100 Days of Ezra Joy: A Birth Story

Plop.

I heard it distinctly and without question. I stood up from the toilet, peered into the water and saw my mucus plug sunken to the bottom of the bowl.

My stomach lurched and I wanted to vomit. In the living room I could hear my husband talking with my friend who had just arrived as he packed up to leave for class. I called him into the bathroom to stare at the solid quarter sized glob with me. As we debated whether or not to call the doctor, I felt it. Warm fluid running down my leg. It was happening. My water was breaking.

I was 22 weeks and 3 days pregnant with our second child, a little girl. Her big brother Xavier had died in 2016 when he was born at 21 weeks and 4 days. This pregnancy had been different. This time we knew about my short cervix. I had a cerclage placed at 11 weeks and had been taking progesterone injections weekly since 16 weeks. I had biweekly doctor appointments. I was “taking it easy,” not doing any heavy lifting, and had been on pelvic rest since January. Yet here we were again. Stripping off fluid-soaked underwear. Tucking towels between my legs. Crying on the phone with my parents. Rushing to the car and speeding to the hospital.

Here we go again, I thought.

I thought about the heartache of losing Xavier and tried to imagine what it would be like multiplied by two. I thought about the urn of Xavier’s ashes and what it would be like to own two urns of baby remains. I remembered the pain of contractions and waited for them to come the way people who live on the coast wait for hurricanes. They were coming, it was only a matter of time, and there was little I could do to stop the waves.

We've Been Here Before

We made it to the hospital and the day started to feel like a Salvador Dalí deja vu painting. Victor was calm and kind, while I was yelling at receptionists and nurses who weren’t moving fast enough. I wanted to shake them, look intently in their eyes and let them know, “I have been here before. My last baby died. Treat me as if I am important, as if she is important. As if her life is the most important thing in the universe right now.” But to them I was another patient, and there were protocols to be followed. I begrudgingly complied.

We sent out texts—again—letting friends and family know what was going on. My parents arrived and gathered around my bed. Since losing Xavi, I felt like I knew what everyone was thinking. Dear God, not again.

Doctors came in and out at varying intervals. I was told that our baby was fine, the amniotic fluid was low but not completely gone. But we needed to remove the cerclage to prevent the chance of infection. It seemed counterintuitive, and unnecessary, like untying a popped balloon. The worst had already happened, hadn’t it? Apparently not. The cerclage was a foreign body, and its presence could result in life threatening infection for me and our baby. Victor and I mulled it over and agreed to the removal.

In a bizarre turn of events, another patient on our hall was losing it on the nursing staff, which resulted in our end of the hall being closed off and all hall traffic detoured around the other wing of the hospital, making it that much longer of a wait for doctors to get back to us. I heard her yelling and cursing, and I couldn’t help but hate her in that moment. Her baby probably isn’t even going to die, I thought. Why does she get to be a mama and not me?

After what seemed like hours, they finally came and took me for the procedure. Only Victor was permitted to be in the room with me. I laid on the bed as it was hoisted up into the air. My eyes widened with fear as they dropped the bottom out and turned on the largest light I’d seen. I could see my reflection in the rectangular ceiling light about me. My top half covered in a scratchy hospital gown, tears streaming down my face; my bottom half splayed open, vulnerable, and undignified.

After the painful removal of the cerclage stitch, one of the doctors announced that I was 3 or 4 centimeters dilated already. My heart dropped and I wailed aloud. This was it, I thought. It was happening. I was going to have another baby and she was going to die. I wasn’t having contractions, but they felt inevitable.

They moved me to recovery, and my parents and other friends all surrounded us in the room. Up until then our baby’s name had been a secret between Victor and I, and so as they all gathered to pray, we shared her name: Ezra Joy. Our girl. As much as I wanted her little life to be a part of healing my motherhood story, I had the deep and familiar fear that soon, she would be gone too.

The next day another troupe of doctors came to my bedside to assess our situation. One seemed like the leader. He was the tallest, had glasses, and did most of the talking. Then there was a woman, who had kind eyes and dark hair. Off to the side was another, who kind of looked like a Ken doll dressed up as a doctor, almost as if he wasn’t really supposed to be there, but they needed a trio so they just threw him a white coat and said, “Just stand next to us and nod accordingly.”

