I can’t believe my baby girl is one month old. You know how everyone says – time flies… I never really quite understood what that means ( until now! ) This one month with Zoe has seriously gone so fast, it feels as if it were just yesterday that we came home from the hospital. Her birth story is beautiful, surreal and a very emotional one. It is something that I remember so vividly and yet it also feels blurry at the same time.
Let’s start with – I was nine days overdue! =)) My due date was 10th september but 10th september came and went by. In the next 7 days, we tried everything that is supposed to induce labor … and by everything, I mean everything! Castor oil ( yuck! ), peach tea, internet popular eggplant parm … and every suggestion I received. But baby will come out when baby wants to come out.
Finally on the 17th September, my doctor asked us to get induced. We went to the hospital in the morning with our hospital bags. I was hooked to the monitors for a few hours… and … nothing! There were absolutely no signs of labor and moreover (this might be TMI, but I just couldn’t get the cervical exam done – I have zero threshold for pain) – so there was no way of knowing how dilated I was. Well.. we were sent back home.
Next day early morning, we were called back at the hospital. The process of inducing began again. All day, I had contractions – inconsistent in frequency and intensity. But atleast, there was some progress. We were getting closer to meeting our baby girl.
Around 2am, the nurse came to our room to shift us in the labor room because now the contractions were high in intensity as well as getting close to each other. And just then when I got up from the bed, we realized my water had broken !!! From then things just started rolling. The contractions started increasing & became so intense that I could barely breathe. Just incase if you were wondering, I still wasn’t able to get the cervical exam done – the doctor tried and I screamed so loud that they just gave up. At this point, I asked for the epidural.
After the epidural, they finally looked at my cervix and turns out, I was 10cm dilated! Time to PUSH!
I started pushing around 11.30am and from now onwards, is the part that I will always remember.For two hours, Amit with his counting, encouraging me with every push on how well I was doing, putting wet cloths on my sweaty-burning forehead and mom holding my hand praying constantly. I could see mom’s lips move and that gave me so much strength. I also had a playlist of OM chants, Mozart and one cheesy Bollywood song playing on repeat as I pushed – these were the songs that I had listened to all through my pregnancy =))
After every push cycle, the nurse would hand me an oxygen mask to ensure supply to the baby. That scared me so much that it put me in some kind of weird obsession about the baby’s heart rate. After every push – I would ask the nurse to read out the baby’s heart rate. And I would ask Amit to make sure everyone was keeping an eye on that. The nurse kept reassuring me ( after every push cycle ) that it was their job & they had atleast three people dedicated to only keep an eye on the baby. No one minds a lady in labor – let me tell you that =))
Then the baby’s head started coming out and everyone in the room saw a head full of hair! And that’s when I started shaking profusely. I paused the pushing for a bit – as if to hold her inside a bit longer. My energy was completely drained by then and I was almost falling asleep with every push. But they wanted me to push even harder now. The doctor said – just a couple more pushes and she’ll be out! Everything became blurry after that. They had to do an episiotomy – I was still screaming with the pushes and in that tired, subconscious state – continued inquiring about the baby’s heart rate. Then I heard Amit say – I see her. My entire body went still. My mom ran from my side to witness baby coming out.
Amidst all the chaos, the screaming in the room, the excitement – I felt a sudden calmness. And then came the tears… I started crying like I had never cried before. They brought my baby to me – for skin to skin. Amit came over and we were crying together. My mom hugged us and she was crying. I had never felt a surge of emotions that strong ever in my life. There was so much happiness – I couldn’t contain it inside me. Our baby girl … Zoe arrived at 1.50pm.
During this time, I fell in love with Amit more than I could ever imagine. He used all the tips and tricks he learnt during our birthing class, he was such a hero in the room lending all the emotional support. Infact one of the nurses said to us that Amit was one of the best husbands she had seen during a delivery in her life and that he should be a doula. That is a testament to his role and presence during the delivery process.
Every woman’s labor and delivery story is different – with the struggles, the pain, the beauty, the emotions, the love … this is mine. And this is how the love of our lives, Zoe, came into the world. Happy 1 month birthday, baby girl! We love you to the moon and back, times million ! – Mumma and Addy !
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