“There’s too much tension in your shoulders...we need you to relax, slouch your shoulders and curl your back forwards”. I was sitting on the operating table, a nurse holding my shoulders down and slouching my back as the anaesthesiologist, a very expressionless, robotic man inserted freezing and then a spinal block into my spine. I didn’t know if the spinal was in yet and was getting anxious when the nurse said “you should feel a warm sensation down your buttocks when the spinal block starts to work”. They were warm before she finished the sentence. The c-section was underway.
Having arrived to the hospital at 6:00 am, I was still stroking my belly, trying to reconcile that she will be out in a matter of hours. Being laid on a bed in what was going to be our room for the next 2 and ½ days, I was prepped for surgery as Stef looked on anxiously. The IV hit a valve in my hand and bled out which made Stef almost sick and had me practicing my Hypnobirthing relaxation techniques to cope. The nurse asked if I took that course – I was impressed. I remember hoping that was going to the only mistake made today. As I was shaven and talked to by a kind nurse in the wee hours of our prairie morning....I could not take my mind off my belly and who will come out. An old doctor friend of mine who had offered to assist in the surgery had come in to say hello and to calm both of us. I wasn’t scared or nervous. I knew I had to do this and something was pushing me forward. Her name is Olivia.
At 7:45 am, I heard the door open with “they are ready for you”. I knew I was in good hands. The surgeon was my OB and very well renowned in the city (I work with doctors and they all said the same thing – he’s the best). I knew I had to be strong for my daughter about to meet the world, and strangely enough, for Stef. His anxiety and worry for both of us was getting the best of him, made worse by knowing I am about to be cut open only inches away from him. Sitting on the operating table, wearing nothing but a gown, I was laid down as the spinal block flooded my nervous system. “Can someone please catch my leg?” I heard myself say as my bent knee was falling off the table. The sensation of people touching my legs was like electric probes underneath 10 blankets. “Iveta has some birth preferences” echoed through the OR as I stared up into the hundred small round lights above the table. There was mention of me wanting a mirror held up so I can see my baby’s head when it surfaced my abdomen, along with a few others, as the surgeon listened on. A count of some kind started and a roll call. “We have everyone” was quickly corrected by my voice projecting “We don’t have my husband...where is my husband”. I realized how ready I was to see him, have him in the room, by my side. They had left him sitting outside the OR fiddling with his iPhone, wondering when someone is going to come to dress him. It happened just in the nick of time.
He pulled up a stool by my head and I could hear how nervous he was. It made me stronger all the more and I was truly taking in everything around me. The robot of an anaesthesiologist behind me, the nurses buzzing around, the surgeon and his medical student assistant across from him, the paediatrician standing by, the machines, lights, sounds. Then I heard what I had been waiting for, and I almost missed it. My OB was known for something special right before he cut.....the entire OR stops while he says a prayer. “Look! he’s saying a prayer” I whispered to Stef and we both listened as this legend blessed the surgery and my baby. Why is he a legend? Ironically enough, my dear IVF followers, he had trained under the very doctor who invented IVF, in the late 70’s in London.
