Warning: Do not read this if you are easily offended by conversations about birth and the things surrounding it (including the female body).
I found out I was pregnant on January 31st of 2020. Mother Nature had yet to visit me that month so I took a test, thinking it would be negative like every test before. Michael had no idea I was taking a test and was relaxing in our bed in that state between sleep and awake.
The two lines on the test appeared immediately.
We weren’t trying to get pregnant, but we were happy to welcome any babies God would send our way. Someday when I got pregnant, I wanted to announce it to Michael by getting him a pair of white New Balance “dad shoes” and a sign I’d seen at Hobby Lobby that said “Dad Joke Loading”. There was no time for that the morning I found out I was pregnant. Immediately, my brain began swimming with fear, excitement, disbelief, love, and more fear. I needed to tell him now. I yelled for him and went into our room.
I showed him the test with tears starting to roll down my face. He blinked his sleepy eyes.
“Is that positive?”
I nodded.
In a state of utter disbelief, I went to Walgreens and bought three “nicer” tests. Sure enough.
Because of my Type 1 Diabetes and other health issues, I had long been told to immediately get to a doctor if I found out I was pregnant. Michael and I both called into work and I made an appointment with my general practitioner. Sure enough, I was three to four weeks pregnant. She set me up with an appointment at a local OB/GYN clinic for a month from then. Boy, that month could not pass quickly enough. I wanted to know if this was real.
Although I seem generally positive, I can be incredibly pessimistic. I didn’t believe God would bless me like this. In my mind, these positive tests probably meant ovarian cancer. I couldn’t believe I was actually experiencing a blessing. It turned out I certainly was.
I started getting morning sickness. When we went to the doctor, she said my morning sickness sounded normal, and she wasn’t concerned yet. She said most morning sickness went away after the first trimester and, according to the ultrasound, I was about 8 weeks along. So close to the end of the first trimester.
Let’s just say the morning sickness did NOT go away. I spent the rest of my pregnancy surviving on Zofran, Sprite, and plain bagels. I was so sick the whole time. Each trimester, and later each week, brought more and more difficult symptoms. By the end of the pregnancy, I was nauseous, swollen, and exhausted with apocalyptic heartburn. The heartburn and nausea were so bad that I tore my esophagus and vomited blood for a couple days. Let’s just say I DO NOT miss pregnancy one bit.
Surprisingly, my diabetes behaved itself for the most part. I started seeing an endocrinologist (a doctor who specializes in hormones, including insulin) in Lincoln and she helped me achieve the incredibly tight control a pregnant Type 1 diabetic is advised to have. I thought my diabetes would be a huge problem, but it really wasn’t. I actually lowered my A1C to 6.3. This indicated better diabetes control than I’d had in years. They did a special ultrasound that would check for complications with the baby that can be caused by the mother’s Type 1 diabetes. My baby was 100% fine.
While my diabetes was well-controlled, I had to advocate for myself as a diabetic mom. Type 1 diabetics get lumped into one category a lot by medical professionals. Instead of assessing our individual cases and deciding on things from there, the standard of care for any and all Type 1 diabetics generally assumes your diabetes is horribly controlled and you are a complete idiot. A medical professional completely blew off my concerns of morning sickness causing low blood sugars and told me to see a dietician (if I’m throwing up everything I eat, the best diet in the world isn’t going to help). She also called me “brittle,” an outdated term for a diabetic with poor control (my endocrinologist later confirmed that “brittle” was about the last word she would use to describe my control).
The biggest way this broad categorization of diabetics manifested in my case was I was told I would need to be induced early to avoid complications. This bothered me, as I don’t believe in handing out inductions like candy. They have a time and a place for sure, but why did I need one? Because I was a diabetic being lumped with all other diabetics.
In August and September, I started going to my OB/GYN twice a week for non-stress tests and preeclampsia tests. Then, I started going once a week. We had an ultrasound every time and got tons of photos of our baby, including this gem where he looks incredibly ticked off.
Things were pretty normal, until my feet suddenly ballooned to the size of baby manatees. My Crocs were too small. That is how big they got.
I didn’t have preeclampsia yet, but things would change. On September 10th (a Thursday), we went to the doctor. My blood pressure was climbing, my face, ankles, and feet were swelling more than ever, and there was a small amount of protein in my urine. My doctor told me I would have the baby the next week. She said I would need to be induced on September 16th and would likely have the baby on September 17th. This would mean he would be born at 37 weeks. I was incredibly nervous. We asked if it was okay for me to still be in my sister-in-law’s wedding on September 12th, an hour away in Aurora. She said it would be okay, so we decided to be in the wedding.
My awesome sister-in-law, Janelle, told me I didn’t need to be in the wedding if I was nervous about standing that long. I wanted so badly to be in the wedding if at all possible. The day was beautiful and I was feeling good that morning. Still, there was a plan in place just in case I needed to sit down during the wedding, but I was determined to remain standing. If I had sat down, everyone would have looked at me and taken their attention off the bride and groom. I was able to stand all through the ceremony and pictures. My husband and sister (who was a guest at the wedding) told me to sit for the entire reception, which I gladly did.
I was so glad Michael and I got to be in Janelle and Bryan’s wedding. We spent September 13th (the following day) with them as well. It was so much fun and I needed it so badly. I slept most of September 14th. September 15th, I woke up feeling sick. Michael asked if I was okay and I said I probably was. Besides, I had an appointment later that day to get me ready for the following day when I would be induced.
