Maybe I'm the Weak One

Despite having this blog, I have a very difficult time putting myself "out there" on the internet.  My social media presence consists primarily of snarky summaries of mundane life details, or pictures that I don't entirely hate my appearance in.

I've known a lot of people who allow others in on the harder or more vulnerable parts of their life via social media.  But in my deep-rooted cynicism, I have often thought these people were weak or attention-hungry.  Or maybe arrogant.  To think that their life is so interesting or their opinion so important that everyone around them must want to hear about it.

 

 But even in those moments when someone else has started a conversation, I still won't put myself "out there" by responding to something I may actually have strong feelings, opinions or experience with.  

 

Why?

Because someone might disagree?

Or challenge me?

Or insult me?

 

The internet is a mean place.  And people use it to say things they would never consider saying to your face.  Taking that into consideration,  it would seem that people who choose to share details about their lives, especially personal ones, might actually be a lot stronger than I have given them credit for.

 

And maybe I'm weak one.

Elaine's Birth Story

For the last five months, I've been telling my self I needed to carve out some time to write about Lainey's "birth story."  The farther I've gotten from the actual event, the more certain parts of that experience have faded.
  

Even though I realize that most of the people who care about this story already know how everything went down, I have decided to document it before I lose too much more.

  
So more than anything, this blog post is for me.
  
My maternity leave started on February 15th and I made inducing labor my full-time job.  I spent every day guzzling red raspberry leave tea, bouncing on a ball, using my breast pump and walking.
  
My due date was February 17th and apparently, once you hit 40 weeks, the docs like to do a LOT of monitoring.  I was basically alternating between anatomy scans and stress tests every 2-4 days.  Each appointment I would go in hoping they would tell me I was dilated or effaced.
  
But, no.
  
On February 25th, I went into the OB's office for the fourth time in an eight day period.  I was sick of it.  I was sick of being pregnant.  I was sick of wasting my maternity leave.  I was sick of crying every day because I couldn't start labor and I mentally couldn't handle being pregnant anymore.
  
Tina (my midwife) checked everything out and told me I still wasn't dilated. Like, at all.  She went ahead and set me up for my second (third?) stress test and left for about ten minutes while the monitors captured Lainey's movement.
  
Longest ten minutes of my life.
  
My mind was racing.  I had planned for a natural labor and delivery, but the idea of that ten minutes of testing was driving me mad.  How was going to drag myself back two days later for another ultrasound?  My maternity leave was slipping away from me.  Every day spent trying to start labor was another day I wasn't going to get to stay home with my infant.
  
By the time Tina returned, I requested that she schedule an induction for that night.
I had had enough.
  
Eric and I arrived at the hospital around 7pm that evening.
The game plan was that they were going to insert a cervidil pack into my lady business to help my cervix soften.  I was supposed to sleep with it in and in the morning, it would be removed.  I'd take a shower and grab some breakfast and they'd start me on pitocin at 8am.
  
Except that's not what happened.
  
Once we got all checked into the hospital, the nurse inserted the cervidil.  I was told I had to lay on my side for two hours so the pack could get nice and cozy in the correct spot before I'd be allowed to move around.  So we turned on the TV and settled in.  For like 15 minutes.
  
Almost immediately, I became freezing cold.  Like, the teeth-chattering, uncontrollable-shaking kind of cold.  I used every sheet and blanket in the room, plus the blanket I brought and I was still fuh-reeeeezing.
  
Then the contractions started.  I always imagined labor would be like period cramping.  And honestly, that's exactly how I would describe early labor.  Intense menstrual cramping.
  
It wasn't that bad.
 Until it was.
  
Obviously, the contractions progressively became more intense.  Somewhere around midnight I had the realization that I was probably going to labor all night.  I hadn't slept well the night before, and I hadn't napped at all between the OB visit and checking in at the hospital.  I started to feel a little nervous that I wouldn't have the energy to push and I requested some pain medication to be administered via IV so I could try to sleep.
  
I'm glad I did.  I basically fell straight to sleep.  I would wake up long enough to breathe through a contraction, then go right back to sleep.  In and out of sleep for about an hour, give or take.  Somewhere in the sleepy, drugged up haze, the nurses checked me and removed the cervidil pack, because I had dilated to 4 and was in active labor.  I was so out of it, I remember asking Eric a while later to confirm that it had actually happened.  I couldn't remember.
  
At this point, Eric called our doula, Kacey, to come in.  I'm really thankful we had decided to have a doula at the birth.  When she arrived, she took over as my support person so that Eric could lay down and hopefully get an hour or two of rest.

  

I think she arrived around 2am.  Everything after that is just a blur, really.  Kacey would suggest different positions to labor in, I would give them a try, tell her I hated them, and revert back to lying in bed on my side with a peanut ball.  

  

The ones that stick out in my memory were walking down the hall (I found out I was the only one laboring that night and was basically howling all the way to and from my room), bouncing on a yoga ball, and squatting.  Nope, nope and noooope.

  

Around 4:30am, I was checked again and told I was dilated to 6.

Tina was called and told to come in for delivery.
        

As the pain got worse, I decided it was finally time to give the shower a try.  Everyone I know has said good things about tubs and hot water for pain relief during labor.  So I got in there, turned on the water, and gave Eric the shower head to hold on the most painful spot.  This was one of the worst parts of my stay at the hospital.  As Eric was letting the water spray over me, the temperature changed like someone had flushed the toilet in a house with terrible plumbing.  I screamed the only profanities I remember using my entire labor and yelled at Eric to get the water off of me.

  

Thus ended my experience with water as pain management.
   