The Lead Doctor asked how I was feeling, if I had any cramping or contractions. Then he checked my cervix to see if I had progressed any. He said, and I will never forget the peculiar phrasing of this, “I don’t appreciate your cervix to be dilated at all.” What a strange phrase! At any rate, either by error, miracle, or a little of both, I was not dilated anymore. My cervix was closed. Baby girl was still locked in. They decided to me a few days on the maternal evaluation unit (MEU) to make sure I showed no signs of infection.

The Importance of Advocacy/The Power of Presence

Later that week a different female doctor came in to note that my heart rate and temperature were slightly elevated, potential signs of infection, and I could possibly have to be induced at 23 weeks. However I felt fine, and knew that my heart rate was directly related to my fear and anxiety for my baby. I tried to explain to her over and over that being in this position again—water broken and trying to delay labor—brought back memories of our son who had died. I tried to reason with her that I was not having pain or discharge and that I didn’t want to be induced, I wanted to wait and give our baby a better chance of surviving. She looked at me with sad blue eyes and an annoyingly soft baby-like whisper of a voice and tried to convince me otherwise. Yes, but your heart rate…your temperature…potential infection…very dangerous.

The more she spoke the more my blood boiled. I was furious at how she seemed to think she knew my body more than me. I stood firm and stated that we were fine with the continued monitoring, and if my elevated heart rate and temperature persisted, we would reassess. Advocating for myself in that moment was difficult, but so necessary. Too often women are made to feel like what we say and feel doesn’t matter as much as numbers on a screen. I don’t say this to discredit the medical community, but more so to encourage women to speak up. Ask questions, even if you feel the need to ask them over and over. As the hours went on, my heart rate and temperature returned to normal range and we continued with the plan of monitoring for infection.

That afternoon a friend came to visit. In one of the holiest, most precious moments during my hospital stay, she sang over me, songs of lament and prayer. Before she arrived my heart was wearied by the conversation with the doctor, and I wasn’t sure how much faith I had left. Yet hearing her voice pierce through the silence as I lay in the bed was as refreshing as a cup of water in the hot summer sun. “Put your trust in God, I will yet give thanks to him,” she sang. They were hard words for me to sing that day, but I’m so thankful for a friend who could sing on my behalf. I listened to her voice sing song after song, and like gentle waves on the shore, they lulled me into a peaceful sleep.

"Movin' On Up!"

After 4 days of laying upside down in bed, using bedpans, and not eating very much, I was moved to the high-risk obstetrics unit, a floor that seemed to throw all of the rules out. I could sit up in bed or be rolled around in a wheel chair for a bit outside. I could get up to use the bathroom. I could eat whatever I wanted. As I moved around I would lose amniotic fluid and so I was still wearing large hospital sanitary pads. But I could wear my own clothes. I could take showers. It all seemed so surreal. How is this possible? I would ask every day. How is she still alive?

Nurses came every 4 hours to check my vital signs, and once a day I was strapped to a fetal monitor to hear Ezra’s heart beat and see if I was contracting at all. Usually that went without a hitch, other than Ezra wiggling from under the monitor. It was the most anxiety provoking 20 minutes of my day, yet I looked forward to it nonetheless. Hearing the gallop of her heartbeat helped me remember what was so easy to forget: I was still pregnant and she was still alive. We went on with this schedule for two weeks. 14 days of non-stop monitoring. Visitors came in and out, bringing lunches, dinners, drawings from their children, craft supplies, flowers, and gifts for Ezra. Days and nights were a blur as I faded in and out of sleep, watching the sun rise and set from a window.

The Friday before Ezra was born I started experiencing excruciating pain in my lower abdomen. Close to midnight the pain became unbearable and a slew of doctors and nurses came in to assess whether I was in labor. They strapped the fetal monitor around my belly and Victor, my parents, and I waited. No contractions were being detected and I assumed the position again—feet touching, legs spread apart, bare rear balanced on a bedpan—so that the doctor could check my cervix, which thankfully was still closed. The doctor on call stated that I was most likely experiencing uterine irritability due to Ezra growing and moving in my uterus without a lot of amniotic fluid. I thought they felt a lot like contractions, but hey, they were the doctors, and if that bought us more time with baby girl inside me, then I was ok with that.

