I’m going to start at the beginning of this story, and it might be a bit longer than the story of his brother!
My Husband and I were married on June 30th, 2006. I was excited to start our family right away, and it took a couple months to get DH on board, he was enjoying newlywed life very much without the pressure of being a Dad. But I grew up as an Aunt at a pretty young age, and loved seeing the joy and love in my siblings’ families as they welcomed their little babies into the world, and I very much wanted that for us.
Finally, 4 months after our wedding day, my husband said we could “try” for a baby in February. But I convinced him we might as well start trying right away, because I had been on birth control and it might take a while… Little did I know I would be very fertile! I believe that I had one month where I got my period and was very disappointed and sad, but the next month, I didn’t get it, and took an early test on December 20th, 2006 and found a positive result! We were both so happy!
Being an active duty Army family, I went straight into the Army hospital and was so excited for my first appointment. I didn’t even think anything of it that I had to sit in the waiting room for long periods of time only to see a Nurse Practitioner every time. I was able to get an ultrasound at about 8 weeks, just in time to have a picture of our tiny peanut to laminate and send with DH as he headed out for a 9 week course called Ranger School. My husband was able to look at the picture of his little unborn baby and think of us during some of his darkest hours (including when I didn’t write to him for a couple of weeks due to me being sick and traveling and not having his correct address!)
Anyway, in April, when my husband graduated Ranger School, we went to a 3D ultrasound office the next Monday to find out the gender of our little bundle and found out it was a Boy! We were so excited. DH knew right away that he wanted to name him Milo. So we did.
Fast forward a couple months later, and we moved across the country from Georgia to Washington State. I was around 30 weeks pregnant by the time I got into the system and went to my first prenatal appointment. The OB clinic at that Army hospital was much bigger than the one in Georgia, and they had an entire practice of Midwives. I thought that sounded cool to try, since my Mom had been pretty organic and natural starting when I was a teenager, and one of my sisters had told me enough of her her great experiences with her births that she had with midwives in attendance. So I met with them, and I vividly remember the first meeting with – Nurse H. (I still remember her name, but I won’t put it on here). I was all smiles, and so excited, as I waited in the room. She came in and took one look at me and asked me where my water was (I was supposed to be drinking a lot of water as a pregnant woman, and I usually carried my water bottle with me everywhere, but that day, by the time I found a parking space and waddled inside the huge building, I realized I left it in the car). I told her that, and she scolded me for forgetting it. I started to feel stupid. She then asked me why I wanted the midwives instead of the OB’s to attend my birth. I was taken aback, and muttered something about wanting a natural childbirth. So she asked me what I have done to prepare myself for such a birth. I must have looked like a deer in headlights, because I was struggling to understand what in the world I could possibly do to prepare myself for something like that! I thought you just had the baby!
She then explained to me that I had until my next appointment to do some research and find a method of pain management through a birthing class of some sort, and if I didn’t get serious, they wouldn’t attend my birth, because they had a lot of moms on the wait list, and not enough midwives.
I left in tears. I went home and got on the internet. I was overwhelmed at first, but did some reading about things, and said some prayers. A few minutes later, I stumbled upon Hypnobirthing.com, and instantly felt a weight lifted off my shoulders and got so excited reading the birth stories! I found two private instructors in the area we lived, and I felt drawn to one of them more than the other. So I gave her an email, and we had a meeting set up for that Sunday night! My husband was on board after our first meeting, upon learning about all the interventions and risks that come from them, if I didn’t end up preparing for a natural, drug free birth.
So, luckily, at my next midwife appointment, Nurse H. went much easier on me, and was very pleased with my choice to learn and practice HypnoBirthing! I finished our last class a week or so before my due date, and was a little worried about not having very much time to practice it, and my husband was gone a lot training, so we didn’t really get to work on the partner relaxation techniques, so I really focused on the breathing and visualization so that I could bring myself into a state of relaxation all by myself. I still wanted my husband to be involved and do what he could, but he truly just wasn’t home very much to be able to learn it. I also invited my hypnobirthing instructor, Karen to attend our birth. She agreed to come.
Flash Forward to September 3rd. I was officially past my due date (Aug. 30), and had been told at my last appointment that if I hadn’t had the baby by Friday of that week, I’d have to come in to be induced by some sort of balloon placed inside my cervix to dilate it! I left that appointment hysterically crying, vowing that I just wouldn’t go into the hospital and they couldn’t make me!
