by 
When we made the decision to try for baby #2, I was reminded by of a quote from a Dawson’s Creek episode (Forgive me, but teeny-bopper Kate still lives on in this 28 year old body).
“That first kiss, it’s the passionate one. It’s the one filled by desire and attraction and all of that, but the second kiss is rational. You’ve got time to worry and over-analyze. Most women… they prefer that first kiss, but I’m partial to the second one, because it’s about something more.”
The same could be said about making the decision to have a second child. The dreamy and picture-perfect vision you once had about what life would be like with a baby is long gone and the hard truth of reality plagues your thoughts. Before you have your first baby, you think you have an idea of what to expect; sleepless nights, crying, poopy diapers, and weekend nights spent at home. With your second baby, you know what to expect; pure and utter exhaustion, hours of relentless tears, frequent outfit changes for both baby and you due to numerous puking/pooping/peeing catastrophes, and a new loneliness for realizing other friends just don’t understand what you are going though.
But you also know, it is completely worth it.
You no longer worry about how you are going to take care of an infant, but instead, if there is enough love in your heart to love another child as much as you love the first. With baby #2, your dreams, hopes, expectations and fears are vastly different.
During my pregnancy with Charlotte, I tried, really tried, to enjoy every moment of being pregnant. But the fact of matter is, pregnancy does not suit me. I whine too much, my feet swell up too big, and finding maternity pants with a 37 inch inseam is damn near impossible. By the eighth month I was ready, really ready, to meet this baby. I tried next to everything to induce labor. Literally. Spicy food. Sex. Jumping jacks. Breast pump. Good God, just get this baby out of me.
I remember one night in particular when my nesting was in full-swing and I decided that some manual labor around the house just might be what I needed to get this baby moving. Nesting, the urge pregnant women have to prepare their home for the upcoming arrival of their newborn, was something I didn’t experience with Lily. But with my second pregnancy, my nesting was intense. I once called my mom and before she could say ‘hello,’ I blurted out “I feel like I can’t stop. It’s like spring cleaning, but on steroids!” Ever read the children’s book, “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie?” In my case, my story would have been, “If You Give Pregnant Kate a Candle.” The story would go something like this…
If you give pregnant Kate a candle, she will clear off a windowsill to place it upon.
If she clears off the kitchen windowsill, she will notice the window needs to be washed.
If she washes the kitchen window, she will need to clean the remainder of the windows in the home.
Once the windows are clean, she will realize that the clean windows make the floors look dingy.
As she pulls out the vacuum, she will decide she needs to dust the furniture and ceiling fans before running the vacuum.
Once dusted, she will start to vacuum and decide that the crumbs under the couch cushions should also be vacuumed.
When she removes the cushions, she will decide to unfold the pull-out bed and wash the sheets and mattress.
As she loads the washing machine, she will notice the spider web along the top edge of the door way trim. She will retrieve the vacuum and begin vacuuming the door frame until she notices that the vacuum needs to be emptied.
When she empties the vacuum, she will decide that the vacuum would clean more efficiently if it too was cleaned.
Her husband will find her sitting on the floor of the laundry room scrubbing the vacuum, the washing machine full of forgotten bed sheets and couch cushions strewn about the living room floor.
He will then suggest she light her new candle to help her de-stress…
Much to my dismay, my late night nesting tirade didn’t induce labor, but I was confident that my house was prepared for the arrival of our new baby, and it slightly decreased my anxiety.
On January 26th, I went for my routine doctors appointment, hopeful for good news, progress from my last appointment, and ready to beg and plead for my OB to strip my membranes and get the baby moving. I should preface the rest of this story by saying that I was far from pleased with my OB at this point. After Marty had been laid off and our health insurance ended, I was put on Medicaid and given an OB in my area. Up until this point, he hadn’t done anything wrong, but there was something about him that I wasn’t thrilled about. On this particular day, he gave me a reason not to like him.
As I sat in the cold room, covered in a thin paper gown, I ran through my ‘please-oh-please-strip-my-membranes’ speech in my head. He entered the room, shook my hand, flipped open my chart as he swiveled on his doctor’s stool and cheerfully asked, “So, you’re having a baby boy soon. When is he going to be here?”
