Shorts and Snippets

Trigger warning: there is birth trauma and mentions of blood in this post.

I’ve struggled to write Apollo’s birth story over the past year mainly because I think it has taken me that long to process everything that led to me finally holding him. 

In my head, the story starts at the very end, at 11:01am, April 3, 2024.

It starts with my doctor—the late Dr. DeSanto—holding my baby boy up to the light. Apollo cried right away—the sweetest, most magical sound in the world—and so did I. 

Then it’s a blur. Someone said, “That is a big baby!” then Alex cut the cord and our baby was cleaned up and my doctor and nurse were tending to me… for a long time, they tended to me.

Then everyone was taking bets on how big he was, and another nurse was shouting out, “9 pounds, 4 ounces!” and Dr. DeSanto said, “I’ve been doing this for a long time, and that is a big baby.” And my big, perfect baby was put on my chest and the world stopped as I held him, gazing at his perfect little face. 

People, movement, noise, lights, sounds washed together as I held him to me. All I knew was that Apollo was in my arms at last. We had wanted our families to come in right away and my mom first brought Aurora up to meet her brother and I remember in my haze reaching out to hold her and thinking, I’m holding my two babies for the first time. 

Eventually, our families went to wait for us in the postpartum recovery wing. When my epidural wore off Alex took Apollo, and my nurse walked over to me to help me so I could get changed. She stood at the edge of my bed waiting to help as I tried to get up.

When I staggered to my feet, I knew something was wrong. 

I didn’t feel like I was in my body. The room started swaying and sensations came to me in waves. It was beyond dizziness and light headedness…. Bits and pieces of the room faded in and out and I had the sensation that I was floating somewhere.

I made it to the wheelchair. 

I don’t remember much else.

Suddenly, a crowd of people were in the room. I think they were all nurses. I recall people yelling my name. Someone waved rubbing alcohol under my nose and I felt hands on me that were holding me up as I was fainting. I remember coming to and vomiting which was probably due to my blood pressure plummeting. I remember looking up and seeing Alex with our baby. I remember the knowledge washing over me that Apollo was safe, I’d gotten him here safely, no matter what happened to me… my baby was safe.

Someone put something in my IV at the speed of light which in hindsight probably saved me. The nurses got me back to my bed and I caught sight of it just as they ripped off the sheets and laid out fresh blankets so I could lie back down.

The sheets were soaked in blood. Like nothing I’d ever seen before. 

And as I sit here and look back at everything that happened that day and the day after, I realize that I’d lost a dangerous amount of blood, and had my doctors and nurses not been there and on top of things… 

I don’t like to think of the other outcome other than after another hour or so in bed, some food and water, and more magic medicine in my IV (probably Pitocin), I was able to be transferred to the postpartum wing. 

I was monitored for 24 hours. 

There are approximately ten million things that must happen to mother and baby after birth, and in those 24 hours we were in the hospital Apollo and I both had regular checkups. Apollo had his first pediatrician visit, hearing test, jaundice tests, a 24-hour exam, and regular checks from night nurses that came in every few hours to give me pain medicine and make sure I was comfortable.

I had to get exams every few hours, blood drawn, uterine massages (and holy hell those hurt), my damn IV finally taken out, and an echocardiogram. Afterward, my cardiologist (who worked in the hospital) came to my room herself to gently tell me she’d assessed both the exam and my bloodwork and while my heart looked fine, I had lost over two pints of blood and was severely anemic. Iron was going to be my friend for many months. 

Alex and I were eager to get out of the hospital. We waited impatiently until almost 6pm on April 4^th for our discharge paperwork and the instant we were cleared, Alex carried our bags and the car seat with our newborn son and a nurse pushed my wheelchair out to the front of the lobby where our car was pulled around. 

And I remember my wheelchair being pushed out into the light, the sun blindingly bright and warm and golden as it was setting, me still reeling from the past 48 hours, thinking that it was all over, my son and I were alive… it was all over.

Now, we just had the rest of our lives ahead.

~

“It is said that women in labor leave their bodies…. They travel to the stars to collect the souls of their babies, and return to this world together.” ~ Unknown

My second pregnancy was very different from my first. 

