Not Nice Spice
I love how life brings people together for a period of time and then back again. I met Margaret during our thrilling Literacy Specialist grad school days. She messaged recently asking about any type of “teaching” I’m using with my three year old. Then we both had a good laugh at the fact that Sesame Street and PBS have been doing such a wonderful job why jinx it! We have both found ourselves weeding through what mainstream xyz tell you about parenting and how to raise your kids, and what is natural and common sense. It’s nice to have an unexpected partner while trying to figure it all out. I remember when Margaret first posted that she had Elizabeth. I was so confused, thinking she had a good bit to go and was out of town at a wedding…. She was incredibly early and very much out of town! Her story is an example of trusting your body and being prepared. No, birth does not happen the way we always imagine, but that does not deter from the significance of crossing into motherhood. Elizabeth’s Birth 34 weeks and 1 day. I woke up coughing. It was a deep rough cough, fierce enough to quickly wake the husband and send him off in search of ginger ale. We were staying at a hotel in Manhattan and planning on attending my best friend’s wedding in Central Park in just a few hours. While my husband, Sean, was out of the room I felt my waters leaking out. I thought, “There is no way I can convince myself that I just peed, is there?” I was stunned and my body was still. I thought about how I would break the news to Sean when he returned in a moment. Less than ten minutes later we were headed out the door. I had called my midwife up in Glens Falls (4-5 hours north) and then frantically packed a hospital bag that consisted of an extra pair of underwear, facewash, and my toothbrush. I laughed to myself about all the articles I had read about what to pack in the hospital bag and the unpacked Target bag I had at home filled with pads, nipple balm, hair ties, and a million other “essential” items ready to be packed in my hospital bag. Up until this point I hadn’t found a second to panic, just rush. Somehow, I remember the next 30 seconds that transpired in slow motion and as if it happened just this morning. My husband walked into the hallway of the hotel. He was visibly distressed. His mind was going a mile a minute and his dialogue was focused on wanting to be home and for this, whatever this was, to be over. He was in “fight or flight” mode, if I ever saw it. His mind and body were struggling to figure out how to cope. I tuned him out. My mind was focused on my hand as I closed the hotel room door. I locked in on that moment because I knew I wasn’t coming back and I knew I wasn’t attending a wedding that day. I shut my eyes and I spoke to my baby and to myself. “At the end of today I will hold my healthy baby girl in my arms.” In that moment I could feel her tiny weight in my arms. Time sped up again. Cab ride, asking cab driver to choose hospital, emergency room, ultrasound, doctor telling me I would be having my baby today, sudden hysterical tears, calls to parents, Sean still a little frantic, aunt who lives in Brooklyn notified that she has visitors on the way… length of stay - indefinite. Once we were settled in the hospital and the OB had determined my water had in fact ruptured and I would be delivering that day, Sean had calmed down. What I had seen as “fight or flight” was just his need to batten down the hatches. He was now ready to transition into the perfect birth partner. Labor had not progressed. I was only dilated a centimeter or two and contractions had not begun. I was having very soft rhythmic cramping. Cramping feels like too strong of a word, it was much softer and painless. Nothing was showing up on the doctors machine. The doctors were pushing to administer pitocin. I wanted to avoid any drugs and hoped my body would begin the process on it’s own. The doctors told me the concern was for infection. I continued to wait until 2:00pm. There had been no changes and the doctors had convinced me at this point that the risk of infection was great enough and the likelihood I would go into labor on my own at this point was low. Both my midwife at the time and my current midwife (I am pregnant and now with a different midwife) have disagreed with this assertion and believe that my body would have gone into labor on its own with time. Although we will never know how long that may have taken. I recently learned that true concern for infection would be closer to 18 hours, not 4-6. I digress though, because this birth story is not about the doctors, the hospitals, or anyone besides me and my baby. At the time, I felt I was making the best decisions with the knowledge that I had for my situation. Throughout the day I had listened to my hypnobirthing meditations, my aunt and uncle visited, my parents arrived, and I was feeling well. We began the pitocin. Minutes before labor began my best friend surprised me with a visit. She made quite a scene dressed in her wedding gown and I think everyone got a kick out of me laboring with red lipstick kisses all over my cheeks. Labor came on fast with the pitocin. I practiced my hypnobirthing meditation and I believe it helped me tremendously. My husband taught me how to breathe down. I had been very nervous about breathing correctly, but Sean is a brass musician and a teacher. He showed me how to breathe correctly and explained that when I made noise he knew I was breathing less effectively. I focused on breathing down with no whining noises and it was truly amazing. Everything was going well until the baby’s heart-rate dropped. Thank you pitocin. Huge eye-roll. The nurses pushed me back and forth to somehow help the heart-rate. It felt like they were trying to pass a ball back and forth and I was that ball. It disrupted my hypnobirthing, but I was able to stick with it. The doctor came in and interrupted me mid-contraction to force me to sign a c-section consent form. As I was hypnobirthing, I knew I was close and I knew I wouldn’t need a c-section. I signed the form to get her to go away. That was the only contraction that was painful. You are in fact the devil straight from hell if you interrupt a hypnobirthing woman mid-contraction. Just sayin! After signing the form I turned inward and spoke to myself and baby one last time, “Baby, it’s time. I need you to come out now and I need you to come out the way you got in there. Now is the time. We can do it. We were made to do it.” I know that sounds corny, but that’s what I said to myself and that’s what we did. They checked me one last time after that and were shocked and a little unprepared to see I was dilated. I was crowning almost immediately. The doctor told me to stop