I can't tell El's birth story without also telling Av's - they are really one long story. It's my story, really, the story of how I gave birth to two perfect children.
The first miracle is the fact that I got pregnant at all. It was even more miraculous the second time. I have been blessed twice, and within those two big blessings are several sub-blessings. Let me explain.
In 2004 I got cancer. And I had chemo, which is notorious for causing infertility, by way of early menopause. But I was lucky - the treatment protocol I was on was kinder to the ovaries than other types of chemo, plus I took a drug called Lupron during treatment that shuts down the reproductive system and supposedly helps protect it from harm. As a result of this, or maybe as a result of good luck, I did not immediately have fertility problems and became pregnant with Av six months after chemo ended, before I was even aware that I was ovulating again. Wow, wow, wow. I felt like I'd won the biggest lottery ever. Even Wayne, who had been so nervous about having kids, was totally psyched. We were so lovey-dovey during the whole pregnancy, we made everyone around us want to vomit. It was very cool.
I had some worries, though. I didn't know if having had chemo would somehow change the way my body grew a baby and/or gave birth. No one else knew, either - there's been so little research on the subject. Very few chemo patients go on to have babies afterwards, because most chemo patients are beyond their child-bearing years. Unfortunately, however, more and more young people are getting cancer these days, and fertility is slowly becoming a much bigger issue within that population. I imagine that down the road, there will be more research and more focus on developing chemo treatments that preserve fertility. In 2005, however, when I was fast approaching my due date, I had very little to go on. For that reason, we went ahead and had amniocentesis. I was entitled to it anyway, due to my "advanced" age (35), but it wasn't my age I was worried about. The amnio showed no problems, and confirmed that Av was a girl, which we already knew from the ultrasounds. I went ahead with the rest of the OB maternity care rigamarole, until I decided I wanted a natural birth and took a Bradley class. Somewhere in the middle of that I switched to a nurse-midwife. I was hoping I could give birth without pain medication, and I fantasized that I could do it without being hooked up to any machines and without any grotesque procedures, like episiotomy. What I didn't know, however, was that if you give birth in a hospital, overseen by medical personnel, it's extremely unlikely you'll be left alone to do it naturally. Our midwife was based at the hospital, and so was limited by hospital policies and ultimately beholden to the doctors. I was also unaware at the time that the only alternative to a hospital birth in my area was a home birth, with a home birth midwife. I thought that having the nurse-midwife would protect me from intrusive and unnecessary birth interventions. Much later, I learned that this is only somewhat true, and only if certain conditions apply, such as the condition that you go into labor no later than a few days after your due date, and the condition that your labor goes quickly and smoothly, with no deviations from whatever is considered the norm by the hospital culture. My pregnancy did not meet the necessary conditions. At one week past my "due date," I was showing no signs of going into labor any time soon. The midwife insisted we have a non-stress test and an ultrasound, which we did. The doctor on call came in to discuss the results with us. The baby appeared fine, no signs of stress, but my amniotic fluid was "low," my blood pressure was slightly elevated, and the baby was measured by the ultrasound as being well over 8 pounds, so there was a "danger" that she was "too" big to fit through my pelvis. I was aware that late-term ultrasounds for measurements are notoriously inaccurate, and I said as much, but the doctor busted out the big guns: he told us the ultrasound also seemed to show that her heart may be enlarged, although he admitted that this was not necessarily a reason to induce labor. He was more worried about my supposed lack of amniotic fluid.
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