Author: dugomama

Ya’ll know you want to read my birth story. I’ll preface with the fact I started my maternity leave the same day I went into labor (Monday); my due date was Tuesday and we had decided collectively at work that the Friday before my due date would be my last working day for a while. That and my mother-in-law was going to drive up around then…I shit-you-not, she left her house at 6am on Monday, and after driving about 18 hours straight through, we missed her by half an hour when we left for the hospital.

In a nutshell, from what I can remember after everything, this is my birth experience:

Anthony and I went for a walk because I had started getting random contractions and wanted to work on getting Delilah out. After the walk, we ordered Chipotle for dinner, because – pregnant woman wants it. After dinner, my contractions decided to start getting consistent. I called labor and delivery and they advise I call the on-call doctor. On-call doctor said to go in as long as they had been less than 5 minutes apart for an hour. I went in like I was told to do at 9pm, mind you that we are 20 mins from where labor and delivery was.

We arrived, checked in, and they promptly got me into a room. As I am not used to consistent pain and knowing it was only going to get worse, I asked if they had anything for the pain. They said they couldn’t give me anything yet until I was admitted, and since I was only 2 cm dilated, they wouldn’t admit me. I firmly but politely told them I wasn’t going back home. So I lay in the bed for an hour and call them again asking for anything to just curb the pain; they responded with a low dose of Fentanyl. That helped me have a light nap but during every contraction I kept waking up.

Two hours or so later, with the pain meds wearing off, the pain felt even stronger. They came in and told me I’d have to switch rooms and I’d have new nurses. Confused by why they were switching rooms, but knowing we are in a pandemic, I start crying because I have so many questions but the pain is masking my ability to relay my feelings. As they wheel me to the second room, I said I want the epidural. They said I had still not been admitted and that they’ll check me again in an hour or so to see if there’s any progress.

They come back an hour later and decided to check to see if I had progressed. LOW AND BEHOLD I was at 6 cm. Screaming while they are checking me, I am begging for an epidural. The nurse promptly tells me I have to do low tones to make sure the baby makes its way out of the birthing canal, otherwise she’ll move back up (honestly, I am still convinced she told me this because I was LOUDLY and ACTIVELY laboring and they didn’t want me causing noise with it being the middle of the night…if I could hear them talking in the hallway, they could definitely hear me screaming). After she left, Anthony comes over, trying to be as helpful as can be, and says, ‘remember, low tones‘….I told him what he could do with his low tones and to leave me alone. *Sorry, Anthony.*

The nurses come back and let me know that they have to move me to a different room, AGAIN, because they needed the room for a high risk pregnancy. As they are telling me this news, I am in the fetal position begging for anything to relieve the pain and begging not to make me move. They somehow convinced me to get into the damn wheel chair.

As I’m trying hard not to scream in the hallway (can’t even remember if I did or not at this point to be honest). They get me into the third room. As I get into that bed, I curl back into a very strong-griped fetal position, and VERY LOUDLY SCREAMING and BEGGING for epidural. They said they had to check me first because they need to admit me before they can do the epidural. Well folks, they fucking check me and I’m at 10 cm dilated, and in the midst of checking, they broke my water and announced that I was ready to push. I screamed in return saying I am not pushing until someone can help me with the pain…I could not move from my fetal position.

Meanwhile, the anesthesiologist finally arrives, and starts going over options with me like I’m ordering dinner at a restaurant and wanting to know how I want my steak cooked…I was told I would have to sit up to do an epidural. No way, not going to happen. She gave me an option of a spinal block that she could administer in the position I was in. As she’s getting it ready, my body starts pushing against my will. My lower half was not covered for obvious reasons, so all of the fluids and solids way up in my digestive system was completely void on the bed.

I finally I got that beautiful spinal block. Thankfully, it took effect within 5 minutes of entering my body, and I unfolded like a god damn blooming flower.

As I get into position to push this tiny human out of me with one nurse holding one leg, and Anthony holding the other, the doctor advises me to push during a contraction. Not many people can say this, but pushing was the most zen-fucking-thing I have ever done.

The doctor said the head was poking out and we could touch her full head of hair if we wanted. Curious, Anthony and I both touched the top of her head. It was nothing like I could ever describe. After pushing for about 20 minutes, she finally entered this world in a calm and peaceful environment. We finally welcomed our perfect baby girl (on her due date), Delilah Rue.

Remember in my last post when I said that I wanted to see what the pain is like? At my post-natal appointment, I surely gave the doctor a shortened version of my experience and said “I DID IT WITHOUT THE EPIDURAL!” (yes, I still used a spinal block, but LORD I FELT THE RING OF FIRE).

