Welcome to the world, baby Talia

On August 22 at 2:35am, I gave birth to our baby daughter, Talia!

We’re both doing well! The first couple of days were really rough, but the nurses at the hospital were great, and we were discharged on the 24th.

I have to admit that I set my expectations low ahead of time, such that I expected to hate and be miserable during the newborn period. I always hear from other people about how tiring and hard it is, and I knew that I’d have to be breastfeeding every 2-3 hours, which means not being able to sleep through the night anymore.

While some parts are really hard and I am still physically recovering and am definitely tired, I’m not hating it. Seeing Tali’s cute face and little movements just melts my heart. I seriously love her. It also helps that my parents live close by. They’ve been coming over to bring food and watch over Tali when my husband and I need a nap. Plus, my husband has been very supportive and even decided to quit his job to be a stay-at-home dad.

The Name

Even before knowing the gender, I wanted to name our baby Tali if it was a girl. It’s both a name I’ve liked and the name of one of my favorite video game characters. (I’m sure it surprises no one that I’d want a video game inspired name.)

When searching for the origin and meaning of Tali, I came across entries for Talia, which had an even prettier meaning (“gentle dew from heaven”). It also seemed to flow off the tongue better when combined with my husband’s last name. So, we decided on Talia with Tali as a nickname!

The Birth

After taking birthing classes and hiring a doula, I felt prepared with a lot of information, but of course, labor is unexpected. First of all, TV and movies are terrible at depicting labor because they normally show a woman’s water breaking dramatically and then suddenly, she’s in labor and baby is born soon after! That’s not normal!

I knew that labor typically starts with the early labor stage, which is the longest stage and where you begin to have contractions, but they aren’t frequent or strong enough to go to the hospital yet. I also knew that it’s uncommon for the water to break before labor starts, and if it does, it can be a gush or a constant trickle.

Welp, I didn’t quite have an early labor stage. I’ve always been told that it’s very obvious when your water breaks, but it wasn’t for me. Tali had dropped lower into my pelvis (which is normal) but was low enough that when my water broke, her head blocked the trickle of water.

Instead, it came out in random splotches over time, which I just assumed was vaginal discharge. On the 21st, I started getting suspicious by the amount of discharge I was having and called my doctor’s nurse. She suggested going in to get it tested to be on the safe side.

I totally thought I’d be told it was discharge and that I’d be sent home. I didn’t even bring my hospital bag! Lo and behold, I tested positive for my water breaking. Since I couldn’t tell when it actually happened, I was an infection risk and was checked in to be induced with Pitocin since labor hadn’t started on its own.

From there, my husband went home to get our hospital bags, and I called my doula to come over. I had already decided ahead of time that only my husband and doula would support me during labor (other than the nurses, of course). The ugly truth is, you should really consider only having people with you that you’re ok with seeing you at your worst.

And by worst, I mean gross personal stuff, like having your vagina exposed a lot and seeing bodily fluids gush out. During some of my more painful contractions, I lost control of my bladder and literally peed myself multiple times. Though I didn’t poop myself, it can happen during the pushing phase since the baby puts pressure on your rectum, and you use the same muscles to push out a baby as you do to push out poop. Then after the baby’s out, blood is still gushing out, especially when the nurses checked on my uterus. It’s uh, a lot of gross stuff.

Anyway, here’s a general timeline of how it all went down:

• 8/21 – around 10am – I went in to get tested for amniotic fluid (water breaking), which came out positive.
• 8/21 – around noon – I’m in my labor room and Pitocin is started through IV. I’m only dilated 2cm and have a ways to go to get to 10cm.
• 8/21 – around 6:30pm – My contractions become too painful and frequent for me. There’s normally a few minute break between contractions, but the Pitocin was causing me to have some of them back-to-back with no break. I ask for an epidural. (Epidurals are amazing and magical by the way. I could still feel the pressure of contractions but not the pain.)
• 8/22 – around 1am – The contractions are strong enough that I feel pain, even through the epidural. I also start feeling like I need to poop every time I have a contraction (this is a sign that you’re about ready to push). I get checked by my doctor and am told to start pushing.
• 8/22 – 2:35am – Talia is born!

At the hospital I gave birth at, they leave you in the labor room for another couple hours before moving you to a postpartum room. It gave me time to skin-to-skin with Tali, breastfeed her, and then my nurse tended to me while other nurses came in to weigh and measure Tali and do other routine procedures.

Around 5am, we’re checked into a postpartum room, and I was exhausted. Being in labor is physically draining, and I hadn’t slept since 9am the previous day. I stayed at the hospital until the 24th, since extra tests were ordered for Tali due to the infection risk from my water breaking in the way it did. Fortunately, everything checked out fine!

Now I’m on maternity leave for 3 months, and my husband and I are adjusting to our new life with a baby. I’m not sure how much I’ll be posting here during this early newborn period, but I’ll still be on social media (twitter, personal instagram, toy instagram), so follow me there!