Owen Elliot Prater - A Birthday

On June 8, 2015 I delivered Owen Elliot Prater at 4:25p.m. He weighed eight pounds, four ounces and was 20.25 inches long. This is the story of how all of this unfolded.

My due date was June 3rd. I was scheduled to see my doctor on Monday, the 8th at 8:40 that morning. Dr. Bell had told me that if I had not delivered by my appointment we would plan on inducing me Monday night at 9p.m. In the early morning hours of the 8th, I woke up around 4a.m. with the realization that something wasn't quite right. I had spent the past few days walking miles, getting acupuncture, eating specific foods, and doing all sorts of stuff to try to go into labor naturally. I was hopeful that the events early that morning might mean something was happening.

I woke Cody up and told him about what was going on. We scoured the internet to try to interpret my symptoms. I decided I would take a shower (in case I really was in labor) and call the hospital afterwards. The hospital advised me to come in. We arrived around 6a.m. They checked the baby and me for dilation. I was at 2 centimeters, the same as the week before and the baby was doing fine. Nonetheless, Dr. Bell told the nurses to go ahead and admit me and start the process of inducing me. I found myself being wheeled to a room and getting blood drawn before anyone much explained what was going on. Cody and I decided we needed to speak with Dr. Bell to ask for more time before being induced. We all eventually decided that I would return Wednesday, the 10th, to be induced. We grabbed our stuff and headed home. All the while I was noticing regular cramping in my stomach. I had no idea I was having contractions.

We returned home around 8:30a.m. I watched television and ate some breakfast. I told my mom I thought I might be having contractions. Cody went to work. I continued doing all I would normally do. The contractions eventually got worse. By 11a.m. I was in some real pain. My mom and aunt came over on the off chance that I needed to be taken to the hospital. I laid in bed and suffered through what I realized at this point had to be contractions. I eventually told Cody he needed to come home.

Around 1 o'clock Cody came and got me. He drove to the hospital like a crazy person. You would have thought we had seen the kid's head. We made our way to labor and delivery; they checked me again. I was dilated to a five at this point, which happened to be as far along in the labor process as I hoped to be before getting an epidural. Owen's head was really low according to the nurse. This time they rolled me to the same room as earlier in the day. I was actually in labor.

The next few hours are a bit of a blur. I did eventually get an epidural. Contractions continued coming regularly and closer together. The nurse kept checking me and noting that I kept progressing. Before too long Dr. Bell was paged. I started pushing. My mom and Cody floated around the room in disbelief that all of this was unfolding so quickly. I eventually had to stop pushing during contractions in order to wait on Dr. Bell. I just laid there thinking about how weirdly easy the whole thing seemed. I was in pain but not unbearable pain. The epidural had certainly improved my situation. Cody kept looking at me with a giddy smile about the whole situation.

When I was at a nine, my water finally broke. The nurse told me that meconium was obvious from the color of my water, so she warned me that they would have to suction Owen as soon as his head came out to ensure he didn't swallow any of the water. I just nodded. At this point any sort of control over the situation was out of my hands.

Before long Dr. Bell showed up. I pushed a couple more times. We first saw the head (or at least that's what Cody told me). They did suction Owen's mouth and nose. I remember feeling his shoulders come out of me. I remember trying to wrap my mind around what was happening. Before I knew it, Dr. Bell laid a bloody little baby on my stomach. Cody looked at me in disbelief. I don't even remember if I touched Owen. Before I knew it, they had scooped him up so that Dr. Bell could tend to me. I suffered extensive tearing for whatever reason. I spent the next thirty minutes or so laying on the table as my mom and Cody relayed information about Owen's status. Everything and everyone moved around me. I just laid there watching Dr. Bell's hands pull sutures up and down. I wondered what exactly was happening. I wondered what my child looked like. The whole thing was so weird. I kept marveling at the fact that I hadn't even broken a sweat. I kept wondering if the whole thing was real. It was a blur for sure.

