Welcome Freya

On July 8, 2020, I gave birth to the perfect baby girl 💛💖. World, meet Freya. She is gorgeous and precious, and she already has the sweetest personality.

I’ve been debating on whether or not I wanted to post a “birth story” on here. Nothing went according to plan, from the moment I went into labor until the moment this little bundle of joy was placed into my arms. You know what they say about plans though: you make a plan, and God laughs.

I didn’t have a birth plan when I went to the hospital. I had zero intentions of making a plan. My plan was to show up and trust my doctors. I’d had a lot of conversations about what delivery was going to look like, and I trusted the doctors and nurses who were supposed to be delivering me. I was also happy that the doctors had suggested inducing me one week before my daughter was due. I’m the kind of person who likes to have a plan so I can be prepared for whatever is to come. (My hospital bag had been packed for three months in preparation for going into labor.) The only thing I was “100 percent” about was that I wanted to have a traditional, vaginal birth.

Naturally, it seemed my water broke on the sixth (we went to labor and delivery promptly, and were sent home because it wasn’t time yet), and at 5:30 AM on the seventh I woke up having contractions.

That was when it started. The hospital I was supposed to deliver at was full, so I was sent to the hospital downtown, forty minutes from where we live.

After they finished monitoring me and affirmed that my water had in fact broken, I was taken back to my room. I spent 29 hours having contractions and I still wasn’t dilated. The first nurse that I had was extremely rude. She wouldn’t answer any of my questions and just kept making fun of me for struggling with the pains. When she couldn’t get Freya to stay on the monitor (Freya was difficult to keep on a monitor the entire pregnancy), she made a decision (without informing me) to monitor the baby vaginally. (This wasn’t something I’d had done at any point during the pregnancy, and she ended up scaring me.) She ran to get the doctor because I started to cry, and my husband promptly had her replaced.

The rest of my experience during labor wasn’t much better. My first epidural fell out, and I kept trying to tell the nurses I was in pain, but they wouldn’t do anything for me. The anesthesiologist came to administer pain medication but didn’t realize my line had fallen out, and it took begging to get the nurses to make him come back. I had a second line put in and the doctor gave me some very strong something that made me completely numb and allowed me to sleep. I woke up in the morning with the pain rapidly returning. I was much quicker to tell the nurses this time, and the anesthesiologist came back, but all we succeeded in doing was making my right leg go numb. I kept trying to tell the nurses and the anesthesiologist that the pain meds weren’t working and I wanted more, but they didn’t believe me, and just kept telling me “the pain wasn’t going to go away completely.” (I know this, but the drugs weren’t touching any of the organs they were supposed to – just my right leg, which I couldn’t feel from the thigh down.)

Around nine o’ clock the doctor had come in to tell me that if I didn’t finish dilating by the afternoon that I was going to have a C-section (even though the nurses had measured me at six inches the night before, i was swollen and being measured at three inches.) So when the drugs weren’t working and no one would help me I told the nurses I either wanted more drugs or a C-section. One of the nurses argued with me, telling me they don’t do C-sections just for pain, and that I’d have to deal with it.

Graciously, immediately after she left, the doctor (who was the only good person on my team in labor and delivery) rushed in to tell me that at this point, if I wanted a C-section, I could absolutely have one, explaining the surgery. (The nurse who told me no looked irritated, her expression leading me to believe her pride had been wounded. I thanked her for talking to the doctor and she scoffed at me.)

And so fast forward about an hour (and one more encounter with the anesthesiologist, who accused me of lying to him about the numbing agents he was giving me not working because I stopped writhing when they had my legs strapped down), I was holding little Freya in my arms.

My experience with labor and delivery at that hospital was a nightmare, but my God I’d still do it all over again. This beautiful little girl was worth all of it. I’m obsessed. I’m in love. I’m grateful that she’s ours. She is absolutely perfect 💖.

And, to the hospital’s credit, the nurses up in recovery were AMAZING. They were helpful, competent, and overall good people. (I had a nurse named Melissa for two of my three days in recovery, and she was amazing). And I had an opportunity to talk to the charge nurse about what had happened in labor and delivery, when she approached me to ask about my experience.

C-sections, I have now learned, are no joke. They are a major surgery. I was awake for the whole thing, and it lasted about fifteen minutes. They have to cut through a lot to get through the uterine wall though, so it’s a huge toll on the body. I was comfortable for a day and a half and then the pain meds wore off. Overall though, I’m really glad I ended up having a C-section – despite the fact I was so adamant about not having one in the months leading up to Freya’s birth. If my husband and I decide to have another baby down the road, I will be asking for a c-section from the beginning.

We’ve been home for over a week now. Freya is a healthy, wonderful little girl. I’m glued to our living room recliner, binge watching Gilmore Girls and Disney+ (I’m watching Pinocchio with Freya in my lap this morning), and taking care of our little one. We basically have a temporary nursery downstairs so we can limit my stair usage to once a day. I am just mobile enough for bottles and diapers. My husband has been taking care of everything else around the house, driving us to appointments, and has taken up residence on the couch so he can take care of us. I’m recovering well and on schedule. My pain has already subsided considerably, although it’ll be several weeks yet until I’m back on my feet (full-recovery is around six weeks.)

I’m so grateful for my little family and I feel so blessed to have this little girl💖. She’s everything we hoped for and more, and I know she’s destined to do great things.

Alexandra

“Let her sleep, for when she wakes, she will move mountains.”

💖💛