My Rainbow Baby: Labor Story | Life in Stepping Stones

At 39 weeks exactly, amongst the backdrop of a global pandemic and the George Floyd protests and riots, our little girl made her debut into the world. As a huge chapter in future American history books is being made right now, I have wrestled with many emotions but at the end of the day, I honestly am starting to feel hopeful. Hopeful that through all of this unrest, real change will finally happen and our daughter will grow up in a country that values everyone’s life, regardless of their skin tone. Before I delve into my birth story and days postpartum, I need to share this, because it’s important for everyone to speak up right now:

While I can’t condone the riots and looting because I don’t ever want to believe violence is the answer, I can’t condemn it either. This is the reaction to hundreds of years of oppression, racism, and death in this country. In a country where taking a knee in peaceful protest has constantly been ridiculed and chastised as patriotic betrayal, the only answer at this point to get the country’s attention, is frankly, to riot. To me, the real sadness isn’t that people are breaking windows and stealing. The real sadness is that people are more angry about that then they have ever been about police brutality and the horrible and wrongful murders that have been allowed to take place. At the end of the day, I am thankful for every protester who is standing up in this country and not backing down. Thank you for doing everything you can to better this country. While I normally shy away from politics on the internet because of the anxiety it causes me, I feel this issue is too important to stay silent on. Black lives matter and every voice needs to be heard right now from every platform to show our love and support.

As history is being made around us, our own piece of family history was made this week when our daughter, Jasmine, was born.

On the eve of her birthday, I couldn’t sleep much at all. I spent the night watching TV, feeling some of the same inconsistent contractions I had felt for weeks. However, around 3am, it started to feel a little different. As I laid in bed timing my contractions, I noticed they were starting to develop into a pattern. They were about 10 minutes apart. With my recent prodromal labor experiences though, it was too soon to get my hopes up, so I drifted off to sleep. When I woke up at 6:30 am, the contractions had changed to 8 minutes apart and within 30 minutes, changed to 6 minutes apart. I woke Gwith up and asked for some breakfast as I continued to time my contractions. As I sat there waiting for pancakes, I started to feel like these contractions were different than others I had recently experienced. I could just sense it. I took three bites of the pancake, realized I couldn’t eat anymore, and then gave the rest to our son, who had been eyeing them since the moment they were cooked. By 8 am, my contractions were 4 minutes apart and I told Gwith that I was in labor and we needed to go to the hospital. His first response was, “Okay. I’m just going to take a quick shower and then we’ll go.” I stopped him in his tracks and told him there wasn’t time and we had to leave. I think he was remembering my first pregnancy where we sat and watched TV for a few hours before heading to the hospital during my early labor! Instead of showering, he called my dad who rushes over to be with our son Bailey. When he arrived, we said our goodbyes and Bailey kissed and cuddled my belly before Gwith and I headed to the hospital.

At 8:45 we arrived at check in and I was relieved that I didn’t have to take a Covid test as I had been told, only a temperature check at the lobby. I also didn’t have to wear a mask while in labor. The hospital itself was seemingly empty apart from staff and honestly made for a peaceful arrival. In many ways, it was nice not to arrive to the usual frantic atmosphere of people whisking by.

After checking in and arriving in my room, they confirmed I was in labor with my contractions still 4 minutes apart. I was between 2-3 centimeters dilated and 90% effaced. I was thrilled to then find out that my doctor, who had been on maternity leave until the day before, was on rotation that day! My doctor was there to comfort me when I found out I miscarried and did my D&C in 2019, helping me through the toughest time in my life. As nice as the other doctors at the practice are, I couldn’t imagine any other doctor delivering our rainbow baby. I kept saying that I felt our daughter was waiting until she would be back…and it turns out I was right!

Over the next few hours, I continued to contract but my dilation did not change. As the contractions became increasingly painful, I decided to get the epidural. When our son was born, I had an epidural and was given another pain medication before it that made me so loopy, I honestly remember very little about giving birth to him. This time, I opted only for the epidural and while it didn’t work quite as well as last time, I am very happy I remember every moment of our daughter’s birth (all the way down to that the Friends Las Vegas episodes were playing on TBS throughout my labor!).

Because I wasn’t dilating further after hours of lying there, the nurses gave me pitocin to progress my labor and a peanut ball to position between my legs. Within 30 minutes, I had dilated from 3 cm to 8 cm. At this point, the epidural was starting to wear off on my right side, while my left stayed numb. I could feel the pain and burning as she tried to push her way out with each contraction and at this point, the contractions were coming in rapidly…a little too rapidly! Our daughter’s oxygen levels dropped for a moment so the nurses gave me a dose of another medication to slow my labor temporarily and let our daughter relax. The room was filled with the medical team, as they made sure everything was going smoothly. As soon as I received the medicine, our daughter was doing great again and everything was on track…and the medical team was watching Friends with me while we waited for my contractions to gradually increase.