Closing in on 5am, I moved back to the bed and asked for nitrous oxide, or laughing gas.  I had been told during all of the classes that the hospital offered this form of "pain management" and that, while it didn't actually stop you from feeling pain, it made you care a little bit less about it.

  

Bull shit.

  

The contractions became so frequent and intense that I was struggling to breathe through them, and honestly, I was starting to panic.  the nitrous did not help and I felt like the pain was more than I could handle.  So through tears, I begged for an epidural.

  

Being that we were in a small hospital (Christ Center in Liberty),the anesthesiologist arrived to my room in probably 5 minutes or less from when I made the request (AKA plea).  I was told to sit down on the bed and stay as still as possible while they administered the epidural.

  

I tried to sit down, but shot straight back up.  I couldn't sit down, even if I wanted to.  The nursing staff and anesthesiologist exchanged a knowing glance and asked me to lay down so they could check me.

  

I was dilated to 10.

  

I'm still amused looking back on it, because the nurses and anesthesiologist then began to explain the reasons why administering an epidural no longer made sense for me.  I was never told it was "too late" or made to feel bad for waiting too long.

  

So I guess somewhere in the neighborhood of 5:30/5:45ish the OBGYN on call (Tina hadn't arrived yet) showed up and told me to start pushing.  It took me a couple of contractions to get the hang of it, but three contractions worth of pushing and 30 minutes later, Elaine was born.

  

She was born on February 26, 2019 at 6:08am.

She weighed 7 pounds, 13 ounces and measured 21.5 inches long.
          

I was struck by how immediate the pain relief was after she was born.

UNTIL.

  

Apparently, dilating from 6 to 10cm and pushing out a baby in 75 minutes is too fast.  Things "downtown" didn't have time to slowly make way and I tore.  A lot.

  

I had three tears, the most significant of which was internal, about 7 inches long starting at the vaginal opening and continuing all the way up to my cervix (TMI? Sorry not sorry).  It took two hours, three suture kits, four doses of morphine and countless shots of local anesthetic to stitch me up. 

  

They had placed Elaine on my chest for immediate skin-to-skin bonding, but after an hour, I had to pass her off to Eric.  They were still stitching me up and every time they'd complete a stitch, I'd flinch and squeeze just tight enough to set her off screaming.

  

By 8:30am I was finally stitched, sporting my sexy mesh underwear, and trying to convince room service that it WAS acceptable to serve me three entrees for my first post-partum meal.

  

There's honestly so much more I could share about our stay.  Like how Tina only missed the delivery by 3 minutes.   Or how there was no nursery so I couldn't get hardly any sleep during our stay.  Or how Lainey was born close enough to National Chili Day that she got her very own Skyline onesie and $20 gift card (which have never been used because, ew).

  

But I'll save that for another day.

Until then.

  

...but where are the baby pictures??

Seven weeks ago, Eric and I had a beautiful baby girl.

We named her Elaine Noelle, brought her home from the hospital, and confused the world by sharing not a single photo of her on our social media accounts.

By now, most people have noticed... and several people have asked.

So here it is.  The "why our kid isn't plastered all over Facebook" blog.

For me, there are a few good reasons to limit my kids social media presence...

I don't know who my kid is going to grow up to be.

What if she is timid or shy?

What if she is easily embarrassed?

What if she is fiercely private?

Every person is different and while I consider myself an open book, my daughter is not me.

Similarly, every generation is different.  Mine is obsessed with sharing, but what if hers isn't?

Things posted online are permanent.  So that cute picture of Lainey in the bath tub or screaming bloody murder in the Target dressing room cannot be erased, even if I delete it.

I guess you could say we are trying to be considerate of her feelings, despite not knowing at this point in time exactly what they are.

 I want to keep my kid safe.

So often, I want to share what I'm doing while I'm doing it.

"Look at me taking my kid on a walk in the park on this beautiful day, woohoo."

For me, this is problematic for two reasons.

1. It's sharing with the internet exactly where I am with my infant at a given moment in time.

2. It has me distracted from my surroundings (and my child) and buried in my phone.

Maybe I sound like a paranoid first-time parent, and maybe that's exactly what I am.

But this world is a scary place, where a lot of scary things can happen.

Especially to women and children who are not on their guard.

Will I still stop what I'm doing to take a picture of my kid doing something adorable?

Probably.

But I hope that by setting a precedent of not sharing, that I will be quicker to put my phone away after the picture is taken and turn my attention back to what I was doing and who I was doing it with.

I don't want to open myself up to (more) Mom-shaming

Has anybody else noticed the increase in people doling out uninvited advice or passing unwarranted judgement based on the contents of a photo?

Maybe you shared a picture of your little in their carseat making the CUTEST face... before long, 8,921 people have informed you that you are putting your baby at risk because the chest restraint is too low.  What they don't know is that you had just gotten home and were beginning to unclip your babe when you stopped to snap the pic of their cute face.

People seem to think they care more about your child's safety than you do.

WHICH IS NUTS.

Basically, social media can be a super mean place and I'm not going to hand internet trolls a bunch of ammunition they might use to hurt me.

All that being said...

- I probably WILL share a picture on social media from time-to-time.  It's just that it will be the exception, rather than the rule.  I think this mentality will make us more selective and mindful about what we are putting out there.

- We DO have an app on our phones where we add pictures and updates for family and close friends.  This allows us to keep grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. updated without including our 200+ Facebook "friends."

 If you are a relative (or considered family in one way or another) that we've forgotten to add--let me know! 

- In a culture of judgement and mom-shaming, I feel like it's really important to say that just because this is the way we have chosen to handle posting to social media with our kids, does NOT mean I think people who do things differently are wrong.  At all.  Ever.

If we could all just do what we feel is best for our families and support other parents who are doing the same, the world would be a better place.