Welcome Elaina Rose

It’s been one week since our sweet girl, Elaina Rose, surprised us with her quick and early arrival. Girl was not messing around. And while I totally expected her to come before 40 weeks, I was not expecting to deliver her in less than 2 hours from showing up to the hospital. If her arrival says anything about her personality, Baby Girl is going to keep us on our toes and I’m totally here for it!

This pregnancy was full of surprises from the get go; finding out we were expecting two weeks after James had left us for Qatar for an unforeseen amount of time. I carried two-thirds of the way without him and am ever so thankful he was able to join us in Saudi Arabia for the start of my third trimester. Even more thankful Cohen and I were able to move with him to Qatar to settle into our new home prior to baby’s arrival.

Leading up to the big day…

A mere three days before I went into labor I posted a YouTube video titled, What's In My Hospital Bag 2.0 | False Labor. In it, I discuss everything I presumed to find either useful or unnecessary compared to what I packed for the delivery of our first born. I also disclose that two hours of false labor prompted me to finally pack said hospital bag at 38 weeks pregnant. Second babies are notoriously early and I’d experienced all the gestational milestones sooner this pregnancy. To be honest, the false labor should have been more of a signal to James and I to be ready in the next couple of days.

However, if you read my birth story with Cohen, you’ll know an over-eager/early hospital arrival and epidural led to a long, slow labor and near c-section. While I planned to labor longer at home this go around, I still imagined having time to enjoy the Spotify playlist I started putting together, some relaxing massages from my husband and maybe even some time to catch up on my pregnancy journal. At the very least, time to change into the adorable labor gown I purchased for a second time.

Ha. I should have listened to my mother (you here that, Nana?) when she warned about nearly delivering my sister in a parking lot. We didn’t touch my hospital bag until after Elaina appeared and had we been a mere five minutes later to the hospital, Elaina could have easily been born in the hallway.

Each day from the day of that false labor (also the day I lost my mucus plug), I woke up feeling a little worse than the day before. More fatigued, increased intestinal distress. So lovely, but that’s the truth of it.

So cut to the action…

The day I went into labor I woke up to a small amount of blood, known as the bloody show. My stomach was also a mess, but I was extremely hungry. I had two breakfasts and could not stop snacking. This was unusual, because at this point my belly was so big that I often felt too full to consume large meals at once. So I ate and ate and started getting busy around the house. All the to-dos I’d been putting off suddenly felt so important. I spent the morning between various cooking, cleaning and decorating activities, noticing that I was having an increased number of contractions. In the morning they still felt like Braxton Hicks, but by the time I was putting Cohen down for a nap at noon they seemed to have switched, becoming more intense and radiating towards my back.

I told James at this point that I thought something was happening, but he seemed doubtful. So, I hopped in the shower and when that eased the contractions I thought maybe it wasn’t true labor and attempted to catch a nap; figuring even if it wasn’t labor, it was possibly heading that way and some rest would do me well. The contractions returned immediately upon lying down and actually felt stronger. Trying to rest seemed fruitless, so I went back downstairs and decided to cook freezer meals instead. I was putting together King Ranch Casserole, swaying through contractions as I layered the tortillas, chicken and cheese when it dawned on me to start tracking the contractions.

Here’s a screenshot of my contraction counter. It became obvious very quickly that I was in or approaching active labor, which was my goal before heading to the hospital.

At 15:50 (3:50pm), with nearly an hour of contractions 5ish minutes apart, I messaged Cohen’s caregiver and asked her to come over. By the time she arrived at just after 16:00, I was bracing myself through contractions on hands and knees to manage the pain. Our sweet Miss Jessica came over to massage my back while James called the Uber.
That’s right. We still don’t have a car and so we Uber’d to the hospital to have our baby. The driver arrived at 16:30 and politely tried to remain oblivious to my moaning during the 25-minute ride to our hospital. Unable to locate the proper ER, we were actually dropped off at Pediatrics, where the kind staff caught me with a wheelchair, mid-contraction, and wheeled us to Women’s Emergency.
We rolled into delivery at exactly 17:00 (5pm) and the fun was just getting started…

We went through the seemingly unnecessary process of checking in. Visas, passports, insurance, etc. All very important to everyone except the woman in labor, having contractions now every 3 minutes apart. Then they took us into a small room for monitoring (to assess baby’s health and rule out need for emergency c-section) and Covid testing. Yep, as a designated Covid-free hospital, they test you prior to admitting you onto the labor and delivery floor. So for 30 minutes I was in an awkward room, at this point begging for an epidural, waiting for the all-clear. The sweet nurses, who had to await my results from the opposite side of the door, tried to assure me I’d be in my room, receiving my epidural soon. I was not convinced as I was already feeling a slight urge to push. The 30 minutes that felt like hours revealed baby’s healthy status and our negative Covid results and the team rushed in to bring us upstairs; me begging for the epidural the entire way.

