Babies are the worst: My PPD Journey

Sitting in traffic at Third and Formosa, trying to get to the light at La Brea so I could turn left. I don't remember where I was going. I don't remember if Owen was with me. But I do remember seeing a woman walking west along the sidewalk, pushing a stroller and juggling the toddler in her arms. She was trying to fix the blanket that had been shielding the baby in the stroller from the sun. She was slightly off balance and the attempt was not effortless. And I mumbled to myself, full of disdain and pity, "Babies are the worst." And I meant it. They ruined your life. Your ability to function. And I didn't bat an eye at my assessment. Now that I've received treatment and feel back to my "normal" self, I reflect upon that bitterness that pretty much oozed from my pores and it absolutely feels like I'm looking at a different person. All my life, I've been a baby magnet. I loved babies and babies loved me. There was  a baby in the room? Gimme. I wanted to hold and snuggle and coo. And on more occasions than I can count, babies would reach for me. Babies of strangers, babies of friends, babies of family. Gimme. So it was extra shocking and a true wake up call when I met my cousin's daughter at Owen's first Christmas.

Little Piper was born six months after Owen and was all of four months old when the holidays rolled around. First baby for my cousin Tatum and first grandbaby for my Aunt Lindi, my mom's sister. We always celebrate Christmas Eve with my mom's side of the family and there was an extra buzz of excitement since this would be a "first" for so many. I had started seeing my therapist at this point and was planning on talking to my parents on this trip about that decision. There was a lot going on. We were looking to move from Los Angeles to the Jacksonville area, I was finally emerging from my cocoon of denial regarding my depression and now it was Christmas, the most anticipated and stress-inducing holiday of the year. There were a lot of balls in the air. Would everyone get there in time in order to eat and get to church on time? It's our family tradition for my mom to make her famous lasagna on Christmas Eve. Dan doesn't eat pasta. Chicken parmesan is usually whipped together for him. My cousin was bringing a friend who didn't eat meat. A meatless sauce was whipped up for her. My uncle and his wife were coming for the first time in maybe fifteen years. And there were two babies experiencing their first Christmas. And two sets of parents experiencing their first as parents. And two sets of grandparents experiencing their children being parents and themselves being grandparents for the first time.

Owen was trying to walk (and would end up being an official walker a few weeks later) so he needed constant supervision. Postpartum depression does wonders for your anxiety levels, in my experience. So I was on edge even more than usual. And my parents house was far from baby proofed. Everything was a trap - from the holiday decorations to the entertainment center which was just at his pull up level to the dock leading to the canal with no barriers in the backyard. No amount of wine was going to help ease the hyper-alert-jittery-mania I was experiencing. I imagine my eyes darting quickly side to side, assessing the dangers Owen could find and yet I'm sure that to the outside world, I seemed fine. Everything was bubbling under the surface, like an underwater volcano. And the slightest shift in my tectonic plates would cause the inevitable eruption.

And that shift was sparked by a sweet, tiny baby girl.

When I looked at her, I couldn't remember Owen being that small. Ever. But the way her fingers moved felt familiar. The alien-ish pointing and flexing, constantly moving and grasping and intertwining together and apart. And the gurgles and coos and sighs and little cries sounded familiar. And all this familiarity was not a positive association. I wanted to run away. I wanted to walk out the door and not look back. I could feel my breath catching when I looked at her. But I played the part of supportive and excited cousin. "She's so sweet!" I exclaimed. And I gave her my finger to hold. And I remarked on her tiny feet and soft skin. And then, oh no, gotta go, Owen is gonna pull over that wooden reindeer. I avoided as much as I could by playing the part of attentive mother. And then in a moment when my defenses were down and I had gone to show Tatum where she could give Piper a diaper change in the bedroom where we were staying, I paused to chat and fished for how Tatum was really feeling. "It's hard, isn't it?" I asked. "Yeah," she replied as she changed her daughter. "But she's so great. And such an easy baby." And she was being truthful. Which made me even sadder. And then the moment I had been dreading arrived while I was wallowing in my self-pity. Tatum had finished changing Piper and she asked completely innocuously, "Do you want to hold her?"

NO, my inner self screamed. I wanted nothing to do with her and her sweet little hands and sweet little squeals and her sweet little drools. I felt a tightness in my chest and I was having difficulty breathing. I had gone down too deep and the pressure was squeezing me on all sides, inside and out. But the show must go on.

"Sure," I smiled. And suddenly I was holding her. And what had always felt like the most natural thing in my life - a baby in my arms - felt the most foreign. She felt like a sack of sugar and I had no connection at all. I kept up conversation about what I don't know and then she started to fuss and, phew, I had found my out so I handed her back to her mother.

Holy shit. This was way worse than I ever realized.

My therapist had suggested before I left for the holidays that I might consider going on depression medication. But that seemed ridiculous to me. I wasn't currently depressed. I just wanted to talk to someone about the month immediately following Owen's birth because I felt like I might have some "unresolved issues" regarding how it all went down. I wasn't going to start meds. She said that was fine but to just think about it and we could talk about it more when I got back. "In fact, "she suggested, "why don't you go ahead and make an appointment with the psychiatrist and then if you wanted to cancel before it arrived at least you'd be scheduled in? Even if she ends up prescribing you something, you don't have to take it," she reminded me.

It was standing in my parents back hallway, fighting back tears and swallowing my volcano that I realized I would not be canceling my appointment.

* * * * *

A few weeks after getting back to LA, I had my first appointment with a psychiatrist. She agreed that I would benefit from medication. And for the first time, I agreed. The way it was described to me was that the normal connections in my brain that allowed for a normal emotional life had been worn down and were no longer connecting. The medication would help to rebuild those connections. A few weeks after starting on a low dose, I was driving home after having brunch with two of my girlfriends. We had a fun meal together, catching up on the news in each other's lives. Owen had been well-behaved and happy at the restaurant. It was another beautiful day and I was excited to get home to spend the rest of it with Dan. And as I slowed to a stop at a four-way intersection, I felt myself start to smile. And a light switched on. I felt happy. For the first time in nearly a year, I felt an old familiar emotion: Happiness.

There were more ups and downs. The lowest dose was not enough. We had to make adjustments and I continued with therapy. But eventually, we found the right balance. I was so worried before taking medication that it would give me a false sense of contentment. That I would feel 'better' but it would just be another mask. Instead I found that it gave me myself back. Depression had hidden that self deep below the lies it tells. But I was still in there. I was just waiting for a lifeline to help me back to the surface. 

