Logan Malloy: my birth story

“How do you know? Don’t you want to check me?”, I asked. “Because I can see the head”, answered Janet, my midwife. That was about 9 months 6 days and 19 hours into this story. Approximately 5 pushes before I held my baby Logan in my arms for the very first time.

Lets rewind…

Baby Logan wasn’t exactly part of the plan. Derek and I had always planned on having 2 kids, but thought we’d wait until Maya was around 2 before trying again. Whoops. I was still frequently breastfeeding Maya when I conceived. Yes yes, I know, the tale that you cannot conceive while nursing is one from the old wives, and we were aware of this. However, I hadn’t had a period yet and “funky town”, sorry to say, was not exactly a frequent occurrence at this point. So, we figured, the chances of me falling pregnant from this one particular union was exceptionally unlikely.

Haha, said the universe. Somehow, this coupling (which happened to occur at the place where Derek and I had our wedding) managed to find my very first descending egg and boom! a baby was made.

I remember, at the time, I was trying to convert to veganism. Now, if you know me, you’ll know that I don’t attempt things half-assed. So, I went 100% right from the word go. Due to the fact that I had made such a drastic diet change, I wasn’t too surprised when I found myself feeling rather nauseas. But when the nausea didn’t subside, I began feeling rather sleepy a lot and nursing became really painful, I started to wonder… “could I be pregnant? Surely not. It is so unlikely.”

Once that thought popped into my mind, I couldn’t wait to find out. My heart was pounding so hard in my chest.

It was a very different experience compared with Maya. With Maya, we tried for 6 months, meaning that each month I was filled with hope for a 2nd line on the pee stick only to be heartbroken when it did not appear.

This time around I was terrified. You see, I had had rather a hard time with Maya. As any new parent can attest to, the first one is hard. Anxiety at not knowing what you’re doing, nursing struggles, sleeplessness… And Maya was a very bad sleeper. At the time I fell pregnant, we had only just begun to figure out our rhythm. I was so scared to mess with that. I did not know how I was going to manage 2 kids, with no grandparents nearby to help.

Back to the pee test. Like I said, I couldn’t wait. I bought a test and quite literally peed on a stick at my yoga studio in between lecturing a teacher training class. There it was…as clear as day…the 2nd line. I was in fact pregnant.

Hey, at least I could start eating meat and dairy again. Ha.

I wanted to buy Maya one of those cute “big sister” onesies, but there was no way in hell I could wait the 48 hours for Amazon to deliver it. I needed to tell Derek. So, I took a plain white, or used to be white, but got puked on too many times, onesie and wrote the words on it myself using a big, bold, permanent marker. Rather symbolic.

I left the onesie on the changing table so that, when Derek went to change Maya, he would discover it. The expression on his face was one of complete disbelief. I believe his first words to me were, “is this for real?”

We got Maya into bed and sat together on the sofa, trying to absorb what we had both recently learnt. Two kids under 2. Wow. Both feeling completely overwhelmed, we decided to just put a pin in it for now. We had 7 months to figure this out. 7 months to figure out where both kids would sleep, if we needed a bigger car, what stroller to get etc. The practical stuff. As for the love stuff, well that part is easy.

My biggest worry however, the worry that often brought me to tears and kept me awake at night, was thinking about how Maya’s life would change. I worried so much about how used to having me all to herself she had become and now I would have to “ignore” her and tend to a baby. I imagined this heartbroken toddler, crying at my feet, begging me to hold her, which I could not do. This thought tore me up. I kept reminding myself however that the relationship between siblings is priceless – potentially the longest relationship any of us will ever have. I was giving my daughter a lifelong friend.

My pregnancy went as smooth as one could hope for. Nugget, as he became affectionately known, grew perfectly. We chose to keep the gender a secret this time around, seeing as we both knew this could very well be our last pregnancy. Slowly, as the months went by, we got our lives in order. We figured out the practicalities of things, made decisions and gradually started to feel as if we could handle this new surprise.

I say the pregnancy went smoothly, and it did, but it was hard on my body. Maya went through a very clingy phase, which meant that I was holding her a lot. I had a lot of lower back and hip pain, so bad at times that I thought I was going into labor. It would make me dizzy and nauseas. Baby Logan was also sitting on a nerve that sent shooting pains down my legs – pains that would sometimes make me cry out in pain uncontrollably.

With Maya, I never wanted the pregnancy to end. This time around, I was ready. I wanted to be able to move, tie my shoes, wipe my butt without grimacing. I wanted to be able to keep up and play with my daughter without having to sit down after 10 minutes. I would cry at times, just wishing the weeks to go by so I could regain control of my body and care for my daughter like I used to.