On September 3rd, Monday, my in- laws had been in town for a week already, awaiting the arrival of their first Grandchild together (my husband has older half siblings that have children, but this would be Nana and Papa’s first grandchild of their four children together, if that makes sense?")
That day, we all took an hour drive up the freeway to eat at my Father in Law’s favorite restaurant out there, Claim Jumpers. I had a big old piece of chicken with mashed potatoes and lots of other yummy food! Then we went to the Seattle Ikea. We did a lot of walking around the store, and I joked about having the baby on one of their beds in a showroom!
My mother in law and I took a potty break together, and I was so excited to see that I had started to have a “show!” I freaked out a little bit and told her there was some blood, and she told me that stuff was starting to happen!
So, we wrapped up the shopping and headed back to our apartment. My in-laws went to their hotel to give us some privacy {they were very thoughtful about everything} and as soon as I laid down on the couch, I started having regular contractions, or “surges”. I don’t remember how far apart they were, but I remember wanting to stay home for as long as possible to avoid unnecessary interventions at the hospital. I think it was around 7 pm when we got home, and by 10 pm, I was starting to not be able to stay on top of the surges, and felt like we should head over to the hospital. I think by that point, I had taken a bath to see if it was true labor, and it was, because the bath upped the intensity a lot! On our way to the car, I had to stop every contraction and lean on something or get down on my knees.
On our way to the hospital, about a 10 minute drive, it started thundering and lightning. This made me so happy, because even with all the rain that we get out there, it hardly ever really storms, and I love a good storm. So I took it as a good omen, and I had no idea how true that would turn out to be later on!
Since it was after 10 pm, we had to enter the hospital through the ER. I waddled to the desk with my husband, and there was one person in line in front of us. My husband, used to bossing his platoon around, wanted to take charge right away of how slow they were working! So he kind of butted in front and asked for them to call up to L&D to send someone down to get us, since that was the procedure. They called up there, worried that I was going to drop this baby in the middle of the ER, but apparently, everyone up there was too busy, so we’d have to wait a few minutes. This was unacceptable to my DH, who demanded they just let us come up on our own, but they wouldn’t allow that, because what if I gave birth in the elevator?! So finally after many calls upstairs and down, they said they were sending someone down, and to meet them at the elevator. So the ER guy leads us to the elevators and leaves. The door opens, and a smiling woman is inside, and gestures to go up. We hop in, the doors close, and she doesn’t push a button. She was waiting for us, but we didn’t know what button to push, and when we ask her, we realize she doesn’t speak English, and points to her badge, and it turns out she is a janitor! So I guess we must have known it was on the 3rd floor, because we make it there, but the ER guy took us to the wrong corridor, so we were at the wrong end of the floor, and it was dark, and I was starting to have major trouble walking through the contractions. My husband was SO Mad, and he called Labor and Delivery from his cell phone and they talked us through with the directions through the maze of hallways to the proper entrance. When we got to the desk, the reception nurse told us to sit down (there were no chairs) and wait.
At this point, as first time parents, we didn’t know what the heck was going on or how far into labor I was, and my husband was getting pretty fed up by all these people not doing their jobs very effectively! He tried to ask the guy what was going on, and the guy shushed him, and my husband actually said some expletives to the man and that got his attention! I had never heard DH talk to anyone that way, and I thought it was pretty funny and cute that he was trying to be so defensive of me! We finally were allowed to sign in, and assigned a tiny little curtained off room in their triage to assess how far in labor I was. We waited in there for quite a while, all while I kept getting more and more uncomfortable, laying on this little tiny exam table waiting for someone to come and measure how far dilated I was. Also, the woman one curtain over was screaming her head off, and another woman was vomiting repeatedly! I kept plugging my ears, because it was making me tense up, and I didn’t like knowing that they were having that much problems controlling themselves, when I was easily breathing through my surges, did that mean they would send me home because I was only 1 cm???
Finally, someone checked me, and I was at 4cm, so they sent me to my birthing room. I had asked ahead of time if I could labor in the ONE TUB they had for the whole floor, which was on a first come first serve basis. Thankfully, it was available, and my first midwife that had made me cry, Nurse H., but who I had learned to love, was on call that night. She stayed by my side through every contraction, my in- laws arrived and were waiting in the waiting area, and my Hypno birthing instructor was there in the room, too. Her presence calmed me, just knowing she was there, and she really didn’t do much, except remind me to breathe, and remind me what I wanted. She wasn’t my doula, so she would never tell me what to do, or touch me. She was very much moral support, but I was so happy she was there.