Nonetheless, Owen checked out as perfectly healthy. I watched Cody carry him wrapped in his blanket. My mom took pictures. Nurses stood over my bed handing Dr. Bell instruments. It was not how I envisioned delivering my child. It was easier and harder all at the same time. Mainly it was different. When Dr. Bell handed me Owen for the first time, I started crying. I couldn't even see his face, but I understood that my life was different. A line was drawn in the sand forever. Dr. Bell asked me if the tears were happy tears (probably to make sure that I was not aware of what he was stitching up). I responded with a sort of dazed head nod. I don't know what exactly the tears meant at that moment. Like a lot of the process of being pregnant, the experience was just too much to process.

After the commotion subsided, I was left with a little baby boy wrapped in a blanket. I didn't know what to do with him. I didn't know what to say to him. I was not flooded with maternal instinct. I did what the nurses directed me to do. My head was spinning, but I was relieved that childbirth was over. I was part of the club after forty weeks of carrying a human inside me. I was a mom, but really I just felt like my old self in a hospital gown with a sore crotch. I realize now becoming a mother would be a process for me.

Making Space

After we found out we were having a boy, I was really excited to create a nursery for Owen. I want to remember what his bedroom looked like, despite the fact that six weeks into his life we have spent approximately two hours in the room!

The inspiration for the nursery came from one of my favorite poems, "Birches" by Robert Frost. I teach this poem every year, and I think I like it a little more each year. I chose three excerpts from the poem that I have always connected to childhood and innocence and all of the good stuff that I associate with being a kid. From there, I found a birch tree stencil and chose the main colors (orange, navy and grey). We got to work on painting the stencil wall, and I printed the lines from the poem to hang on the wall.

Yes, it took as long to paint that wall as you would imagine. 

"I like to think some boy's been swinging them."
"One could do worse than be a swinger of birches."
"Earth's the right place for love. I don't know where it's likely to go better."

Cody and I also wanted to incorporate travel into the room in some way. We have traveled a lot over the past three years as we have tried to get pregnant. One of the reoccurring events in our explorations has always been the hope that one day we could experience new places with our child. We hope that Owen will learn to love and appreciate travelling. We collected all sorts of stuff from our favorite places: Icelandic trolls, a bicycle to represent Amsterdam, and a print of the Golden Gate Bridge. I had other ideas that I simply ran out of time to include.

The last component of the room involved lots of books. I love books. I want Owen to love to read. Kids who read are smart! I know this to be true. My parents always read to my brother and me. I want Owen to remember Cody and I reading him books one day.

In the end, I was really happy with the finished product. 

It was all better than it felt at the time...

"The days are long, but the years are short." Gretchen Rubin said this. I don't have a clue who Rubin is besides a person who apparently can capture a universal feeling in nine words.

Recently, I have found myself experiencing two completely different emotions in anticipation of having a child. The more prevalent emotion is sheer excitement. I feel like Cody and I are as prepared as we can be. I feel like I have gained valuable knowledge about labor, delivery, breastfeeding, and life with a baby in general. My parents are so happy. Cody is happy. The to-do list is shortening each day. And most days I am giddy at the idea of meeting this little human and starting our lives with him in it.

However, after resigning from my job for the upcoming school year, a completely different feeling has started to creep into my mind. I've suddenly started to worry about uprooting my existence and my identity in preparation for motherhood and all of the goodness that (hopefully) comes with it. I've started envisioning how my days will actually be filled next year when volleyball season starts without me and a new school year begins in August. I wonder what it will be like when Cody goes to work and I am alone with a baby who doesn't speak. I read articles about women who get lost in parenthood. People who completely lose touch with who they were before they had a child. I listened to a podcast about motherhood in which a woman cried about her unexpectedly changed voice after giving birth that kept her from enjoying her notoriety as an excellent karaoke singer...I'm not kidding. The woman was so upset about not being able to do karaoke that she cried on a podcast. What in the world?!?

Needless to say, I've started to worry a bit. The whole parenthood and working debate is exhausting. I have no idea how anyone can determine what is best for them until they simply become a parent and make a decision on the matter. It is probably logical that I have at least temporarily decided to quit working, since I come from a woman who eventually quit teaching to stay home with my brother and me. I also come from a woman who to this day claims being a mother is the best thing she ever could have possibly done with her time on earth. But this brings us back to the long days, short years idea.

