Baby - This Little Light

Comment on last post: Some have asked us how we came up with the name “India”. I honestly don’t remember the exacts of how they came about but I know Tony had picked out “India” from an Alanis Morissette song and we had India and Oscar picked out before we ever even decided to have children.

When India was about a year old, we decided that it was time to try for a second child to put them around 2 years apart because we thought that that would make them closer as siblings – we forgot to consider that it would give us two children in diapers for awhile. As quickly as we had conceived India, we were a little troubled to find that it took about 3 months to get Oscar on board (yes, I know, we were really lucky every time – it seems absurd that we were worried about the 3 month stretch now based on all the couples I know with difficulty) – I do remember being mad at Tony the night Oscar was made – I don’t remember why, but I wanted a baby. I used to blame Oscar’s anger as an infant (cried for a solid 9 months) on my attitude when he was made.

The next week, we went to Colorado to have Christmas with my family. I had an awful headache the whole trip and thought it was the altitude, but that headache ended up continuing for the next 4 months. While on the trip, my sister announced her second pregnancy, which surprised us as she was NOT trying, and got me thinking maybe that’s why I was feeling off. On the way home from Colorado, I got the call from Dr. Pol offering me a job in Michigan. I took a pregnancy test the next week and got to share my entire pregnancy with my sister which was a neat experience.

**My sister had her baby the next day**.

My pregnancy with Oscar was pretty uneventful, except I got terrible morning sickness with him that I didn’t get at all with India. I had migraine type headaches and nausea for a solid 3 months. No scares, no bleeding, although I’ve told people that you’ll never realize how many non-white fibers are in toilet paper until you’ve been pregnant and inspected the toilet paper EVERY time you pee to check for signs of bleeding. I had no trouble that is, until he got super comfortable with his little butt in my pelvis and refused to turn the proper way (make like a baby and head out). My OB didn’t believe me at first, and kept putting my concerns off, but at 38 weeks, you could almost see his little round skull sticking out from under my ribs (and I could ultrasound myself). I actually embarrassed myself pretty good with my doctor – I didn’t want to seem like one of those “I’m a doctor, I know” so I told him I was pretty sure Oscar’s head was still up but wasn’t 100% sure because “we only have a rectal probe at my job and it doesn’t penetrate very deep” – didn’t think anything of it, left the office, then realized what I had said a few days later and was incredibly anxious to get back to the office and inform him that I did not, in fact, probe my rectum, but that the probe was designed for cattle or horse rectal pregnancy exams and the ultrasonic waves only go about 4 cm into tissue. *insert foot in mouth*

So, a couple of weeks before my doctor decided to be concerned, I was out doing some TB testing on some dairy cows and the owner was a midwife and was asking me about my pregnancy and I expressed my concern that the baby was not head down. She got very upset about how the doctor will likely just want to do a c-section and that these babies can be turned. So, naturally, I got upset and went and read about “turning babies” and then spent the next 2 weeks or so with my hips above my head. Tony would find me just laying on the couch with my butt in the air just watching TV on numerous occasions, but none of this seemed to do the trick.

Finally, at 38.5 weeks, my doctor scheduled a cervical version – this is a pretty darned uncomfortable procedure where the doctor grabs the baby from outside your belly and with the help of an ultrasound technician, attempts to dislodge the baby from your pelvis and then turn him to where his head is then in the pelvis and hopefully stays there. Well, unfortunately, as late as 38.5 weeks Oscar (a beast) was already 8.5lbs and 19.75 inches and was wedged pretty hard in my pelvis. After lots of very uncomfortable shaking and shoving of my abdomen, the doctor was able to get Oscar about halfway around and then Oscar promptly went right back to where he was.

“Listen, I don’t care if it takes us all night, we’re gonna figure this out” *ash tray full next to him*

What the version did accomplish was to piss off my uterus. I started bleeding almost immediately at the park we took India to play. I called the nurse and she said that it was normal. I went to bed that night on my back with my hips propped up on some pillows because that’s just what I did at that point. I awoke very suddenly about midnight to the most intense contraction. I jumped out of bed and told Tony it was time to go. We ran down the stairs and didn’t even stop to tell my mother who was staying with us to be with India that we were leaving. I just grabbed a couple pairs of clean underwear and then jumped in our Toyota Echo and sped off, texting my mom on the way.