Early Dismissal & Death Wishes: My PPD Journey

I've combined two excerpts below because in my book, they will be chapters that are together. And I feel like the content of each inform the other. Talking about suicide or suicidal thoughts is not something I do lightly. And I am here, able to talk about it, because I sought help and went on medication. If you are feeling anything similar or worse, you are not alone. And you don't have to be. That's depression's great lie: It makes you feel like no one can possibly understand. But if I've learned anything from sharing my story, it's that THAT FEELING IS UNIVERSAL. Feeling alone is the biggest lie depression tells.

If anything here strikes a chord, please visit SuicidePreventionLifeline.org or call your doctor. Don't wait.

* * * * *

Early Dismissal

In high school on early dismissal days, there was a period of time where my mom would take us to Taco Bell after picking us up. That was our treat for lunch on the way home. I'd get a soft taco supreme, no tomatoes, and cinnamon twists. Every. Time. And though I pretty much avoid that place now that I'm older and wiser (cough cough), I'll occasionally slip in for a walk down memory lane and get my same order, even though I don't mind tomatoes on my tacos now.

What does Taco Bell have to do with postpartum depression? Not much. But sometimes I like to detour to help avoid truths. And I started thinking about how we dismiss the signs of PPD in the early weeks after pregnancy and this 'early dismissal' took me down an unexpected road of nostalgia. I still dig Cinnamon Twists...the poor man's churro.

I expected to feel a roller-coaster of emotions after delivery. The books tell you, your friends tell you, the doctors tell you. Your hormones are straight up cray cray after having a bay bay. "Baby Blues" is a common term tossed around (also, a yummy BBQ joint in LA). So I fully expected to start crying for no reason or to miss being pregnant or to feel incredibly high with love only to come crashing down to Sadville in the next moment. I even had a Twitter exchange a few weeks before delivery with the writer/creator of my new favorite sitcom at the time. She is a friend of a friend and I knew that she had worked throughout her pregnancy as she created/wrote/showrunned her first network show. And I was astounded by that. I couldn't imagine being pregnant for the first time and producing a show at that level. So I sent her kudos via the great equalizing medium of social media. We went back and forth for a few 140 characters about her show and being a new mom and then I mentioned how I was due soon and she sent back, "...The first couple weeks are VERY HARD, but it gets easier and easier. And don't worry if you feel sad - hormones!"

For some reason those few words from a complete stranger rattled around in my brain constantly during those first couple of VERY HARD weeks. I dismissed everything I was experiencing as 'typical hormone issues.' When I talked on the phone with my best friend, the first night I was in the hospital after delivering, I literally couldn't speak without crying. Tears were streaming down my face and I was sobbing out any words I spoke. And I remember apologizing, "I'm...sorry...I...can't...stop...crying...Hormones..." She remembers that conversation too. It was a little unsettling but also, yeah, she admitted "hormones" made sense. When I had my hardest cry on the way home from the hospital, I chalked it up to those crazy hormones doing their thang. When I sat in our bedroom, in my green rocker/recliner, unable to sit up without assistance, heaving sobbing whenever I had the chance to be alone. Hormones. This would all go away as soon as I could my hormones to even out. If only I could breastfeed. That was supposed to help equalize things, wasn't it? Or did it just help my uterus contract? I couldn't remember. Either way, breastfeeding wasn't going to help me feel better anytime soon since Owen couldn't latch on well because of the "stress and trauma" of his birth and I didn't seem to be producing milk, no matter how diligently I pumped and ate oat bars and drank Mother's Milk Tea. All of that I swept aside as I wallowed in my sadness because my hormones we're causing all of my problems and eventually I'd "snap out of it."

Have you seen this cartoon by Robot Hugs about if we treated physical diseases the way that we treat mental illnesses?

Yep. I was absolutely treating myself with the 'snap out of it' mantra. But that was the tricky thing. I knew something was wrong. I knew that the sadness and the numbness and the anxiety and the frustration were all extreme and unlike anything I had experienced before but I also had never birthed a child before. And if everyone was saying that "baby blues" are inevitable then I just needed to fight through the inevitable.

The only problem was, I didn't feel like fighting.

I didn't feel like being there at all.

Not just being in the bedroom, struggling to recover from surgery. Not just in the apartment, struggling to be a mother.

I didn't want to be anywhere. I didn't want to exist. And if I died, that wouldn't be so bad.

In fact, being dead sounded like a lovely break.

* * *

Death Wishes

"Did you ever want to kill yourself?"

That's a question you hear a lot when people find out you were depressed. I think part of the reason postpartum depression is such a taboo subject, in that women don't want to admit they have it and they don't want people to know about it even if they admit it quietly to their spouses, family or doctor, is because of the horror stories that postpartum psychosis can produce. And those stories are the ones that the general public hears. We live in a world where click-bait headlines are the norm and news runs on television and online and on apps on our phones and memes on our social media twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week. "News" programs literally have to scream at us to get our attention and so what do we hear about? The worst of the worst cases. Remember that mom of six who drowned all her children in the bathtub? Or that woman who drove her car, with her two children fastened in the backseat, off of a bridge? Or the one who thought the President was trying to harm her so she drove her car toward the White House, over barricades, until she was shot to death while her infant daughter sat in her car seat in the back of the car? What about the woman who left a note, apologizing because she knew she had ruined her child's life by accidentally dropping him at some point. So in order to prevent the child's lifetime of struggle she jumped out of a window, while holding him. Her baby survived because her body provided a cushion from the fall. She did not. I remember hearing about the woman who drowned her children in the bathtub when I was in high school. I remember the outrage surrounding the story and the public sentiment being, "How could someone be such a monster?" There was even a profile in People magazine, if I recall correctly. And the common denominator with all of these stories is that they mother suffered from postpartum depression. At least, that is what the media broad-stroked them with. They tossed around the idea that being depressed led to these actions and, yes, it may have started that way. But postpartum psychosis and postpartum depression are very different diagnoses. Very different realities. Who wants to hear about that though? The nuanced differences - both quiet and loud? Who has the time to write about it or read about it? Not the media. They're too afraid that you've already left their article to click over to the latest celebrity nude scandal. So they use the broad term of "postpartum depression" because most of their readership has at least heard of that before and they don't have to get into explaining it further. And then those of us that are quietly suffering from postpartum depression - actual postpartum depression, which comes in many forms, one of which can be quiet and unsuspecting - keep our heads down and power through because we don't want to be associate with these extreme cases.