Life is generally not good in the present tense. On a daily basis it is difficult to manage stress levels and small details that can greatly impact one's experience. I know that the first few weeks (maybe even years) of my child's life may feel very tedious to me. All of the firsts that he (and Cody and I) will experience will unfortunately be tainted by all of the complaints of everyday life. There are very few moments that I have experienced that transcended the present and managed to erase all of the common complaints of existence, replacing the present tense with a moment so perfectly created that its beauty was abundantly obvious right then and there.

I know that parenthood will be slimed with days of frustration and exhaustion and lack of fulfillment. I know that there will be times when I wish I was living this life that I am a part of right now. I know that the stories my mom tells of her perfectly behaved children who were adorably cute and unique have been smoothed by the years in between when she has forgotten how many hours of sleep she had the night before or the hours of tears leading up to that one perfect experience with her baby. I know that the days are harder than the years. I know that if I go back to work I will regret missing the days no matter how hard they feel at times. I know that if I don't go back to work I will miss the person I was before I had a baby. I know that there is no answer to this question.

I suppose I originally decided to quit working on the pretense of what we have left at the end. When I look back on seven years of teaching and coaching, I can recount only a few moments that seem worth remembering. Most of the days were uneventful. I don't feel like I have moved mountains as an educator even with the help of the years to smooth out the edges.

I keep telling myself that what will be left after the days as a mother have passed will be more valuable than the days I am spending currently. The moments that remain will be filled with my child and not someone else's. The stories that I will tell years from now after the smoke of parenthood has cleared will be enough to sustain me through the days of reality.

Lena Dunham posted a picture to Instagram this morning of her and a friend sitting in her shabby, first-ever office space before she became famous. The look on her face exemplifies the grunginess of the building, the weird characters who surrounded the office. She tells stories of all the hard times she remembers when she looks at the picture from years ago. Yet, she notes that, "it was all better than it felt at the time." Somehow I have to remind myself that the years that pass generally make life easier in our memories. Time will smooth edges and wash away all that we couldn't filter in the present tense. The worry of what will be will probably not matter, and certainly we (I) don't want to miss out on the few moments we get to live that don't have to smoothed to be appreciated.

I'm sort of banking on the fact that creating a human needs less smoothing than a lot of life. Time will tell.

Immediately, Gradually, Ultimately

I wrote this in November, which now feels so long ago.

My husband just gave me a shot in my left butt cheek as part of the last option we have to try to get my Progesterone levels to rise. Dr. Bell calls Progesterone "glue," as in the material that holds my developing fetus to my uterus wall. I need more glue or the baby growing inside me might simply unstick.

As we were leaving Wal-Mart today, a man was standing on the side of the road holding a sign that read "Homeless Anything Helps" and his dog's leash in his other hand. On Sunday when I was leaving Wal-Mart, there was a different young man sitting against the front of the store with a sign and a dog. On Sunday I bought the guy a sandwich and some water, the dog some food and treats. When I came out of the store, the man was gone. Cody and I drove home and returned to Wal-Mart this afternoon to give the man and his dog, Lady, some food and drinks. I couldn't get out of the car to hand the guy the food because I didn't think I could do so without crying. As Cody walked away from the man, Cody reached out and hugged him. Lady jumped to meet Cody as if she wanted a hug too. As we were driving away, I watched the guy pull out his sandwich and hand Lady a treat.

A couple of days ago I took my volleyball team to the state tournament. We snuck into the tournament as the lowest seed in the state. We didn't really deserve to be there, but we made it nonetheless. We played a one seed from the east. We lost. It was sort of close, but it never felt like we had a chance. At some point during the match, I jumped from my seat to celebrate a good play and felt an uncomfortable sensation in my stomach. I thought of the missing glue. I sat down. I calmed down. I thought about how different coaching volleyball is today compared to six years ago when I started. Six years ago when the seniors staring back at me red-faced and crying in that locker room after the match were just seventh graders. I coached those kids for six years. But I know the end of most things comes fast and quick. I know this. I tried to thank those seniors for playing all those years. I tried to tell them that the wins and losses are not really the reason people play sports. I tried to tie a bow on the end of something that I know is significant for people around me, but I couldn't. I couldn't talk about the end of those kids' high school careers because I was caught up in the idea that it was also the end of my coaching career. I wanted to cry, and I refused. We called it up. I left the laundry bag on the floor. I hugged kids to try to communicate what I needed them to know. I thought about the glue and the baby inside of me. I thought about the end of my volleyball career. I wondered if I would miss coaching one day. I worried how the end comes fast and quick.

