September 26, 2013

Dear, sweet, tiny Ace, son of T-Bone and Dangermonkey, September 26, 2013, is your birthdate.

I'm writing to you six days afterward, giving myself some time to get to know you, to smell you, to marvel at you, and also to figure out how to collect my thoughts on the whirlwind of events that finally brought you into my arms.

I want to give you the whole story of your birthday. And to do that, I think, it's best to break it down into two parts: The Facts and The Truth.

And so, with that in mind, here are The Facts.

The last week of your gestation we all became very seriously focused on natural means of inducing you into the world. Because I developed gestational diabetes, we were considered "high risk," and no one on our medical team would entertain the possibility of letting you go past your due date (which, for the record, was September 27, 2013).

And so, your dad and I became very serious about getting you ready to be born. We did a bunch of walking, eating lots of spicy foods, I had rounds and rounds of evening primrose (applied both upstairs and downstairs), birth preparation acupuncture, prenatal yoga, another inducement method which is probably inappropriate to discuss with you, and a small handful of sessions with the midwife spent sweeping my membranes. For the record, having membranes swept, while I'll spare you the details of what exactly that entails (so as not to conjure up unpleasant images of your mom in a situation you'd rather not imagine), is highly uncomfortable in its best variations and is mostly an incredibly painful procedure.

Every step of the way, I was encouraged that we were almost there, surely this step would be the final one to jostle you into action. But, alas, you had other ideas. A final natural method was considered: castor oil milkshake. Almost always guaranteed to produce contractions. The downside, if the cervix isn't ready,is that it can produce a hard, long labor. However, on Wednesday, the 25th, you'd shown no interest in budging, and one way or another you'd be born by Friday. It was our hope that you'd come around naturally, and we could avoid nasty chemical inducement measures that would rush the process.

Your dad and I had practiced hypnobirthing. We had our binder full of mediations and affirmations. We were calm and rational. We were not worried. We were confident that we could bring you into the world naturally in a calm and easy manner if we just visualized that as truth, and followed the practices we'd learned. In your father's defense, I suspect he was really just humoring me, but he did so with a straight face and honest intentions.

We agreed in a last ditch effort to coax you out as naturally as possible to give the castor oil regimen a try. Immediately following our Wednesday appointment, we went home (that is, your Grammy, who came for your birth, and I - your dad went to work that day, as it was pretty obvious you weren't in the mood to be birthed just yet), and I downed my first castor oil milkshake, which consisted of castor oil, sugar free vanilla ice cream, and almond milk. It tasted like a liquid vanilla scented Yankee candle, and resulted in an afternoon of stomach cramps, diarrhea, and erratic contractions. Nothing more.

Per midwife instructions, Thursday morning, in the wee hours of the 26th of September, I woke up and prepared my second castor oil milkshake and went back to bed. At 7:00 am I woke up with more stomach cramps and diarrhea. It passed quickly and I felt the onset of moderate contractions.

But by 10 am something changed. I very quickly went from having contractions every ten to fifteen minutes, to having contractions like clockwork every two minutes. Hard, painful (which is a word I use regretfully because it's part of a discouraged vocabulary in the hypnobirthing technique), frightening (again, see previous parenthetical) contractions. By 11:30 my water had broken. By noon, I couldn't stop the urge to push. By 12:30, we were in route to hospital. By 1 pm we had arrived and were being hooked up to monitors. I was vaguely aware that I was dripping blood everywhere. By 1:30, the midwife had determined that I was 5cm dilated and also that there was a problem with your heart rate during contractions. She said that there anesthesiologist was available should we want to discuss an epidural, something that I was adamantly against, in theory, before labor began. The quickness with which the intensity of labor elevated made me realize I had no choice: I wouldn't make it much longer in this state. I said yes, bring the anesthesiologist in to see us. He came, he quickly confirmed my consent to an epidural, and I scrawled my name on papers stating the same.

Somewhere in the blur of this, I became aware that there were many, many people in the room with us. Your Grammy, your dad, the midwife, of course, the anesthesiologist, and still others. The midwife was concerned. Your dad says she looked nervous. Many arms were folded. Brows furrowed. The obstetric surgeon was being called in to consult.

He arrived and was briefed about your dropping heart rate. We all listened silently and confirmed the frightening crawl of heartbeat beeps on the fetal monitor during each contraction.

Grammy and your dad were asked to leave, and after a long, frustrating trial and error process, the epidural was inserted, all left in the room discussed optimistically that with the epidural easing the intensity of the contractions, that your heartbeat would stabilize.

Grammy and your dad returned. The OB agreed to listen through three more contractions in order to determine our next course of action. It became clear that there was another issue at play because your heartbeat wasn't stabilizing.

Quickly, it was determined that you were coming forth via Caesarian, and you were coming very soon. Suddenly all bodies sprang into action, there was running and shouting and by 3pm we were in surgery. By 3:15, you were born.

Your dad was there, in scrubs. My arms were tied to planks, in a mock crucifixion pose.

