THE STORY OF MY FIRST BIRTH
November 21st (the day before our “due date”) at about 11 pm I was on the floor in our lounge doing some pelvic mobility and stretching when I felt some fluid escape me. For all of you moms out there- I’m sure you feel me on this- but I wasn’t sure whether it was pee, discharge, or amniotic fluid. I figured it was one of the first two because I had myself convinced that my bag wasn’t going to rupture...like ever... I was taking vitamin C and collagen every day to make sure my bag was strong... and I also figured that because it was my first baby, there was no way he would come on his due date (only about 3-5% of babies actually do and that's including induction and C-section stats). But a few minutes later more fluid leaked out. I then had a gut feeling that it just may be amniotic fluid. I texted my midwife, Aleks, and told her that I thought I had a bag rupture and she had me test the fluid to confirm. Confirmed. I was a bit concerned because I had no labor symptoms at all....maybe some mild cramping, but we are talking very mild. Not only that, but I had GBS (a normal bacteria that up to 35% of women have)... but the point being is that with the rupture, the more time that passes, the greater the potential risk for infection in someone with this bacteria present. Despite the confirmation that my bag was ruptured and that amniotic fluid was escaping me, I was in denial. I went to sleep at 11:30pm because I wanted to rest up and conserve my energy for what was to come....
I slept all Thursday night. Nothing happened. No more cramping, no contractions...nothing. I woke up on Friday morning at 6am and texted my midwife the unfortunate news. The clock was ticking. If I didn’t go into labor soon there was risk for infection and antibiotics were going to be on the table. I didn’t want to take antibiotics and harm myself and my baby’s microbiome. From all I’ve learned in being in the health field, I knew antibiotics taken in the first year of life increase the likelihood of so many things for baby- allergies, asthma, eczema, etc.
Considering the circumstances of my bags being ruptured and having GBS, I used that day, my due date, to do everything I knew to naturally induce labor. I felt like I was racing against the clock. My induction methods included getting adjusted, acupuncture, bouncing on my yoga ball for hours, spiking my oxytocin levels by self-stimulating, meditating, saying mantras, taking blue and black cohosh herbal tinctures, drinking an awful tasting labor stimulating herbal tea that my acupuncturist had given me (it literally tasted like cigarette ash water)... After all of this, my body just wasn’t ready to go into labor despite all my efforts to push it along. The amniotic fluid was still slowly, but not consistently, leaking. I was telling myself that the fluid was from a forebag or that the bag that had ruptured had miraculously repaired itself. Unfortunately that was not the case.
That night, 11/22- the night of my due date, my midwives, Aleks and Catalina came over to give me the “come to Jesus” talk about what was going down....because I was still in denial that my bag had ruptured... we sat down in the living room and they lovingly said “It’s been almost 24 hours. Your sac is ruptured... and we need your labor to move along. You have a couple options... we can sweep your membranes- which can stimulate labor, but could also potentially introduce more bacteria and increase the likelihood of infection...and if that doesn’t work then you can drink castor oil”. I weighed my options and my husband and I came to the decision to go all in. Castor oil it was...
Our midwives gave us instructions on how to dose the castor oil and left our house around 6pm. My husband and I wasted no time. As soon as they left I made my 1st of 3 castor oil smoothies. Before I drank the 1st one, Jeremy and I sat with the smoothie in between us and took a moment to pause, set our intentions and pray for protection over all of us on this journey. After a few OM chants, I downed the drink. (Shoutout to Harmless Harvest coconut water for making the experience of drinking what tasted like melted chapstick a little less brutal). After about an hour and a half the cramping started. At hour 2 I drank another smoothie. Heavier and more frequent cramps ensued. At hour 4 I drank the final smoothie. The cramps and waves kept getting increasingly intense... in addition to these sensations was a total clearing out of the bowels. If you’ve experienced the castor oil flush ...you know what I’m talking about & if you haven’t-think double dose of dieters tea that lasts for hours.... I had no choice but to welcome the intensity, as I knew it was bringing me closer to meeting baby.
*Side note, after using the bathroom one of the million times...I felt like I had to puke. As I was mid-turn, turning around to puke in the toilet, I projectile vomited oily-pink smoothie all over the bathroom walls and floor- thank you to my sweet husband for cleaning that up. Oops.
Around 10 pm I was having consistent but irregular contractions. They came every 5-10 minutes. In the beginning I could cat-cow my way through each surge... but as the night went on and the sensations got more intense, I found myself having to get on the yoga ball and do hip circles so I wasn’t getting crushed by the pain. For me, that was THE THING that took the edge off and kept me afloat. Jeremy and I slept a few minutes in between waves. Around 2 am I was really feeling the pain and I needed more support. Our magical doula, Patti, showed up around 3am. She ran a warm shower for me...I got in and totally melted, it felt like heaven. There was only one problem-my labor then totally STOPPED.
