My pregnancy was not an easy one– but then getting pregnant in the first place wasn’t either. She is a rainbow baby after four losses and secondary infertility, and a miracle baby due to the diagnosis that I’d probably never have another live birth and that Richie was a miracle himself. Those 9 long months included a cross-country move, then another move, abnormal bleeding for 11 weeks straight, contractions starting at 14 weeks and continuing until 35 weeks, Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction and Sacroiliac Joint Dysfunction. Her birth story begins at 36 weeks and two days.
I’d had my last backup MD appointment and my GBS (Group B Strep) screen that morning. That night I had a full on bloody show and the beginnings of stronger contractions. The next three days my contractions were very strong mid afternoon until early morning, but would then cease as the sun came up. It was very discouraging having to deal with the discomfort but i was hoping she would hang on just a little longer.
Sunday we went to Cortez (an hour away) to hit Wal-Mart just in case because there were a few more things that i needed if she came that week. On the way I started getting pretty intense contractions. We ran in, ran out and drove an hour back home a little faster than the speed limit instructed. We got home and I made dinner and watched a movie. The contractions just kept coming stronger and stronger. We called our parents just as a heads up. I got very little sleep that night because the contractions kept waking me. The sun came up–everything stopped. I came downstairs and i just cried. I was so discouraged and tired. I didn’t mind waiting for her and preferred her to be more developed, but I just wanted the prodromal labor to stop. i was sore and tired and i just wanted to stop getting excited and then be disappointed. I was mad at myself for even being excited–im a midwife and I tell my clients all the time not to expect anything. it will happen when its meant to.
The day passed with no contraction activity whatsoever and I just spent the day getting on with the things that had been neglected around the house. Around 5pm i had a loose bm. I told Peter but refused to think it was a sign of ANYTHING except that maybe something I ate was off. We ate and went to bed. Peter and I got to have a little “us” time because Richie slept in his own bed for the first time in two weeks (He’d had bronchitis).
Five minutes after we’d settled to go to sleep I was hit with very intense, very strange contractions. I still refused to think anything of it. They continued for almost an hour becoming stronger and then tectonic (which worried me). I checked her heart tones with my doppler and she wasn’t showing any signs of distress so I tried to sleep. I couldn’t. I had to pee. For the fourth time in an hour. Bad. At 11:40pm I waddled down the stairs and into the bathroom, sat down and let it go. I was still leaking fluid but i didn’t think I was peeing anymore. I hollered for Peter to bring me my amnicator swabs. I tested and gaped at the swab like an idiot. BLUE. Positive for amniotic fluid. I threw on a pad, did a shaky little dance and called up my mom who got my sisters up and got ready to come over. Peter called his parents but they couldn’t make it because Flagstaff had just gotten a couple of feet of snow and it was between them and us.
We scrambled to get things set up because my contractions were still very close together. My mom and sisters came and settled down to watch a movie while I settled into my labor. It was pretty normal and classic labor most of the night. I switched from walking to lunges to stairs to kneeling and hugging my birth ball while Peter pushed on my back. That was my place right there. We did that for a long time. Around two in the morning I got into the pool and it. Felt. Great. I hung out in there until around 5:30am- and then decided to get out because my labor was starting to stall. The sun was coming up. Greeeeat. I wasn’t AS discouraged because my water had broken so I knew it was ‘for real’ this time.
I decided to go take a little nap because I was so exhausted and the contractions had eased off enough to allow me to do that. I slept for about an hour and thirty minutes, then went downstairs to eat and say good-bye to my sisters who were leaving for school. After I’d rested and eaten I walked around and paced the house and stairs for about two hours. Contractions still weren’t doing much. They were there but pretty dysfunctional. We decided to do a cervical check. 4cm, 70% effaced, +1. Not much progress at all. I’d started at 4cm. I Started to worry because I’d stalled with Richie at 4cm as well and ended up having an AROM after only 8 hrs of labor by an impatient OB. I started to doubt myself.
Peter put my head back into its right place and i decided to try some gentle nipple stimulation to pick things up a bit. After an hour i was getting pretty intense contractions again but they weren’t lasting very long, so Peter and I bundled up and went out side to walk and enjoy the 30 degree first day of spring. we walked all over the yard (3 acres we had a lot to walk around on) I swear it was just the fresh air and the release of stress and change of scenery just as much as the walking but I quickly settled back into a normal, more functional labor pattern.
We came back inside and I found my comfort spot in my laundry room for some reason (I wasn’t surprised though, Ive delivered babies in closets and other strange places before). I paced and rocked and rolled in there for several hours and ate some frozen blueberries. I was so tired. Exhausted, actually. I’d been on my feet or on knees moving for my whole labor except for an hour and a half when I was sleeping or when I was sitting on the toilet. I went upstairs and tried to sleep. I only got about thirty minutes. We did another check at 1:30pm. 5cm, posterior cervix– so her head was in front of the cervix not dilating evenly or efficiently, and I had a hanging bag of amniotic fluid really cushioning it. We were 15 hrs since my water broke the first time and I was just hardly running on anything. I couldn’t sleep because I was having strong enough contractions. But they still weren’t very efficient even with all the tricks I had up my sleeve. We made the decision to do an amniotomy to try to get her head to dilate the cervix more efficiently and evenly.