Even though we are in the middle of a pandemic, there are some things to be thankful for. Thankful for the ability to work from home. Thankful for the health of family and friends (so far). While I’m thankful, I know there is a lot of heartache that comes from COVID-19.

Being a new parent during this time where a virus is vastly ripping through the entire world, is one that most people will never experience (so I hope). Though, my daughter was born during a pandemic, her like others born in 2020/2021 have had to face the uncertainty of staying in their mama’s arms after being brought into this world.

My journey is pretty similar to some extent of being pregnant; morning sickness, cravings, and the uncomfortable feelings of walking around like a beached whale. I had plans to go to prenatal yoga (eventually I was able to do prenatal yoga online), parenting classes, and even a CPR class. All of that was canceled in 2020.

While Anthony was able to come to half my prenatal appointments with me, our clinic quickly banned partners from being able to attend. All of a sudden my ultrasounds consisted of me waddling in, laying down, lifting my shirt, slightly lowering my pregnancy leggings, and whipping out my phone to FaceTime the father of my child. The ultrasound tech advised that while we were allowed to FaceTime, we are not allowed to record the experience.

While most of us were sort of lost, we worked towards figuring out this new normal for who-knows-how-long-this-would-last. Eventually, some of my prenatal appointments went online to limit the exposure risk. Each time I requested my doctor, I kept getting someone new; someone who didn’t know me or what I wanted for this pregnancy; someone I hadn’t connected with; someone who had differing opinions on what I was feeling/experiencing was normal.

My original OB doctor got pulled to do strictly Cesarian Sections. This introduced me to someone that normally fills in for him, who was just as nice and straight-forward I was looking for. This eased my mind, slightly. After that, it was a game of roulette, even though my appointments were the same time of the week/month. Eventually, I ended up with the second OB doctor right before and after my delivery.

I remember him specifically asking if I was planning to have an epidural, and I said, “I was just going to see how it goes; I’m morbidly curious to see what the pain is like.” He laughed and said, “Those who say that, get an epidural.”

It’s been a while since I’ve contributed to my own blog. If you read previously, I was dealing with the mental struggle of trying to conceive and wondering why it was taking so long. School taught us to always protect ourselves from pregnancy and disease, but they never warned us how hard it could be to conceive after we made the conscious decision to have kids. I would say that quite a few things have changed my perspective on how little my worries actually were in the grander scheme of things.

In a world where there is a pandemic going on, nothing could have prepared me for going through a pregnancy, giving birth and raising a baby during an unprecedented time. As a new parent, these times are something unlike we ever imagined. You read about pandemics in other countries, but superficially I always felt safe here in the United States. Now I just feel silly.

I had planned on writing everything down week by week during my pregnancy, but stopped short of a few weeks when we had to do our baby shower over this new program I had never heard of, Zoom. I am more than familiar with the program now as EVERYONE and their mother (literally), use it.

Here is what I do have:

I stopped writing when I realized that we weren’t getting out of quarantine any time soon. No friends and no family visits. No walking around the mall with my mom and sister, or around town with Anthony in my cute pregnancy outfits (yes, I know how petty and superficial that sounds, though remember I am writing this in the middle of a pandemic). This was truly a different experience, one I hope you will never have to go through again in your lifetime.

Another negative test. This time I’m choosing to look on the bright side and realize that I have plenty of reasons not to be pregnant at this time. Starting with all the plane trips I’m taking. Spokane, Dallas and Europe. After talking to one mama who just had her second baby, she mentioned that being early pregnant and traveling that much would hinder the amount of fun I could have.

She’s right. Would I really want to be nauseated for the next month while doing all the things I want to do? I know it sounds selfish, but maybe for this month only, I can be selfish and not TTC. It’s hard enough to stress about life and work, but then adding TTC in the mix adds a new level of stress. With our vacation coming up, I think I’d rather choose the route of stress free for what might be our last adventure as a couple.

We tried something new last week, and that was hosting some very good friends of ours and their baby in our house. We were both worried about the non-baby-proof state our house was in, and had some anxieties of what a tiny tot in our house would be like. Don’t get me wrong, we LOVED having them there, but there was a new shift my hubby and I have never encountered, and that was having a tiny human having control of our schedules and house.

Our friends have stayed with us before, but now they have a 21-month-old bouncing baby boy, who is precious, curious and full of laughter and screams (from pretending he’s a dinosaur about to attack to getting his diaper changed). We’ve never been around kids more than a day at a time, and it was a true test for us to see if we could handle the emotional chaos that comes with a toddler.

