I went into labor on the Friday before the US went into quarantine for COVID-19.
It's week 38 day 6 of my pregnancy. It's 4:45 in the morning, and I wake up with contractions. I one hundred percent knew that they were contractions. There was no mistaking them for gas or anything like that. I laid there for a while, drifting in and out of sleep in-between waves of discomfort.
After a few hours, I got up, showered, and woke up my husband. We called the hospital and knew it was time. Even though my contractions never really hit that sweet spot of 1 every 3-4 minutes for 2 hours, they told me to go ahead and come in to get checked.
My doctors had already warned us that the hospital had changed the visitor policy and that I was allowed ONE support person. For me, it was never a question of who my support person would be. It was always going to be my husband in the room with me. While I was the pregnant one, it was our journey together; however, our families were always supposed to be in the waiting room. My Dad even drove half way across the country overnight to be home when his first grandchild was born (spoiler alert: he'd have to wait a month before getting to meet his grandson).
It was a bummer, but I was glad that my husband and I were almost given a gift of this journey together. We weren't thinking of it at the time, but this would be our last big adventure together as a family of two.
I got checked-in (they let me stay) and got my epidural. Fast forward to almost midnight. It's time to push.
And man, did I push.
I'm so thankful for the epidural, because what we didn't know was how fast I needed to push our son out. After a little less than an hour of pushing, the doctor starts mentioning that they might need to use the forceps to help. I didn't realize at the time that my son was in distress, and it was getting worse. But I was able to push him out in time.
Our son tumbled out, and my whole world changed.
I got to hold my little bear cub. I awkwardly tried to nurse him that first time and was just glad to have my baby in my arms.
The following days in the hospital weren't what we expected. There were no visitors, no parents, no balloons - there was just us and the nurses.
Our birth journey was nothing what I'd expected, but I had my family. The world wasn't the same as it had been when I went into labor, but neither were we.
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