Birth Story for Baby #2

Wow, it’s been literally one year (December 17th exactly!) since I have posted here. I think blogs are dead? I don’t know, but since I don’t keep a journal I thought I needed to write this somewhere in order to be able to reference it and remember it always.

Wells Noah Richins. Also known (to anyone my son, Maddux, has introduced him to) as Baby Taco. See also: Tiny Taco, Mr. Wells and Cutest Baby in the Whole World (his nickname around our house… we may be biased, though). Born September 4th, 2020. Right in the heart of a pandemic and right when my heart needed him the most.

Oddly, he was due the exact same day as Maddux. September 5th! Maddi was born on the 1st, and I was convinced Wells would come before then. My whole pregnancy seemed a little dramatic because [that’s who I am as a person] of a pandemic, a particularly hot summer, a busy toddler and trying to figure out my doctor situation. Because of that, I wasn’t sure who was even going to deliver my baby until a couple of weeks before I was due. I was also convinced I would have him somewhere near the 36 week mark; when I was days away from being 40 weeks pregnant I was absolutely losing my mind. Thankfully, my husband often steps in and does things I would never feel confident doing. He texted my doctor and basically said… “yo, can we get this baby out asap?” even though we hadn’t discussed an induction date or anything. Thankfully my doctor basically said “sure, my kids are coming to visit this weekend and I’d like to not have to interrupt that to deliver this kid” 🤪 We set an appointment for the next day at 6 PM (which was two days before my due date).

Conveniently, we had a little family mishap the morning of my induction and I almost canceled it in order to help figure out that situation. Thankfully, it worked itself out and we were able to go in at our scheduled time. I enjoy being induced, frankly, because I like knowing I will FOR SURE be at the hospital with an epidural in time for the baby to make its way out 😂

Leaving the house to drop Maddi off with my parents and head to the hospital!

Once we were in the room and situated, they brought up something I had been fearing since March… “we need you to take a Covid test.” Heaven help me. Have you seen the video of the old man who keeps pulling away while taking a Covid test, the swab is basically stuck in his brain, he is whimpering, and the healthcare worker can barely get the test done? That was me. I tried my hardest to get out of it, but after chatting with my nurse, doctor and husband… I sucked it up. Andddddd it was as bad as I imagined - SORRY IF YOU HAVE TO GET ONE AFTER READING THIS - IT’S AWFUL.

Once that was over, my second worst fear came to fruition… my nurse couldn’t find a vein for my IV 🥺 after sticking me five times all over my hands, arms and wrist, she brought in someone else who still had to try twice????? I’m sorry… what? Thinking about it makes me shiver.

They started the “induction” process shortly thereafter. It started with Cervidil and, like with Maddux, that was all I needed to go in to labor. No Pitocin necessary! However, the process of starting the Cervidil this time was so much worse and more painful than the first time. I am not sure if I just had certain expectations or because of a problem they found later (I’ll touch back on this) but it was pretty awful. My poor nurse kept asking me to relax and I’m pretty sure I yelled at her that it was impossible to relax in the situation I was in. I am not myself when having a baby 😰

Once the contractions began, I asked my nurse about when the time would come for an epidural. She mentioned it’s typically around 4 cm or so. I told her probably 45 times that, in Massachusetts, they let me have it as soon as I was laboring. Not sure why she seemed so annoyed with me 🤔😝 I started to really struggle with my pain management, so she told me there was another painkiller I could take in the meantime. This drug was something they put in my IV. It helped, the pain was tolerable but still there. It put me in and out of consciousness and made me pretty loopy. I was highly aware that I was sweating buckets (literally beads and beads of sweat pouring down my face?) while on this stuff, but was also having strange dreams and out of body experiences. To be honest, I’d like to lay in a dark room and take it again while not in labor 🤪

When the medication started to wear off, I asked my nurse again about the epidural. She said she had to check me again, and THEN call the anesthesiologist who will have to COME IN FROM HOME.< Insert death-stare. > There had been a misunderstanding… I thought the previous painkiller was used in order to hold me over while I waited for all of that to happen. She thought I was simply going to suffer through until I hit 4 cm (I know that some people don’t even go to the hospital until well after 4 cm, okay… I told you my pain tolerance is non-existent and I don’t like to suffer needlessly 😂). I was talking through tears at this point, I accused her of wanting me to be in pain (you guys, laboring me is reallllllly not a person I like or am proud of), and begging her to just call the anesthesiologist without checking my progression. I have to say that - while I am a giant baby when it comes to pain - it was also VERYYYYYY painful for them to check my progression. So much worse than I remember with my first baby. So much so that I feel like I have PTSD from the checks and the insertion of the medication and still haven’t made my 6 week check-up appointment 3 1/2 months later. Sooooo… it wasn’t entirely that I was just being a pansy. There was something different about how much pain I was in this time.

