Today we hear the second half of Eileen’s story about her experience with pregnancy. Last week we heard about some of the challenges associated with her miscarriages. But when we left Eileen, she was about to deliver her first baby, having christened the hospital elevator when her water broke on the way up to a birthing room. we’ll pick up her story on the way to the hospital.
You can hear Naomi’s story here
alpha fetoprotein
https://www.stanfordchildrens.org/en/topic/default?id=alpha-fetoprotein-afp-90-P02426
Audio transcipt
Paulette: Hi, welcome to war stories from the womb. I’m your host, Paulette Kamenecka. I’m a writer and an economist and a mother of two girls. Today we hear the second half of Eileen story about her experience with pregnancy. Last week we heard about some of the challenges associated with her miscarriages. But when we left Eileen, she’s about to deliver her first baby, having just christened to the hospital elevator, when her water broke on the way up to a birthing Room. We’ll pick up her story on the way to the hospital.
Eileen: So I’m in the backseat of the car and on the other floors and I’m just like, moaning you know, and just like it was really kind of fun, you know? Like it was just like really letting it all hang out. You know,
P: wait, how long a drive is, this?
E: is are we in for like 20 minutes? No one is it it’s it’s what time is is like 10 or 11 at night in the city. So what was it it was Thanksgiving night so there was like no traffic. So I’m more than we’re going to Lakeshore drive my husband just like flooring it, you know? And then we get to Northwestern and I’m just like, You know what I loved about it was like NUMA to see I was just like, I don’t care, moaning I don’t care, like whatever. So we get to triage and they’re like, You’re nine centimeters.
P: Oh my god. Oh my God.
E: So They put me on the gurney or whatever. We wheel into the elevator.
P: Wait a second only ask the question here. Are you Are you sensing that the waves are getting higher or whatever the whatever the image is,
E: I don’t know what the heck, you know what I mean? Like I don’t know what I was. I was just like, I was like very mammalian. Let’s just say I was very, I was totally my animal body. So then they really into the elevator and my water breaks
and that was kind of like take that! Myt husband was like: it was like it was a hazmat situation. I was like I don’t care, you know. So like we put me into labor and delivery. And now I’m 10 centimeters. Oh, I saw my shoes on and you know, I’m just like, yeah, the doctor comes in. I mean, she’s like, has a sandwich in her hand. She’s like, Oh my god. They called her down from the cafeteria and I’m wearing these like silver gym shoes and leg warmers. And she just like, can
we take your shoes off? And I like, I don’t care, you know, like, well, I believe he wanted to deliver cowboy boots last week. So I got
P: that’s so funny.
E: So then I’m pushing, you know, and I’m thinking like, I’m pushing and pushing. And then my jeweler turned to me she goes, I hate to tell you. But you have to push harder. And I was like, oh, okay, you know, because it’s weird. You know, you’re like you think you’re pushing but you’re again, like you’re I was holding back to get to kind of a comfort zone.
P: Yeah.
E: So I’ve never given birth before. So what do I know about how hard to push? So then I pushed and pushed in? Yeah, I think I was in there about an hour. I don’t know. It’s all that part’s kind of a blur. But
P: God, talk about waiting at home until the last minute, because well done. That’s extremely German engineering. That’s hard to top that. So when the baby is born, do you know are you hoping they don’t cut the cord and they put the baby on your chest? Or do you have any?
E: they did cut the cord? The cord and then yes, she came right on my chest and we didn’t know the sex either. So we really were expecting a boy and it was a girl. I mean, who cares? Right because I have a baby finally.
P: Yeah,
E: like a frickin miracle. Like I finally I get one finally you know so and then she nursed straightaway and all that went pretty easily for me too. And kind of like I had like the hell of getting pregnant and then like, like the reward of a good birth and easy pregnancy and
all that. So
P: yeah. That is amazing. And it sounds like maybe the fourth trimester was not too trying, because you would have you’d seen it before you had experience. She could breastfeed pretty
well.
