It’s been quite some time since I posted a personal story on my blog, but Xavier’s birth story is a big exception as I knew I would want to write it down to never forget. I also felt the need to share – without scaring anyone – that not all birth stories are the same. I didn’t have any sort of birth plan. While I think it’s fine to have one, I know now more than ever that many parts of it are most likely going to be axed – not intentionally, but I quickly learned as things progress with labor and delivery you have no choice but to be open to change. So while I didn’t have an actual birth plan, in my head it looked something like this:
- Don’t have a C-section
- Let things happen naturally (water breaks, contractions start, go to the hospital)
- Don’t have C-section
- Get an epidural or any modern medicine offered to be pain-free
- Don’t have a C-section
- Don’t have a C-section
- Whatever happens, unless someone is about to die, don’t have a C-section
I think you can read the opening of this blog post and not call this a spoiler alert: I had a C-section. 7 hours of pushing, pure and utter determination to not have a one, and I still had one. And guess who asked for it? ME. Would I eventually had to have one anyway? Yes, most likely and 7 hours of pushing + an epidural that wore off + many other imperfect steps leading up to that decision did me in. So yes, birth plan or not, a lot can change in the L&D process.
PRE-BIRTH
You’ll never hear more people’s birth stories until you get pregnant. Everyone shares theirs and you want to hear them ALL to prepare yourself for what’s to come. I quickly learned the women in my family go into labor naturally and have their babies easily, quickly, and vaginally. Literally, I’ve never heard more consistent stories and they all sounded about like this: went into labor several weeks early, water broke spontaneously (just like in the movies), waited until contractions were close together to go to the hospital, showed up at the hospital, got an epidural, and a few hours later vaginally had a baby. This consistency was on both sides of my family and the women in my family are itty bitty tiny people. So, I thought this exact story was my destiny. Every time someone said to me, “You’re just so tiny, you’re probably going to have to have a C-section,” I argued, explaining that all the women in my family are little and have their babies naturally with no issues. And for the record, I still don’t think my petite size had anything to do with me having to have the C-section.
My prediction was baby would be born August 1 - exactly two weeks early. This date was special because it’s the anniversary of mine and Tres’ first date, and me and my brother were both born on the first day of the month (January 1st and November 1st) so I thought it was simply meant to be. Starting the last week of July, I did every old wives tale of “ways to go into labor” that existed. Every single day, I ate every type of food that’s supposed to trigger labor - from spicy foods and eggplant parmesan to dates and pineapple. I drank an abnormal amount of red raspberry leaf tea. I walked, squatted, curb-walked, and danced. I even went as far as going back to my college days of twerking club-style. August 1 rolled around and nothing. My mom predicted August 7 – it rolled around and nothing. My girlfriends and I decided the day must be August 13. Next year, August 13 is on a Friday and between my lucky number being 13 and my love of horror movies, we decided a Jason/camping themed first birthday party couldn’t be beat. Baby would definitely be born on the 13th – that day rolled around and nothing. Due date, August 15, rolled around – nothing. At this point, I was scheduled to be induced August 17 but just knew I would go into labor by then. I didn’t. So I came to terms with being induced the 17th and baby would be born the 18th. Tres and I joked about how much cooler it would be if he was born on the 19th. At the time we didn’t know he was a boy but knew if he was, his name would be Francis Xavier LeTard IV. Tres’ dad (the II) was born on September 19 and Tres (the III) was born on July 19. July, August, and September 19th birthdays from the II, III, IV. I remember Tres saying, “There’s no way you’ll be in labor that long. I wouldn’t wish that on you.” Well, guess whose birthday was August 19? Francis Xavier LeTard IV.
LABOR & DELIVERY
We checked in Monday night, August 17. Bags packed ready to go – full of champagne for a celebratory toast and cheese and charcuterie platters to pair because I just knew this was going to be easy breezy once the induction process got started. I had full hair and makeup done, a cute post-birth outfit picked out because I was convinced I wasn’t going to break a sweat and planned to look fabulous when baby came into the world. Mama was going to rock this out and be pulled together when it was all over.
Before y’all think I’m certified crazy for thinking having a baby was going to be a breeze, I have to explain myself. I’ve had a kidney stone before. If you’ve ever had one, you know the pain and agony is unmeasurable. If you haven’t had one, Google: “is childbirth pain worse than a kidney stone?” I promise every article and story you read will say no. My mom had a kidney stone that took one of her kidneys – she told me she would choose childbirth over a kidney stone any day. I read multiple stories online from women who’ve had four and five kids and one kidney stone and say they would have many more kids again over one more kidney stone. If you look up “most painful medical conditions” you’ll consistently see kidney stone at the top of every list. Needless to say, I wasn’t one bit scared of childbirth. I had survived the most painful thing in existence and honestly thought my pain tolerance was high enough to easily handle childbirth (with an epidural of course, once it got unbearable). As this story goes on, you will continue to see a pattern – when it came to childbirth I was 100% an outlier every step of the way.
