So, that is our birth story.  It's not very pretty and it honestly still makes me a little sad that that is how Antonia was brought into the world.  However, she couldn't be more amazing.  I am in awe of this child who makes me laugh and smile every day.  I am dog tired, frequently frustrated, often worried that something could be wrong with Antonia or with me, but more than anything, I am content.  Those 3.5 years of infertility, 41 weeks and 6 days of pregnancy, 40 hours of labor and 1 week in the hospital postpartum were worth every minute.  And so I end our very long birth story there and thank anyone who managed to read this whole darn thing :).