Case-in-point: I used an attention grabbing selection of two words for this chapter. Death Wishes is an actual terminology in psychology and it's something I dealt with in my early stages of depression. You're paying attention now, aren't you?

"In classical Freudian psychoanalytic theory, the death drive (German: Todestrieb) is the drive towards death, self-destruction and the return to the inorganic: "the hypothesis of a death instinct, the task of which is to lead organic life back into the inanimate state"" - Wikipedia

If I could have stood up on my own, I wonder if I would have actually left. Walked out the door "to get milk" as the cliche goes and never came back. I certainly fantasized about it. The idea of leaving my apartment and creating an alternate world where I wasn't Meagan anymore and I certainly wasn't a mother anymore. I'd live a quiet existence, under the radar, secret shame of my secret past bubbling under the surface. People would wonder what my story was - where I came from, who my family was - but they would never know. Because I would never tell. I'd be in some out of the way small town, living in a trailer and quietly waiting tables at the local diner. I'd be good at my job, no nonsense and efficient so people wouldn't complain but I wouldn't be the waitress you'd make chit chat with. Friendly enough but not someone that anyone was close to. I'd wonder how Dan and Owen were doing, maybe. But mostly I'd shut my mind to that world so I didn't have to deal with the pain. A total break with reality. Almost like a split personality. I'd convince myself that the other world that I had left, never existed in the first place. And maybe then I'd be some form of happy in life again. If I didn't exist, as I was, maybe then I could be happy. Speaking of not existing, if I was in some sort of car accident, that didn't seem like the worst thing. If my car ran off the road and I hit a tree and I could still get out of the car...I wouldn't. I'd just let myself go.

So did I want to kill myself? Not in the conventional sense of wanting to slit my wrists or hanging myself or finding a gun or taking a bunch of pills or jumping off of a building. But if I happened to find myself in a situation where my life was in danger? That didn't seem like such a bad thing. I wasn't going to actually put myself in danger...but I thought about how that seemed like a relief.

It makes me feel so unbelievably sad to think that I could have let myself slip away. I had lost my urge to fight. And I'm a fighter. When I was fifteen I had a severe allergic reaction to over-the-counter painkillers I was taking to battle menstrual cramps and a sore throat. I went into anaphylactic shock at school. I had already gone to the nurse's office because I was breaking out into hives and we were taking an exam, so I thought, "Sweet. I get to get out of it." She called my mom to come pick me up and I went back to my classroom to get my backpack. As I walked back to the office I started to see black spots. I made it to the nurse, told her what I was seeing and she said, "Ok, sweetie, come lie down over here." That was the last thing I heard. The next thing I knew I was on the ground and she was shouting, "Call 9-1-1! Call 9-1-1!" I started to come through and said, "I need to go to the bathroom." And then I collapsed again. By now my mom and my then six-year-old sister, had arrived. I was on the ground and I could hear them but I couldn't see them. They told me later that my eyes were open the whole time. I was temporarily blind. By the time the paramedics arrived, my pulse was so low, they couldn't find it manually. They hooked me up to a machine and found it: 70 over 40. I was having trouble breathing so they inserted oxygen tubes into my nose, put me on a gurney and wheeled me out to the ambulance. As luck would have it, my dad happened to be driving by my school when my mom had come to pick me up. She had called him to come get my sister so that she wouldn't be late to school. Needless to say, neither of them took her to school that day. My principal volunteered to get her to school so that my parents could follow the ambulance to the hospital. I knew they were in my dad's car, behind us, while I was shut in the ambulance. And then my throat completely closed. And I knew that was it. I was going to die. They threw an oxygen mask on me and pumped me full of Benadryl and epinephrin and...suddenly I could breathe again. I started to stabilize. Lying in my hospital bed, I couldn't stop scratching myself because of the epinephrine and I couldn't keep my eyes open because of the Benadryl. My doctor thought I was sleeping and I heard him say to the nurse, "She's lucky. I've seen cases this bad where they don't come out of it." I decided then and there that every moment was a gift. That life can be gone in an instant and I'm going to fight for every moment. I wasn't going to live with regrets. I was going to pursue my dreams and follow my passions because it can all be gone without notice and there wasn't any time to waste.

Fifteen years later and I was in a fight for my life again...but I had lost the will to fight on.

So This Is What Depression Looks Like

When Owen was ten days old, my sister had arrived in town. Kelsey is a woman of many talents. She's ridiculously musically gifted: she can play three instruments, write songs, sing like an angel, and even wrote a song as a surprise gift for Dan and I's wedding. She paints. She is a bit of a prodigy in the advertising world, having worked for two of the largest ad agencies in the world all before age 25. She sees the world differently and her perspective is uplifting with a dash of humor. And all of these factors add up to her being a really fantastic photographer. So I knew I wanted her to take Owen's newborn photos. And I had a bunch of ideas pinned on Pinterest for family shots Dan, Owen and I could take together. But when our photoshoot day rolled around, I could barely walk and the idea of showering sounded like a long shot luxury. Putting on makeup and doing my hair? Laughable. But somehow I rallied. "The show must go on" mantra is well ingrained in my being. And so we started with shots of Owen in a sweet owl knit hat that one of his aunts had crocheted for him. And closeups of all of his sweet new features. His long fingers and curl of hair at the nape of his head. And then it was time for some family shots. I feel tired just thinking about the session. Sure, it's 6am while I'm writing this and the sky hasn't started to lighten yet but deep in my bones I feel the exhaustion I felt on that day. I just wanted to cry but I had put on some makeup so I was going to power through - I didn't want to risk messing up my makeup with tears and then needing to reapply my makeup again. Priorities, man.

We decided his nursery would be a good spot to take most of our pictures. And it was. The light was soft, coming in the window and the neutral grayish blue paint on the wall complemented the light. In the midst of the session, there was a moment where Dan is holding Owen in one arm and has his other arm around my shoulders and we are quietly whispering to each other about how miserable we are. "I'm so tired." "Me too." "When are we going to be done?" "I don't know." And my head is nestled into the crook of his neck and I'm leaning on him because I can't stand on my own easily and we are laughing quietly, slightly manically, at the absurdity of it all and I take a moment just to breathe and...click.  Magic.

