I would like to start out my story by stating that my son and I both survived birth and are healthy now, two years later. I know we are extremely lucky since that is not the case for many mothers and babies. My birth was still very traumatic, and writing about it now helps to ease some of the burden still on my mind. I still regularly have flashbacks and intrusive thoughts in addition to having a poor view of my own self-worth due to my experience, so writing about it is a form of catharsis for me. A few facts about me and my pregnancy before we get started: 1) I lived in Chicago, Illinois for the duration of my pregnancy and gave birth at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center. 2) I did not have a history of hypertension prior to pregnancy but have almost always been overweight. 3) My pregnancy was 100% intentional, planned, and very much wanted. The feelings I have toward my birth do not reflect my feelings toward my child and motherhood, both of which I love and enjoy.
My birth story really begins at my 24-week prenatal appointment in February 2020 when I was officially given the diagnosis of gestational hypertension. For several appointments prior to this one, I had borderline high blood pressure readings, but since I was consistently getting blood pressure readings hitting 140/80-something in the doctor’s office, my OBGYN gave me the diagnosis. It was really a tough blow for me since I had just gotten the great news the day before at a follow up ultrasound that my low-lying placenta that was present at my 20-week anatomy scan had completely moved away from my cervix and was no longer low-lying (such a great feeling since this can cause many pregnancy complications). I had been consistently taking my blood pressure once to twice per day at home since January 2020 at my doctor’s request, and my blood pressure was pretty consistently in the one-twenties or one-teens over seventy-something each time I took it at home. My anxiety always spiked whenever I went into my OBGYN’s office because I worried every time, at every appointment, that something would be wrong, and I know this contributed to my high blood pressure readings. Regardless of my consistently normal readings at home, I was now saddled with a diagnosis that would mean I would be asked to come in for an induction instead of going into labor naturally as I had wanted to do.
What followed after this were months of multiple 24-hour urine collections, extra scans, bloodwork taken at nearly every appointment resulting in enormous bruises being on my left arm nearly constantly (because my blood platelet levels were also dropping off and were well below normal by the time I gave birth at 38 weeks), and –oh yeah—a global pandemic that completely turned our world upside down.
Even though I never became ill with COVID-19 during my pregnancy, it negatively affected my treatment and my experience in nearly every way imaginable. The last prenatal appointment my husband attended with me was on March 12, 2020. He would no longer be allowed to come with me from that point until I was admitted to the hospital to give birth on May 18. This was difficult for me and caused a lot of tearful moments my last couple months of pregnancy—I started to feel very alone and scared. This had nothing to do with the way my husband was acting—he was beyond supportive and there for me in every way he could be, but since he couldn’t be physically present at my appointments and since I also had no pregnant friends who were experiencing what I was, I felt like no one could understand me in that moment.
I had a growth ultrasound scheduled for March 17 that was rescheduled to March 31 and then ultimately took place on April 16 because the imaging facility was trying to limit the number of people in the building and only bring in people who they thought really needed the procedures. With my diagnosis of gestational hypertension, my provider had requested that I get a growth scan to make sure my baby was not having growth restriction. When I ultimately went in for the scan (alone), he was doing fine in there and weighed around 4 pounds (or so they told me) at 33-ish weeks.
When hospitals in New York and California started to not allow partners into the hospital while women gave birth in April 2020, I went into a full-blown panic. I asked my OBGYN at every appointment if my husband would be allowed to be there for my birth, and every time she would say, “I don’t know. I can’t promise that.” She did make sure to tell me that she couldn’t imagine having given birth to her babies without her husband though, so that did nothing to reassure me. I started writing to my governor and local representatives, asking for an executive order to be put in place in Illinois stating that laboring mothers wouldn’t be forced to give birth without a partner of their choice present in the hospital. I never got responses. I also started checking my hospital’s visitor policy on their website every day, often refreshing the page 30 or 40 times a day to make sure it didn’t change to say that birthing women couldn’t have at least one visitor present. Luckily, it never did, but the anxiety of that thought had me making backup plans to drive to Kentucky to my husband’s aunt’s house that was near a large hospital so that I could give birth with him there if it came down to it. I was convinced I would die in childbirth without him there with me, and I looked into creating an advance directive to be followed in case the worst happened. I stopped with that plan when I found out that in Illinois, advance directives are not followed for women in labor. That was when I also decided to not create a birth plan even though I had spent several hours looking over different kinds of birth plans and what they entailed. I, Lauren Baud, the ultimate planner who loved creating detailed excel sheets for every vacation, who found joy in making lists, who loved planning very minute details, decided that it ultimately didn’t matter because nothing about my birth was going to go the way I planned or hoped for it to go anyway. COVID and my gestational hypertension diagnosis made sure of that.
In April 2020, my OBGYN told me that for the rest of my prenatal visits, I would have to reschedule with other providers at her office. She worked in a large, hospital-affiliated practice with about 20 providers total. Half of their team was going to be on “hospital only” duty, and the other half were going to be on “office only” duty through the upcoming expected surge in COVID cases to help keep the contagion contained. I rescheduled the remainder of my prenatal visits with two other providers at the office, and I feel like a lot of things fell through the cracks with my treatment since the communication had to go between so many people. I went in for weekly appointments from 34 weeks until I gave birth at 38 weeks and also had biophysical profiles weekly at 35, 36, and 37 weeks gestation. (These are ultrasounds that look specifically at the baby’s muscle tone, breathing, heartrate, and amniotic fluid levels.) Again, I went to all of these visits alone. I was scheduled for an induction on Tuesday, May 19, 2020, a day when my primary OBGYN, Dr. Starr, would be working at the hospital, and when I would hit 38 weeks gestation exactly.
