I am continuing my positive birth story project because I want expecting mothers to hear more of what can go right vs what can go wrong.The mind is such an important tool in birthing that if you allow an ounce of doubt, fear or negativity to creep in, then it materializes!
Here is the wonderful birth story of Estelle, the daughter of Samantha, a Filipina doula behind The Maya's Nest in Vancouver. An important lesson here is that many times in life, things don't go as planned. Despite her preparation for a homebirth, Samantha birthed in the hospital. Read her very detailed, educational, honest and funny story.
June 4th, 2014 – now 39 weeks 4 days. I had my midwife appointment early that day and while measuring my belly, we saw that for the fourth week in a row, there was no growth. My midwife had me go get an ultrasound to make sure all was okay and thankfully baby was “a good size” and “perfect” according to the technician.
As I was driving home, contractions started to hit – coming in at about 5 minutes apart and lasting for a bit under a minute each. I got home and the contractions kept coming. I called my midwife to give her a heads up and she suggested I give my doula Rebecca a call. It was still early in the evening and I felt I had some time so I decided to go on a walk with Joseph and Michael to the park. By the time I got back, the contractions had picked up. They were now about 4 minutes apart and lasting over a minute. Rebecca arrived at around 10:00pm. The contractions kept coming. As they got stronger, the only thing I wanted to do was walk. I went up and down my hallway more times in that evening then I expect I have the whole time I have lived here. Every few minutes I would stop and lean on the wall as a wave would come over my body, while Rebecca would squeeze my hips with the nice warm rice packs. By the time 3:30 am arrived, my legs all of a sudden could not take another step. The 6 hours of walking finally hit my body and all I could do was lie down. So I did. Then they slowly started spacing out. By 4:00 am the contractions were gone. Rebecca suggested going to sleep and that my body was telling me that I need to rest. We all went to sleep and after a bit, Rebecca went home as well.
I woke up the next day to no contractions – completely confused and so upset. What happened? What was that whole night for? Am I really going to have to go through that all over again? My mind was starting to get very negative. I could not get the feeling of failure out of my head. Why wasn’t my body working?
After a nap and talking to my doula and some other doula friends of mine, I started to feel better. My mind shifted back to where it needed to be. I kept reminding myself that my body was just taking a break. For whatever reason, it needed it so I must trust it. The rest of that Thursday was spent hanging out with my son, my husband and my parents. I also had my doula friend Jodi come by to do the Miles Circuit with me to see if perhaps it was positioning that had stalled my labour. I sent my husband out to go grab some Thai food and we were just going to have a relaxed night at home. After dinner and a bit of television, I went to bed and passed out right as my head hit the pillow.
Then all of a sudden I woke up to wetness. It was 3:30 am and my membranes had ruptured. I put a pad on and headed back to bed. I have been here before and I knew that the best thing I could do was get more sleep. Funny coincidence – with my son, my water broke the day before my due date after eating some Pad Thai and now with my daughter, the exact same thing happened. Looks like Pad Thai equals membranes rupturing for me! Haha!
I woke up the next day at about 7:00 am. I headed down to breakfast and calmly told my family my membranes had ruptured. I called my midwife to give her the heads up. She spoke to me about my options and offered that I do the Midwives Cocktail – a mixture of oils and other natural ingredients that may help induce labour. A big part of me wanted to let my body just do its thing. After all, 95% of women go into labour within 48 hours after the rupture of the membranes, so why wouldn’t I this time? With my first I waited 30 hours before getting induced and in that time not one contraction hit. I knew that the last thing I wanted to do was get medically induced again. Not only would it mean saying goodbye to my home birth, but it would also mean pitocin contractions and I was so fearful that I wouldn’t be able to go pain med free if that happened. I decided to go to my prescheduled chiropractor appointment and see if Dr. Marie could help get my labour going. My midwife Lindsay was going to come by at noon and we would decide then to go ahead with the cocktail or not.
After a great chiropractic appointment, I headed home with all the ingredients for the cocktail. I decided I would go ahead and do it. Much like other natural inducers, the cocktail will only work if your body is ready to go into labour. If it worked, fantastic. If not, then we wait, but at least I tried to help it along – at least that was my thought process behind it. After chugging it down, Lindsay check me as a starting point so that she could let the second midwife know that she needs to get ready to come for my home birth. I was not very dilated but Lindsay felt pretty certain that when labour starts, she expect it will go quite fast for me. If contractions hadn’t started to get consistent by 4:00 pm then I was to take a second dose of the cocktail.
