Joel and I knew each other as friends before, so when we started dating, there wasn’t that lag, like, when can we talk about these things? It was actually one of the first dates, and he said he didn’t want to have children, and I said, “Well, I’m a maybe, so if it’s okay with you, we’ll just do temperature checks. Based on the answers, we’ll make a decision.” We’ll basically cross that bridge when we get to it because we really liked each other, and I really was a maybe.
But I feel like that’s where the honesty comes in, right? You have to really think about it. If you say, oh, I’m a maybe, but really, you’re yes. You could be doing yourself a disservice. If you say that it’s definitely a no, you could be setting up expectations that, down the road, could be really challenging. Every time you do that temperature check, you have to pay attention to your gut feeling. You could just drag this on, and you love the person. You like him, but at the end of the day, if he remained a no and I became a yes, as hard as it would be, we’d have to make a decision. Do we stay together and we decide we don’t have kids? Or do I give you a big hug, we talk about all the good times, and then I walk away because I want to be a mother, and that’s very important.
I had a really good friend that at that point I was working with, and she was pregnant. I guess we started talking about how does she know she wanted to get pregnant? And she’s like, “oh, my God. I would walk into Target and see all this baby clothes, and I would just yearn for a baby.” And so I kind of was looking for those cues, but we were just having so much fun, and we had our schedule, and everything was so easy. And, you know, with kids, it’s lovely, but it’s not easy. So I was fine.
Every time we did temperature [checks], he’d be like, “no.” And I’d be like, “I’m still maybe.” Keep going. And to be honest, I was starting to lean towards a no, possibly because I liked the rhythm of our life, and it was just us, and we could go to concerts. We could just do anything. It was just so easy.
First conversation, first temperature check ever was 2010. Well, 2015, we moved to Chicago, and we thought, oh, we’ll leave here for two years and then move back home. It’ll just be a fun thing like, let’s go explore a new city. It was 2017 when Joel started coming home. And we always do, like, how was your day? And run through our days. Part of this recap started, including the anecdotes of “oh, my God, down the street, I was coming home, and there was a dad teaching a son to ride a bike. That was so cute.”
And then another day, it would be like, “oh, I saw this really cute family. The little kid did this. And then the parents laughed, and it was really cute.”
And after the third time that he mentioned kids in a family, I was like, “wait, are you thinking about having kids?” And he’s like, “it would be nice.” And I was like, “oh, my God.” And he’s like, “how about you?” And I was like, “you got to give me some time to think.”
I think on top of it being so easy to just kind of keep living, the husband and wife life, really what set in there was, like, the fear. Oh, my God, I’m going to have to carry this child, for obvious reasons, in my mind, was like, I’m putting my life on the line. That was really scary. Yeah. It took me two weeks to really come back with a yes, because it really was frightening.
I’m actually embarrassed to say that one of the kind of cons that really stood out to me was that I might have to wake up at five in the morning every day. I had so many friends where they’re like, this kid wakes up at 4:30, and they just keep going all day. And I was like, oh, my God, that’s so much.
I can’t let fear stop me. This sounds like a great next step. I found a great partner- supportive, loving, everything, caring. And so I was like, this is it. Let’s try. I even told him- my period’s never been normal. I’ve always been the person that had to be on birth control for the period to come. I told him before with all the temperature checks, I said, “just so you know, if you ever switch to yes, I don’t know if I’m able to.”
So we decided to grow our family. And then within a couple of months, I was pregnant. He was so excited when I found out. I was kind of in shock. Like, I told him and he was crying, and I’m just kind of like letting him hug me. I’m thinking, what’s it going to be like? Am I going to be sick every morning with morning sickness or all day?
The first little ultrasound, and then it was like, oh, my God, this is real. And then I was really blessed. The first visit to my OBGYN was hard because the first thing I said was, “something terrible happened to one of my friends. I’m really scared that it may happen to me.” And my doctor understood, and she said, “we will watch out for everything. If you have any questions, you call me. If you have any doubts or anything scares you, you call me.” And so that was a really comforting way to start my appointment.
