As a first-time mom, I was most terrified of two things when it came to labor: my water breaking while I was at work, and pooping while pushing my baby out.
Luckily neither ended up happening (with Peter Joseph). With Benjamin it was a completely different story. Let’s just say nurses are saints, and I’m glad my husband is still attracted to me.
Peter is five years old now, and thinking back to the day he was born makes me tear up. It’s hard to put into words the way I feel when I think about the fact that five whole years have gone by already. I wish I could relive every little moment. I wish I would have documented more. I wish I remembered every single little detail of every single minute of every single day with him.
Babyhood goes by so. effing. fast. I will always feel a special little tug on my heart when I think about my experience with my first-born baby. He made me a mommy. He came along unexpectedly, and completely changed my world. He made me a stronger woman, and introduced me to my purpose in life.
My husband and I were completely terrified when we found out we were having a baby. We were newly dating and NOT ready for a baby whatsoever. It was all incredibly overwhelming and scary and to be honest, looking back, I was extremely depressed.
I went through some really low lows throughout my pregnancy. I had no idea why God had chosen us to be parents. I felt regretful, I felt nervous, I felt scared out of my mind. We weren’t ready for this. We barely knew each other. And we certainly had not built a solid foundation in our relationship to parent a child on yet.
I vividly remember going for a walk by myself one day and just sobbing my eyes out for what felt like hours. I walked on a path around a big pond multiple times and just cried, and cried, and cried. I can remember thinking to myself, “I would rather die than feel like this. Why did God do this to me?”
There were better days, but I’m not going to sugarcoat it and act like it was a beautiful pregnancy that was all excitement and happiness. It was hard. On top of the emotional toll my hormones were taking on me, I was incredibly sick for the first 22 weeks and wanted to barf at all times. I was so tired I could barely stay up past 7pm every day, and was so constipated from my nausea medication that I could barely move.
Once my hormones leveled out a bit and the newness wore off, things got better. I did my best to shift my focus to the fact that I was going to be a freaking mom. A freaking MOM! There are women out there that would kill to be in my position, who want nothing more than to be a mama bear. I stopped feeling sorry for myself and mentally prepared myself to bring a life into this world.
It was a Sunday in October. His due date was October 16th, but on Sunday the 6th I started having contractions. I remember going to breakfast with my younger sisters and jokingly saying, “I think I might be going into labor.” We just laughed because the contractions weren’t very intense or consistent yet. That night around 8pm, Peter and I packed up and headed to the hospital.
My ENTIRE family showed up at the hospital from an hour away that night. As the first one to have a baby in my family, everyone was a tad excited. My parents, all 3 of my sisters, and my brother-in-law all spent the night in the hospital waiting room waiting to meet baby Peter J. My mom puked at some point from so much Tim Horton’s coffee and nerves. There’s a picture of my dad sleeping on two ottomans pushed together, and my brother-in-law Chris slept face down on the floor– LOL.
When I first arrived at the hospital, I was only about 2cm dilated. In hindsight, now that I’ve had another baby and truly experienced what painful ass labor feels like, I definitely wasn’t in active labor when I showed up to the hospital. I was most likely having Braxton Hicks, or it was the very very beginning of labor starting.
They had me walk around for a while to see if I’d continue to dilate. When they checked me again, about an hour later, I hadn’t dilated much more. They called my doctor and she told them she was confident we were ready, and to go ahead and give me some pitocin (the drug they give you to help induce labor) to speed things up.
They started the pitocin and I started to feel a little pain. Next came the epidural and after that, they broke my water and it was basically just a waiting game.
Around 9 or 10am the next morning, things started to get EXTREMELY painful. I’m assuming my epidural either wore off or it just wasn’t working, because I was in SO. MUCH. PAIN. I had a great epidural with my next baby and literally did not feel an ounce of pain, which makes me realize now that something was not working right the first time around.
I’m not going to lie, this is getting graphic but… it felt like the baby was coming out of my butt. I’ve talked to multiple other moms that felt the same thing. Not even kidding, with every contraction, it was the most excruciating pain I’ve ever felt….IN MY BUTT!!!!!!! Apparently when the baby drops way down and is almost ready to come out, the pressure on your bootie can get extremely intense.
Sidenote: I just found this Buzzfeed article called “How many word for butt do you know” and it’s amazing. Fart box? Shit bag? Fudge Factory? I’m dying.
It felt like I was at 9cm for an absolute eternity but finally, sometime a little after 11am on Monday morning, I was fully dilated to 10cm and ready to push. I only had to push like 4 times and then my memory slips into something that still feels like a dream to this day– at 11:50am I got to hold my sweet 7lb 15oz baby boy for the first time.
Peter and I both welled up with tears and a huge rush of insane emotion flooded over both of us. Our lives had just changed so drastically, it was hard to even process in the moment. I couldn’t believe this baby was OURS. What an incredible miracle that we were so blessed with.
Those first couple of days in the hospital with my new baby seriously feel like some sort of foggy fairy tale. I can’t really explain it. It’s honestly like the whole world just stopped for a few days and nothing else on Earth mattered.
I’m going to stop now, because I’m getting extremely emotional (Peter was just laughing at me because I’m sitting here wiping tears away writing this). I must be PMSing which is probably not a good time to be writing this. I could go on forever about how much my life changed that day, but this is getting long. SO I will wrap it up, but I must leave you with this:
If you’re a newly expecting mom and you’re scared, it’s okay. If you’re confused, overwhelmed, feeling shitty, and maybe even feeling like you aren’t cut out to do this, it’s all okay. Pregnancy is romanticized into this beautiful amazing heavenly experience, but I’ll be the first to tell you I am someone who really struggles with pregnancy for many reasons. Other people (including your partner) may not understand the way you’re feeling, but try not to expect them to. It’s a really tough thing to relate to if you’ve never been through it, and especially if you’re not a woman. Try keeping a journal to write down the way you’re feeling. Take walks to get some fresh air, splurge in a massage, or call your mom or a friend and cry it out. And at the end of each day, say a little prayer and remind yourself that everything is going to be okay.
I’ve been there, and I promise you the second you hold your baby for the first time, it will all make so much more sense. You can do this, and this is your purpose. You are going to be a hell of a mom, and the fact that you’re bringing a life into this world makes you a freaking superwoman.
Five years from now, you will look back and understand the “why” so much more.
<3
