Our actual due date was March 3rd. Since both my own kids were induced more than a week past the due date, I really had no expectations of going into labor on my own this time. It didn’t make the waiting any less bothersome, but it wasn’t unanticipated. My obstetrician saw me on that day and I still wasn’t dilated or showing any signs of impending labor, so he put me on the hospital schedule for induction on that Saturday. I continued to work through the week, although I’m sure I was less than pleasant for my coworkers to tolerate.
Friday was an off day, and while my house was empty, I made a point to relax and enjoy my last day of being pregnant. I got a haircut and a pedicure, finished packing my hospital bag, and took a few last looks at my big pregnant belly. I packed an overnight bag for the kids who stayed with Aunt JoAnne while Walter and I were at the hospital.
Walter and I got up early on Saturday and went to breakfast at Waffle House before heading to the hospital. When I was pregnant with Chloe, one thing that I will always remember is the drive to the hospital. The movies and TV always show the frantic husband trying to usher his laboring wife into the car and some chaotic scene of “the moment” when the wife announces that it’s time. It was never like that for us. One of the most surreal things is to drive to the hospital to have a baby and NOT be in labor. At breakfast, we chatted about the new house and a few ideas related to work, but just like my last two birth-days, having a baby wasn’t really a topic of discussion. It didn’t really hit me until they started hooking me up to an IV. Wow, I’m going to have a baby today!
We arrived at the hospital around 7:30 am, filled out the obligatory paperwork and screening questions, and called the baby’s parents (C and B) who were at a hotel nearby. They started the pitocin drip around 9 am and thus started a very long, but very perfect day…
I know some people really don't want to know all the details (mostly my guy friends) and some people do (mostly my mom friends). The labor was mostly smooth, but there were some parts that were pretty intense. So, I'm letting you choose which version of the labor story you want to read:
My definition of perfection is being able to look back on something, even with its flaws, and be able to say that given a second chance, you wouldn’t change a single thing. The whole day was long and had its moments of intensity, but I wouldn’t change it a bit. With my own kids’ births, I actually did look back and make note of things I would want to happen differently if given another opportunity. And this time, anything that was in my control happened exactly the way I hoped it would. It was a perfect day.
This whole journey has just been perfect and I just want to put a plug in for some people without whom it turned out that way. Walter firstly, for being such a trooper. I don't think he ever understood why I wanted to carry someone else's baby but was always supportive and patient. Walter's mom was actually the one that gave me all my shots in the beginning and she often stayed up late at night to wait for me to come get them. She took our kids and helped me out when I wasn't able. And my sassy friends who reassured me when I needed a boost. Thank you all for helping me and Benjamin's family bring this to fruition. And mostly thanks to our Lord who is and always will be sovereign and providential in our lives.
The nurses came back a few hours after Ben’s birth and wheeled us to a postpartum recovery room. Walter kissed me goodnight and went home. B went back to the hotel and C stayed in the room with me (it had a little pull-out couch for her to sleep on). We talked about how perfect and smooth everything went and admired little Ben as he rested.
Providence – I don’t know why, but I am always amazed by God’s providence. It’s just one aspect of his character that constantly surprises me. Morning by morning new blessings I see. I have always had just what I needed right when I need it. C and I talked about our medical staff. (They have never had a positive encounters in hospitals, so having a good team of people to take care of us was a new experience.) We went through four shifts of nurses by the time we got to postpartum and each were providentially the right person for each phase of my labor.
The first nurse, Joyce, was friendly and attentive. I explained the difference between Chloe’s and Roman’s births and how Chloe’s took longer, but it wasn’t as intense because they started me on a lower dose of pitocin and let things build slowly. I reminded her that I had discussed it with Dr. Howell and he agreed to start me at a lower dose again this time and let things progress slowly. Joyce happily obliged us that and listened to everything we needed to make this a pleasant birth experience for everyone.
The second nurse, Cathy, was the one that noticed the heart decelerations on the monitor. She was alert and vigilant, but didn’t let us panic about it. She calmly explained that it was probably nothing, but it still needed attention. C explained that she was prone to worry, but as long as she was confident that the nurses were doing the worrying for her, she’d be okay. Cathy reassured us that they were keeping an eye on our numbers in the nurse’s station and we should continue to relax.
