Figgy's Journey

Fair warning, this post is long! Tomorrow I will post the reader's digest version in photos of Sam's birth day.


I am writing this blog post, and I write many other blog posts, for myself, G, and Sam. I really enjoy this virtual journal and it's even sweeter to be able to share our adventures with family and friends in other states.

I've wanted to record Sam's birthing story for some time now and feel that this is the ideal venue for it.

My pregnancy with Sam was overall very easy. I was incredibly sick for the first trimester, but it was as if a switch flipped the second I made it through 13 weeks. Every morning I ate crackers before I got out of bed or else I would become incredibly nauseous and then vomit. I just needed something on my stomach before I got moving. One horrible morning, I got out of the shower feeling nauseous and light-headed, fainted, and woke up covered in my own vomit. Gross. Not a fun memory. I used those ugly Sea Bands to help with nausea, but to many of my coworkers, it was a dead giveaway. I had ugly black bands on my wrists as the temperatures warmed in Boston - not a good look.

Sam was due on January 7, 2013 and after an epic afternoon-evening at the hospital on December 31, 2012, it was decided that we would induce Sam on his due date. I was determined to get Sam out without induction or c-section, so G and I went for many, many a walk in that week. Two days before I went into the hospital, we walked 3 miles in the BITTER Boston cold around a reservoir in Chestnut Hill. I ate curry for the first time hoping some spiciness would kick start labor. 

No luck.

The weekend before I went in, I continually checked the toilet for my mucous plug. One night, I thought it fell out! Labor was progressing! Woohoo! I called G in to see it, and he shared that it wasn't my mucous plug, but his contacts that he had thrown in the toilet before bed.

We arrived to the hospital in the early morning of January 7. We took a seat in the waiting room with our pillows, hospital bags, blankets, jackets. A nurse came over to us and explained that the rooms were at capacity and we would have to wait, perhaps until that afternoon, before the induction process started. Because our induction was not an emergency we had to be flexible to those that were in actual labor or emergency situations.

The nurse left and I burst into tears. We had mentally and physically prepped to welcome Sam on January 7. Of course we did not know how my body would respond to induction, but we needed to be mentally and physically prepped to start the process. I really wanted to be in control of the process (shocker) and allow my body to do it's own thing, and I felt that all control had be ripped away from me.

While we sat and awaited confirmation on what time to return to the hospital, another nurse came over to us as I sat there in tears. She gave me a hug, rubbed my knee. I could barely get out words to articulate how I was feeling, but they eventually came. She told me her daughter's name was Caitlan and she going to ensure I started the induction process that day. She then left us to attempt to find a spot for me in a very busy maternity ward.

I thank God for that nurse. She was an angel. Because my mom has been so sick for so long, I never really imagined her to be in the delivery room with us. Some friends and family have said that their moms will be in the delivery room with them and I never related to it. It was outside the realm of possibility so I never took the time to dread on it. I think God sent me my mom through that nurse in that moment. I needed a maternal hug, a maternal presence.

We were told to go home for a few hours, eat lunch, and then return back to the hospital in the mid-afternoon. As a nurse hooked me up to the monitors later that day, she asked, "Twins?". Errrr, no - there's only one in there. I was huge!

The drugs started to take effect and my contractions began shortly. We were moved to a delivery room and set up camp. G and I walked the halls of the maternity ward and were bored silly. I remember we spent a good thirty minutes looking at the holiday cards the ward received and ranking them in order of cutest picture, best card design, best child's name, most unique names.

G and I also started watching the Sons of Anarchy series during the month prior to Sam's arrival. It was December, I was 9 months pregnant, we needed a show to get into as we didn't have much of a social calendar. We brought G's laptop to the hospital and watched a few episodes. Whenever a nurse came in while we were watching, I made G shut the laptop because I didn't want the nurses to think we were unfit parents watching Sons of Anarchy!

Monday turned into Tuesday. The contractions continued but labor was not progressing. Some of the contractions were painful, but not scream worthy. We continued to walk the halls and heard the sounds of other babies joining the world. I felt like Rachel in her birthing episode of Friends.

Tuesday night I woke up with intense back pain. The doctor and nurses were unsure if it was back labor, or simply back pain due to the fact that it wasn't centered in my lower back. I continued to sit on a birthing ball, walk, hug the back of the hospital bed. I also began to lose my mind. I woke G up and said, "Please get me off these monitors. We gotta get out of here. Let's go home. I won't be in pain at home." Because that logic makes TOTAL sense. The nurses gave me a pain killer as I hadn't had any drugs (other than the induction meds) and I was able to get some more sleep.