The show got on the road. A screen went up in front of my face and I made a split decision. One that I will always celebrate as a mother. “Dr. A, I don’t want a screen”. The surgeon left it up to the anaesthesiologist, and then he left it up to the surgeon. “Whatever she wants”. The screen came down and was whisked away. Watching the surgeons work on me, I smell smoke and then a nurse surfaces near my ear. “They have to cut through 7 layers of tissue....and the smoke is from cauterizing bleeding vessels....”, doing her best to normalize what was happening by providing some navigation. Stef leaned in to soak in her words, happy to have someone ground us in the moment. I watched as the surgeons carried through the surgery, witnessing things that would be disturbing if my mind was not on the fact that my baby was about to come into the world. “Iveta look” I lifted my head to see a nurse holding up a hand mirror at the end of the table. It was not projecting anywhere near my belly, and I have no idea how I was able to give her directions as to how to lower and tilt it so I could see the site that will stay with me always. What took up the space of my incision was a beautifully round head of thick, wavy raven black hair. That’s when I completely fell apart. “She’s got your hair....she’s got your hair” to Stef, tears flooding my face uncontrollably. I came into this experience completely blind to what would hit me. No matter what everyone tells you all your life about the first time you see your child.....you don’t get it. I got it now. Stef turned around just in time to witness the moment that an entirely new dimension of our hearts and life busted open. She was lifted above my body...just under the OR lights above my table....this wonder that is my child....this moment burned into my mind. “She looks like you....she looks like you”....I wept, delirious with amazement and joy. Stef stood up to take a picture of my OB and my doctor friend assistant with the baby. She does not look happy, but is being a sport about it all. She didn’t cry very much...more like a protest...while she was getting weighed. In a blanket, quiet and content once more, she was presented to Stef to take over to me. Our baby. I drank in every movement of her face, every feature, every expression while her sapphire blue eyes opened and closed, and her perfect little lips fell like roses on her face. While the surgeon sewed me up, needle and thread tugging high in the air as if crafting a new suit, something else was being stitched together. The fibres of our family had come to life.
"Do you want to hold her"....a nurse asked the obvious in the recovery area. The moment of truth. Holding my baby for the first time. And determining our breastfeeding fate. She was this beautiful creature with surprising features. How much she looked like Stef took my breath way. Then it was taken away in another way....her latch was unmistakable, playful, and communicative. It said "I’m in if you are....so let’s do this”. I sat back and watched a beautiful instinct unfold, so grateful at how seamless it was.
We named her Olivia. It was my lifelong favourite name, it celebrates her olive skin and Italian roots, and I like the nick name “Liv” which means “protected” in Scandinavian. Mila is a combination of my parents’ first names, and is a Czech name (my heritage) meaning’ dear girl’.
The three days and two nights that followed in the hospital are not to be forgotten. There are permanent images that will swim in my mind. The pain of recovery made worse by the images of the operation itself and the helplessness and immobility in taking care of her. Her sleeping on me for hours after I begged them not to take her back to the nursery the first night. The nurse turning on her heel against hospital policy and letting her stay sleeping on my chest. Livi nursing in her sweet, whimsical way that only I know, in those late, desperate dim light hours. Stef holding her while I slept. My dad making an entrance with 100 roses for me and orchids for her.
The three days and two nights that followed in the hospital are not to be forgotten. There are permanent images that will swim in my mind. The pain of recovery made worse by the images of the operation itself and the helplessness and immobility in taking care of her. Her sleeping on me for hours after I begged them not to take her back to the nursery the first night. The nurse turning on her heel against hospital policy and letting her stay sleeping on my chest. Livi nursing in her sweet, whimsical way that only I know, in those late, desperate dim light hours. Stef holding her while I slept. My dad making an entrance with 100 roses for me and orchids for her.
We left the hospital after two night and not a moment too soon. Here is our home coming queen.
"This is your room..." Stef whispered to Livi as we embarked on a life as a family. A week has passed since we came home. I treasure our days of watching her sapphire eyes take more and more in everyday, working away in the nursery when she sleeps, waking from a mutual nursing nap to see her little face cheek to cheek with my breast, watching her asleep in Stef's arms, seeing how my voice and touch changes her distress instantly. I treasure our nights of watching Stef expertly swaddle and sooth her fussiness, rocking her back to sleep at 2am, cradling our little gift as the sun comes up. Every moment is a joy, and at least once a day, all the way to tears.
My recovery has been world record, at driving, walking and sitting virtually pain free after a week. The fear of missing my pregnancy and the "loss" of having her through natural delivery is now a distant and peculiar memory. I am grateful to have followed my primal instinct of keeping her safe and away from the risks of labour or being overdue, even though the price for me emotionally and physically was high. I would do it again for her, a thousand times over.
