Painful Joy

3 am wake up.

During the course of pregnancy I’d come to recognize this as my nightly bathroom break, or perhaps it was time to shift to the other side because baby had decided it was time to practice her ballet bar then.

This was very, very different.

I couldn’t breathe at first. I sat straight up an immediately regretted it. My husband slept beside me and I didn’t want to wake him up in a panic if it was another false alarm. I grabbed my phone, flipped on the stop watch and started timing.  Contractions: 5 minutes apart, lasting for a minute… 20 minutes.

They had us practice in our birthing class holding ice in our bare hands to feel the pain and breathe through it. Sounds crazy but that ice burns like a mo-fo and without that mental prep, I could see how it was easy to grab the nearest intern and roar for drugs before you rip out their heart. I’m luckily stubborn enough that it worked. Time to wake up the husband.

“Babe?”

“What?! What’s wrong!”

“It’s time.”

“Are you sure? We can call the midwife.”

“No. It’s time.” 10 minutes or so later my husband and my mom had me in the car and we were on our way.  It was the most painful car ride I’ve ever endured. Not sure if it was the pain or my mom and my husband cracking really bad jokes to take my focus off the pain. Either way the drive sucked big time. Mom dropped us at the front entrance. I’m praying the doors are unlocked because I really don’t want to waddle through emergency and then up to the birthing center. Luck was on our side.  Contractions: 4-5 minutes apart, lasting for 1 minute for the last 45 minutes.

My husband checks us in at Swedish Hospital in Ballard and fills out any paper work not already prepared in our birthing plan folder. The midwife comes in and they get me into a gown, explain that they still have to check my cervix to determine if they should keep me for now or send me home.

“You made it to 5 cm dilated before coming in? I’m impressed”

“I told you I have a high pain tolerance.”

The first thing they did was put me on antibiotics with a locked IV in case I needed a bath or shower during the process. About 2 weeks prior I had tested positive for Group B Streptococcus (GBS) which is normal and occurs in 25% of healthy adult women, but can be harmful to newborns. Ergo, antibiotics.

For the first several hours not a lot happened. Meaning I did a lot of breathing and bracing through contractions. Friends started to show up. My vitals were taken, we monitored baby and the routine parade of medical professionals made their presence known to me, who they were and what their specialty was. I was tough. I can handle this. Just breathe.

Around 12 hours I broke down.

I was ready for an epidural. I felt like I had failed. I had wanted so desperately to have a drug free delivery, and with my scoliosis, it was incredibly risky .

I even had second thoughts when my midwife came in, asking her to check how dilated I was because if I was getting close enough to push then it wasn’t worth it.  Then the mother of all contractions hit me and I couldn’t breathe at all.  I was on all fours screaming in my pillow until it passed. I collapsed on the bed and sobbed. I didn’t care anymore, I just wanted to pain to stop. I held my husbands hand and waited for the anesthesiologist. What seemed like hours later, I woke up. I had finally gotten some real rest. I was able to joke again, tease my husband and hold his hand. I couldn’t feel my legs at all, so they turned off the epidural. I’d need to be able to feel at least a little in order to push.

When the pushing came time, it wasn’t at all what I expected. In the movies I see the crinkled faces and the screaming anguish. But I was drugged and couldn’t feel my legs. I felt the contraction, but barely. Time to push. To me, it felt like I was doing sit ups for an agressive trainer who wont take no for an answer.

With one foot in my mothers hand, the other in my mother in laws and gripping my husbands hand so hard I might break it, I pushed. Ten seconds. Breathe. Repeat.

I’m not sure how long this took, maybe thirty minutes, maybe an hour. And then she was here. Ondine Evelyn Neal, 8lb 15oz, 20inches long. She was purple, and crying. But she cuddled onto my chest, set foot on my belly and was a part of our life from here on out.

Everything else sort of faded away.  Pain didn’t matter, and while the doctors were busy sewing me back together in spots, I was completely distracted by the most beautiful face I’d ever seen. I was now a mother.

Waiting for Baby

There is this thought that birth is like it is in the movies. I am here to tell you that is a dirty lie. It’s NOTHING like it is in the movies. I should know better, being a filmmaker. We practice in the magic of illusion everyday. But I also have this hopeless romantic faith in fairy tales and happy endings so I can justify my naiveté here.