When labor stopped my doula left. There was nothing for her to do anymore. I felt so lame....like the girl who cried wolf. But no longer than 5 minutes after she left the surges came back... apparently, I had a bit of performance anxiety. They waves weren’t as strong, but I welcomed them with open arms. I needed this baby to come out ASAP. At that point Jeremy was asleep upstairs...but I didn’t wake him. I figured until things felt more serious I would let him rest so he could be fully present and strong for me when I needed him the most. I went to the dark guest bedroom and I kneeled by the bed resting my upper body on the mattress swaying side to side when the contractions would roll through. It felt good to be alone for a while. It gave me an opportunity to go inside myself to center and reflect...and all I could think of was how I was balls deep in the labyrinth (shoutout to Britta Bushnell for her incredible teachings which gave me so much confidence to not look back or around...but to keep going forward). As the hours went by and the sun came up, the contractions started to fade...And there I was again, for the second morning in a row with a labor that had stalled…
Saturday I spent all day doing all the things again to tip me off the edge and into laborland. It was like Groundhog Day- adjustments from my husband Jeremy , acupuncture, pumping, herbs...
By Saturday night things were looking good. My body had finally caught on to a rhythm. Contractions were coming at regular intervals. Jeremy was timing them so we could know when to call the midwife. We labored for hours...contractions were about 5 minutes apart and lasting for about a minute. We were finally heading in the right direction. We were sleeping between contractions again to charge our batteries as much as possible. It was getting late ...Saturday night turned into Sunday morning. Sunday morning...after the second night of labor...things slowed down again. We began to feel defeated, but we knew that the labyrinth of birth that we were navigating would lead us to the center, to our baby, if we just kept going. This day we decided to go a different strategy and called in our doula Patti to come over...that’s when the magic started to happen.
When Patti came over she busted out the big guns aka the Rebozo aka a Mexican shawl. She worked all her magic...she did a ton shaking/sifting of my hips to try to get baby down to stimulate my cervix, she had me crawling (“like a leopard on acid” I believe was the description of how to crawl) in my backyard, we took a walk around the neighborhood and did some curb walking (which is another asymmetrical movement to bring baby down deeper in to the pelvis). She had me drop it like it was hot on the street corner hanging on to a stop sign pole. Desperate times called for desperate measures. But, I was happy to have her there with a new strategy. As we walked around the neighborhood I would stop to lean on Jeremy and sway my hips through surges. The surges weren’t anything unbearable but I could tell things were moving in the right direction. Finally. Patti went home and Jeremy and I chilled and waited for things to get more intense...which they did as the evening came on. Our midwife even came over around 10 pm and confirmed just by observing me that “things were happening” and that she was going to get some rest before the baby came. We were filled with joy to know we were close to meeting our little man and having the home birth of our dreams.
As the night went on, the intensity grew and grew. I needed support. We called Patti to come over around 3am again. She relieved Jeremy and Jeremy went to get some sleep. This time Patti came over I took multiple showers. Never did a shower feel so good. Patti held space for me and was hands on when I needed it. We were laying on the futon -she was behind me and held a hot pack on my back. We ended up falling asleep there between contractions. At some point I woke up and just wanted to be alone. I slipped away with my yoga ball without waking Patti and headed to the living room. I did hip circles on the ball each time a contraction came. This went on for a couple hours. I swear I had to catch myself from falling off the ball at some points because I was so tired. This was the third night that I had labored all night getting only 5-10 minutes of sleep at a time. Not to mention I had sh*t my brains out all Friday , had barely eaten anything all weekend (because my body wasn’t thinking about food)...and my body was running on fumes.
At 6 am on Monday morning (day 4) Aleks the midwife got up to go to the bathroom. On the way back to the bedroom, she saw me and asked me how I was doing and said “let’s check you”...it was the first time that I had been checked (by choice). I laid on the bed and Aleks let me know that I was 7cm, totally effaced, and things were “looking good”. “Now let’s listen to the heart beat”... we listened, and without her even having to tell me anything, I could hear the deceleration during the contraction. “No big deal, let’s change positions”- so I laid on my side- another deceleration. “Let’s try one more”...so I stood. Another decel. She looked up at me and all she said was “We gotta go”...
