Anja's Story

After getting married in August, my husband and I decided to have a baby. We were in our late twenties and wanted to have a fairly large family, which meant starting right away. I had heard about so many people who had trouble having kids, so we started trying two months after we got married. To our surprise I got pregnant right away.

The pregnancy went wonderfully. I only gained 35 pounds (I was expecting to gain much more since I ate like a pig). I kept in shape my entire pregnancy. I was even jogging until I was seven and a half months pregnant. My third trimester was the best. I have epilepsy and neurocardiogenic syncope (which basically means that when my normally low blood pressure gets too low, my heart starts beating slower and I pass out or become completely delirious). All of my problems seemed to go away during this time and I had never felt so good in my life. I had a ton of energy.

We wanted the baby to come on time, or even a little earlier than my due date, which was on July 10th, so I walked a lot. On July 2nd, my husband and I went on a long and exhausting walk. We were speed-walking down our hilly street. It worked! The next day I started having regular contractions, but they weren't that strong. On July 4th, I thought my water had broken so we went to the hospital. Much to my embarrassment, I had only peed in my pants!

That night I was very anxious and didn't get to sleep until 11:30 p.m. At 2 a.m., I awoke from a dream that I was in labor. Then I realized that I really was in labor. I ran to the bathroom, because I was suddenly struck with a massive case of diarrhea. Then I lost my mucus plug and started having stronger contractions. I went back to bed, but couldn't sleep because the contractions were pretty strong. I decided to wake my husband, and he started timing the contractions. They were eight minutes apart. After one hour my husband said we should go to sleep and wake up at 5 a.m. and time them again. I lasted about five minutes; the contractions hurt worse when I lay down. So I walked around the house. Then I took a hot shower since my lower back hurt. The moment the water hit my back, the contractions went down to four minutes apart. After 20 minutes I decided I should probably wake up my husband and time the contractions again. They were three to four minutes apart and lasted about 1 minute 15 seconds. At 5 a.m. we left for the hospital.

When we arrived I was dilated to 4 cm. I was practicing my deep breathing and was very focused. I was so relaxed, I actually felt like I was on Valium! I knew this baby was coming out no matter what, and I wasn't about to fight it. Every contraction I felt was one closer to meeting my baby. My husband and my friend kept massaging me as I swayed back and forth. Then I sat on a birthing ball, which helped so much. During each contraction I rocked while my husband sprayed me with a spray fan and my friend massaged my hand. I progressed fairly quickly and couldn't believe that people actually got epidurals at 6 cm.

At 7 cm., the doctor broke my water. Then I started to get scared when the reality hit that I was having a baby and that it was coming out of such a small hole. I started tensing up and the contractions were getting stronger.

At 7 1/2 cm., they put in a catheter so that they could continuously monitor the baby's heartbeat and contractions. I didn't want it but lost all ability to communicate properly. Because of the monitor I had to lay in bed and the contractions were unbearable. At 8 cm. I was told that it was not too late for an epidural, but there was no way anyone was going to touch me, epecially with a needle.

I felt like I had massive diarrhea. Nobody had told me that's what pushing felt like so I was fighting it. Then at almost 9 cm. the doctor informed me that the contractions weren't strong enough to push the baby out and were getting further apart. She told me that she wanted to give me Pitocin. I completely flipped out. I kept screaming at the doctor that I didn't want it and that it couldn't get worse than this. I upset myself so much and was so exhausted that I went into a grand mal-seizure. My hospital is very small and hadn't seen a seizure in a decade. Suddenly they were calling codes like I was dying and 15 people converged into my room. In and out of consciousness, I kept thinking, "I am just losing my focus." I was rushed down for an emergency C-section, and had to be completely put under. Luckily the baby's heartbeat was normal so they didn't have to do a vertical cut.

At 12:39 p.m., my beautiful baby girl, Anja, was born. She was my lucky baby since she was born on 7/7/2002, weighed seven pounds, seven ounces, and was born exactly seven weeks before our anniversary. In recovery they kept telling me that I had a girl. I didn't even remember that I was pregnant. Two and a half hours later, I got to see my daughter. I was so doped up that I couldn't have cared less that I had a kid. I breastfed her right away and she had no trouble latching on.

My recovery was extremely long and painful. I was also very upset because it had not gone the way I had expected. I felt robbed because I'd missed the moment I had waited for during nine months, when I would hear those exciting words, “It's a girl!”

After a month, I finally realized I needed to get over it. The main thing is that I have a gorgeous, healthy, and extremely happy baby. God really has blessed us with an amazing daughter and that is what really counts.