The Day Pigs Flew

Candace: It was 5am when our alarm woke us up. Really, it didn’t even have to make much of a noise to jar us out of bed since we were already subconsciously waiting for our wonder-surro to call us and let Chris and I know what time to meet her at the hospital. With our clothes laid out and bags preloaded the evening before in the car, we were given an hour notice to make it to the hospital. Good thing we are OCD and thought to have everything ready beforehand because our hospital was a good 45 minute drive with traffic away. Apparently pigs can fly. We were on our way to the hospital to meet our child because one woman was giving us the most precious of all gifts. See folks, I even wore appropriate socks for the occasion. 

Now, when you are in a hurry and you need something to grab and go for breakfast what would you chose? Breakfast bar? Perhaps a quick piece of toast? NO, we took two bowls of oatmeal with us. WTH? We are driving the speed of Mach-F to the hospital while we eat oatmeal. I am pretty sure at that moment our heads where not entirely clear. There were so many other things racing through our minds that morning that little things like, rational thought did not seep through the filters.

We met our wonder-surro at the L&D check in area and were quickly assigned a room where we waited, something couples master the art of when  baby making with broken parts. Oddly, I was at peace with waiting as long as it took that day. I think finally my jitters and anxiety started to kick in. Here you have me, knees bruised from praying for this child, fighting back the growing fears of if I will be a good mother. Will I let all those people down who have cheered us on? Will the folks that helped us fund raise to see me in this mother role think I am not the Donna Reid meets Carol Brady type of mom they thought I would be? How about the IF community? I see the finish line, it is right there and many of you reading this right now are still licking your wounds from the last failed IVF or failed adoption placement. Our Jellybean will be here that day and I am already feeling like I will not be loving enough, have enough patience, protect her from young hormonal teenage boys. It was at that point I felt the pressure of every failed procedure, but more so I was terrified I will let my partner-in-infertility down.

14 hours later, we got the green light that our wonder-surro was dilated to 10 centimeters. We had requested to the hospital staff that immediately after the birth I wanted to do skin on skin contact and try to breastfeed. Since I did not carry Jellybean it was important to me that we started the bonding process immediately. The L&D staff was so accommodating to our unique birthing situation. They sectioned off an area with a rocking chair, fitted me with a gown for easy booby access. Our wonder-surro was amazing and even asked me if I wanted to hold her leg while she pushed, and if Chris would cut the umbilical cord.

The doctor came in, the table of instruments rolled up to the center of the room, the blinding lights turned on and the once bed our wonder-surro laid in turned into a birthing table with stirrups. Chris jokingly refers to it as a medical version of a Transformer. My stomach dropped, my throat started to tighten and she started to push. Now, the whole day of dilation checks Chris stared at his shoe laces. This time however we were on a crotch watch of a different kind. We saw this wrinkled up dark haired round object first. Chris and I both talked about it later that day but we agreed that we had the same fear that Jellybeans brain was on the outside of her head. Silly right? Four pushes later, we got the first glimpse of her. She was perfect in every way, brain on the inside for those interested. Someone had put a needle in the balloon of pressure I had built up. All of those thoughts and fears had deflated when I took the first glimpse of her. I can say in that moment, everything was washed clean from the past years of our infertile purgatory. She was worth the wait.

Chris:  To recap Candace’s part, it was a crazy long day.  We were terrified at every second that something would go wrong and we would literally get to the precipice of being parents only to be turned away again.  And then, in the smallest fraction of a second, we were turned from infertiles trying to be parents, to infertiles that were parents!!  Now what?

Thing is, we have been steeped in all of the research, experiences, and lore of infertility, and we have not done our due diligence at thinking about how to be parents.  That showed right away as Grayson, in a moment that so poignantly brought this into focus, pooped all over my hands.  I literally was with her for about 30 seconds and she decided that now was as good of a time as any to introduce herself to me.  It was sticky, black, and not nearly as appealing as it sounds.  Funny thing though, I didn’t mind a bit.  If there was anyone’s poop that I wanted on my hands, after waiting for her for so long, I was over the moon that it was our child’s. 

Candace’s introduction to infertile parenting was a bit more graceful and, yet again, showed us the true beauty that is all around us.  I know Candace already covered this, but I wanted to weigh in on this moment too. The most amazing part to me was that Candace was actually able to nurse Grayson right there!  We were so worried about how Grayson would interact with us.  She didn’t hear Candace’s voice while she was in the womb.  I didn’t get to play with Grayson at night while she kicked the crap out of Candace’s organs (our surro would text us to tell us her spleen was really getting wailed on some nights). Grayson means so many things to us (hope, determination, kindness, altruism), but in that moment, she meant one thing, completion.  As I stood there, with gloved hands and activity all around me, I kind of got tunnel vision.  I saw my wife nursing my daughter and nothing else.  There was nothing else we needed … we were complete.  And to think, just a few minutes later I would be covered in Grayson’s poop!  I wonder if Candace had a similar transcendental experience seeing me?

We have Grayson, she is nursed and gotten her very first exam, now what?  Our wonder-surro was being tended to and we wanted her to see Grayson before making the trip up to the nursery.  We brought Grayson to her and let her hold Grayson for a bit.  Then, it was off to the nursery.  We watched them give Grayson a more thorough exam, give her a sponge bath, and put her under the heating lamp.  She had to stay there an hour and the nurses told us that she would need to stay there for an hour and we should use the cafeteria opening for the midnight shift to get something to eat.  Reluctant as we were, we succumbed to their suggestions.  I can say now, retrospectively, that part of me thought we would be coming back to the news of some terrible, albeit totally unpredicted, complication and Grayson would be taken away.  Yep, the whole infertility robbing you of peaceful, rational thinking strikes again.  When we got back though, Grayson was fine and we got the opportunity to wheel her into our room.

Our room.  Awesome hospital staff comes through major here.  For normal pregnancy (what’s that?), you have a room on the mother-child ward.  For us though, there was no recovery after labor for Candace.  The hospital had 2 nursing rooms right across the hall from the nursery and they offered to let us shack up in those for the entire time Grayson was in the hospital!  Yep, we were literally 6 feet from the door to the nursery.  Awesome because we were peppering the nurses with questions the whole time we were there!  They even had one of those super uncomfortable “Daddy beds” that they had in the mother-child rooms.  Guess where I slept that first night?  In the Daddy bed.  It sucked, my sleep sucked, and Candace couldn’t understand why.  I simply explained that I finally had a reason to do it and this would literally be my only opportunity to do so. 

We were in the hospital for two and a half days.  We met with a lactation consultant twice and asked the nurses about a bajillion questions.  I don’t think even as we were leaving that it had really sunk in that we were parents.  How could it?  We had been chasing after this dream for so long, all we knew was how not to be parents.  Even now, we look at Grayson and somewhere, in a dark recess of our being, we still think that she will disappear.  That somehow this is some amazing dream and we will wake up with our trashcan of negative pregnancy tests and containers of used needles still wet with IVF meds.  But we are parents now, infertile parents, and there are new and unexpected differentiating things that separate us from a “normal” set of parents, more on that in future posts though.  Grayson is home and we are learning what it means to be parents, to have truly unconditional love, and how to face those dirty diapers we prayed so hard for.  They are fine with us though, the dirtier the better.  We have Grayson and retaining a sense of smell seems insignificant compared to that.