And then Ashley’s birth story, for you over-achievers reading. . .
’Tis the season when I hop on the blog and write a first person account of what a lovely year it has been and how excited I am for the upcoming wedding season. And, to be honest, while I feel all of those things, do you know what else I feel?
Tired.
Amazed.
Braindead.
Impressed.
Drained.
Electrified.
It depends on the day, the hour, the millisecond when you ask me. Because 2021 has been the year to bring out ALL of the feelings in me. Just like I’ve learned from running a business over the years, birthing a child, much like birthing a company, is an emotional rollercoaster that is not meant to be ridden alone.
On the AGP front, I’ve never been more in awe of my amazing team and the work we have done together. Going from over a year of near complete social isolation and a mere handful of weddings to our busiest wedding season to date, concentrated in just a few short months was overwhelming and exhausting. . . But, the AGP family pulled out all the stops and made some real magic happen.
On the personal front, 2021 was a year that was literally nothing but firsts for me. If you know me, you know I simultaneously have:
- Never shied away from a challenge
~and~ - The world’s worst timing
So when combined, it makes perfect sense that I found myself due with our first baby right in the middle of this crazy year. By the time I shot my first wedding of the season on May 1, I was knocking on the door of the third trimester and the summer just got hotter from there.
(While I just got bigger and bigger.)
Baby Rhys shares my dry sense of humor and desire to be the boss, so he took all of my beautiful plans for skating through his birth/delivery and flipped them on their heads. He stuck around on the inside for over an extra week and refused to vacate the premises, so the cut him out at the eleventh hour.
(Literally, he was born at 11:10)
While I debated sharing my full birth story on what is essentially a wedding photography blog, I decided that it’s also MY blog and no one has to read it if they don’t want to. . . I’m putting the story at the bottom, after all of the pictures of what my 2021 looked like, from behind the scenes moments as a very pregnant wedding photographer to new mom/CEO life. Scroll to the bottom to read all the goods or just scroll through the photos to see just how hard it is to subtly creep around during a wedding ceremony at 39 weeks pregnant, how incredibly talented my friends at Elegance Artistry are (they did both my maternity & newborn photo looks), and exactly what happens when an exhausted new mom orders matching sweaters for a family photo but says “f*** it, let’s show our reality.”
(Yes, I did dress Rhys in a David Bowie onesie while I wore a Target sweatshirt for our family photos. Mike probably hasn’t combed his hair. This is our truth and I love it.)
So here is my/our AGP year in review post. . . A smattering of behind the scenes photos, the introduction of a new person to the crew, and the hobbled together life of a new mom/CEO.
My birth story.
I was very frustrated with the state of my pre-natal & maternity care. And I know that is a loaded statement, coming from someone who has incredibly thorough coverage and didn’t have to worry about the expense or access. I can’t imagine the stress and frustration of being without easily accessible health care through this stage of life. Motherhood has only cemented my belief that health care is a fundamental human right.
With our coverage, I didn’t have the option to change practices to find a doctor’s group more attuned to my preferences. Our options for maternity care were incredibly medicalized, while I was hoping for a more holistic experience. I wasn’t quite brave enough to walk away from medicine completely and go all in for a home birth, but I did hope to experience non-interventional childbirth.
So when it became clear that my practice wasn’t particularly interested in my individual perspectives on the birth experience, I brought in a privately hired birth doula, researched and practices hypno-birthing techniques, and even ordered a TENS machine that was specifically tailored towards birth so I’d have a non-medical pain intervention to try. I was as prepared for an unmedicated birth as I could be. . . all I had to do was wait for things to start!
About three weeks before Rhys was due, I had an inkling. I was convinced that we should change plan and opt for a planned primary c-section. I liked the idea of being able to go into the surgery well-rested and mentally prepared, being able to schedule around Mike’s incredibly limited (10 day) break from work, and capitalize on my sister’s ability to spend an additional support week with me before she’d have to go back to teaching from the summer break. When I approached this with my doctor, I was almost laughed out of the office. “NO one in this practice,” I was told, “would ever consider scheduling a major abdominal surgery for an otherwise completely healthy pregnancy.” It would be fine, she reassured me. I have had an incredibly textbook pregnancy, was still very physically active, and shouldn’t be worried about birth.
Rhys’s due date came and went. At my 39 week appointment, my doctor wanted to schedule an induction. I declined. She told me that it was NOT recommended to go past due date in women of advanced maternal age and that I’d have to do a non-stress test for the day after my due date if I didn’t agree to induction. All that means is that you sit and relax while they monitor the baby for a little while, which seemed preferable to trying to evict him at that moment. I agreed to the NST.