As soon as she left, the contractions started. I tried to rest, but just couldn’t. The contractions were coming strong and were quite close together. I asked my doula Rebecca to come. Of course, in her drive to my house, my contractions started to stall again. When she arrived, I felt terrible for calling her over again but this godsend of a woman did not let me feel bad. She reminded me that is what she is here for and we will see if anything more happens. It was getting close to 4:00 pm so I decided to take my second dose of the cocktail. Then Rebecca and I did some pelvic floor releases to help open up my pelvis and get baby into a better position. As soon as we finished, the contractions picked back up again. They were coming in fast and strong. This felt different then the other night. These felt much more intense. This was it. I knew it. I was going to meet my baby girl soon.
At about 6:00 pm my midwife Lindsay called. I happily told her the contractions were regular and they were getting longer and stronger and closer together and that it wouldn’t be long before she would need to come in. And then she gave me my bad news. She was on her way to the hospital because another patient was in labour and unfortunately that meant that if I did go into active labour, that I would have to give birth at the hospital because she could not leave the other patient.
Cue the tears! And lots of them! I could not believe it. For months I had been preparing mentally and emotionally for this home birth. I worked so hard to get to a place where I was excited to birth at home. My mind and my heart were ready for it. Aside from that, I had spent good money preparing. I took home birth focused prenatal classes, rented my birthing pool and bought all the equipment for it, plus bought everything for my home birth kit. I was ready. This was the birth I was ready for. I always knew a hospital transfer may be needed – but in my mind it was only for an emergency. I was not ready to not get a chance to birth at home for something completely out of my control like someone else happened to go into labour first. I was so mad and so heartbroken. I wanted the labour to stop. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to my dream birth for what I felt was such a dumb reason. How could this be happening?
As much as I hoped for the contractions to stop though, they just wouldn’t. They kept coming and kept getting stronger and stronger. At about 8:00pm I had the strongest contraction yet and I just knew that I had to go. I looked up at Rebecca and said “I have to go don’t I?” and she slowly nodded her head to say yes. So we went to the hospital.
On the drive over, as the contractions started coming fast with not much break in between, I had a little talk with myself. I told myself that I needed to get my mind out of this funk. I needed to set aside the disappointment for now. The plan had changed. I had to adjust. No a hospital birth was certainly not what I wanted, but it was happening. I could still totally have my natural birth. I could still rock this birth.
When we arrived at the hospital at around 8:30 pm, Rebecca and I went straight up to Labour and Delivery while Michael was parking the car. Michael and Jodi, my second doula, then followed. While waiting, the contractions kept coming. My body had taken over. My moans were strong and deep. I kept having flashbacks to my prenatal class and could hear that moans that one of our teachers, Morag, was doing and I knew I was doing it right. With out a doubt I knew I was in active labour.
When Lindsay came, she asked if she could check me. She said the other lady was just about to push and if I was not very dilated and the other lady births soon, then we may be able to get back home still. I nodded in agreement but knew deep down that I wasn’t going to be going back home. This was where I was going to birth, and that was okay. Lindsay checked me and as per my request, did not tell me how dilated I was, just that we had some time. Lindsay headed back to the other lady as she was going to be pushing soon.
As soon as she left, the contractions picked up even more. All of a sudden I started feeling lots of pressure in my bum. The admitting nurse said she needed to check me again as they need to see if I should be admitted and given a delivery room. Again, she respected my choice not to know the number. After getting checked, the contractions got even stronger. I started getting pushing urges although I knew it was too soon, but it was definitely happening. The admitting nurse asked to check me again because of the pushing urges. After she checked, she said she was putting me in a room right away.
I slowly made my way into the delivery room, stopping what felt like every few seconds as another wave of contractions would go over my body. Lindsay came back and looked confused where we were all going. I told her I felt the urge to push and she told me it was still too early and to just breath through it. When I got into the room, I decided to lean over the bed, rocking my hips. Rebecca and Jodi worked together with hip squeezes and massages to help me through each contraction. Jodi asked if I wanted to try to shower and I decided to give it a go. After setting me up in the shower, Jodi handed the shower head over to Michael. There we were, just the two of us in the shower. I don’t know how long we spent in there, but it felt like quite awhile. It was wonderful and peaceful. Michael would spray the water over my back while massaging me. There was a handle that I held on to for dear life as each contraction came over me. I remember bouncing around in there while blowing raspberries to help stop the urge to push. Every so often another strong urge would come over me but I worked hard to try not to push even though that is all the my body seemed to want to do. When it got too much, something told me to just get out of the shower.