E: You know, my mother said to me, nothing can prepare you for the first six weeks. And I think that was a really wonderful thing to say. And I always say to new moms too, because there does come this shift after six weeks.
P: Yeah,
E: you know, absolutely. Like, I don’t think I was more prepared than anybody else other than knowing like this entity will end but
P: but also that freeze gives you some sense that words can’t capture the difficulty or the hardship or the pain or the lack of sleep or the combination of all those things what that will feel like
E: Right. I mean, and I think that was really like liberating. You know, my mom just say like, nothing can prepare you so like, whatever there’s it’s not your fault, or there’s nothing you can do. Yeah, you can set up the crib and you can have the changing table and all of that stuff. You can prepare that way but emotionally and mentally can’t be prepared for that how absorbing and how exhausting and 24/7 It is.
P: Yeah, yeah. Well, good. So that is an amazing story of triumph. The girls are a couple years apart. It sounds like
E: oh, they’re three years apart. Yeah. So then my second daughter, yeah, again, it was never never trying. Right. It was like we never tried we just had sex and kind of let it go. So yeah, that was a huge surprise. I was 44
P: Yeah. So you were you imagining to have another one or you were just Well,
E: I was just it was funny because like to my closest friends in the neighborhood. Had we all had kids the same year or first were the same age. And then they were both pregnant. You know,
P: wow.
E: Yeah, with their second third like that one’s six years younger was 10 years younger. So they were younger, you know, than I am everybody. So everybody’s younger. With kids this age, but so I just was starting to kind of feel sorry for myself. Like I knew was I felt like it was too much to ask for but I did you know, want a second, of course just for her to have a sibling. But again, it was like a huge surprise a big surprise that I got pregnant with Alice and you know, happy surprise, but that pregnancy was not as easy.
P: So that one you find out because you miss your period. And that’s happy news when you get the result.
E: Yeah, yeah. Surprising.
P: And then what happens?
E: So my first trimester is fine, kind of like the first one not a lot of morning sickness. And so we’re so in the midst of all and I’m thinking about I was listening to Naomi’s your Interview with Neil before. And so she went through that whole situation where her son was born and then her mother father died. Yeah.
P: Okay, so here Eileen is referencing Naomi’s story. That’s episode 51. And she’s talking about how her father died not long after the birth of her son, and its dramatic impact on her.
E: So my husband and I had been through that so like when this like first was born. In November of 06 and then in 08, ah, my mother in law died. So we spent like the first year of Lucille is like my husband’s French, like going back and forth to France, and he’s an only child. So so she died in 08 and then right after that. My father died. My father got sick and died in 09. Yeah, so it was like three months after my father passed away, I found out I was pregnant. So that was kind of cool. You know, like sad. too, because like in the process, we lost two of our
P: Yeah.
E: grandparents. So. So we had to go back to France that summer, because my husband was settling his mother’s state. So okay, so you know, I You heard how I had a miscarriage in Ireland. So when I got pregnant with my first, I’m not traveling anywhere when I’m pregnant. Totally staying put. I’m not going anyplace.
P: To give a little context to Eileen is talking about here her miscarriage in Ireland. I’m going to read another short section from her piece on fertility that she published in Toast at this point, she’s 33. And in her first trimester, she’s in Ireland, and her husband is back in the States. She miscarries in the shared bathroom of her b&b In the very early morning. There’s a lot of blood she’s just alerted her parents to the drama unfolding in the bathroom, she writes:
I heard the paramedic stomp up the stairs. They lifted me off the floor. They swaddled me in maxi pads stacked one on top of the other shiniest move. I had an iPhone that I could unapologetically bleed into this Barbie sized mattress. As they helped me down the stairs the owner of the b&b lent me like gave me a cracker. The paramedics strapped on a gurney and bullied me into the ambulance. My mother jumped in the doors slammed and I watched my father grim faced as we pulled away in that rain speckled square window. I watched him shake his head light sharp in the lenses of his glasses. He ran a hand through his strict with grey black hair was still in his pajamas, flannel pants, leather jacket, overweight T. Then he grew smaller and smaller as the siren began as odd wailing.
