I had to write this to process and reflect on this journey. To grieve what was hoped for, the extra stress that was put on my body and my baby and the trauma of birthing somewhere I hands down didn’t want to be. I also enjoyed reading other peoples birth stories while pregnant and to normalize talking about the details of birth, good and bad. It’s here for me mainly, it’s longer than our normal blogs but read on if you want!
Before I was even pregnant I envisioned my birth at a midwife birthing center. I didn’t think I was one of those moms who would bring there baby into the world at home. I thought I was being safe but still in a medical setting. The more research I did into births I realized that home births were safe and that was the right place to birth for us. I wanted to birth as physiological normal and hands off as possible and being at home gave us the best chance for that possibility.
Let’s just start with birthing was the hardest thing I’ve ever done but also the most special rewarding and life giving experience. Start of contractions to baby Lo being earth side was about 7 hours. Here’s the full story of bringing Edison into this world.
My due date was July 24, but we weren’t focused or worried about the specific date because we trusted our baby to come into this world when they were ready.
We had our 38 week midwife appointment at our house on July 14. Our midwife, Lauren, noticed she could feel more of baby while touching my belly and my fundal height still hadn’t changed since about 35 weeks. We’d attributed my fundal height to baby dropping early and the way they were positioned in my uterus (head down, hanging out more on my right side). Just to be sure and check on baby’s growth she wanted to do an ultrasound.
The growth ultrasound was the next day July 15. It was very hard to see patients that morning, all the negative thoughts of something was wrong with our baby. But Jerry kept telling me everything has been perfect so far with this pregnancy and this was going to be no exception. Jerry wasn’t able to go since this was a last minute appointment. Baby’s size was perfect but the tech said she needed to talk with physician before I could be released. I felt that wasn’t a good sign. She came back and said Lauren our midwife would call me with results.
Lauren called around noon and said “it’s not looking great.” Immediate tears started flowing. My amniotic fluid was very low at 3cm and it should be safely 5cm or higher. She gave us two options: move forward with an induction at the hospital or wait it out and get ultrasounds every other day to monitor the baby and fluid.
I had my first cervical check and I was 1cm dilated at 12:45p, she also swept my membranes.
It was such a hard decision. I trusted my body that it knew what it was doing but we didn’t know how quickly I would go into full on labor since this was my first pregnancy. I felt deep down that all was fine and my body was just in the early preps for birth and we should stay at home and be monitored. But on the flip side waiting it out could have pushed me into an emergency c-section or even worse, stillborn, fetal distress, etc.
We decided over many tears to go to the hospital for an induction at 8:30pm that night July 15th. I was pissed to be there, it felt like prison with Covid because we could only have one support person and no one could leave once they arrived or they weren’t allowed back. Our night nurse wasn’t friendly or welcoming and she was very rough with her cervical checks.
At 10pm I was 2 cm dilated and they started the cervical ripening drug to get me to 3cm. I was able to sleep for an hour before we moved to a room that had a tub. At 3:30 am they started the pitocin. I started having slight contractions right after they started the pitocin. They were about 30 seconds long and coming every 2-6 minutes with some breaks here and there.
Somewhere around 7am we called our midwife who was acting as our doula since we couldn’t have our actual doula with us due to Covid restrictions. She said she would start getting ready to come up the hospital for support because I wanted to give up at this point and the contractions were getting intense. I had it in my head that this was going to be a very long day. Lauren recommended getting in the tub to relax and that help tremendously. The OB was scheduled to show up around 8-8:30a. I got out of the tub right before that and started bleeding on the floor and that made me nervous. But out day nurse reassured us that it was all okay.
Funny things you do in labor: Answer the phone call from your mortgage office at 6cm dialed during a contraction because we were supposed to close on our re-finance the next day. Can you confirm a time for tomorrow? Nope I’m currently having a baby any minute. Silence on the other end of the phone. 🙂
The OB walked in as I was laying down so he could do cervical check and I felt a tiny rush of fluids. It was my water breaking! Lauren had prepped us to not let the OB break my waters until after lunch to just let my body labor as natural as possible with just the pitocin. I was 5cm dilated at 830am and he was leaving to go to his office for the morning and would be back to check on me this afternoon. That info from him and my own thoughts were hard to control. I was struggling because I thought I had many more hours of this. All at the same time our midwife was texting Jerry letting him know this could be the afternoon or even later before the baby was born, she just wanted to prep him for the long haul. I was ready to give up and get an epidural at this point, Jerry knew my true intentions and knew it was just talk. What we didn’t know until a few minutes later that I was transitioning into the last phase of labor and getting ready to push.
Not even 15 minutes later I had the intense urge that it was time to push. Something that I couldn’t control, it was amazing. I told the nurse and she just said do what you feel you need to do and the next rest she did a cervical check and I was fully effaced at 10 cm with just a slight cervical lip remaining. Jerry texted our midwife who was on her way that “it was happening” at 850am. The call for delivery staff to come to the room and the OB was called to turn around and come back to the hospital. I didn’t think our midwife or the OB was going to make it at this point. Lauren showed up around 9:15am and was the biggest support to help me through the last bits of labor. Our OB made it with about 20 minutes to spare. Edison was born just before 9:45am into Jerry’s hands, with a quick unloosing of the cord around his neck, he was laid on my chest where I found out we had a baby boy. And he quickly let me know this little fact by peeing directly on my face.
He was skin to skin on my chest while Jerry cut the cord and he stayed there bonding for the next 30-45 minutes before we attempted our first feeding when he started rooting around. Lauren thankfully was there to help with this. He got weighed and measured after his first feeding. And that is how Edison was born with a full head of hair.
