It was my intention to celebrate Dawson’s birth on his birthday, September 16, but I struggled with the words. I knew what I wanted to write, but couldn’t come up with the words. This often happens when I want to profess my love for this little person who cam out of my body. I have no words, just feelings, emotions and vivid memories. Memories I wish I had blogged about previously, but never found the words. And now that I’ve taken my time and relived the memory of his birth, I found that the words flow freely.
I decided to just let my heart lead the way and that whatever came out on this post would not be edited. (Other than spelling mistakes of course.) I apologize for the long post and completely understand if you choose not to read it. This was more of a post I wrote for me and Dawson.
When I first learned I was pregnant I couldn’t believe it. It didn’t seem real. All the months of trying to conceive before were heartbreaking and depressing for me. I wanted to be a mother so badly that I often cried myself to sleep, hoping and praying to God that he’d allow me the privilege to be a mother.
I remember New Year’s Eve 2004. My husband and I went to dinner with my parents and my Uncle Michael and Aunt Kathy. We went to the Red Mill restaurant for their New Year’s prime rib special. The evening was the most fun I had had in a long time. I let go of my Atkins’ diet for that night and indulged in shrimp cocktail, prime rib and drinks.
As usual in my family, my father told hilarious jokes he heard at the bar and my uncle would talk about his polka band schedule, while Doug would rib the two of them for telling dirty jokes and liking polka music. My mom, aunt and I were discussing the great after Christmas bargains we found at Target days before.
The conversation turned to the subject of children and when Doug and I would start a family. My family knew how desperately I wanted a baby and tried to be positive and that “it will happen soon enough.” I just smiled and carried on the conversation, not imagining that soon enough I’d discover I was pregnant or soon to be.
January 7 is the day I conceived. I know it in my heart. The love Doug and I felt for each other was joined together to create Dawson. His life began that day.
Because I didn’t have a regular period, I didn’t really know that I “missed” my period. I felt a bit tired the first few weeks. I tried to count the days of my last period so that I would have some idea when it would be due. The first day of my last period was December 17, and I allowed 28-30 days from that day before testing to see if I was pregnant. On January 20th, I took the pregnancy test at home and the result was negative. I didn’t cry. I wasn’t sad. I just figured I was late. I had been doing the Atkins’ diet to lose a few pounds and though maybe it affected my menstrual cycle.
On January 24, I weighed myself to see if I’d lost any more weight on the diet and was shocked to discover I gained 8 pounds since my last weigh-in 2 weeks prior. I was devastated because I had been following my diet closely with only one lapse on NYE, but I remembered my period was still late. I stopped to buy another test on my way to work.
I worked the 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. shift at that time. I got to work and tried to concentrate on my job, putting all thoughts of pregnancy tests out of my head. I was jittery and excited and nervous all at the same time. My friend Shannon asked me if I was all right.
“Yeah, I’m okay, why do you ask?” I said.
“You’re knees are shaking.” She replied.
I went on to tell her about my late period and how I was impatient about taking the test at home. Shannon told me to go take the test. I thought about it and felt worried that Doug might be upset if I peed on the stick without him present. I called him at home and asked him what he thought.
“Just take it,” he said. It will probably be negative again.”
I headed to the ladies room and hastily opened the package to the test. I discarded the instructions and did what I was supposed to do. As I waited I saw the pink line start to appear. It was so faint compared to the other line. I immediately got myself together, put the test into the box and washed my hands. As I left the bathroom and walked back to my desk, I passed my manager, Angela. “Is this a line?” I asked her and pulled the test halfway out of the package. Angela was a few weeks pregnant with her son Nils and I figured she’d be the best expert.
“Sure looks like it!” she exclaimed. “Congratulations!”
I was shocked. Shannon ran over to me. “It’s positive? Oh my! Congrats! You better call Doug!”
I called Doug who didn’t believe it. He told me I better go to the doctor because maybe my urine was “fucked up.” I laughed at him and said I would make an appointment the next day.
I swore Angela and Shannon to secrecy until I was sure of the results and called my mom and my friend Kelly next. They were equally shocked as Doug was, but also very happy.
Over the course of those nine months of pregnancy I was a barrel of emotions, rolling all over the hormonal scale. I remember the fear of miscarriage those first twelve weeks. I can still feel it. Always afraid that I was dreaming and that I wasn’t really pregnant, I was overly cautious. I followed the doctor’s orders explicitly. I took my pre-natal vitamins; I ate lots of leafy green vegetables and took a folic acid supplement. I never missed an appointment.