From the other side of the blue sheet, we heard updates. Head not in position. Cord wrapped around shoulder. And then quiet, imagined drumroll, and the doctor saying, "He's looking right at me," as he lifted you out.

You didn't cry. Your dad and I were only sure that you'd been born when the time was called out and congratulations were given. Then we heard your sweet little chirps as you talked to the room, introducing yourself politely around, as a opposed to shrieking your arrival.

They cleaned you as they stitched me up. The conversation in the room became casual and easy. The doctor and a nurse discussed a television show they like. The anesthesiologist asked me about the meaning of some of my tattoos.

Are you ready to meet him? they asked us. We said yes. We looked at each other, your dad and I, smiling, laughing, crying, nervous, happy, terrified. They put you in your dad's arms and I craned my neck to watch as you stared deep in his eyes and softly chatted to him. We looked at each other, T-Bone and I, and discussed whether the name we hoped would be yours was actually right. We looked at your face and we agreed it was. Your dad asked me if I would tell you your name. I looked at you, my arms still lashed in an outstretched cross, and I asked you if that's who you wanted to be. You chirped to me and looked in my eyes. Somewhere in all of this, my arms were freed and quickly filled by you.

And with that, we affirmed our familyness to each other.

And then there's The Truth.

"As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know."
- Donald Rumsfeld

For example, an unknown unknown would be that I would someday quote Donald Rumsfeld - in any context - in a letter to my newborn son.

While I think Mr. Rumsfeld's assertions as they related to the Middle East were dubious, he was onto something in regards to the transition into parenthood.

As I carried you in my body for ten months, I felt calm, centered, beautiful, and powerful. Having you felt right. You holding onto me from the inside made me feel like a better person. A person with clarity and empathy. That's something I knew and still know to be Truth.

Even as your due date loomed closer, I didn't panic. I felt calm. I felt ready for you and whatever curves were to be thrown at me in bringing you into the world. Part of the reason I felt so confident was that I focused on believing the meditation of how your birth would play out. It gave me peace and helped me overcome any anxiety about labor. And ultimately, it proved to be of zero use to me during labor and delivery. But still, what it was unable to provide on the Actual Day, the practice more than made up for in the days and hours leading up to and following your birth. And, ultimately, that's more of a gift.

The day of your birth was the happiest, most terrifying, longest and shortest day of my life. I lived the events of the day aware of but detached from the urgency surrounding them.

Before going into labor, I was vainly obsessed with the notion of bodily fluids and privates on display. But the intensity of sensation during labor shut off any part of my brain that chose to obsess over superficial stuff. They could have asked me to strip at the waist in the lobby of the hospital, and I would've passively complied. I felt lobotomized, my thoughts drawn completely inward, all physical energy conserved for you and the task at hand.

All of the intellectualizing, philosophizing, and theorizing about birth and pain and control jumped into the backseat as an ancient, primal instinct sunk into the driver's seat.

Here's the big known unknown: Much like love, marriage, and death, the transition into parenthood has a quality that is wholly inarticulatable. People try to express from beyond the threshold to the uninitiated what the experience is like, but the truth of it is not in words. Any words are tiny arrows shot in the direction of The Truth of what it feels like, but these arrows will never hit the target. They can only ever hope to get close.

Your birth was mostly a blur that existed in a state of both hyper speed and slow motion. It was a breath and a decade. And then you were here.

And I was terrified throughout it, for very physical reasons, for your safety and my own, but also for another reason.

If I'm completely honest - and that is my intention - I waited for all of my pregnancy to feel it. To feel the switch flip, the light go on, the engine engage, the whatever to whatever, that would bond me to you and make me feel like a mother.

And it never did. And I waited.

And on the day of your birth, under everything else, there was a dread that I never would. When would you be a person to me? When would I be a mother? When would the love come in? Is there something broken in me that is keeping that from happening?

But The Truth is this. When I saw your face, your tiny perfect face, I knew something deeper and more honest than I had ever hoped to feel. Yours is the face I've waited my whole life to see. I didn't know it, couldn't imagine it, but when I saw it, it was the revelation of the ultimate unknown unknown. I wasn't preparing to be a mother, I was preparing to be your mother. And I couldn't do that without you here to show me the way. You were my unknown unknown.

Every time I'm separated from you, from the first moment I saw you, I can't think of anything but you. I hope you're okay. I wonder what you're thinking, hope that you're thinking of me. Imagine your smile, fear for your safety. These feelings have the weight and intensity of a thousand teenage girl crushes. And even then, that doesn't do my yearning for you justice.

I love you in waves that crash and rock inside me. A love that's bigger than my need for sleep or food or personal hygiene.

I couldn't have conjured you, and I'm thankful now that I didn't try to. I couldn't have dreamed up anything as good as you. I'm amazed and awed that you were built in a laboratory in my body, using tools I didn't know I had. I can't believe my body could bring something so perfect into being.

You are the person I didn't know I'd been waiting all my life to meet. You're my Truth. You're my Ace.