Once my contractions began again, I tried pushing but because I remained 95% effaced, I had to be rotated back and forth with the peanut ball to try to help my body reach 100% effacement. I continuously felt the urge to push and the nurse helped me through. When my doctor arrived back in the room, I pushed and she used the Kiwi Vacuum to help our daughter the rest of the way. At 4:13pm, after nearly two hours since pushing began, we welcomed our baby girl into the world. There is nothing more magical than that moment after where your baby is placed on your chest. That’s one of the few moments I do remember when giving birth to our son too.

I held our little girl for a while and we FaceTimed my parents and our son. The first thing our son said when he saw his sister was “I love you Jazzy”…then he inquired about why Mommy was naked (covered with the blanket of course!). Gotta love 4.5 year olds and their questions! Afterwards, we headed to our recovery room. My left leg remained very numb until close to 9pm, when it finally wore off and I was able to walk around a little. With a 2nd degree tear and stitches, I was expecting the same painful postpartum recovery that I experienced with our son, but I have so far been pleasantly surprised! With Bailey, I couldn’t sit for two months without crying from pain, and my dislocated tailbone, which made sitting painful even after my stitches healed, took well over a year to feel better. This time, I’m 3 days postpartum and I can already sit pretty comfortably and move around. Besides an incredibly sore upper body from the 2 hour workout I had pushing, I’m feeling pretty good and am excited that my recovery is going so smoothly this time around.

It was an unusual experience to be at the hospital without family and friends being able to visit, but at the same time, I think the peace and quiet was very helpful for my recovery. We had ample time to spend and bond with our newborn daughter and I could focus on resting as much as possible.

We arrived home yesterday and my heart couldn’t possibly feel any fuller than it does right now. We had told my parents that my husband would pick our son up and bring him home so we could have family time before everyone met the baby. On the short drive home from the hospital though, I decided I couldn’t wait and wanted to surprise everyone. We showed up at my parents house, and my mom, who was in the midst of shaving her legs, answered the door, with shaving cream still dripping down her half shaved leg. I couldn’t have asked for a better video to surprise her! She was so excited and I don’t think she even finished or wiped off the shaving cream for the next thirty minutes as we introduced Jasmine to everyone. After she got her initial cuddles at the door, Gwith and I walked in the house and he went down the hall first to see our son. When he told Bailey the news that we were all there, Bailey squealed with excitement, and started jumping up and down. The moment he saw his baby sister, his face filled with more joy and love than I knew was humanely possible. I have never in my life seen him so mesmerized and blissful. The two of them meeting was hands down the greatest moment of my entire life, thus far. He eagerly asked to hold her and we sat on the couch, and I gently put her in his arms. He turned to me and asked me if he could kiss her and give her a Daniel Tiger “Ugga-mugga kiss”, and continued to ask me a string of questions about holding her, how to walk with her, and more. He stared at her with love as he held her in his arms for the very first time. Afterwards, we surprised my dad who was busy on one of his many Covid-19 conference calls. He never lets anyone interrupt when he’s on these calls but when we walked in with his new granddaughter, his face lit up with joy. In that moment, I think he forgot he even had a conference call in the background, as he held her in his arms and walked out of the room with all of us, leaving his phone call behind. We all spent time together in the family room for a while and when it was time to feed Jasmine, Bailey rushed to make sure he could help.

After arriving back to our house later, we set Jasmine down in the pack n’ play for her nap, and I asked Bailey if he wanted to watch a movie with me. He responded that it had to be a baby movie that Jasmine would like too. He picked “Sleeping Beauty” which I found incredibly ironic because our little girl already loves her sleep! When Bailey was born, he was always so alert from day one and watching everything. Jasmine, on the other hand, barely ever opens her eyes! I think I’ve managed to get one picture with her eyes opened because she’s always just drifting straight back to sleep. Even when she wakes up hungry or for a diaper change, she’ll let out a cry but before we can even get up, she’s already drifted back off to sleep. Instead of sitting on the couch to watch the movie, Bailey pulled a chair up beside the pack n’ play so he could watch her at the same time. The moment she started making noise, he asked me if she was okay. As I told him she was hungry, before the words finished leaving my mouth, he was already off the chair, heading to the kitchen, and grabbing her bottle out of the refrigerator. He then followed me upstairs to learn where the burp clothes were kept in her room.

Last night, before his bedtime, the three of us sat on the couch together in what I can only describe as the most picture perfect moment.

We sat there as Jasmine cuddled in my arms while Bailey snuggled next to me, with his hand gently rubbing his baby sister’s head. I looked at him, and he smiled at me and said, “I love you” to me and Jazzy. He gave her a kiss and leaned his head against my arm, as he smiled blissfully, and his eyes remained filled with wonderment.

There are no actual pictures of course, but that moment will forever be framed in my mind.