By the time Logan arrived, we calculated that I had spent 89 weeks pregnant (that includes the pregnancy I miscarried) over a 3.5 year period. If you add in the fact that I was breastfeeding in between pregnancies, that’s 125 weeks of my body not being my own – 2.5 years out of 3.5. I was tired.

But dear little Logan took his sweet time. Seeing as Maya came 2 weeks early, I was convinced that this baby would come just as early – 2nd pregnancy and all. So, pretty much by the time I hit full term (37 weeks), my mind began analyzing every little twinge and ache, hoping it might be labor starting.

Nope, Logan hung around for 40 weeks and 6 days. And these final couple weeks were the slowest weeks imaginable.

Derek’s parents, Tom and Carole, were in town to be here when I went into labor and look after Maya. Its funny, in retrospect, because one of my midwives joked by saying that, when you get family in town, the baby tends to arrive the day that they leave. Logan almost did just that.

At the end of every day, we said goodbye with the words, “we’ll have our phones on. Call us if anything happens.” And every morning, we would greet each other by saying something like, “I really thought last night was the night”.

I eventually started calling on the old wives again and bought myself some red raspberry leaf tea, walked as much as I possibly could before my back and hips felt like they would split in 2, and even tried the “it worked last time”, “what got it in will get it out” method (wink wink). Nothing.

One of Derek’s colleagues had told him about a restaurant just outside Atlanta that has a famous labor induction recipe – eggplant parmesan. Worth a try, right? Of course I had no desire to make the drive and, although the recipe was online, I was certainly not in the mood to prepare such a complicated feat.

On a typical Saturday night, two of our closest friends, Kate and Gavin, joined us for dinner. We happened to humorously mention the eggplant parmesan and how, if only we had more energy, we would give it a go. That was all it took. Kate and Gavin took the reigns and a plan was made. They would come round the next day, Sunday, with all the ingredients and prepare the meal, which we would all enjoy together that night. What awesome friends.

The day was great. In between cooking, the ladies managed a mani/pedi and the boys got some pool time in the blistering Atlanta, July sun. That night, Sunday night, we enjoyed a delicious meal of eggplant parmesan, joking throughout about how funny it would be if it actually worked.

It did!

Around 4am the following morning, I started feeling things. They didn’t feel like the contractions I remembered though. More like really strong and slightly painful Braxton Hicks. However, they were coming pretty frequently and regularly. I kept an eye on them that’s for sure.

We had a doctor’s appointment that morning and were scheduled for a non-stress test (NST), seeing as I was now overdue.  I also had decided to do a scrape that coming Thursday to get things moving if they hadn’t already. D’s parents were leaving on Saturday so I needed to have this baby before then.

During the NST Janet, my midwife, said that I was having some pretty good contractions, every 5 minutes, nice and strong. She would not be surprised if I was back there again later that day. Hooray.

I was still not convinced that they were true labor contractions, but I did what I could – kept moving.

Things began to change around 4pm – 12 hours later. It was around then that I knew this was the real deal. I was still able to keep it together and tend to Maya, but around 5ish, I had to “disappear”. At this point I knew that if Maya needed me and a contraction hit, I wouldn’t be able to care for her. So I took myself out of the equation, asked Tom and Carole to take over, and went outside, armed with some good music and a Corona. I should also point out that I had never spent a night away from Maya, so this was a big deal for me.

Due to the looming sleepless night we knew we both had coming, Derek had decided to have a nap. Of course, anticipation is no friend of the nap, so when I texted him “come join me outside for some Coronas and contractions”, he leapt out of bed.

Seeing as it was around 5:30, neighbours were starting to come home from work and, as I saw my friends, I waved them over.“Still no baby?” they would ask. “Actually, I am in labor right now. Want a beer?” We laughed, I danced and sang, and every few minutes, when a contraction began to build, I hobbled over to the corner, away from everyone, to focus and breathe in my peaceful labor bubble.

They were getting pretty intense now. Impossible to talk through and the pressure in my pelvis was something I never felt with Maya. One particular contraction, a contraction where 2 of my neighbours plus one of their little daughters were present, I went over to the corner as per usual, practiced my deep breathing, leaning against the wall and waded through the pain. The others were chatting and laughing spiritedly when “bang”, my water broke all over the ground. “Tara peed in her pants!” the little girl gasped. She walked over to me and I explained that the baby’s water balloon had popped because he/she was ready to come out.

“Time to call the midwives,” I told Derek. With both my births, I wanted to labor at home as long as I could, dreading the thought of spending unnecessary hours in the hospital. Although my contractions were 4 or 5 minutes apart, I felt I had more time. But when my water surprisingly broke, I figured it was time.

