January 7th, 2014

I should have known. I had been viciously craving fresh veggies, fruit, salad, & water like nobody’s business (what I craved majorly during my first pregnancy.) Looking back, I was also nesting that day. (Actually, I think I’ve just been in “nesting” mode the majority of my life as clutter makes me unreasonably nervous.) That day, I just HAD to refold every item of clothing in our hallway closet, or I couldn’t live with myself another second. While refolding my scarves, my hand touched something plastic towards the back of the drawer.  I pulled out an old pregnancy test. I smiled, congratulating myself on being so clever as to hide it amongst my winter gear, but not so clever as to throw it away. I laid the test on the floor beside me and continued to fold, raging a battle of will with myself. 

“Liza, why on earth would you take this test? There’s no way it could’ve happened this month. Are you even ready for this?” “Oh, just do it. Who cares? Might as well use up the test, then you won’t be tempted to take it another month.” 

Obviously we know which side won. 

I took the test, and was 99% sure it’d be negative- if I were to have conceived that cycle, I would’ve been not quite 4 weeks (incredibly early for a test to detect), it was mid-afternoon & I’d had a ton of water to drink (thus diluting my urine), and I just didn’t feel like it was going to happen then (I thought our wait would be longer.) So when I went back into the bathroom to check the results, and the screen read PREGNANT, my mouth physically dropped open and I sank to the floor. I sat completely still, probably in shock, for a good 10 minutes. I walked around the rest of the day in a dream-like state. I felt neither happy nor sad, I was simply in disbelief. 

I regret the way I told Zack. The first time I found out I was pregnant, I had to do some quick-thinking for a cutesy announcement because we were living in a hotel room. I wrapped the tests I had taken in toilet paper & fashioned a little bow. I told him it was an early anniversary present, and I set up my cell phone to record his reaction. I wish I had kept that video, because it was one of the sweetest moments we’ve ever had. This time around, I told him as we were walking out the door to church softball practice.  

“I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow,” I said casually, checking the lock on the door as we left the house. “Oh yeah? What for?” he asked. 

“I think I’m pregnant.” 

He just sort of stared at me for a second. “Huh?” and gave me a blank Zack face. I handed him the test I had taken the day before (that’s right, I was so in shock I was able to wait a full 24 hours before telling him.) 

“Woah.” 

It was the elephant in the room for a few days. Neither of us wanted to cross the line about the two pink lines. We were so guarded. We didn’t allow ourselves that mile-wide smile you get when you find out one of your biggest, most precious dreams is coming true. The doctor's office took an agonizing few days to get back to me with the results from my blood test. My hCG levels were somewhere in the thousands. 

“That’s good…right?” I asked the nurse on the phone, my entire body clammy and shaking.

“Yep! So we will go ahead & schedule your first ultrasound for June 7th, okay?” 

Then. Then we rejoiced. But (for me, anyway) always with trepidation.

Even with the first ultrasound, I didn’t let myself fully go. Some women speak of instantly falling in love when they hear that first heartbeat, of instantly feeling connected to that little being growing inside of them. I was amazed, floored, overwhelmed, and a million other adjectives when I saw the little jelly bean pop up in black & white on the screen and when I heard that whooshing heartbeat, but I didn’t let myself fall in love that day.

I’m not proud to say I chose fear, sadness, and worry the first half of my pregnancy. I didn’t celebrate the little life forming inside of me, and I didn’t connect with him. I couldn’t. When I fall in love, I fall so very hard, and I knew my heart couldn’t handle a loss like that. I am glad my body did a good job of physically providing for Finn, because I wasn’t there, like I should have been emotionally, for the first two trimesters. Once we rounded that third trimester and reached viability, I said, “Okay. Now you can let yourself be happy. You are going to have a baby boy. Open your heart. Let that sweet little boy inside.” And I did- but nothing, and I truly mean nothing, prepares you for actually meeting your child for the first time. You can talk to it, sing to it, dance with it, pray for it, write about it, and take a million pictures of your belly, but you just cannot fathom that first meeting. 

Which brings me to Finn’s birth day. 

We were sitting around the dinner table, enjoying a delicious meal that our roommate Branden’s fiancé Sarah had cooked. It was pineapple salsa chicken.  (The pineapple is note-worthy because I’d read that could induce labor, so I’d already eaten one whole pineapple and my sister-in-law Jessica & I were preparing to make pineapple smoothies that night.) I was laughing at something Branden said when I felt a warm gush. (Like you feel when you know you’ve started your period.) I went to the bathroom and saw liquid, but it wasn’t like it the movies. I actually just assumed I had peed my pants, which at that point in my pregnancy I wouldn’t put past me as I was pretty much a filthy mess. I felt another gush a few minutes later, and I called Zack upstairs. 

“I think maybe my water broke!” I hissed when he came into our room. 

“Where’s my dad shirt?!” he asked. 

“Uh, your what?”

“Don’t I have a shirt that says ‘Dad’ on it or something?”

“…no. No you do not. I am going to take a shower.” 

For someone who is pretty dramatic, I actually become calm in situations of great magnitude. I proceeded to shower and put on a little makeup. I think I even  put in some stud earrings. I was preparing to fix my hair when I realized I should probably call my doctor and let him in on what may or may not be happening. I called him, and in his thick French[?] accent he instructed me to immediately go to the hospital. No pretty hair for me. 