Early Sunday March 17^th I pulled myself out of bed. “Today’s the day!” I thought. Anticipation since July when a sudden and surprising little bird made her presence known. It was our delivery day. Our little peanut had been right on target every week for growth and there’s no reason to even think she won’t come on time. Saint Patrick’s Day was finally here and we were determined to encourage her to hit her holiday. Both her dad and I missed our holidays by one day (4^th of July and Thanksgiving) so we didn’t want her to suffer the same irritation.

I had decided I would refuse C-section unless medically necessary for personal reasons. My husband and I had also discussed at length the pros and cons of drugs during the labor and decided a natural birth (unless medically necessary) was also on the books. So we began our Sunday with a game plan. Operation Baby Drop was a GO!

I was feeling contractions and could time them but there is this numbers rule they give you in preparations to judge when it’s best to ACTUALLY show up at the hospital. 4-1-1. Contractions are 4 minutes apart lasting for a minute for at least 1 hour. I have an absurdly high pain tolerance so I called the midwife and she told me I would really be able to tell the difference, so wait. Contractions: 10-15 minutes apart lasting for 30 seconds.

First, a nice… long… hot…

Bath. Where was your mind?  My two girlfriends picked my mom and I up. The four of us headed to Bella Nails in Ballard. We made our appointment and walked to Cupcake Royale. What’s a birthday without Irish Crème Cupcakes? Or Whiskey Bacon Cupcakes? This is an Irish baby damnit, she’s got to start it out right. Back to the nail salon and we all pampered ourselves. There is rhyme to this indulgence. There are pressure points on your feet that can induce labor. Of course it would have been awkward if my water had broke there, but hey we were on a mission. Alas, baby has enough of her stubborn Scottish mama (Me) to stay right where she was. Contractions: 10 minutes apart lasting for 30 seconds. I’m not unsure these are just really powerful Braxton Hicks at this point.

Onward we went to the Freemont Sunday Market.  We mingled, bought things we had no intention of buying until we got there, and I got my photo taken with the best baby buggy in the world. Still my baby wasn’t encouraged enough to make her appearance.  Time for lunch, er… dinner.

Normally a spicy meal is in order. But seeing as A. I’d been eating Pho and Indian food my whole pregnancy I didn’t think it would do the trick and B. It was St. Patrick’s Day we opted for home cooking. It’s sacrilegious to eat anything other than corned beef and cabbage in the Neal house on St. Patrick’s Day. My mom had recently shared her recipe with my husband who then took that and ran with it creating his own fabulous concoction.

The boys had been busy playing Halo and making the meal while we were out so it was time to head home. Contractions: 7-10 minutes apart lasting for about 30-45 seconds.  Still thinking these might just be my uterus doing push-ups in preparation for the marathon.

The Godparent couples (we have two) and some more close friends showed up and it was a regular Irish gathering. We talked, they drank, played games and ate delicious food.  We went for our second walk up to the elementary school and back. During the walk the contractions increased in intensity and I was happy for the pain. “This is it!” I thought.

Wrong.

As soon as I sat down to time them more specifically they went right back to being strong Braxton Hicks. Lame. I consulted the midwife again, emphasizing my pain tolerance and again being told that I would really be able to tell the difference. That the reason so many women have “false labor” pains is because they’re not listening to their body. “Trust me, you’ll know when it’s time. You wont have to ask, you’ll just come in.”

Several hours and rounds of Cards Against Humanity later, it was time to say goodnight to our friends. Contractions: 5-8 minutes apart lasting 45 seconds.

Well, it was time for bed. The sun had set on St. Patrick’s Day and I felt a little sad, but equally happy that our little girl had decided that she was going to do things on her own schedule.  Perhaps it’s delusion, but I thought to myself it was an encouraging thought knowing she was exerting her independence even before she’d left my body.

Open Letter to my Friends & Family...

My dearest family and friends.

I had my latest ultrasound today and baby is right on target, a little big but you’ve met Collin so you know that’s not surprising. They tell me she’s right on target and that she’s in the 84% for grown. Healthy and strong, and a wiggle-fritz as my mother likes to say.