On Monday, May 18, 2020, I had my final prenatal appointment, and my OBGYN that day, Dr. Bicalho, checked my cervix to see if I was dilated at all. I was not. She figured this might be the case and had told me previously that if I was not dilated that day, they would actually admit me to the hospital that evening to start me on Cervidil (a drug to thin the cervix) before starting me on Pitocin to start labor the following day, May 19. My blood pressure was also 154/92 at this appointment, which is the highest it had ever been. My blood pressures when I checked at home were starting to trend slightly higher as well—sometimes in the 130s/80s. I was on Labetalol (a blood pressure medication) for the last 6 weeks or so of my pregnancy, but my pressures still trended slightly up. I never had excess protein in my urine or showed signs of liver failure through my bloodwork, so I never had a pre-eclampsia diagnosis, but if I had waited longer to give birth, I may have ended up with it. I went home from my appointment that day, had a late lunch with my husband (about 2:30pm), and went to the hospital to be admitted at 4pm. At this point, it was a relief to me to have a scheduled induction just so my husband could walk into the hospital with me. I was afraid that if I had gone into labor spontaneously and he had to drop me off at the door and then park the car, they would somehow change the visitor policy in those few minutes and wouldn’t allow him to come in to meet me. The simple act of being able to walk in together made it feel like we had made it past one of the scariest parts of giving birth during the pandemic—being together.
During my stay at the hospital, my husband Sam sent our family and friends regular updates via email. I’ll share those emails here to serve as a timeline and will fill in the gaps to provide more detail about what was actually happening during my labor and delivery. He started with this email at 12:51pm right after my prenatal appointment earlier in the day: “Hello everyone, Lauren just got out of her regularly scheduled doctor’s appointment. Mom and baby are both healthy, but there’s been a slight change to the schedule. We’ll be going to checkin to the hospital TODAY at around 4pm so Lauren can start the first induction drug. We’ll send regular updates, so stay tuned.” Once we arrived at the hospital and were in a room, he sent the following email at 6:43pm: “Mom is checked into the hospital and in a patient room. Her coronavirus test came back negative thankfully, and her blood pressure looks good. She’s gotten the first round of the induction drug, and now she’s getting some rest until tomorrow morning.” If we can remember back to such a time, COVID tests were actually hard to come by in May 2020. I was the first of any of my friends and family to get a COVID test, and the hospital only had enough to test laboring mothers, not their partners, so Sam did not take a COVID test during our stay there. It was such an immense relief to get a negative result. My OBGYN, Dr. Starr, had told me at one of my last appointments with her that I should work hard to try not to get COVID because if I tested positive at the time of birth, they would separate my baby from me. Needless to say, I was terrified of testing positive and what would happen if I did. Luckily, I didn’t have to live through that particular hell, and I feel deeply saddened that some women did experience that. Sam and I were so happy after that test result, and I thought the most nerve-wracking part was over now. I was wrong, but I’m glad we had that happy moment.
I was given Cervidil to soften my cervix around 6pm on May 18, and around 10pm, my nurse started coming into my room to have me switch positions in bed. My baby’s heartrate was not showing variations and was staying at one consistent rate, which is not what medical professionals want to see. Slight accelerations show that there is adequate oxygen supply going to the baby, so I had to change positions a few times throughout the night to make sure that his heartrate would continue to have the reassuring accelerations. My nurse told me that they would usually treat this by giving me supplemental oxygen through a mask first but that this treatment was contraindicated due to COVID since placing an oxygen mask on me could spread my own breath around the room at a faster rate (even though I had tested negative). I still think back on that moment as the beginning of the downhill trend my labor took.
Sam’s next email was at 5:57am on Tuesday, May 19: “Mom was able to get some sleep last night. In the next couple hours the doctor will come to see if labor has started, and they’ll also move us from our patient room to a labor and delivery room. Mom’s vitals and blood pressure looked good when the nurse checked just a few minutes ago. Will send more updates when I have them.” I did get “some” sleep the night before, but just in short spurts. I kept having a nurse telling me to change positions throughout the night, so I wasn’t able to sleep very well. Right before Sam sent this email, the resident OBGYN on duty had come in to remove the Cervidil (which was essentially a string that had been placed onto my cervix that was full of hormones to soften it) and to check my dilation, which was still at zero. Shift change in the hospital happened at 7am and 7pm each day, so around 8am on May 19, I was told I was allowed to walk over to my labor and delivery room.
The next email update at 10:03am read: “We’ve been moved to the labor and delivery room. Mom has started having small contractions and has started Pitocin to pick up the pace. She’s not yet started dilating, but the doctor says she is getting close. Her blood pressure looks good, and Albert’s heartbeat is strong. Should be more progress today than yesterday.” I was given my breakfast of broth and Jello that morning, and Sam ate his granola bars. I was on a liquid-only diet while being induced since the nurses and doctors were keeping themselves prepared for needing to do a c-section for me, and Sam had packed some snacks to eat while we were there. I was relieved when my OBGYN, Dr. Starr, walked into the room around 9am when my Pitocin was being started. Anything or anyone familiar was welcome to me at this point. She told me she was going to check my cervix again and that it would be “a little uncomfortable.” She then placed her whole hand inside my vagina and stretched her fingers as wide as they would go in several different directions, which caused the worst shooting pain I had ever felt to radiate through my pelvis. Without thinking, I instinctively kicked my legs out and must have hit her leg when doing so because she told me sternly, “Don’t fight against me. I’m trying to send you into labor.” This is the moment I often have flashbacks of in the middle of the night or when I’m feeling particularly down on some days. I was used to being treated like a science experiment over the last several weeks between my increased number of ultrasounds, multiple rounds of bloodwork, several urine samples, and multiple blood pressure checks during every appointment. I wanted to do whatever was needed to keep me and my baby safe, and I was willing to go through all of the extra testing and the recommendation to be induced to do that. But this moment made me realize that I was not just a science experiment— I was just a vessel, not even seen as human. It didn’t matter that it was the worst pain I had felt in my life (and I had previously broken a leg, had a kidney stone, and had surgery to remove an ovarian cyst all before I was 12 years old, so I was no stranger to pain)—I was supposed to sit there and not move or say anything because she needed to send me into labor. It was a heartbreaking moment for me. Dr. Starr told the nurse that I was still not dilated but very stretchy. After she left the room, I asked my nurse to help me get up to go to the bathroom, and a pool of bright red blood fell out of me onto the pad I had been sitting on. She told me that was normal after having my cervix stretched.