I was so relieved to be lying flat. And yet as I watched those green Irish Hills roll by, I felt again like a failure. My great grandmother in Bandon had birthed 10 children. My grandmother emigrated to Chicago and had 10 children. My mother had nine children, it seemed like to not manage one. The Moody gray clouds, the rocky walls, the abandoned castles, the herds of cows grazing and the lurid grass I watched all of it to the oblong window, I felt an elemental kinship with the landscape. The souls of the famine dead haunting the ditches, the fertile Irish landscape that was keenly linked to starvation, to death, and to ludicrously high birth rates.
We’ll get back to the second pregnancy now you can find a link to this piece in the show notes.
E: Because Alice was such a surprise we had booked a trip to France for July. Okay, way before I even knew I was pregnant.
P: Yeah.
E: So we went to France. worked a lot on getting this state settled. I have a two year old and I’m pregnant. And I’m 44. So toward the end of the trip, all of a sudden, I could not urinate. I couldn’t I wake up the morning and I wouldn’t have to go pee and I was like, well, that’s kind of weird. And then it got worse and worse. And then I couldn’t pee at all. And so like we’re leaving for we’re leaving France and okay so my mother in law had a house on this little island in France. Okay, so this little island off the coast of Brittany is quite idyllic is blah, blah, blah, but healthcare wise, it’s kind of a nightmare.
P: Yeah.
E: So we go see this doctor. And this kind of, you know, he’s like, my husband’s like, my wife is in pain. You know, she has my stomach is starting to get big because my bladders full. I’m thinking I’m like, Oh, I’m really gonna show him you know, it’s actually not my uterus is my bladder. And every time like driving the car, everything hurts like nothing hurts like what this hurts. So the doctor is like, oh, mais bien sur, you know, she’s in pain or like, and he pulls out this PDR physicians desk reference from like, at that point, 2009 This is like the 1999 version and he prescribes, so yeah, describes this antibiotic for me. We run it we get it filled in, in France. It’s like a powder that you put in water.
P; Okay.
E: Well, that thing made me so sick and leave the next day and I was like, vomiting the whole way home. So I’m not pregnant. I got a two year old to get on. A boat and to get on three trains and then I fly back to Chicago. And I’m sick, and I’m puking and I can’t pee. Release me can pee this may be TMI is when I puke. So anyway, we get back to Chicago and I’m scheduled for my ultrasound. So you know I have to full bladder.
P: Yeah. yeah, Done.
E: They’re like your bladder is too full. We can’t see your uterus at all. So they should have like, sent me to the ER and catheterized me right. But they did it another day or two went on. I can like I can’t even tell you like seriously I’d rather go through labor than that pain. So finally we go to er they catheterized me dream you know an ungodly amount for my bladder and then and then we can figure it out. So so like the ER Doc’s are med students and they’re kind of like we think maybe, you know, you’re you’ve got a tipped uterus and that’s blocking your urethra or it’s this or that, you know, and, and then like three days later, I’m back in the ER because I still wasn’t getting another one, you know, so at that point, they put me on a Foley and I’m catherized for now this is what’s weird is unlike safely into my second trimester trimester, but I like you know, I’ve got a fully strapped on my leg.
P: Yeah,
E: actually, I’d rather have that than the pain so that goes on for a couple of weeks. But then they’re like can only have a fully in for so long. It’s because of the risk of infection and Eileen, you have to learn to catherize yourself.
P: Are you kidding?
