Ethan

Angela, age 25
2008


Only fourteen months after giving birth to our first child, Lia, I was pregnant again. At 19 weeks along we learned a little boy would be joining our family. At a prenatal visit two weeks before his due date I was already dilated to a 4. My midwife was sure I would have the baby before my next visit. We scheduled the next appointment, just in case, but I left laughing with excitement that I would have a baby well before then.


To back up a bit. With my first pregnancy and delivery I went to an OBGYN. I delivered at a hospital that has a high rate for epidurals and over a 17% C-section rate (one of the highest in my state). My doctor seemed very supportive of my desire to attempt a natural birth. But when the time came she was not the doctor on call and I was not supported by hospital staff. If not for my wonderful husband Mark and doula Gina, I believe that delivery would have gone very different (i.e. I would have had a lot more meds!) After my first delivery I now had the confidence that I am capable of a natural delivery and desired to have a positive support team around me. I looked into Midwives, home deliveries, birth centers. My husband was supportive of a natural delivery. He thought it was amazing. However he did not feel comfortable being away from a hospital. I was getting quite discouraged until I learned that a hospital near me had a midwife group that delivered at the hospital. Hurray a compromise, we both win. I personally still wanted a birth center or home birth but did not want to worry my husband and understood his concerns (even if I did not share them). 


 I met with the midwife group at the hospital and loved them! I was pleased that there were only 4 midwives and I would get to know all of them throughout my prenatal care. So when delivery time came I would know the person there to deliver my baby. Unlike the OB I went to who had 18 different OBs in her office. I had never met the doctor that actually attended the delivery of my first child. I would prefer to have the same midwife the whole time but at least this was a big step in the right direction.


Back to labor. Well the next appointment came and went. I was now six days past my due date. For three weeks I had thought, "any day now!" I did not go through this with my first pregnancy. My daughter had surprised us and came a week early. I had not gotten to that point of "I Can't Take this Anymore!" I felt an overwhelming urgency to get this baby out. I had seen my sister like this with one of her pregnancies and remember thinking "calm down girl, and chill out!" Oh I am so sorry for ever thinking that and now understood what she felt. Yet another appointment day had arrived and I told my husband to take the day off of work and come with me with bags packed because I was not coming home without a baby in my arms. I was going to have this baby today whatever it took!


11:15am we arrived at the midwife clinic. Tonya, a midwife, was shocked I had not had the baby yet. She asked me how I was doing and if there had been any progression or contractions. I was very emotional and started to cry. I told her I can't take it anymore. I had not had sleep in days. She checked me and stripped my membranes, again. Good news I was a solid 5cm and 100% effaced. She said that is far enough progressed to check me into the hospital. I pointed out one problem. I was not exactly in active labor, I had been dilated to a 5 for a week already and had not had a contraction since the last time she had stripped the membranes a week ago. As Tonya felt my belly she noticed that they baby seemed sideways, like he was not straight up and down like he should be. She explained that if his head was not in the right spot that could be a reason for contractions to start and stop like they had been. She massaged my abdomen a bit and had me roll over on my other side. She said she was trying to encourage baby to move so he would be pushing on the cervix better. I then asked her if I should go home or get checked into the hospital. I could scarcely bear the thought of going home. But I was worried to be induced with Pitocin or have my water broken. Tonya recommended we go out for lunch and power walk around the mall or hospital. I wiped my tears and said okay.


