Owen's Birth Story Part I

I cannot believe it has taken me over a half a year to write down Owen’s birth story. It is a good thing I play it over and over again in my head at least once a day. That moment and every moment since then has forever changed me, humbled me and allowed me to feel the most visceral love I have ever known.

Jeremy and I have always been planners – we call it living an intentional life. Some of it is because the path to medicine has very little room for flexibility but most of it is simply catering to our type A personalities. Last April, Jeremy bought me a digital SLR camera for my 29th birthday – he convinced our families to chip in for some accessories and a photography class that we would take together. Little did they know, we were planning to learn to use this camera to take pictures of a child we were trying to conceive. Little did we know, all the planning in the world couldn't have prepared us for the year ahead.

I wanted to have a strong, healthy body to welcome a growing person. I ate right, taught spinning and practiced Pilates. I eliminated caffeine from my diet years ago due to a sensitivity and I was going strong with prenatal vitamins for almost a year. My goal was to continue with this regimen throughout my pregnancy. This was easy because as it turns out -  pregnancy was wonderful to me. Other than some headaches in the first trimester I was symptom free. I traveled, I worked, and I can honestly say I took time to be enamored with my changing body and enjoy being pregnant. I taught cycling up until my 25th week at which point it became difficult for me to teach an hour long class without having to get off the bike mid-spin to pee.

Two weeks later my cervix softened and I went into preterm labor with a baby weighing barely a pound and little to no lung tissue. In one moment my hope for a strong body turned into hopes for a full term baby. I set my sights on the calendar as each week passed at a snails pace. Things started to improve and I held steady at just a finger-tip dilatated for days and then weeks. But my body was weak. Only being allowed up to go to the bathroom and take a five minute shower destroyed my muscle tone quicker than I could have imagined. After only a few weeks of bed rest I needed Jeremy’s assistance getting off of the couch and in and out of the shower. I felt helpless in every way and needed my husband's constant reminding that I was doing the most important work of all.

I was given privileges to go to childbirth classes at the hospital and they accommodated me with a wheelchair and a full recliner. We were also given a private breastfeeding crash course by the head of lactation for the hospital. We listened to the natural birthing techniques and came up with a birthplan. Our plan was for an unmedicated birth with a request for skin-to-skin care immediately following delivery, assuming the baby was healthy. I was open to the possibility of an epidural if I absolutely had to, but not to any other narcotics or sedatives pushed through an IV. I wanted to breastfeed immediately after birth and keep my baby with me in our room at all times.

At 36 weeks I was allowed to do some walking and go on a few outings. This happened to fall on Valentine’s weekend, which allowed for Jeremy and I to go out to dinner. Valentine’s day was a goal we set in those early weeks of December when an entire trimester flat on my back seemed like the impossible. Jeremy was in his last graded rotation of medical school and it was completely unforgiving with time off. We were hoping to keep our little one in until the week of February 20th. We chose to stay on tocolysis (medication keeping my contractions at bay) until 37 weeks with the understanding that if full labor presented itself - at that point there would be no more intervention. I took my last dose of Procardia on Saturday night, February 20th – 57 hours later my water broke.