Christmas babies are special. As difficult as it is to imagine how Mary felt as she searched for a place to comfortably deliver her precious Son, I feel like I had a little insight into her experience bringing our Savior into the world as I lay in my hospital bed dozing off listening to beautiful Christmas carols and preparing to deliver my baby girl. December 15, 2021, will forever be the day that our lives changed forever for the harder, the happier, the bitter, and the better.
I guess I'll start from the very beginning. Pregnancy is no easy thing. It may take me a few years to find the courage to go through those nine months of intense hormonal and bodily changes again. But overall, I was blessed with a very healthy pregnancy, and for that, I am so grateful. In the nine months leading up to SJ's birth, we:
Experienced one of the hottest summers on record (without AC in our house or car)
Completed about 20 different hikes, including summiting Mount Timpanogos
Traveled to St. George, Bear Lake, Island Park, Seattle, Port Angeles, Glacier National Park, San Diego, and Los Angeles
Traveled by car, bus, train, plane, boat, and horse
Moved from Provo to Centerville and finally settled down in Midvale
We spent lots of time together soaking in our last few months as a family of two, all the while feeling all the exciting and overwhelming emotions of preparing to become parents. Each trimester, I felt better and better. I felt awful for about the first 16 weeks or so and only gradually got rid of the nausea after that. My second trimester was certainly better, but by my third trimester, I felt like I could conquer the world! It is certainly no easy thing lugging around a huge belly, but I felt really good and really powerful. Throughout the whole pregnancy, I tried my best to stay active and healthy to give myself the best chance at a quick delivery and a speedy recovery.
The month of November was one of the driest on record in northern Utah. We had no snow and almost no precipitation at all, so we expected that December would probably make up for it. What we didn't expect when we scheduled our induction for December 15 was that the night before would yield more snow than we'd ever seen fall in one night.
Luckily, my mom had anticipated the storm and came into town the day before. After attending Isaac's jazz band concert in Lehi on the night of the 14th, we made it back home just minutes before the snow began to fall. And once it started, it did not stop for hours. At around 10 p.m., Hayden got a call from his dad who had been trying to drive what was usually a 20-minute journey back to his home from his rehearsal in West Valley. After being on the road for over an hour, he had barely made it to our neck of the woods and there was no prospect of getting back to Lehi in any godly amount of time. He asked if he could crash at our place for the night. So there we were, the night before I was to give birth, my mom sleeping on the floor in the baby's room and Hayden's dad sleeping on our couch. Isn't it so special that grandma and grandpa stayed the night just before SJ was born?;)
After trying for weeks to get my water to break (I was already dilated to a 3.5 at my 37-week appointment), that night I petitioned the heavens for baby girl to hold on just a little longer to avoid trying to travel in the craziest snowstorm I'd ever seen. Luckily, she held on! We woke up to a beautiful winter wonderland...and a car buried in snow. We were supposed to receive a call before 9 a.m. to go into the hospital, but because of the storm, we were delayed. My mom and I spent the morning doing yoga, tidying the house, watching Christmas movies, and doing our nails while Hayden helped our landlord clear the parking lot. Just as they cleared off our car around 11:00, we finally got the call to head over to the hospital!
We checked into the hospital around noon. I was dilated to a 4, 80% effaced, and still not experiencing painful contractions. My first nurse went through the induction protocol with me and promptly started me on Pitocin around 1:00. The nurse came to check on me every once in a while, and Dr. Loewen came in to break my water about an hour later. I didn't know how painless that would be, and it was wild just how much fluid gushed out of me after she stuck that little knitting needle up there.
I started feeling pretty painful contractions about an hour after that. They weren't unbearable yet, but when the nurse offered to call the anesthesiologist to bring the epidural, I figured it was a good idea to get it sooner rather than later in case he got really busy and couldn't come for a while.
I don't think I could ever give birth without an epidural, BUT, getting an epidural stabbed into my back was probably the most acute pain I've ever experienced, though it was fairly short-lived. Again, I would rather go through those 10 minutes of sheer pain than hours of unbearable labor, but WOW I was not prepared. It felt like the doctor was playing the nerves in my back like guitar strings. One of the most uncomfortable things about the whole ordeal was that my bladder was full and the nurse didn't let me get up and use the bathroom first! So to top off the pain, I thought my bladder was going to explode. I asked the nurse if I could just pee while I was laying there (since I was soaked in my amniotic fluid anyway) but she told me to hold on for just a few more minutes until she could give me a catheter. Once I was mostly numb from the waist down, she inserted the catheter and remarked at how much I filled the bag so quickly! Well, ya don't say!
After that, it was just a waiting game! I laid there listening to my baby's heart rate while Hayden did some stuff for work and my mom visited the hospital gift shop. They both went to the cafeteria and brought back what looked like really good food, and of course, I couldn't eat anything so that was a real bummer. Initially, the nurses told me I would be waiting for hours and hours, and that there was a good chance that the baby wouldn't even be born until after midnight. But after they checked me a few times and realized how quickly I was progressing, they knew it wouldn't be long.
