Mostly Unfiltered Postpartum Reflections Part 1: Birth

BIG DISCLAIMER: Nothing in this post is medical or mental health advice or should be construed as such. This is just my personal experience. Postpartum is a crazy time and every person should stay in close contact with their medical providers during it.

I say “mostly” unfiltered because I am still a preacher’s daughter and I don’t want to shock too many people! This is the blog post I never saw when I was expecting, the post I didn’t even know I would need. So, my hope is to share a glimpse of my reality and, hopefully, show some mom’s out there they are not alone.

I have been planning this post since I found out we were expecting. But, like basically everything else with this pregnancy (and honestly life) it looks vastly different than I expected. I thought I would be posting a quirky, fun, heartwarming post about my perfect birth plan, natural delivery, and grace filled postpartum.

And, it is about my birth plan (that went out the window), my delivery (not natural at all), and my grace filled postpartum (but actually most of the grace has been poured out on me not me doing the pouring).

God has and is using this season to drive me deeper into Him and, while a few weeks ago I wondered if it was even possible, to renew my joy after a hard season.

Birth (it never goes according to plan):

When we found out we were expecting I did what any self respecting millennial would do: I turned to the internet to help me determine I wanted this to look like. I spent months flooding my brain with birth plans (on beautiful stationary), short videos of advice from instagram influencers, what to put in your hospital bag checklist, third trimester must dos, etc. (Only the internet could make something as stressful on your mind and body as third trimester and delivery look glamorous, easy, and affordable).

I landed on a desire for a natural, unmedicated birth. For months leading up to delivery I had read books on natural delivery, read blog post, even took an online class. I prepared Zach for what I believed would be an unmedicated/natural birth and was fully confident in my ability to say “no” to an epidural if it was offered.

I printed the check list from online, shopped to my hearts desire for just the right coming home outfit, nursing pajamas, and postpartum care products. I booked a carpet cleaners (obviously we needed the floors deep cleaned before the baby got here), packed the perfect hospital bag, and made list of all the things we needed to buy for the pantry, for the dog, for the nursery (there was never a time when I didn’t feel like we needed to buy something, thank you internet).

Well, your water breaking 5 weeks early at 2:00 in the morning and then 8 hours of no active labor will certainly change that tune.

I woke Zach up in a panic, “my water just broke” I told him my eyes wide. His response in a half awake state? “Maybe you just peed. See how you feel in a bit.” After a very loud “ZACH WE ARE HAVING A BABY” his brain finally clicked on and he was up in action. (I also find it very funny that my husband was very calm about the possibility that his wife had just massively peed the bed).

I had been nagging him for weeks to pack his hospital bag and it still was not done. On a whim I had picked up some extra snack food at the grocery store for him but that was it. He was rushing around throwing things into a bag (my bag was packed, thank you very much). I sat there petting our sweet dog thinking of all the things I hadn’t had time to do. This was not how it was supposed to be! I hadn’t even ordered my special pajamas yet!

Yes, about to bring a new life into the world all I could think about was new pajamas.

We arrived at the hospital and it became clear that my body was not going to jump start labor on it’s own so we had no choice but to start pitocin to see if we could get her moving. So we did, and it did.

But, I hadn’t prepared for pitocin, I hadn’t prepared for it’s intensity (I also didn’t know I already had an infection brewing because of the few hours of no labor). Another thing I hadn’t prepared for is that my body would cause me to throw up with every centimeter of dilation-thus beginning one of the longest 23 hours of my life. There went my idea of a fully natural delivery. I also began to wonder how/when people took those gorgeous pre-delivery photos because I was a sweating, throwing up, blubbering mess. The last thing I wanted was a snapshot of me and Zach.

Pro tip- crying because you are throwing up does not make throwing up easier. (Another thing I find funny is that I was so worried that Zach was seeing me throw up. It felt so gross. This seems hilarious now that I know EVERYTHING ELSE he would see that night but at the time it felt like a very legitimate concern).

Somewhere around hour 17 I was again offered an epidural. I cried because I wanted it but my pride kept saying no. After talking to an amazing nurse and my midwife, I agreed. I felt like such a failure in that moment-the instagram and pinterest women of the world would be so disappointed if they knew I had caved. But, at the same time, I had peace that this is the direction we should go. I could not have made this decision without having AMAZING partner in Zach who supported me. He didn’t try to sway me, he didn’t push me either way, he just reminded me how strong I was, how much he loved me, and how amazing it would once she was here no matter what.

If you ever have a baby get you a Zach, but not my Zach, he is taken.

So, epidural in, second part of the birth plan (no pain medicine) out.