Joel was very supportive throughout everything, and he knew how scared I was. And so every little thing, he never made it seem like, “oh, it’s nothing,” because he had seen something [that] might seem like nothing, but it’s something really important. Having that knowledge, it’s easy to be supportive. Otherwise, I feel like his personality, he’s so chillin, and I think he might have been, like, trying to calm me.
I had a really blessed pregnancy. I was moving around a lot while I was working with at hotels. So I was still commuting on the bus and the train, sometimes two buses, walking up platforms, down platforms, all over the hotels. So I feel like that was the best because it just kept me going, kept me active. Then with the birth, we had chosen vaginal delivery with an epidural. It was a horrible winter storm here. I watched the forecast at, like, five in the morning, and I was supposed to go to work that morning. And downtown there’s this reporter and there’s snow up to her knees. I can’t walk in that. I’m due on Sunday. Like, huge.
I just texted my boss, and I was like, I can’t make the trek in this. I’m literally about to pop. And so I go back to bed, and sure enough, 8:25, my water breaks and the news, everything’s saying, stay indoors. Don’t go out unless you really need [to]. And Joel’s like, “let’s go, let’s go!” And I was like, “no. First we’re taking a shower, each of us, and then we’re having breakfast, and then we’re going to go because God knows when we’re going to get to do this again.” And so we did that. We left.
Car was slipping and sliding, even though we were going so slow, fish tailing. But there wasn’t much traffic out. Thankfully, people heeded the warning. We made it. So slowly, but we made it. The ward was almost empty, which was really nice. They had to give me Pitocin to go ahead and get the contractions going a little bit more. It was all very calm and serene.
We had this playlist that everyone that walked in was like, “oh, my God, this is so nice. I love it.” Because in my mind, I always wondered, like, “oh, what song is going to be on when Nicholas comes out?” They gave my epidural around 2:30. I fell asleep. I woke up around 6:15. The news was on. I’m watching the news and within, like, 15-20 minutes of waking up is when the contractions really started. And basically from like seven to nine, when he was born, it was like, game on.
The one thing that was really scary was that about 40 minutes into it, I could see that the nurse’s attitude change, and I could hear them saying, the baby needs to move in position, or something like that. It’s foggy now, but I knew something was wrong. It’s like, one nurse called the other and they’re like, conferring. My blood pressure was going up. It had been perfect all throughout my pregnancy until that moment. He wasn’t moving down fast enough or, like, his heart rate was going up, too. They were just worried.
They wanted to make sure that he was still safe, and that was really scary. And so then they were moving me, and they gave me magnesium to keep me from basically having a stroke. It was just a lot, but I’m just focusing on moving, trying to get the baby in position, trying to do what I could. And luckily enough, even though I had my epidural, I still could use my legs. So I was able to help him as they moved me around.
Then I got to a point where I did start pushing, and that was closer to the nine, I’m guessing, because I only did about four or five pushes, I had to advocate for myself to start pushing, because they were looking at me, they’re like, she’s not ready, she’s not ready. And I was like, no, I really think I feel something there. And then they said no. And I could see that the doctor, it wasn’t my regular OBGYN. It was a guy, which, honestly, he was very military like. And that was comforting to me because it was like, “okay, let’s get this done” kind of attitude.
And then I gave it a couple of minutes, and I could feel something that’s like, no, I think I’m really ready. So the doctor’s like, okay, let her push. And so then I started pushing. I did it about two or three times. Then the doctor came over to me and was like, “she has about six minutes to push this baby out. Otherwise we’re doing an emergency C section.” Because my pressure was going up so high, they were afraid I was going to start having [a] seizure. It was all a blur, but that was frightening because at that point, they turned on all the surgery lights. It was like a stage.
The funny thing to me is that the first part of the labor, I was like, “just give me a C section” in my mind. And now they’re like, we’re going to give her an emergency C section if she doesn’t push the baby. And I was like, “oh, no, I can push him out.” I did two more pushes and I was able to push him out.
The thing is that when he came out, they told us he’s probably going to have stuff in his mouth, so we’re going to have to pull him out, put him on the table, clear his throat, and then put him on you. So when he came out, I don’t remember him crying. And you always expect that. And so it was just that moment of like, when’s he going to cry, and he may have, but obviously in that mayhem, I’m like, I don’t remember him crying. Then they finally put him on my chest.