I felt her move into a better position almost immediately. Relieved, I went back into my laundry room and waited for the inevitable intensity spike that follows. I stared to really sound out my contractions. So much so that Richie kept stopping what he was doing to “come check on mama”. I kept reassuring him i was fine. Peter started getting excited (he had started to worry about having to transfer) and kept saying, “Now this sounds right. This sounds familiar” Poor guy would try to leave me for a second to go to the bathroom or try to fill them pool and id be hollering “I need you I need You come Back HURRY!” I was terrified to have to do a contraction without having him to hang off of but I wasn’t about to leave the laundry room. He hardly got a break to eat or sleep or go to the bathroom. I was either hanging off of him, calling him, or he was filling the pool or getting me a drink or monitoring the baby’s heart tones. I got to a point where I just started sobbing between two contractions and was smacking at the window in the back door and saying “I’m done, I’m done…somebody else can finish this”. That was our cue to make sure the pool was filled. You’d think it was a classic transition.
While Peter was filling the pool I had to manage a few contractions by myself and I just sang through them the best I could. Without Peter I had no way else to get myself to stay open and not clench up around the pain. I really surprised myself, pacing and singing through a contraction. So different from Richie’s birth in a hospital bed.
The pool was full and ready at around 3pm. I gratefully got in. It didn’t do much at that point unfortunately. The pain I was having was just like my back labor during transition with Richie, but right above my pubic bone. I was in agony. Peter was getting stressed because it was just him having to monitor her heart tones and watch me while having to try to be my support at the same time. He kept me grounded. I was clawing at him to help me and support me and just keep me present–my body just felt broken– like she would never come out. We did a check at 3:10. I was dilated completely except for the anterior lip. Being a midwife and having dealt with cervical lips in other women, I knew what that meant but i was in so much pain at that point I was unreasonable and wouldn’t let Peter touch me (except to cling to him). I tried position change and light pushes first- no help. After I thrashed through a few more contractions Peter managed to talk me into allowing him to hold the lip back. That was 3:19 pm.
As soon as he did that, I got another contraction that started out as the others then immediately changed and I felt her plowing through the birth canal. That instant my mom walked in (she’d taken Richie outside because I was starting to really upset him) to ask if she had time to pick up my sisters. Nope. I said, “she’s coming NOW!” or something like that and she asked if I wanted it on video. “I hollered “I don’t care!” (I’m so very glad she did). It happened so fast Peter thought I was trying to fight it but I was just trying to slow the crowning down so I wouldn’t tear or tear as badly. 3:20pm her head was born, followed immediately by the rest of her body.
She was conceived together alone by Peter and I, she was born into our hands together and together we alone brought her up out of the water. After the initial, “oh my baby’s” the first thing out of my mouth was “Richie missed it!” (crying) He was sitting outside in my mom’s car eating goldfish crackers still! Peter ran outside and grabbed him. He didn’t know what to think of her. She was purple pink and covered in vernix and I was crying. And he was still eating his fish so he was busy.
When she slid out she was followed by a few large clots that were hidden beneath me, but about two minutes after she was born the pool flooded with blood and huge clots. I noticed it and Peter looked at it and asked if it was normal (I’d mentioned the pool looks pretty bad when the placenta is born and not to freak out) And that he’d noticed the clots when she had come out initially. I hadn’t had any signalling cramps or pressure so I felt Raewyn’s cord. It was still very thick and profusing strongly. I said that it certainly wasn’t that I needed to get out of the pool immediately. I was very glad at that point I’d gone over what to do if I hemorrhaged with Peter beforehand because it took me a minute to actually realize what was happening and respond. Since we’d had her downstairs since I have no bathroom upstairs, and I’d told peter to not worry about dragging a bed down, my mom and Peter scrambled to lay down some towels and chux pads on the tarp on the floor. They helped me out and down, and covered us both with towels. Peter worked Raewyn’s legs on my stomach while I did nipple stimulation. I had anti-hemorrhagics ready if that wasn’t good enough. Raewyn latched on at 6 minutes postpartum. It took about 12 minutes for her cord to blanch and about 16 for the placenta to detach and be born. Meanwhile we got the bleeding pretty well under control.
Initial postpartum bleeding while I nursed for the first two hours was a heavier than normal but well manged. I was glad id been taking RRL, nettles, oats and alfalfa the last month before she was born, and had thought to pick up some chlorophyll as well. I was pretty weak and dizzy for the first four days but I didn’t need a transfusion or iv fluids and my iron levels went back up faster than expected. I had a very minor superficial perineal tear (thank goodness- I didn’t want to have to transfer for a stupid tear since I cant really suture myself up lol) and two minor labial skids. no sutures needed. The placenta was abnormal- circumvallate and had a battledore marginal insertion. that combined with my congenital uterine defects is likely what caused the partial abruption and hemorrhage.
Raewyn was born at home, unassisted ; 6lbs. 12 oz, 21.5 inches long born at 3:20 pm on 3/20/2012 after about 17 hours of labor, over two years of trying, 4 losses, several tests and procedures with several different OB/GYNs and endocrinologists, lots of herbs, hormone tracking and regulation, tears, and most importantly prayer, and finally putting it into God’s hands.
God is amazing. And he has a plan for our lives. Peter and I wouldn’t be where we are today if it weren’t for all that we’ve been through. We are so blessed with our two miracle babies, And Raewyn’s birth has healed so much of the trauma of Richie’s birth even though physically and emotionally her birth was very very hard for me. It healed so much of the pain I held in my heart and mind from my body destroying the life of the four before her. I can bear and sustain life still and I am not broken. Even when the odds were so incredibly against us, and there is no way anything that I did could have possibly made her being here possible. God can make the impossible possible and the proof of that just spit up all over me.
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