I went to church last week for the first time in some months. I've been completely unconnected with the idea of God recently. His presence I have missed for quite some time. There have been too many question marks around me to feel like there is any divine presence in my world. We went to a new church that felt the way church should feel. There was stained glass windows and a vaulted ceiling. Organ pipes and pews and hymnals. The (female) preacher spoke about the unfair and inaccurate idea that with God there will be no hardship or struggle. She noted that some people feel the presence of God immediately after asking for it. Other people gradually experience God, which sometimes leads to questions about His existence. I would tell you my faith in God has been gradual. I'm a person that needs to be coaxed and convinced of things. I don't jump in with two feet before knowing all the details. Recently there has simply been too much for me to buy in. Throughout all of the questions, I have always wanted to believe in God. My brain recognizes the benefits in believing of something beyond the grind of life.

At some point throughout the service, the congregation offered up names of people who need prayers. As I stood with my eyes closed listening to the names of people, I thought about the living being inside of me. I considered the struggle to get this point. I realized that in my tunnel of hardship over the past few months (or years) I probably haven't paid attention to the good stuff as much as the bad. I realized that the questions I have about God started gradually. There were holes in the story that bothered me for so long, and somewhere along the way I reached a breaking point. At some point, the questions turned into an immediate disbelief and I haven't looked back much at all. Sunday as I walked out of church I felt like something had changed. I haven't completely bought back in to the idea of God. I know that my version of religion and God has to be something individual to me. I know the road back will be gradual.

The most important part of God's grace (according to the sermon on Sunday) is the ultimate salvation. The immediate and gradual happenings in this world are secondary to the end, the ultimate conclusion. There are a few things in this world that are ultimate happenings - things that are significant enough to surpass the immediate and gradual in-between. Creating your own human being has to be an ultimate experience. No matter how many immediate and gradual steps lead up to that moment, there will be a point in time when someone hands you your child, the ultimate goal.

The ultimate is so hard to keep in focus in the midst of the immediate and the gradual parts of life. People are homeless and young people grow up and no one has the answers about what we're all doing here. Nonetheless, I think being pregnant has to be an event that realigns what is true and real in this world. Being a parent is not fleeting. It is permanent. It is the ultimate. And it is terrifying.

He Has Hair

This is an old post...

I went to the doctor yesterday (31 weeks, 5 days). We did an ultrasound to check on this little one. All seems to be well. He's measuring in the 44th percentile. He has a huge head (excited about that part of delivery). He sucked his thumb/hand at some point during the scan; it was the first time I felt like I was seeing my baby as opposed to some variation of gray and white on a screen. He swallowed the fluid around him. I immediately felt guilty about the Easter candy I ate the day before.

We did a few 4D pictures. Cody claims the baby has my nose and mouth. I have never been able to pick out familiar features on an infant, much less an ultrasound of an infant. Either way, I couldn't help but feel excited that my baby might look a little like me. He is head down, and I am carrying him about as low as I can without actually going into labor. His feet curve around to the underside of my ribs on the right side of my chest. I can't keep from smiling each time those little feet nudge me.

I worry about everything to do with him. I worry that he is too small. I worry that my stomach isn't big enough. I worry when I wake up in the middle of the night on my back when everything explicitly says to lay on your left side! I can't just accept that I have a healthy baby growing inside of me. The whole thing is exhausting. Sometimes I want so badly just to get him out of me, to actually get to verify that he looks and sounds and checks out to be a healthy baby. I've always told myself that him being outside in the world is bound to be a safer, more manageable place. Recently it's struck me that once he gets here I may realize that the worry about his safety never goes away.