I’m writing to ask for a little prayer. Some of you may already know that she is expected to have a cleft, but to what extent is still unclear. If it’s just a lip, it’s mostly cosmetic and she can have surgery at about 3 months and be done with it. If it’s a pallet, it means many more surgeries throughout her childhood to allow her to breathe and eat and speak properly. I would be eternally grateful if you did two things and both prayed for her healing while she’s still developing (God made the world in 7 days, in 9 weeks He can heal an unborn child). But the second is equally important to me. 

I ask that you take a little time and look at some images online of cleft lip children and infants, especially if you plan on attending me during labor or shortly after. It would brake my heart to see disappointment on any your faces and I want her to feel unconditional love from the moment she sets foot in this world. I want her to know that no matter what the challenges that face her, her family and friends will always love her.

This is hard for me to write because it’s so incredibly personal, and I’ve been down playing it. The truth is that this is a very very common thing in American births, 1 in 700 to be exact and it’s also incredibly treatable. It is typically hardest on the parents and family, and not the baby. She likely wont even know there’s anything wrong at all, just that we love her. So I ask you to pray for her, pray for us and prepare yourselves in case this is indeed a challenge that God wants us to face head on.

Love always,

Erin

Doctors, Midwives and Doulas, Oh My!

So if you have a doctor and you love them, congratulations! You have one less headache to worry about. But if you haven’t made your selection yet for who’s going to, you know, deliver the baby… Get on that train and make a decision ASAP. You’re going to want to have a feel for this person who’s going to be a familiar face in a medically sterile environment. Did I mention they’ll also be up close and personal in your privates any day now?

I know this is weird, but I didn’t know where to start…. so I looked on Yelp for a doctor. Call me crazy, but every woman I knew who had a doctor was either a high paid attorney (who didn’t mind dropping several grand on a new purse) or my blessed family who haven’t seen a maternity doctor in, well, years.  I wanted to see what others had to say about the top rated OB/GYN’s  in my area. I found several and one in particular who worked at Swedish Medical Center, the hospital that delivers more babies than any other in my state. She had top marks from everyone and I mean everyone. That’s a rare feat in Yelp. When EVERYONE thinks you’re the bees knees, it’s probably because you are. Unfortunately with my estimated due date, they didn’t want to over schedule her so I made my number two selection and set up an appointment.

This doctor was fabulous. She was so kind, and sincere. She answered all of my questions and made me feel right at home. Of course my husband was a little unprepared for a vaginal and breast exam that happened right there in the little room. He found himself a little horrified at the vaginal exam (they do open you up with steal tongs) and justifying the breast exam because she was pretty and that made it ok for a doctor to touch me like that (I laughed the whole way home). But in general we really loved our doctor. She was a little pricey and we had this moment where we weren’t sure if we could afford to keep her so we looked at other options.

My sister was the one who turned me onto midwives. She had both of her kids before she and I were sisters (marriage is a fabulous thing). She was young enough to not know there were options beyond a sterile room and a doctor. What is a birthing center? Well she told me. It’s just like a regular doctors office, but it costs a little less and if you so choose some midwives will even deliver in the comfort of your own home. So I looked at that very same Swedish Medical Center had a Midwifery clinic in their ever so much more chill Ballard Hospital. Win.

But I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I mean, switching from a Doctor to a midwife is a big deal. And I really, really liked my doctor.

Then the standardized testing started.

What the Halo?!

I understand there are some basic questions that you will be asked when getting to know your doctor so that they can also get to know your medical history to give you the best possible care available based on your personal biology. When was the first day of your last period? Have you ever used elicit drugs? Do you look both ways when crossing the road….?

But some of the tests are rather scary and can really put things in perspective for you. Some of these tests are there for standard medical preparation. Others are there for the comfort of the family, i.e. if you want to have as close to a perfect baby and ONLY if it’s a perfect baby, there’s a test for that. The only problem is that if you’re uncomfortable with the tests in any way, the pressure to take them can make pregnancy a burden and not the joyous time it’s supposed to be.

