My Shore Baby

***Skip the first 4 paragraphs if you don’t want the background info!***

It has always been my dream to live at the beach. That’s not very unique, I know. I accomplished my dream at 23 when my then boyfriend (now husband) and I moved to a small beach town in NJ called Asbury Park. Made famous by Bruce Springsteen, Asbury was once again on the rise in 2014 when we got

our one bedroom apartment for a ridiculously low monthly rent. We happily lived at the beach for a year and a half, commuting 3 hours a day to and from work. 3 hours a day meant we left in the dark and returned home in the dark for much of the year. Common sense told us to move, but my heart was never in it.

Mark found our next apartment in the town where I worked and I didn’t even want to see it. I knew leaving Asbury made sense, but we got engaged on the beach there, we brought our puppy Ferris home to that apartment, we planned to marry at the beach, I just didn’t want to leave.

Fast forward because after all this is a birth story. My immediate and extended family have vacationed together at various beaches since I can remember. We took a few years off, but this year we were at it again, with two houses in Ocean City, NJ for the first time. At 36 weeks pregnant I was both cautious and excited for this much needed vacation. The beach is one of the loves of my life, but the third trimester had made me even more sensitive to the heat. “As long as I can swim in the ocean I’ll be fine,” I told everyone.

I spent the week walking the boardwalk for Kohr’s soft serve ice cream, almost daily. Jumping and riding waves for hours on end. Reading under an umbrella. It was not perfect, but it was close. Friday was our only cool and cloudy day. Most of my extended family was leaving in the evening so they were packing and relaxing at their house. I went for a long walk with my mom on the beach, then another long walk, then went shopping which involves, you guessed it, a lot of walking.

Around 3 pm we returned to the house and I needed to lay down. My back was hurting and I was exhausted. I felt this really intense sharp pain, thought it was weird, then tried to sleep. I quickly realized I was having contractions and hoped water and rest would put an end to them. The contractions didn’t feel very intense but were coming 5 minutes apart so I alerted my mom, dad and brother who were the only ones left at this point. My husband Mark left the vacation on Wednesday to work. I called my doctor and she suggested I come get checked out. “Well..” I told her, “I’m two hours away at the beach.” She said to go locally if I felt comfortable doing that. I packed my stuff and said if they didn’t get better by 8 pm we’d go. The contractions sped up to about 3 minutes apart, still not intense, and I made the decision to go to the hospital. My mom had to eat her pizza first, then we went.

My mom, dad and I arrived at the hospital all wearing tie dye. I don’t know how this happened but the hospital staff definitely thought we were crazy. I insisted on going to L&D instead of the emergency room and got a bed and gown pretty quickly. I just told them my doctor said go straight to L&D, its worth a try if you’re like me and don’t want to sit around in the emergency room.

At this point I was kind of afraid they would say I was crazy and imagining the contractions but they hooked me up and confirmed they were 2 mins apart. I think everyone was surprised because of how calm I was, but they really weren’t intense. The doctor came in and said since I was 36.5 weeks they would not be stopping my labor with any medication other than giving me fluids to see if that stopped it. The fluids did nothing but make my face, which had stayed pretty normal my whole pregnancy, swell up.

My husband arrived at 11:00, my parents left to go pack. At 11:30 my water broke, I was still only 1 cm so we prepared for a long night followed possibly by induction in the morning. In the meantime I got the steroid shot to speed up her lung development and some blood work since this hospital did not have all my records from my regular doctor. The contractions progressed and got really intense around 1 am. I remember it seemed like the clock was stuck on 1 am, before that I hadn’t even checked the clock since 11:30. My mom returned since I wanted her in the delivery room with me.

At 2 am I asked for an epidural. I REALLY didn’t want one going into it. I am terrified of needles and the idea of one in my spine. I felt like I couldn’t deal with the same level of pain for hours upon hours so I needed an epidural. Getting the epidural was the worst part of my labor. My contractions were so intense at this point, I told the anesthesiologist “I can’t sit still during a contraction” and he said, “you have to.” While I sat hunched over, still and squeezing the life out of my husbands hand I went through horrible contraction after contraction with multiple peaks and no breaks. My body actually started pushing at this point. Once it was done and I was allowed to move again I told the nurse I had been pushing and she checked me. I was 10 centimeters and it was time to push. I believe if I would have asked to be checked before the epidural i would’ve been at least 8 centimeters. If I had a nurse who knew I didn’t want an epidural she may have explained that I didn’t have much longer to go. I only blame myself here because I should’ve gotten checked before getting the epidural and I should’ve told my nurse my feelings on the epidural. Both of which I did not do.

Once it was time to push it was smooth sailing. I pushed for 40 minutes, the nurses said I was an excellent pusher and had a strong core, something I’m sure they tell everyone. The doctor arrived and the nurse said, “do you use olive oil?” To which the doctor replied she did and started pouring olive oil on the baby’s crowning head and my vagina. She massaged the olive oil all around as I continued to push.

Sophie Lorraine was born a nd plopped right on my chest for our golden hour together. She actually latched during this time, which was exactly what I imagined would happen. Thanks to the olive oil massage I didn’t tear at all.

She was 6 pounds, 2 ounces of absolute sweetness. Swaddled and outfitted with a shore baby hat, my little love took a breath of salty air and I know she’ll share my love of the beach.