I’d be lying if I told you that my darling hubby has always wanted kids. Most people don’t fully comprehend everything involved with creating human life. It’s natural to be scared shitless. The first time I ever missed a period (due to stress), I was beside myself, knowing I wasn’t ready to grow a baby. Now that I’m married, have a house and approaching the geriatric gestation age, I can definitely say that I am more than ready to take this path. Hubby, on the other hand, has been on the fence about kids. Not because he doesn’t want to have a family with me, and not because he just doesn’t like kids, but because he’s worried about the future of planet Earth. I don’t blame him. The more we watch the news, the more terrified we get.

We first started with chaos between us, emotionally charged due to the unknown of tiny tot’s routine. Then, the weekend came, and we all got to spend time together and learned how tiny tot communicated his thoughts and feelings. What followed was a complete meltdown when Aunty told tiny tot he couldn’t take stuff out of the drawer (HE CRIED REAL TEARS; broke my heart). I have a hard time seeing children shed tears of sadness.

I cried so hard when I had to say goodbye to my childhood bff’s 3-year-old, when she came running out the door yelling my name and crying about how much she loved me (a dagger to the heart).

It took a few days, but darling hubby warmed up to the tiny tot. He learned how to play with him, he learned to give extra time to get him strapped into his car seat, and he helped teach tiny tot how to throw rocks in the low river. Hubby also got to see me give lots of snuggles and play completely made-up games with tiny tot – including Dinosaur Attack, which is a bunch of stomping and roaring.

Immediately after our friends left, I went home to an empty house and a cleaning hubby. We paused and listened to the silence. A silence we both didn’t know there was pre-tiny tot. Behind the scenes, it seemed like a lot more chaos happened, but when we both sat there and listened to the nothingness, we found the emptiness of our empty nest. In turn, it made us realize that parenthood, while always challenging, is something we are both willing to take on.

We just started TTC in May 2019, and have had no success so far. I’ve been reading all the books, and blogs and TTC columns. What I have learned is there is a lack of categories on the feelings that go into TTC as a woman in her thirties. Honestly, it’s a bit heartbreaking.

When you’re younger and less worried about getting pregnant, you may be on the pill, or use other forms of contraceptives. Being an older woman and knowing your womb is like a ticking clock, you worry about the time you have left. And the time that is left, may bring a higher risk for complications. 

Each month I pee on sticks; no one prepared me for this. Starting from day 12 of my cycle through day 16 (the first month, I peed on two sticks a day to figure out my cycle), and I am finally learning how to pin down ovulation. Also trying to figure out how to time it is a bit mind-boggling. If you read all the articles and books, they all tell you the same thing, “Try a few days before, because it increases your chances, and try again a few days later around ovulation.” Then there are the successful couples that say, “Once we stopped trying, we got pregnant!” What happens if we aren’t lucky to tell the same advice? Sure, I know it’s only been a couple months, but there are women who are so fertile that they get pregnant right away; the Fertile Myrtles.

The other thing they don’t prepare you for is the sadness that comes with negative results every month. Why don’t we talk about this more? We know each journey is different. I guess I’ll learn more as this journey continues.

I wrote this for our wedding website, and thought I might as well migrate it over.

It all started with a rooster on the top of a fridge. There is this legend that if you (an unwed female) put a rooster on top of your fridge, you will find your partner.

T’was was another night in July 2011 of sitting on the futon drinking a glass of red wine, when Sarah’s roommate (longtime childhood friend) was out on a date with some dude (now husband), and Sarah decided to peruse around on the interwebs to see what eligible bachelors had on their profiles. She checked all the sites, creating fake profiles (not the catfishing sort), and went on the free site, PlentyofFish.com. As she thought she was looking in the Portland area, some how she came across a young man from Anaheim, who seemed to have similar interests as her.

Thinking there was no way she would get a reply, and with no actual photo or info about herself, she sent a (smartass) message to him. Anthony replied kindly, and Sarah felt sorta terrible about being a smartass, so she found him on Facebook and reached out and proved to Anthony that she wasnt some weird old man sitting behind the computer catfishing him.

From there, they texted non-stop for the first week. Seemingly how they thought each other was cool, Anthony called Sarah on the phone and left her a message (as they were both scared to the bone). Sarah then called him back and they talked on the phone non-stop for a week. Then SKYPE came into play! They started Skyping every day, and Anthony asked Sarah to be his girlfriend over Skype on August 7, 2011 (even though she hesitated for it being over the phone, but thought something was special about him and said YES), until Anthony decided it was time to meet Sarah in person. He flew up to Portland in September, and from then on, they flew back and forth to visit each other until Anthony moved in with Sarah in Oregon January 1st, 2012.

It’s sort of insane to think that we have come this far, 8 years after meeting. We have been through hell and back with life, and I wouldn’t choose a better partner to go through this with.