Saturday morning, June 1, 2015, I woke up with this crazy urge.

Pee. I get up, or instead, I roll out of bed and head to the bathroom (I am on my 38th week of pregnancy). Everything goes as usual, so I head back to bed.

Check the time… it’s 3:30 am. I was lying there WIDE awake at this point, just trying to flop around and get comfortable, when I felt a small warm surge flow out of my “va-jay-jay”.

Whoa! Felt like I went an extra tinkle; it happened before. No biggie.

Then this warm surge happens again and once more, but on the latter, it was a wee bit more or a LOT more! So I whack my partner on the bum and say, “I think my water broke!” Of course, I had no clue, and I was freaking out. Normal, right?!

I roll out of bed, and the moment I stand up completely, a much larger surge flows out! Yet, I am still clueless and asking out loud if my water broke because, again, I am freaking out.

Could it be true? Is this happening? I don’t know what to do, what to think, and I want dearly for this not to be happening.

Back to the story, I went into the bathroom to see what this was, and my bottoms were soaked fairly with a slimy type substance. And as I am standing there, more is coming out. By this time, my partner is up and waking my mom up because it’s the time!

I made the call to my OB office, and they said for me to come in immediately. After, I go ahead and take the time to change while my mom is getting ready, and after changing, I am standing there chanting, “I can’t do this, please. Why did I do this to myself? I don’t think I can do this!”

Over and over.

Side note of Toki Castro-Tover birth story:

I was saying why I did this to myself because I went through an IUI process to become pregnant. If you are interested, you can read my pre-pregnancy story here – http://www.rockthebabybump.com/intrauterine-insemination/.

My mom, just listening to me, calmly says, “Get in the car because I am not calling the ambulance to come to get you!” Ya, mom, real funny.

Oddly enough, I was feeling NO pain amongst all my chanting and on the drive. When I calmed down, I was still feeling nothing. The car ride was filled with even more chanting and talking to myself about how I couldn’t believe this was happening.

My mom, just smiling.

At The Hospital!

So we get to the hospital and check-in.

At the hospital now, and everyone is being so lovely. Too nice. I wasn’t expecting this kind of treatment. I actually didn’t know what to expect. All the nurses were making sure I was as comfortable as possible. (Emerson Hospital in Concord, Ma. was where I had my baby girl.)

My OB came in, did the ultrasound and tested my amniotic fluid. It’s a GO! Next, I am hooked to all the many monitors to make sure the baby has a heartbeat and mine hasn’t exploded! After, they need to know how far along am I—pelvic exam.

Ok, let me preface this by saying I am NOT a fan of pelvic exams. Who is? But for me, it’s just not a happy time. Painful. So when it came time to see where I was at in dilation, well. My OB attempted the exam, and an epic deathly scream filled the air—failure.

My OB walked right out of the room, saying only, “get the epidural!”. She stated I was NOT dilated past 1 cm.

As a result, the nurses had me going through a 10-hour regime of walking, squatting, bouncing on a medicine ball, hugging that medicine ball and just trying everything under the sun to get my body to dilate.

It is not happening. After all, was said and done, I never dilated.

By then, 15 hours passed, exhaustion set in, and they asked me that dreaded question (meaning I knew it would be a c-section), “Do you want to have this baby?” I replied, “Yes.”

I was truly and utterly exhausted, though.

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A quick side story of Toki Castro-Tover

Leading up to getting myself and the “epi” ready, I was induced with Pitocin. (What happened was, my water broke only, but I was not in labour. If that is even possible?!)

With being induced, I started to feel the twisting and straining of labour. Not bad until the dosage raised higher and higher. So I was offered laughing gas.

I never heard of this and surely didn’t think this would ever work for labour pain. Undoubtedly, I had many questions about this, but the main one was, will this hurt my baby? They assured me that inhaling this does not harm the baby but helps with the pain.

I was given the mask and told to breathe it in very deeply. I remember taking 3 deep breaths in, and on the third, I felt my entire body just instantly relax. My hand holding the mask dropped, and I began to laugh. Laugh in a tone I have never heard before. So loud that the nurses had to ask my mom if this was normal! It was not expected, and I had NO control over my body. I could not control this screeching high pitched laugh at all. It struck me as so funny that I could not control a thing and felt so relaxed.