We drove a few blocks from the hospital and stopped to eat at a little cafe. I walked around as we waited for our food and nothing. Not one contraction. My heart sank. I sat down to eat. Nothing. We finished up and headed out to the car. Nothing. Mark waited while I decided what to do. Go home and wait it out or go back to the hospital to be induced. Finally I wanted to call my sister. I knew what I wanted to do, have the baby, but I really wanted someone else to tell me it would all be okay. That inducing was not so bad... I called my sister (who was taking care of Lia) and went over everything with her. She listened and asked a few questions but still I knew it was my decision. No one was going to tell me what to do. Next I called Gina, our doula, who was waiting to hear from us if she needed to head to the hospital or not. I told her all that had happened (or not happened) after the appointment. She asked me a bunch of questions but like everyone else made it clear it was my choice how to proceed. I look back at this and just have to laugh at myself. I was so distraught. Well after having my hopes up to have the baby early for weeks and now be a week late it is very emotional. I wish I could have just calmed down. The baby eventually has to come out but really I had this unnerving feeling it had to be that day. That it just could not wait any longer. So I finally made a decision to go back to the hospital and begin Pitocin.
1:30pm While walking through the hospital toward the maternity ward I had a contraction. A fairly strong one. I let my hopes sore for just a moment. Maybe I'll start on my own. 30 min later and nothing. We got checked right into a room. Since I had just had an appointment and Tonya had checked me they took me straight to a delivery room. While our nurse was busying herself about the room I had another contraction and it is pretty intense. I ask her if she can wait on the Pitocin for a while. I wanted to see if these contractions would pick up. If I don't have Pit then I don't need an IV, which I really didn't want.
3:00pm Gina arrives. Mark, Gina and I go walking. After our first lap around the maternity ward contractions really pick up. I felt exhilarated. Labor was progressing on its own! Contractions were 2 1/2 min apart and good and hard. 4:00pm nurse asks me to come back to delivery room to be monitored for a few minutes. Baby was doing great, and I was fantastic. I felt like I could run a hundred miles with the adrenaline coursing through my body.


4:15pm Gloria, my favorite midwife from the midwife group, comes in to check my progression. 7cm, 100% effaced, -1 station. Gina suggests getting into the bath. I thought that sounded great. 4:27pm in bath tub. Mark rubbed my feet. My favorite songs played softly in the background. Gina turned out the lights and sets up a handful of lights that look like candles (hospital doesn't allow open flames of course) and I felt so peaceful and wonderful. Gina showed Mark an awesome trick. She gave him a plastic cup and told him to pour the hot bath water over my tummy. It felt so good.


5:05pm contractions become stronger and closer together. I felt like I was drifting off into my own world. Gina and Mark where amazing at keeping me clam, relaxed and letting me know if I was tensing at all. At first they would tell me to loosen my shoulders, or take a deep breath. Then it got to the point that one of them would softly touch a tight muscle and not have to say anything, just by their touch I instantly focused on relaxing that muscle. In between contractions I would sink into the water but when I felt a contraction coming on I would get up onto my knees or stand up so Mark could squeeze my hips with his hands. That helped tremendously during a contraction (another invaluable tip from Gina).


5:40pm All at once the bath was not the place I wanted to be. I had the urge to walk. In my fuzzy state of mind I somehow communicated to Mark to help me out. As I stepped out of the tub I remember focusing on the length of the room and knowing I had to cover that distance NOW. Before Gina could even get a towel around me I was dragging Mark across the room. We paced the room for a few minutes. It felt so good to walk, and walk fast. The nurse asked me to come to the bed side to monitor baby for a minute. I desperately wanted to walk and the whole time I had to stay by the bed was not pleasant. As soon as she was finished monitoring baby I wanted to walk. At the same time I felt incredibly sleepy and could not keep my eyes open. I closed my eyes, laid my head on Marks shoulder and clung to his arm as we walked back and forth, back and forth. It felt like one big contraction. It would flare up to be very intense and then lesson a bit but would not go away completely. Mark later told me I was practically running across the room. He was having a hard time holding me up and keeping up with me. I just remember feeling like the more I moved the better the pain felt. I know that is a strange way to describe it but the pain really did feel good at times. I would swing between "I can't do this" to "wow that feels strangely gratifying".


6:05pm Baby gets hiccups. Everyone, including me, found it cute and comical that a baby would get hiccups minutes before being born. Silly guy. His hiccups where so strong you could see my whole belly move.


6:15pm Still pacing the room I suddenly felt pushy. We began discussing where I wanted to push. Getting on the hospital bed seemed awful to me. I wanted to keep moving. My nurse put up the squat bar on the bed (I didn't even know they had those) and Gina showed me how to squat next to the bed. Gloria the Midwife checked me one last time. The bag of water was still intact, and she suggested to break it. I was apprehensive and asked Gina what she thought. Gloria and Gina both explain if my water is broke I'll have the baby right then. I say, "Wait, you mean I'm ready to push? But it hasn't gotten hard enough yet. This is it!" I couldn't believe I was there. Delivery was minutes away. This was so different from my first delivery. I had prepared myself for the long haul of pain I experienced with Lia.


