This week, I'm thinking about giving birth.
But before that, here is the first ever Leave it to Leonor trigger warning. I have friends having babies every month between now and October and maybe some of you, readers, are also pregnant. Maybe some of you are a bit squeamish. Thankfully, this story has a happy ending, but there are a lot of dark moments, too. Now is your chance to skip down to “This week in reading.” For the rest of you, carry on.
A little over a year ago, I was a week past my due date and nearly out of amniotic fluid, so my doctor sent me to the hospital to be induced. Around 1 o’clock, we walked into the hospital, which is fun when you are going to have a baby. Everyone is very excited. It’s like a very small parade.
The first few hours of the process were standard. They monitored me and the baby for a bit before inducing me with a pill. I had some early labor contractions which made me laughably confident. Those hours were chill and damn near delightful. I was up and about, breathing, squatting, moving through my pain, and using visualization techniques that my good friend Alice taught me. Look how much fun my mom and I were having before she left for the night:
Around 9 p.m., my water broke and things took a very sharp turn. My contractions could no longer be helped with visualizations or movement. The pain was intense and all encompassing. I listened to Homecoming: The Live Album in between each wave, and while they slammed into my body, the only thing that eased the pain was swaying like we were slow dancing in middle school.
This went on for hours, and I barely sat down. My body was exhausted. They came to check on my progress and the dreaded words "cervical balloon" (don't google it) were uttered, so I asked for an epidural. They cleared the room to keep a sterile space, so I was alone when the anesthesiologist was rude to me about staying still for the procedure. I retorted that it was difficult to stay still while having a contraction and perhaps, she might be able to wait until it passed. She was called away to an emergency before she was able to administer the epidural, and I was left for another hour before they pulled someone from a different floor to perform the procedure. I felt a tiny bit of relief. Soon enough, the contractions started up again, but now I was no longer able to get up and sway.
At this point, we called in reinforcements — my sister, Mandi. When she arrived, she knew something was wrong. She went to speak to the nurses and told them I was in too much pain. After a visit from the nurse, the rude anesthesiologist came back. She condescendingly told my sister that an epidural dulled the pain, but this is what child birth felt like. My sister told her that she knew since she'd had both an epidural and a baby. They upped my dose and for a short while, I felt better, but soon after, I was in intense pain again.
I was depleted. I was falling asleep mid-sentence only to wake up moaning in pain 30 seconds later. I barely remember this. At 7 a.m., when my nurses from the day before came back for their shift, they realized something was wrong. The epidural had not taken. No one was particularly clear as to why. A new anesthesiologist came and started over and then there was sweet relief. We were all able to sleep for a few hours.
Friends, this is the beautiful part of the story. For less than 40 minutes, in gorgeous morning light, I pushed in a calm and quiet room. The breathing was challenging, the pushing was hard, it was . . . laborious. The word labor is very accurate. It was powerful. And then our daughter was born. The first hour was a blur of joy and tears.
The grandmas and aunties arrived. My mom brought cake because, of course she did. Things were lively and exciting. The baby, perfect.
This is when things start to turn. No one tells you about the first time you have to go to the bathroom right after childbirth. Unsurprisingly, it's an ordeal. The nurse came with me to make sure everything was fine. Having never had a baby, I wasn't sure what to look for, so I went back to sit in the bed without another thought.
The second time I went to the bathroom, my mom expressed concern about how much blood I was losing. The nurse, who had been so nice, said, not unkindly, "this is what it's like." My mom, who'd had three babies, said it seemed like a lot, but it had been a while, so maybe she was wrong. I felt dizzy after and they used a wheelchair to get me safely back to bed.
The third time I went to the restroom, I had to be held because I felt so weak. When I was done, I asked to stay in the wheelchair because I felt more stable there. I chatted with my aunt and niece, whom my mom got through security with a cake bribe. When my mom took them downstairs, I asked to be brought back to bed. I got up from the wheelchair, and there was a puddle of blood beneath me. When I lied down, I saw stars. Grabbing the call button, I whispered into the intercom, "I am going to pass out." When they didn't respond fast enough, my sister raced to the nurse's station and yelled at them to come to my room.
