Samara's Birth Story

Perhaps this is a dream… Tonight we lit candles and had a sip of Champagne, our little Samara cuddled up among her three favorite blankets and on the Boppy pillow, by our side. We toasted our family, finally all together, and the beauty of it all. Words cannot express our current state of gratitude and bliss. We arrived home last night after the most tremendous journey and here begins our forever. For a moment, before I forget all that brought us to here, I must write it down, but it is so hard to remove myself from the magic of now. How amazing that from now on, the greatest, most special moment will always be where we are together. There is no looking back, no loneliness, no need. We are simply us. This may take some time, and will surely never do this beginning justice, but here I begin…

On Wednesday the 18^th we had a 10am appointment with Fernie. We decided to combine the trip across the city with several other pressing bank and immigration errands, seeing that Steve had been given the day off to deal with such things. It was a sunny day and crossing city block after block, I was eager to walk this baby into labor! Little did I know… Fernie checked again for dilation and effacement and found 0cm but a totally thinned cervix. He also said Junior’s head was unbelievably low, as he was able to touch it, and he shocked us into elation when he said that he expected Baby would be born that day or the next! Not caring if I got my hopes up again and then no delivery, I was ecstatic! He said to give him a call around 1 or 2 to tell him how I was doing. Seriously?! That soon? It was very hard to believe. We left the office with no hiccups in our giddy-ups and visited a few more of our morning’s destinations. Steve wanted to take me out to lunch, but suddenly I yearned to go home and so we got a taxi and arrived back around 1:15. I was about to fix us something for lunch when suddenly pain struck. Still unsure what a contraction was, despite the fact Fernie said some of my pains had been those, I didn’t know if it was all the walking, hunger or trouble, but within minutes, I was breathing like a choo-choo train and huddled over the toilet or holding myself up against the wall. Assuming this was it, Steve began to take notes on the time and length of my pains and his manner grew a little more unsettled as he noted the intervals were of only 2-3 minutes. He said he wanted to call Fernie, but I thought we were supposed to wait for an hour to pass. By 2:15, the pain was almost all-consuming. My breathing was poor, my concentration askew, and Steve made the call. Fernie said to come in right away. Tears filled my eyes and suddenly nerves hit. The pain was so intense that I couldn’t believe the day we had waited so long for had arrived. Bless my husband for reminding me of that. I wanted to clean the apartment, change the sheets, dry my hair since I’d had a shower to try to ease the aches, look for more things to pack, finish the laundry, but unable to adequately move and reason, Steve told me we had to go. He laughs at me for cleaning when I’m nervous, but this time it was a little too much for him. Throwing random cables and bottles into the case, Steve called the elevator and I achingly walked to the street. The guard helped with the case and Steve helped me along. The sun was shining, the taxi was there, I was in ghastly gym clothes with ratty hair and no idea of what I was supposed to be doing, yet everything was coming together, the beginning of my giving up control, I suppose. Our taxi driver rubbed his hands together and said he hoped the baby would be born in the taxi for good luck. Haha, so funny. As it turned out, some bad traffic made the 20 minute journey a 45 minute one, but thankfully the driver seemingly changed his mind as he became more aggressive and even scored us a police pass at the end as he signaled to the fat lady in the car with urgency! Appropriately, we then arrived at “Urgencias” and a momentary calm came over me as they took my vital signs and sent me to be monitored. We were here. Baby was coming. It was happening so fast! The doctor on call checked me very roughly for dilation and I was only a centimeter, but his ungentle touch kick started the contractions all over again, even more intensely, and from that point on there was no relief. They hooked me up to an IV and said that Fernando had ordered me some Oxytocin to regulate my contractions and assist the dilation process. By the time they wheeled me to our hospital room in my gown, I was gasping for air, trying hard not to moan uncontrollably with the pain and Steve recorded my contractions as being 45-70 seconds apart. He was so good. He remained calm as I went into convulsions on the bed, he urged me to breathe and look at him as my gaze became blurred and my ears began to ring. I know it was hard for him to see me like that, and I was astounded at how difficult it was for me too. He was my husband, my coach, my reminder of everything we had dreamed of. To me, he’s the hero of this story. Minutes turned to hours. My water broke by itself around 5pm. It was a crazy sensation, filling the bed with warmth, completely beyond my control, but fortunately it was clear. At that point, Fernie mandated them to remove the Oxytocin and he actually apologized to us for having ordered it. He said he’d had no idea I’d progress so rapidly and the Oxytocin had made my contractions totally uncontrollable, following each other incessantly while I was not able to push yet. They were non-stop now, the pain was excruciating and my body was racing against itself. Finally, around 7pm I was 5cm dilated and they told me I could have an epidural. Now, many women make birth plans. We didn’t, one, because we don’t live in a country where this is done, but two because we knew that the person of number one importance on this day was not me, but baby. Sure, my dream was to have a vaginal birth, no episiotomy, no use of forceps or a vacuum and perhaps no epidural either, but Steve was under specific instructions to allow anything to be done, if that’s what was needed. It turns out that disposition was very necessary, as much as it, even now, still causes me a little shudder of heartache. At our hospital, the epidurals