His room is nearly finished. Our house is filling with baby supplies. My shower is this weekend. Childbirth class was last weekend. He is due in eight weeks. Suddenly this is all sort of spinning out of control.

I've been putting a lot of thought into actually delivering this baby. I try to envision what might happen. The whole thing feels a lot like training for an important sporting event. Cody and I discuss plans of action for when I go into labor. He runs by me what his plans for support are. Knowing he will be there makes me feel a lot less scared about the whole thing. On occasion I feel a wave of athleticism wash over me. I remind myself that I know how to fight and to hurt and to keep going. Then I remind myself that childbirth is not a competition with four quarters and whistles. Then I go back to feeling pretty uneasy.

I am going to be a mother to a little boy with no name quite yet. He has a room and a bed and diapers and clothes. How he will enter this world is yet to be determined, but he will show up one way or another. I know that I am on the cusp of the biggest event of my life. I recognize the magnitude of what is about to happen. I make note of how different my life will be on a daily basis. When I sleep or wake up or eat a meal or watch tv, I try to imagine doing those things with him. When Cody and I talk to one another, I wonder who we will be after he arrives. When I go to work or read a book or think a completely independent, unique thought, I wonder if he will change those things about me. Will I be a different person simply because I am someone's mother? The whole thing is completely incomprehensible for the most part.

He has hair. My son has hair. Yesterday on the screen, the ultrasound tech showed Cody and me the hair that is already on our son's head. As she pointed out the hair sitting atop our kid's head, Cody turned around and smiled his smile, the one I see when he is legitimately awed by life. That smile doesn't happen all the time. It's a special event for me. Cody is much better at focusing on the good and accepting the positive in things. After the smile, I let myself smile too. I (temporarily) let go of the worry. I stopped analyzing every button the ultrasound tech pushed or expression she made. I tried to accept her answers as the truth. I tried to acknowledge that what is happening is so important and fragile and good.

All signs point to a healthy baby, and he is mine and he is Cody's and he has hair.

34 Weeks

I am thirty-four weeks pregnant today. This whole thing is suddenly flying by. I have done a terrible job of writing about most of this. As anyone who reads this blog can tell, I'm much more inclined to write about the bad than the good and thankfully this pregnancy has been pretty easy.

We have narrowed this child's name to two options. Middle names are still up in the air. I thought deciding on a name after I give birth seemed like a good approach, but I'm starting to worry that labor and delivery may be so overwhelming that I'll give in to any name that is suggested. I may try to have this decided before then.

This little person's room is nearly complete. All of the big pieces are in place at least. In a perfect world, I will take some pictures of it and post them to remember this process. However, I've started to feel a definite shift toward being less worried about all of the extra stuff associated with babies and trying to actually prepare myself to be a parent. The arrangement of frames on a wall are slowly being moved down my list of worries.

We have been to a childbirth class and a breastfeeding class. I have read and read and read about how to do parenthood. I really hope I can successfully breastfeed, but it is probably my biggest worry at this point. Cody has been so supportive and present through this entire process. He should get some sort of award for being an above average man.

We are still working on a pediatrician. I still don't have a car seat installed. I don't know how to use half of the gear that has been purchased, but we have it nonetheless.

I keep telling myself that once a doctor hands me the child that my body has been creating for the past nine months suddenly I will not worry about whether I should buy gowns or onesies. I won't care if all of his clothes are organized in drawers according to size. I won't have time to worry about all of the little stuff that I spend my time considering now. I'll be a mother and Cody will be a father and we will have to collectively figure out how to work this little human into our lives. The logistics of what that looks like on an everyday basis will have to be worked out once he arrives.

I resigned from my job this week. I will not be employed next school year. I will instead spend my time taking care of a baby. I resigned not because I know that motherhood will be worth not having a professional life. I resigned because a lot of people around me vouch for the fact that motherhood is a worthwhile (if not more valuable endeavor) than working. I resigned because I don't know exactly what is about to happen to me, but I know that it is theoretically bigger than most anything else that ever has happened to me. I know that I can always go back to work, but I won't ever be able to give birth to my first child again. I resigned because I think I will love this tiny person more so or at least differently than any other person I have ever loved and hopefully that love will be enough to sustain me without a career in which to invest my time and energy...there's so much left to be answered in the next few months of my life. I hope I get it right or that I at least get it.