The thing is, since my water broke, there was also Meconium in there, so they were afraid that he had swallowed some of that. And so, of course, now you’re in the hospital and you’re waiting for the first pee and the first poop. And this child, he was born at 9:08, and it was like two in the morning, and he still hadn’t gone pee.
So now the doctor has to come in and tell us the obligatory statement, right? So now we’ve been awake for what? Yeah, 18 hours, 20 hours. We’ve been awake forever. I had given birth to a baby, so we’re exhausted, and they come to talk to us at two in the morning. They’re like, “hey, just want it’s been this long, he hasn’t peed. We’re going to have to check to make sure that his kidneys are okay.” Joel and I just start crying because we’re exhausted and we don’t know what’s wrong with our baby. And he’s this tiny little thing, and he’s right there with us, and we’re just, like, looking at him, heartbroken or scared, like I don’t even know what to call it. They leave, and now we’re just comforting each other because they took him with them.
We were able to leave Monday. He did pee, he did poop. Everything is fine. I think the lesson we learned there is: listen to the information, but just take a deep breath because you don’t know what it’s going to be yet. They’re telling you what they need to tell you. And she was really nice about it. What they’re saying is we need to check. That’s all. But it was so scary in that moment.
As much as I do love the doctor and the care that she gave me, I do feel that at one point, she came to see me on Sunday, and she’s like, “hey, how’s it going? How’s the pain level?” And at that point, I was on Ibuprofen, and I just vaginally delivered a child, so I didn’t expect it was going to be pain free. And so I felt like I was fine. Did it still hurt a little? Yeah. I was sore with Ibuprofen, but I was fine.
And she’s like, “okay, I see you’re on Ibuprofen. Do you want anything stronger? Because I’ll prescribe that for you.” I think she said Vicodin, and I was like, “I’m fine with the Ibuprofen.” She’s like, “okay, because I can give you something stronger.” And I was like, “I’m fine.”
I had to tell her about three or four times that I did not want anything stronger. And I just thought, well, that’s curious. To me, it comes back again to advocating for yourself, listening to your body, knowing what works for you, and being confident in saying, “no, I’m fine.” I don’t expect to deliver a baby and then be on cloud nine. No pain, nothing.
In the back of mind, I was like, is there an incentive? Like, what’s the incentive? Because if people are in pain, then they give you lower ratings. Your perspective of care changes if you’re in pain. So maybe that’s the angle. It’s like, I’m going to make sure I offered. Immediately after she left, I was like, Joel, I think that’s really strange that she kept pushing that medicine. Honestly, she was a really great doctor. So I would say it comes back to her wanting to make sure I was comfortable.
Just watched a documentary called with the Biggest Crime of the Century. It’s about a great epidemic. They talk about how doctors did start prescribing this more, and obviously there were some shady doctors, but some were just more interested in making sure that the patients didn’t feel pain. What’s the expectation? I feel like ask me once, maybe even twice, but that’s it.
The first thing that was really hard for me was that it’s just Joel and me at this point. My brother had flown up for that week. We’re really close. He was able to fly up that Monday before and that way if anything happens, we could just drop and go to the hospital. We [don’t] have to worry about the dogs. The dogs will be in great care. But he was going to leave in a week from the point that I gave birth. It was literally just us.
I feel like people who did have help, it was hard for them to understand how hard it was for us and how tired we were. Joel’s dad and Stepmom came up right after. That was a little challenging because it was definitely way too early. It was a really stressful time for me because I know them, but they’re in Columbia. So when they flew up, I’ve only met them once in person, and now they’re in my home, and now I’m not sleeping, and they want to spend time with the baby. And it’s just the difference in culture because we had gone to the classes, kind of heard like, this is what it is.
At this point, I was sleeping 3 to 4 hours, cumulative in a 24 hours period. There was one day where they’re like, I don’t think the baby needs to sleep this much. He’s like two, three months old. What really had frustrated me is Joel’s like, “yeah, I wonder…” or something. Like he kind of made it seem like maybe he is sleeping a lot.