By the time my mom came back upstairs, doctors, nurses and a crash cart were coming into my room. My blood pressure had bottomed out and blood was pouring out of my body. I was suffering from postpartum hemorrhaging, a condition that happens to up to 5% of women after childbirth. I don't remember all the details, and the ones I do are not my favorite memories to recall. Eventually, they got the bleeding under control, and my blood pressure returned to normal. I required a blood transfusion.
The hemorrhaging didn't cause any long-term health issues or affect my milk supply. And while it maybe couldn't have been prevented, it could have been caught sooner had any of the doctors or nurses listened to me. And I would’ve had a smoother birth experience had they listened to my sister. I was lucky that everything turned out okay.
So yes, this week, I'm thinking about giving birth, but also about how our medical system ignores women. The odds become worse if you are a black woman or a woman of color. This piece by Annalisa Merelli leads with the story of Liz Logelin, who died in 2008 after a blot clot traveled into her lungs. I remember her story, having followed her husband Matt's blog, all about his new circumstances, and having to raise his daughter Maddie alone. In 2017, ProPublica did an incredible package, Lost Mothers, focusing on the estimated 700 to 900 women who died in the U.S. in 2016. Serena Williams has written about her life-threatening experience with childbirth. The ever private Beyoncé has opened up about her complications. Just this week there was the tragedy of Amber Isaac.
Do NOT even get me started on postpartum care and support. One visit with your doctor six weeks after you give birth. That’s it.
I went back and forth on whether or not to share such a personal story so publicly, but ultimately, I think it’s important that women share all these stories — childbirth, miscarriages, menstruation, menopause — all the things we are taught to keep quiet about, to make less of, to keep secret. I hope that the future brings change to our health care system. Women’s voices must be acknowledged and heard and our pain should be taken seriously.
A year out, it’s easier to talk about my experience, especially since I have a bright, smile-y, curious 1-year-old who lights up my life. If that is what it took to bring her into this world, then I’d do it all again in a second, but it’s a shame that anyone has to.
A happy ending, but really a very happy beginning:
This week in reading. . .
Alisha Rai's Girl Gone Viral was cute and fun enough, but what was really amusing was that the main character had a yeast starter. So timely! I bought Samantha Irby's Wow, No Thank You from House of Books (support your indies) and am very excited to read it next.
This week in listening. . .
The Savage remix with Beyoncé.
The Sunday Read episode with Gabrielle Hamilton's beautiful essay on closing her restaurant.
This week in TV. . .
Well, well, this is quite a review for Normal People, a book I really enjoyed.
Everyone stay calm. A VERY SPECIAL REVIVAL EPISODE OF PARKS AND REC!!!!!!
Never Have I Ever looks like fun even if the male lead looks much too old to be in high school.
This week in a gif. . .
actual footage of me every day
This week in movies. . .
Was Extraction a good movie? Well, Chris Hemsworth is very pretty.
This week in a quote. . .
"Nostalgia is the yearning for a place to which we can never truly return — in part because that place never quite existed as we remember, but also because we’ve accelerated past the point in our lives when we were able to experience it in that way." - Anne Helen Petersen
This week in artsy stuff and photo things. . .
A great interviewwith a great photo editor, Paul Moakley.
24 hours in NYC during the COVID pandemicby The New Yorker, with exceptional photography.
Virtual library tours, you say?
This week in an Editor's Note. . .
A special thank you to my friend/star editor, Erin Evans, for looking over this week's opening essay and helping me shape it into something worth sharing.
This week on the internet. . .
I've never been good at meditating, but this was a nice moment.
This as told to about a nurse whose first day was on a COVID floor.
What is Hollywood going to look like moving forward?
I'd like to see many more scenes from "hot guy in teen drama"
An interview with the editor of Taco Bell Quarterly, yes, you read that correctly.
All seasons of The Real World, ranked, and I mostly agree, but I also stopped watching in the later years.
me, as an outcast for the rest of my life should I ever ever make such a stupid mistake,
Leonor
