Cora Nicole--A birth story

Cora Nicole Wigginton

June 8, 2016 * 9:14 AM

9 lbs 4 oz * 21 1/2 inches long

Absolutely, positively, miraculously perfect in every possible way.

And now for the looonnngggg version (not that I'm ever long-winded!)

Let's get one thing perfectly clear before I start--Cora is the sweetest, most angelic and softest Wigginton soul who ever graced this wonderful earth. While she was still swimming in my stomach I could sense her calm and kind disposition and I just knew I was carrying goodness. I want to preface Cora's birth story with that little sentiment because this birth story, which was difficult and traumatic, seems so disconnected from the lovely human being I delivered. It's actually been so difficult for me to sit down and write it because it's not what either of us deserved nor what I imagined after spending 9 months carrying this sweet babe. BUT, I'm also well aware that this story is gorgeous in it's own way: Cora is here. Cora is healthy. Cora is just as amazing as I felt she'd be and as for me? Well, I'm slowly but surely recovering and so grateful to have made it out of my fourth, and final, c-section. It was my hardest and I feel like a warrior. I'll tell the ugly details, but then let's focus on the perfection that came from them--my Cora Nicole. 

James and I ubered our way to the hospital in the early morning hours of June 8th excited and anxious about the day before us. To say I was nervous was an understatement because c-sections are the pits. I slept for a total of two hours the whole night and was up multiple times getting sick. Eww! I remember once in England when someone learned about my c-section with T they said, "Oh, so you're too posh to push?" and I was all, "Uhhhh....you've clearly never had a c-section because there is NOTHING posh about it!" Four sections later and I feel the same way. Then again, my experience with Quinn was so positive that I was hopeful this time would be the same.

My pre-op experience was top notch and my nurse even got in my IV on her first stick. I was starting to feel more calm and James and I even took a couple of pictures. Then it was off to the OR for me and time to don the space suit for James. Usually the anesthesia takes just a few minutes and then James is by my side again in the OR, but he said after 20 minutes he started to get worried and ask for updates from the nursing staff. The anesthesia process ended up taking 45 minutes, and he said he knew something was wrong. What he didn't know was I spent those full 45 minutes being poked in my spine countless times by a young resident and a young attending who couldn't seem to get it right. It was painful to the point of tears and it felt like an eternity of torture. There is a big window in the OR and I remember looking out at the beautiful rolling mountains while my body was cold, shaking and being poked on the table and my OB and his resident were casually talking about LA traffic at the end of the bed and I just couldn't help but think that this was allll wrong, and yet I was utterly helpless. This had the potential to be such a spiritual moment where I welcomed my baby to this earth, but it was nothing but clinical. After two failed epidurals (and all of their associated pokes) the anesthesia team agreed to do a straight spinal. I have very low blood pressure and I learned from Everett's birth that spinals make it drop even lower causing me to faint and vomit, so with Quinn my anesthesiologist gave me a blood pressure regulator so that it wouldn't drop. It was amazing! Unfortunately this team didn't take my words and requests seriously and it wasn't long before I was blacking out on the operating table. At this point they were having to play catch up, giving me meds to raise my pressures whenever I started to dip, and that was often. They also had ample ammonia-covered cotton swabs to wake me up. The curtain went up, the doctors started the surgery, I was blacking out and James was still outside wondering what was going on. I started screaming, "Where's James? I need my husband! Where is he?" and finally someone brought him to my side. He looked at me, not knowing what had happened but knowing something surely had and said, "That was hard, wasn't it. I'm here." Those words, although simple, were so deep and full of love. He got me, he cared about me, and I finally had someone in that room who I knew was in my corner. I was crying and sick and just shook my head affirmatively, whispering, "I'm never doing this again."

From there it was fast and a blur. The cut was made too small by the resident for Coco's large Wiggy noggin and the decision was made to proceed and try to force her out anyway. I was expecting the intense pressure that comes along with a c-section but now I felt something I had never felt before: pain! Pain that was so intense and so blinding that I found myself screaming and crying. The anesthesiologist quickly said, "We're going to give you something for the pain but it's going to make you a little loopy" and then, before I knew it, I was in and out of awareness, hallucinating (yes! really! rubbing the doctor's face asking her about her four eyes, seeing rainbows and flashes of color, asking another doctor if this is what it felt like to do drugs, the works!) and totally unaware that a few minutes later a baby girl was vacuumed out of my uterus and delivered to a room full to the brim with commotion. There was blood all over the floor, screaming about who was going to catch the baby, and from what I understand when James finally got a picture of our little girl and came over to show me my eyes were rolling around in my head and I clearly had no idea what was going on. I don't remember any of it.

The next thing I knew I was sewn up, James was gone, my doctors were gone and a nurse was handing me a swaddled baby to carry to recovery. My first thought was, "Whose baby is that? Is this my baby? I had a baby?" and then my next thought was, "I don't think giving me a baby is a very good idea right now." I knew I was still gone, heck I couldn't even open my eyes, but I held that little burrito up to my cheek and willed myself to not let go. This picture is beautiful and tragic to me in ways that words can't describe.

In the recovery room I started to really wake up. I realized that this baby was, in fact, mine, and I started nursing her while asking James questions about what had happened. It had been so scary and I remember feeling grateful that I was alive, that Cora was alive, that we were all in the recovery room together. It took me the rest of the day to mentally feel back to myself, and it took some time before I really connected with Coco. It's amazing how different you feel when you are not present at the birth of your baby. Luckily Cora was a diligent nurser, a mama's cuddle bug and overall just a perfect little person, making it so easy for me to fall madly, deeply, head over heels in love with her.

To my dear Cora, I love you more than words can say. Your birth was a little bit crazy and hard, but it brought me you, the greatest gift in the world, so every last second of it (and yes, even all those pokes) were worth it. I'd do it a million times over if it meant you'd be mine. I'm so glad you're here.