Without a doubt, the most beautiful day of my life.

The day everything changed, the day we had waited for—and, above all, hoped for—for so very long, the day we were finally going to meet our son and become mom and dad.

For nine months, I enjoyed being pregnant. I’d never been so proud of my body. I loved it so much. It was exactly as I’d always imagined it would be. All that time, I carried you everywhere with me, safe in my belly. Until April 17 came around. A routine checkup with the midwife ended with an additional examination at the hospital. I had a terrible headache, could only see stars, and my blood pressure was way too high. So was it still safe for the baby in my belly? That was the question.

Now I’ve been given a medical referral

They suspected preeclampsia, also known as pregnancy-induced hypertension. Once at the hospital, my blood pressure remained higher than normal, my blood test results were abnormal, and I had protein in my urine—all symptoms indicative of preeclampsia. Still, we were sent home because the CTG was otherwise normal, and they wanted to wait as long as possible. At that point, I was only 36.5 weeks pregnant. However, my care was now under medical supervision, and from then on, I had checkups at the hospital instead of with my midwife. This was something we fully supported, because we would do anything to ensure the safety of both me and the baby.

After a few more hospital visits, lots of CTGs, and very high blood pressure, the alarm was raised on May 3. By then, I was 39.3 weeks pregnant, so there was no reason to wait any longer. The OB-GYN (a different one than the one we’d seen in the weeks before) could tell I was tired and worried. He said we weren’t going to take any more risks and that it was time to deliver the baby, because it wasn’t safe for the baby to stay in my womb any longer. We felt heard and, above all, relieved. Action was taken immediately, and the gynecologist said, “We’re going to deliver your baby, because enough is enough.”

It’s time to meet our baby.

“What do you think?” We didn’t hesitate for a moment and knew right away: it’s been a wonderful journey, but now it’s time to meet our baby. The OB-GYN immediately called the delivery rooms to see if there was space available to do some additional checks and to see if I was already dilating. If that wasn’t the case, they would insert a balloon catheter that very afternoon to induce dilation.

Luckily, it wasn’t very busy at that moment, so we were able to go upstairs right away. They did all the checks and measured my blood pressure again. It was still way too high, so I was glad they took action. Time to check if I was dilated at all. The midwife’s response: “We’re not going to insert a balloon catheter. You’re already 3 cm dilated, so you two can go home together. We’ll see you back here tomorrow at 7 a.m., and we’ll break your water to induce labor.”

We were so happy! It was finally going to happen. We were going to meet our son. For the very last time, we drove home from the hospital with an empty back seat.

You can imagine that we hardly slept a wink that night. I was glad when the alarm went off and we could finally head out. Once we arrived at the hospital, we were quickly shown to a room, introduced to the team that would be taking care of us, and I was hooked up to the CTG.

At 9 a.m., they broke my water, and then it was just a matter of waiting to see if contractions would start on their own. An hour later, the nurse came by to check on me. I was still coloring in my adult coloring book (Yeah, really 🤪). Nothing was happening down there yet, so they quickly realized they’d have to administer labor-inducing medication. They immediately set up an IV and started the medication. About 1.5 to 2 hours later, I finally started to feel some movement inside. Still, it took a long time for regular contractions to start, and I was still coloring—so that was reason enough to increase the dose of the induction medication. My body responded quickly, and I finally had regular contractions. Time to put my markers away. 😂

The regular contractions quickly turned into a storm of contractions.

I kept this up for an hour and decided I wanted to get off the bed and onto the birthing ball to see if that would help. Once I was sitting on that ball, the contractions only got more intense. I didn’t even have time to catch my breath anymore. At that moment, I wanted only one thing: pain relief. I was panting nonstop through the contractions and didn’t even have time to bring up the topic of an epidural. Dennis saw that I couldn’t go on anymore, that I was completely exhausted, and told the midwife it was time for an epidural—hallelujah! Giving birth really is a team effort. “I’m going downstairs to call and see if there’s a spot, Nancy,” I heard faintly in the background. An hour!

I still had to hold on for another hour before we could go downstairs. Tears were rolling down my cheeks. Fortunately, one of the midwives said, “We’re not going to wait any longer; we’re going to check your dilation and get you ready to go downstairs.” The gauge read a full 5 cm. Shortly after that, we went downstairs for the epidural. Once it was in, a sense of calm immediately returned to my whole body, but I also felt a lot of pressure right away. By then it was 5:00 p.m., and we were back in the room. Because I was feeling so much pressure, she checked my dilation again right after the epidural.

“TEN CENTIMETERS!” “Yessss,” I thought, “it’s finally happening!” But the doctor said she wanted to let the baby descend slowly first, since I wasn’t feeling any pain (or pressure) anymore anyway. In hindsight, that was great, because once everyone had left our room, Dennis and I fell asleep like logs. We slept for a good hour when the midwife came in and woke me up, saying, “Are you awake? You still have, so to speak, an important task to complete.” 😂

Everything was prepared for our son’s birth. Once I was in the delivery position, I still didn’t feel a thing (which was great, but not so helpful when you don’t know when to push). They turned down the pain medication a bit so I could feel some pressure again. In between pushing, we actually sat there chatting away. We tried guessing names and stuff, but they didn’t get any right 🤓.

After pushing for a while, Jin’s heartbeat would sometimes drop out, and they could no longer get a good reading. At first, I rolled from my back onto my side to see if that would make a difference, but unfortunately, it didn’t. They decided to place a “sensor” on his head. We saw that there really was no other option and agreed to it. Fortunately, they were able to find his heartbeat right away, and after an hour of pushing, the moment we’d been dreaming of for all those years finally arrived. I held him myself—his warm little body, so beautiful, perfect, and so beloved. Our sweet little Jin, finally with us. 🩵

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