We decided that the third nurse, Jay, was a little rough around the edges but she was the one that jumped up on the bed and aggressively helped Dr. Howell get Benjamin out. Our day-shift nurse the next day was Terri. She was probably my favorite. She was very knowledgeable and organized and knew how to work they system.
In each case, we had just the right person for the job that needed to be done. None of the other nurses could have put us at ease and set the tone for the day like Joyce did. None of the others could have been as proactive and reassuring like Cathy was. Certainly, none of the others would have been as aggressive as Jay. And none of the others knew their way around like Terri. Even Brenda in the nursery helped C get what she needed for Benjamin. Each one had qualities and talents that were just what we needed. (So when you think your traits are insignificant on their own, remember that there may be someone out there that actually needs your special kind of charm.)
Walter’s Perspective – Walter has been so great this whole pregnancy, especially toward the end when I was a huge cranky tired sleep-deprived over-worked manatee. He was very supportive of me, but he was very detached from the pregnancy. That’s why I was surprised and happy to see how excited he got after watching Benjamin’s birth. It was like he had seen childbirth for the first time. I guess when our kids were born, he was too involved to really process it from an outsider’s perspective. After Benjamin was born, he was grinning from ear to ear, but it was a different kind of grin from when our kids were born. He seemed really happy and proud to be part of the moment.
The only time Walter really left me on Saturday was to get
lunch and when I got the epidural. He’s not the kind of person to debrief
things like I do, but I asked him last night a couple probing questions to get
his perspective on the event. Toward the end, I had my eyes closed, and I asked
him where in the room he was when Jay was up on the bed with me. He said he
moved back, “because there were obviously more people there that could help more
than me.”
I asked, “But where did you go?”
“I just moved back to the corner a bit?”
“Could you see what was happening?”
“Yeah, a little bit.” He said he was amazed at the way Ben’s head squeezed out
and the way a baby’s skull is formed so that it comes out easier. I laughed so
hard when he described the shape. He said he could see Ben’s brain being
squeezed out. “It was his brain! And it was being squeezed out of that little
hole!” Walter said. He also mentioned how different it was this time being able
to see more of the after-birth process. With our kids, he was like C and went
straight to the warming table to see the baby and never really paid attention to
what the doctor was doing. He said, “Now I know why Dr. Howell gets paid the
big bucks.” He mentioned how the whole labor is the easy part, obstetrically
speaking, but when it comes time to really get the baby out, the doctor only has
a matter of minutes to decide whether to cut me open or not. When things get
going, he has to really be on his game. I’m so thankful for Dr. Howell who has
delivered each of my babies. (C’s mom calls him Doctor Cowboy
J )
The Next Day – Sunday started with visits from Dr. Howell, the nursery, and the dayshift nurse Terri. B brought their two girls up to meet their brother and it was just the sweetest time to see R hold Benjamin. She is such a good big sister. They were followed by visits from B’s parents and then C’s parents, C’s sister, and a mutual friend, Nikki, from our surrogacy support group who drove over from Dallas. Walter brought Chloe to see me (I didn’t realize how much I missed her!) and she stayed for about an hour while Roman napped at Aunt Joanne’s house. She immediately latched onto Nikki, which I thought was real cute. Later, B’s sister came and my friend Sherrie came. All through that, I had nurses coming to check on me and Ben, the birth registrar got all the legal paperwork taken care of, and the lactation consultant stopped by too.
Ben took to nursing almost on the first try. He was a lot easier to get going than either Chloe or Roman. Maybe because I actually knew what I was doing this time and knew that patience was the biggest piece of the challenge. Anyway, I’m glad that C was eager to let me nurse him. Some people, even Walter, have commented that it’s weird or unusual to nurse your surrogate baby for whatever reason. Walter knows that it’s a bonding experience and was worried about me getting attached to Ben in the wrong ways, and I had hoped that C wouldn’t think the same thing. However, she was very welcoming about it and encouraged it so that Ben would get the immune benefits from it. He took a long nap while the bulk of the visitors came by and I was able to nurse him in the few quiet periods.