E: So my husband and I go to a urologist in here, so learn how to do it. And we’re both you know, it’s just it’s just like a nightmare like it is the hardest thing for a woman to do to herself. Or, you know, if you’re a man, it’s not so hard, but for women, it’s very difficult. So I kind of give up on this whole thing. And so my sister, my older sister, who’s a nurse, we just cannot figure this out. We cannot figure out how to get there. And she said, well just start measuring your pee. Just Just see how much comes out. And if a little bit more comes out every time. You know, that’s a good sign. So I just started measuring it, measuring it measuring and eventually I’m just like back to normal. I don’t know why. They don’t know why. Nobody knows what happened. But I so I go back to the neurologists, like two weeks later and they’re like, how’s it catherizeing going? Like, I kind of stopped you know, and I don’t know if this is another example of that mind over matter kind of thing where I can’t go through this process like or maybe like the uterus
grew.
P: Yeah. And shifted. Yeah, yeah.
E: In the urethra, whatever. The plumbing. You know, worked itself out. So but Oh, and also what was tough about that pregnancy was you know, I went in for all the alpha feta protein tests and everything and I got irregular results. And so then you wait what to 20 to 22 weeks before they can actually see if there’s anything wrong.
P: Yeah.
E: And so my doctor was like, Look, you’re because of your age, your results are skewing against you so don’t take it too hard. You know, just see what happens. So we go for the ultrasound. And my daughter, Allison, she’s just all curled up. She will not and the whole thing that they’re checking for at that point is her chamber formation. And you can see that all four chambers of the harder developing properly, and if they aren’t, then it’s I think they were thinking it was Trisomy 18.
P: Okay.
E: And so she just would not show her heart. She was just like this in the in the ultrasound technicians taking longer and longer and longer and I’m getting more and more freaked out, and we’re waiting and they can’t get a read. And so, you know, imagine, you know how the heart your pumping heart gets registered on the ultrasound mines like thump, thump, thump, right? I was just like, oh God, and so then they brought in. Finally the doctor came in. And he was just super chill, very relaxed, kind of nerdy guy and he just was like, she just like it was like a magic wand. Like he just did this thing with the ultrasound and then Alice just opened up and showed her heart and it looks perfect
P: That’s exciting.
E: So that was great, you know, and then after that, it was fine. The pregnancy was fine. But it was it was a rough second trimester.
E: Yeah, that sounds rough. Good Lord. That does sound like a movie script. You wouldn’t believe right? If you read it, you’d be like, come on. The French doctor. Come on.
E: The French doctor mais bien sur…, you know, he’s so arrogant. Oh my god. And then you know, this this hot. I mean, it was like I never wanted to like I just wanted to get to a major medical facility. Yeah, yeah, I was so terrified. Well, once we made it to Paris, and I called my doctor at Northwestern, I said, I’m scared I can’t keep any food down. You know, I couldn’t eat anything. And I’m really afraid for the baby. And the doctor was so sweet. She’s just like babies getting exactly what she needs. She’s taken that all from you.
P: yeah, yeah, Yeah,
E: it will be the baby will be fine. You’re the one that’s suffering, but the babies know how to get what they need. Out of the mother. So and then I said, Well, how am I gonna get on this eight hour flight without throwing up and she said tiny slips of paper without dehydrating.
P: yeah, yeah
E: And she’s a tiny sips of water every 10 minutes. And that’s what I did. I could keep that much down, you know, and I just kept doing tiny sips of water and that’s, that’s up the nausea and that can be hydrate, you know, so just like those little, those little nuggets of advice are so precious, you know, like, really helps. So yeah, so the pregnancy got better.
P: And what was the birth redo of the first one?
E: Even faster.
P: Wow.