We got to the hospital in less than 15 minutes, I told them I had a breach baby and would need a c-section, they got to work very quickly. When I got to the hospital I was already dilated to 9 cm and the nurse could feel feet trying to come through the cervix, but the membranes were still intact. They didn’t believe me when I said I had only had one contraction. They probably thought I had been sitting on this all night, but I swore I came in as soon as I woke up to the first one. They very quickly got my IV and urinary catheter placed, then rushed me to the surgical suite. I was stark naked at this point in a large room full of people with all the spot lights on me. I didn’t care too much, having full blown contractions and worried about my baby, but I was sitting there, straddling a large (very warm and soft) table while 4-6 people looked on and I tried to harness some calmness and stillness as the anesthesiologist was piercing my spinal fluid as I didn’t care to have a lacerated spinal cord.

**Michigan man – boy loved shoveling snow**

Once the epidural kicked in, it felt like I was just swaddled in a big, soft, warm sleeping bag and couldn’t move anything from my neck, down. It was actually quite comfortable and in stark contrast to the sharp contractions, pains, and body tremors I was having seconds ago, it felt amazing – euphoric. Then, the surgery started. I couldn’t see anything, but I could feel my whole body shaking as they tried over and over to wedge Oscar’s head out from under my ribs – he was apparently stuck with his butt in my pelvis and his head under my ribs. Finally, after one of the doctors pressed really hard on my diaphragm, Oscar popped out. The pediatrician took him and held him to my face while he screamed. I wasn’t sure what to do or what the doctor expected me to do, so I just said “hey” a few times (all awkward like when you first meet someone) before he finally took him to clean and “process”.

When they finally brought Oscar to our room after everything they do with them and I was starting to feel things in my toes again, I looked at his tiny, sweet face, gently stroked his face, studied his tiniest of features, then looked at Tony and asked if this was actually our baby. Tony was confused. I asked if he saw them take him out of me. He said “yes”. Then I asked if he saw them put the ankle bracelet on him. He said “yes” Then he asked why I was asking all of this and I told him “He doesn’t look like either of us – are you sure this is ours?” – Ends up there was only two babies born there that night and Oscar was the only one in the nursery while I was recovering – so yes, he IS our child.

**Coolest dude at the Asparagus Festival – Empire, MI**

This is part I of the stories of my three babies. I was super lucky enough to have not lost one pregnancy and for that, I cannot be thankful enough. When Tony and I started dating when I was 16 and he was 17, I did not want kids at all. They were loud, annoying, and honestly, I always felt judged by them (they just stare at you like they’re so cool). But as I aged, I started getting a hankering for, maybe, a family. Then, once, when I went off to an externship to Rood and Riddle, Tony gave me a cute little teddy bear as a going away present. One night, while I was laying in one of the bunk beds provided to externs, waiting for an emergency colic or dystocia call, I was cuddling that bear and half asleep, felt the incredible softness of the top of the bear’s head on my lips and imagined it was that heavenly downy hair of an infant and immediately knew that I wanted children in my future. It was good timing too, because I also was sure that I wanted to be one of the amazing vets at Rood and Riddle but then saw how busy they all were that only one of the many female doctors there at the time had a child. When I asked one of them about it they just told me that their lives were way to busy and chaotic to even consider children.

Once I finally graduated vet school and got done with my internship, I was already 27 and knew that the longer I waited, the more risky pregnancies became. I had just started my first real job and the last thing I wanted to do was to get fired for being pregnant (yes, I could have been fired as the company was less than 50 employees – actually less than 5). I also did not want to sacrifice the health and safety of me and my potential babies by continuing to wait until “the right time” as many have told me there is never a right time. So, 2 months into my first job, we finally decided to stop preventing pregnancy as we’d heard that it can take awhile. Well, the next month, I was pregnant. I knew I was before I even took the test – I was at a dairy and had just pulled a calf as a huge thunderstorm was just clearing up and I just felt a little tinge of excitement that radiated from my abdomen and just knew what that meant.

I took a pregnancy test before I even missed my period and it was faint, but it was positive. It was right around Christmas time and so I quite sloppily rolled the stick that I peed on in some wrapping paper and asked Tony to open an early present. He opened it, looked at it for a second, then looked at me funny and said “why did you give me a negative pregnancy test?” – which kind of took the wind out of my sails, but only for a second as I led him over to the closest window to show him that in the right light, you could see the faint blue line. He still was not sure about it, but I was and he was excited for me – I had to take another one later, after I missed my period to really prove it to him.