Sam’s next email update at 1:25pm read: “Mom is 4cm dilated and is in good spirits. Her regular doctor is in today and has been by the room several times to check in on her. She ate her broth and popcicle and is feeling strong. Blood pressure and baby’s heartbeat are still great too.” I reached 4cm dilation by my doctor inserting a foley bulb into my cervix once I was at 1cm so that my progress would move a little faster. They also increased my Pitocin drip to the highest setting, and the contractions came hard and fast. I endured them for a while and was squeezing Sam’s hand through them. I was never opposed to pain medication or an epidural during labor, and he gently reminded me that I didn’t have to keep going through the pain if I didn’t want to. After the foley bulb dilated me to 4cm, Dr. Starr broke my water on the next cervical check (without asking me or telling me she was going to do so) and informed me that the water was clear. Sam then sent this message to everyone at 4:29pm: “Water has been broken, and Mom has received her epidural. Contractions are picking up, and things seem to be progressing quickly.”
I was lucky to be able to receive an epidural at all. Each time I had bloodwork done throughout my pregnancy, my blood platelets were dropping lower and lower. Normal platelet amounts are between 150,000-450,000 platelets per microliter of blood. Mine had gotten down to 113,000 about two weeks before my scheduled induction, and Dr. Starr gave me a call one afternoon to discuss that. She let me know that if my platelet levels dropped below 100,000 at the time I was induced, I would not be allowed to have an epidural during labor due to the risk of bleeding. She assured me that I could have other forms of pain medication if that was the case. I asked her what would happen if I ended up needing a c-section, and she said that I shouldn’t worry about having a c-section and that they might make an exception if I was just barely below the 100,000 threshold. (This meant that they would have put me under general anesthesia, and I wouldn’t have been conscious for my son’s birth if my platelets dropped much further and I needed a surgical delivery.) Luckily, my blood platelets stabilized and didn’t drop below the hospital’s threshold for giving me an epidural. The anesthesiologist arrived to do my epidural and told Sam that he had to leave during the procedure. He went down to the hospital’s café at her suggestion and had a sandwich while he waited, which was his first non-snack food in 24 hours. I was still worried that he had to leave the room and wasn’t able to relax until he made it back afterward. It took two attempts and about 45 minutes for my epidural to be placed, and it worked well. I could still feel the tightness of my contractions but not the pain, and the multiple cervical checks I was receiving were no longer painful. Sam sent an email to our family and friends at 8:33pm that read: “The doctor just checked and she’s just about 5cm dilated. Nothing else to do right now but wait and let Mom rest.”
My progress was slow, and I had to keep changing positions in bed to make sure my baby’s heartrate wouldn’t keep dropping with contractions. I essentially spent the entire day of May 19 only laying in very specific positions that my nurses suggested and moved me into, and most of them were very uncomfortable. Around 10pm, I started having chills. It turns out that I had developed an infection, chorioamnionitis, from having too many hands up my vagina after my water had been broken. On top of that, the amniotic fluid that was leaking from me now showed meconium staining, meaning my baby had a bowel movement while still in the womb. I asked my nurse if I would still be able to do skin-to-skin with my baby when she told me the neonatal intensive care unit team would have to be on hand at his birth because of the meconium. I received antibiotics for my newfound infection, and my baby’s heartrate kept showing concerning decelerations with some contractions.
Sam’s next email was at 11:53pm on May 19: “We’re at 6cm dilated, and the next check will be at 1:45am. Doctor says she’s in full labor.” I was actually at 7cm at this point because I remember Dr. Starr’s face when she checked my cervix again after a very low dip in my baby’s heartrate and said, “Oh, you’re at 7.” She was trying very hard for me to be able to give birth vaginally, and she kept reiterating to me that it was better for me and better for the baby if I can give birth that way. I personally had no problem with having a c-section and didn’t think it was out of the realm of possibilities for me since nearly every woman in my family has had one. Dr. Starr, the resident OBGYN who had taken out my Cervidil early that morning, and about 6 nurses were in my room at this point. They had all come rushing in at one time when my baby’s heartrate dropped to about 50 during one contraction (the normal range is 110-160). They had me sign the paperwork to allow for a c-section right then, but Dr. Starr wanted to watch a few more contractions to see what would happen. She assured me that she could have my son out in 5 minutes if the need arose. My baby’s heart rate had recovered stayed strong through the next several contractions, so she told me they would keep an eye on the monitor and come back to check me again at 1:45am as Sam mentioned in his email. I wish I had just asked her to do the c-section right then instead of waiting, but I thought I was doing the right thing by going with her suggestions.
The next three and a half hours were some of the most chaotic, stressful, and painful of my life. My chills had subsided around 11:30pm, but they came back terribly around 1:30am on May 20. I remember laying under my covers, which I had pulled up over my face, and shaking violently. I was upset at the nurses for telling us that we didn’t need to wear masks when we were in our hospital room and then one screaming at Sam to put his on when she came in after my baby’s heartrate dropped. I didn’t want to see or talk to any of them, so I told Sam not to press the nurse call button. He eventually did anyway, and he told my primary nurse, Febe (pronounced like Phoebe), that I was cold. She didn’t take my temperature, but she piled more blankets on top of me. She stayed in my room to do charting I assume at that point. I was still having chills and began feeling immense pressure with each contraction. It felt like my epidural was wearing off, and pressing the button for more pain medication didn’t seem to work. 1:45am came and went, and no doctor came to check on me. I began asking Sam over and over again, “Where are they? Where are they?” He said, “They’ll be here soon. Hold on.” I don’t know if Dr. Starr got caught up with another delivery or if she was napping since she was on a 24-hour shift, but the resident OBGYN eventually came in, probably around 2:30am, and said that I was fully dilated to 10cm and that I could start pushing.
