A birth story, part 1

I’ve been trying to decide on my next blog post topic for a couple of weeks now. I keep going in circles. Last week I was scrolling through Facebook when I came across a c-section encouraging post, and I felt moved to write something about my own experiences. Then I realized my last blog post was about baby girl, so I tried to come up with something else…. Then the little newborn baby referenced in my last post turned 1 yesterday (#allthefeels), and I’m doing a lot of reminiscing on the night/morning she joined us… So here we are. If birth stories aren’t your thing, scroll down to one of the other posts 😉

 

Before I talk about my daughter’s birth, let’s do a brief recap of my son’s. I went to an OB that I wasn’t overly fond of, who told me to schedule an induction at 39 weeks. I was super naive and eager to meet baby, so I jumped at that. Went in to induction hardly dilated, nary a contraction. It was a crazy day. I had my water broken by my physician who, came in and did it without even speaking a word to me. Was told I had to have an epidural now (at 4 cm) or I wouldn’t be getting one *eye roll*. Had difficulties with said epidural, and was then so numb from it that I couldn’t move or feel ANYTHING, in addition to terrible shivers and other side effects. I start pushing for about an hour when my “doctor” comes in and tells me I’m not even fully dilated and to stop. 12 hours of “labor” rolls around my “doctor” tells me he has dinner plans and won’t be there for delivery. Believe it or not that was the highlight of this birth. I then met the amazing on call doc. After a few hours of pushing and no progress, it was deemed that I needed a c-section. My muscles in my upper back were having spasms so extreme that I couldn’t flatten my arms to go in the straps, so I had to be knocked out for my son’s birth. This then caused me to be so out of it for his first 24 hours that I was scared to hold him unsupervised that first day because I was unable to keep my eyes open. Afterwards I kept telling myself, I had a happy healthy baby and that was all that mattered. As time when on however I began to realize that I definitely had PTSD from this, and I knew when I had another baby I would do everything I could to not repeat this experience.

Fast forward 5 years and 2 miscarriages later, we found out we were expecting another baby! Praise God!! I was under the care of a new OB, who I liked, but I felt my heartstrings pulling me towards the midwifery practice connected with our local hospital. We ended up switching to the midwives just before my 20 week appt. It was the best decision I could have made. We also hired a doula, another amazing decision. I bought every book, read every article I could find on natural child-birth, did gobs of exercises, and tailored by diet (as much as any hormonal pregnant woman can haha). I was going to VBAC. When I went in for my consult with the OB to calculate my odds for success of a vaginal birth I was barely passing because with my first delivery I did dilate all the way and was unable to deliver, but everyone was still very supportive of my decision to try again.

So here we are at 41 weeks. I go into my midwife check up, I’m dilated to 5 cm (thank you acupuncture, chiropractor, exercise, diet, wives tales, etc) but not really contracting, so they tell me I need to schedule a c-section for in the morning. I was CRUSHED. I understand their rules, but at that moment I felt like I had wasted so much time and money reaching for something unattainable. I realized I had just over 24 hours to get this labor going. I had been having contractions off and on but nothing stable. So that night around 3 am, in an act of desperation I pulled out my breast pump. Hah. (I know, I know… this is advised against and I do not encourage anyone to do anything that goes against their doctors/midwives orders.) Lo and behold, here came the contractions!! When I arrived at the hospital to get checked in for the c-section steady contracts were showing up on the monitors! I was still measuring at a 5, so the midwife on call said I was free to go home and home back when labor had progressed more. I was ECSTATIC! We went and ate pizza and then went home. I was expecting to go to bed and wake up in the morning (possibly middle of the night to real labor…. Baby girl had other plans….

to be continued! 😉

– Valerie

Click here for Part 2 and Part 3