Blog — Jess Nichole Photographs

I remember the moment she cried.

The first cry.

The first of many cries. Her scream filled the operating room and my heart exploded while doctors hands worked to sew my broken body back together. They lifted my bloody, beautiful baby above the drape while I strained my neck to see her. Her umbilical cord was wrapped tightly around her neck… the doctor effortlessly removed it. She screamed again. I remember thinking then that this nuchal cord was part of the reason she and I were in the O.R. She was angry. I don’t blame her. Strangers ripped her from her safe place and forced her into a cold world full of bright lights, pain, noise, and confusion.

Someone, maybe me, urged my husband Mason to take pictures. He always comes through when he has a job to do. They immediately took her to the bedside warmer and Mason followed. I lay on the stretcher exposed, cold, and smelling my own flesh burning from the surgery. It’s a strange feeling to know that your colleagues are on the other side of a paper drape looking at your insides.

I could feel the tears coming.

I was happy. I was exhausted. I was terrified. We were safe.

Ten fingers and ten toes were counted and my baby was brought to me in a bundle of blankets. They placed her body on my chest and I awkwardly tried to hold her while the team closed me back up. The weight of her on my chest was nirvana. I kissed her. I told her I loved her. Repeat.

I held her tight while I felt the tugging behind the drape and below my chest. My arms were shaking by this point and felt weak. I asked Mason if he would take her because I was worried my arms were giving out.

I want you to know something. I witnessed something happen in those next few moments that will forever mark how I view our messy world. I watched the man I married fall in love. I watched Mason pick her up off my chest and hold her to his. I watched him look at her in his arms and fall helplessly for her.

Then, he looked at me and said, “She just fits.”

Tears.

Mine. His. Hers.

———

Mason and I were married only a few weeks when we discovered I was pregnant.

I remember that moment in time by color and emotion. My body was tired and sore. When I listed my symptoms out loud to myself I immediately thought, “pregnant.” This wasn’t possible though. I was on the birth control pill. Mason had only been stateside for two weeks. I rationalized my symptoms as stress from moving and the recent fall out of a friendship. I’ve never been one to “wait and see” so I drove to the drugstore and bought a pregnancy test.

The moment I was home I went straight to the bathroom and peed on the stick. Immediately, two pink lines emerged. At first my confusion allowed me to feel relief, until I realized what the parallel pink lines meant. “Pregnant.” I started hyperventilating.

I called Bekah, my cousin. She was my confidant. She has seen me through the shit that breaks people. She stood by me while I made the worst choices of my life, and then helped me remember that grace and redemption are real and good. She answered, because she always answers. I blurted out some version of, “I think I’m pregnant! I just took a test and it says I’m pregnant.” Her voice was kind and joyous and she immediately told me, “Jess, call your husband!”

My husband. That’s right. Call the man that you’ve been married to for two weeks because you have a husband. He and I had plans. Our plans involved living overseas and traveling… with champagne! Our plans did not involve a baby. I started to sob. Then, I called my husband.

We had the conversation a few times before… Once, just a couple days before we wed, in a hot tub with booze and freedom in our midst. I wanted kids, “one day” and he may never want to have them. We married when he was well into his thirties and I was closing out my twenties.

This phone call would wreck everything.

The phone rang twice, maybe. He answered sounding concerned and partially asleep. It was 2AM in his time zone. I was crying hysterically at this point. He couldn’t understand me. He was patient. I calmed down enough to get it out. “I think I’m pregnant.” More tears. Mason, “why do you think that?” Me, “Because I took a test and it told me I am.” More tears.

Then he laughed. I could hear him smiling through the phone.

Of course we were going to have a baby. Freshly married and with all the big plans. Nothing conventional for us. Nothing by the book.

All the things, all at once.

———

Bekah is a planner.

She can whip together a fiesta with the best of them. She offered and insisted to throw me a baby shower. It was lovely, of course. Events like this exhaust me. The idea of registering for gifts exhausted me. What does a baby need? Diapers, clothes, a crib? I knew nothing. However, I did know something then that is still true today, you don’t need all of the things. You just need to make sure you have the tried and true supplies to help you survive babyhood. Turns out, the first few items I listed are exactly what you need. What I also was given in abundance were words and gifts from the women who love me, who have walked this road before me. The shower was in April. It was beautiful.