are done in the surgically sterile area, so no husbands are allowed. I was wheeled away from Steve, the first of three hard times we were separated that evening, and though it sent a rush of fear and anxiety through my body, to be honest, the pain was so great that if that’s what I had to do, it was definitely okay. On the way down to the procedure, my contractions became even more rupturing and in the elevator with the nurse attendant, my convulsions grew stronger and I was only partially aware of where we were heading. Once arrived, they turned me onto my left side, facing a wall. It took nearly 30 minutes for the anesthesiologist to arrive, as there were many other women in labor that night too, but again, I was lost in time. I tried so hard to breathe through each one that hit, sometimes achieving a small sense of control, but mostly I just lay there, shaking, sweating and imagining the beautiful end. I was nervous, because of my convulsions, that the anesthesiologist would miss the critical point by my spine, but he seemed a competent, kindly man and within 2 minutes of his arrival, he began his careful work. I wasn’t aware that an epidural takes 10-15 minutes to administer. He warned me of burning and pressure, but I hardly felt it as the pain in my front was far more significant. Once he finished, Steve and Fernando came to me. Initially, the contractions remained the same, and I think they were both disappointed to find me still convulsing and sweating to the point that I was now sitting in two pools of fluid, but as Steve took my hand and kissed my head, the pain began to ease. I was so happy to see him, to have him near, and we finally could soak up a moment of this adventure and remember what it was all about. I remember how joyful I felt all of a sudden and how peaceful, even despite some pain still remaining, I turned. They reconnected the monitoring machine to measure baby’s heartbeat and the nurse attending to me was gentle and quick. Gazing into my husband’s eyes, I almost missed the moment her care turned from standard to concerned, but as she moved the monitor around my bump, we realized something was very wrong. The rhythmic, soothing and heavenly beating of our little one’s heart, that we’d heard so often, so graciously, suddenly stopped. She felt all over, waited for the contraction to pass, but nothing. I couldn’t understand how my long-awaited relief had crashed and shattered in just a couple of minutes. She called Fernando who performed an emergency and hasty but hopeful internal exam and within 30 seconds he looked Steve and me in the eyes and said, in his very heartfelt way, without a hint of doubt or hesitance, “We have to operate right now.” I wanted so much not to believe that that meant what I thought it did, but we knew it and there was not a second to think. With a great lump in my throat but not a doubt in my mind that this was right, my hand was pulled from Steve’s as I was rushed into the operating room. Steve says now he was so proud of how brave I was. For months of my pregnancy we’d prayed to raise the low-lying placenta to avoid this procedure, and every weekday night at 7pm, I’d closed my eyes when our graphic delivery program showed a Cesarean in all its glory. As I faded from his sight, he said he saw my heart fluttering and my throat gulp, but this was no time for tears. As I was moved from one bed to another and overwhelmed by the fast and furious preparations for the surgery, I didn’t think for a second about the incision, the bleeding, the scariness of it all. My peace and strength came entirely from God who filled my mind with thoughts of beauty and hope and tied me to Steve who I knew was praying as hard as me just feet away, sadly out of sight. A C-section is an experience. I know not what a normal delivery is, though I have dreamed of its poignancy and miracle for so long, but I was not robbed of my miracle that Wednesday evening at 7:54pm. The anesthesiologist was back and assured me I’d feel everything, but have minimal pain, and he was right. The pulling and pushing and cutting were so intense, surely different than if I’d been in control, but still a sign that our baby was about to be born. Despite my state of being entirely in prayer, my arms outstretched to either side and my eyes covered with a green sheet, I was there for the beginning of our little one’s life, and even now, days after, it moves me to uncontrollable emotion. The moment the little body left mine, I felt the hope of nine months and a lifetime come crashing together and though I didn’t hear a cry, as I’d always envisioned, the knowledge that our Junior was out and going to be taken care of fueled my prayers and peace even more. The cord had been wrapped twice around her neck and so it took a long minute or two for the doctors to free her, but when they did, and I heard the little cry, tears of insurmountable joy rolled down my cheeks. Though Steve wasn’t there, and we still hadn’t met our baby, I knew he could hear it too, where he was, and our family had their first moment together. For the next few minutes, I waited and imagined without any pain or care of the procedure and instruments surrounding me, the doctors doing their clean-up work. I was pushed and prodded and stitched some more, but I didn’t ask whether it was a boy or a girl because I wanted Steve and I to hear it together. Once I was closed up, like magic, the two people I most adore entered the room together, from different sides. Steve was stopped by Fernando, as our baby made it quickly to my side, and as the nurse holding this incredible little bundle told me that our little one was ‘hermosísima’ and ‘perfecta’. I shouted to Steve to come, he in scrubs, and he took our baby into his arms. I exclaimed with all my heart, “Baby, she’s SO beautiful!” We had a daughter and just as we had always expected would be true, now she was all that mattered. Yes, we’d been apart. Sure, there’d been such pain. Gosh, there was so much we hadn’t anticipated. Wow, they’d be a lot of recovery ahead. But God, thank God, our baby girl was here and perfect and in her Daddy’s arms and life could begin again. For all that we hadn’t known about that day, I know now that I will never ever forget a moment of it.