As I mentioned in my blog about perfect children, the choice is up to you. I still don’t entirely know what a doula is, but I’m betting you have a new age friend who can explain it to you better than I can with a Google search. Suffice it to say we chose a Midwife and haven’t looked back. They have been wonderful at Swedish Midwifery and Women’s Health.

When I compare the two, I liked my doctor, but I love my midwives (yes plural, there’s a team of them!) and I’m glad that I live in an age when choice is the staple of our time.

The All Seeing Cupcake

If you’re a first time parent with less than “traditional” parents yourself, you probably are asking a lot of questions. And you should. Lord knows I didn’t know ½ of the stuff I know now when I started. In fact when I first found out I was pregnant, I was pretty excited… about the idea of pregnancy and childbirth. I had no idea what that meant.

Among the doctors appointments, medical treatments and steps to get your body prepared to grow a parestite- er baby…. (I know mama, you hate that joke).. there’s a lot of other things to think about to. Like do we find out if it’s a boy or a girl? When and where do you ask for help preparing for things? Is is ok to register for gifts? Do I have to have a baby shower or can I just pop the kid out and call it good? I make light, but these are actually all vital steps in your mental preparation for baby.

Number one, thinking about what type of toys you want for baby can be a big statement about what kind of parent you’re hoping to be. What kind of diapers (my faves are Honest), bottles, strollers… Each of these things are essential to cultivating a young body and mind into a young person- and with any luck a responsible adult with enough humility to not brag about how awesome they are, but rather what a rad parent you were (hey, one can dream right?). So aside from knowing I was going to have a baby shower,  the next question and more immediate one that I get asked is “Do you know if it’s a boy or girl yet?”

For some, this is so they can buy pink or blue. For others, this is so they can relate to you about their experience. For me, it was just a confirmation of if we went more Pirate or more fairy with our Neverland theme.

My mother in law is the goddess of parties. We have not yet had to have an unspoken rivalry about who throws a better party, mostly because I enjoy going to hers. She also knows more about female tradition and trends than I could ever imagine. When she first told me about a baby reveal, I pictured a baby on a silver platter with a “voila!” moment. That apparently is just my active imagination.

Baby Reveal parties are the latest trend that allow expecting parents to celebrate their new bundle of joy with a party of their closest friends and family. Some people choose to have a box filled with colored balloons, pink for girl and blue for boy, others use cupcakes where the couple is the first to bite into a specialty order. I’ve since heard of specialty cocktails which I’ve decided is a really big tease and therefore NOT an option. We went with cupcakes from Seattle favorite, Cupcake Royale.

Now the Neal’s are an Irish clan. We tend to be the black sheep of the family, rarely to do things in a straight line, we opted for a party at our absolute favorite Irish Pub, the Owl n’ Thistle. Baby was after all expected to arrive on March 17^th. You don’t get more officially Irish than being born on St. Patrick’s day. So continuing to celebrate our Irish roots, we also chose Irish flag cupcakes and Green for boy and Orange for girl. My husband wore his kilt and I wore a green sweater over an orange tank with the Blackwatch Tartan (because I’m the Scottish kid in the group) wrapped over my jeans.

The Neal’s are a masculine clan. I don’t know the specifics of other Neal’s, O’Neils and any other version of the name, but the Neal’s I married into have boys. I the last 14 babies and three generations starting at Grandpa Neal (not counting a divorce and remarry to a non-Neal) there was exactly one girl. One girl in over 50 years. So the deck favored another boy.

That was my bet. That was the bet of all of the cousins. That was the bet of our little nephew, my sister in law and Mama Neal. My husband had said from the moment he met me his first child would be a girl. Twin girls, to be exact. I laughed and told him to place an order with God, see how that worked out for him. Having known him now for 4 years, I’ve watched him in the face of extraordinary odds make predictions like this before- and come out right. So my faith in the Neal history was a little shaky. But he had been wrong about the twins part, so maybe he wasn’t as infallible as I thought.

Bets were laid. We designed a game based on a similar game done with champagne, blueberries and raspberries. We’re Irish, this family doesn’t do champagne, they do whiskey or ale. We asked the kitchen to give us a small side of Lemons and Limes so we could at least stick with our theme and people could declare their bet on the rim of their preferred beverage. hubby had his whiskey, I had a cranberry sprite. Le sigh.