6:24pm Gloria the midwife says I still have a little rim of the cervix left and I'll need to push past that. She instructed me to bare down on the next contraction and push. She says it may take a couple of pushes to do this. I felt another contraction coming and I push. Oh the relief. Once again, like with my first delivery, I felt the incredible sensation of pushing. Yes it hurts, but it's like my body is getting a much needed breath of air. Like I've been building up to this moment to push all my life. All at once during that first push I heard my husband (who is supporting me while sitting on the floor next to me) say, "BABY BABY, I see a HEAD!" I then saw Gloria fly across the room and just as she reaches me I deliver his head. I hear her chuckle and say something like "so much for pushing past the cervix, he is here." My contraction was still going so I took a deep breath to bare down and push. Gloria calmly says, "Angela please stop pushing, I need you to get onto the bed on your hands and knees." There was no alarm in her voice, she was her calm cool collected self she always is, but somewhere in me I knew something was wrong. I literally jumped up (with a baby head hanging out) and landed on my hands and knees on the bed waiting for further instructions. I thought at the time Mark, Gina or Gloria had helped me up. I can vividly remember the feeling of hands under my arms lifting me. But later they all said I got up before any of them could reach out to touch me. I know someone helped me, an angel perhaps, I know I did not do that on my own.


6:25pm Gloria, again very calmly, explains that the baby is stuck. Shoulder dystocia. She explains that I need to listen to her very carefully. She will guide me on how to push, when to push, to move positions and so on. I later found out what she had me do is called the Gaskin maneuver. And it worked beautifully. At 6:26pm I fully delivered his shoulders and body. Gloria helped baby as he slid out and then gently laid him on the bed directly under me. I then sat back and scooped up my new baby boy into my arms. Someone wrapped a blanket around us and I had my little guy all to myself. At that moment I looked up and for the first time noticed the crowd of people in the room. When Gloria had realized there was shoulder dystocia she had called in the NICU and as I lay there holding my baby I realized many people still had a very worried look on their face. Gloria calmly told me to just keep holding him while she finished with me and the nursed checked out little Ethan while he lay on my chest. I remember how awful all the after labor stuff was from Lia's birth and I had mentally prepared myself for it this time. Gloria announced that I had not torn one bit. Amazing, I tore like crazy with my 8 lb. baby but not one bit with a 10 lb baby. But I could still tell something was wrong. Finally taking my gaze away from the sweet baby I was nursing I asked what was wrong. Gloria coolly told me I was hemorrhaging and she was a little worried. For the next 25min things were a bit intense. I could see the strain of worry on Mark's face. I started to feel very weak and asked if someone could take the baby. He had stopped nursing and I didn't feel like I could hold him any longer.


A nurse took him to weight him and do another baby check to make sure all was well with him. We all found out why he got stuck. He was HUGE. Weighing 10.4 pounds and 21 inches long (a full two pounds large than my first baby) he had a huge head and very broad shoulders. The nurse checking him also noticed he was not breathing great and a burse was forming on his shoulders. The next day x-rays confirmed that both collar bones had been broken during this fast delivery. Poor little guy. But the pediatrician reassured us that, "those bones are meant to be broken in birth, and in two weeks it will be totally healed. You'll never even know they had broken." But for over a week after birth I could tell he was in pain and uncomfortable.


Finally my bleeding slowed and the atmosphere in the room relaxed. I was okay, baby was hurting, but going to be just fine. That was the first time I realized why I may have had that urgent feeling that he needed to come that day. Any longer and he would have been too big. Gina stayed for hours after the birth, rubbing my feet, talking with us. We all talked about how different this birth would have been if I would have had an epidural. I would have been flat on my back pushing which makes the cervix smaller, and not able to feel how hard or where I was pushing, and most important not able to move around as I did to deliver him. Now that it was all done I was grateful to have a healthy baby boy. The first few days with Ethan in the hospital where also a bit scary. He had aspirated some fluid during delivery so was put on a feeding tube and oxygen. But being a big baby he bounced back fast and we finally got to come home.
As we came home I thanked my Heavenly Father for all the people who had assisted us in bringing another child into the world. God had given us another child to bring into our family. Truly a miracle. Again I learned some new lessons that I will take to my next pregnancy and delivery (if there is one that is).