Jessica, Zack, & I piled into the car. It wasn’t like the movies- me moaning and raising up in my seat while Zack ran red lights and skidded on two tires into the hospital parking lot. It was starting to snow outside and I just kept thinking how pretty the night was. The inky sky, the swirling flakes beginning their dance, the barren streets- everything seemed to be holding its breath. Waiting, waiting for him. This was a good night to come into this world, I decided. 

We got checked in and I was assigned a room. “THIS IS HAPPENING,” my brain shrieked as the nurse slid a hospital bracelet around my wrist. Yet still, I was calm. I remember snippets of vivid detail- the streaks of pretty silver in my first nurse’s hair, the sting of the IV in my wrist (I swear, that was the most pain I was in! No lie.) and Zack’s anxious yawn that he does when he is nervous. I was only 4cm dilated when we checked in, around 9PM. The three of us watched Paranormal Witness on Zack’s laptop until we fell asleep. I was woken up the next morning by my doctor- I still hadn’t progressed past 4cm.

 

 “We need to get this baby out,” he said.

“Uh yeah, okay, I know,” I mumbled lamely. 

So around 8AM, they gave me Pitocin to induce labor. Until then, I was in no real pain. My contractions were cake, and I had prematurely congratulated myself on being able to do a natural birth. By 9AM, I was writhing in pain and all but begging for someone to administer an epidural stat, or throw me out the 3^rd floor window. Either or would have worked.  

I think it’s true what they say- you forget the pain. Although I did get that blessed epidural, the pain the Pitocin brought on and then the pushing was unreal. I’ve honestly forgotten the severity of it; I just remember it came in waves. Awful, all-consuming waves that roll over you, letting you surface for a breath, but not for long.

After I got the epidural, it was allllll good. I felt wonderful and was laughing at jokes, thinking “Pshht, I could give birth all day long if it felt like this.” But I was also getting increasingly nervous, as I knew it was getting close to game time and I was afraid of what my performance would be. It had been 17 hours since my water broke and up until that point, none of what was happening seemed real yet. 

On the 18^th hour, it got real.

Around noon my doctor came into the room and simply said, “Okay, it’s time to push.” My heart began to race. I found myself wishing I had more time, I was scared.  But more than that fear was the overwhelming desire to meet my little boy. I started pushing, and that was the only part of my labor that resembled a movie. I’m sure to anyone outside the room, it would have sounded as though an exorcism was being performed on some sort of creature. The noises coming from me were guttural, I hardly recognized myself. My legs kept coming out of the stirrups and I found my body rising up out of the bed with each push. Zack and my nurses were amazing cheerleaders, and without their encouragement I’d probably still be in that hospital bed pushing.

“You’re doing so good!”

“Come on! Almost there!” (That was said so many times I began to get annoyed because CLEARLY I WAS NOT ALMOST THERE AND THEY WERE ALL LIARS AND I HATED THEM.)

I could tell my doctor was getting frustrated (he’s a real gem, let me tell you), but I truly was pushing as hard as I could. I felt as though I was ripping apart, and at one point I just assumed they were going to have to do an emergency C-section because this baby was not coming out. 

Zack was incredible the entire time. Tirelessly cheering me on, yet backing off when he could sense my irritation. He swore he wasn’t going to look “down there” during the delivery, but ended up holding my feet and watching the whole razzle dazzle from a front row seat.  (Side note: he says he is very glad he did and that it was really special to watch Finn come into the world. I hope that is coming from a place of sincerity and not a rehearsed statement, traumatized from what he saw down in the trenches.) 

“Last push, come on. Let’s do this,” the doctor instructed firmly.  (After some business that I wasn’t even trying to see when I saw him take a pair of scissors down there.) 

At 12:34 PM I pushed with every ounce of everything in me, and he came. He came into this world with a scream that rattled my insides. He was purple and had a cone head and was perfection defined for me. They laid him on my bare chest and he got quiet, slowly blinking up at me with those little dark eyes that already held such wonderment. Oh I loved him. I loved him from that very second- with a fierceness and from a depth I didn't realize I had.

 

Why is there no combination of words to describe this moment? Childbirth has been done for thousands of years by billions of women, and yet words fail. But instead of words, I have the feeling, the experience. Infinitely better. 

I was in awe. I think there were other things going on- Zack cutting the cord, delivering the placenta, the doctor stitching me up- but in my world, there was only thing. One very tiny thing, that in a matter of seconds, had shrunk my world into 8 pounds and 4 ounces. 

I remember wondering, as I marveled at his perfect pink lips and tiniest button nose, how anyone could experience this and not believe in a higher power. My body had formed this miniature person over the past nine months, and he was finally a part of this world. To me, it was a miracle. A God-given miracle.

The nurses took Finn away to clean him up and do the tests. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him, or off of Zack. I watched as Finn’s impossibly small hand gripped Zack’s finger and their eyes met. I saw on Zack’s face a wonderment I’d never seen before, and I cried such tears of happiness and love and thanks. This was our son, the son we’d dreamed of and prayed for. He was here, he was healthy, and he was ours forever.

He made me a Mommy. Forever, with my whole heart, I will love this little one.