Nothing That I Expected & More by Kellie Marie Iranon Marshall

After what was a fairly healthy pregnancy with the normal first trimester bouts of nausea, relief and some normalcy in the second, and back to feeling zapped of energy and napping wherever I could in the third, I was into my 40th week of pregnancy and ready for a our little lady to join us out in the world. At the time, my husband and I lived on Venice Beach in an art loft and walking the ocean was a daily, if not twice-daily occurrence.

It wasn't until about the 38th week mark that I was fully able to transition from mentally focusing on growing our baby, eating right and drinking copious amounts of water to getting into the mindset of actually birthing our girl. I was frankly a little terrified of the birth part. Just six months before, I had lost my father in a fast and very unexpected way. Thankfully he was able to learn of her existence and feel her movement before he passed, but I had lots of mixed emotions around death and birth and life. Having not been fully able to grasp what was happening to him amongst the joy of our soon to be daughter. My pregnancy and the thriving child inside of me, was the salve to a deep feeling of unspeakable loss. My anxiety around childbirth eventually gave way to calm confidence and reverence for the responsibility of bringing a life into the world, especially after experiencing death so closely. Life is absolutely a miracle.

40 weeks gave way to 41 weeks, and we were getting to the point where our OB would not let us go much longer. In selecting our birthing team, we went with an OB and a midwife at UCLA Santa Monica. They were willing to go more at our own pace and let us see if labor would start naturally. At 41 weeks, they had us come in every few days for a stress test and to check my amniotic fluid to make sure everything was still looking healthy.

At this point in time, my husband was in full-on coach mode making sure that I was moving often and doing walks twice a day. I'd also started a little induction acupuncture, which was great for stress relief. On our last beach walk, when I didn't think I could walk anymore, we sat down in front of our usual lifeguard stand to watch the waves and take in the sunset. We had made it this far and were getting so close. I finally felt some peace and calm amongst the excitement of wanting to meet her and I'll never forget looking out to the sunset to see three sweet dolphins swim by, playing in the waves. It was such a magical, serene moment. I felt comforted and reassured that all would be ok. The journey of pregnancy was starting to take its toll. I was exhausted, my feet were swollen, and I was pretty tired from the interrupted nights of sleep from baby wiggling away in my belly. Kick, kick, kicking, hands a-flutter down at the bottom of my belly. The need to navigate my way to the bathroom late into the night, robbing me of my precious rest.

On the late afternoon of Dec 1st, we went in to have another stress test and to check on progress, and our midwife noticed that my heart rate was on the high side. With a scheduled induction set for the next day, the doctors decided to just have me admitted. We knew we were getting close and had packed our bags in the car already, so checking in right then and there wasn't the worst thing. At this point, I had been having minor contractions about 8-10 minutes apart, for a day.

That night, we began induction with misoprostol and the next morning we moved into our delivery room. After several doses of miso, we decided to do a foley balloon, which is another induction method.. google it, if you are curious. I now equate it to a medieval torture device and had I known how painful it would have felt for me, I would have opted for my epidural pre-foley balloon. It was however very effective and took me from a 1/2 cm to 4 cm dilated with the tension of my contractions in 8 hours, but my nerves felt completely raw afterwards.

After a quick nap and some toast, we decided to move forward with an epidural and start pitocin. We had a swift and successful epidural from our talented anesthesiologist, followed by multiple hours of turning up the pitocin and doing many different poses to get the baby to drop down further. At this point, our nurse would turn up the pitocin and the baby's heart rate would go up. We'd back off the pitocin and her heart rate would go down to a normal level. It was beginning to feel like a risky game of russian roulette, but what was at risk was the health of our baby and my health, as well. How much pitocin would it take until we weren't able to get her heart rate down and we'd be rushing down the hallway to an emergency caesarean. After several more hours and a new rotation of doctors, it really felt like the momentum we had for a bit was not progressing and I just wanted our baby out and safe. Listening to her rhythmic heartbeat on the monitor, all I could think about was holding her in my arms.

We called our virtual doula in NY, who had been a great source of advice throughout my pregnancy and birth prep, and then consulted with our parents on what we were thinking. Our doctors and midwife were open to giving it more time, but in my heart of hearts it just felt right to get her out safely. We had been in the hospital for two full days at this point trying induction methods and I was following my intuition on this one. So at roughly 8:30PM PST we elected for a caesarean, and a little over an hour later tears streamed down my face as her strong, healthy voice came out into the world. As the doctors pulled her out of me, our OB proclaimed we had "made the right call", as her umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck once and body once, keeping her held firmly in place. At that moment, it made all the sense in the world why our many different efforts hadn't done much.

The next hours holding her to my chest with my husband right there as we all got acquainted were pure magic. We were completely bathed in bliss, the happiest moments of my life, and don't let me forget, the drugs from our anesthesiologist, which made me feel like an absolute rockstar. WOW!

Nine months later, confident that I have being a mama down, I can reflect on it all and am extremely grateful that we had a medical team that we liked and trusted. It made all the difference, and as for having a birth experience very different from my original "birth plan", I do not have an ounce of inner guilt for the way she arrived. The important part is that our daughter arrived safely and there was nothing more that I wanted from my birth experience than her and I - safe, healthy and happy.

Kellie Marie Iranon Marshall is a published writer who is currently a full time stay at home mom. After living in New York City and Los Angeles for over a decade, she now resides closer to family in Seattle.