It's a beautiful picture.

When I look at it, I can tell that I'm about to cry. And I can tell that if you didn't know better - and honestly, how would you? - you'd probably interpret that pre-cry, bottom-lip-up moment as a sweet one of a mother overjoyed with the new life sweetly sleeping in his father's arms. And so I decide at some point to post it on Facebook as my cover photo. The likes and the comments start pouring in. My most-liked picture to date! And among the comments is one from a guy I went to middle school with. And he says, "So this is what happiness looks like! Congrats!" And I laughed a cynical guffaw when I read that and then read it aloud to Dan. And we both were like, "If he only knew." We've got them all fooled, folks! Life is just a bowl of cherries over here.

A picture is worth a thousand words. And in this case, the words were all lies.

But we looked the part! The part of the tired yet grateful parents, soaking in the blissfulness of our new position in the world. We're presented with images over and over through television and movies and now through social media of how new parenthood is supposed to look. And there is always the moment of the deep sigh. The taking a moment to breathe in the new baby smell and revel in the sweetness. In my case, however, I took a deep sigh because sometimes I had to remind myself to actually breathe.  And the powdery, perfumed smell of his Pampers made me want to vomit. And I literally had to breathe through the pain of the surgery. And I had to breathe through the sadness I felt was consuming me. And I had to breathe through the confusion I was experiencing regarding the emotions I was experiencing. They were nothing like the emotions I had expected or hoped for. And my deep sigh that was a culmination of all of those reasons to breathe was captured in a photo and I posted it for the "world" to see. Because it looked pretty, even though I knew it was a lie. Probably even more so because I knew it was a lie. That picture made it seem like we were ok. That I was ok. That we were better than ok. That picture made us look like the pure essence of happiness.

Maybe if everyone thought I was happy, I'd start to feel like I was.

That's the real danger of social media, isn't it? We see the pretty moments that our friends, family, and celebrity fascinations decide to share. And we believe the pictures. And then we post our own in hopes that others will believe them too. And then we get sad looking at someone else's carefully curated "life" online and we wish it could be our life. And we look around at the normality of our own life and wonder why it isn't better. Round and round and round we go. Where it stops, nobody knows...

Labor and Delivery: Part Two

There was a long lead up and I had hoped the next part of the story would speed itself along. Hopes are funny, man.  Here's how Owen's birthday went down:

* * *

I've paused while writing the next part of this story.  I'm not entirely sure how to best communicate it. Mostly because while I can give you a sequential narrative up until this point, I can't really do that with the telling of the next eight hours.  I remember very distinctive parts.  But I don't remember always the order of those parts.  It all kind of runs together.  So bullet points? Yeah? That's the way we'll go.

• I started pushing.  I wasn't sure what to expect when it came to the pushing part of the process. For whatever reason, it wasn't covered in my birthing class. So in case your teacher forgot to mention it too, here is what happened for me (although it's probably different for everyone).  We waited for a contraction to start and then I pushed three times, for a total of ten seconds on each push.  They literally said, "Push like you're having a bowel movement!"  So it's no wonder that most women (including myself) have just that. Which I only mention because I know so many of us are worried about it happening: Stop worrying. It will. In fact, the phrase "Shit Happens" probably came from childbirth. After the pushing was done, I'd rest until the next contraction started and I would start again.  
• At some point after I had just started pushing, I started to feel a dull pain in my lower back like a menstrual cramp was starting.  I mentioned it to my doctor and she said that it sounded like my epidural was starting to wear off.  At this point it had been over ten hours since the epidural had been administered.  I had the capability of giving myself "bumps" of medicine but I had run out of those. So my doctor paged the anesthesiologist to come and give me another dose.  In the meantime, I was still going to push. I may have gotten in another round of pushing, I'm not sure.  All I know is that in the approximately ten minutes it took for the anesthesiologist to arrive, I had gone from dull pain to OHMYGODMYINSIDESAREGOINGTORIPOUTOFMYBODY writhing pain. You have to remember: I've still got the Pitocin drip going and now we've made a new discovery:  my baby is sunny-side-up.  This means back labor, which many women say is the worst kind of labor. The agony is increased because a baby's head is not designed to come out of a body when he's facing up.  I couldn't function. I couldn't push. I couldn't remember my name. It was definitely the worst pain I have ever experienced. And suddenly I sounded like the woman in the room next to me that I had tried drowning out earlier.
• Aside from my doctor, I remember ONE person's name from the myriad of staff that helped bring Owen into the world. Her name is Alex, she was my anesthesiologist and she became my angel. She and I got to know each other well over the next seven hours. She was no nonsense and yet still warm.  She seemed to truly care that I was having such a tough time, made a cocktail of more meds available in the room in case another doc had to administer if it happened again and she had a way of talking me down that made me feel like it was all going to be ok.  That was going to be important later on...
• The first time my epidural wore off was the worst time. None of us knew how bad it would get and how quickly it would get that way. I had to take a break to recover. The next time I knew what it felt like when it started to disappear and since the pain became unbearable so quickly, my doctor and nurse were quicker to page help. I feel like it happened maybe 3 more times? Again, everything is kind of a blur.
• At one point, probably around 3:00, Owen's head made his debut. It felt like he was going to be born soon now! But every time I pushed, no progress was made. I mentioned that Dan hadn't eaten yet all day and my doctor and nurse insisted he go get himself some food. Dan said he didn't want to leave in case things started to happen quickly. They promised him it would be ok. I should have realized then that things weren't going as well as I had hoped.
• While he was gone, I continued to push. And somehow we started talking about breakfast habits. My doctor said she recently started eating her oatmeal with eggs as the binder, instead of milk. Weird the things you remember. 
• Dan made it back, after scarfing a cheesesteak from the cafeteria, and Owen's head stayed just visible. He hadn't made his way any further out.
• Another doctor came in. They wanted me to try pushing on all fours, to try to get Owen to turn the right way.  Have you ever had a limb fall asleep and then try to move it? NOT EASY. Well, my legs were completely numb because O was laying on some sort of nerve. So somehow, with the help of Dan, my doctor, my nurse and this new doctor, we got me turned over and someone propped my knees under me. I had to use only my upper body strength to move all of my lower weight to stay in position while pushing. If not for "Expecting More" I am quite certain I would never have been able to pull this off. Not even exaggerating. This was probably the toughest part of my labor. Like an animal I pushed on all fours, all of my bloated, naked, pregnant body exposed. Modesty? Every shred of it was gone.
• Once we hit the four hour mark of pushing, my doctor noted that my contractions were lasting for quite awhile, around two and half minutes, and she asked if I was open to pushing four times within a contraction, instead of just three. I was willing to do anything at this point, except admit defeat. Four pushes? Bring it on. 
• Around 5:00, Owen's head was still where it had been for several hours. My doctor told me that I needed to consider the possibility of using the vacuum or having a c-section. But she said it was just something to start thinking about because she knew how determined I was to have him delivered vaginally.
• Around 6:00, we still hadn't made much progress. She brought up my options again. She said I could keep pushing for another hour but if we were in the same spot at the end of the hour, we'd have to make a decision. I kept pushing four times each contraction hoping against hope that he would be born before 7.
• At 7:00, after pushing on and off for seven hours, being awake for thirty-seven hours (when my water had broken), having not eaten in nearly twenty-four hours (and having lost all that I ate over seventeen hours earlier), being in active labor for nearly twenty-four hours, pushing on all fours and pushing four times each contraction, the little sliver of Owen's head was still all that had made it's way out. I had to finally call it. My baby was not going to be born the way I had envisioned. I was beyond exhausted. I had done all that I could. Decision time. 
• My doctor again brought up the possibility of using a vacuum but she wasn't sure it would work. He was wedged in there good and the vacuum might cause him damage. Dan and I were both worn out. We were all each other had. We shook our heads and said, hearts heavy from exhaustion and fear, "Ok." We would do the c-section.