My face fell. We didn’t want to know what the gender of our baby. We had decided that we had wanted to be surprised at the moment he/she was born and had adamantly stated that we were not to be told our baby’s gender.
“I don’t know. I didn’t want to know what we are having.”
Our doctor tried to cover his blunder. “Uh. Me neither. I don’t know what you are having. So…. let’s see how far you have progressed since last week, shall we?”
But the damage was done.
The rest of the appointment is a blur. I remember fighting back tears as he told me that I was still 2cm and 0% effaced (the same as I was last week), that he didn’t want to strip my membranes quite yet, and we would schedule an induction date for one week from that date in the event that I didn’t go into labor on my own. He proceeded to say, “I have a conference I am presenting at tomorrow morning and I will be out of town this weekend, so if you go into labor during those days, I will not be the one to deliver him. So, if you could go into labor on Monday that would be best for me.”
I wish I could say I made a snarky comment in retaliation, that I laughed in his face and asked if he was freakin’ serious, but I was so stunned by the absurdity of the entire visit, that I simply nodded and willed him to leave the room so I could get dressed.
I called a few people on my way home and blurted out, “he told me what we are having!” I nervously laughed through my tears as I tried to wrap my mind around the fact that soon, very soon, we would be meeting our son. While I was excited to be having a boy, I was fixated on the fact that the element of surprise was stolen from me. In my opinion, there are a limited number of true life-changing surprises in life and that moment when you meet your baby for the first time and hear those three magical words, “It’s a ____” is one that I want to experience. I opted not to tell Marty what gender the OB had revealed, but he knew that I knew. I spent the afternoon with my amazing friend Cassielynn, who was pregnant herself, understood my frustration both with my ruined surprise and the fact that I was still very much pregnant. Having been friends since we were in elementary school, Cass is one of those one-in-a-million friends who has known you at every stage in your life, who you can tell anything to and know in your heart that she isn’t going to judge you. She took pity on me as I showed up on her doorstep, whiny, tear-stained, and ready to bitch. She listened to me complain, cursed my OB and offered to call his office and give him a piece of her mind (she would have too), and then as any good friend would do, she turned my attention from the ruined surprise to the fact that soon, I would be holding my baby. As she hugged me goodbye she told me, “I hope the next time I see you is when I come to visit you and that little boy in the hospital.”
As I left Cassielynn’s home, I wasn’t quiet ready to go home. I wandered around Wal-mart, picking up some last minute toiletries for my hospital bag and perused the baby boy section, smiling to myself as I imagined Marty’s reaction when he would finally realize, we had a son. As I walked, I clutched my stomach as the cramping, that I had been having since December, began again. Once home, I expected the pain to fade away, but several times an hour the cramping would gradually intensify, just enough to the point where I would stop what I was doing and think “naw, it couldn’t be. Could it?”
Marty had offered to help our neighbor with a household project and left me to put Lily to bed alone. As we prepared for bed, we snuggled on the couch, her little body melting into my side. Her hand on my tummy, waiting for a kick from her little sibling, she picked her head up, pointed to my belly and said, “No baby, no.” I smiled to myself and snuggled her pajamaed body closer to mine. My baby wasn’t quite ready to share her mommy. It was as if she knew what was to come and she needed one more night alone with her mommy. Her little sibling kindly obliged and the contractions subsided allowing some quality cuddles, bedtime stories, and “I love you’s” as I tucked her into bed. Looking back, I desperately wish I knew at that moment that that would be the last time I kissed her goodnight as my only child. But that is the tragic beauty of ‘last times,‘ you never know when they occur.
When the house was quiet and I settled into my groove on the couch, the cramping began again. At that point I decided enough was enough. Tonight, we would go to the hospital, I wouldn’t worry about being sent home for a false alarm, this had gone on long enough. I texted Marty and asked him to come home… but to bring Coney Island home with him. If I was going into labor, this momma needed a large Hani and fries for fuel. As I devoured my dinner, I called my mom and asked her to come sit at the house with Lily. Within twenty minutes, my mom was at the door, duffle bag in hand, ready to batten down the hatches and wait for news that it was time.