Things were going well for us for about a week and a half when I was riding one of my horses and he decided that he was done being ridden and started bucking a little. I immediately got off of him to be proactive since I was now pregnant and had to be more careful. Later that day, I was in the shower when it happened – I started bleeding. I had a river of blood running down my legs. It was scary, but it stopped and I thought maybe I had just irritated something with the bucking. I was a little worried, but went to my first doctor’s appointment for the pregnancy and mentioned it to the nurse checking me in. She said that I would have to go and talk to the triage nurse. Tony and I walked into the office, knowing something was not right. She talked to us like something bad had happened and that I would need an immediate ultrasound to see if I was still pregnant. I can’t tell you why, but I had never thought about that bleeding being a finality in my pregnancy. We were not scheduled to have an ultrasound that day, so we had to wait in line behind all the women who had a scheduled appointment.

We sat there, outside the ultrasound room for over an hour and watched couple after couple go in, heard the Doppler find the heartbeat, and then saw them leave, smiling with their adorable black and white print out of their healthy, live, little one. Tony and I just sat in silence. This was the first that we thought that we may have lost our baby. We didn’t know what to say to each other and were both barely holding it together without having to make our voices behave. I sat there, holding some stupid brochure the triage nurse had given me, wringing my sweaty hands, my whole body shaking. Finally, an eternity and a half later, they called us in. She asked me to lay down and explained that since I was so early, she would have to ultrasound me trans-vaginally. Honestly, I didn’t care where she had to put that probe, I just needed to know right now if our little life was still alive.

I lay back and stared at the black ultrasound screen. I’m not sure if I was breathing at all at that point. She inserted the probe and started the scan. We saw black fluid in the uterus, she scanned and scanned and scanned for what seemed like an eternity when out popped this beautiful little round creature with an even more beautiful strong heart just fluttering away. She looked just like a baby sea turtle to me in that moment. We were so happy – everything was okay. We also got an adorable little black and white photo of our little sea turtle and left that room with smiles as big as our faces. That was India – and I later gave her a “spirit animal” assignment of a sea turtle.

**India’s painting – I did one for each child**

She was born the day after I was out performing a DA surgery on a cow. I was actually scheduled for an induction due to her large size, but she had other plans. I showed up the morning before my scheduled induction at the Columbia, SC hospital and told them I was in labor. I think they thought I was just a day early to check in for my induction. They kind of nonchalantly got my file as I had disappeared behind the check-in counter doubled over in pain and then led me to an exam room. They made my mother and Tony go to the waiting room. I quickly got undressed and into my gown feeling like my undercarriage was about to fall out and tried to lay/sit on the bed but was way too uncomfortable. The bed that was in the room was some weird triage bed or something and different sections of padding was coming undone and falling to the floor. So it was like I was laying in a foam pit you would see at a gym.

**She pretty much slept the first 3 weeks of her life – I even had to wake her to feed her**

Finally, about 45 minutes to an hour later, a nurse came in (again, nonchalantly) and saw that I was in labor by my face. She put the contraction monitor on my belly and told me that my contractions were not that bad – which immediately made me feel like a wimp because I was currently dying. Then, at some point, someone finally checked my cervix and I was at 7 cm. THEN they rushed me to a delivery room where I asked for an epidural. Now, I’ll tell you – I was GOING to go all natural, I had read all the opinions on this and was certain up until the point that I was sure my nether regions had already split in twain and there was not yet a baby on the floor. When the anesthesiologist showed up maybe 10 minutes later, the nurse was checking me and delightfully informed me that it was too late for an epidural, that I was ready to push.

I pushed for 30 minutes, kicking a student nurse holding my leg in the face (on accident) and promptly apologizing, before the doctor came in and informed me that I was not pushing right. She showed me how to push and I got India out in another 30 minutes, feeling every tear and popping of flesh as she made her way out. She was a healthy 8lb 2oz. They put her on my chest as they sewed me up and she just cried and cried. I asked when she would stop crying and the doctor informed me “Not until she’s 18”.

Tag: Baby

Babes part II – Oscar Poscar Pants

Babes part I – Indie bindi pants