Falling in Love at the First Sound of Cries

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“In this way, every birth is a natural birth: each of us is a part of nature, not separate from it, and nature is always stunning in its variety. Your birth, then, is part of the natural world, however it unfolds.”

Lauralyn Curtis

It started as a regular Tuesday until it was time for the checkups that had become weekly after 36 weeks. At that appointment, my blood pressure was slightly elevated, and the minute the doctor began talking about induction, my blood pressure increased. In my head, induction leads to C-section, which I was trying to avoid. It is not necessarily the C-section aspect but the induction aspect. If the baby isn’t ready, the chances of inductions failing are all the more common; we can’t rush nature. 

At 37 weeks, my blood pressure was still higher than it should’ve been. I imagine more from the anxiety of what had been told to me the previous week, but I was sent to the hospital to be monitored anyway. “Make sure you have your hospital bag,” the doctor told me. “You could be having this baby today.” 

I was dumbfounded. Though I knew I had to deliver the baby at some point, I didn’t imagine it would be this early. Talk about birth being unpredictable. I wasn’t ready. And the baby wasn’t ready. Though we had everything we needed in the nursery, it wasn’t organized. And I had planned to nap after the appointment, not pack my hospital bag to be monitored at the hospital just in case. I couldn’t help but feel like I was in a daze. 

At the hospital, they hooked me up to machines to monitor the baby and my blood pressure simultaneously. I was in the maternity ward triage, so other pregnant women behind the curtains were also observed. There I sat for hours as my blood pressure went up and down, too inconsistent for their liking, so by evening, they decided that I would be induced. 

As the doctor spoke to me about the next steps, l felt like I was living my life in a slow-motion blur. I don’t think I could hear anything she said except when she told my husband that he could go out and get me food before we started the process. 

After being transferred to labor and delivery, I met the fantastic nurses monitoring me. To give me time to eat before the induction process would start at midnight. I had two hours before my life completely changed, I thought. 

True to their word, a medicine was placed on my cervix at midnight that would start dilation. After twelve hours, if it didn’t work, different medication would be placed on my cervix, which ultimately ended up happening. Only 1cm dilated, the second medication was set again. My body was not taking the medicines, so they opted to put a water balloon on my cervix to induce dilation manually. 

The water balloon felt awful but got me to dilate to 5cm. Once it was out, I started progressing enough on my own for my water to break, but once a doctor came in with bad vibes, I began to stall. 

I didn’t like the energy she brought when she walked into the room, and I didn’t want her tone when she spoke to me. She said a lot about her comfort as though she were the one in labor. A cesarian became inevitable when there wasn’t much variability in the baby’s heart rate. 

As my husband geared up, I was brought to the OR that had been prepped for me. It was quite possibly the brightest room I’d ever been in. Everyone introduced themselves and seemed pretty lovely; however, deep down, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed that this was my birth plan’s path. 

But the disappointment was short-lived the instant I heard the baby’s cry. It was the most surreal, intensely beautiful moment of my life. Strapped to the operating table as my husband held my hand, I was overwhelmed with emotion as I heard him cry for the first time. For 37 weeks and four days, my body had grown him, and now here he was, in the flesh with the most beautifully vigorous (as the hospital described it 🤣) cry I’d ever heard; it was like music to my ears.  

As they dropped the curtain between us, I laid eyes on him. He was so big, yet so small. And so powerful with the way he let his presence known, as I imagined, annoyed at doctors for having disturbed him early. 

At that moment, the rest of my life began. I was now officially a mother to this beautiful baby boy. As they placed his little body on my cheek for skin-to-skin, I knew I’d never again be the same, and I was here for it. 

In giving birth to our babies, we may find that we give birth to new possibilities within ourselves.”

Myla Kabat-Zinn