Perhaps the picture is enough to bring you up to date, since we haven't kept up with our story for more than a year. Sorry about that.
But yes, we had a baby! And that's about all that's happened during 2013 and so far in 2014. So see you in another year or two…
Just kidding. Quick synopsis to bring you up to date, what could have been in our Christmas letter had we written one (we were waiting to see if we could have a baby by Christmas, or at least New Years):
February-April 2013: We take swing dancing lessons! You know what they say about dancing though...
May 10, 2013: We discover that we are having a baby!!!
June 2013: We tell everybody, once we think its safe and we're far enough along. Each family and set of friends has their own story of sorts. My sisters got a sonogram picture in their birthday cards, and my parents got a picture album with a coupon for endless babysitting hours (a bargain we've struck because they take care of Reagan so much). Jon's family got a mysterious and unnamed sonogram picture on the fridge on vacation, thought we'd let them guess which one of us was pregnant! And our home fellowship group at church, well, we brought cupcakes with a message: "Reimer cupcake in the oven." It took awhile for people to catch on, but we did hand the cupcakes to the men first.
June 2013: First family vacation to Hemlock Point instead of the beach at Pawleys Island…a mountain/wilderness adventure with a beautiful and enormous lodge!
July 2013: Jon gets poison ivy…all over his abdomen, and we go to the beach in Delaware with my parents. We both hit work anniversaries, 1 year at Reston Hospital Center for me and 4 years with Cardinal Bank for Jonathan.
July/August 2013: Jon goes to bank school, year 2 is over and one year left!
August 26, 2013: We're having a boy!!!
September through December: Jon starts deacon training, we start Bradley classes (husband-coached childbirth). My belly continues to grow and grow, we have baby showers (thanks to a wonderful family and group of church friends), all family comes to our little place for Christmas (10 adults, 4 children, and 3 dogs…yikes!!!), and we hit New Years Day without a tax break for 2013. Jon is mildly disappointed.
January 12, 2014: My due date. Nothing happens.
January 13, 2014: My 40 week OB appointment, in which baby looks good but amniotic fluid is low…so INDUCTION! My greatest fear, being induced starting at 1 cm dilated, sure I'm headed for 2 long days of labor followed by a c-section and loads of disappointment, especially after our Bradley classes. I cried. I think I can actually say I wept. I was being a bit dramatic.
So from there, Jon met me at home, we stopped by Walmart to pick up a birthing ball and the Lord of the Rings trilogy (it was going to be a long night). One more timeline for you, though most of the times are estimates because we really weren't paying attention.
5 pm: I hand over my birth plan (and am laughing at myself because, as a former L&D nurse, I know what birth plans mean), induction starts, followed by a dinner of Chipotle and LOTR, Fellowship of the Ring.
11 pm: we decide to go to bed.
12 am - 5 am: Jon sleeps, I contract (a lot) and semi-nap, wake him to walk about every 2 hours when my IV and baby monitors are disconnected.
5 am: getting checked by an unfriendly OB (thank goodness her shift ends at 8 am), 3 cm. I was really hoping against hope that there would be a magical "Oh my goodness, you really are doing great…7 cm!" That was all in my head.
6 am: induction continues, pitocin is started. And I contract.
7 am - 10 am: I contract. And I contract, mostly in my lower back.
10am - 1 pm: I contract, in my lower back. Ouch. And I groan, starting quietly, but eventually am nearly groan-yelling the word "ow" with each contraction, and moving a lot, sometimes writhing, sometimes in the bed and sometimes out. My awareness of the monitor is lost, but they kindly put me on a roaming monitor so I can contract in the bathroom (sitting on the toilet was, at times, most comfortable), on the birthing ball, and anywhere I feel the need to. Jon is beside me, holding me, letting go if I tell him to, and rubbing the dickens out of my lower back with a hot pack. With all this pain (or at least my drama skills in acting that I was in a lot of pain), they turn the pitocin off around 11 am, and it had never even been turned up…they did read my birth plan! And I contract, in my lower back.
1 pm (ish): Yes, they kindly waited that long to check me…they read my birth plan! And 8 cm dilated! Holy cow!!! And Laura, my angel of a nurse, says casually as she's leaving the room to leave us alone (which is what we needed) "oh, and call out of you feel pressure." Not but 10 minutes later, the groaning turned to screaming. Oh, I felt pressure. Cue Brian Regan skit about the difference between pain and pressure. We scream for someone to come in (mind you, my room was right by the front desk, the door was cracked open, and you could definitely hear me). They come, I'm 9 cm and not allowed to push. The screaming continues, with another casual reminder to "call when you feel more pressure." I'm sure it was less than 5 minutes before Jon called the front desk again (call answer of "yes, how may we help you?")…anterior lip on my cervix. So technically I shouldn't push, but Laura has me push to see if she can reduce (or move out of the way) this cervical lip…and she can! So it's go time, time to push, sometime around 1:40 pm. So I push, scream, get instructions yelled to me (because I'm so loud, and its just hard to hear them aside from my own thoughts of "when is this kid gonna come out? what if I can't push him out?"), I move thanks to our heavenly doctor's instructions (awesome Nigerian man, calm as can be, just helpful and slightly amused), and push and scream. I did have lucid moments, about 30 seconds between contractions, and I actually told jokes. But nobody could really hear them (except Jon) because they were busy preparing and waiting for my next earth-shattering screams. And I push and scream, and they ask if I want to feel his head…no, I want him out. And I need to roll…I can't roll, and don't touch me! Again, amazing nurses and doctors, but in those moments, as others have said about the end of labor, you are out of you mind and not in your own body. Its the strangest thing. And I push and scream, pushing so hard I burst most of the blood vessels in my eyes and the capillaries in my shoulders (hence first pictures of Levi are with Jon holding him, not me). Somewhere in between all that, they break my water (which was not really all that low…). And then, at 2:25 pm on January 14th, 2014, Levi Jonathan was born. He pooped all over the place and was a little surprised, but after a minute his little body with a perfectly round head was laid on my chest (and did I mention I was stark naked for the whole last hour?). I would say Jon and I were just startled at first. That's what natural labor does to you…you hardly recognize that the baby's out, partly because you're just so relieved that its over, and partly because labor really is a little traumatic.
A few take home points from all that:
1. Natural labor isn't for everyone, and now I understand why. The physical pain isn't even the half of it. Will I do it again? Lord willing yes, and I hope to do so with more grace and control, but as my mom said, when you start in labor with the second (and so on) child, you suddenly think "Oh yeah, I remember, this is going to hurt."
2. While pregnancy has its challenges and so does laboring and delivering, those things are sure and progress because they can't not progress. Post partum is more challenging, because you have to recover and you take care of things; if you don't take care of things, they don't progress on their own. I think I understand my patients a little better now.
3. I realized that I could never have done a good job of taking care of a patient like me when I was a labor and delivery nurse…its funny to look back and think on that. I was too by-the-book. I would've asked me to stop moving so much so I could get the baby on the monitor…and I would've fired me.
4. God is so good. My husband is amazing. And while I wasn't sure of Levi in those first few moments (I think being done with the pain, and not seeing my baby, was my biggest motivator in the end…kind of disappointing when you find yourself thinking that way, hence natural labor isn't always the best option), I love him dearly.
So that takes care of that. If you've read this whole post, thanks, and I promise all you have to do from now on is enjoy pictures of Levi. That's what you really logged on to see, I know.