After a couple of minutes together and a few stolen kisses, I was taken to the recovery room where I annoyed the nurses every 2 minutes asking if I could leave. I couldn’t believe it when they said I had to stay there for two hours. It seemed unbearable and unnatural to be lying away when my two babies were somewhere else. She said when I could lift my legs and butt, I could go, and so I did, within 5 minutes, and every five minutes thereafter, but the sneaky nurse didn’t keep her word. The left half of my face had paralyzed after the C-section and I had a severe chase of the shakes, and they said they had to watch me. It was so hard being there, but eventually I summoned up the selfless patience I had needed to face not just this day, but much of the last nine months, and waited for my moment. Next to me lay a fair-headed woman whose eyes fluttered up and down but whose expression looked forlorn, and I thought of her story and listened as another baby was born next door. His mother was wheeled in too, and though curtains were pulled between us and each of us knew nothing about the other, there was a strength between us and it felt like an honor to have to wait among these other lucky June 18^th mothers. I didn’t close my eyes for a second, and oh how my heart soared when I heard the nurse call on the phone for someone to take me to the room. They brought my little baby girl to me and placed her on top of my legs and together, at last, we were wheeled up to her Daddy and that was the beginning of our togetherness, forever. I was numb from the waist down, one of my eyes could not fully open, but I have never felt so deeply or seen such beauty. Nothing mattered at all now that we were all in the same room. Poor Steve, who had been calling around the hospital trying to get answers, had been waiting all alone for two hours. Typically, all that was on TV in our trusty Latin American clinic was the Colombia-Ecuador soccer game, so as that filled the silence of the room, he wrote Samara and me a love letter. Now, as the nurses moved me into my hospital bed, he held his daughter and our magic began. She was starving, after her long and difficult journey and waiting for her mama to be released, so immediately I started to feed her and it was the most perfect feeling ever. The nurses helped me position her well and make sure her little nose could breathe as she absorbed all the minerals in the Colostrum I had been making for her, and like that we passed the night. She didn’t leave my arms, or my breast for that matter, and while the nurses interrupted every few hours to check our vitals, the three of us were in our own world, no longer part of Colombia, nor dreaming of family in Boston, but in this heaven-sent space made only for us.

The next day, despite warnings, the magic did not wear off. Samara was treated to a bath by the nurses, some visits from the pediatrician, her first 3 vaccinations, a couple of poopy diapers, a lot of feedings, and wishes from family and friends around the world. My anesthetic wore off, and while I was encouraged to shower and walk a little by the nurses, the pain did hit hard. I knew little about recovery, nothing about post-Cesarean trials, about the bleeding and soreness, but what was the point of learning all about that when we had a little girl to discover? That second night was harder as Samara had a bad reaction to her shots, but by 1am, she settled down to sleep in my bed and slept well until 4:30. Feeding turned painful as already I was chapped and bleeding, and I worried she was not getting enough, seemingly always wanting more, but I did my best, as all new mothers do, hoping it would be enough for this angel. The next morning, the doctor visited and found Samara to be somewhat yellow in color, but otherwise perfect. They took a blood test and said they’d return later with the results. Watching your baby being pricked and prodded is so difficult, I must admit. Even watching her get her first footprints taken for the registry was hard, if sweet. You look at this perfect little being that you made with the perfect person you chose to spend forever with, and you wonder how on earth she could ever me made to shed a tear.