Now Collin had cheated. After receiving some very disheartening news not three days prior he had needed a confidence booster and peeked at the little card before he took it to the bakery. So he remained silent and took a slice of each fruit. And we waited for the allotted time.

Thanks to modern technology, we were able to connect with family from far away via Google Hangouts (we take a good 20 minutes to get to the reveal, but you get the idea). My mom, my dad and stepfather connected with us from Rosalia, WA and Los Angeles, CA. My step-brother couldn’t get it to work in Chicago and my best friend couldn’t figure it out in NY but that’s alright, we posted it on YouTube on accident and decided to leave it there for them. The time had come.

We put the lap top at the far end of the table. All our friends and family that could come gathered round, cupcakes were passed out and we dramatically waited, people holding their glasses out with their predictions on the rims. I bit into my cup cake. I forgot to remove the wrapper. I looked for the filling and couldn’t see it. Then I looked again, that wasn’t Irish frosting, that was orange filling.

We have a little girl.

A beautiful, strong, fiery Irish girl ready to make her debut this coming March and I can’t wait!

Perfect Children Pt. 2

October was kind of an exciting month. We had made official announcements that we were having a baby, the first for my side and the second for my husbands if we don’t count cousins (which there are a lot of them).  October 17^th was our routine exam that was to be proceeded by a standard 21 point ultrasound.  Everything was going swimmingly. Baby kicked, baby stretched, baby let us watch them fold in half and do a hand stand.  In general, baby was healthy as a horse.

But not quite. We had just been told that baby might have a cleft. We had a million questions and dark cloud had settled over our heads. We went to our follow up with doctor that very same day. 

Now, there are a list of tests that are “optional” for expecting parents designed to allow you a leg up on preparation. Some people want the whole shebang, every test available. Others would rather leave it up to God or fate or whatever they believe in, and only do medically necessary testing. For myself, I’m somewhere in between. I’d truthfully never thought about it because like many women my age, babies make us smile but we’d never considered all the things required of us to make one.

So, while the doctor had mentioned them in passing at our initial consult and handed us a stack of information packets that I sort of glanced at, we now were being pressured into tests that we had really been uninterested in before. The thing that was confusing us was that they would reassure us that there was literally nothing we could have done differently to change the outcome of a cleft. There was no history of it in either of our families.  I wasn’t drinking or smoking and we were both relatively healthy individuals. Nothing was abnormal for the first 5 weeks of pregnancy so the chances of anything environmental that had caused this we small. In fact they really don’t know what exactly causes clefts aside from lifestyle and medical history. This time, it was just chance.

Despite all that, the abject warnings about potential chromosomal abnormalities suddenly skyrocketed. Words like “down’s syndrome” and “sickle cell anemia” were tossed around like a hot potato.  Amniocentesis was optioned and pushed for as a way to determine if the baby would have any of this. These heartbreaking concepts are pushed because “we want to make sure that you have the best medical care available.” The problem with this is that these tests are very expensive and can be very inaccurate. Even under ideal circumstances they’ve had test come back clean as a whistle only to have babies born with very serious issues. So it’s a crap shoot and you’re out the money either way.

Then the real question was… well it was eluded to, without being stated. Do you want to keep this baby or not? Because that’s what it boils down to at the end of the day. If the test is negative would you keep this child?

I have always fancied myself a pro-choice individual. I’ve always consider it my body my choice, and I still do. But suddenly I faced a very real question for my own heart and soul. My husband and I are responsible adults on most days. We chose to have sex, we chose to not use any contraception. And despite all the environmental reasons in the world to have not conceived when we did… we did. Was that also chance? Would I, could I free us of a burden simply because the baby might not be “perfect” in the eyes of the world? I’d never been faced with such a question before. And it disgusted me that it was a question I had been forced to ask myself.

The more times the amniocentesis was pushed, the more I felt like that was what modern science was saying to me. If you take this test, you can get rid of it, if you don’t your stuck.

I fucking hated that thought.

I hate that it made me hate pregnancy and question every fiber of my soul because I suddenly didn’t know who I was any more. Who was this doctor to suggest that imperfection was not beautiful?