As soon as the decision was made, things started moving very quickly. Doctors, nurses, people I'd never seen, started scurrying about. They were prepping the operating room, they were handing me paperwork to sign, they were telling Dan he had to pack up all his stuff because we wouldn't be coming back to this room. It felt chaotic. I was so physically exhausted I couldn't hold the pen to sign the paperwork. Dan was being told to do ten different things by seemingly ten different people and all he wanted to do was be by my side. But they wouldn't let him. They had to take me to be prepped for surgery and he had to wait until that was done before he could come into the operating room. Suddenly we were both completely alone. Him more than me. I still had the sea of physicians prepping me. But this was not that comforting. Especially because someone kept shouting, "Do you have the hemorrhage kit?" "We got the hemorrhage kit ready?" "Hemorrhage kit? We got it?" You can imagine that this was a bit unnerving.

Once we were in the room, my angel Alex was back on the scene. And if she wasn't there I'm not sure how I would've done. As she prepped me with more meds for the surgery, I was a mess of problems. I couldn't stop shaking. Whether from the freezing cold room, the epidural, the hormones or the nerves, I was literally rattling the metal table as I shook. And from pushing for an ungodly amount of time, I was having a muscle spasm in my neck that felt almost as bad as the labor pains. I was crying, I was in pain, I couldn't lay my head down from the spasm, I was scared to death and Dan wasn't there yet. Alex kept checking in with me, kept telling me that as soon as Owen was born she was going to give me medicine for the muscle spasm and for the shaking. That literally as soon as he came out, she had medicine ready to help. She reassured me that everything was going to be ok. She told me to think ahead, to imagine the wine and the sushi and all of the yummy stuff I could finally have again as soon as he was born. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I'm

the one person in California who doesn't eat sushi. I just kept trying to breathe through my hysteria.

After what seemed like an eternity, Dan was finally let into the room. He was just as shell-shocked as me. I found out later that he had called his parents while he waited alone in the hallway and cried. He was so scared that we might not make it. And there wasn't anyone there to hold his hand and let him know that it was going to be ok. And when he finally did get to see me again, he found me worse than he had left me - shaking violently, crying, in seemingly worse pain. Things weren't looking good.

But ready or not, Owen was coming. I'm assuming they asked if I was ready or something like that. I don't remember. I do remember my doctor saying I would feel a tugging sensation...and then I did...

And then, at 7:57 PM, nearly eight hours after we started pushing and nearly twenty-four hours since we had gotten to the hospital, Owen Daniel Scheuerman was finally, finally, born.

I don't remember hearing him cry for the first time. I didn't get to see him for nearly ten minutes after he was born. My neck hurt so badly I couldn't turn to look at him. But the drug cocktail Alex had made for me was starting to work and the shaking was starting to lessen. And then one of the doctors held him up for me to see. My baby boy. I felt such a strange combination of emotions: relief, grief, happiness, pride, exhaustion. He was here. And all I wanted to do was fall asleep. Notice I didn't list "love" as one of my emotions. I always expected to feel a tidal wave of love unlike anything I had ever experienced when I saw my baby for the first time. Instead though I felt almost numb. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. And my lack of emotion scared me. But I still burst into tears and started laughing and felt like a clinically insane person when I saw him for the first time. And I guess that, at that moment, I probably was. 

As my doctor worked to stitch me back together she commented that I had done really well and didn't bleed nearly as much as she expected me to. Since I had been pushing for so long, everyone was concerned that I'd bleed a lot...hence the multiple shouts for the hemorrhage kit earlier. Glad I didn't learn the significance of that until after the fact. I was already scared enough! 

And Owen had done great too. He was 7lbs, 4ozs and 21 inches long. My doc said, "He was staring right at me, eyes wide open, just waiting, when I took him out." Alert from the moment he entered the world. The back of his head had been rubbed raw from where he had been stuck in my pelvis, trying to get out, just as determined as his mama. He had a scab there for the first three weeks of his life. We had battled together long and hard and had the scars to prove it. 

But we made it. 

It was Owen's birthday! 

The aftermath of his birth experience is deserving of it's own post. We had a lot of highs and lows, but mostly lows in those first moments, hours, days, weeks. I definitely experienced some degree of postpartum depression, which I am still processing eight months later. So, like I said, deserving of another post (or series of). **

With the gift of hindsight, I realize that this story could have been much worse. I've talked with friends and read stories of women since who had a much scarier time giving birth. Cords wrapped around necks, hearts stopping, hemorrhaging, all of it. A month after giving birth I was relaying my story to a friend and she casually remarked, "It's crazy though. A hundred years ago, you would both be dead." And I gained a little appreciation. Things may have not happened the way I was hoping but we are both here. And that is what matters most (as the cliche goes). Another friend who gave birth a few weeks before me had also wanted to have as natural a birth as possible but ended up with an emergency c-section. She said something that really stuck with me: Her maternity yoga instructor had reminded her mamas during their practice that when it comes down to it, your baby's birthday is their birthday. Not ours. That they are coming into the world exactly as they are supposed to. As first-time-moms we have in our head visions of how things are "supposed" to go when we give birth. We take classes, read books, envision outcomes and even though we say we're ready "for anything," for me, that wasn't true. 