Overall it was a smooth first 7 months of pregnancy. Until I went to the doctor on August 7, and found out my blood pressure was extremely high. I was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia and sentenced to bed rest. I hated every moment of it. Not being able to work put us into a financial bind. Doug was so supportive. He told me I had an important job of keeping Dawson inside of me. After a week of bed rest, Dr. Jaeger allowed me to try to go back to work. I made it 7 hours and had to go home, as my ankles were the size of grapefruits. Dr. Jaeger sentenced me to permanent at home care until the birth of my child.
At that time I didn’t know I was having a boy. Previous ultrasounds showed that my baby was keeping his legs crossed, preventing the technician from determining his gender. I joked that perhaps I was having a very modest baby girl.
In late August I had appointments for a fetal monitoring, ultrasound, blood test and urine sample (to detect my protein levels). My mother drove for the first one, as I was too tired and scared to drive myself. I was having false contractions and Dr. Perkins prescribed two steroid shots in the event that I delivered early so as Dawson’s lungs would mature. The shot caused me to break out into a rash days later on my arms and legs. A rash that itched so horribly that even calamine lotion didn’t help.
During the ultrasound my friend Kelly was with me. (She was going to be in the delivery room with Doug and me as my husband was afraid he wouldn’t be able to handle the “blood and gore” of childbirth.) The ultrasound technician was manipulating my abdomen to get different angles of my baby. She said to me, “Looks like he’s growing nicely.”
My ears perked up. “What? What did you say? Did you say “he” is growing nicely?” I asked her.
“Oh no. You didn’t want to know did you? I’m so sorry.” She said.
“No! I DID want to know, but he kept his legs crossed the last 5 ultrasounds.”
I was elated. I was having a boy. Immediately I knew he’d be named Dawson Douglas Tuszke. When Kelly dropped me off at home later, I called Doug at work.
“Do you want to know what I found out today?” I asked him.
“What did you find out today?” he asked.
“I found out the gender of our baby. Do you want me to tell you what it is? Or do you want to guess?” I half giggled.
“It’s a boy, isn’t it?” Doug asked. The tone of his voice signaled that he wanted me to confirm his guess.
“Yes, we’re having a boy, a baby boy. Dawson. Dawson will be here soon enough.”
We had Dawson sooner than we expected. My due date was October 6th. It had changed several times over the course of my pregnancy but as of the most accurate ultrasound, my doctors believed October 6 was an accurate estimate.
On September 14, a Tuesday, I had my last weekly doctor’s appointment. Dr. Bergen checked my cervix and I was dilated to 2 cm. He felt that I should be admitted to the hospital that night for labor induction. He feared that if I waited any longer the pre-eclampsia condition would worsen and I may have needed an emergency C-section. He wanted to avoid undue stress on the baby as much as possible.
Doug and I went home to finish packing my bag. I spoiled our dog, Murphy, for as long as I could before I had to be admitted at 4 p.m. Murphy was like my “test run” for mother hood. We got him as a puppy on January 16, when he was 6 weeks old. Eight days later, I found out I was pregnant. I still believe that Murphy, my little Boston Terrier was our good luck charm. I know that’s crazy, but he kept me sane. He gave me unconditional love and prepared me for the responsibility of taking care of another living being. I cried about having to leave my puppy, “my firstborn” for a few days.
That night at the hospital I was given and IV of pitocin to induce labor. Dr. Jamison instructed me to get rest because this drug was going to cause contractions gradually and hopefully I’d deliver by the next morning. Each night Doug would stay with me until I fell asleep and return the next morning.
At 8 a.m on Wednesday, I was still contracting but no further dilation. I was still at 2-3 cm. The goal was to get to 4-6 and I had a long way to go. I remember that these mild contractions felt like my worst regular menstrual cramps. All of my friends and relatives who had children had me so scared about the pain. “It’s immense,” they’d tell me. “You’ll never be able to handle it. You should have drugs. Lots of drugs.”
But it didn’t seem to hurt just yet. Dr. Jamison went off-call and Dr. Vo-Hill was my new ob/gyn for the day. At 9 a.m. she ordered a vaginal suppository that was to promote dilation and cause labor induction. By 2 p.m. that day I still didn’t dilate any further. I was tired. I was crabby. I was sick and tired of nurses sticking their fingers in my vajayjay to check my progress.
Finally, Thursday morning, Sept 16 arrived. Dr. Perkins was the doctor on call and he promptly came to my room at 8 a.m. sharp to tell me he was going to break my water.
“Enough waiting around. We should have done this days ago.” He told me. I sighed with relief.