Out I went. I told them the urge was so strong. The new nurse then said she needs to check me. I laid on my back and as she checked me she happily said “You are at a 9.5! You can push!” This sweet nurse did not know about my preference to not know how dilated I was and my poor husbands eyes just about popped out of his head. He told her I didn’t want a number but I told him “No it is okay. 9.5 is a nice number!”
My plan was not to push laying down. I wanted to be standing or squatting but once my body hit that bed, I felt like I couldn’t move. I am not quite sure when it was that Lindsay joined us but I just remember her saying to go on my side. Finally I started to push. One big push and I could feel the aptly named “ring of fire.” One more push and baby’s head was out. Lindsay asked me to reach down and feel my baby’s head. It was the most amazing experience. I could feel her perfect head and could touch her sweet face. One more push and Lindsay said to go ahead and catch my own baby! It was so amazing! I grabbed her little body and put her straight on my chest.
10:30 pm on June 6, 2014 I gave birth to my baby girl Estelle Helena. She weighed in at a hefty 9 pounds 6 ounces and was 20 inches long.
Oh – my – gosh. I did it. I had a completely natural birth. No paid meds. Nothing. Just my body doing what it was made to do. I was amazed that it all happened so fast and that the epidural did not even enter my mind once. Although yes the contractions were not pleasant, I felt they were manageable. I knew they were happening for a purpose. I knew that each wave going over my body was getting me one step closer to meeting my baby. As each contraction hit, I felt myself get stronger and stronger. I trusted my body and I trusted myself.
I later found out what at the first check, I was only 4 cm dilated which means I had gone from 4 cm to fully dilated and baby in my arms in just 2.5 hours!
Much of the third stage of labour I don’t really remember. According to Michael, I was able to give birth to my placenta right away with out the use of the oxytocin shot, which is exactly what I wanted. However, as soon as the placenta was delivered, my midwife informed me that I had retained membranes and in order to reduce the chance of too much bleeding, I agreed to having the oxytocin shot. An IV was also put in for more of the oxytocin. While baby was on my chest, we tried to get her to latch to help with the natural production of oxytocin as well. Nothing was helping though. The membranes were not coming out. Lindsay then informed me that she has to call the OB in and I may have to go into the OR. I would have to be knocked out as the pain would be too much. That would mean 1-3 hours in post op recovery. For some reason I didn’t feel scared. I was upset that I would be away from my brand new baby for so long but I also felt like everything would be okay.
When the OB came in, she had me change positions and thankfully was able to pull out the membranes. Phew! No need to be separated from baby! By the time this was done, it was just after midnight on the 7th, her original due date. We were offered to go home after a couple hours but I decided to stay until the sun came up.
By 7am, we were headed home. What a great difference from my first where I was in hospital for 4 days! When we arrived home, Joseph and my parents were all awake. Joseph was very excited to meet his new baby. She was sat in her car seat and after a bit of investigating, Joseph leaned forward and gave Estelle a kiss on her forehead. My heart melted. Here were my two beautiful children. My family. I felt so lucky and could feel my heart growing as each second passed watching the two of them together.
Now that about two weeks has passed, and I have had time to process what happened, I am still in love with my birth. I will not lie and say that I am not disappointed that I couldn’t even try for my home birth. Every time I see another mom on my moms group successfully home birth, I get flooded with jealousy, despite being happy for them. Why couldn’t I get that birth?
With what happened with my retained membranes though, it is most likely I would have had to have been transferred after the birth which would have been way more stressful. Whether it would have happened at home or not, I am not sure. Would having been able to birth at home made the natural oxytocins stronger that the membranes wouldn’t have been retained at all? Who knows.
Despite the disappointment of not being able to birth at home, I still look back at my birth with pure happiness. I did something that if you had said I would do 3 years ago when I was pregnant with my first, I would not have believed you. I had my natural pain med free birth. I did it. My birth itself was full of the most wonderful support. My doulas Rebecca and Jodi were invaluable and my midwife Lindsay was so supportive of all my birth preferences. My husband was my rock. I felt safe. I felt calm. I felt empowered. My birth was beautiful.
What a journey this has been. Welcome to the world my lovely Estelle.
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I had the opportunity to collaborate with Sammie just last weekend for our Sacred Pregnancy and Conscious Birth workshop in her hometown Cebu. If you are from Cebu, please join the recently launched Facebook group Gentle Birth in Cebu.
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