Ultimately, I was so grateful for that decision (until it quit working at like hour 22 but that is a different story). It was a grueling next few hours which included her dislocating my pelvis, getting stuck in the birth canal, and scary heart rate levels had by all but, at 1:30 in the morning, exactly 23 hours after my water broke she was here.

After an evaluation by the NICU team they handed me this slimy, screaming, little bundle of joy. My heart exploded with a type of love I didn’t even know was possible, my body longed for sleep, my mind refused to work.

Surely from here things could/would go according to my plan?

LOL. No.

Because of the rough delivery, and her prematurity, she had some serious bilirubin (created by red blood cells-it causes jaundice) level issues. Immediately they had to put her under blue lights to try to help her liver process everything happening in her body.

I was looking at this precious little girl, kicking and screaming under this blue light, and again my heart started breaking, again I felt defeated.

I am sure she felt so alone and like she was floating in space after months in the womb, and there went my dream of hours of skin to skin, a shortened hospital stays, precious family pictures, and easy transitions.

We spent the next 6 days battling her bilirubin level, her inability to temperature regulate, her poor lung functions. We could only hold her briefly to feed her and change her then she had to go right back under the lights. On top of that I was in so much pain, more pain than I ever thought possible, from my delivery and it was all I could do to stay awake to pump.

I woke up one night, I think night 3, and I looked over to see Zach holding our little girl’s hand while she was shaking and screaming. He was singing some old country songs quietly so she would know she wasn’t alone (Kenny Roger’s “The Gambler” is an excellent lullaby). And I started weeping.

I felt so broken and empty both literally and figuratively.

We were supposed to be at home cuddling our little girl, introducing her to our dog, resting, relishing our time as a family. Not watching her cry out in a hospital room, not talking to doctors again and again over treatment plans, not fighting for clarity instead of cuddling as a family.

Broken because this was not how it was supposed to be.

Broken because she seemed so fragile. Broken because Zach and I hadn’t had a chance to do anything but survive for days. Broken because my body was torn and dislocated and leaking.

Empty because emotionally I couldn’t take it anymore.

Empty because I had nothing left to give. Empty because my tiny, constant companion whose kicks and rolls I had become intimately acquainted with was now in an incubator beside my bed instead of nestled safely inside of me.

On top of this no one also prepared me for what would/could happen to my body after delivery.

I was holding a tremendous amount of fluid with her and it immediately spread to the rest of my body. My legs and feet were so swollen I could not even get my yoga pants on (they were too tight around my legs-MY MATERNITY YOGA PANTS). My skin looked worse than when I went through puberty with acne everywhere. I was engorged from breast feeding/pumping and I was leaking as one does after having a baby (ok, ew). Forget the perfect going home outfit I wanted to wear Zach’s baggy man sweatpants, the biggest t-shirt I could find, and flip flops so my big, swollen feet weren’t being squished.

In this crazy state of disappointment, fear for my baby girl, anxiety, hormones, and frustration I had one of the most sincere encounters with Jesus I have ever had.

Late one night, as I again sat watching this little girl under the lights wishing I could reach out and hold her, I finally cried out, “This isn’t fair! You don’t understand what you have done to me.” Then, for the first time in weeks, there was quiet in my mind. I had said it, I had released it, I had laid it before God, I had given up my hopes for perfection.

In that quiet a peace washed over me, a realization, a voice. "I have been broken and emptied before, I have longed to reach out and hold my precious daughter and been told no, I have seen my perfect plans for this world be shattered.”

My breath caught in my chest. I wept silently to myself (actually not silently, I woke up Zach who was immediately on high alert thinking something was horribly wrong-also trying to explain to him I heard from God but not in like a “call the doctor Megan is losing it” kind of way but in a sincere faith way was interesting considering how hard I was crying but we got through it).

God did understand and in what I viewed as an irredeemable space He had redeemed.

Jesus knows what it was like to lay his body down, to give up his autonomy, to have himself be broken and crushed for those he loved. God knows what it was like to pursue me again and again while I wouldn’t let him in, all the while squirming and crying and feeling like I was all alone floating in the universe. God knows what it is like to have a perfect plan-one that will benefit everyone, a glorious garden with everything we could ever need, and have that plan shattered by the sin of the world.

He knows, more than I could ever know, grace and joy are not cheaply won.

So in my broken birth plan, in my imperfect delivery, in my exhausted swollen state the first inklings of joy fought for space in my heart again.

Grace poured out. A body poured out. Love poured out.

Turns out my imperfect birth ended up a perfectly flawed, a snapshot of grace.