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Birth Stories
Ari Josiah's Med-Free Delivery (featuring the Wicked Witch of the East!)
When
I hit 39 weeks, I assumed that I was in labor. I had slept like crap
the night before (which is nothing new), but this was a different kind
of sleeping like crap. At my appointment, my OB noticed I was
contracting and asked to examine me. 4cm. He assumed I was in early
labor and broke the news - he wasn't on call over the weekend. I was
going to be stuck having some random doctor in the practice deliver my
baby. He walked me down to her office and introduced me ... to the most
terrible woman I've ever met. When he told her that I was contracting
regularly and already at 4cm, she looked me over and told me that if I
were her patient, I'd be heading over to the hospital right then for an
epidural and some Pitocin.
When I told her my plans for low intervention and no medication, she laughed and told me that I'd change my mind.
So
I went home (I stopped at the salon for a haircut & eyebrow wax first!), fed Calloway lunch and put him down for a nap. I could
feel the contractions, but they weren't bad and mainly in my hips,
thighs and lower back. The rest of the afternoon went by pretty fast. DH's parents were supposed to watch C that night so we could go to
dinner and enjoy some non-baby time, so we took him over there, grabbed
some dinner and went home. DH opted to go to bed, since the
contractions were becoming more frequent, and I cleaned, packed last
minute things, bounced on the yoga ball and played on the internet.
At
midnight, I realized that I should probably go to the hospital. We made
it there shortly before 1am and were settled into our LDR room within
the hour. My primary nurse was super sweet and shocked to find that I
was 6cm with a bulging bag of water, with contractions coming every
minute or two. J, my birth partner, showed up shortly after that and I asked to get out
of bed after the first 20 minutes. It felt sooooo good to be on my
feet, swaying with each. It was weird, to not really care about the
pain at first. J and DH kept me talking about whatever it was
that we talked about, which was awesome. They were settling me into a
glider to do some monitoring when The Most Terrible Woman EVER walked
in. She pushed one of the nurses out of the way and told me to "listen
up, girlfriend" before letting the word vomit spew.
She told me
that she wanted to break my water. She wanted things to move along and
wasn't happy when I refused. She then decided to really piss me off and
make up her own ACOG guidelines - threatening me that I would most
certainly kill my child by not being monitored 5 out of every 15
minutes. I'm assuming that she wanted to punish me for not agreeing to
let her break my water by tethering me to that damn chair. Before she
left, she made sure to let me know that she would NOT be returning
within the hour just to break my water and get me the order for an
epidural.
So I labored there in that effing glider until
5:45ish? It was painful, but it was better than being in bed, and since
the doctor followed her own personal ACOG guidelines, I was kind of
stuck. (I told one nurse that I wanted her to catch my baby rather than
that horrible woman and let everyone know that I didn't want her back
in the room. At that point, I was willing to 'steal' someone's OB than
let her come near me.) DH watched horrible headlines from Headline
News and J rubbed my back and shoulders, which felt AMAZING.
I
moved to the bed so the nurse could check me and I was 7cm. Water bag
still bulging. I was having some EXTREMELY intense contractions at this
point and complaining that I was feeling kind of nauseous. I was able
to breathe and make low noises while I was contracting, but once I got
on the bed, everything changed. As the nurse walked out of the room
(right after checking me), I felt my body start to push. It was
terrifying at first, because I had no clue what was going on. I managed
to tell J to get the nurse, or maybe she asked me if she should, I'm
not sure. She came flying back in, checked me in between two insane
contractions, confirmed that I was 9cm - water bag in tact. She was
moving to the other side of the room when that broke, quick check
confirmed that I was complete and definitely having a baby. Right that
second.
