Wow, hooray! Cassian Archer Yang was born the day after my last recipe post, 4 days before his due date, and tomorrow he’s 2 weeks old! Bringing life into the world was nerve-wracking since it’s so unpredictable (even the healthiest women have complications when delivering), painful (obviously)- but what I didn’t realize was that I’d feel the most pain through recovery as I can still barely walk for longer than 20 min. As they all say, all of the pain is worth producing life and you basically forget it all.
3:30 AM EARLY LABOR
On 3/18 at 3:30AM I woke up from an abdominal cramp and by the third contraction, I started thinking I was having contractions and nudged my sleepy Oly who reminded me to observe and count it for an hour. After a call to our hospital + OB, we gathered our bags and Oly calmly drove me to Providence St Johns by about 6:30AM while I asked him to talk about anything to distract me from the ongoing waves of pain (Wordle, which was appropriate). We drove by my office and I decided to text Dylan my coworker since that day wasn’t the day I was going to grab banh mi with Dylan, but the day I possibly may bring life into the world.
Until my cervical exam, I was anxious that we’d be “rejected” and resent home; I’ve heard too many of these stories of pregnant women being resent home due to false or too early labor. The staff wheeled me into labor and delivery and although a nurse poked me with needles until my arm oozed out blood and misevaluated how dilated my cervix was, the sweet supervisor came in, re-evaluated my cervix, and ordered them to transfer me to the delivery room since my cervix was actually 7cm dilated.
I was relieved to see my sweet OB Mana Baskovic visit. Even though they were surprised that my pain level was 5/10 with these contractions by then and assumed I’d be fine for the actual delivery part, I still opted for the epidural because I didn’t know how much more (pain) there was to go and I was feeling slightly irritated and tired of the contraction waves getting stronger from 3:30 AM. With this being my first childbirth, I didn’t want to remember childbirth as a horrendous experience of me lashing out at Oly, staff, and loved ones.
That morning while James the badass anesthesiologist had me sit upright while he stuck that needle into my spine (a rush of cool vibes ran down and gradually I wasn’t able to feel any contraction/pain belly button down)… my nurse Valery asked me if I wanted boba after my labor. Being offered boba honestly lit me up and while I entrusted all the staff, science, Oly, and my body to handle everything fine, the offer of boba felt too great to be true. I am so thankful that I watched the Youtube videos of various childbirth/doula experiences and participated in some Lamaze and Maven classes because everything helped me understand what was going on; I didn’t have the energy to ask and my mind was such a blur.
Many times, there’s a lot of waiting. Oly tried to get the HDMI cable to connect our Switch, but since it wasn’t working, we decided to switch to B plan: watch Guardians of the Galaxy. Once we finished the movie, my OB Mana came in to break my water (yeah, it wasn’t as epic as Pam’s water breaking at the office) and by 3:00 PM they asked me to start to push.
3:00 PM Active labor
I had so much mental pressure to get our son out, (not the physical, painful pressure one may feel when actually pushing since I had my epidural) First I prioritized putting my headphones on and began my “push it” playlist. Then, I held Oly’s hand (thankfully I literally cut my fingernails the night before) and imagined trying to push as if I were pooping. Soon my OB and nurses told me to just have the music blast off my phone. Because my face kept scrunching up, it was much harder to exert significant energy.
Yet after watching this crowd of Oly on the right of all these nurses/my OB, I was getting frustrated with all the “almost there’s” since his head just kept coming in and out (literally, famous words of Ali Wong) If there’s one thing I hate, it’s wasting everyone’s time and energy of trying to motivate me, with me losing progress over and over again. I was so sick of it by 4:00 PM, that I gave everything I had and shot out our baby like a cannon that neither Oly nor me saw him come out. Weezer’s Perfect Situation was playing, then Weezer’s Hold Me. How appropriate, right?
Warning: some of the photos down this post may be a little graphic with some blood.
The 1/4 sugar milk tea boba Valery and James got me was hands down epic and one of the best boba I’ve ever sipped (not the shitty, watered down and tough boba). Every other time I pampered myself to get boba, but this time I felt like I really deserved it and won in my life. I look like absolute shit here but it accurately displays how I felt from being in labor for 13 hours and not eating anything for 11 hours – a drained yet deliriously happy champion.
Nobody really knows exactly what to expect after giving birth, but what typically happens is the placenta coming out with the baby and the umbilical cord, possibly the partner (in my case, Oly) cutting the really thick cord, and a lot of crying and hormones just being dispersed all other the damn place. I looked like shit, and before when I was so nervous about breastfeeding it felt natural to weep with my baby brought to me, weeping on my chest and quickly breastfeeding him to calm us all down. Once Oly lowered down and hugged us, tenderly kissing my head, I cried more as it was a very sweet moment for our very own family. I continued to keep Cassian on my chest for the recommended hour for that precious skin-to-skin mother and baby bonding time, and they proceeded to check his weight, height, and vitals.
Although I knew I was going to be a mess, nobody told me that I’d get second-degree vaginal tearing, wouldn’t be able to pee for 2+ days, and would have some of the worst vaginal/abdominal pain for ~2 weeks. Getting a catheter inserted into me multiple times was extremely painful since I was so swollen; my favorite nurse on my second day even called it a “train wreck” and struggled to insert the catheter in me with other nurses because it was so swollen. When the most intimate and sacred body parts throb in pain and the most basic human releases of peeing/ pooping are stripped away, it’s extremely humiliating but humbling. I honestly didn’t know it’s so recommended to breastfeed my newborn every 2 hours.
I said it then and I’ll say it again:
The female body is a damn crazy machine.
I thought that after the epidural wore off, I was fine to move to the postpartum recovery area with our next nurse. When I got up with another nurse to try to use the restroom (who told me to not look down), I fell into the temptation of staring down at my vagina, which literally looked like two hanging dicks, side by side (think Ali Wong again) Amused, I called for Oly to come over, but by the time I stood up and looked at myself in the mirror, all colors and shapes started to fade away and all I saw were a bunch of dots. I was dizzy as hell and started to feel I was going to vomit. I hate vomiting and started to fall into a chair but was brought to a gernie with several nurses quickly giving me an IV and cranberry juice. Because of that, I wasn’t transferred to my postpartum room until around 930PM that night where Oly and I finally also enjoyed my first meal that day: Cassia.
While I originally was hoping we could leave the hospital ASAP (the second night was horrendous with Cassian cluster feeding) I am so thankful we stayed for another night. Many thanks to the nurses and hospital staff who cared for us, equipped us with recovery gear and resources to help me figure out how to breastfeed, encourage me and laugh with / hug me when my body was able to pee. Science is amazing, the human body (especially a womans’) is so badass, and Ali Wong’s jokes were never so raw and real to me. They were always right.