NST came and went. At forty weeks, six days, my doctor was adamant. There was no sign of Rhys joining us on the outside – I’d simply made his home a little too cozy on the inside. Induction was the buzzword and I was scheduled to go to the hospital.
I packed my bag with all the birthing room essentials – massage oil, a great playlist & speaker, fuzzy socks, my own hospital gown. And secret snacks. There was no way I was going to run a theoretical marathon without food. It was a good thing that I did, too, because at the hospital, I was put on a liquid diet when I was adamant that I needed to eat.
Induction was a hard slog through the mud for me. And Rhys wasn’t a big fan either.
I was started on Cytotec as soon as I arrived and was checked in. This is a dissolving medication that you can be given every four hours for up to 6 doses. When I was initially dosed, they told me I had to be attached to the monitors to make sure everything went well. Within minutes of taking the medication, two nurses rushed into my room, escorted me to the bed, and started to prep an IV and oxygen.
My body was responding to the meds in a hyper stimulated way – contracting almost non-stop at a low level, but not giving Rhys the little breaks in between contractions to recover. His heart rate was dropping enough to require continuous monitoring. They delayed my second dose until the first one faded out, almost twice as long as the usual time between doses. He reacted the same way to the second dose.
By this point, I was almost 10 hours into the induced labor, which had been feeling like the worst period cramps pretty much non-stop, only to find out that nothing had changed since I arrived at the hospital. We were no closer to having a baby than I would have been if I had just stayed home and had a bubble bath.
The doctors switched shifts and a new doctor introduced herself. She recommended that we abandon the medical induction since Rhys didn’t respond well to the Cytotec. We were going “old school” with the introduction of a foley bulb. We were going to blow up my cervix with a balloon and hope that would stimulate labor to kick in the rest of the way on its own.
Spoiler alert. It didn’t.
Instead, it was just an incredibly uncomfortable experience that triggered me to get sick in both directions from the pain. 0 out of 10. Do not recommend. I could be more descriptive here, but suffice it to say that husband also would not recommend after being the recipient of my upset stomach. I guess this is why they don’t let you have snacks.
(I’m still glad I had my snacks.)
Most foley bulbs will fall out on their own, but they have to be removed after 12 hours. Around hour 8, the doctor suggested we add just a tiny little half dose of Pitocin to trigger contractions. Layered on top of the balloon, this would probably kick things into gear. They turned on the Pitocin. And with it came the discomfort. But not the baby.
We reached the twelve hour mark and a different doctor came in to remove the balloon. This was one I had met before at the office and generally liked, felt he listened to me more than the others, and I was hopeful that maybe Rhys would make an appearance during his call. He discovered that the balloon had made progress. I was a little more than halfway dilated, I was having somewhat regular contractions, and I was trucking along.
It was at this point when he suggested breaking my waters (amniotomy). I was feeling a little bit procedured out, so I asked for an hour to consider where things were and see if things might pick up on their own. I consulted with my doula, who had been supporting me over the phone up to this point in time. We agreed that she would make her way to the hospital and if nothing changed before 11pm, I would allow the doctor to do the amniotomy.
Nothing changed. (Are you starting to sense a trend?). Here we were almost 30 hours into an induction. I still haven’t taken any medication (aside from one Tylenol on Monday evening for a little headache) and I haven’t had an epidural. I was focused on my goal and I wanted my unmedicated birth experience.
Amniotomy is not a comfortable procedure either. Although far worse than the procedure itself was the INSTANT and AGGRESSIVELY painful contractions that immediately kicked into gear. . . it was closing in on midnight of day 2. I was tired and uncomfortable. And this was the beginning of the truly hard part of my labor.
For the next six hours, Mike held my hand. Lindsay, my doula, alternated between throwing blankets on me and putting cold compresses on me. I lost my ability to use complete sentences, aside from one. “DON’T TOUCH ME,” which I barked at my unfortunate nurse over and over as she’d have to adjust the monitors every time I moved. (Sorry, Celeste, I owe you a lot more than a thank you goodie bag.)
And I moved a lot. We moved the bed flat, I laid down. We moved the bed upright so I could sit in throne position. I gingerly padded to the bathroom while gripping onto Mike. I attempted to bounce on the birthing ball for no more than ten seconds before abandoning that idea. There was no getting comfortable, only finding the temporary position of least discomfort. And that was always fleeting.
Mike was managing to sit upright on a doctor’s stool with his forehead on the bed and his arm held up holding my hand. . . while sleeping. I swear that he dozed off in between contractions and for some reason I felt bad for him. Me, in the most pain I’ve ever experienced, still managed to feel bad for him. Women, amirite?