Anyway, I finally convinced my nurse to call my doctor about getting the epidural ASAP. He approved, the guy was called, and within about an hour we were making the epidural happen. Friends, when I tell you this man had NO patience with me, I am not exaggerating. I was trying my best to “RELAXXXXX!” (everyone’s favorite word at the hospital when they aren’t the one in full-on labor) but the tiny movements I made (that I understand could have potentially left me paralyzed) were really frustrating to this guy. Maybe it had something to do with me demanding that he come in and give me the juice at 3:30 in the morning? Who knows.

Once the epidural was in, I started to feel much better and more like myself. I think I apologized to my nurse well over 100 times for my previous behavior. When they checked me, although I could feel it, it no longer hurt, which was a game changer. However, they then realized the baby was struggling and that I needed oxygen. That’s when this fancy photo of me was taken.

I can feel this photo. Truly, I have never looked better.

Up until this point I had fantasies of being the cute mom with the nice pictures and a breathtaking video once he made his entrance, but once I saw this I knew it was all over for me when it came to being cute.

By around 8 in the morning, the doctor came in to check and said that I’d be having the baby pretty soon. It was oddly quiet and peaceful. I turned on Taylor Swift’s Folklore album and just breathed in my oxygen and tried to absorb every second. When it was time to push, the room was quiet. It was still. The only sounds were the quiet hum of the monitors, the nurse counting quietly while I pushed, Taylor softly singing in the background, and the doctor telling me whether or not it was a good push. It was about 45 minutes of this. Pushing while the nurse counted …”one, two, three….ten, okay big breath, one more time, one, two, three….” and then I would put the oxygen back on and breathe until another contraction came. When the doctor said, “this one is it, give us one more good push” I felt that feeling that I remembered so well. The strange feeling of birthing a child. It not hurting, but feeling all of it. The intense pressure, but then sudden release of it all. The strange overwhelm when it’s done. You did it. He’s here! He has a face! You did it. You are finished.

He’s dressed here. I don’t have any photos of him before they dressed him, unfortunately, because of what happened next.

It’s the most bizarre feeling in the world.

As they placed him on my chest, I mentioned how it took forever for them to suture me with my first baby. I learned quickly after that it was an awkward mistake to mention that, because it was taking an awfully long time this time around as well. After an hour or so, my doctor mentioned that I had a 3rd degree tear (star shaped, sorry if that’s TMI). He also mentioned that he found an interior tear that needed to be addressed immediately. He mentioned that it might have even been there since I had Maddux, and maybe explained why everything was so much more painful this time around?? They took my baby from me and wheeled me off to the O.R. before I even really knew what was happening. Suddenly I was in a really bright room with people all around while I was still scantily-clad from birthing a child. Awkward. There I met the nicest anesthesiologist ever, who was telling me, “don’t worry, I will make you comfortable, you won’t even know what’s happening”…. that was scary because I thought it meant I would be awake through the whole thing. Thankfully, not so. He just meant I wouldn’t be SO out of it that they would have to intubate me. Thank the heavens for that.

I woke up feeling like I had just had the best sleep of my life. I am sure I was completely out of it because I remember telling my cousin (who thankfully works in the O.R. and was the one who was checking my vitals as I was coming to) that the worst part of having a baby was the 30 covid tests I had to take. Who knows what else I said in those vulnerable moments 😳 she was sweet and helped me as I started to feel normal again. She told me that I was given a unit of blood because my levels were so low, and that I had been there about 4 hours. Who knew?! They had needed to undo the stitches the doctor had already put in, fix the interior tear, sew me back up, then give me the blood I needed. It was a whole event.

By the time I got back to my room, they had started feeding my baby with a syringe because they couldn’t get him to drink from the bottle and I wasn’t there to try to nurse. Most people would probably be pretty hurt by this if they were trying to nurse long-term, but I knew pretty well that I was going to be formula feeding. Nursing was something I struggled so badly with for Maddux that I didn’t want the pressure to make it work with baby number two.

This is a snapchat filter. I looked like death IRL.

After everything settled down, my sweet parents came to look at the baby through the hospital window (and bring us pizza, thank you guys!!). We were basically in heaven at this point. I was on a lot of drugs, I had an endless supply of apple juice, I had the sweetest baby boy and I was pretty relaxed (except for the nurses coming by and randomly flushing out the IV in the middle of my wrist, that hurt like a mother and nobody talks about it???????).

Coming home was the sweetest experience. Maddi was (and still is) absolutely smitten by the baby. He loves him so much, has never been jealous, and is so sweet with him.

The recovery was so different than it was with Maddux. Having had a more intense little surgery afterward, I was not able to lift anything or get back to regularly walking right away like I had the first time. With Maddi, I walked 5 miles around Boston 6 days after giving birth? With baby Wells I was hardly able to exercise after 6 weeks of recovery.

It’s been a completely different road to walk, but wow oh wow do I love this child. Something about - seeing how much he loves Maddux, coming during a pandemic when I needed the extra love, and being the absolute sweetest little baby - has me completely head over heels. Truly, I can’t believe how much love is possible in a mama heart for the second baby. We all believe there is no way we will love them as much as the first……

Au contraire. You are heaven on earth, Wells Richins.