Of course, here is my short video of this happening. Thanks, mom, for recording this!

As you can see, I was just as fine as can be with no pain. All I could feel was extreme pressure.

End quick story 🙂

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So it began, the preparation for getting ready for the c-section. Just breath, the anesthesiologist said right before he slid the needle in my lower back. I didn’t jerk, nor did I feel any pain—just a prick. Felt like a rush of cold water flowing down my back but from the inside.

Almost immediately, my legs went limp, and it felt as if they weighed 100 pounds each! It was the oddest feeling to see my legs yet couldn’t move them or have control.

While the team was prepping for the procedure, I started to regain feeling in my right leg. Not sure why but the anesthesiologist had said that I twisted my spine slightly in the middle of my back. So right before they took me into the birthing room, I had ANOTHER epidural done. I was completely numb at this point.

My legs felt like lead weights, which made me laugh that I could not move them no matter how hard I tried. Into the operating room, I went with only my partner. Upsettingly, my mom was not allowed in the room. It was a small room with white walls and 1 door in and out. I had one hand on my OB, Christina T. Thomas, M.D, the entire time. I was scared and felt so alone.

I was also administered a spinal tap at this point. I was out of it by now that I didn’t question why I even needed that and why I needed morphine.

What Was I Feeling?

I felt so drugged up, and my mind was just so distant. I felt alone and so very nauseous. I was throwing up the entire time, especially during the c-section.

Physically, the only things I was feeling were the shaving, the harsh pushing (she was pushing hard on my chest for a while, knocking the air our me moments at a time) and a vacuum of sorts (for the blood, I am guessing).

What Was I Hearing?

The first words I heard from my OB was, “Look at all that hair!”. Yes, she had a full head of hair.

Then moments later, I hear my daughter’s first sound, her cry. The most beautiful sound I heard, and I just lost it. I started asking for her and crying uncontrollably. I couldn’t see anything but my blue tarp!

Then she came around the side and was brought right to my face to kiss, feel and love.

I almost don’t remember after this. I also never got skin to skin right away either.

I felt so sad because they took my daughter away, and I didn’t see her for almost 45 minutes later. I was also so exhausted that I think I was sleeping most of that time; I was in and out.

Granted, post-birth, the doctors had to stitch me back up, make sure I was ok and clean up, but I figured I would get some time with her right away. I felt a bit of a disconnect. Is that normal?

Overall, after all, was said and done, my little girl was healthy and well, just wanted to sleep.

The following 5 days were of recovery and just learning the ropes of motherhood.

I am sure that the mommy reading this knows all the highs and the lows.

For having a c-section, I couldn’t get out of bed for the first couple of days, so thankfully, my mom was a massive help with feeding, changing and caring for my baby.

I also got extremely nauseous and had vomiting for the first-day post-birth as well. I couldn’t eat anything and drink water.

BUT I loved all those nurses, all hours of the night, who brought my pain meds every 4 hours because healing from this was extremely painful.

But amongst all that pain, I had no feeling in my legs for a long while, but I noticed they put them into a compression device; they constantly massaged them to keep blood flowing for a good 24 hours post-birth.

It did feel good, and after the feeling came back into my legs, they instructed me to begin walking around and noting that my feet would most likely begin to swell. It was a double edge sword here because when I would walk, my feet became so swollen that they merged with the width of my calf!

After they told me to put my feet up, I was supposed to be walking as much as possible.

That double-edged sword.

Home

After the hospital week was over, I headed home with my new baby girl and began a life-changing feat that I love. Well, sometimes. 🙂

Anna Pearl 7 lbs. 9 oz. 20 inches long

My name is Toki, mommy of Anani 🙂 Thank you for being a part of my little story. For me, mothering will always involve long hours, heavy physical work and the type of worry that could bring down an elephant if put into a dart gun. I’m here to cultivate a sense of inner support to calm our little mini storms. You can read more about my family and me here: www.rockthebabybump.com.