It’s Michael’s first birthday today, and my heart is full to bursting. I look at him and see the tiny baby I held with love and shock and exhaustion a year ago today, after twenty-seven hours in labor.

I also see a strong and inquisitive and fiery soul with insatiable curiosity and energy, and the gentlest and sweetest spirit. Getting to know him and help shape him as he grows is the greatest privilege and honor I’ve ever had. It is also one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done.

He walks when he wants to, usually for quite a few feet, but is still unsteady so he chooses to crawl more often. His favorite activity currently is emptying things out of containers: toys from his bin, books from the shelves, clothes from the drawers.

His language skills are blooming: he babbles to himself constantly, and his favorite sound right now is “geegogeegogeego”. As well as “bye-bye”, he says “please”, and “up”, and “num” (which means he wants a bite of whatever we’re eating) and can very emphatically say yes and no, with accompanying nods or head shakes.

If he could be outside 24/7, he would be. He is happiest being in the fresh air, whether on a walk around the block or hiking in the mountains.

He’s come to accept church as a second home, and is comfortable enough to crawl wherever he desires, keeping both me and his godmother on our toes.

Grandpa still remains his favorite person in the whole wide world. I love watching his relationship with my parents and my grandparents: it’s such a joy and a delight.

He loves music and now plays the piano almost daily, insisting on sitting on my lap and watching my hands move and joining in.

It seems like only yesterday I was in the hospital giving birth — and it also seems like an entire lifetime ago. I haven’t told Michael’s birth story on a public forum yet, and I figured his first birthday was a good time to recount the events leading to his entrance into the world.

If birth stories freak you out, feel free to stop reading past this point. I’m recording it for myself as much as for those who are curious, so I intend to hold nothing back!

On Thursday, January 13th, Jake and I headed to my early morning 39 week appointment. We expected to hear the heartbeat and go home (to continue eating dates, curb walking, drinking raspberry leaf tea, and all the other natural labor augmenting tricks.) But when my OBGYN placed the Doppler against my stomach, we didn’t hear the regular heartbeat rhythm we’d come to expect: it sounded like an extra beat kept getting thrown in, reminiscent of a bad dubstep from the early 2000s. After calling and consulting with another doctor, she sent us over to the hospital to be induced, hoping that the sudden arrhythmia would resolve after birth.

Without any of our prepped bags, we headed over to the hospital around 11 am. I quickly ate a granola bar since I hadn’t had breakfast due to the early appointment time. We were both in a bit of a daze as we filled out the paperwork and made our way to the labor and delivery ward. I wanted both Jake and my mother with me during labor, but due to COVID regulations, my mom couldn’t join us til I tested negative. I was grateful Jake had come along to this appointment — otherwise I would’ve been by myself for quite a while. So we sat and waited as I was poked and prodded (they blew two veins trying to get an IV in me), started on Pitocin, and had a cooks catheter inserted to help with cervical dilation. I was 4 cm dilated and 50% effaced, and the baby was at a -2: a bit too high in my pelvis.

When my COVID test finally came back negative, my mom headed over with all our bags. For the next several hours, I breathed through contractions, rocked on the peanut ball, chatted with the nurses, and watched John Mulaney comedy sketches. Finally, around 11 pm, the Pitocin contractions were at the point where I had very little to no breaks between them, and I had barely progressed since that morning. I also hadn’t been able to pee since the cooks catheter was inserted, no matter how hard I tried, and my full bladder was adding more pain and pressure to each contraction. I realized later the catheter had probably been pressing on my urethra. Due to the discomfort of my bladder and the unceasing Pitocin contractions, I finally agreed to an epidural.

When the epidural was inserted, the anesthesiologist brushed a nerve, and that was probably the most painful part of this entire experience. But once the epidural took effect and the catheter helped me finally empty my bladder, I was finally comfortable enough to doze through the night while they cranked up my Pitocin. I had the kindest night nurse who braided my hair for me so it wouldn’t tangle, and held my hands and prayed with me as the epidural was inserted.

By morning, I hadn’t progressed as much as we had hoped, and I was getting tired and discouraged. This entire time we had also been struggling with monitoring Michael’s heartbeat. They tried Bluetooth monitors, external monitors, and internal monitors — none of them could give us a consistent and steady reading of his heart rate, which concerned everyone. On top of that stress, there was a miscommunication between the nurses and my OBGYN, and I was incorrectly told I should prepare myself for a c-section. Thankfully, that was not the case, but the stress didn’t help our situation.

With the morning also came a new nurse: Lindsay. She was the biggest blessing, and looking back, I’m not sure how I would have done it without her. She was the doula I couldn’t have (due to COVID restrictions). She encouraged me, laughed with me, helped me shift positions and do different movements even with an epidural to engage the baby lower in my pelvis.

Early afternoon I began to feel pain on my right hip, even through the epidural. No amount of position changing or epidural dosage increasing would get rid of it. As it increased, I felt the urge to push. I pushed for two hours, in a primal haze of pain and determination. At one point Jake was speaking to me, and my brain couldn’t understand the words he was saying. I just needed to push, and meet my baby. I had the icon of the Theotokos, our Helper in Childbirth, on my pillow (given to me by my wonderful friend Catie) and I rested my forehead on it between pushes, the Jesus Prayer the only words I could formulate in my head.

Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Finally, he was crowning, and the OBGYN came in to help deliver him. I had been pushing this entire time on my hands and knees, and I had to switch to my back for the delivery (Still not the happiest about that.) At this point, I believe my epidural was wearing off. I could feel intense pressure. Lindsay locked eyes with me and helped coach my breathing through the last pushes, and then the pressure gave way to sharp pain as he was finally born at 4:45 pm. He came out with his hand up by his head, which might explain both the hip pain and the second degree tearing I experienced. To this day, he still loves to sleep with his fist by his face.

No visitors were allowed due to COVID, and we spent our first night as a family of three in the hospital. My mom came back the next morning, and finally we were cleared to go on Saturday evening. The first meal I had when I got home was sushi (oh how I had missed it!) and a glass of my favorite Chardonnay.

His arrhythmia did not resolve after birth, and we had a few appointments with a pediatric cardiologist in the first months of his life that determined he was experiencing premature ventricular contractions. He also had a small septal defect in his heart. Thankfully, both of these things resolved themselves within the first six months of his life, and today he has a clean bill of health.

I’ll never forget watching my parents meet their grandson for the first time, and my siblings their nephew, and my grandparents their great-grandson. I didn’t know love could grow as incredibly and exponentially in such a short period of time, but in just a few short days, I was full of more love than I thought was humanly possible.

Happy first birthday, my sweet boy. May God grant you many years.