I’m going to outline the rest of this story in sections because I don’t want to get too long winded but want to briefly (as possible) sum up my experience in expecting each step to go simply and easily and the actual outcome being very complicated. I always took myself as an “easy patient.” Unfortunately, when it came to birthing my child, I was a very difficult patient. My body would not cooperate with literally anything. I just want to preface this story with the fact that I had THE best doctor who was extremely patient with me and THE best nurses (except for one who tried to ruin my life at the end when I was literally on the operating room table – I won’t discuss her because she doesn’t deserve discussing) who took the best care of me. I cannot say enough great things about the L&D floor at Baptist East Memphis. Though I had a hard time getting little Xav out into the world, they made my experience through all the craziness truly wonderful.
Here’s little Xav’s birth story from start to finish:
I ended up not eating a real meal for almost 3 days – I don’t know how I missed the memo of not showing up for an induction hungry. My last meal was around 1pm Monday afternoon, and I thought once I checked in, I was going to be able to eat a small dinner. That was a big negative. No one told me, and I never read it anywhere. Because of that, my doctor allowed me to eat something small when I got there but not too much. I had a few bites from the cheese and charcuterie I packed, so that little idea ended up being clutch.
Regular contractions, no dilation – When the induction process began around 11pm, I was contracting regularly, about every 5 minutes, but I wasn’t dilating so the progression was pretty much at a standstill. The good news was, I was contracting but wasn’t feeling a thing. I kept telling Tres, my pain tolerance is high, so I shouldn’t have much of a problem. On Marco Polo with my girlfriends, I was literally bragging that I was so comfortable I didn’t even think I was going to need an epidural. I’ve never eaten words so badly – I double roll my eyes at myself looking back. At this point, the L&D process had started off fantastically, and I just knew it was all going to be smooth sailing. My doctor was in the hospital, I was loving my nurses, and everything was going perfectly. Tres and I slept a little on and off with hopes I would dilate and have baby the next morning.
Water wouldn’t break – On Tuesday morning through the afternoon there was still no progression. To pass the time, Tres and I played the labor and delivery rock playlist I created. Funny story, making that playlist was the first thing I did when I found out I was pregnant. I told Tres, we will need all the rock music we can get on that day. I called the playlist “August 15” and put so many songs on there it was over 24 hours of music, which I thought was entirely too much as “I would never be in labor that long.” Haha – what a joke that ended up being, I think we listened to the playlist twice. To get dilation moving along a little quicker, my doctor decided to break my water. It wouldn’t break, so he recommended going ahead with the epidural, so I couldn’t feel anything. I was scared to get my epidural too early, as I always heard it could wear off. Nowadays, there’s a button you can push that keeps the epidural going if you start to feel anything, so I was told that wouldn’t happen. Around 3pm, I got the epidural.
Rare epidural complications, called a “wet tap” – I’ve always heard getting an epidural is uneventful and painless, so I was very nonchalant about the whole thing. I shouldn’t have been because in my case, it was horrific. Because I thought an epidural was one of the easiest parts of childbirth, I agreed to let the student assisting the anesthesiologist do mine. Apparently, my vertebrae were super close together and she couldn’t get the needle in my back. I was poked numerous times before the anesthesiologist took over, and even she had a difficult time getting it to go in properly. I now know this is called a “wet tap” and is extremely rare, happening in only .5 to 1% of patients. By the time my epidural was in and the tears stopped, that lovely makeup I worked so hard on was long gone with mascara Ozzy Osborne style all the way down my face to my neck. That was all she wrote on looking fabulous after childbirth. My nurse said in all her years she had never seen such a “traumatic epidural experience.” Those were her words.
Water STILL didn’t break – After the epidural nightmare, my water was broken – so we thought. In rare cases, the water doesn’t completely break and can seal back up. Of course, that happened to me. We discovered this when I still wasn’t dilating properly early into Wednesday morning around midnight. They had put a peanut ball between my legs to speed up dilation (looks like a workout ball but in the shape of a peanut). I kept having to switch sides for it to work, and when I switched positions my water broke – again. My nurse declared that must have been why I wasn’t dilating and now things would get moving. She was right, and she was so sweet, she stayed with me past her shift to help me start pushing.
Epidural wore off – I started pushing around 1am Wednesday morning with little progress. The nurse told me while baby was head down, he was also face up which makes it difficult to get through the birth canal. He was a bit sideways too and stuck on my pelvic bone as I pushed. I started vomiting around 5am, and I knew vomit during childbirth only meant one thing: my body could feel the pain. Strange enough I wasn’t feeling any pain at all, so I was very confused. I kept telling Tres, my legs aren’t numb anymore, I think my epidural is wearing off. But everyone kept telling me it wouldn’t wear off and to just push the button. Not long after that, the pain started, and I couldn’t stop vomiting. I kept pushing the epidural button that’s supposed to bring in more meds for pain relief but nothing was happening. The anesthesiologist tried to give me more, but nothing was working and the pain was getting more intense. It wasn’t long before I was feeling EVERYTHING. My contractions were right on top of each other and I felt every single one. It was bad, y’all. Bad. No, it was THE WORST. I kept telling myself this can’t be worse than my kidney stone, I can push through this, but I was losing hope. It was all back labor so everything I felt was the most intense. I was screaming, crying, and helpless for what felt like an eternity. Tres was a nervous wreck and didn’t know what to do for me. Looking back, I felt like I was in a cloud… like I wasn’t even on earth. It’s all such a blur. The epidural team came in several times with more meds and none of it was working. Finally, they turned me over to see what was going on and discovered the epidural catheter was no longer in my back. I was no longer getting any of the meds and hadn’t been for some time. Because of the difficulty they had putting it in, it had slipped out. The anesthesiologist said, we are going to have to re-do the epidural. Tres and I looked at each other in horror because the first experience getting it in was almost as bad as the contractions I was having. At this point though, I was in so much pain I was willing to do anything. But because of the position of baby, the nurses still weren’t sure I was going to be able to push him out so I said no to the epidural.
