Sarah has become one of my closest friends… she has helped me through so many things, and I feel honored to have been able to help her when she needed me. I met Sarah in the Rhode Island New Moms Connection years ago, and I have remained good friends with a few of the women in the group to this day. This past year has been full of ups and downs… it leaves me in tears to think about some of the hardships encountered. There has been happy endings and sad endings within our circle of friends, and through it all, I believe it has made each of us stronger women, mothers, and wives. I love this family.
In her words:
“It is April17th and it is a pretty typical day except it is my middle sister’s birthday. As I did every Tuesday and Friday for the last four months of this pregnancy, I am getting an ultrasound of my baby. This one marks ultrasound #63 and 64. I have spent more time in doctor’s office waiting rooms and being poked, prodded, and examined than I ever anticipated during this “high risk pregnancy” due to Intrauterine Growth Restriction. As it turns out, this day is different. The doctor says that baby has not grown enough since the last ultrasound; it is time to deliver the baby. I am in shock; feeling like a second place winner since I wanted to make it all the way to 40 weeks but instead, I am one week shy at 39 weeks. My head is swimming with thoughts of what this induction would be like or would I have another cesarean section. I met my husband at Women & Infants Triage at 3 p.m. We sat there waiting to meet with the doctor or midwife on call but after being there for over an hour, we were told that no one was available to discuss my options. Instead, we got a phone call saying that I should go home to get my things and come back to the hospital later in the evening. This was my chance to buy time. I wanted to savor my last hours with my daughter who was up until that point, an only child. We ate dinner, goofed around in the front yard, and told her stories about princesses before bed. It was now 9 p.m. and Women & Infants called to see when I will be arriving to the hospital. I left my house at 9:30 p.m. knowing this would be last time I would close the door of house as a mother of one.
At 11:00 p.m., one of the midwives came into my hospital room to explain the induction since we decided that I should attempt a VBAC. My birth experience with my first daughter was traumatic and the thought of a traditional cesarean section terrified me. The midwife was aware of my desire to have a natural non-medicated birth so she opted for a more holistic approach to the induction. And she said she wouldn’t be able to any drugs to start the induction any way due to my prior cesarean, so instead she was going to manually dilate my cervix using a catheter. I slept through the night with the catheter hoping that it would work. It did! The next morning, April 18th, I woke up to be pleasantly surprised that I was 3 cm dilated. The nurses brought me down to the Labor & Delivery floor at 6 a.m. to start a Pitocin IV. It was around 7:30 a.m. when my husband arrived at the hospital after taking our daughter to daycare. It wasn’t much longer when the contractions started. As the morning wore on, they became more and more intense. The midwife checked my progress at 10:00 a.m. to find that I was 4 cm dilated. It was not much longer when I thought my body was going to explode. I did not anticipate that type of uncontrollable, unrelenting pain. My mantra “I am in pain but I am not hurt.” was no longer working. As much as I did not want an epidural, it was my saving grace. The epidural put my mind at ease and allowed my body to do what it is supposed to do. It was a short time later when my water broke and the midwife announced that I was 10 cm dilated. She told me to rest for a little bit and then I would start pushing. This was a thrilling moment to know that my “baby dream” might actually come to true–that I may be able to deliver my baby and get her place directly into my arms. The whole time, I had a picture from National Geographic in my mind. It is a woman in a tub of water holding her baby for the first time. The expression on the woman’s was pure joy and relief. I wanted to have that feeling that was lost due to groggy drugs during my prior c-section. My husband called this picture my “Rocky photo”. One of the greatest compliments that my husband has ever given me was when he told me that I had that same expression on my face when I touched our baby girl for the first time. The pride that I feel for having a VBAC after all of the struggles, fears and disappointments of a high risk pregnancy is unexplainable. My original doctor told me once that “happiness is healing”. Those words will forever ring in my head because for all of hurt and trauma that came my first born’s delivery and the frustrations and disappointments of this high risk pregnancy– all of the negative feelings have melted away in the first touch of my second born. Rebecca Hope Rocchio was born at 4 pounds, 4 ounces on April 18th at 1:47 p.m. She truly is my second first born.”
