My birth story, according to the voice memo I sent my friends

Dear JAMMers,

On June 16th, 2023, my water broke. Or so I thought.

Apparently, there are two types of water breaks you can have.  One means nothing and one means you’ll have your baby in your arms within roughly 24 hours.  As I bent over to plug in my charger that Friday, I thought my “real” water broke. My husband left work and we drove to the hospital with excitement.  After a few exams, they told me to go home.  Not my time yet.

I was 40 weeks and 3 days pregnant. For the first 14 weeks, I felt like I was on a rocking cruise ship 24/7. I had vomited multiple times per day for the entire pregnancy.  Beyond the regular reasons you want to be in labor after 40 weeks, I wanted to have normal human function again to be the best mom I could.

But alas, they sent me home around 7 p.m.  I ate some lovely Greek food and watched the Friends episode where Rachel gave birth to Emma. Riddled with jealousy that a fictional held her baby before me, I went to bed.

Around 2 a.m. I was woken by what I thought were bad gas pains.  After about 40 minutes of them worsening I realized - OMG ARE THESE CONTRACTIONS!?

(It should be noted, this is my first baby)

This realization set off a chain reaction that can really only be described as insane or manic, but biologists prefer the words “natural” and doctors use the word “normal.”

Contractions.

Birth.

Hug a mom you know today.

BTW, the brain holds onto birth, no matter what people say. You don't forget. You learn to accept your story and experience. Anyway, I have a detailed account of my day. So I can't forget even if I wanted to. Why? Because I recorded a voice memo explaining things in detail.

“Everyone must be very worried about us.  The baby is healthy and I am totally ok (as ok as one can be after 13 hours of labor with an 8lb child with a full head of hair),” I remember thinking to myself.   In particular, I knew my Dad would need to hear my voice to believe I was ok. Oh, and my sisters and cousins were gathered at a birthday party waiting for updates from my mom.  They drank White Claws on the water as I begged the Lord for mercy, it's fine. I'm not salty about it.

In true millennial fashion, I thought let’s tell those close to me my birth story in my own words and just send it directly. And 15 months later, here I am sharing it with all of you.

By 5 a.m. my contractions were unbearable and 15 minutes apart.  I called my mom who advised me to go the hospital v. waiting. I will never forget how long it took my husband to pee, get dressed, and put his shoes on in that moment.

He also stopped at every stop sign enroute. I get it, but I was in excruciating agony. Can we go any faster?!

Luckily, the car ride was only 20 minutes.  I had a total meltdown during the check-in process.  The pain was a complete shock to me.  Due to total naivete, I thought my near-burst appendix when I was 10 had caused the same pain that labor would cause. WRONG-O! 

I was ushered to a delivery room quite quickly because I was already 5cm dilated upon arrival. I labored for maybe 60-80 minutes until my water broke. It felt like an eternity.   My behavior can only be described as feral.  I will spare you more details but every time I hit the next phase of labor and something wild happened or left my body, I screamed.  

The nurses continuously assured me it was all “textbook” and “normal.” Okay, cool. My memo said, “I proceeded to scream at the top of my lungs and begged for mercy from everyone by name (nurses).”  Jackie and Monica you are my sun and stars. I also said that I planned to buy the anesthesiologist a yacht for how phenomenal my epidural was.  God Bless you, Terry. I’ll never forget you. I can't afford a yacht though.

After 2 hours of the epidural, I am fully dilated. They had to turn it down so I could adequately push. Everyone kept telling me how lucky I was for “going so fast” and I was grateful - but I wouldn’t call being in that level of pain lucky. Yet now I tell people, “he was out in 13 hours, so fast I am SO lucky.”  I went to the other side.

Evidently, I only pushed for 25 minutes. However, it truly felt like four and a half hours. They have to lie to you to get you to keep pushing. I was told 2-3 more good pushes like 1,000 times it seemed. And then, here comes my baby boy flying over my legs like superman. I full head of hair that you could easily comb into a mohawk on day one.

Time really did stand still. A core memory is etched in your brain in slow motion. Just like Rachel had with Emma on Friends. You know this person's movements and habits and yet you have not even laid eyes on them.

Then he peed on the nurse and pooped on me. So he was very healthy.

I couldn't see very well (from all the sweat) so I asked my husband who he looked like more. We were all wondering! He was and is a perfect mix with my eyes and skin tone.

Once I was sewn up and holding my pride and joy, I told my husband how proud I was of him for not fainting.  He told me, with wide eyes, that I was nuts for even noticing or commending anything about HIS performance as I gave birth. FAIR.  But I am an empath.  I kept asking the nurses during my skin-to-skin and first breastfeeding session if I could pass my son to his dad. They told me it's recommended to keep him with me for a certain amount of time.  I got to hog him for 2 hours.  I mean, I did pay the dues to get that snuggle sesh.

There aren't words that can really describe that moment of seeing him and then holding him for the first time. I can't possibly do it justice.

But I can make a joke to cut the tension. After 40 weeks AND 3 DAYS, I had my first non-nausea-inducing snack. It was buttery pound cake and it was life-affirming. I wrapped up my voice memo with “I don’t think I’ll ever do this again.”

But I think I will.

No worries,

Jaclyn