As soon as I was in position to push, it was like a flip switched in my brain. I’ve never disassociated before, and I didn’t know that was what was happening in the moment. After I reflected on it later, I realized that my brain froze in that moment because it realized that I was in a very unsafe situation, and it was trying to protect me from the trauma I was about to endure. I felt like I left my body and was looking on as an outsider at this point. My nurse Febe bent down and whispered in my ear, “You’re going to get to give birth vaginally!” I was only allowed to push while on my back, curled into a “c” shape and holding the backs of my thighs. Sam was on my left side holding that leg for me, and Febe was supposed to grab my right leg each time and assist me. Every time I started to push, Febe was nowhere near my leg, and I had to try to hold my dead leg and push at the same time until she realized what was happening and decided to help. This happened each and every time I tried to push. The resident OBGYN was trying to help and trying to keep the scalp electrode that was on my baby’s head in place since it was keeping track of his heartrate. I pushed several times with her assistance before my regular OBGYN, Dr. Starr, finally appeared in the room. By this point, my body was in full panic mode. My own heartrate had skyrocketed and was in the 160s, and I still had a fever and chills. Dr. Starr felt my head and said, “She’s burning up.” She had my nurse, Febe, give me Ibuprofen to bring down my fever, which was at 103.3F, and Dr. Starr then whispered to her, “Yeah, she’s tachycardic.” Dr. Starr started telling me, “Lauren, we need you to calm down. We can’t tell the difference between your heartrate and the baby’s on our monitor.” I breathed deeply and didn’t attempt to push for a few contractions at this point. I felt immense pressure and back pain, and Dr. Starr encouraged me to push again “like you’re pooping.” The nurse who had yelled at Sam earlier about his mask was back in the room and was in my ear telling me to “get angry” with every push. While I was pushing, nurse Febe and Dr. Starr got into an argument about something related to hospital politics. At one point, I asked if I could have a drink of water, and I was told no. I had never felt thirstier, but I couldn’t have anything to drink. Throughout all of this, my son’s heartrate was still bouncing back and forth between low and normal. Dr. Starr then told me that she was going to use the vacuum to assist in my baby’s delivery at this point (again, I was not asked if this instrument could be used but was told that it would be without an explanation as to why it was needed, even a simplified reason since I know the moment was chaotic). I finally felt like I got a good push in and could actually feel my son’s head moving down but was having a hard time maintaining my breath each time—I felt like I couldn’t breathe and that my chest was heavy with each push. Dr. Starr could tell I was struggling with the pain as well, and suddenly the anesthesiologist who had started my epidural was back in my room, injecting something new into my epidural line. I still don’t know what drugs those were.
On what I thought was my “good” push, I felt Dr. Starr’s entire arm go inside my vagina, and she was reaching for my son’s head. She couldn’t get it, and she told me, “Lauren, your pushes aren’t effective enough. I think we need to go for a c-section now.” That is another moment that replays in my memory again and again. My pushes weren’t “effective.” I failed. My body failed. I couldn’t bring my son into the world on my own, despite my best efforts. Even though I had wanted them to do the c-section earlier, I thought back on this moment and wondered if I would have been able to get him out if I had been given another chance to do three or four more pushes. We’ll never know, but at least he didn’t get a birth injury from having to be vacuum-assisted through the birth canal. Through all of my “ineffective” pushing, I did manage to get a vaginal tear. Dr. Starr quickly stitched that up while pointing out how I tore to the resident OBGYN who was still in the room. I felt those stitches go in since my epidural was becoming weaker, despite whatever new drugs were being pumped through it at this point. I took off all of my earrings with the help of Sam and the “get angry” nurse (I used to have multiple piercings in them before I let a few grow up). They wheeled me back to the operating room and said that my husband would join us after my spinal block was in place.
I was lying naked from the waist down in front of a whole new set of strangers now. The person administering the spinal block had a tiny pin he was using to poke my sides and was asking me if I felt anything. I couldn’t feel any pin pricks on my left side, but I could on my right. They tilted the table to try to get the medication to go into that side of my body. They eventually stopped asking me anything, and I wondered if I would be feeling this surgery. I wasn’t scared though—my mind was still disassociated. I just thought, “Well, I guess we’ll see if that happens.” I heard Sam come into the room and saw him stand by my side out of the corner of my eye. I am near-sighted and typically wear contacts, but I was wearing my glasses in the hospital so my eyes wouldn’t get dry. They took off my glasses during surgery, so it was even more surreal since everything was blurry for me. My anesthesiologist was by my head during the entire surgery, and I was allowed to have an oxygen mask now, which she held in place the whole time. My arms had weights on them, which they assured me were not straps meant to restrain me even though they felt like it. I could hear my OBGYN handing out orders to everyone. My spinal block worked, and I didn’t feel any pain, just a lot of tugging and pressure when she cut into me and brought out my baby.
Albert Cole Baud was born at 3:44am on Wednesday, May 20, 2020, 13 days before his due date. He was pale, floppy, and made no respiratory efforts when he first arrived earthside. I guess floating around in infected amniotic fluid that was also full of his own fecal matter for the last few hours of labor didn’t really help him get a great start. He was resuscitated quickly and let out a cry within a minute of being born. The anesthesiologist exclaimed, “He’s tiny! I hope you loaded up on newborn size clothes!” He weighed 6 pounds, 1 ounce at birth. He was within the realm of normal weight for a newborn but was still small, another thing I would feel guilty about for months to come. Once Albert was crying, the nurses told Sam to come over and take photos of him. They wrapped him in a swaddle, and a nurse came to my side and let me see him briefly. I didn’t make an attempt to move my arms because they were still under weights, and I was very weak. The anesthesiologist took off my oxygen mask to let me get a better look at my baby, I smiled at him, and Sam snapped a photo of us. When the nurse holding Albert was about to walk away to take him to the NICU, my anesthesiologist said, “Wait, let her get a kiss.” I suppose this nurse was going to leave the room without letting me touch the human I grew for 38 weeks inside my body. The nurse brought Albert’s face down to mine, and I gave him a kiss on the cheek. His skin was so soft. It was all very surreal, and I remember thinking at that moment, “Wow. I made a real person. There’s a new person in the world now, and I’m going to take care of him.”