I had lost perspective and it took me awhile to get it back.

* * *

** Clearly I originally wrote this section before I sought medical help for my depression. I was certain "something" had happened beyond the typical "baby blues" but I also wasn't ready to admit the severity of my postpartum issues. 

Thank goodness I eventually did.

Labor and Delivery: Part One

This is how I thought it would go down:

I would slowly go into labor naturally.  There would be the excited "This is it!" moment where twinges of pain are realized as labor pains.  We live a mile from the hospital so I'd tough it out in the comfort of my home, using my breathing techniques and labor ball and husband for support.  We'd go on a walk, I'd take a bath, I'd listen to relaxing music, I'd time carefully.  When contractions were 4 to 5 minutes apart for an hour, we'd head to the hospital.  If I decided I needed meds, I'd get them. Then I'd deliver my baby naturally.  I'd see him enter the world and in a moment of euphoria I'd remember forever, he'd be placed on my chest, all gooey and fresh, for skin-to-skin bonding time.  We'd weep with joy and be overwhelmed with love.  And all would be right with the world.

None of that happened.

Here is what did.

***

I woke up around 6:00AM on Friday, Feb. 22, which is pretty standard.  My husband works for an east coast company and so that's when his day starts.  Since his office is in our bedroom again (because the nursery took over his office) I always get up when he does and move into the nursery so I can get a little more sleep.  But on this morning I had some slight cramping.  Nothing severe but enough to breathe consciously through it.  Since I was two days past my due date I got a little excited.  Maybe this was it!  I tried to fall back asleep and about a half hour later, the cramps were back.  This could be it!  Again, I tried to fall back asleep.  About a half hour later, the cramps came back again.  I went back into our bedroom and told Dan, "I'm not sure what's happening but I'm having some cramps and they are happening at half hour intervals."  He packed his bag.  We waited for the next one.  A half hour passed.  Then another thirty minutes.  Then another.  And nothing happened.  The cramps were gone.  We felt a little deflated but encouraged that something seemed to be happening.  My cousin and his wife had their c-section scheduled for the 22nd and it was exciting to think that our children might share a birthday.  But that didn't seem to be in the cards.

***

I went about my day and noticed that I was leaking some fluid. I put on a panty liner and it didn't get soaked so I assumed that the fluid was urine.  The baby was definitely laying low and I thought maybe he was pushing on my bladder, causing some incontinence.  I also noticed that there seemed to be some sloughing off of something every time I urinated.  But since my doctor had swept my membranes on Wednesday, I assumed that the residue I saw was a result of that.  It was light brown, not bloody.  Again, the cramps I had in the morning were gone and whatever was leaking was so slow that I didn't need to change my panty liner until a few hours had gone by.

A friend stopped by in the afternoon to visit and I mentioned to her jokingly that, "Who knows? I might be in labor right now and not realize it."  She laughed and said, "I'm pretty sure you'll know when you're in labor."  This was around 2:00PM.  There were a few more cramps during the day but nothing consistent and nothing that lasted longer than a few seconds.  I figured it was Braxton Hicks.

Dan and I made a steak dinner around 6:30.  Big steak, baked potato and a salad.  My cousin's baby had just been born.  There hadn't been anymore signs of labor.  As we started eating, I toasted with my water and said, "Hope to see you again later, Steak."  I've read that most women vomit from the pain of labor.  It was a joke.  I didn't expect it to be foreshadowing.

As we finished dinner, I felt a rush of fluid.  More than I had felt throughout the day.  I went to the bathroom to check things out and noticed that the fluid now had a pinkish tinge.  Hmm...maybe I should call the doctor.  This might not be pee after all. (Duh Meagan!)

I called my doctor's office and the doctor on call listened impatiently to me.  "I'm 40 weeks, 2 days and I've been leaking some sort of fluid..." "You have to go to labor and delivery." "But could it be...?" "You have to go get checked out now."

There was an urgency to her voice that annoyed me.  She didn't even let me explain the color or that it had been happening in small amounts or that I wasn't having any contractions or explain anything really.  She heard the "f-word" and cut me off.  I rolled my eyes and told Dan we had to go to the hospital.  "They're going to send us home but I guess 'better safe than sorry.'  They probably have to tell you to go in when they hear the word fluid. Some sort of liability thing, I bet."  So we shrugged our shoulders, finished cleaning up dinner and gathered our things.  I already had my bag packed, so we grabbed the car seat just in case and made our way down the road.

***

We checked in at the hospital at 8:00pm.  The woman checking us in said, "Are you ready to have your baby today?"  I said, "Ha, well, I doubt that I will but sure, why not?"  I was still in complete denial. There were two things that I did not want with this birth:

1. To be induced
2. To have a C-section

I think you know where this is headed.

The nurse that helped us in triage was a doll.  I wish that she could have stayed with us throughout the labor and birth.  She also asked me if I was ready to have this baby and again, like I was in some sort of denial fog, I said, "Sure, but I doubt that's happening."  I mean, I wasn't in labor.  I wasn't in pain.  It wasn't like the movies or like the books said or stories I'd heard from friends. So how could I possibly be about to have a baby?

A medical student came in and introduced herself.  She asked if I would be ok with her helping out the doctor while they ran some tests to figure out if my water had broken.  Sure. Why not?  So the doctor on call came in and she was also lovely and nice.  She explained that there were several tests they had to conduct to see if my water had actually broken. She would check visually, do an ultrasound and insert a speculum to see if there was any pooling and if there was, they would check the liquid to determine if it was amniotic fluid.

When she just checked visually, she didn't notice anything to be concerned about.  Which, in the end, made me feel much more justified and less stupid about not going to the hospital sooner!  I mean, I could only check visually...everything seemed normal.  Then she did the speculum and sure enough, there was pooling.  Which didn't necessarily mean my water had broken.  They still had to test the liquid.  So she explained that and then checked my water levels via ultrasound while the liquid was tested.  Hmm...my water levels were at a 5.  Two days before at my check-up the levels were at a 12.  In fact, it was difficult for her to find water at all in my ultrasound.  She finally found a little pocket on the upper left.  And then the results were in on the liquid: amniotic fluid.

