Dear Turner {A Letter to My Son About His Birth}

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Dear Turner -

I didn’t know what to expect before meeting you. Motherhood was something I wanted, desperately, we tried for a year and a half and that year and half was probably one of the hardest times of my life - longing for something that just didn’t seem to be working out for us. But even with all that, motherhood felt foreign to me and giving birth even more so.

I was terrified of giving birth, but on your due date: 4.29.18 I felt pretty ready to have you out of my belly and in my arms. Your due date was a Sunday, your Dad and I were working on building a frame for this big canvas picture that I took of a geyser in Iceland. Crystal came over to hang out, we were sitting outside talking and I kept getting up to go pee every ten minutes or so. I would make a little wincing motion and sound and she would ask if I was ok and I would say “oh yeah, he’s just pressing on my bladder.” Around 6pm your Dad and I went to take the dogs for a walk and as we were walking I had a pain that made me stop walking - turns out I was having contractions, and probably had been for a while. I started timing them on our walk and they were about 7 minutes apart. I called Christina and Sarah to ask what contractions felt like because I wasn’t entirely sure they were contractions. I insisted we finish the frame, so we did. Stopping the use of the nail gun each time I had a contraction. To be honest, they weren’t bad, and completely manageable. I called Dr. Navi and since it was my due date he advised me to go to the hospital. I showered, got ready, we stopped at Whole Foods for pizza (2 slices of cheese which I devoured) and headed to the hospital. We ate the pizza in the car of the parking lot of the hospital. We checked in to Labor and Delivery around 9pm. I was fairly certain they were going to send me home. At 10:30 they admitted me, mainly because your heartbeat was jumping around but I think that’s just because I was moving a lot and the belly monitors kept moving. I had to get up to pee a lot. Nana started driving out from Lake Havasu. I slept off and on. Around 3:00am Nana arrived and came in and said hi. Also around 3:30am the contractions got intense and I asked for the epidural. It took about an hour for the anesthesiologist to arrive. That hour was very intense and to be frank not very enjoyable. Once I got the epidural, which worked really fast, I slept again. In the morning Dr. Navi came in and broke my water around 8am and also started me on Pitocin, from there things moved fast but also I mainly slept, which was great! I woke up around 1:00 or 1:15pm and right away I knew it was time. The nurse came in and said let’s start pushing. In my head, I thought we were going to be practicing, but right away they were like there’s the head. Things happened fast from there, but also slow. Dr. Navi rushed in after just delivering another baby. Pushing was hard, not painful (thanks epidural!) but mentally and physically exhausting. I thought I couldn’t do it, I said it out loud. They told me to push again and then Dr. Navi was telling me to reach down for you. You were face up and suddenly you were there. Dad had tears in his eyes. He never cries, it was very powerful. The look of love he had is probably one of my favorite moments of our relationship. I was terrified I would drop you. You were perfect. My heart exploded and I instantly knew that I could do this again, that the love for a child is unlike anything else in life. Then you refused to latch… but that’s a whole ‘nother story.