Albert left for the NICU, and someone escorted Sam to the recovery room where I would be brought after I was stitched back up. My oxygen mask was back on my face, and I didn’t realize it, but I kept holding my breath periodically. My anesthesiologist had to keep telling me, “Take a deep breath.” Every time I did, Dr. Starr would ask, “Are you doing okay, Lauren?” I would answer, “Yes,” every time. I asked what time my baby was born, and they told me 3:38am, but the official paperwork says 3:44am, so that’s what we go by. They asked me what his name was, and I told them, “Albert.” I could hear Dr. Starr talking to the nurses and surgical technicians, and suddenly I heard someone counting repeatedly. Dr. Starr said sternly, “Count the sponges again!” I found out later that my uterus was very “squishy” from my chorioamnionitis infection and that I lost more blood than usual during surgery, but not enough to need a transfusion. I suppose they had to use a lot of sponges to sop up all of my blood, and I wondered vaguely if I would be walking around with an extra piece of surgical equipment in my body forever or have to have another surgery to remove it later (I didn’t). I still wasn’t scared wondering about that, just curious while I was still dissociative. Dr. Starr finished sewing up my uterus and my external incision with dissolvable stitches, and she told me right before leaving that they gave me a medication that could cause diarrhea.
I then had diarrhea on the operating table before being moved to the gurney that would take me to my recovery room. (Sorry to whoever had to clean up infected amniotic fluid, blood, and poop from that operating room table and floor.) Once in my recovery room, Febe was still the nurse assigned to me, and she was taking my blood pressure every minute or so. After months of having high blood pressure readings in the doctor’s office, my blood pressure was now reading 90/40 and sometimes lower due to my blood loss from surgery. My blood pressure eventually evened out over the next hour. Dr. Starr came into the recovery room immediately and took Sam with her to the NICU after explaining to us that Albert would have his breathing monitored for a few hours due to the infection I had and the meconium that was in the amniotic fluid. She said she thought he would be there for maybe six hours and that we should get some rest while he’s apart from us. I really had no choice but to get rest since I was barely clinging to consciousness. Sam told me that when Dr. Starr walked him over to the NICU, she told him “that was a mess back there,” referring to the last hour or so of my labor before my c-section. She took Sam over to Albert’s bassinet, was very kind and told him that he could touch Albert “because he’s your baby!” when Sam was hesitant to reach out due to the monitors and wires attached to him. He told me that Albert was opening and closing his mouth like he was hungry. He was hungry, and I wasn’t there to feed him for the first time. I signed the paperwork for him to receive donor breastmilk during his stay in the NICU while I was barely able to hold my eyes open. A NICU nurse would give my baby his first feeding, not me. I’m forever grateful to the women who donated their breastmilk to be used by NICU babies who needed it and to the nurses who made sure my son was getting the nourishment he needed, but I’ll always regret that I wasn’t the one who could give it to him.
Back in my recovery room, Dr. Starr came back to see me while Sam was still visiting Albert in the NICU. She told me that she used my old scar from a previous surgery to do the c-section, so I wouldn’t have a new scar. (I had an ovarian cyst removed surgically at age 12.) She then asked me, “How does it feel to not be pregnant anymore?” Then an alarm started going off in my room. (Hospital equipment is constantly setting off alarms, even when nothing is immediately wrong.) She got frustrated and yelled at my nurse Febe to “shut off whatever is setting off that alarm!” I never got to answer her question because she left soon after that. Febe stayed with me, constantly monitoring my blood pressure and cleaning me up after I had diarrhea two more times in my recovery bed. Thankfully, the third time was the charm, and the uncontrollable defecation ended. I had lost all control of my body and felt completely humiliated and dehumanized. I had just given birth, but my baby was separated from me and I felt like a stranger in my own body. I remember lying in that bed and thinking, “This is going to be a hard recovery.”
Sam came back to my recovery room probably around 4:30am, and he sent the following email at 4:35am: “Albert was born at 3:44am via C-section. Pictures and many more details to come, but both baby and Mom are happy and healthy.” Two nurses came into my recovery room at some point to bring me a hospital-grade breast pump and hooked it up to me while I was still barely conscious. I had told the nurse that did my initial check-in on May 18 that I wanted to breastfeed, so they were trying to help me do that. I remember asking them if the flanges looked like they were the right size for me (nipple sizes vary from woman to woman, so sometimes you have to have a special flange size to fit your particular breast). They barely looked at me and said, “yes, they’re the right size.” A tiny bit of colostrum came out when I pumped, and someone took it in a syringe to Albert in the NICU so that he could have that in addition to the donor breastmilk being fed to him. After they left, Sam fell asleep sitting upright in his chair, and I fell asleep for some undetermined amount of time. After the shift change at 7am, nurses came in to check on me periodically, and around 8:30am, my new nurse for the day came in and apologized for it taking so long to move me to the Mother-Baby Unit. She said they had heard my story and set up a bigger room for me to be in. I guess the nurses taking pity on you can have some perks.
I was moved to my new room in the Mother-Baby Unit around 9am, and I was finally allowed to eat something besides broth. They told me to order something light in case I had nausea, and I ordered a sandwich. I did not ever get nausea from my medications during my stay at the hospital and was recovering fairly well during the day. I wasn’t allowed to get up from my bed, and Albert was still being monitored in the NICU after receiving two rounds of antibiotics (to keep him from getting sepsis due to my chorioamnionitis). He did not need assistance breathing at any point, but he was having low blood sugar readings. Sam went to check on him periodically throughout the morning and would take over the tiny amounts of colostrum I would pump every couple of hours in a syringe. He was allowed to leave to get himself something to eat from the café again as well. At 12:05pm, he sent the following email to our friends and family: “Long story short, Mom and Albert are still doing great. Last night when she was fully dilated, Albert’s pulse would dip whenever she had a contraction. The doctor had her keep pushing for about twenty minutes or so, but she eventually decided a C-section would be the safest route for delivering Albert. Around 3:30am they took her and myself to the operating room, and the C-section was over quickly. Albert was born on 5/20/2020 at 3:44am and weighed 6 pounds 1 ounce and was 21 inches long. He’s being monitored in the NICU for at least a few hours today to make sure his breathing is strong and steady, but he’s right next door to us, and he’s not on oxygen or in an incubator and his vitals are good. Mom was incredible and is recovering well after the C-section and so far she’s eating without any nausea. We were both awake for about 24+ hours and got some much needed sleep this morning. Our boy is finally here and we’ll be sending many more pictures and updates. Enjoy these pictures of Big Al.” He sent several photos of Albert along with this sanitized version of what had happened. I purposefully had Sam send toned down emails that left out some of the scary parts of what was happening because none of our family or friends could be present due to COVID restrictions at the hospital, so to me, it wasn’t worth it to worry them unnecessarily. Almost no one knew that I had a gestational hypertension diagnosis as well. I’m typically very private about health matters, which is why it also took me 21 months to write my birth story.