Two days later that Sunday we filled the hospital room with my family: my husband, mother, father, brother, grandmother, two cousins and my great aunt. We laughed, played Jenga, and for a brief moment it felt like any other Sunday afternoon at my mother’s house, sitting around the dinning room table, except they were all sitting around my hospital bed. That is one of my most fond memories of my hospital stay, and I am so grateful we shared that moment in celebration of making it to 24 weeks gestation.

Harnessing Fear Into Power

For the next two days I would continue having the “uterine irritability.” On Monday my heart rate had gotten too high and so we were moved back down to the MEU floor for closer observation. After close monitoring, and no detected contractions despite my pain, we were moved back upstairs. Tuesday afternoon the pain was more intense, and my mother recognized that the intervals were getting shorter and shorter. She called the nurse who once again strapped me to the fetal monitor. I winced at the sharp pain as I studied her face. She had a worried and concerned look as she turned back to me:

“Yeah, it looks like you are having contractions.”

I was devastated. Everything seemed to be happening in flashes: another nurse came in and studied the strip of paper printed from the fetal monitor covered in jagged lines. They called for a doctor. A woman who looked no more than 25 years old came in and aggressively tried checking my cervix. I felt like I couldn’t breathe I was in such a panic. I was about 6 cm dilated, and the contractions persisted, one after the other. It was go time. My husband was on his way back to the hospital from night school and I was terrified he wouldn’t make it.

By the grace of God, my husband made it in time and was by my side through the remainder of labor; my partner, husband, co-parent, and doula. He looked in my eyes with calm confidence, saying “We’re gonna be ok…we’re gonna bring her home.” He repeated those words over and over and I truly believe it was what helped me stay focused and calm. I was out of control of everything else happening, but I could harness my fear into the power needed to birth our daughter.

Originally I had wanted to attempt undedicated labor, but the pessimist in me decided why endure the pain if our baby was potentially going to die? So I elected to have an epidural. After multiple anesthesiologists fumbled through giving me the epidural, things slowed down. The contractions eased up and I was able to relax a little. We turned on some music—Leon Bridges’ song “Brown Skin Girl”, which I had sung so many times to Ezra while in my womb. I sang along and laughed lazily while chomping ice chips. 

This Time Was Different

Time passed quickly and soon we were into the early hours of the next day. The last time the doctor checked me I was fully dilated, and she could feel the top of Ezra’s head. She told me it was time to push and talked me through each contraction since I couldn’t feel anything below my waist due to the epidural. In those moments I felt fear and power, pain and hope, sorrow and joy. I was doing it. I was giving birth. I was engaging every ounce of my feminine, almost animalistic, might, balancing on that tenuous line between life and death. And it was different this time. 

With Xavier I endured labor and delivery with the knowledge that he would die soon after. At 21 weeks there were no interventions to be done, no life saving procedures. The doctor had explained to me very clearly: he would be born, and if alive, he would die shortly after. I was permitted to hold him as long as I wanted, but almost as soon as he arrived, he was gone.

This time was different. Different pregnancy, different baby, different outcome. That had been my mantra throughout pregnancy and in that moment it could not have been truer. Making it to 24 weeks was a game changer. There was a distinct difference in the purpose of my labor this time, and that made such a difference in my mentality throughout delivery. As a mother of loss I knew the possibility of death was still present, but there was hope. Hope for life.

After a few pushes, our baby girl passed through my birth canal into the hands of the doctor. She raised her up for a fleeting moment so that I could see her tiny frame, so small and delicate, but perfect in every way. She looked so much like her big brother in that moment, red and wriggly, her head covered with dark hair. Her papa cut the umbilical cord and then she was taken to the side of the room where a group of neonatal doctors were waiting for her. They wrapped her in plastic and she was rolled away to the NICU.

She was here. And she was alive.

Her Story Is Not Over

100 days ago I gave birth to our daughter, Ezra Joy. The remainder of her story continues to be written, and for now I will be her scribe. For these past 3 months she has shown herself to be a fighter, with shining bright eyes, and a rowdy cry that demands our full attention. A mighty baby warrior, she is already living up to her name, which means helper. She helps us remember God’s faithfulness, love, and mercy towards us. And oh, what joy she has brought to our lives. I am looking forward to a many, many, many more days with this sweet girl.

John 14:26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you...

Romans 15:13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.