With Aurora, she was my one and only focus. I could rest whenever I wanted and sit and think and dream of the day she was in my arms without interruption or distraction. Collecting her from the stars—so to speak—was easy.

With Apollo, I had almost no time to think about him between work and caring for Aurora and simply trying to survive. And to me that’s a critical part of pregnancy: finding our children among the stars and reaching for them from beyond so we can bring them earthside. To find them, we must be still enough to travel through the darkness.

Pregnancy was awful. I was violently sick and nauseous for almost six months straight, had severe heartburn, acid reflux, massive weight gain, headaches, and extreme pigment and pelvic and hip pain from carrying so low. By February I was dizzy and weak all the time. In mid-March I was diagnosed with tachycardia (a rapid heart rate) which put a severe limitation on my mobility. I couldn’t stand or walk for more than a few minutes without severe strain on my heart. 

To top things off, during the second half of March, our family got hit with colds and I was so weakened that I developed a severe case of bronchitis (which ended in pink eye) for two weeks and had a residual cough for an additional three weeks afterward. By then, my mental state was deteriorating almost as rapidly as my physical state.

Every time I closed my eyes and tried to picture my baby, search for him in the realm between this world and the great beyond… I couldn’t find him. I couldn’t get a sense of his little spirit. I couldn’t picture his face.

I’m reaching for you, baby, I would think. Where are you?

Concerned about the strain I was under, my doctor, Dr. DeSanto, scheduled an induction for me on Wednesday, April 3 at 2am, the day I would hit 39 weeks.

And as it turns out, Apollo sensed that he was being evicted and decided to start the process on his own.

All afternoon and night of Monday, April 1^st and all of Tuesday, April 2^nd, my Braxton hicks contractions got stronger and stronger until finally, by Tuesday night when Aurora was safely settled at my mom’s and Alex and I were waiting until it was time to drive to the hospital for my scheduled induction, I finally recognized that I was experiencing real contractions. I had been in chronic pain for so long that I hadn’t been able to tell.

We started timing them, put the final few things we needed in our hospital bags, loaded the car, and headed to the hospital around 1:15am.

We got to the hospital at 1:45am. Alex parked the car while I headed inside. The office clerk on duty glanced up as I waddled into the lobby.

“Can I help you, honey?” she said casually. Just another pregnant woman there to have a baby. “You know where you’re going?”

“Yes,” I heard myself say. “My husband’s just parking the car.”

The clerk nodded and went back to her phone. I did, in fact, know where I was going—Aurora had been born in the same hospital and I had been there just weeks before to deliver our paperwork. When Alex came back, we went up to the labor and delivery ward and checked in. 

We briefly went over our paperwork (and I had to marvel at the absurdity that was reviewing paperwork in between contractions), then we were sent to a delivery room where we met our night shift nurse. It was such a wildly different experience than my 46-hour labor with Aurora where—41 hours in—we had to wait in a triage room for two hours in the middle of a busy day for a delivery room while I shrieked with intensifying pain. This time, we were calmly led through deserted hallways in the middle of the night to the room where we would meet our son.

The night nurse explained that because I was already in the early stages of labor she would check with my doctor to see how he wanted me to be induced. Eventually—after two painful cervix checks and a phone call to my doctor—they agreed to start me on Misoprostol (I think), which sped up my contractions. 

I took the pill they gave me then changed into my gown and allowed the nurse to put the two bands around my belly: one to monitor Apollo’s heart rate and the other to monitor my contractions. Then, I had to be on a penicillin drip as I’d tested positive for Group B Strep, so I needed an IV in my arm.

Getting the epidural—which involves an 11-centimeter needle to the spine—was less painful than getting that IV. Hell, some of my early contractions were less painful. I don’t think I even grasped Alex’s hand as tightly during the worst of the contractions the way I did as this nurse positioned the IV in my arm. I’m convinced she messed it up somehow because it burned with the intensity of a hundred suns until it was removed over 24 hours later and bruised my arm for several weeks. 