E: Yeah. So what was weird about Ellis is Selena was born my first was born on her due date. So you know, you think your second birth is gonna be your second is going to be exactly like the first well this reconciling in your mind that like, it’s not. So I my water broke at night, a week before Alex was due and I was like, well, that is so weird. That’s not how it works usually explode in the elevator, you know? So, and again, that was mostly at 1030. At night. I call my Doula we leave her for a few hours labor totally stops. We go about our day. My sister came in took my oldest overnight, you know, because we thought it was so that was like 10 on a Saturday night and then Alice was born at 10 on a Sunday night. It was Super Bowl Sunday. So again, nothing had walked around, spent the day kind of walking, eating napping, and then labor kicked in and around eight at night. And so same time, we might actually know that you’re saying that. And so my Doula had left. She had come and she had left. And then it was like eight and I said and of course because I’m thinking this is gonna be exactly the same as my first baby. So I called her and I said, and she was she had no car she was she writes bike everywhere. So she was in she was half hour away. And I said, don’t rush. It’s fine. It’s early, you know? Like, don’t don’t, don’t worry about it. And so then the contractions start coming. So my husband starts giving me massages between the contractions, right? This is also like, really a true story. And so he has this drum. So he started kind of drumbing for me. And it was like, it was like the drum and the contraction. All of a sudden, I just had this huge contraction, and I was like, Oh my God, right? Like I’m about to have this baby like, I was like, I’m gonna have a baby. So we were like, I can, I can feel this thing coming, you know? And so, and I have, like, if I honestly call it I was like, if I squat and make is so, so we call the doula and we’re like, Oh, I think she’s actually coming. So she’s like, I’ll meet you at the hospital. Right? So, again, we jump in the car. And we’re going we’re going down Wilson Avenue, my husband is speeding, and I’m like, now at this point, I’m crossing my legs. together to keep from giving birth like I’m holding this baby in we’re like going down Wilson and he’s he’s driving super fast and super bowl sunday is at night not too many people on the road.
P: Yeah.
E: And this he started speeding up and then someone starts drag racing with us and we’re like, inching down. It’s a two lanes and we’re not there to guard side by side. Finally, I look at them and I go, I’m about to have a baby, right. Oh, you can pass. So then he’s doing like 65 and a 45. We pull up the like to the to the hospital in the wrong the wrong way on a one way street. I go in there. And they’re like triage and I’m like, um, um…do like you need to go the bathroom. I’m gonna have this baby in the toilet. And sure enough, some find that get in there. And I’m 10 centimeters.
P: wow
E: I’m 10 centimeters in the oven. This another doctor comes in. She goes, Well, I mean, this is how you’re gonna do it. This is how you got to do it, you know? So then Alice was born pretty quickly. And interestingly, her birth story was she she had her little hand on her cheek put her umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck and her wrist. And so thankfully, because of her fist on her cheek, she didn’t get strangled by the umbilical cord. So that was another piece of luck, right?
P: Yes.
E: And all these things.
P: I mean, there’s a lot of lucky things in that both of your kids have picked like national holidays so that you don’t have to like you don’t have to mess with the traffic getting to the hospital.
E: I mean, I probably could have had a home birth with the second you know, but I was too nervous to do that. I’d had some friends who’d had some pretty rough experiences with home births. And given my own history, I just wonder is that
P: so that’s amazing. Yeah, so that’s easy, too. And that fourth trimester was probably a little easier because you knew what to expect.
E: Yeah, especially the birds do like I totally knew what to expect. So yeah, so that was good. You know, it all worked out. But it was a long journey, right.
P: It was a long journey. And it sounds like you’re did you write the essay and toast before you had the kids or where does that fall in line?
E: So after? Yeah, so like I wrote it? I don’t know. I think it was published in 2015 or 16 and Alice’s point in 2010. So
P: so you had more time to process that from a different perspective.
E: Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It’s weird because I feel like birth stories and fertility stories and pregnancy stories. You know, there’s so many different iterations of how it goes you know, there’s you got those women who get pregnant right away. Super easy, and they’re like, it’s like, their lives change so fast.
P: Yeah. Yeah.
E: You know, they were the kinds of people that I envy back in the day, you know, but at the same time, it’s like, they didn’t really like there. They didn’t have time to, you know, really get how precious it is, in a sense, like, what a privilege.
P: Yeah,
E: motherhood is.
P: Yeah, if it comes easily, right, that lesson is not as obvious.
