Babe Summer

This summer started out so slow moving. I was in my 10th month of pregnancy (yeah, those exist), and taking long walks every day to try to induce labor. Brandon and I had seven or eight "last dates that don't require a babysitter." I celebrated the discovery of a baggy t-shirt in our closet that fully covered my baby bump without any part of it poking out of the bottom (thanks, Stuckey's!). Our lives had not changed in that indescribable way that it does when two people finally meet the human being created out of their love and seemingly thin air. And then it all happened so fast--she's finally here and somehow it has been nearly eight weeks and life feels like it might be starting to slow down a bit again. (By the way, I started writing this blog post over a month ago, so now it's been almost 12 weeks.)

I never did write my birth story.

I never posted the 1 month old photo (& now 2 month old photo AND we're creeping up on 3 months soon too) I took of sweet little Elliot Sabine Hodge.

I haven't written in my personal journal in months. (I finally did that a few weeks ago.)

We never sent birth announcements out in the mail.

I have to just let a lot of stuff go, but I'd like to remedy the birth story bit in this blog. And maybe even that 1 month (& 2 month) photo. I have it on the fancy camera memory card along with fifty billion photos of Elliot we have yet to share. I think I have some good excuses. One big one I did not share publicly outside of close friend circles until after it was over is that I came down with a bronchial infection and subsequently pneumonia just after Elliot was born, and thanks to the wonders of modern medicine, it took me all of seven weeks to fully recover from that illness and the residual side effects of too many antibiotics thereafter. My body was still struggling to recover from the stress of giving birth, I suppose it didn't feel like fighting off sickness of any sort. Luckily for my poor heart, which is constantly breaking and brimming with love for my new daughter, the antibodies in my breast milk seemed to protect her from catching any of my yuck throughout it all.

So, birth story.

Here it is:

On Saturday, June 22nd, Brandon and I rent that Matt Damon fracking movie and pop popcorn. During the movie, I start to feel tempted to cry wolf on real labor contractions. I keep thinking I will just KNOW when true labor is really starting, but I'm still not sure. Around 9 pm, I decide to take a walk around our neighborhood to see if they go away, and they do not. Things are really happening! I drink a glass of wine I had been saving in a tiny bottle per our hypnobirthing class instructor when discussing if early laboring started late at night, and we go to bed. At 6 am, I wake to Brandon asking if I am still having contractions, and think "I didn't feel them in my sleep" at the exact moment I definitely feel one. I start timing them. 10 minutes apart. This is the start time I use when I say I was in labor for 36 hours, because if I count from the start of the Matt Damon movie, we're talking 46 hours or so. Yeesh.

So, cut to Sunday morning and I am so excited, but trying to remain cool and calm. I take another super long walk and listen to the Rachel's. A man asks me when I'm due on my walk and I have to take my headphones out and lose my trance-like pace to say "a week ago!" At the intramural fields, my happy place to walk to in our neighborhood, I don't care who's watching as I squat and breathe against light posts and the bleacher seats. 7 minutes, 8 minutes, 9 minutes, sometimes 20 minutes apart! I come home and take a shower, and I call Katie, but tell her not to get too excited yet, but maybe pack her bag to drive to Austin. Brandon gets us lunch, and we decide to call our parents mid-afternoon, but still emphasize that everyone should stay cool but near their phones. At 3 pm or so, I try to take a nap, and maybe doze for 30 minutes, but it is then that my hypnobirthing lingo becomes more difficult. I keep trying to say I'm having a "strong" or "intense surge" instead of "painful contraction," but that gets harder at this point. At 5 pm, I have several intense surges that are close to 5 and 6 minutes apart, so I finish packing my hospital bag and put on make up. Then, back to 7, 8, 9, 10 minutes apart. Brandon makes dinner. I call the doctor & talk to the midwife on duty, and she says to relax as much as possible, because it looks like we're in for a long night and to call her again when contractions hit the 5-1-1 mark (5 minutes apart, lasting one minute each for one hour). After forcing myself to eat dinner, I decide to take a bath. I want to live in the bathtub. Next time, I'm doing this in a birthing pool! The water helped immensely. I stay in the bathtub for several hours, and emerge around 10:30 pm. At this point, I cannot time my own contractions anymore. I can only say "NOW!" or "OW!" to B. so that he can hit the timer, and then a series of strong curse words until they subside. Around midnight, Brandon suggests we try to sleep. He is already exhausted. I lay down in the bed, and immediately realize how impossible sleeping is at this juncture, but I'm exhausted too.

And then Elliot and I became one. I take charge and she just falls in line. I get out of the bed, drink a huge glass of water, and then another, go into the nursery with my birthing ball and my small wind up teddy bear I have had since I was four and played often throughout pregnancy on my belly. I sit on the ball, grabbed hold of the crib, play the precious little song and breathe. Suddenly, I have several consistent contractions that are 4.5 minutes apart. I yell to Brandon to get ready to leave. An hour later, we are on our way to the hospital, but not before taking photos of the full supermoon in the front yard as I hug a tree for support during an intense surge!

When we arrive to the hospital around 1:30 am, I am only 4 cm dilated. I am already expressing curiosity about the epidural and drug options. I continue to breathe calmly through all of my contractions though. Quietly even. The nurses, midwife & Brandon are all very impressed with me, and continue to tell me this. Brandon's parents arrive at 2 am, and I inform them it's likely going to be a long wait.