I had to pull him aside and pull up the website for the American Academy of Pediatrics because every decision I’ve made, I’ve looked up and we have come to a decision together, that this is what the baby needs. But it was stuff like that, kind of having to deal with family, having their opinion. My parents know me, and they know that if I say something or I’m doing something, they’re like, “it’s not worth it. Just let her do what you’re going to do.” The baby was asleep, they’d go down to the basement, and they would take a nap, too.
And these were lovely people, and as much as they’re like, “we’re in for the baby,” they also were like, “we want to go shopping downtown.” Joel would go to work and come home, and he’d have to entertain them when all I needed was my husband. Like, I would share him, but it’d be like, 10:00 PM, and I’d be waiting for him to come to bed, and they’d be like, “help us order some stuff on Amazon, because we wanted to come before we go back to Colombia.” And I was like, “they didn’t come here so you could help them shop.”
As much as people see you in the throes of this new era, it’s like some people can’t assimilate, especially in Latin America, in countries where it’s so easy to pay for labor. You can have a cleaning lady, you can have a cook, and you don’t have to be immensely rich to have that. Yeah, I’d be lucky if it would make sense for me to have someone to come clean once a month.
[One day] we had to go pick up the prescription, the ibuprofen that they had given me. Joel was like, I’ll go. And I was like, “no, I’ll go. It’ll be good for me to get out.” And it was cold. It was freezing cold. Put my maternity jacket on, and I walk out, and I’m just walking down the little path to our garage, and I look down, and it’s like, my maternity jacket is, like, empty, right? I started crying because I’m like, “oh, my God, it’s the first time I go anywhere without him.” It just made me so sad. But it was, like, the strangest thing to have to get in the car and drive away from him.
I didn’t think that it would affect me to not have him inside my body. Yes, it’s lovely that you have the next stage, and we can hold him now and everything. Understanding that I was shedding the pregnant version of me to the mother. There is a loss, a grief that could happen from shedding that other version and becoming the new one.
Going back to work, that was brutal. I just cried so much.
I think in those moments, I was just in awe of what the human body, the female human body, what we can do, because I was like, do not take this away from me. Do not take the awe away from me. I think that that’s, like, a key moment for me, right? Because you’re struggling so much at that point. You’re not sleeping. I definitely wasn’t drinking enough water. I was struggling with breastfeeding. I needed something to be in awe [of].
My whole thing with him was to learn all his cues, and he didn’t need to cry. To me, their cues are their language. And they may be non vocal, verbal, but it’s still their language. He’s talking to me. I need to listen to him. I shouldn’t have to wait for him to be so frustrated that he cries. And I would look at him, and I’m like, he’s hungry. He’s this. He’s check his diaper. I knew all his cues.
I should have probably cared more for myself, because that probably would have helped with the breastfeeding. But as much as I had water bottles everywhere in the house, I wasn’t drinking them. How can you produce milk when you’re not even hydrating for six months? I basically pumped what I could. We would supplement with formula. So he was both breastfed and formula fed.
The first day that I went back, I was at work like 4 hours, and then I called my boss crying. She was like, Go home. Go see your kid. She was really flexible. Most of my days, I was actually going on the bus and then getting on the on the L and then going to downtown. And this is with my laptop with my notepad and stuff. And then I had my pumping machine and my lunch.
For three more months, I trailed into downtown with my huge backpack that had everything I needed for the day, and it was exhausting. I was so busy at work but every 2 hours I would stop to go to the refrigerator where I had my little bag, go get the key from the office manager to go to the spare office to sit there and pump, to have to go clean everything up and put it back in the refrigerator. Close it up so you don’t gross anyone out. I don’t even know how I got stuff done in the day.
[It was] so hard to make the decision to stop pumping. But I was exhausted, and it was not much coming out. I was getting maybe like 5oz a day. He was getting to a point where he was going to start solids. And so then I did this whole thing where it’s like, “okay, this is my last day.” That whole week I cried. And then came the first day where I didn’t pump, and it was glorious. And I was like, “why was I so stuck on this?” He’s growing. He’s happy. He’s fine. I was literally torturing myself. It was not easy to see how little would come out. It was not easy to sit there and pump because it would hurt. It’s like you’re trying to get water out of a dry well. Why did I wait so long? Why was this such a hard decision? It’s amazing. It was a shedding.
