Meeting Milo

misty  ·  Fri, Aug 14, 2015

I didn’t know how to feel in the moment, if I’m being honest. The birth was so different from what we’d imagined. I’d begun laboring on Tuesday night after a full day of castor oil induction and all that it brings about. Wednesday was miserable and slow, but I kept reaffirming my commitment and telling myself that every surge brought progress and Milo would be in my arms sooner if I just stayed the course. So I tried. And Chase was wonderfully supportive and loving. He whispered affirmations when I needed to hear them, rubbed my back when the pain was becoming unbearable, encouraged me to eat and sleep when I could.

But by this morning, I was settling on a new reality. I was at the hospital, I’d been on pitocin for over 24 hours, was on IV fluid constantly (which was causing all sorts of problems since, for some reason, I wasn’t able to expel urine), and was making absolutely no progress toward labor. We were faced with two options: turn up the pitocin to the max allowed by law and see if that does anything, or have a cesarean. I was tired. I wanted so desperately to have an end in sight. I wanted to meet my girl. Chase and I talked about it for over an hour, then Michelle joined us and was as tender as she could be with as much information as we wanted. We chose option b: remove our daughter from my body surgically. It wasn’t just not ideal. It was exactly what we didn’t want when we first talked seriously about having a baby. And now it was happening. I won’t list the fears and sadness that Chase and I expressed to each other in making this decision. We made our decision with compassion and having considered all possible outcomes. Ultimately, the outcome we cared about was this: Milo would be delivered safely and our healthy girl would be in our arms without much more suffering.

The operation felt surreal. It went as well as could be expected, though my body’s reaction was not great. The moment I heard her cry, I sobbed harder than I ever have before. and I didn’t want to see her. I sent Chase to check on her, he came back with reports and pictures, and I said no, keep her away, when he asked if he should bring her over. My reasoning: I couldn’t hold her. I couldn’t touch her. I could barely control my upper body at that point because of the shivering. I was in pain, in more ways than one. I wanted to hold my girl close and kiss her and spend that sacred first hour with her and Chase and without all these people in the room. That wasn’t possible right away.

I met her a bit later, in the recovery room. Chase brought her over to me, but my arms were numb and the pain of the epidural shivers made it difficult to focus on anything else. I saw a girl who looked like both me and Chase but not clearly like me or Chase. She was perfect. After a few minutes, Michelle came over and placed Milo on my chest. I couldn’t really move my arms well, but I decided I’d waited long enough. “We’ll do a makeshift breast crawl, ok?” Milo wiggled and squirmed and eventually found my breast, latched on immediately and tried to drink, all on her own. “What a precocious little girl! - look at her latch!” Michelle was impressed.

And so that was our first glimpse of each other. Milo, a cute little tootsie roll who knew exactly what to do when she met me. Milo, the girl I’d been waiting so long to meet. The girl Chase and I would get to know very well and have been talking about for years. Milo, our stubborn daughter, who we couldn’t have imagined would be so perfect for us, despite a slightly imperfect beginning.