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Natural Birth
L0L0
member
Margaret is born! (water birth)
L0L0
member
Hi everyone,
I can't believe it's my turn to share my birth story! This is long, so feel free to skim over the boring parts!
11 days ago, on the night of the full moon, my water broke at 3:15 AM. I woke up my husband, who asked "are you sure?" Well, it was a huge amount gushing out just like always happens in movies. He got completely dressed and started pacing around the bedroom. We called my midwife, who said as long as I could feel the baby moving, I could just go back to bed and come into the office to check on things in the morning if I wanted. While I was still on the phone, the first contraction hit. 20 minutes later while I was in the bath, I started throwing up and the contractions started being about 3 minutes apart, and super painful.
Like a lot of other people, I expected pain, but it was so much more intense than I could have imagined! I screamed for my husband, who was of course in the garage trying to install the car seat. We decided to head to the hospital right away since I couldn't feel the baby moving and I had a big fear of having the baby at home. I hadn't really packed my hospital bag yet, even though it was already one day past my due date, because I was convinced she was going to stay in at least 41 weeks. We also forgot to bring the birth plan and the water birth certification (mandatory at our hospital).
We drove to the hospital with the huge orange moon looming over the highway. We got there and got all confused about what part of the hospital to go to (even though we had done the tour and my midwives' office is there). We went to the right floor but the completely wrong end, so I had to have some ultra-intense contractions in some random waiting area with strangers watching, and then walk all the way over to the right place. As my husband was paying our co-pay, I laid on the floor in front of the reception desk and had some more contractions. It really hurt!
They got the idea and put me right into my delivery room for the initial fetal heartbeat monitoring strip. I was dilated to 4 cm. This is the point where I gave up on natural birth. Well, the two nurses didn't realize I was such a wimp and so didn't know I wanted to give up my plan, and my midwife got there to check on me, and my doula came within a half hour of us getting into the delivery room. All of them were fully committed to my natural birth plan (the midwife and doula had it in their files), and they prepped the water birth tub. One nurse even told me that she had just transferred to my hospital because of my midwife practice and its commitment to natural birth. She herself had delivered her baby with one of my midwives.
So I hung out in the shower while my tub was prepared. This is when I lost all my modesty and became a full-on nudist for the duration. I never got a maternity swimsuit so I didn't have any top that fit, but I didn't care. I didn't notice or care what hospital person came into the room at any time. I just didn't want my husband answering the cellphone, which rang about 100 times, because I didn't want any friends or relatives to hear me making such a racket. I estimate that the water cut the pain of the contractions in half, from unbearable to merely extremely painful. I didn't plan to actually give birth in the water, but like the doula predicted, once I was in, I didn't want to get out (except to use the toilet). I also stopped thinking about getting an epidural since it meant I would have to get out, get in the bed, get an IV, etc. The whole time I felt like she was just about to be born and there wasn't time to change course.
The hospital was super busy, because of the full moon I think. All of the conventionally-born babies had monitoring equipment that played "happy birthday" when they came out, and I must have heard it half a dozen times that morning. I had intermittent fetal monitoring about 4 times an hour, and the baby's heartbeat was a rock solid 125 for the entire labor and delivery. I found even that much monitoring to be a big annoyance, but not nearly as bad as the strip around my waist when I was confined to the bed at the beginning.
So, I labored on and on. I did a lot of yelling and screaming. My word was "owww," but my doula told me to make it "out," since that's more positive. Also everyone kept telling me to deepen my voice to make the contractions more effective. I guess my natural inclination was to be shrill. My other go-to contraction word was "lunch," since it's easier to grunt out and that was my goal for delivery time (especially because it's a range and not a precise time on the clock). Contractions and all that pain made me extremely particular and bossy about the very few things I could control. My husband was in charge of fishing out every speck of bloody mucus from the water. He and my doula were constantly refreshing and arranging icy washcloths on my face and warm wet towels over my shoulders. She gave me an awesome foot massage and was in charge of juice, aromatherapy, and music. She also had a ton of great ideas about how I should position myself to have effective contractions.