But I didn’t have time to focus on it; in addition to the IV and the belly bands, I had a blood pressure cuff strapped to my other arm and six different heart monitors placed over my chest plus one on my finger. And my contractions were only a few minutes apart and getting stronger by the minute. The description “overstimulated” doesn’t cover it. 

“I hate this, I hate this, I hate this,” I remember mumbling to Alex over and over.

“I know,” he told me soothingly. “You’re doing amazing.”

But I didn’t want to be doing amazing anymore. I was done. Every contraction was taking all my mental and physical strength and the damn IV in my arm was killing me. I got a new nurse—Andrea—as the sun was breaking over the horizon and I wasted exactly zero seconds telling her that as soon as I could, I wanted an epidural. I was at five centimeters and I’d suffered enough. And based on my history with an epidural with Aurora, I would hit ten centimeters within the hour after receiving it. 

Unlike the nurse who bruised the ever-loving eff out of my arm putting in the damn IV, Andrea was awesome. After checking my cervix and speaking with my doctor, Andrea agreed to get the ball rolling on my epidural. There was one anesthesiologist in the building and he would get to me as soon as he could, she reassured me. She left us to wait as the sun was rising. 

Meanwhile, the Misoprostol had done its job, and my contractions were intensifying rapidly. 

Holy hell. Those contractions.

The word humbling comes to mind. 

There’s no greater time to learn how to surrender than when contractions are roaring, squeezing, pressing, ripping, shredding, tearing you to shreds and you are powerless to stop them. It felt like hands of iron, spiked with razor blades, were clenching my insides and twisting them.

I wasn’t traveling to the stars as much as I was traveling through hell in some parts. I tried to breathe through each one but ended up yelling far more than I’d wanted. Alex held my hand and talked gently, encouragingly through every wave. Each contraction brought me closer, he reminded me. With every contraction, we were that much closer to holding our baby. 

I tried to listen, tried to think about traveling, traveling to the stars… but was rendered completely helpless. God bless women who give birth without medication. I remember at one point just wanting it all to end. The only thing that kept me calm was Alex, who kept talking soothingly through every contraction. 

Finally, finally the anesthesiologist made it to the room. Andrea positioned me on the side of the bed, hunched over in the right position for the epidural needle.

Fear came for me then. All up to that moment I’d accepted things as they happened. But then, I felt suffocated, as though someone was holding a pillow over my face. 

As my back was taped up I remember shaking violently, feeling the two belly bands on my stomach and the blood pressure cuff on my arm and the six heart monitors on my chest and finger and the damn IV in my left arm and felt choked by the sensation of being caught in a trap. On top of that, my contractions were coming hard and fast and I was making primal sounds of agony as they ebbed and flowed while people moved in and out of my room.

I don’t remember ever being more scared. Alex held my hands in front of me and Andrea was right by my side, talking soothingly. The anesthesiologist, positioned behind me, helped immensely. He worked so patiently in between my contractions all while calmly explaining every step of what he was doing prior to doing it, from the numbing gel to the needle to the tape. Already overstimulated by everything around me, I yelped when the cold numbing gel hit my back despite his warning, and he immediately fell over himself apologizing.

“I didn’t mean to scare you!” he said. “It’s quite cold, isn’t it?”

I don’t remember what I said. The needle went in and out, my back was taped up, and I was repositioned so I was laying back down in bed. Almost immediately, blissfully, the roaring pain of the contractions began to fade.

Andrea checked my cervix then had me lay on my left side.

“Try to rest for a little while,” she said, “and we’ll see if we can’t get baby to descend just a little more.”

“You might want to call my doctor,” I mumbled through shut eyes. I was exhausted. “The last time this happened I was at ten centimeters within hours.”

She nodded and reassured me she would. And before I fully fell asleep, Dr. DeSanto came in and told me he was going to break my water. He held up a metal tool that looked like a medieval torture device. 

“What does that entail, exactly?” I asked. I was tired of being prodded.

“I break your water,” he said calmly. “Once I strip your membranes the baby can descend further.”

“Will I feel it?”

“Not at all.”

I consented. Within minutes, my doctor and Andrea had left me to rest, and I fell asleep almost at once. Alex slept next to me in the recliner chair.

When I woke up it was mid-morning, maybe 9:30am or so.

