Birth Story

Believe it or not, this is a condensed version of what I have documented in my pregnancy journal, but I doubt anyone wants the nitty gritties (even this may be a little tmi).

I'll start off with a little background. It took us about a year and a half and 1 early miscarriage before I got pregnant with Clyde. We were ready to see a fertility specialist (appointments were already on the calendar) when I tested positive and subsequently (and gladly!) canceled the appointments.

So, I had a year and a half to prepare for pregnancy and birth. During this time I did lots of reading. Through a blog post, a friend of mine indirectly introduced me to Ina May Gaskin, a well-known midwife in the United States who has a birthing center in Tennessee. After some research and reading her book Ina May's Guide to Childbirth, I knew I wanted to have an unmedicated labor and delivery, and that I wanted my baby to be delivered by a midwife instead of my then-current OB/GYN. I immediately switched over to the local midwifery practice, which is a group of 5 certified nurse midwives who are overseen by an OB/GYN (for emergencies), and was with them for at least a year before I got pregnant. Their philosophy is minimal interventions (e.g. episiotomy, epidural, c-section, pitocin, etc). I think that most interventions during pregnancy and delivery are not indicated. That doesn't mean I think they are bad, but that they are usually unnecessary. But in the right scenario, these can be good, it's just they are often used inappropriately.

About halfway through my pregnancy, we signed up for a faith-based childbirth class that focused on natural childbirth in the context of God's design. At the end of this class I was encouraged and virtually fearless. Lord willing, I was going to have a natural labor and delivery, and I was excited.

As my due date approached (May 27 by LMP, June 1 by my charted date of conception), I knew I needed to start thinking about induction if I went too far beyond my due date. Indeed, my due date (both of them) came and went with no sign of labor. The midwives were concerned because my ultrasounds were showing borderline levels of amniotic fluid, and since they were also using the earlier due date of May 27, they wanted to intervene. Grudgingly, I agreed to get prepidil which I went into the hospital for on June 3. This did nothing. After another appointment with the midwives, I was instructed to pack my bags and head to the hospital on June 7 to get cervidil, a cervical dilator. I was very disappointed because I wanted to experience the process of going into labor naturally and getting to labor at home for as long as possible. On the contrary, I was getting artificially "helped along", and going to the hospital before any signs of labor were showing.

The plan was to get the cervidil insert on the night of Tuesday June 7, and then pitocin on the morning of Wednesday June 8. I really hated this because we had learned that pitocin often led to epidurals and unnecessary c-sections. But I put my trust in God and reminded myself that either way, we were going to have this baby.

Aside from Nate, I had invited my good friend Jessica to be with me during my labor. She met us at the hospital that night with a bouquet of flowers. After a relaxing evening, I went to bed early because we all knew the next day would require lots and lots of energy.

I awoke several times in the night. Despite the midwife's recommendation that I take some Ambien, I refused (if you know me, you know I hate medications of any kind), and was constantly aroused by the noises in the hallway, the unfamiliar room, and the fetal monitor strapped around my belly. At one point I heard the commotion of a baby being born and remember it striking a sense of sudden realization that my baby would soon be here and crying too!

Through the night I didn't have much pain, but felt some cramping, which the midwife had told me to expect. By early morning (5 or 6 am), I was feeling more pain, but figured it was more of the cramping. Jessica arrived around 8 with my order of Einstein bagels, but I didn't want them. I needed to use the restroom, but didn't want to take the effort to get out of bed. I finally made myself get up and on my way I lost my mucus plug. I was feeling a lot of pain, and thought to myself that if this was just cramping, then contractions were going to be absolutely unbearable. I felt a little discouraged, and also embarrassed that I was having so much trouble with the pain of cramping.

The midwife arrived around 9:30am to remove the cervidil and to check me. We were surprised to find out I was already 5 cm dilated and the baby at a 0 station. Because of my progress, she canceled the plan to give me the pitocin, and I labored on. The "cramps" were actually contractions and I didn't even know it! Looking back we realized that the nursing staff may have missed the strength of my contractions on their monitors because my contraction belt had been sliding around all through the night and may not have been positioned properly for most of it.

The next 90 minutes were pretty intense between sipping apple juice, cold washcloths on my face, and putting my breathing techniques to use. It was clear that I was progressing rapidly, and I very soon felt the urge to push. When the midwife checked me again I was at 9.5 cm and was actively pushing by 11:10. I actually thought the pushing was the most enjoyable part.

55 minutes later, Clyde was born. It was the most amazing thing to feel his warm, wet body against mine immediately after his birth.

It went by so fast. Much faster than we expected--- both Nate and I thought it would be Wednesday night or Thursday June 9 before the baby was born. We even told my parents not to rush on their drive from Dallas, and they barely made it to the hospital in time.

I met my goal of having an intervention-free delivery (except for the cervidil...) with only minor 1st degree tears, and the hospital classified the birth as a spontaneous labor rather than an induction, since I never got the pitocin.

I wouldn't change a thing about the way things went. Sure, it would have been nice to have gone into labor naturally without the cervidil, but the progression of everything was absolutely perfect.

By the time I was ready to be wheeled upstairs to recovery, I was famished (remember, I never ate breakfast) and had lost a lot of blood. I nearly fainted several times getting into the wheelchair. Aside from the two straight catheters I had to get because I absolutely could not urinate even though my bladder was full, my 2 days of recovery in the hospital went really well. Overall, it took me longer to fully recover than I anticipated, but I was running again (slowly) by 4 weeks after the delivery.

And Clyde was (and is!) just perfect. He was jaundiced and we had to do home phototherapy with him as well as some formula supplementing, but he was fine and had regained all his birthweight within about a week. We couldn't believe how big he was at birth. I'm glad I didn't know in advance that he would be that big, because that would definitely have struck fear in me!