Even I would drift off for little 30 second clips of lucid dreaming, although I never really managed sleep. At this point, I’d been awake almost continuously since 7am Monday morning when I’d gotten up at my regularly scheduled time to start my last day as a party of two. Or so I thought. Almost 48 hours awake, and we hadn’t even gotten to the pushing part yet.
Still unmedicated, by the way. I had made it this far. I was convinced that Rhys had to be on his way by now, right?
Just kidding. Almost nothing changed. Not only was Rhys holding on comfortably to the inside as ever, but he was continuing to show late stage decelerations with my contractions, which was some cause for concern. It was suggested that my physical duress could be impacting him. I stalled out around 8 cm and by 6am, I had given up.
Give me the epidural. Wave the white flag. Get the ****ing kid outta me.
Anesthesia came in and gave me the epidural.
WHY THE F DID I WAIT SO LONG?
Simple. If I had a more traditional labor, I would have made it. But I was just too exhausted. If nothing else, the epidural would give me a chance to close my eyes and rest until the pushing began.
New shift. New doctor. I wish I remember her name. I hadn’t seen her in the office, but I liked her direct way of speaking and clear delineation of plans. Stop all interventions for two hours and just watch Rhys’s heart rate and give me a chance to rest. (Thank you!) If we came back in two hours and he was stabilized, we would try to restart Pitocin and get things moving along again. If he continued to show distress, it would be time to talk c-section.
Remember how I mentioned inquiring about a primary elective c-section with my doctor nearly a month prior? That was because my biggest fear was getting 90% of the way through labor, only to end up exhausted and in the OR.
Don’t worry. I never got more than 80% of the way there. . . but I was definitely exhausted and being prepped for the OR just a few hours later.
Once the decision for a c-section is made, there isn’t anymore diddling about, waiting to see what happens. Anesthesia comes back. (The shift changed and my new anesthesiologist was named Malcolm.) You’re put in a warming space suit thing. Your incision area is shaved. You get placed in a little hairnet hat.
Both Mike & Lindsay started packing my bags. Lindsay would only be allowed to take my things to my room in the mother & baby ward before being sent along the way. Mike would be allowed into the OR after I was full prepped and they were about to start the surgery. It didn’t matter that Mike was a surgeon with rights at the hospital, rules were rules.
Malcolm was my buddy until Mike made it into the OR. I’ve been lucky to have only two anesthesia experiences in my life and both of my anesthesiologists were personable. If it isn’t a pre-req, it should be. A friendly, calm person on drug duty helped keep me calm and happy.
And to be honest, once the decision was made for the c-section. I did feel calm & happy. We had a resolution. The epidural had knocked out the pain sensation. I was going to meet my new person soon.
The operation is quick. Before we knew it, there was a baby in the room that hadn’t been on the outside before. Mike & Rhys were escorted out of the OR and I was there to be sewn up. But wait! First there was a little complication – there was a possibility that my bladder had been nicked during the surgery, as there was unidentifiable blood in my urine. Fortunately, there were no unexpected incisions and I was patched back up, just a little slower than originally planned.
That slowness was too much for Rhys. He was hangry about being on the outside, so before I could even make it out of the OR, they had given Mike a bottle of formula to feed him. As I was being wheeled into the PACU, little man was already chomping down on his first 5ml of “real world food.” Oh, well.
I wasn’t allowed to hold him for the first hour in PACU because my body temperature wouldn’t regulate. Tiny babies are too dependent on outside warmth to maintain their temps, so until I was back up to normal, living human range, no baby holding. So I watched Mike hold him from across the room. So much for my golden hour
Have you ever been in a situation where you have to make three turns in one direction to end up going the opposite direction? Two wrongs don’t make a right, but three lefts do. . . That’s basically how I feel about my birth story.
I planned. I prepared. I did everything I possibly could, only to end up with the exact opposite of the experience I had hoped for. None of it was “right.” No unmedicated vaginal birth. No minimally medicalized labor. No golden hour skin to skin. No magical breastfeeding experience (which is a story for another day).
But you know what is exactly as planned? Our incredibly healthy, lovable little Rhys. I don’t have the energy to write you a novel about how awesome he has been as an addition to our home, but it’s true. He has a wry sense of baby humor, a penchant for poops & farts, and an infectious giggle. Maybe one day, I’ll continue the story, but for now, if you’ve read this far. . . I’m sending you all wishes for a happy new year filled with joyful baby laughter vibes.
The end. (Is just the beginning of the rest of our story.)