If you would like to see a photo montage (my doula made) of Ethan's birth go here.


1. When did you decide you wanted to deliver your baby naturally?
After giving birth almost naturally (I had had some IV pain meds) with my first child, I decided this time I could do it totally naturally. The most frightening thing about first time delivery is just not knowing. Not knowing exactly what it is going to feel like, not knowing how long it is going to last, if I could endure. But once I had gone through it once I know this time I would succeed in natural birth.


2. What reasons or factors went into your decision?
The first time I delivered naturally it was because of a fear of epidurals (possible side effects and such). But this time it was because I knew I was capable of natural labor and delivery and I wanted the best for myself and my baby. It is hard to describe just why I desire unmedicated births. It just feels right for me and my children.


3. What did you do to prepare for natural childbirth? (midwife, classes, methods, books, etc.)
With Ethan I did not take classes again, but I did re-read all the books I had with my first pregnancy and a few more. My favorite new book I found was "Birthing from within" and one about Home Birth (but I can't remember the name of that one.) The best preparation I did was again having Gina for my doula. about a month before delivery she came to my home and spent a few hours with me talking about my first birth experience. What I liked, what I would change. And she showed me some wonderful videos about natural birth. One being "The business of being born" and another one that discussed and showed water births.


4. What was the hardest part of your experience - before, during, or after childbirth?
The hardest part was the 24 hours after birth. I lost a lot of blood and felt awful for about 24 hours. But once my body recovered its loss I bounced back fast. Especially since I did not tear.


5. What was most helpful to you during labor to help make pain from contractions manageable?
Meditation to stay calm and relaxed, the bath was wonderful, and walking was what got me through transition. Something I learned this time, that is so very important, is the people you have around you. It is amazing what a negative feeling coming from someone can affect you. And the opposite, a positive calm coming from people makes ALL the difference.


6. What do you wish you would have known going into delivery?
I wish I would have been more open to a water birth. I had just heard about them but was not convinced they were safe. Well it just sounded weird to me and I was getting used to the idea. Now that I know the water is my epidural I would love to attempt a water birth. I am definitely more open to that next time.


7. Is there anything you would have done differently?
I still would have loved to be at a birthing center or at home. Given the complications I had it was nice to be in a hospital where a blood transfusion was right there (I almost needed one, but in the end did not) and a NICU was down the hall (they did monitor Ethan but he never went there). I know my husband would have been even more worried once complications started happening if we had not been in a hospital. But when all was said and done my midwife and doula could have done all they did at a birthing center or at my home.


8. What did you feel were the positive benefits to your natural childbirth - were the benefits what you expected?
Where do I begin with the benefits? I believe things would have or could have been much worse if I had had an epidural. And after losing so much blood and to recover so quickly I believe it was largely due to a natural delivery. I am not a medical specialist and am not going to attempt to explain all the things that happen in a woman's body when giving natural birth (all the hormones that are released etc.) But I have read a lot about that in my research and encourage any pregnant woman to read books and talk to an OB or midwife or doula about that.


9. Is natural childbirth something you recommend to other mothers, or something you'd do again?
Yes and yes!


10. What advice do you have for other mothers interested in natural childbirth?
If it is truly something you want to do it is a must to surround yourself with people who not only support you but will help you accomplish it. And even if natural childbirth is not for you, know your options, know the risks you are taking with any decision you make. And be flexible in your plan. Going into my first delivery I knew I wanted to try natural delivery but if I would have had an awful labor, or been pushing for three hours I would have changed my plan. That is why it is so important to know your options. And the last advice I have is to have a midwife. OBGYN's are wonderful when things go wrong. But they are trained surgeons and that is what they do well. From my experience they are not trained in unmedicated deliveries. They may be supportive of you if you want to try that, but when it comes down to it they do not help you accomplish it. This has been my experience and I have heard a few stories otherwise. Hopefully things are starting to change.