It was going to a new mode, because it was so hard for me to look down and realize that my tummy was not, like, full with him anymore. Just as I don’t like change, I seek it as much as I crave change. Like, this change was really hard for me. You go from being just Joel and me. Now it’s the three of us, and then now you’re in my belly, and now you’re not. And now you have this connection to me, and now you don’t. There was this one post I read on Facebook was this lady writing about her son, making a point that at every stage, your child is different. You gain a new person, but you also lose one. They literally change how they look.
I look at pictures of Nicholas now, and he looks so different. So it’s like a different person, right? Good, because he’s growing, but it’s like you’re losing those moments.
The other thing that was huge with us was that at six months, we started purees. And he did awesome the first month, he had avocado, he had green beans. He liked carrots. He was having a mix of things. Joel was so great. He was actually the one making the purees at home. He loved it.
At seven months, he got sick. The only reason I know is because I was holding him, and he was still in his diaper. We were about to give him a bath. His tummy’s on my arm. You know how we do with babies, and he throws up, and he pooped at the same time, like diarrhea. But I felt on my arm, and I was like, oh, man. And this child looked at me, and he was so scared. He was like, “what’s happening to me, mom?”
And after that, he wouldn’t touch the purees. Kids make connections. I think he’s like, they gave me that, and I got sick. I’m never having it in my life. I got to point where we’re offering him, like, the noodles and the spaghetti, and he would just look at us and be like, little turned up nose. And then one day, we bought those little Gerber baby Cheetos, those little puffs, and Joel offered him one, and he was just like “no” and then Joel was like, “look, it’s good!” and takes a bite, and Nicholas looks at him again. Joel’s the one eating it, and Nicholas looks and gags.
This food is so aversive to him that he doesn’t even want you to have it. I mentioned it at the next [pediatrician] visit. Hey, by the way, we’re trying to feed him, but he doesn’t really want it. She’d be like, “oh, you know, before 1 year is just practice.” And then we got to 13 months, and we took him in for his one year visit, and we’re like, “he’s still not eating.” It kicked into gear. Like, “you need a feeding specialist.”
Why couldn’t we see feeding specialist at eight months? There’s so much information out there. We really do need our healthcare workers to help guide us sometime. She was just like, “oh, it’s nothing under a year. Just practice.” And suddenly he turns a year, and now we have a problem. I guess we had a problem at seven months. If you feel something’s wrong, talk to people trying to find the answer, because I feel like he’s doing great now. Because we did get him the feeding specialist.
She was awesome. And then she actually recommended that he get evaluated by early intervention. And he was approved for occupational therapy, wanting to expose him to different textures and stuff and being flexible. And then they also approved him for speech therapy because he wasn’t chewing a lot of different foods and using his muscles. They didn’t want him to fall back on speech. If you don’t use your muscles for eating, then it makes it really hard to use them for talking.
Early interventions is only until three, and then at age three, he gets evaluated again. And then if he still needs services, then he would go get them from Public School. They get evaluated until the point that they graduate.
[During Covid], they couldn’t come into homes anymore. It became virtual. I was the one meeting with a therapist. We were sharing ideas. They were telling me their strategies of what to do so I could implement them, and they would observe me. Implementing it was really cool. And because of that, I actually changed my whole career.
I was always a person that knew five years ahead, where do I want to go? I was in a position where no matter what step I took, it was going to mean a lot of time outside of my home. For the first time in my career, I didn’t really know which way to go. I knew I didn’t want to stay where I was because I wanted growth, but at the same time, I didn’t want to spend more time away from Nicholas. I just was kind of really lost.
But then the pandemic happened, and it was really scary, obviously, because no one knew what was happening. And especially working in travel, I was like, even when things open up, when are people going to start traveling from other countries to support all these hotels? I was furloughed. I understand why they did it. There’s no hard feelings there at all. At the same time, you have this thought in the back of your mind, like, even when we do come back, what’s it going to be like?
