Welcoming Baby #2 & Birth Story

The Tradition of Living Beautifully, Issue #50

It’s been two weeks since our son, Giovanni Joseph, was born, and I’m thrilled to share that he’s sweet, tiny, healthy (knock wood!) and just the cutest little bundle of magic.

My husband and I have been taking the time to quietly stay home and adjust to our new role as parents of two, which does, indeed, feel like responsibility doubled, as well as joy and gratitude doubled. I’ve also been taking the time to slowly but surely recover from delivery, where, unfortunately, nearly everything went as I didn’t want it to. Oh how I wanted to sit here postpartum and write you a summary of the most beautiful, natural, positive birth story a woman could encounter. But this one, instead, is for the rest of us, who get our baby’s out by hook and by crook and are simply relieved it’s behind us.

For the entire pregnancy I did everything I could to set up the best odds of having a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) with my second child, from choosing the right doctor to drinking the right herbs, but alas, things went as they wanted to, not as I wanted them to, something that happens to many, many pregnant women. In the days leading up to his birth, my amniotic fluid began to drop, until it became dangerously low. After five days of early labor contractions, the doctor sent me to the hospital to be induced. I wasn’t even there an hour when the nurses were suddenly shaking my belly and yelling for the doctor because the baby’s heartbeat had dropped precipitously for a prolonged period of time. I never even had a chance to try induction. I was quickly wheeled into the surgery room, choking back tears, to undergo an emergency C-section, the very thing I’d dreaded.

The first week post-birth was difficult. Major abdominal surgery is hard enough, but healing from it with a newborn and a four-year-old to care for is really brutal. You find yourself in so much pain and discomfort that you’re wishing away the first days of your baby being here because you desperately want to feel better, and only the passing of time will do that. That’s part of what I wanted to avoid: The sense that I couldn’t be completely present with the new baby, and that my energy would be divided.

Now, in the second week, I’m feeling much better and have slowly been letting go of my disappointment that I wasn’t able to give birth naturally and enjoy the easier recovery (or so I hear!) such a birth provides women. I’m finding a little more strength to simply be grateful we’re both here, safe and well.

My good friend Shaye, who’s always equipped with a sound word of wisdom when you need it, kept reminding me that I’m not justified by the way I give birth, and that natural birth is kind of an idol held up for women, and it’s best not to worship at its feet. I have a lot more to say on this subject, including the fact that the U.S. cesarean rate is now at 30 percent (I know four pregnant women who all delivered within weeks of each other, five including myself, and every one of us had an unscheduled c-section, which seems, well, odd.) This topic—the pressures of natural birth versus the pressures of surgery, the expectations heaped upon us and the ones we heap upon ourselves—is one I’d like to explore in some depth, especially via conversation with other women on the next season of “Bella Figura—The Tradition of Living Beautifully.”

In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy my growing family, and my two beautiful little boys, and this quiet, winter-whispered time of coziness and staying close to the home fires. I plan to get back into the swing of things with the usual fervor in the coming weeks, sharing recipes, stories and other sundry ways to live beautifully. I plan to record a new season of the podcast in the new year, and hope you’re subscribed to follow along with the conversations with amazing new guests.

For now, please join me in welcoming our new baby boy into the world. We named him after my late father, and gave him the middle name of many men on his paternal line before him. May they watch over him now and forever.

Thanks for being here with me, truly.