Janet explained that things tend to speed up from here so its probably a good idea to start making our way in. I wanted to have a bath first and clean up, but that proved to be fruitless – despite the amount of amniotic fluid that gushed out of me, there was still plenty more. So, I wrapped myself in a thick towel and climbed into the car.

And so the comedy of errors began…

We drove our predetermined route to the hospital only to be caught in traffic because of a movie shoot being filmed, resulting in several blocked off roads. We began zigzagging around, trying to find a speedy route out. Every minute felt like eternity. Every turn, an unpleasant addition to the pain.

We eventually got there of course.

Again, when Maya was born, we were literally the only ones giving birth. This time however, the place was packed –bursting with contracting women and anxious fathers. There was no room at the inn when we arrived so we had to wait in the waiting room.

The waiting room, however, was full of an exceptionally loud family, which my laboring body and mind just could not tolerate. So, we opted to wait in the hall instead. Here, I paced back and forth, trying my best to focus on my breath and the music Derek was playing for me.

When a room was finally ready, we then learnt that the water tub would not be. There was also no one to draw my blood or monitor the heartbeat at that time. I stood at the edge of the bed for what felt like ages, contracting, breathing, calling on my mantras and praying that the water tub would miraculously become available.

I was exhausted. And, even though I didn’t want to, I had to lie down. I had been laboring on my feet just about all day. I lay on my side and tried to relinquish some of the control, allow the contractions to come and my baby to descend. The contractions were so close together, that I barely had any time to rest and prepare in between them. I remember even mentioning this to Derek, utterly exhausted from working so hard.

Derek kept the music playing, from a playlist I had created ahead of time. He also kept handing me a flash card – a card with motivating words, helpful mantras or powerful labor tips, to help guide me through each surge of miraculous pain.

With Maya I pushed for 2.5 hours, so when the urge to push began (some time ago, I might add), I didn’t say anything. I figured there was still loads of time and there was no need to get everyone flustered in an already busy hospital.

At some point, however, I decided I better tell someone. Lauren, a midwife student with us, was sitting on a chair near my bed. “Lauren,” I said “I have been pushing for a while now.” “Ok, I’ll get Janet,” she responded.

Janet came into the room a few minutes later, lifted my top leg (I was still lying on my left side) and said something like, “ok, let’s do this”. “Wait!” I exclaimed, “how do you know? Don’t you want to check me?” I asked. “Because I can see the head”, she replied.

“Really? But I don’t want to give birth like this (it was giving me a really bad cramp in my outer butt muscle). What other positions can I try?” She suggested I try on all fours, which seemed intuitively more comfortable to me, so I opted for that.

The last few pushes were the most painful by far. I remembered from my birthing courses as well as my first delivery that, just as the baby starts to crown, you feel the “ring of fire” – a burning sensation. I felt this with Maya, but being in the water tub must have made a significant difference, because this time around the pain was excruciating. I knew I was only a handful of pushes away from meeting my baby so I had 2 choices. 1) allow the pain to defeat me and hold back a bit in my efforts, or 2) take control of the pain and give it everything I had in me. I opted for the latter.

When the last few contractions came, I chose to fight through the pain and push as hard as I possibly could. Like a cat, I curled around my birthing baby, using my whole body to encourage baby Logan out into the world.

I knew I was close. I could literally feel it. I felt when the head was out and I felt as, with the last big effort, I delivered the shoulders and finally my baby out of my body and into the hands of my midwife.

I was so tired and relieved that, for a moment, I forgot to wonder whether Logan was a boy or a girl.

“It’s a boy!” exclaimed Derek.

Tears poured out of me. I wanted to see my baby. I wanted to hold my baby boy. But there was silence. The umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck several times. It felt like far too long, but in reality it was only seconds of unwrapping and gently rubbing his back to get him to take his first breath and deliver that beautiful cry that every parent dreams of hearing.

With exhausted and shaking legs, I cautiously rolled over, onto my back, and baby Logan was placed in my arms.

There he was…our little surprise.

Being a typical, dramatic little boy, he cried for a pretty long time, but eventually settled on my chest and nursed as if he had been doing it for months.

7 pounds, 12 ounces of baby boy, a little purple from the cord, but totally perfect.

Today Logan is approaching 5 months old and I still have moments where I look at his beautiful face and think about how close he was to not existing. The universe came together in perfect harmony to give us this incredible blessing – a blessing we did not even know we wanted. I thank God every day that He knew better than us. He knew that we and the world needed Logan Malloy. The thought of him not existing is terrifying to imagine.

So there we are…he wasn’t planned, but now he is essential. He has added such a unique and irreplaceable dimension to our family. We are complete.

I love you my boy. Thank you for teaching me to believe in miracles. You certainly are one.