C-section was inevitable and it happened – All the pain I was in and all I kept thinking was, you better keep pushing because you are NOT having a C-section. I had told Tres before we got to the hospital that no matter what happens - and if I’m not in my right mind - to remind me how bad I don’t want a C-section. Within the last hour all I remember was screaming, “Get me a C-section, get me a C-section” over and over again. Tres looked at me a few times, shook his head no and said, “You don’t want that, you can do this.” He said eventually, I looked at him and screamed, “STOP SAYING THAT.” Funny enough, in between contractions when I wasn’t in the most agonizing pain, I would snap out of it and say, “No, you’re right, I’m not having a C-section.” My doctor knew this about me and was so patient every step of the way. He let me continue to push as long as it was safe for me and baby and really let me decide what I wanted to do throughout the entire process. His final room visit, I’m guessing around 8am, he asked me what I wanted to do. All I remember is looking at him, then looking at Tres, then back at him and asking them, “What should I do?” I was so defeated. It literally brings tears to my eyes and breaks my heart even thinking back to it because anything BUT a C-section – that was all I said from the day I learned I was pregnant. My doctor said, “You’ve worked really hard, done everything you can do, let’s go have a baby.” Tres and I both asked one more time if he thought there was a possibility baby could be born vaginally and if it was worth it to keep trying. In so many words, he told us he didn’t think it would happen and could potentially get dangerous. I was still in so much pain, I just didn’t care anymore – I was ready to not hurt anymore and to meet him (or her), so I agreed and was wheeled back to the OR.
I never knew how quickly C-sections moved. I think I got back there around 9:00 and Xav was born at 9:28. Tres said he was a nervous wreck. He was so tired of seeing me in pain and it was upsetting him to the point of feeling sick, then they gave him scrubs and made him sit in a waiting area until they had me prepped (see picture above). He said he had no idea what was happening and was worried sick. They gave me a spinal tap for the section. I remember them prepping me and asking if I wanted Tres to be the one to announce boy or girl. I said yes of course then before I knew it Tres was with me, I felt a lot of pressure and pulling at my belly, then I heard, “It’s a boy.” Immediately after that I heard my doc say, “a head full of hair and a cone head from all the pushing” then he was lifted up and all I saw was a bunch of hair on the cutest little cone head! He literally looked like movie Coneheads but with a head of hair - haha! Francis Xavier LeTard IV – born on August 19, 7 pounds 5 ounces, 19.5 inches – the most handsome little bebe I have ever and will ever see. We have video of this and nothing makes me happier than hearing Tres say, “It’s a boy.” It will never get old and be cherished forever.
We spent 2 more nights in the hospital. After a total of 4 nights, you would think I couldn’t get out of there fast enough, but I learned that the hospital experience – even as rough as it got for me – is a huge part of the many milestones that come out of pregnancy/birth and that time should be savored and cherished. I had all kinds of plans for pictures in my mind because I knew this would be our only experience in the hospital having a baby, so I wanted the perfect pictures. I didn’t get perfect pictures and it doesn’t matter. The ones we took are raw and real, and I love them because they tell Xav’s story so much better than any planned ones ever could. My makeup was gone, hair was a mess, and I didn’t look like the fabulous mother who gave birth effortlessly I had hoped to look like – as a matter of fact, I looked my most horrid. That doesn’t matter either because Xav looks cute as a button and it was his most special day! We didn’t drink any of the champagne, wine, or eat the cheese boards. That also doesn’t matter because we celebrated him all the same!
I tell this birth story to not scare anyone – believe me, I heard SO MANY easy-going birth stories I never thought I would have a bad one. I just wanted to share all the details as honest and real as they were. Do I think most people will have this hard a time having a baby? No, I most definitely do not. I truly think most birth experiences are pretty simple so keep that in mind if you read this and are now scared to give birth. None of it matters though… Xav got here safely, he's healthy, and we are just having the best time with him since we got home! Thank y’all for following along at the hospital until I disappeared from social media for days and scared everyone, but now you know why - haha. I so appreciate all the love and support from everyone I got throughout the pregnancy, the birth, and since we got home. I hope to bring Xav into this cooking world of mine just a little bit and hope y’all will continue to follow along!