E: Yeah, and I think I think it’s you know, I think once you go through all everything that I went through, then like, even when it’s really tough being a mother, you’re I was always so like, oh my god, I can’t believe I get to be one.
P: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that totally makes sense. I have a similar I have a similar awe about it. And I also have an awe of about the whole process. Just because it’s so many things have to fall in place. It’s just the right time and there’s got to be luck. There’s got to be all kinds of things, none of which you control everything which you imagine you control. Right. There’s just a lot. A lot going on that if you are in a position where things don’t come easily, you can see all those thresholds.
E: And the weird thing about pregnancy and motherhood in miscarriage is you hear it all the time. It’s it’s such a common thing, right? We all have these experiences in our lives like you, you know, you went to graduate school, the University of Chicago like that is not common, right. But becoming a mother’s is really common. Like so many people go through that. And yet it’s so extraordinary.
P: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I do think I was terrified. of birth. And I kept telling myself, you know, how many hundreds of millions of people have done this, right? This is a doable thing. But in your own, on your own journey in your own life in your own experience. It just it takes on something different, right. It is a totally different animal.
E: Right, right. And and, you know, that’s why like, there were a lot of things for me that I really, when it came to birth, you know, I was reading a lot about Ina May Garter, you know, like, it’s like, this is a natural process that women have been doing forever and I really did not want to turn it over. You know, the power of that over in a way but we haven’t jokes to my family because like certain of us have very high thresholds for pain and other people in my family has super low press thresholds. I happen to be a high threshold person. So like, I really, yeah, yeah, I mean, like, I know that I could impose because my experience of miscarriage too, I was just like, okay, I can I can deal with this pain. I can manage this pain, but I know that that’s not the same for every woman, right? I mean, like, many women are just like, give me that epidural, you know, bring on the drugs. But yeah,
I don’t blame that. You know. It’s fine. Like, I don’t want to be like, you have to do it my way, kind of mother, because that’s a trap that women get into against each other, right? Yeah, the kids are how you get pregnant or how you give birth or is it a season like all of those judgment things, and ranking of what’s most superior is really toxic.
P: Yeah, I totally agree. In fact, I saw some maybe it was a New York Times headline this morning about the baby food shortage which you know, my husband and I discussed like, oh my god, it’s so scary. What would you do a week I breastfeed at all so we that definitely would have been us. And you know, the New York Times article said something like people are telling them to just breastfeed
E: it’s too late.
P: Like you have no people can’t force feed like it just there’s a million things that go into that. Right. So to suggest just breastfeed is doesn’t make any sense, right? There’s no I mean, in
a lot of women, like my niece has had a six month old Well, she can’t suddenly start breastfeeding months in late, you know, like, so that I know it’s so frightening for those women I feel really bad about that must be
so scary.
E: Yeah, is I’m feeling scared. And I my youngest ones 18. So I can only imagine. I can only imagine what they’re going through. I’m stressed on their behalf.
P: Well, thank you so much for coming and sharing your story. It’s an amazing story and I will link to your essay. Thank you toast and if there’s anything else you want to join to them and your website or anything else.
E: I do have a website, eileenfavorite.com I mean favorite.com It’s got other content. I have a novel called the heroines that came out when I was actually so when I was pregnant with my first which is kind of cool. Wow. And yes, so I’m a professor and there’s all kinds of things on that website. They’re not necessarily about parenting, but other creative things I do.
P: That sounds awesome. All right. Well, I’ll link that.
E: Thank you. Thanks for
giving me the opportunity to speak with you. It was really fun time.
P: Thanks again to Eileen for sharing her story. I think reflecting on everything that’s happened over the course of the 10 years. She and her partner were interested and are ultimately not directly interested in having kids. It’s a very unique personal set of experiences. And as she said last week, each person processes miscarriage differently. And we as a culture should make space for all these differences and hold them gently. Thanks for listening. We’ll be back next week with another inspiring story.