The next few hours are a blur. I remember squatting and doing cat-cow poses on the bed to try to reposition Elliot a bit more optimally as the midwife advises. I remember taking a shower. I remember Brandon making the most adorable comment about how he always wondered what it would feel like to be with his wife in labor in a hospital room. I remember cursing heavily through surges when it was just me & B. in the room, but being super quiet and strong when other people came in. I remember a dude coming in to set up the delivery equipment on a table in the room "just in case..." Then, around 5 am, I hit a wall. The contractions seem to be constant and I am so exhausted I just can't do it alone anymore. I ask for the epidural. Siobhan, my lovely midwife, informs me it will take about 45 minutes before they can give it to me, because they'll need to start an i.v. drip first. I also have to get a catheter. That is fun. In the meantime, I decide to also get little bit of some narcotic drug she offers me that will take the edge off of the contractions after I say "Will I have to feel the contractions while I wait for the epidural?!" and her response is "Well, yeah..."

The narcotic drug kicks in immediately, and only lasts about an hour. During that time, everything slows way down and I drift into dreamland, but not before B. takes several photos of me in my sluggish state that do not need to be shown to anyone ever. By the time I get the epidural, I am ready to sleep, and I do. For three blissful hours I drift in and out of decadent sleep, waking only because I am snoring loudly and vaguely aware of it. At 9 am, I wake up and start talking to B., saddened to hear he was not able to sleep on the pull out couch during my nap. Around 9:30ish, a new nurse comes in (we saw several shift changes throughout our long stay in labor & delivery) and informs us that I have not had a contraction in about 45 minutes. B. & I look at each other and have a mild panic attack thinking they will send us home, but the worst consequence would be to give me pitocin. This ends up not being necessary, because my contractions come back on their own shortly thereafter. I cannot really feel them anymore, so I watch a monitor which lets me know if I'm having one, how intense they are and the intervals between them. At 10:30 am, I find out I am just 7 cm dilated, and my water has still not broken. Katie, Aubrey, and my parents have all arrived to join B.'s folks in the waiting room. They come in to visit me throughout the day in shifts now that I am sedated with the epidural. I am so sleepy, and keep closing my eyes and taking mini cat naps all day long. I keep watching the clock and predicting things like "Elliot will be here by noon!" Ha.

Around noon, my favorite midwife, Siobhan, has to leave, and I am delighted to see that the head doctor of my ObGyn practice, Dr. Sebestyen, will be taking over. They both come in the room during the shift change and we all have this really cute congratulatory conversation where I thank Siobhan for being so awesome and she commends me for being so calm as if it's all over. Dr. S. tells me to just keep watching my contractions on the monitor along with the Elliot's heart rate. When they synch up, it will likely be time to start pushing. Yay. This finally happens around 2 pm when just Katie is in the room with me. I should also mention this is when my stupid bronchial infection likely starts to percolate, because I have started to lose my voice and keep making every one bring me hot water for tea. I also discover that they have popsicles and enjoy one as enthusiastically as anyone has ever enjoyed a popsicle. Oh, and I think my water broke sometime in the early afternoon, but there were lots of people in the room and it didn't really occur to me that that's what that was at the time.

At 2:30 pm, the fun begins. I won't go into all of the gory details here, but I will say this part was super adorable and nothing like I ever imagined it would be. B. was right there with the doctor and nurse through it all too. We had so many fun conversations in between contractions/pushing. We talked about how we just saw Dr. Sebestyen on the news addressing the state on behalf of Planned Parenthood during that awful bill that was regrettably passed this summer restricting abortion clinics in Texas. We talked about their kids' art teachers and I told them about a great art website they should check out for having their children's artwork put on mugs & t-shirts (artsonia.com, if you're interested). We generally just carried on like we were visiting at a dinner party for most of these three hours. I was laughing and smiling and pausing only to say "okay, here comes another one." Epidurals are awesome.

In that last amazing moment when I saw my baby girl in the outside world, words fail me. Suddenly she was there on my chest and I could feel her tiny body squirming against, not inside, of me, and she was so warm and real. Brandon and I shared tears and a look I will never forget, and I just held her for a long time wondering what her face looked like. There is a beautiful photo of that moment where she is reaching up to my face, and I kept kissing her hands. It is my favorite photo of the two of us on her birthday. There are many gorgeous photos of her from that day though. I still cannot get over how pretty this child was at birth. It was like the movies. No misshapen head. No yucky skin. She was perfection.

The rest is internet history. Summer is nearly over, and all of the golden moments of Fall are setting in. In some ways, I feel that Summer passed me by a bit as I stayed indoors for too much of it. I have totally become one of those people spamming everyone's social media feed with photos of this little bundle of joy. She has many adoring fans, some of which are complete strangers to me, since the grandmas are happily sharing photos as well. I am slowly but surely becoming more and more confident in the role of Mama over here, but I will save post-birth adventure stories for another entry, and instead leave you with the aforementioned photo of Elliot and I on June 24th, 2013, shortly after 5:29 pm, as I first held all 7 lbs, 18.5 inches of this immaculate beauty.

[In case it takes me another month to download and edit my monthly milestone photos of the babe, I'm going to save those for another post as well]