“Oh, thank God. I’m getting tired of lying in this bed. I’m tired of eating low sodium hospital food. I’m tired of nurses checking me. I want this baby born already.” I told him graciously.
When he broke my water I remember I how cold I became, the warmth of the amniotic fluid suddenly turned into chills. After changing robes and bed sheets (while connected to the monitors and blood pressure cuff), I felt my first “real” contraction. It wasn’t like the pitocin induced “cramps” I felt days earlier. This was a contraction that stopped me in my tracks.
“Are you feeling okay, Dana?” my nurse asked.
“I think I felt a contraction. It feels like a lot of painful pressure.” I told her.
She immediately ordered me to get back into my bed. The anesthesiologist came in the room minutes later to discuss my options for pain control. Doug arrived soon after and I told him I was thinking about an epidural because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to handle the contractions once they worsened. All the horror stories I heard convinced me I wouldn’t be able to do this without pain medication.
By 11 a.m. I had my epidural in place. The contractions were getting stronger and harder to deal with. After the anesthesiologist left Dr. Perkins came into see how I was progressing. My dilation was at 8 cm and things were moving along nicely.
At 1:30 p.m. the contractions were closer together. I was trying to push when my nurse instructed me to do so. Suddenly, my epidural monitor broke and the anesthesiologist came in to fix it but explained to me that I would not be able to push properly with it on. I gave in and told him to take it out. I figured I could do this. Kelly and Doug were in the room and they told me I could do this.
I remember pushing, and then throwing up, and throwing up some more. I cried because I was embarrassed about that. The nurses changed my gowns and cursed the previous staff that fed me breakfast, knowing I was going to be in labor shortly.
I tried to push again. I remember the pressure of childbirth, but I was surprised to find out it didn’t hurt like I thought it would. I was so convinced it was horrible and I’m certain there are women who had difficult and terrible and painful labors and deliveries and I give them credit for making it through them. But I also thank God for sparing me the pain that I expected.
Perhaps it was the epidural medication that was gradually wearing off, but after an hour of heavy pushing I felt Dawson’s head start to crown. I actually felt it.
“Stop pushing, Dana!” my nurse ordered.
“What? Are you fucking kidding me?” I asked her. My husband was stunned into silence by my dropping of the F-bomb.
“I need you to stop pushing until Dr. Perkins gets back into the room.” She told me.
I was mad. My body was in control now and it wanted to push. I couldn’t stop it. I stared at the ceiling tiles, listening to the nurse’s page Dr. Perkins. When he entered the room he was overly happy and I was praying that he’d hurry the hell up because my baby was coming out of me whether I liked it or not.
The nurse kept telling me to breathe and count. I wanted her to shut up. Dr. Perkins took his ever-loving time putting his gloves and mask on.
“Please hurry….” I breathed to him.
“Okay, Dana, one big push.” He said.
I took a deep breath and felt my son’s head emerge. Dr. Perkins explained that the umbilical cord was wrapped around Dawson’s neck and that he needed to cut it now. Doug was perfectly okay with that because he wasn’t good with “blood and gore.”
As the doctor guided the rest of my baby’s body out of the birth canal, I could feel the change in the room. I could feel more than I ever imagined. Tears. Shivers. Damn it’s cold in here. I want to see my baby…. I’m so happy. I’m so cold. I need a blanket. The thoughts in my head were many, like random misfiring of the brain.
He was finally here, Dawson was born at 2:53 p.m. and weighed 7 lbs., 8 oz. and measured 18 1/2 inches long.
Because I tore during the delivery, my doctor needed to sew my most private part back together. After the nurses checked Dawson over they handed him to Doug. I started crying and shaking. The adrenaline in my system was slowly leaving my body. Next, Kelly held Dawson briefly and then brought him to me.
“Here’s your son,” she said. “You’re precious baby boy.”
It was like a pink elephant in the room. I was speechless. He was perfect. He was beautiful. He was mine. Dawson. He came out of my body and I couldn’t believe it.
I fell in love with him instantly, but I didn’t realize that until many days later. After all the commotion had died down. After we were home, just Dawson and Mumma. I realized he was my next great love. The first was God. The second was Doug. And finally my Dawson was here…. finally.
He’s still my great love. Two years later. Every minute of every day I’m in love with him as only a mother can be. The bond that we possess cannot be broken. Even when he’s old and gray and I’m dead and gone, he’ll be my baby, my precious baby. All the beautiful memories we will share from his birth until my death is just the icing on the cake in this world. I thank God every single day for bringing Dawson into my life. I thank him for allowing me to be his mother and I pray that our bond will only grow stronger as every birthday goes by.