As the day wore on, I wanted to know when I could finally get up and go see my son. My nurse explained that he was delayed coming back to stay in our room because his blood sugar readings had been a little low, but she agreed to help me get out of bed around 4:30pm. They wanted me to wait until at least 12 hours after surgery to get up. I was able to stand and move to a chair with her help. She said that I could go visit Albert with Sam assisting me but that I would have to be back in my room by 6pm so that she could give me my next round of medications before the shift change happened at 7pm. I was wheeled to the NICU doors, and Sam and I went in together. We washed our hands, and the nurses recognized Sam right away since he had been in so many times already. I was wheeled over to Albert’s bassinet at about 5pm, 13 hours after I last saw him in the operating room that morning. He looked so peaceful while he was sleeping. He was still hooked up to a heart monitor, but the NICU nurse said that he was doing great and that he had just had a normal blood sugar reading. If he had one more normal reading, he could come back to the Mother-Baby Unit with me after his next feeding. I looked around the room at the other babies in incubators who were hooked up to even more machines than Albert was, and my heart went out to their parents. Being in the NICU is a gut-wrenching experience, but the nurses were the kindest I encountered during our entire hospital stay. They told me that Albert was everyone’s favorite that day and that he was “such a little charmer.” One nurse gave me a “complimentary” pumping bra (that came along with about $60,000 in medical bills, most of which our insurance paid, thankfully). Albert’s assigned nurse stuck his foot with a needle and did one more blood sugar check on him, after which she smiled and told me it came back normal. He would be able to leave the NICU soon. She took him out of his bassinet and handed him to me to hold, and I couldn’t believe I was finally getting to touch him. This very kind nurse snapped lots of pictures for us, and we took our first family photo with Sam and I wearing the masks I sewed at home with the Sherlock Holmes material my friend Emily gave to me after she had some leftover from making Albert an adorable quilt. I had to leave to go back to my room so that I could get my 6pm round of medications, and we left Albert in the NICU for the last time.
A little after 6pm, two nurses brought Albert into my room in the Mother-Baby Unit and told me that his temperature was still a little on the low side, so we would need to do skin-to-skin. They laid him on my chest about 14 hours after he was born. As they were doing this, they checked the number on Albert’s hospital band and looked for the same number on the multiple bands on my arms. However, I had no band matching his. Someone had given Sam one while we were still in the operating room after my c-section, but no one had thought to give me one. The nurse looked completely confused and said, “That’s never happened before.” My missing band wasn’t caught in the NICU because Sam had his band matching Albert’s number, and the nurses recognized him when he came in with me. The nurses ended up printing all new bands for all three of us with matching numbers, but I remember thinking, “Could they have given me the wrong baby?” He was, in fact, the right baby, but I didn’t enjoy hearing that I was the first person they had ever forgotten to give a matching wristband. I know that everyone in the hospital was overworked and overwhelmed during this first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, but I was really losing faith in the kind of care we were receiving. That lack of faith only grew when we took Albert to his first pediatrician’s appointment when he was 4 days old and they said he was actually 19 inches long, not 21 inches long as they had told me in the hospital. Many of the people working there didn’t take much care during my hospital stay, but I appreciate the ones who did even more because of it.
Albert wasn’t hooked up to any monitors once he came back to my room, but he did have his right arm in a splint that was holding in his IV port. They told me they wouldn’t remove it until they knew he wouldn’t need to be readmitted to the NICU. I felt so bad that he had to be poked and prodded so much during his first day of life. I’m sure the world didn’t seem like a very nice place while he was in the NICU, but he seemed right at home once he was laying on my chest. I remember feeling the weight of his little body for the first time and Sam snapping photos of us. I’m lucky that he didn’t need more interventions after birth and that he recovered from his rough entry fairly quickly. The lactation consultant came into my room and advised me on how to help Albert latch for the first time. He seemed to take to it right away, and we would top off his first feedings at the breast with a bottle of formula. (Donor breastmilk is only used for babies in the NICU, so once he was released from there, he was on my breastmilk and formula.) Sam sent the following email at 6:56pm on May 20: “Albert is officially out of the NICU and in the room with us. Mom is walking, eating, and feeling well considering the circumstances. All three of us are going to get some rest, but we have some of our first pictures as a family attached to this email.” My nurses had removed the catheter that was collecting my urine after I returned from my visit to see Albert in the NICU, and I was able to get up with assistance and use the bathroom. I had to ask a nurse to give me some dermaplast spray since I had a vaginal tear that needed attention after urinating, and they said, “Aww, you got the best of both worlds, didn’t you?” (Meaning that I got to experience both the pain of tearing vaginally as you would with a vaginal birth and the pain of recovering from the major surgery that is a c-section birth.) That really sealed the deal for me, and I was ready to leave the hospital as soon as possible since every waking moment there had been pure hell. They told me that I wouldn’t be allowed to be discharged until May 22 at the earliest and that my insurance would cover another additional night beyond that as well. I resolved then and there that I would not be staying to the 23rd since I was crushed enough that I had to stay until the 22nd.