pushing as she tried to prepare, but I wasn’t pushing at all and I sure as heck wasn’t about to clench anything. I have since read about “Sphincter Law” in Ina May Gaskin’s Guide to Childbirth and have learned that although the cervix typically slams shut when threatened, occasionally if a woman is threatened and knows that giving birth immediately is necessary to avoid danger, the cervix will dilate fully almost instantaneously. Most women will slam shut when the doctor threatens their baby or surgery—I went the other direction. I kept hearing the words the hypnobirthing trainer had said in class just a week earlier, “Sometimes it’s about being comfortable in an uncomfortable situation.” It has became my mantra not just through the experience of birth, but all of motherhood, life, and occasionally, yoga. My baby was thrown in my arms and I had that beautiful moment of which all expectant mamas dream. She was quickly taken, wiped down, and her cord had been cut immediately. This was very far from the fully natural birth and bonding period I had intended on savoring. Elizabeth cried and breathed immediately upon being born with no issue (I had received a steroid shot to aid lung development, but the doctor had explained it was mostly cautionary because a 34 weeker has lungs developed enough for independent breathing). However, due to the unknown factor of why she was born early, she was whisked away to the NICU and put on antibiotics. She was on antibiotics for the first 24 hours until it was determined she had no infection. I was thankful my milk came in the next day and she received plenty of breastmilk to aid in the recovery her developing immune system. It was difficult to wait to see my baby again. My blood pressure was elevated and the doctors were monitoring me until it went down. My husband was able to visit Elizabeth with my mother so I felt good to know they were with her, but it was a difficult few hours. Thankfully the oxytocin rush had filled my veins and I was floating on cloud nine. I remember being so excited after birth that I thought, ‘WHEN CAN I DO THIS AGAIN!! I WISH I COULD GIVE BIRTH AGAIN TOMORROW!’ I loved every moment of it. My Lizzie girl was stuck in the NICU for 12 days. She was healthy, but she needed to reach 4lbs and develop her suck-swallow-breath. We were beyond fortunate to stay with my Aunt in Brooklyn during this time. She drove us to the hospital every morning around 8 or 9 and picked us up around 5. The silver lining was having someone prepare all our healthy meals for the first two weeks!! There was one evening where we navigated the NYC streets and subway, which is a crazy experience just days postpartum. This birth experience wasn’t what I planned and it wasn’t perfect in circumstance or outcome, but I will never think of it as anything less than perfect. If there is any take away from my experience I want other moms to know that whatever happens during birth, breath deeply and remain calm. Talk to your baby, talk to yourself and trust your intuition above anything. Biologically you are perfectly made to guide and control your own birth, even when everything goes sideways, even if you’re unexpectedly in the OR, no matter what happens, even if it’s harder than you ever imagined, you are capable of making the absolute best of the experience. How you feel in the moment is your own power.
My only regret in my first pregnancy is not trusting my intuition more and recognizing when I knew better. An ob/midwife group where I saw a different ob/midwife at every appointment was not right for me and the reason given to me- so that you have likely met the one on-call the day you birth, was absolutely insane. I also didn’t find much value in 15-20 minute doctor visits. I didn’t know where to turn and I didn’t know I was correct in my desire to assert myself and to choose better care. Also, when I planned my trip to NYC I was cautious and I spoke to the doctor. We spoke about my concerns, which were normal, and I was told it was safe to travel, as it is for most women. However, what was very odd was that I had this… vision, like a fear built into a daydream. I saw myself leaving the hotel and taking a cab to the hospital. I thought about it several times. It was what I considered and still consider a rational and normal thought for a pregnant woman. Even after that thought became my reality I didn’t think much of it. We all have fears and sometimes they take place in reality, such is life. However, during my current pregnancy I have spent quite some time thinking about it and I realized I never once thought about my water breaking in the car on the way down or at the ceremony or reception. It was always the same way, the way it happened. I don’t know what to make of that, but I’ve since heard of mother’s who tried as they might could only envision their birth in a certain place or way regardless of their best efforts. Pregnancy is such a strange time and all sorts of rational and irrational thoughts pop in to our minds. Somehow there is a way to weed out the irrational and to listen inward, but it isn’t an easy task and it’s even harder to explain, but this time around I believe I am listening quite intently. Prematurity occurs in 1/10 births according to the March of Dimes. It’s not always known why a baby is born prematurely. We now believe that I had a low lying infection that caused distress and signaled my baby for a quick exit. I had UTI about two weeks prior and dealing with significant stress due to work and my employer’s negligence with my insurance, making it difficult for my body to fight infection and rest. I now take D-mannose, an herbal supplement, to avoid a UTI, but if I do get one I will be getting tested after antibiotics to make sure it has cleared. I hope this was the reason, because it is a simple thing to avoid in the future. This is my 5th pregnancy. I have experienced 3 early miscarriages since Elizabeth’s premature arrival. After reading all of this you’re wondering if this story will ever come to a close. I’m sure you will take my word that I could go on and on writing a book about my experiences this past year. Instead I’ll just say that there has been so much positivity and light in what most would consider a dark time. I hope to share my next birth story with you. I have spent a lot of time educating myself and a lot of care in choosing a new provider. I am looking forward to a more relaxed setting with all the same love and excitement I experienced birthing Elizabeth.
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Kate FrancesWhen you don't know what else to do, then it's time to write. Then write a little while longer for good measure. Archives
February 2020
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