Well, I got to transition around noon. Soon it was time to push, which took longer than anyone expected. For most of the time I had my legs against the side of the tub and I yanked on one end of a twisted up towel that my doula was holding. My husband was holding me up under my armpits from behind (he did not get in the tub). I kept asking the midwife to just pull her out. I think the baby's head was visibly sticking out for about an hour before she was born. The only part that was a lot less painful than I anticipated was the "circle of fire" when she was crowning. I thought the midwife was gouging me with her fingernails until I saw that her hands weren't even in the water at that moment.
It turns out that the baby had the cord wrapped tight around her neck, so the midwife looped it back over as the head was coming out. The whole baby finally came out after an hour and 45 minutes of pushing, at 2:30 pm. It had been just over 11 hours since my water broke. I don't think I will ever forget the sight of my baby "swimming" out of me during the final push.
The midwife put her right on my chest and I started gushing about how beautiful and perfect she was. The midwife shoved the scissors in my husband's hands and told him to cut the cord between the clamps. We had planned to let the cord pulse, but that was not an option. The baby was breathing but the midwife knew she wasn't well. She whisked her to the baby table and the infant resuscitation team surrounded her within seconds. Her first Apgar was only a 4, but after about a minute or two she did finally cry.
I think I was in an emotional fog from the birth. I saw the team shoving instruments down my baby's throat and doing all this stuff, but I didn't feel any fear or anxiety at all. I think I said "this is why I wanted to give birth in a hospital, so this team could come rescue my baby." I announced her name to everybody. I had to get out of the tub while holding the scissors still holding the end of the cord. Having that cord dangle out of me was the weirdest, most vulnerable feeling. My whole body was shuddering, and they covered me with warm blankets and gave me some applesauce.
I laid in the bed and delivered the placenta, which the midwife showed to me and my husband and explained. The team finished with my baby in about 45 minutes and let me hold her very briefly. She was tired and had absolutely no desire to try breastfeeding. She got taken away to the nursery (turns out it was the NICU, but they didn't tell me that). My husband went with the baby. I waited with my doula for my parents, who were just finishing their 10-hour drive into town.
My natural birth high had fully kicked in and I felt fantastic, despite the baby being taken away. I didn't tear at all. I was largely oblivious to all the concerns about the baby's health, and thank God everything turned out to be perfect in the end. She got assigned to the hospital's top neonatologist. The mysterious fluid-filled dent in her head went away in a couple of hours, and her muscle tone went from non-existent to really good (she even hit a 2-month milestone at her 1-week pediatrician visit, lifting her head off the table and turning it while she was on her belly). They finally brought her to me when she was about 6 hours old and said I had to feed her formula or she would be taken away to the intermediate-care nursery to be fed through an IV for the rest of her stay. So, she had formula then and two other times in the next 12 hours. Since then, she has been breastfed and is doing great. We were discharged 48 hours after the birth.
So, although the birth was massively painful right from the first contraction, and my top goal was to have the baby be healthy, when in fact she had some major challenges the first few hours after birth, all in all I am really glad I did a natural birth. In the first couple of days after she was born I felt like my heart was exploding with joy every time I held her. I feel such an overwhelmingly strong bond and so much love for this child that I can hardly stand it. I can't be sure, but I think her intense birth is a big part of my cascade of positive hormones and emotions. Plus, my physical recovery has been a breeze. I was out walking my dogs on the third day post-partum, and I've had the energy and ability to do everything I need to do to take care of my baby. Thanks for reading!
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Re: Margaret is born! (water birth)
Congratulations!
My labor that started with breaking water was much more intense than my first labor, in which my water wasn't broken until towards the end. I think it goes that way sometimes. So, you may not have the same level of intensity in future labors if they start differently--just fyi.
Sounds like your preparation in putting your supportive team in place really paid off in helping you have a natural birth!
Eleanor Noelle - 18/05/12 Claire Elisabeth - 16/-5/10
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