Throughout the night from May 20 into May 21, I was woken up about every hour on the hour between the nurses who were coming to check my vitals and the nurses who were checking Albert’s vitals. One nurse said they were going to take Albert to the nursery briefly to do his vital check, and they were gone for over an hour. I couldn’t fall back asleep knowing they had taken my baby somewhere, so I sat in my bed and cried quietly while Sam was sleeping. I knew he was exhausted and didn’t want to wake him, so I worried in my own head for the time they were gone. When they eventually brought Albert back to me, they said they put him under the warmer for a little while since his body temperature was a little low again and said, “Sorry we were gone so long.” In the wee hours of the morning, our night nurse called the on-call pediatrician into our room because she though some of Albert’s skin on his chest was peeling, and it turned out to be tape residue left over from the monitors that had been strapped to him in the NICU. The pediatrician laughed like he thought we were stupid, and I began feeling even more dejected, especially since I wasn’t the one who requested that he come in the first place.
Throughout the day on May 21, Albert and I both had a lot more bloodwork done. I suppose my bloodwork looked as normal as it could with my blood loss and all of the medications being pumped through my body. My blood pressure readings had also been normal. I remember asking repeatedly if I could take a shower since I hadn’t had one since May 18 at home, and a nurse finally reluctantly agreed to let me take one. Albert’s blood had to be drawn from his foot, and one phlebotomist didn’t draw it correctly the first time, so he had to have his foot poked again just to get one round of bloodwork completed. My heart broke every time I had to watch him get poked and prodded again and again. His bloodwork came back normal, and he was finally allowed to have his IV port removed. I was so happy to see it gone. I still had my IV port attached so that they could pump pain medications through it, but I wasn’t on any other IV attachments at that point. Albert also had his newborn hearing test that day, which he passed just fine. I didn’t know it then, but he would eventually need to have more hearing tests done once he was a little older. Since he had to have antibiotics right away after birth, there was a chance that his hearing could be damaged, so when he was 10 months old, he would have another hearing test done. When he had to have these additional tests done, I felt guilty all over again—if I hadn’t developed an infection during labor, he wouldn’t have needed antibiotics, and he wouldn’t have needed hearing tests. I had failed him again. His hearing is fine today and nothing is wrong with him, but the mom guilt is real. At 5:31pm on May 21, Sam sent this email to our family and friends: “Today, Albert had his IV port taken out, and he passed his hearing test. I’ve been on diaper duty, and Lauren has been nursing successfully thanks to the dedicated lactation consultant and nurses here at the hospital (I think it’s no coincidence that one of Lauren’s favorite nurses is named Margarita). We’re probably going to be discharged tomorrow, so hopefully we’re at the hospital just one more night. I’ve attached Albert’s first Polaroid photo taken with our Polaroid camera, which makes him look like a baby from the 1970’s…. Overall, it’s been a surreal and wonderful day spending time with our son, and we can’t wait to take him home.”
The night of May 21 into May 22, we were again woken up several times throughout the night to check our vitals, but nothing out of the ordinary happened. The morning of May 22, I asked if I could have my IV port removed, and they said they didn’t want to remove it until it was closer to my time to be discharged. I asked to be discharged that day, and the nurses and the on-call OBGYN started going through the motions of telling me everything I needed to know for the first few weeks postpartum. They went over cluster feeding, safe sleep practices, told me that I shouldn’t lift anything that weighs more than my baby, how to look out for postpartum depression, and really pushed me not to take the narcotic prescribed to me for pain. They said my pain should be able to be controlled by extra strength Tylenol and Ibuprofen. (I was dumb enough to believe them too.) They said I shouldn’t drive a car for at least two weeks and that I shouldn’t have sex until my doctor clears me to do so. I had to call to make Albert a pediatrician appointment for May 24 before they would allow us to be discharged as well. Around 1pm, they were getting ready to release me and wanted to check my blood pressure again, which started to climb higher. I tend to have very physical responses to stress, and the thought of them making me stay there another day was beyond stressful to me at this point, which I know was making my blood pressure rise. My very kind nurse that day, Brittany, asked me if I was feeling a lot of pain, and I told her that I wasn’t. They were concerned about my readings, but not extremely so. I know they could tell that I wanted to leave desperately. I was tearing up thinking of having to stay there any longer since it was truly a hellish experience from beginning to end. They finally said that I could leave that day as long as I continued to monitor my blood pressure each day at home and come back to the hospital if it reached 160/100. They also advised to make an appointment with my OBGYN for a follow up after one week instead of the standard two weeks after a cesarean delivery just to check my blood pressure. I told them I would (though I didn’t). They finally removed my IV port, and we hung around for a little while longer to feed Albert some formula one more time and left the hospital around 3pm. Sam went ahead of us to get the car, and a nurse’s assistant wheeled me and Albert down to the hospital’s main lobby to wait for him to pull up. She chatted with another hospital employee about more COVID-related policy changes that were about to start at the hospital on June 1. I was glad to be getting out of there before things got even worse.
Sam and I took our little boy home on May 22, 2020. We lived in a tiny one bedroom, 3rd floor walk-up apartment in Lincoln Park that was my favorite place we had ever lived to that point. Sam took Albert up the stairs in his car seat, and I followed slowly, making my way up all three flights with less dexterity than ever. Sam made sure that both Albert and I were comfortable in the apartment and then left to go get my various prescriptions filled and to get Lou Malnati’s pizza for our dinner. We were told by all of our doctors that we should have absolutely no visitors once Albert was born due to COVID, so we were on our own. I was prepared for that, but I really wasn’t prepared for the stress and pain of the next two weeks. Sam made sure I took my Tylenol and Ibuprofen around the clock, and he changed all of Albert’s diapers for the first two weeks in addition to tracking every feeding. We topped off his feedings at the breast with formula for the first day we were home, and then I started exclusively breastfeeding him. Sam supported me every step of the way, and I would have been completely lost without him. I monitored by blood pressure every day, and on the days that I was in a lot of pain, it was higher, but it never shot up to the dangerous levels my discharge nurse told me would warrant coming back to the hospital. I would sit on the couch and cry over the soreness I felt in my abdomen and the shooting pain I felt from my vaginal tear those first few weeks. I would also cry over the stress related to what was happening outside of our doors. Protests and riots started soon after the murder of George Floyd, and they got to a point where my son’s pediatrician’s office had to close some days due to riots closing down the streets near their office. Sam couldn’t find a nearby pharmacy that wasn’t boarded up so that he could refill my prescriptions and had to go to multiple before finding a single one that was open in the city of Chicago. I just remember doing a lot of crying for a lot of reasons while also feeling thankful that it wasn’t worse those first two weeks.