The Mental Part

Being pregnant has been different than I anticipated. I can't seem to motivate myself to write about what's happening to me because it's almost as if the whole thing has simply been too much. Not too much physically. In fact, physically being pregnant has been a breeze.

I underestimated the mental part.

I should have seen this coming. In all aspects of my life, I crave the timing to be "right." I never want to get in over my head. I don't want to undertake any enormous changes without everything else being in a perfect row of easily managed categories.

When I got pregnant my personal reserve to allow for any added stress was essentially non-existent. Sure, the infertility treatments were trying, but those weren't the issue. When I found out I was pregnant, the way I once envisioned raising a child was turned upside down because the permanent variables of my life were suddenly less permanent.

There are waves of dealing with a sick family member. Sometimes it's relatively manageable; every moment of everyday is not tainted with cancer. Sometimes you find yourself at the crest of a wave struggling to get your bearings and to keep your head above water. When you are in the midst of a wave, there is no room for anything other than survival. At the end of September when I took that pregnancy test, I was in a wave.

Since finding out I am pregnant, my mom has undergone a hip replacement. For around two months leading up to that surgery, she could not walk on her own. She couldn't go anywhere without a walker and really she needed a wheelchair to move efficiently at all (although she refused to use one). We spent Thanksgiving and Christmas under the assumption that the pain in my mom's left leg was simply the result of bone cancer. We thought that this was the way the rest of my mom's life would be. Walkers and wheelchairs. Crippling pain that left her in bed with heating pads and pain medicine that barely phased the pain. We scrambled to schedule radiation which didn't help at all. We researched pain management options that doctors performed in far away cities and presented them to my mom who blankly stared back at her able-bodied family members. She tried to fake hope. She thanked me for not buying into the idea that the rest of her life would be spent using a walker. I bought my mom a heating pad and a TENS unit for Christmas. It was a rough holiday season.

We eventually found out my mom's hip was broken. She had not fallen or had any sort of accident to cause this. Her bones are compromised from the cancer. Sometimes they just break.

Today, my mom can walk without a walker or even a cane. She has a limp and some pain still, but she is vastly improved from a few months ago.

When my mom was at her worst, I tried to recreate the mental picture of my life with a child. I tried to imagine how my mom would hold my baby or take pictures with him. Could she ever keep him by herself? Could she ever pick him up from a carrier or crib when he was crying? Could she go on walks around the block with us? Or take him to the park? Could she stand by my side as I delivered him? Could she love him the way she loves me?

These were all questions I found myself trying to answer in the midst of coming to terms with the human inside of me. As I was becoming a mother, I was trying to let go of the way I needed my own mother. The whole thing was just too much.

The good news is that eventually a wave breaks. After the surgery and a few weeks of her recovery, I found myself on the shore. I could finally start to do all of the things I would have done at the beginning of this experience (names, pictures, registering, decorating a room) had my mom not been in such a bad way.

I realize now that the unexpected turmoil that accompanied finding out I was pregnant helped to put and keep this experience in perspective. I've been reminded that being pregnant is not about picking a name or registering for gifts. It's not about gender reveal parties or meticulously recording every craving or pregnancy development. Being pregnant does not have to be a production of fake milestones and celebrations (although when life allows those things are perfectly acceptable). Being pregnant is about having a baby, God-willing a healthy baby, who will enter a world that isn't always easy but is always worth it.

I will soon have a baby boy. I will be his mother and my mom will be his grandmother. She will hold him and love him for as long as she can. She will help me be a better mother than I could without her. There is no guarantee on these experiences, but there is a guarantee on the love that this tiny human will receive when he shows up one day. The details of how we got there will not be important when we finally get to meet this person. So maybe I don't know what I was craving in week nine or when I started using a rubber band to hold my pants together, but I do know that having a baby is about loving people; loving this baby and loving my husband and my dad and my mom and all the people who will shape who my son will become.