Wednesday morning they suggested we go home for a bit and then return on Wednesday afternoon in order to give us a break from the medications, and a break from the hospital. I also woke up terribly ill from the pain killer and spent the morning vomiting.

So we packed up our bags again. Got back to the car again. Still just the two of us. We drove back to our apartment, G set me up in the chair in our living room, and I slept until it was time to go back to the hospital.

We returned to the hospital room we had left, with our bags, and set up camp again while I was administered another dose of induction meds. We walked the halls, the contractions began, but the labor did not progress. We woke up on Thursday, January 10, feeling incredibly exhausted and frustrated. And then, my mucous plug fell out! PROGRESS! We were elated. The nurses were elated. Everyone was feeling so positive! The day continued, the contractions continued, but my labor did not progress.

By this time, I had been seen by all of the doctors in the practice. At around 6pm on Thursday, as they congregated in my room, the doctors pushed to have the c-section that night, or give it another day of waiting for the meds to kick-in and then have the c-section on Friday. 

G and I just looked at each other and said, we are tired, we are exhausted. If I had to push Sam out I was unsure if I had any strength left to really push, and to push a big baby. We agreed to move forward with the c-section. I cried. G hugged me. It wasn't what we had planned... but it was Sam's plan, God's plan, for us.

The prep began. The anesthesiologist visited us, the nurses prepped G and I for surgery, the doctors drew their track lines on my belly.

During these days, G and I were fairly radio-silent from our family and friends. Not purposefully, but we just had no idea what was happening! While we prepped for surgery, we received an email from G's dad and brother. G's dad had wrote a poem about "Figgy", our nickname for Sam while he was in my belly. G's brother set the poem to music and made a lil song. "Is there a Figgy in the house?" - the song let us laugh a bit before surgery, put a smile on our faces. We were so thankful for that lil song in the moments before the procedure. We shared it with our nurse, our doctor. They all loved it. It calmed us down in moments of anxiety.

It was go-time. I was wheeled into the brightest, whitest room, I have ever seen. G needed to wait in another room in full scrubs until the anesthesia had been administered. I took the shot in my back, with my head against the nurse, and she and the anesthesiologist laid me down on the operating table with my arms stretched out wide and a sheet just below my chest.

G then came into the room, held my hand, and was shaking uncontrollably. I wanted to comfort him but I didn't have the words. I had no words. I nodded, I let out "Yes" and "No", but I really wasn't speaking. The anesthesiologist's voice at the top of my head was the most comforting force I have ever experienced. G held my hand and the procedure began.

Two doctors talked me through the procedure. I felt a sense of pressure relief as they moved Sammy out of my belly, I could actually feel him leave my body. I am so thankful for that. I felt as if the pregnancy was a marathon and when we decided to have the c-section, I wasn't allowed to finish the race. It is probably strange to understand, but feeling him leave my body was a gift. I wanted to experience the push, and the pressure release was what I was given.

I did find words soon after Sammy left my body. I looked at G and asked, "Why isn't he crying?" I was petrified - G was in tears, I wanted to sit up SO BADLY and couldn't. I needed to see Sam. They made a phone call and another doctor came into the room. Soon I heard the screaming. The most beautiful sound I had ever heard, the screams of my new baby boy.

He is here.

Our 11 pound, 1 ounce miracle arrived.

Sam's head had a slight dent, a little cone, not what you would expect for a c-section baby. They arrive with perfectly round heads from skipping the birth canal. The small cone was a sign to us that he had tried to head out through the birth canal, but wasn't having much success. There was also a lot of water in my belly, due to Sam's size, and because my water never broke, he was in a sense "stuck" in the water.

We spent another five days in the hospital as I recovered and relied on the nurses to help us navigate the early days of parenthood. I was in a cloud of painkillers so I don't remember most of the stay, but I do recall Sam being so big he wore a hospital wrap top, and a second hospital wrap top on bottom with his legs through the armholes because he didn't fit in the actual pants; sending my grandmother, aunt, and dad out to the mall to get us some clothes that would fit Sam for his going-home outfit; and peanut butter on toast every night at 2am. The kitchenette was across the hall from our room. Super convenient.

So many nurses popped in our room, even those not assigned to us, to see the 11 pound baby. He was the hospital's celebrity. 

He will always be our celebrity.