That afternoon, around 4:00, the doctor returned and said that Samara’s bilirubin levels were very high and that she would have to spend 3-5 days in the NICU under lights. She explained how the NICU had 4 visiting hours and how we’d be going home, but could visit her during those specific times. I burst into tears. Day 3 after birth is usually a tearful one, but what followed were hours and hours of gut-wrenching loneliness and raw emotion. I knew she’d be okay, and I knew that jaundice is rarely a great worry, but I couldn’t bear her not being with us and the thought of going home without her broke my heart. All of that said, she was taken away and maybe it was pathetic, and surely it was also a lot of hormones racing through my body again, but I cried and cried to the point where I could hardly see anymore. Steve tried to console me, but he missed her so much also and as 6pm rolled in with such anticipation, our first visiting hour, it took all the courage and strength I had to go to her, knowing that they’d just as soon send me away. Arriving at her little side, we tried to laugh at our beach babe, soaking up the rays in her diaper, with little sunglasses on to protect her eyes. She was so warm and calm, that we couldn’t despair. But the tears kept rolling down my cheeks because I wanted her home so much. Other parents arrived, also promptly at 6:00, and then I saw the lady who’d seemed so sad the other night at recovery walk over to the incubator holding a little girl hardly bigger than my hand. Born weighing 2lbs at just under 30 weeks, that was Zara, her daughter, and she caught my eye and came to see me. How foolish I felt to be the one with tears streaming across my face. Suddenly I looked around the whole room and felt all of it in a new way. The will and prayers coming from the other sets of parents was so tangible and I was humbled, again to tears, for the miracle and hope in that room. There was nothing I could do to stop the emotion, but I held the hand of Zara’s mother, then returned all my concentration to Samara, knowing that the miracle of life that had carried our babies this far, would not let our girls down.

That night, as I sat fighting back the tears on the phone to my mother, too many miles away, I began to get some pain in my chest. When I got off of the phone, a little research revealed that my milk, the real stuff, was now coming in and I had a severe case of engorgement in which any soft tissue turns to seeming sandbags and little lumps like rocks accumulate. It is shocking and painful! Since they’d taken Samara away, I hadn’t been able to feed her as much and now my body, too, was in withdrawal. My mother said I should ask for a pump, so that at least she could have the milk, even if we couldn’t see her. I did that and they managed to find one very old, manual pump that I had to work out. While I did figure it out, it was absolutely the most horrific experience and ended up doing much more bad than good. One of the nurses saw me suffering and her heart went out to us. She said the only remedy was for Samara to breastfeed. So, at 11:00, when the NICU has been shut for 4 hours to visitors, the whole hospital was beginning to sleep, I was wheel-chaired into see my baby and feed her. Every two hours, for the rest of the night, I woke up and was taken into see her and feed her. I suppose it was a case of help me help you, as she needed the milk and I needed to get it out, but we all knew that far more severe than any sand and rocks up high was the bruise on my heart from having her taken from my arms. Though exhausted and sore, that night gave me countless precious moments with my daughter in which I could tell her of our secret love and promise her my whole life. I knew that she was in good hands and I was proud of her for not crying as much as her Mummy. Steve and I decided that we’ll have to buy some video games as she seemed so calmed by the beeping of all the machines. She also seemed to love the fact that she and Zara were the only girls in a room full of little Colombian men.

The night turned to day and during our second visit that morning, they told us Samara could go home that afternoon! We were absolutely jubilant! We packed up our hospital room where we had been allowed to stay that night thanks to Fernie’s heart going out to us, and anxiously awaited Samara’s release from the bright lights downstairs. I was nervous to see Zara and her mom one last time, realizing how very blessed we were, knowing that they had two months ahead of them of these infrequent and trying visits, but we did, we hugged and I know she will long be in our prayers. We dressed our little one for her first journey out into the world and called a taxi to do the honors. It poured and poured as we packed up the car with our priceless cargo, but the skies cleared as we made it home. It is only our first homecoming as really we look forward to going back to everyone in July, but it meant the world to me, to us. Up the elevator and into our little apartment, the adventure was over, but really, we smile, it is only just beginning…