The Pee Nazi – Well, this may be TMI for some, but I don’t think it’s too graphic to warrant its own page, so if you don’t want to hear about my bladder issues, skip to the next paragraph. So, after the catheter came out, they make you pee in a large measuring cup in the toilet to make sure there were no complications in that area. I was slow to pee with both my kids, so I wasn’t surprised when hardly anything came out this time either. The second attempt yielded more quantity and the third was a little better. Terri, the day-shift nurse wasn’t really concerned, nor was Dr. Howell because it was getting better with each attempt. But Terri explained that had another doctor been on duty, she would have had to do bladder scans on me and possibly re-catheterize me if I wasn’t totally emptying. Well, Dr. Howell’s shift was over and Doctor Pee Pee came on shift. Terri had to do ultrasound scans on my bladder and I had to keep a log of how much came out each time I peed. I think a lot of it was because I really didn’t get out of the bed to use the toilet much and I wasn’t drinking enough fluids at first to get things rolling. So I chugged the water (and the most delicious cherry-limeade from Sonic that B brought) and Terri convinced me to take a darvocet to relax and the Pee Nazi was finally happy with my output. Terri later told us that apparently, years ago, he let a patient go home and her bladder got distended and almost ruptured, so now he is pretty rigid about it. Whatever.
Sunday night, everyone was just as exhausted as the night before. I had a quick moment of emotion as I started to think about saying goodbye the next day. Some time in the middle of the night, Ben woke up squeaking and I watched him for a minute. He was grunting and making a gagging face. C was hard asleep, so I sat with Ben upright for a minute to help him swallow things down. I offered to nurse him, but he wasn’t interested and instead he spit up! Then, he bared down and let out a huge squirting rumble in his diaper! I laughed and he let two more go. I changed his diaper, nursed him back to sleep, and used the bathroom before laying back down for a snooze. He woke up again an hour later and wanted to nurse off and on until about 6am. C slept through all my racket of changing him and nursing him, so it was like it was just the two of us. It was hard to stay awake for him, but I’m glad that I got that little bit of time with him before all the ruckus of the day began.
Monday morning started the hospital discharge process. C and B had a long car trip home and let our nurse know on Sunday that they hoped to have Benjamin released and all the formalities taken care of by 10 am. So Terri, being the organized fantastic nurse, told everyone else 9:30 and had all the right paperwork and signatures ready on Monday morning. Walter had to take the kids to school, but I wanted them to see the baby before C and B left. Especially Roman, who didn’t even know I was in the hospital and wouldn’t understand that there was no longer a baby in my belly (remember, he was napping when Walter brought Chloe by the first time.) Even if it was just for a minute, I wanted Roman to see that the baby was out. So Walter brought our kids by and then took them to school.
Saying Goodbye - C gave me extra time to hold Benjamin and nurse him a few last times. Terri whisked in and out checking on me and moved quickly to make sure C and B had everything they needed. Honestly, she went a little too fast for me and made it more real that this was the end of the journey. My job was done and it was time for everyone to go home. I kept myself busy and tried not to talk about goodbye. I tried not to feel his little squirmy body wrapped neatly inside his blanket and remember that’s what he felt like on the inside too. I tried not to admire his intense gaze for the last time. I tried not to think about how empty the hospital room would be if Walter didn’t get back soon.
Fortunately, he did get back before they left and it helped distract me some more. Terri stepped out for a minute to let us say goodbye. They thanked me for Benjamin and gave me a big hug. I choked back tears and said goodbye to him all snuggled in his carseat. Walter went down with them and that was the end.
Walter, from the very beginning of this surrogacy, expressed concern about what happens at the end. He wasn’t the only one, actually. Would I be able to let go? Would I be able to carry someone else’s baby and not get attached? While everyone was out, I started to get cleaned up and collect my stuff from around the room. I wiped my tears away before Walter came back to the room. The truth of the matter is that I never had any expectations beyond the delivery. If C and B wanted to share details and photos as Benjamin grows up I would be more than grateful (but really it's their prerogative to involve me as little or as much as they want from here on out). Benjamin is NOT my baby. And frankly, I don’t think our house needs a new baby. Bringing Benjamin into the world, nursing him, and holding him didn’t change that. Walter gave me a big hug and asked how I was doing. I told him my hormones were on tilt, but I was okay. I said to expect me to be weepy for the next couple days, but I was okay. I told him that my tears didn’t mean that I wanted to run after C and B and take the baby back. I tried to hold back my tears until after they were gone because I didn’t want them to misinterpret it. It was more like saying goodbye to an old friend. Ben and I came a long way together and I do love him, but now he’s off on a whole new journey of his own. I am confident that he’s going to have a wonderful childhood and bring so many happy moments to his family. God will bless him and use him to His glory and I’m so thankful to have been a part of bringing him into the world.
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