The anesthesiologist was in my room, awaiting my arrival, but even his quickest hands nearly weren’t fast enough. I was pleading with him, demanding that I not feel one more contraction, when the actual urge to push took over my body. Coincidentally, just as he’s trying to place the epidural. Guys, it sounds horrible and in the moment it was, but I also cannot get over how crazy and actually amazing it is to feel your body take control and force you to start pushing this baby out, despite everyone telling you not to. Like, I’m simultaneously telling myself don’t do it and yet I’m physically pushing with all I have, because my body knows this is what I need to do. Incredible.
I have to take a quick second here to give a shout out to nitrous oxide. Sucking down that stuff was the only relief I had between entering our delivery room, having the epidural placed and awaiting its effectiveness. While it didn’t numb me to the pain, it did give me a sense of calm and confidence to get through it.

Then, the bliss washed over me. The epidural kicked in, the pain subsided and there I was, happy and laughing.
They did a second cervical check and were impressed, but not surprised, to discover that in the half hour of monitoring and awaiting the Covid results plus the short time placing the epidural, I’d advanced to fully dilated. I was told it’s definitely time to push. Three contractions worth of pushing and our girl’s head was out. One more brought her fully into this world. James and I were baffled when they told us it was just 18:45, a mere hour and forty-five minutes from being wheeled through the hospital entrance.

The nitrous gas working its magic, allowing the doctor to place the epidural in between my urges to push. Hair tie was lost sometime during the action of laboring in the quarantine room.

Oh, I was flying. It was intense, but even more so, overwhelmingly powerful. The anesthesiologist did a perfect job of curbing my pain, but keeping me functional. Meaning, I still had sensation in my pelvis and got to feel my pushes working to get Elaina earth side. There’s an uncomfortable but manageable stinging sensation in your “area” as the skin stretches, but it meant I was present for every moment, which is exactly what I wanted. I hope I never forget the feelings of laboring as naturally as my pain tolerance would allow. I feel I was able to rawly experience the majority of it and then brought Elaina into the world in a peaceful state. For me, it was truly perfect. Yet I know, even with Cohen’s birth not going exactly as planned, it’s still the most magical moment to finally meet your baby, however they make their grand debut.

The most entertaining part of all of this, to me, is that up until we arrived and the doctor said I was 6cm dilated and in active labor, I’m pretty sure James thought I was exaggerating. Each time over the 3 days leading to her delivery that I brought up feeling like something was happening, he’d remind me that those symptoms could still mean weeks away. And I’d remind him they could also mean hours, but that to me it felt like days. And then with each update I gave him the day of, as to the status and intensity of my contractions, I swear I could see him internally shrug it off. Not entirely without merit, as with Cohen I thought I was heading in ready to go, only to discover I was a whopping 2cm dilated. I get it. But I also loved seeing the look on his face when the nurses said it’s time to push and James and I both said “already?!”

What’s in a name…

Those closest to us know that James and I struggled to choose a baby name that we could both agree on. Sometimes even coming around to one another’s suggestion only for the originator to no longer like it. This happened a lot over the 38 weeks and we were constantly fielding questions from others as to what her name might be. As we approached week 38 of pregnancy, we’d already come around to the idea that we’d likely be waiting until she was born, and could see her face, to decide on a name. Even then, it took a day and half of staring at her sweet and ever-changing face to really know she was Elaina. I told James at 4am, the day of our discharge, as I stared at her fiercely, running through all 1001 names we contemplated over the months. It was actually a name he had been pushing for prior to her birth, that didn’t sync with me until her birth swelling went down and her sweetness shined through.
Elaina means light. A source of which she’s been through a rough and sometimes dark year of being separated as a family. It also carries significance in both Italian and Arabic cultures. Perfect for our Qatari-born, Italian, little expat baby. It was apparent from the go that she carries the Romano gene, birthed with the same full head of black hair that I had and very similar facial features. We also weighed almost the exact same at birth, making her nearly a pound and a half smaller than our Big Man, Cohen. This, I’m sure, also contributed to her quick delivery.

Rose is the first name of my maternal great grandmother and the middle name of my paternal grandmother. Cohen’s name has such familial significance on both my side and that of James, that I knew I wanted Elaina to have an ancestral name as well.

So now you know all too well the birth story of our Elaina. And here she is, one week later, increasingly sweet, beautiful and brightening all our days.