I knew exactly what she meant. We had to go to the hospital...the last place I wanted to be to give birth. But in that moment, I stayed grounded. I didn’t react. I trusted my midwife implicitly. I knew she had my back and wouldn’t make that call unless it was absolutely necessary. “Okay” I said... Aleks asked me if I had a bag packed. I didn’t. Somehow I was level headed enough to grab all the essentials. A comfy robe, sweats, fresh socks, an outfit for the baby to go home in and toiletries. As I was packing, Aleks went to wake Patti and Jeremy out of a dead slumber. Jeremy woke and thought it was game time- that the baby was ready to be born... he was not expecting the news we had to go to the hospital. The fear that must have flashed in to his brain from not knowing what was happening or if I was alright must have been heavy. He came downstairs and we met in the hall- he asked me if I was alright. “Yea I’m fine”... and we hurried and did what we needed to do to leave. Jeremy went into our garage and got the car seat (still in a wrapped box) and threw it in the trunk...and on we went. Jeremy drove, Patti sat shotgun and I was in the back seat on all fours in active labor. The ride to the hospital wasn’t far, but was filled with speed bumps and stop signs. We pulled up at 6:45am and checked in. We were met with ease and love by the nurses on shift (which contradicted some of the horror stories I’ve heard about checking in during labor so I was thankful). We got all situated in our own room and they hooked me up to the monitors... and by the grace of God Jacob’s heart rate was no longer decelerating during contractions. He was no longer in distress...which meant I could keep laboring naturally! It was game on…
Labor was gnarly. It was like 60 second intervals of intensity unparalleled to anything I’ve ever experienced. It was like an ocean swell...waves coming crashing in one after the other trying to knock you off your feet. When I could feel the next wave starting to build I would wrap my hands around the rebozos and hang on for dear life so as to not drown. You’re forced to be in the moment with no time to dwell on what just happened- there’s only time to catch your breath and focus on making sure you’re prepared for the next one. Natural unmedicated childbirth is a full on battle... not for the faint of heart. It’s a mental game that pushes you to your very edge...and beyond. It’s surreal, mystical, unexplainable...transformative. And there’s no other choice but to go on... even when you don’t think you can. You’re in your own world completely consumed by your physical body but simultaneously on a different planet. The intensity just keeps building and building....and you start to think to yourself that it can’t get any worse...and then it does...transition happens.... and you transcend your body to escape the pain. You die. And just as that death happens something else magical happens too...
I was on my knees leaning against the back of the inclined hospital bed when the undeniable urge to push came on. I couldn’t control it. I felt like I was heaving...that feeling of your entire abdomen flexing to vomit, but this time out the bottom half. The expulsion reflex was strong. My doula stood near my head and so clearly articulated what to do. “When you feel a contraction coming on, inhale and exhale. Then inhale again and hold it...and without making a sound, push”. Meanwhile my midwife, who miraculously was told by the OB earlier in the hallway “this is your show”, was gloved up with her finger on my perineum simultaneously telling me to push into the point where her finger rested. I had both verbal and kinesthetic cues of what to do... this was exactly what I needed to get this job done effectively and efficiently. As I was pushing Jeremy was kneeling by the side of the bed with his hand on my calf...he had a front row seat to the action. With each contraction and pushing effort, he let me know how great I was doing and how we were almost there. The tone of his voice alone made me feel safe, fully supported and loved. (Jeremy, thank you for being my river banks). I pushed a few times in that position when my midwife abruptly told me to get on my back. “Hold this leg up with your arm-pull up when you push”...as soon as I got into that position I had a contraction. It hurt like hell-way worse than it did when kneeling. I didn’t want to be there. I remember having a moment of panic- like I needed to get out of that position...somehow I coped and I knew there must have been a method to the madness. With the very next contraction, I felt his head. My midwife then had me put my hand on his head...and with the next contraction his head was fully emerged
With the next push Jacob’s body fully emerged. He launched out. The OB (who had barely arrived before he came out) and Jeremy received him together. The OB unwrapped the cord from around Jacob’s neck and body and placed him on my belly. His cord was too short to be placed on to my chest where I wanted him. I couldn’t see his face in that position, which was difficult for me. I had waited so long to meet this little being and he was so close, but still a little mystery and I longed to meet his gaze. In the meantime all I could say was, “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God'' a million times over. I couldn’t believe he was here. It was a total Holy Sh*t moment... feelings of euphoria, disbelief, power, expansion, relief and love came over me. I had just fought a full on fourday grueling, bloody battle and came out victorious. I had so many obstacles to overcome. I had so many things that could have knocked me off course... so many trying moments...but I trusted my body, trusted the process and most importantly trusted my gut which guided me on the right path when I came to every fork in the road...a road that ultimately allowed me to arrive at motherhood with an unmedicated vaginal birth. The birth that I wanted. What a wild ride.