Pregnancy had been so hard, but this day was the hardest yet symptom-wise. My eyelids were swelling, my hands and feet were swollen larger than ever, and I was miserable. I spent the day vomiting and sleeping. At the doctor, they asked if I felt okay and I said no without hesitation. They explained my urine was full of protein, my blood pressure was high, I was dilated to a 3, and I was having contractions. They said I had preeclampsia and needed to get to the hospital immediately following the appointment. We were to go home, get our bags, and go straight there. My doctor asked if I was okay and how I was feeling about going in on the 15th instead of the 16th. I said, “I don’t care. You could tell me you were going to cut my legs off without anesthesia and I still wouldn’t care.” She laughed and said, “Yep, it’s time to have a baby!”
One would think that getting into the hospital would be the easiest part of labor, but no. The hospital entrance is being renovated, so we had to go in the emergency room entrance. Not a big deal, we thought. We stood with all our stuff in front of the emergency room check in while a woman made phone calls, and I had contractions. She finally looked up and said, “Oh, are you waiting to be helped?” Um, duh, lady. She sent us to the makeshift admissions area since the normal admissions area is being renovated. First, though, we had to make a stop at a table where they asked if we had any symptoms of COVID 19. We didn’t. Then, we sat in a waiting area for what felt like seven years. It turns out that, in addition to the renovations and COVID regulations, they also just got a new computer system that no one knew how to use. After sitting for about fifteen minutes in the waiting room with no sign of being helped any time soon, I considered taking the water bottle out of my backpack and pouring it on myself to fake my water breaking and get things moving faster. We finally got to the admissions desk. My contractions kept going as they stumbled through the process. The woman was apologetic and offered to send me up early, but I knew I wouldn’t want to do all this later either. Once we got through the admissions process, I was taken to my room.
A nurse showed us our room and said the doctor would be there in about an hour to break my water, then she left. Something about finally being alone in the room made me lose it. I cried for a minute and hugged Michael. He reminded me everything would be okay. I composed myself and changed into a hospital gown. They strapped a blood pressure cuff, an IV, a pulse oxygen monitor, and a fetal monitor on me and had me wait in the bed until my doctor came to break my water. While we waited for the doctor to come break my water, we met a nurse who would later be referred to as Sergeant Nurse by Michael and me. She was a traveling nurse who was helping the other nurses with the new computer system. She was super nice, but had a strong personality and a commanding air about her. She will come back into this story later. My doctor arrived to break my water and pulled out what appeared to be a two-foot-long plastic crochet hook.
This was nerve-racking, but my water breaking was much less awful than I thought it would be. Once my water was broken, the contractions grew stronger and I asked for fentanyl. Once they delivered this heaven in a syringe, I felt much better and quite loopy. I was now dilated to a 6, and would stay that way for several hours. Sometime after this, I asked for my epidural. Two women came into the room. One was the anesthesiologist and the other was a student.
The anesthesiologist explained the student would be administering my epidural while she would supervise and coach her. She explained this woman was almost a full anesthesiologist, but was not one quite yet. My main nurse and Michael helped me hold still while the student dug around in my spine, trying to find the right place for the epidural. This was the point where Michael almost fainted. The main nurse and anesthesiologist grabbed my 6’5” husband and sat him down in a chair before he could fall to the ground. I think seeing someone messing around in his wife’s spine with a needle was just about too much for him. Who can blame him? Well, they finally placed the epidural and I felt much better very quickly. I was able to take a nap for a couple hours. I was still dilated to a 6.
My main nurse came in a couple hours later and found me lying on my back. She told me she felt bad and that I should have been lying on my side to help my labor progress. She said she had this thing called a peanut ball that might help my labor progress more. She brought in this thing and had me lie on my left side with it between my knees. Michael decided to take a little nap, since nothing had been happening for a while. An hour later, I was feeling a lot of pressure and called for my nurse. That peanut ball had brought me from a 6 to a 9 in an hour. I woke Michael up and told him I had already dilated to a 9. The nurse had me lie on my right side with the peanut ball and said I would probably get to a 10 very quickly. Sure enough, I had dilated to a 10. They wanted me to keep laboring before pushing, but the urge to push was growing stronger, so I started “practice pushing.”
I hadn’t imagined it would be that hard to push correctly, but it was. It was also exhausting. After a while of “practice pushing,” they brought in the doctor and had me push for real. After pushing for what felt like 72 years, Sergeant Nurse reappeared. I was exhausted and crying a little. I kept saying I couldn’t do it. She said, “Say, ‘I am strong and capable.'” I shook my head. She said, “Say it! Say, ‘I am strong and capable.'”
“I am strong and capable,” I said, sounding anything but.
Sergeant Nurse talked with the doctor and other nurses, then grabbed a sheet. She knotted both ends and told me we were going to do something called “tug-of-war pushing.” When it was time for me to push, she would yank on her end of the sheet while I pulled back on my end of the sheet and pushed. Y’all, that got the baby moving. We did this method for a while and then I started getting sick. After throwing up, I pushed a few more times.
Now, the nurses had been saying forever that I was “almost there.” I was “almost there” for way too long. Suddenly, Michael started saying I was “almost there.” If that untrained man knew I was almost there, I must really be almost there. I pushed again, mustering my remaining strength, and felt the weirdest feeling ever.
There he was.
Elias Michael Wilt was born on September 16th, at 5:23 AM. He was 8 lbs 4 oz and 20 inches long. They laid him on my chest and the world faded away. It was just the two of us.
Then, they took him to be measured and taken care of. Michael went over to take pictures of him being weighed. Meanwhile, I was not enjoying my doctor. She mashed on my stomach to make sure the placenta was completely out, then started stitching me up. This was the only point in labor when I started getting mean. I wanted to be enjoying my baby, not dealing with someone squishing and poking me. I finally got to hold him again, though.
All in all, it was a great experience. It was the day I learned how strong my body was and the day I met my son. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
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