As we walked into the hospital, we were stopped by the security guard and asked, “What are you hear for?” I giggled and said, “Umm. I’m in labor. I think.” As he kindly lead us through the maze of hospital hallways to the elevator he asked, “First baby huh?”
“Nope. Second. I just never know when I’m in labor or not. But I’m really hoping I’m in labor and not just constipated.”
He stopped asking questions after that.
But he was kind enough to wish us ‘good luck’ as we exited the elevator and approached the Labor and Delivery desk. I remember sitting at the desk as the nurse checked me in, the nursing staff eyeing me from their positions around the desk. I could feel their burning stares and I swear I could read their minds, “Check out the preggo who thinks she is in labor. She doesn’t even look like she is in pain. She probably just needs to use the bathroom. We’ll be sending her home soon enough.”
But, I was in labor. Slow labor, but labor nonetheless. Marty and I actually snickered to ourselves when we saw Dr. Redding walk by our room. He was planning on heading home for the night, but instead he would be staying at the hospital to deliver our baby. (Serves him right for the afternoon he put me through).
Anxious to get this baby moving (and likely trying to get me out of his life), Dr. Redding decided to break my water to help speed up the process. If I was surprised by the amount of amniotic fluid that was present when my water broke with Lily, I was down right shocked when my water was broken with Charlotte. It did not stop. I kept laughing, rather hysterically, as my doctor repeatedly thought it was over, only to exclaim “Nurse, another towel please” (another four or five times). Marty smiled his “Karma’s a bitch, dude” smile and I laughed a little more. I had expected the contractions to worsen immediately after having my water broken and nearly requested to have an anesthesiologist on hand just-in-case, but the pain was tolerable and I was comfortable. Our doctor decided to try to catch a few Z’s while we waited for labor to progress as we made a few phone calls and texts to let friends and family know, it was only a matter of time. Within an hour my dad and little brother were at the hospital, Mountain Dew in hand, ready to camp out in the room until the big moment arrived.
I wore my beautiful lime green feather boa, explaining to our nurses that it was given to me by Zack to take the attention away from my “fat stomach.” Zack thoroughly enjoyed watching the monitors as my contractions slowly gained speed and grew in intensity.
“Here comes another one. Ooh, that looks like it might be a big one. Yup, it’s getting bigger. Whoa, your stomach looks like a wrecking ball!”
Marty kept asking, “are you ready for the epidural yet? You had it with Lily by this point.” I assured him I was fine but as the contractions picked up speed I finally decided “Let’s call the anesthesiologist. I’m tapping out.” Little did I know, the lab was slammed that night and my CBC still hadn’t been completed. Without assessing my platelet count, I wasn’t able to get the epidural I so desperately wanted. Two hours later, the man, who I thought would be my saving grace, announced he had arrived to perform the epidural. Zack and my dad made their was to the waiting room, promising to return in thirty minutes when I was pain-free.
Unlike my first labor experience, Marty was asked to leave the room as my epidural was placed. Hospital protocol. Marty was non-complaint to say the least. As much as I wanted him with me, I needed the pain to stop, and begged him to leave so the man could do his job. By this point, the pain was excruciating. I had the epidural placed and pleaded with Rae (our nurse) to make the pain stop. She carefully brushed the hair out of my face, held my hand and promised the pain would be gone soon.
She was wrong.
By the time Marty came walking into the room fifteen minutes later, I was lying flat with a surgical hair mask on my head, an oxygen cannula in my nose and I was writhing in pain. Pure panic settled on my husband’s face. “What’s wrong?!”
“It isn’t working! Why isn’t it working? I can still feel it! Why the hell can I still feel it?! On my left side. It’s in my back too. Make it stop. Make it stop!”
The next hour was a blur. Rae ran around the room, trying everything to make me comfortable, repeatedly telling me that the epidural would take affect soon, but had the anesthesiologist paged again…just in case. Marty tried his hardest to be supportive, tried holding my hand… but I wasThe anesthesiologist returned to my room, and tried to adjust my meds a few times, each time tell me that my pain would subside shortly. It didn’t. My brother tried wandering back into the room, thinking I was pain-free and ready for more “Smile-this-is-going-on-facebook” photo ops. Poor kid heard me crying down the hall and knew that was his signal to return back to the waiting room.