And I felt what I’d been waiting for: the urge—the need—to push. 

I blinked and Andrea was there. Almost as though she could read my mind, she asked if I felt any pressure.

“Yes,” I said. “It’s what woke me up, I think. I think I need to push soon.”

She nodded. “Let’s take a look.”

She did a cervix exam, chuckled a bit, then said, “Well, take a wild guess at where you’re at.”

I didn’t want to get my hopes up. “Eight or nine?”

“You’re at ten,” she said cheerfully. “We’re going to have a baby here within the hour.”

We calmly waited for Dr. DeSanto to come in. It was so peaceful, her sitting on the edge of my bed and Alex in the chair beside me. Eventually when my doctor arrived, he checked my cervix and said casually, “Oh yeah. He’s right there—this won’t take long.”

I’m sure he ate his words later. 

It was so surreal. Within minutes, the rest of the catch crew had walked into the room, and it struck me that this was old hat to them, childbirth. It was special to only Alex and me. Everyone in the room had been to hundreds of births: there was my doctor, and Andrea, and then two nurses who hung back ready for the baby.

Alex positioned himself at my left side, Andrea at my right. My doctor positioned himself for delivery, then looked up at me.

“You remember how to push?” he asked.

I could have cried at the question. Like I hadn’t been thinking of this moment, this finish line over which I would cross to finally, triumphantly meet my son. Every day. Every moment. For the past nine months.

“I remember,” I whispered.

“Then wait for the next contraction,” he said, “and push.”

When I think back on both Apollo’s birth and Aurora’s, this is always the hardest part.

The hardest part to experience and the hardest part to describe. 

I recall this part through a film of darkness over my surroundings, like I was there but only as an echo of some memory. Like I was truly out of my body.

My next contraction began and I started to push and Alex and Andrea started to count. Push for ten seconds, rest, push for another ten, rest, push for another ten, and stop until the next contraction. 

And in that moment that I’d been waiting for for nine months—the magical moment where I would finally, finally be among the stars reaching for my baby…. everything suddenly seemed hopeless.

I felt lost in space, searching, reaching, grabbing at nothing. 

Cold, stark, nothing. 

It hit me hard in that first moment just how weak I was.

I pushed. And pushed. And pushed.

My baby should have come right away, after one or two more contractions. But he didn’t. The epidural had taken away the pain but not all feeling. I felt everything. Above all, I felt hopeless. 

“Push push push!” Andrea encouraged me.

I am, goddamn it, I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. I had no breath for anything. 

I don’t actually know how long I pushed. Time was meaningless to me. But eventually, the energy shifted in the room. There was urgency, though I couldn’t place it. My doctor was pressing hard on my stomach during contractions. As I look back now remembering my blood-soaked sheets and the fact that I blacked out shortly afterward, I realize now they were anxious to get him out because I was bleeding profusely, though in hindsight, they took great pains to make sure I didn’t know.

“Push push push!”

I felt like I was grabbing blindly. The pressure increased and I heard Alex as though from far away, talking to me, and I remember closing my eyes and feeling despair. 

There wasn’t going to be a moment of triumph where I mustered all my strength and delivered my baby easily. I was lost.

And the space between stars is utterly, eerily dark. 

“One more,” my doctor said. He was soft-spoken and calm, but the urgency in his voice was overwhelming. “Last one. On three.”

When you go into childbirth, you travel through absolute darkness in hopes of finding your baby on the other side.

But what no one tells you is that everything you are and everything you’ve ever been and everything you’ll ever be in your life comes down to a single moment: the moment where you decide between fading into nothingness or remembering you know darkness, you came from it… and despite everything, you know how to see through it. 

The contraction hit. 

Alex and Andrea counted. One-two-three.

No one tells you that you don’t just meet your baby during childbirth.

You meet yourself on the other side, too.  

“Push push push!”

I pushed one last time, with everything I had and everything I didn’t, everything I would borrow from my future self for the coming weeks and months.

Arms outstretched in the stars for my son. 

Pushed.

Pushed.

Pushed.

Reached.

And seized him. 

~

Apollo Joseph Ferri | 9lbs, 4 oz, 21.5 inches