Despite my frequent and seemingly uncontrollable tears, I felt an immense relief that we made it through labor and delivery COVID negative and that I was no longer pregnant in a pandemic. I was now a mom of a baby in a pandemic, which somehow seemed a lot less daunting and terrifying. I was still panicked and worried about dying every day, but it seemed like some of the pressure had released. My baby was here, he was healthy, his dad was the perfect example of a supportive partner, and I was able to care for him in my own home. He had lost some weight initially after he was first born, but he regained it and was over his birth weight by his 2-week pediatrician appointment, so I was feeling great about that. I loved my son immensely, and we were very, very lucky.
I went back to my OBGYN for a post-op follow up visit on June 4. I did not go back after one week as the nurses in the hospital suggested because I knew that Dr. Starr was returning to the office from her stint of doing “hospital-only” work at the beginning of June. I felt strongly attached to her and only wanted to see her, even though when I look back on it now, the two providers at the same office who I saw for my last five prenatal visits were both kinder than she was. She checked my blood pressure, which was slightly elevated but not considered dangerous at all, and she looked over my incision and said that everything looked fine. She also chided me for not taking the narcotic pain medication prescribed to me despite the fact that the doctors and nurses at the hospital strongly advised not to take it. She looked over my postpartum depression survey that I was required to fill out and asked if I was feeling alright. I told her I was stressed about everything that was going on with COVID and the riots, and she said that I just need to go curl up with my baby at home and stay away from other people. I didn’t say anything to her, but not being able to see family and friends safely was a big reason why I was so stressed as well—the answer wasn’t just to stay away from other people. I left that day and made an appointment to come back for a 6-week postpartum checkup on July 2.
In the meantime, Albert was continuing to grow and get stronger. However, when I took Albert into his one-month pediatrician appointment on June 20, the doctor told me that he wasn’t gaining weight quickly enough and seemed to be slightly jaundiced. That was a horrible appointment because Albert screamed through the entire visit, and Sam was not allowed to come inside with us. Two parents were only allowed inside at the very first 4-day newborn appointment, and there could be only one parent present from that point forward. I was overwhelmed and thinking I had really failed my baby, that my body had failed once again since I wasn’t producing enough milk for him to gain weight properly. I asked the doctor if I should start supplementing with formula again, and she said that no, I should just give him pumped breastmilk at the end of each feeding at the breast. I didn’t listen to her and started pumping only and alternating feedings to be both breastmilk and formula. He gained an entire pound within one week after I started with that routine, so I continued doing that until I stopped pumping breastmilk for him at 7 months, at which point he went to just formula and solid foods. His jaundice cleared up with the formula supplementation as well.
On July 2, I went to Dr. Starr for the last time for my 6-week postpartum visit. She had to do a vaginal exam to be able to “clear” me, and she looked at me with a pained expression and said she was so sorry that she had to do the exam and that it might be a little uncomfortable. It was one of the quickest and least painful vaginal exams I’ve ever had, and I sat there dumbfounded at the stark difference between how she was treating me now and how she had treated me while I was in labor. Why did I suddenly deserve gentleness and empathy when I was postpartum but not when she was “trying to send me into labor” with her painful cervical stretching in the hospital? It was then that I really started to understand that while pregnant women are placed on an otherworldly pedestal when society is lauding them for being the givers of life, they are also seen merely as vessels and less than human in regard to how they should be treated in labor—that they should accept whatever pain and rough treatment comes along with bringing that new life into the world. I’m still shocked when I think about how differently she treated me just 6 weeks apart. After my exam, her next words were, “When do you want to have your next baby?” I told her that I don’t want another baby, and she said that I needed to wait until my son is at least 18 months old to get pregnant again due to my c-section and asked if that would be okay with me. I told her that yes, it would. She gave me a prescription for the mini pill since that is better to take for contraception while breastfeeding, and I left her office, stopping by the lab to do one last round of bloodwork that would show my platelet levels were normal again now.
During those first few weeks postpartum, Sam and I made the decision to start looking at houses in a southern suburb of Chicago—Munster, Indiana. I had wanted Albert to be a “city baby,” which meant we would do a mommy and me stroller boot camp workout class, he would take the CTA with me everywhere, he would hardly ever ride in a car, he would spend his days in the city parks and museums, and he’d go hopping from one of my friend’s apartments to another on frequent visits. COVID and social unrest turned Chicago into a city I didn’t recognize anymore, and I knew Albert would never have the life I envisioned for him there. We took a look at a house in Munster in early June and ended up closing on it on the day Albert turned 8 weeks old—July 15. It was bittersweet to leave the city I loved, but I knew it wouldn’t be able to give Albert the life he deserved anymore. Since moving, we’ve made wonderful new friends, and Albert’s pediatrician here is one of the best doctors I’ve ever encountered. She was the first doctor to make me feel like I was a good mom, and I’ll be forever thankful for her and her care for my sweet boy. I’m also so happy Albert gets to grow up in such a great little town that’s just a 40-minute drive from downtown Chicago.
Now here we are, nearly two years later, and my son’s birth still often replays in my head. It gets easier to deal with as time goes by, but the trauma is still there, making it impossible to avoid reliving some moments on a loop. Writing it all down has been a healing experience for me, and I am glad to be able to share this with anyone willing to read it. I couldn’t have asked for a better son—he’s funny, he loves to eat, he loves to play, he’s kind, he’s adaptable, he loves to sleep, he gives me (and his daddy, kitty, and doggy) kisses unprompted, he loves music, he loves dancing, he loves exploring the outdoors, and he’s just the best. He completes our family. It was all worth it, even if I would have done things differently or asked more/different questions looking back on it now. I won’t be able to let it go or ever look back on the events around his birth with a lot of fondness, but I love that I have him here with me and that he made me a mom—it’s the best role I’ve ever had in life.
Bold, Joyful Life 