Our speech therapist, she basically was like, “you’re really good at this. You’re really good at therapy for kids. You’re a natural.” And she kept encouraging me. I started on conversations with her about what could I do, and I really liked OT and speech, but that required 18 months of pre-reqs. The programs only take about 30 people. And then she also mentioned to me ABA, which is Applied Behavior Analysis. And with that, you’re able to do therapy with kids that have autism and other developmental disorders. And it’s basically behavior management.
We teach skills, help kids with autism learn new skills, and then we help replace challenging skills with other more functional skills. So it’s crazy that this journey of motherhood has led me here.
It was scary. It was scary walking away from a 15 year career that I knew very well that I was successful in. I just kept looking at my son and my family and going, but this is worth it. Scary as it may be, this is worth it, because what I had isn’t working for me anymore.
I’m glad I took that leap because I love my job. I work well with those kids. I treat them with dignity and care. Would I expect this from my son? How would I feel if this was the expectation for my son? And that’s always my gauge. How are they feeling today? How can we motivate them to participate? Are they hungry? Do they need a little break?
One of the first things that we try to teach our kids, at least I do, is to tell me no and to ask for breaks. [It’s] really a great feeling when they tell me no, because they couldn’t say before, and now they can tell me no. And I’m so proud of the fact that they can because it helps me to make sure that when I’m motivating them that I’m choosing something they really want.
It’s so hurtful to see some of the comments made sometimes where they’re like, “oh, you guys are abusing.” No. I work with these kids like they were my own, and my interest is in helping them learn. But there’s still a struggle.
There’s still part of me goes like, “oh, I miss it, walking through the hotel.” And I’m like, “it would be cool to sell this place- to be a salesperson here.” I love hotels. Like, I love being in hotels. It’s definitely still a part of me. If I go back to hotels, I’m just going to be in a meeting, just wondering what these kids are doing.
I love working with the families, I love working with the kids. I’ll be trying to understand behavior and so that’s why it’s so appealed to me to be a behavior analyst. I just didn’t know that there’s actually a career outside of the FBI where you could be a board certified behavior analyst and work with behavior change management at work. Everyone’s been very supportive, so I’m in a really good spot right now. I’m really grateful.
They basically were like, Anna, you gave us courage to try for ourselves. It really means a lot that I was able to kind of help them take that leap. Career has been rewarding in so many different ways, just like the kids, the parents, my coworkers, how it’s helped me with Nicholas, just learning his cues and showing him that respect. I feel like from the moment he was born, I always knew that we wanted to treat him like the person that he was, like an individual.
Even though he’s a baby, never actually consider him less than. And the other thing that Joel and I both did is we put him on a schedule and we honored that. Was it easy? I mean, it was easy for us, but was it convenient? No. So what we would do is like, Saturday weekends, we would go out in the morning and then come back, take his nap and then go out again in the afternoon. That structure, I think, has really helped him and I think that sometimes we expect our kids to just deal with it, but it can be so stressful.
That’s definitely something that I know we got right, paying attention to those cues. I know Nicholas at this point in his life, he doesn’t like being in new environments on his own, but giving him that support has made him more independent. The more support we give them when they’re little, the more they’ll be able to branch out and be independent.
Are we making his visual schedules now? When he needs it? Yeah, but guess what? When he’s older, he’s probably going to be a kid that has to write everything out or has to have a schedule. And then it’ll be how he supports himself. Adults we do that and we realize we need it, but we don’t think about sometimes when the kids need it too. My job has given me that too.
To learn more about high blood pressure during pregnancy, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has an overview. ACOG also has information on Postpartum Pain Relief.
To watch The Crime of the Century documentary, about the opioid epidemic, To check out the American Academy of Pediatrics for advice on various topics, Click Here.
If you want to taste the Gerber snacks for yourself, The CDC has information on Early Childhood Intervention.
To read more about ABA therapy pros and cons, Click Here.
All content and information on this blog is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Always consult your doctor for advice on your particular medical situation.