One thing I’ll always remember about this shower:

Bluebonnet seeds.

Bek gave bluebonnet seeds out to the guests as a favor for coming with instructions to plant them when Sophie was born.

Growing up in Texas means that every spring bluebonnets scatter through the fields and along the highways for a few sweet weeks.

They are a constant in my life… Reminding me of the sturdiness tradition brings and the preciousness of childhood.

I have the photos of my cousins and I in our matching clothes and squinty eyes, sitting in a patch of bluebonnets along a Texas highway. Something about this constant, correlating with my unborn baby, made her so real to me. I could picture her, whoever she was, in a patch of bluebonnets.

———

September

Sophie Ryan didn’t arrive on her due date. A week later, Mase and I (carrying my 41 week belly) headed up to the hospital for me to be induced. Thirty-six hours later we were exhausted and still without a baby. Sophie started showing signs of distress on the fetal monitor and the decision was made for me to have a csection, now.

I have seen my husband cry before. He cried the day we gave our broken pieces to each other and swore ourselves to one another.

Mason is strong. His love and dedication are relentless.

After thirty-six hours of no sleep, concerned faces, and different monitors beeping that something wasn’t right, Mason, the man with all the words all the time, had only one response. Tears. He stood next to me, silent and still, holding my hand until we were moved to the operating room. Exhaustion and fear took hold in that room. Thoughts of the worst possible outcome crept into our minds… if only for a moment.

Postpartum

The last week of September was a blur of exhaustion, incision pain, gas pain (a gift to all you csection Mommas), blood, pads the size of an actual baby diaper, and breastfeeding. I was in heaven every time I looked at her though. I literally felt high while I stared at her. It was incredible. Still is.

Soon Mason went back to work. I was on maternity leave for a couple more months.

The first three months of Sophie’s life were possibly the hardest three months of mine.

I chose to breastfeed her. Thankfully, we were able to. She ate all of the time.

I was running on little to no sleep. The first two months of her life I slept in a recliner with her on my chest because survival mode. The only time I had to myself was when I would wash my face in the evenings. Those few minutes, alone, with no one touching me, were crucial. One time I peed while holding her asleep on my chest because I was so fearful of waking her up.

In the evenings when the sun would begin to set, my anxiety would rise. I knew our time to battle for sleep in the night was coming.

The picture above is one I took after the worst night she and I ever had together.

She was inconsolable.

At three A.M. I had to put my screaming baby down into her bassinet and had to step outside because I started to understand why some people shake their babies. It’s not because they are terrible people (maybe some are). It’s because they are exhausted and need their baby to please stop crying and nothing is working. If I close my eyes now I can still remember what it felt like to stand disheveled, barefoot, at 3 A.M. in my backyard while my baby screamed inside. I could literally feel the frustration and anger wash away and be immediately replaced by love and compassion. Not just for her, but for myself too.

It was in this moment that I started to think about the bluebonnets again.

Maybe by the time the bluebonnets were blooming, life would feel more maneagable. Maybe when the bluebonnets came, I would feel like me again.

Spring came and went along with the bluebonnets. I did start to feel like me again. Life did start to get more manageable. We bought a house. Mason changed jobs.

All the things. All at once.

Spring turned to fall. Football season arrived! Sophie turned one!

We three survived an entire year. All of us! Intact.

———

Eighteen Months Old

Sophie is wild and wonderful. She is fearless and has big love for her Momma and Daddy. She picked up a stick at the park recently, as she often does. It was a snake. An actual live snake was being held captive by my daughters chubby fingers! I yelled the F word out loud in the public park. We all have our moments to shine in the sun.

This picture was taken when I still thought she was holding a stick.

We made it to the bluebonnets this year. In some ways I feel more whole than my memory tells me I ever have. The messy parts of me that chose my path in years past are still there. But in the last eighteen months, a new part of me has grown. I’m more confident and self assured than I’ve ever been in my life. The “little” things feel more true to what they are now, little.

My heart is consumed by Mase and Soph. They are my people.

When the bluebonnets come again next year, who knows where we will be. I’m looking forward to the journey between now and then. Every year these bluebonnets will be a reminder to check in and find the growth that requires gratitude on the year past. What a gift they are.