My water had broken.

And I had no idea.

Was I ready to have this baby?  I guess I had better get ready.

The doctor then explained the next hammer to my heart:  It would be in mine and the baby's best interest to be induced.  Since I wasn't in active labor but my water had broken, we were at risk for infection the longer that we waited for my body to catch up.  I could choose to wait but the likelihood for complications would increase. I was not interested in being induced. She said she'd give me some time to think about it and come back.

Here was my problem with induction:  from what I had heard, it was nearly impossible to avoid an epidural with Pitocin in play.  The contractions would be too strong, too fast and too unbearable. My fear was that once I got the epidural, things would slow down and the likelihood for a c-section would increase.  I did NOT want a c-section.  I flat out had avoided thinking of it as even a possibility.  You read my fantasy of how I wanted my birth story to go.  I wanted to see him enter into the world.  I wanted to be able to hold him right away.  I wanted to avoid drugs.  My world was spinning and I was still only in the triage section of the maternity ward.

Our sweet nurse was very understanding about my hesitation.  And she very calmly convinced me that being induced would be best.  I could try to go without drugs for as long as I wanted.  No one would try to force me to do anything I didn't want to do, including a c-section.  So Dan and I talked and decided, ok.  Bring it on.  Let's have our baby.  Maybe even tonight! (insert laughter here)

***

The doctor and the med student came back and brought with them the nurse that would be taking care of me through the night.  I don't remember her name.  I do remember that she looked like a rounder-faced Anna Kendrick with too much eyeliner.  She even kind of talked like her.  I didn't find any of this comforting.

Turns out, our nurse for the night was only at our hospital once a week. Upside of this was that she had a favorite room she liked and since it was available, she snagged it.  And it was a nice room.  The whole wall was windows looking out at the Hollywood Hills, which we got to see the sunrise from. We'd also get to see the sunset...which was unexpected. But we'll get to that part of the story soon enough.

The downfall of her being there only once a week was that she couldn't seem to remember where anything was or how to work the computer system.  Which when you're in the middle of full-blown labor, those extra few seconds fumbling around looking for the birthing ball or where to input information in your chart are excruciating.  This would all become more annoying as the night wore on.

When they started me on Pitocin around 10PM, I was only a centimeter dilated.  One.  Fun fact: since you and your baby are at greater risk for infection if your water breaks, the medical staff attending to you limits the amount of internal exams they perform.  If you're curious about how dilated you are, doesn't matter.  Say you want to wait until you're about 4 or 5 centimeters dilated to receive an epidural because you've been told that if you wait until then, the chances that you'll need a c-section will decrease.  Too bad.

Another fun fact: when they start you on the Pitocin drip, the contractions are immediate.  And intense. And unbearable. However I wanted to wait as long as I could to get my epidural because I was hell bent on avoiding a c-section.  But I had no idea how much my dilation had progressed because they couldn't check me!

My Anna Kendrick-esque nurse also reminded me of the six-fingered man from The Princess Bride. Remember when Wesley is taken to be tortured in the Pit of Despair and the six-fingered man slowly increases the voltage to shock him?  And he keeps going higher because Wesley can tolerate more than he expects?  That's what my nurse did.  She'd say, "Hmm.  You're handling this level of Pitocin pretty well.  I think I'll increase it to a four."  And she'd say it with no emotion but a slight glimmer in her eyes like she was enjoying this experiment.  And then the next contraction would hit like a freight train.

***

I'm one of those people that actually prefers running on a treadmill because of the clock. I can see how long I've been running and I can see how much further until my goal.  That's how I felt about labor.  I felt that if I knew, "Ok, I'm at 3 centimeters, I can tough this out until 4" then maybe I could have held on longer.  I don't know.  All I know is that around 3:30AM, I was puking from the pain. Yes, I saw my steak again.  And that's when I said, "GET ME THE EPIDURAL! NOW! I DON'T CARE WHAT I SAID BEFORE! I NEED IT NOW!"  Ha.  Just kidding.  I wasn't that coherent.  I think I nodded with tears streaming down my face between retching and that translated to, "Yes, please. I will take the drugs now."

The anesthesiologist came and prepped me.  The tricky thing with the epidural is that you have to be absolutely still when they inject you.  Which is difficult to do when you're in unbearable pain.  But we waited until a contraction passed and then he slipped the sweet relief into my back.  A bonus:  The doc administering happened to be the head anesthesiologist so I couldn't have been in better hands, which helped ease my anxiety.  The epidural kicked in and it was the best decision I made my entire labor.  I laugh at myself now when I think about how I wanted to go without it.  After the epidural took effect, I tried to rest but that was difficult to do. Around 6AM the nurse finally decided it would be ok to do an internal exam to see how far I was dilated.  I was at a 6.  I said, "Is that good?"  She said yes.  That it meant I was probably was at a 4 or 5 when I got my epidural, just like I had hoped to be.  This made me feel better.

And now, with the drugs keeping me calm and knowing that my dilation was progressing nicely, I started to get a little excited.  The sun was rising over the Hollywood Hills and it finally sunk in: I was going to meet my son today.  Within a matter of hours, he'd be here.  This was his birthday.  I even posed for a picture:

Six centimeters!  A few hours later:

Nine centimeters!

By this time, Nurse Six-Fingered-Goth-Anna-Kendrick was gone and we had a jolly new nurse.  She wore a bit too much perfume for my nauseous self but she was warmer and kinder and I wish I could remember her name.  They should really give you a print out at the hospital of all the people who cared for you.  Anyway, the especially good news of this nine centimeters happening on Saturday was that my doctor was the one on-call for the weekend.  She works as part of a group so it wasn't guaranteed that she'd be my delivering doctor, so I felt very reassured that she was there.  She knew how fervently I wanted to avoid a c-section and I knew she would be supportive of that. She came in to check on me now and then and as we got closer to full dilation, my nurse told me that my doctor likes to wait until the baby is low enough that I would likely only be pushing for an hour.  Sounded good to me!