The pain was indescribable. It was a pain unlike any other and I desperately wanted it to stop. Before I knew it, the intense pressure and overwhelming instinct to push overcame me. The anesthesiologist, who still remained behind me, tinkering with my failed epidural, insisted I was not yet dilated to ten centimeters and suggested the nurse empty my bladder to relieve pressure. Lo-and-behold, I was dilated to ten. This baby was coming, ready or not. Pain meds or not.
As Dr. Redding and his crew of OB/GYN residents trickled into the room, a sudden wave of calmness and thank-the-Lord relief swept over me. The epidural had finally took effect. I couldn’t feel anything. No pain, no pressure.
Nothing.
For a brief second, I was relieved. My pain was gone and my baby was almost in my arms. The room buzzed with orders and commands as residents prepped the room, placed my legs in the foot rests (no longer called ‘stirrups’) and prepared me to push.
“Ok Kate. Time to push. 1,2,3… GO!”
“Um. I’m sorry. Push? With what?! As far as I’m concerned I’ve been amputated below my waist.This damn epidural is finally working and now I can’t feel a damn thing! How the hell am I supposed to push?!”
But I tried. I glanced at the clock on the wall. 6:30am. Damn, I was tired, but I had to try. Good Lord did I try. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the muscles that would bring my baby boy into the world. Apparently it wasn’t working though.
“Ok Kate, whatever you are doing with your facial muscles, that isn’t going to get this baby out.”
If I could have kicked him, I probably would have. Instead I focused on listening to my husband’s voice and not letting my leg fall off the table onto the OB resident…again. I stared at the clock on the wall, focusing on the second hand as I pushed.
Throughout my entire pregnancy with Charlotte, I worried 234087 times more than I did with Lillian. I had several friends who had experienced loss, in the way of miscarriage, Trisomy 18, and still born births, that I was convinced something would happen to my baby. How could I escape pain in two pregnancies? How could I be that lucky again? Several times during my labor I would begin to panic, “I’m not ready for this, so much could go wrong.” The What-If’s began to swarm my brain. I knew the joys that a new baby would bring, but I also knew the amount of worry and fear that would accompany the intense love. In those last few minutes I begged God to please, keep her inside for just a few minutes longer. I promised I would never complain about being pregnant again, that I would suffer the fat ankles, heartburn, and lack of sleep if he would just keep her inside a little while longer. There she was safe.
At 6:40am the resident, who kindly held my right leg, grabbed my hand, “Look! It’s your baby!”
I will never forget that moment. I glanced down (something I swore I would never do) and saw my baby’s face for the first time. In that instant, my heart doubled in size. I never thought I would be able to love another human being as much as I loved Lillian Paige, but I was wrong. I was head over heels in love.
At 6:41 my baby was born. I was a mommy of two. As i felt the tiny body being placed on my chest I heard Marty say, “A girl. We have another girl!”
“WHAT?! Um, no. We are supposed to be having a boy!”
My mind was in a fog. Did he really just say we had another girl? What happened to the son I had been planning on having today? I had packed the blue outfit, not the pink one! We don’t have a middle name for a girl! This was supposed to be Alexander, not Charlotte. What happened to Alexander? Where is my baby boy?
I hate to say that some of my first thoughts moments after my daughter was born was of complete confusion and disarray, but it’s the truth. Although I had only bonded with my “son” for twelve hours, I had bonded nonetheless. It was sad to let go of the idea of having a boy, the idea of my husband having a son. But her beautiful brown eyes locked on mine and I was smitten. I had another daughter and I couldn’t have been happier.
Charlotte Renee made her way into the world in the only way now that I see as fitting, fighting tooth and nail, with as much of a hoopla as possible. Nope, she was not going to make this easy on me. She was going to make me work for it, and work I did. The day Charlotte was born I was determined to absorb every last detail of her birth day. To soak up every sight, smell, and sound because I knew just how fleeting that time would be. I knew how quickly the time would go not only in the hospital, but once we got home. I wanted to remember everything. A few of the details may have escaped my memory, but I will never forget how I felt when I first laid eyes on Charlotte Renee.
I was in love.
Again.
