My Birth Story
My husband and I had planned and paid for a water birth at a birth center. We started out care at 9 weeks and went until 33 weeks, at 33 weeks we received an email from the birth center that they would be closing their doors and could not continue care with us. I started to stress because we had paid around $7000 to them for the birth, there wasn’t another birth center that I liked near by and who was going to start care with me at 33 weeks along?
The. Next day I made some calls and found a local midwife that would take us on as clients and do a home water birth for us. Now this is what I originally wanted to do but for some reason I talked myself out of it and decided on a birth center. When we stared care with the midwife it was amazing, she came to us for each prenatal check up and was easy to contact if I had questions. Another plus was that when the time came and I went into labor we didn’t have to travel 15-30mins to the center, we just stayed home in our calm environment to birth our baby girl.
At around 39 weeks I started having contractions, the first night lasting 3 hours, the second night lasting 8 hours. 3-4 days went by before I had more contractions that would last a few hours. This went on until 40+2 and that night I had really intense and frequent contractions, the midwife checked me and my cervix was soft and I was 2 cm dilated. it was difficult for me to go to bed because I wanted this to be the time my baby was finally coming. The midwife had me go to bed and get rest so if it was time I wouldn’t be exhausted. As it turns out it wasn’t time.
We set up a induction plan for 41+3 to try the midwife brew and walk, my husband and I walked almost 5 miles that day but nothing happened. The next day we had an ultrasound scheduled to make sure everything was good with the placenta and our little girl. The ultrasound showed that there was no more amniotic fluid left in the placenta even though my water had not broken previously. He told us to go straight to the hospital to get induced because there was no fluid to cushion the cord and it could get pinched. I was so worried and sad that I wasn’t going to get my home birth but I just wanted my little girl to be safe. We talked with the midwife on the way to the house to get our stuff and she was going to meet us at the hospital. Our plan was to do a larger castor oil dose and membrane sweep the next day to induce labor but with no fluid we couldn’t move forward with that plan.
At the hospital we were admitted around 1pm and I was put on an IV and fetal monitor getting ready to be induced at around 4pm. At around 1:30-1:45 the babies heart rate started dropping to around 80, we got it back up but than it dropped again and we couldn’t keep it up even with changing positions. Rocking my hips back and forth was the only thing to keep it up. The nurse checked me and I was 75% effaced, 0 -1 position and 4cm. The midwife said at this point if I was dilated past 6CM than the my could have induced me and used the vacuum to extract her. The nurses started calling the doctor to get me into an emergency Caesarian and the doctor wasn’t responding and I started to stress and was crying because my hopes for a natural birth were gone and my baby was in trouble. Finally they got ahold of another doctor to do the surgery and I pulled myself together. I knew that me crying and freaking out was not good for my baby girl or for me during the surgery.
If they had time to do an epidural my husband Rob was going to be in the room during to be with me but there wasn’t time so they put me under with anesthesia and he had to wait in the hallway. I am glad I didn’t have an epidural because I didn’t want the life time of back pain that came from it and also didn’t want it to affect my babies heart rate more that what was already happening.
The midwife showed up just before they brought our daughter to my husband, he had to stay in the hallway by himself hearing the chaos from the OR hoping everything was okay. From what he told me was that the doctor and nurses were panicked and worried about me and the baby. During the surgery my heart rate and oxygen levels kept dropping so the doctor kept Coming out to ask my husband questions about my medication history which made him worry even more. Our daughter was born and was doing great but now it was me they were worried about.
As it turns out our daughter was in distress and so she pooped a lot of meconium out into the placenta and it was all over her and inside me. Also during the initial cut the doctor ended up cutting our daughters head a little bit because there was no fluid to cushion the cut. We aren’t even mad about this because there was nothing the doctor could do and if he and the nurses hadn’t acted as quickly as they had our baby girl wouldn’t be here with us.
Once she was cleaned up; we couldn’t delay her first bath due to being covered in meconium and her stomach was pumped of all the meconium Rob got to put her diaper on and hold her while I was being stitched up and brought to the recovery room.
I remember coming to a little bit during the surgery and remember feeling pain and tugging in my abdomen and hearing a baby crying than going back out of it.
Once in the recovery room I was coming to and the doctor came to see me and the first thing I asked was of my daughter was okay? And than asking if he was able to cultivate my microbiome and swab her with it? He laughed and reassured me that my baby girl was perfectly fine and healthy. Than I knocked out and they wheeled me to our room where Rob, our daughter and midwife were.
When they got me to our room I woke up and immediately got to finally hold our daughter and I was so happy and just wanted to cuddle her and feed her. Rob and the midwife filled me in on what had happened with her and that she was healthy. The midwife made sure that she latches properly to breastfeed and than left to get us some food. which my husband was so thankful for because he couldn’t leave the room at all.
For the next 24 hours I breastfed our daughter, slept when she slept and threw up a lot as a side effect of the anesthesia. Rob said that he gained a new level of respect for me as he watched me feed our daughter and throw up at the same time. During the few days in the hospital Rob was so amazing and he helped feed me and change her diapers, burp her, help me get up and use the bathroom. I couldn’t have done it without him by my side.
The second day the catheter was removed and I was able to get up and move a little bit and finally eat without throwing up, and ask for no more pain medication since I wasn’t in pain and knew it was one reason I was throwing up. On the third day the doctor did my checkup and cleared me to go home, the Peditrician did our daughter’s checkup and cleared her to go home also and my that afternoon we were on our way home with our daughter so happy to get home to be with our cats, be in our cozy home by ourselves and finally shower.
The midwife came over to check on us and see how we were doing. She took Athena’s foot prints and weight and asked me how I was feeling mentally. She knew how important a natural child birth was to me and wanted to make sure I was feeling depressed about what happened.
I told her that as it was happening I was scared and sad but pushed that away knowing I needed to be strong for my daughter to arrive safely and in the end I don’t feel sad or upset about not getting my natural child birth because if we all hadn’t acted as quickly as we had our daughter wouldn’t be here today.
We don’t know what happened to the amniotic fluid because my water hadn’t broken at all and there is actually a rise in these rare cases of fluid drying up and increase in meconium. When people found out we were planning a home birth they would tell us that they would never do that, what if something happened? Amongst other things and we would say it will all work out and if something does happen than we would have the hospital in that emergency.