Side note:  notice the balled up tissue in the above picture?  That is because the woman in the room next to me must not have gotten an epidural.  Or if she did, it had worn off (which I didn't realize could happen...until it did to me.  More on that soon).  She was screaming the most animalistic sounds I had ever heard.  I was in pain listening to her  and I was starting to get really stressed.  So we turned on the Counting Crows's album "August and Everything After" to help drown out her screams. It worked only slightly. It did provide comic relief though: Everyone that came into our room - nurses, custodians, doctors - would start singing along immediately to whatever song happened to be on (everyone has a soft spot for The Counting Crows, whether they like to admit it or not). And then, after one of the biggest yells, the frantic, beautiful cries of her newborn child. It was the most moving thing I had ever heard.  And I couldn't stop crying. And I was so excited to hear my baby's first cries.  We were getting closer...I thought.

And then it was noon.  And my doctor checked on my progress.  And then she asked, "Are you ready to start pushing?" 

The time had come.  

And I was finally ready.

* * *

But I wasn't, really. I thought I'd be pushing for an hour or less and then I'd meet Owen. I was so excited to push! But this post is broken into to parts because the rest of the labor did not go as expected. 

We still had a long road ahead...

Tomorrow....Labor and Delivery: Part Two

The Hardest Cry

Something was wrong immediately after birth. They cut me open, took Owen out and I didn't want to look at him. I didn't care. I was so so tired both physically and mentally that I just wanted to close my eyes and sleep forever. But that wasn't the movie version of how I was supposed to feel. I was supposed to look at him and feel the most beautiful, powerful love I'd ever experienced. A love beyond understanding. Angels singing, announcing that true love had arrived. The doctors swept Owen away to be examined and cleared medically first thing anyway. I feel like they may have held him up for me to see but I also may have imagined that since. Because I don't remember the first time I saw him. I do remember the first time I held him. Because I put on a show. They brought him over and as I held him, I laughed and smiled and did the things that I had seen in movies and tv and figured what was expected of me. I stared at his all-knowing eyes and thought, Why don't I feel anything?, as I continued to coo my hellos. I didn't feel anything emotionally and there was the physical aspect as well. Because I had been shaking so badly before the surgery, I literally couldn't feel my arms. As I'm sitting here in my lavender-painted studio at my desk (which is really my old dining room table from my LA apartment) I am associating a heavy feeling with the first time I held Owen. As in, my arms were totally asleep. You know when a limb falls asleep and you can poke it and it feels like a hunk of meat, unattached yet attached to yourself? That's the feeling I have about that first encounter. Owen's seven pounds felt like a seventy pound weight on my chest. My mind and my body were, quite literally, numb.

Once the doctors and nurses had cleaned us both up, it was time to transfer us to the recovery room. They propped this ginoromous weight of a baby on my chest and nestled him in the crook of my arm. I felt panic. He was going to slide out of my dead arms on the way down the hall. There was no way I'd be able to hold him and keep him safe during the transfer. So as the nurses are arranging my arms and him in them, I say, "Can't Dan hold him?" And the nurses exchanged a concerned look. One said, "You don't want to hold your baby?" Her tone was clearly worried. Which pissed me off!! Don't shower me with pity and concern, lady. It's not that I don't want to hold him - I don't want to kill him! I snapped back, "Of course I do! But my arms are asleep. I'm afraid I'll drop him." The exchanged look of concern happened again. How dare they?! The other said, "You won't drop him. Don't worry." I felt dismissed. Don't worry?? I wanted to scream, "You don't know that!!! You don't know anything!!! And stop looking at me like something is wrong with me because I don't want to hurt my baby! Or have anything to do with him!" But instead I shut down, swallowed my sobs and let the heaviness of it all lay on my chest, along with my sweet baby, as they pushed me to the recovery room. I was too tired to do anything else.

It was when we were laying in the recovery room that the sobs stopped being swallowed. And the tears stopped being faked. I was trying to breastfeed for the first time and he wasn't really able to latch on and I thought maybe if I sang it would relax us both. And I'm not sure where Dan was because my memory is not with him in it. I'm pretty sure he was standing right by us but I didn't see him. Instead it was just me and Owen and I started to sing, "Hush little baby don't say a word, Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird..." and my voice cracked. Suddenly I was crying and I couldn't stop. I tried to keep singing through the tears and I am certain I sounded like a lunatic. The enormity of singing to my baby for the first time was too much for me to handle. Maybe that sounds like a typical reaction, that singing to your baby to help calm him for the first time is a big event. And feeling emotional about it is nothing to be concerned about. But these weren't tears of joy. There was an immense sorrow that was starting to creep into the corners of my heart. The water was starting to seep under the door. I was in complete denial that I had a baby all of the sudden. I couldn't reconcile the version of actual events with my imagined version of how it was all "supposed" to happen. So the fact that I was singing to my baby for the first time didn't compute. And why did I pick this song? Is this what I really wanted to sing for the first time to Owen? No. Did I actually have a "first song" picked out? No. But he was crying and I wanted him to hush. And I wanted to eat. Oh my god why won't they just let me eat?

That is when the tears started.

***

But it was on our way home from the hospital when they reached their peak of hysteria. And it started as I was being wheeled out. Rolling down the incredibly long maternity ward hallway I started sobbing. This is not how anything was supposed to go. There were women there with family and friends. People waiting in the visitors room outside the maternity ward doors. We had no one. And I suddenly realized what a mistake that was. And what were we doing leaving with a baby? I wasn't ready. I had made a mistake by having a baby. I was trying to smile. I was trying not to cry as hard as I was crying. But I was gasping for air. The nurse didn't say anything. She didn't ask if I was ok. But that didn't matter because even if she had, I would have said that I was and blamed it on hormones. Once we were in the car, I stopped trying to control the crying. I sat in the backseat next to Owen and was a hysterical mess. Dan asked what was wrong. And I didn't know. I couldn't explain it. But I was experiencing the deepest level of grief that I had ever felt. So Dan just let me cry.

When we walked in the door to our apartment, I collapsed.

I wasn't ready. When we left for the hospital on Friday night, I did not think for a second that we would be returning on Tuesday with a baby. I wanted to labor at home, go for walks around the neighborhood, stopping and holding on to Dan as a contraction would pass. I wanted to bounce on my exercise ball and breathe through the pain. And it's astounding looking back now how important that narrative was to me. Becoming a mother was a journey and I had a way that I wanted to the story to go. And the way that it actually did go was miles away from my plan.