I was gripping the side of the bed, holding onto DH's hands, and J was behind me, still rubbing my back and
encouraging me - and I was pushing. My entire body was pushing and
there was NO way I could stop it. Everyone kept telling me to pant, to
act like I was blowing out candles, while the OB took her sweet time
getting there. She ordered me to flip over, they raised the bed up
incredibly high (it was because the OB was extremely lazy - she didn't
want to do much more than stand there) and put my legs in stirrups. I
had absolutely NO desire to push on my back, with my legs in the
stirrups and with them telling me to not push, my body was doing
whatever it wanted to do. I vaguely remember kicking out at the
stirrups and trying to move back onto my side, where it was much more
comfortable, but I gathered my wits and pushed a good three times -
relief.
Sometime in between being stuck on my back and getting
my sh-t together, I heard her say, "An epidural sounds REALLY good
about now, doesn't it?" and laugh. Another lovely moment was when I
managed to tell her that Calloway was 9 pounds, 4 ounces and she
assured me that if I had another 9 pound baby, he would get stuck ...
basically telling me that I was a dumbass for opting for no pain
medication. I told her that I pushed him out in 15 minutes. Her
doubting my ability to give birth was extremely frustrating, to say the
least.
She kept telling me to look at my baby, but where she had
the bed so high, I couldn't see him. I reached for him, but she held
him there, suctioning him, just out of my reach (I dunno if this was on
purpose or not). He cried and she ordered that I pull down the top of
my gown if I wanted to hold him and finally handed me my baby. She then
pulled him away, pointed at the cord and said, "See? It's not pulsating
anymore," even though it DEFINITELY was, clamped it and handed J the
scissors after DH declined cutting it.
They took him over
to check him out and I delivered the placenta. I had wanted to take it
home but couldn't get the words out. She gave me four or five stitches
(my actual OB told me that he wouldn't have given me stitches ...) and
dug around, saying that she was checking for tears (this happened a few
times). She kept making snarky, rude comments about the whole
situation, disagreed when the baby nurse gave him Apgar's of 9/9, and
they finally brought him back to me.
He was 7 pounds, 14 ounces
and 21" long, born at 6:12am. Going from 7cm-10cm took about 0.7
seconds. He refused to nurse for the first 14 hours of his life, but is
doing great now (he's a marathon nurser, to say the least). Recovery was extremely easy - very little soreness, very little bleeding.
NEVER let someone tell you that you can't do it. I was determined to have a med-free birth and used the negativity of the OB to push me forward. I wanted to prove - not just to myself, but to this woman - that my body was made for this. It was the most satisfying, exhilarating, crazy, trippy experience of my life ... and well, well worth it.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Ari Josiah's Med-Free Delivery (featuring the Wicked Witch of the East!)
Thank you for sharing your beautiful and encouraging story. I am absolutely appalled at that OB and I seriously think you should report her. Whereas you were thankfully able to use her negativity to propel yourself forward towards your goal of a natural birth, a less experienced or less confident mom might have actually listened to her and lost the chance for the birth experience they hoped for. I am hoping for a natural birth as well and I can only imagine how her words and attitude would have affected me.
Congratulations on your new addition, and thank you again for posting!
Tell me you filed a complaint on that ***. I would have. NO ONE deserves to be spoken to that way and constantly contradicted during delivery the way she was with you.
Congratulations on your new baby and I'm glad you're both ok.
This times a hundred!
Congrats though- great story!
Loss #6 2014 Loss #7 (chemical) 2014
~DS Born! 2009~
~DD Born! 2013~
Wow, it's hard to believe a woman like that can even be a doctor! Congrats on the med free delivery though, that's exactly what I want!
Just wondering (and of course you don't have to answer if you don't want to), why did you want to take the placenta home with you? I haven't heard that before and I'm curious, heehee
nursing & typing, i apologize for the typos!
thanks for the kind words ladies. i am filing complaints with the practice, hospital & state against her. im sure that if i had gotten an epidural and let her do what she wanted, i wouldnt have had a problem with her. however it was MY birth - not hers - and she needed to respect me for that.
on the placenta ... we were going to dehydrate and encapsulate it. for more information on the benefits of placenta consumption, go to this website. lots of great info!