By the time we left my husband and I felt lost. But I had made up my mind. No test, in all the world, would change my mind. This child was mine, my blessing and my responsibility. So fuck your test and let me have my baby in peace.

I promptly found a new doctor.

The moral of this story is not yet over, as it is not yet written. But what I do know is that all children are beautiful in the eyes of their creator. I understand some of you may not believe that, but they are. This child, my child, will not only live, but will be as sassy as mommy, as strong as daddy and look at this world in absolute wonder. 

Prefect Children Pt. 1

This may come as a shock to some but I’m a Christian. I know, mind blowing isn’t it? I can still be in shows like HAIR and work on a horror film folks. Still the same me, just with a little faith in something greater than myself.  I am a liberal leaning Christian and my husband tends towards a more conservative Christian. So sometimes we don’t always agree on the fundamentals. We’ve had those fabulously heated arguments about the basics but because we love one another and can’t imagine a world where the other isn’t part of it, we always come to terms with our disagreement and try to see it from both sides, with mostly success.

Then along comes baby. And everything you thought you believed with every fiber of your soul is challenged. For starters, there’s a lot of things you don’t know and a lot of answers you’re expected to give without ever having known there was a question to begin with. It can be as confusing as it is overwhelming.

I feel a bit like they were making up for the first 3 months I was on set of my husbands first feature and there were all kinds of tests. Blood tests, urine tests, ultrasounds, more blood tests and on occasion a written exam… I’m kidding. Or am I?

These are a monthly part of the ritual now. Once a month you check in to make sure mama and baby are developing on target, because despite our differences there are some consistencies about every pregnancy that must be met. So October 17th I went back in for my monthly check up (I swear I’ve spent more time at the doctor in 4 months than in 6

years) preceded by a 21 point ultrasound, whatever that means.

It was the first time I really felt pregnant. This wasn’t just a little floating blob that may or may not be a fetus, but a living breathing (metaphorically) being inside of me. While the movement I felt left me feeling more gassy than anything at 18 weeks, I could really see baby for the first time. How baby loved to fully stretch out their legs from one side to the other.

Baby was sassy as could be, mouthing at us and not letting us get a clear shot of their face but distinctive poses to see a very healthy spine, legs, arms, fingers and toes. Not to mention a very strong heart.

We had already decided we wanted to know the sex of the baby, but we also wanted to make that a special moment at a reveal party, my mother-in-law’s suggestion that I loved.

So they put the information in a pretty little envelope, sealed, and then went to get the doctor.

Now this isn’t our normal doctor, it’s the doctor assigned to the unit for radiology and ultrasounds. Never met him before, he’ll never see us again. He doesn’t do more than introduce himself blithely and dive right in.

“Well your baby is healthy, but looks like they will have a bilateral cleft lip.”

Do you know what it’s like when blood freezes? It’s painful. You can’t breathe. Your whole body aches and ever muscle in your body tenses as if you’re lifting Atlas’ burden.

“Excuse me, what do you mean?” The doctor proceeds to explain that there is bulbous tissue around her mouth that is typically indicative of a cleft lip and or pallet. That it’s too early to know anything for sure but that the amount of tissue around her lips makes him suspect a bilateral cleft lip.

He asks a few personal questions about health habits of me. Do you smoke? No. Do you drink? Not since I found out. Is there a history of cleft or other birth defects in your family? No.

Well, then it’s just bad luck.

“Excuse me? Bad luck? My baby is not bad luck, you egotistical asshole! My baby is a blessing. You are the only bad luck that’s entered my life and your bedside manner is shit!” Never mind that this was inside my head and not what I voiced. I was trying too hard not to cry. I looked at my husband and he was in exactly the same place I was- ready to strangle the doctor, fighting tears.

We took our pretty little envelope with our card that revealed if baby was a boy or girl with us and somberly got back in the car. We hardly spoke.

Clefts, we had been told, were incredibly treatable and incredibly common. They are much more common among boys. That 1 in 700 children born will have it. But neither of us knew enough about them to have the slightest idea about what to do next.

So here we are, at a dark place. And the challenges to our faith and trust in God and each other were just barely about to begin.

To be Continued....