Overall, labor was pretty painless, although not overly comfortable. When I started to feel the contractions, I could just up my epidural dose and that would resolve the pain. I didn't like how I felt being all numbed up, though. Just in general, I don't like my body being altered; I just don't enjoy feeling artificial feelings, if that makes sense. At one point, the nurses tried to help me sit up instead of laying on my side, but my blood pressure dropped big time and the baby's heart rate slowed way down, so they reclined me again and turned me back to my side. That's the closest I felt to throwing up during the whole experience. Not fun.
I didn't expect the sheer exhaustion that I would feel just laying there in labor. Even though I couldn't feel it, my body was working hard and so I was just absolutely wiped out. While I lay there somewhere in between being asleep and being awake, my mom was playing grandpa's Christmas music, which I think made the experience even more special. I don't think I can ever listen to that hauntingly beautiful music from the UK without tearing up remembering my labor experience.
Probably the most uncomfortable I felt was during the last hour or so before I began pushing. The nurses had told me that I would likely progress one centimeter every two hours, but I went from a 7 to a 10 in about one hour. I could tell my body was in shock because things were happening so fast. I was shaking uncontrollably and just dreading what would happen next. When the nurse came in to check my cervix one last time (there had been a shift change, so this was a different nurse from who I started with), she told Hayden to take my right leg while she held my left so I could do some "practice" pushes. She coached me on how to push, and with each contraction, I had three 10-second chances to push. She prefaced the pushing with, "Normally for first-timers, this takes one to three hours." In my head, I was like, "No way did I go to the gym almost every day for nine months while pregnant just to push for three hours!"
After three contractions or so, my nurse realized that these were more than practice pushes. She told me she was going to go get the doctor and that she hoped I wouldn't make her "look bad" for calling the doctor in too early. I surely didn't let her down! Within just four or five contractions, baby girl was out of there! Again, I don't understand how anybody does that without an epidural. That was HARD, and I can't imagine feeling all the pain as well! I could certainly feel the pressure of the baby's head as she was crowning, but I was so glad I could just focus on pushing as hard as I could without being so overwhelmed with pain.
Pushing was a wild experience, but I've never felt so strong before! My competitive side just took over and I felt like I had something to prove to the doctor and nurse. In just about 20 minutes at 8:48 p.m., baby girl was laying on my chest and I was weeping out of exhaustion, relief, and sheer love. Hearing SJ's first cry was the most surreal moment of my life. You cannot possibly imagine what it's like to meet your baby for the first time until you do it.
Most babies look a little scary right when they first arrive, and SJ was no exception. Her body was gray and her head was pretty cone-shaped, but I didn't care. I was just relieved that she was healthy and strong. She had her eyes wide open, and I felt so connected to her little soul when we made eye contact for the first time. It was so special, laying there with my new daughter on my bare chest.
The "Sacred Hour" was more like a "Sacred Half-Hour" because they rushed us out of the delivery room pretty quickly. I guess that a ton of women had their water break because of the crazy storm so they needed the rooms. Somehow, the nurses rolled me onto a wheelchair and gave me my baby to hold as they took us up to the recovery floor. All the while, my body was still totally numb from the waist down and I was still shaking uncontrollably. I didn't stop shaking for a while, and I think I was numb for probably four or five hours.
My mom stayed with us all the way up to the recovery room even though it was technically after visiting hours. I loved having her there with me throughout the labor and delivery process and was so glad she was able to see her first grandchild's birth. Most of my friends who have had babies in the last couple of years have only been able to have one person with them in the delivery room because of COVID, so I'm grateful that I was allowed two. Even though she's given birth five times, this was the first time she'd ever watched a delivery, and I'm so glad that she was able to be part of it.
That first night was rough. As soon as my mom and all the nurses left Hayden and me alone with our brand new baby, I was a wreck. So many hormonal changes and so much exhaustion just left me wondering how in the world I was supposed to take care of a baby when my own body needed some serious rest and rejuvenation. I just sobbed and sobbed into Hayden's arms for a little while, and it felt really good. Over the next week or so I think I had at least one crying session a day, which nobody prepared me for! Even now, as I write this, I'm tearing up a little just remembering how helpless and exhausted I felt.
But, just like so many friends and family members assured me, motherhood has gotten so much better, and our sweet baby Sara Jane has already brought us so much joy. I'm so grateful for the doctors and nurses who have helped us through the whole process of bringing a baby into the world. I'm grateful for modern medicine that allowed me to safely deliver a baby with little pain. Most of all, I'm grateful for a healthy baby girl who I get to raise and teach and befriend. I love her so much and can't wait to see what a wonderful person she turns out to be!