I don’t think I was in that tub for very long when I must have been going through transition, and I had the thought of, “OH! This is what everyone is talking about when they talk about labor being painful!” I started freaking out, and thrashing around like a drowned cat!! I could not get comfortable or stay on top of my breathing, because I was starting to get scared that I couldn’t handle it for much longer. I remember that during the contraction, instead of breathing, I would beg and cry for an epidural, but as soon as it was over, I would feel no pain at all, and would start smiling! Finally after a few minutes of this nonsense, my midwife told me that if I asked her three times when I was NOT having a contraction, she would give me an epidural. But if I only begged for it during the throws of a contraction, she absolutely would not! That made a lot of sense, and even though I kept it up, I knew deep down that I really didn’t want one.
Finally, I don’t remember if she checked me or if they could just tell it was getting close to pushing, I got out of the tub and waddled back down the hall to my room. I had left my bra on while in the tub, because I’m a pretty modest person, but when I got out of the tub, I was shivering, so I took it off and wrapped up in a towel, then changed into a hospital gown in my room. Only, they barely got the hospital gown on, and didn’t have time to tie it before I was needing to find a comfortable position. I remember I thought I would try sitting on the birth ball, and it took one second of sitting on it before I jumped right off because it just didn’t feel good! So I got on the bed, and they raised it so I was sitting up right, mostly, and checked me. They told me I was fully dilated, and if they broke my waters, the baby would be here in “5 minutes.” How do you say no to that!?!?! It was way too tempting, and I looked at Karen and asked her if that was OK, even though in our classes, it was technically an intervention that usually snowballs into other interventions. And it turned out to be true. But I agreed that I wanted this over with, so no sooner had they artificially ruptured my membranes when Milo’s heart rate dropped. I wish I had the notes, because I don’t know to what level it dropped, but I guess it was enough for them to freak out, and next thing I know, I was flipped over on all fours and was forced to breathe into an oxygen mask. I remember actually feeling really calm at this point, and was actually a little bit out of my body, watching what was happening, but not being able to communicate or say anything.
Since they hadn’t had time to tie my gown, and I was on all fours, it had completely fallen off, and my bum was up in everyone’s face. I remember I looked up and about 10 people were in the room suddenly, and my Midwife said something about having no choice but to turn me over to the OB on the floor because of his heart rate dropping. Looking back, I believe it was only dropping during the surges, but then picking back up. I didn’t have time to ask one single question, and my husband was really freaked out at this point, seeing me breathing oxygen, and all the fuss over the baby. He didn’t ask anything, let alone know what to ask.
Next thing I know, I’m being wheeled out of the room on my hospital bed, and I overhear someone say something about a C- Section. I remember screaming at the top of my lungs, “ NO!!! NO! I can do this! I can do this!!” I just knew that nothing was wrong! My in- laws heard me screaming from the waiting room, and were very concerned. At this time, it was around 1 am, probably.
They got my bed wheeled into the OR, and I think I was just in there with a nurse while everyone else was scrubbing up and putting on their gowns and gloves. I know from my husband’s point of what happened what transpired next. I was pretty much closing my eyes and just trying to breathe and relax, and I remember not feeling like I was even in pain anymore, I think his head was actually so low that it was numbing a lot of sensations, or else I was in shock! But while my husband was waiting to scrub up after the OB and nurses, the storm outside, which, unbeknownst to us, had turned into a quite large lightning storm, and had struck somewhere and caused a massive blackout! The lights went out in the hospital for a couple of minutes! But the OR had it’s own generator, so I never saw the lights go out. My husband recalls being so afraid for me, in the dark, not knowing how me or the baby was doing across the wall in the OR, while he helplessly hit his fists against the wall.
Finally, the lights came back on, and when everyone was in the room with me, they found that Milo’s heart rate had picked back up nicely, but because of the scare, they insisted that I get an epidural and would only give me a certain amount of time to “push him out,” or it was a C-Section for me.
Getting the epidural was the worst part! I was fully dilated, ready to push, and they wanted me to curl into a ball and lay perfectly still! Somehow, it worked, and I remember being really mad that I had labored the entire time drug free, only to get an epidural at the very end! That made me so mad… After the epidural, I couldn’t even feel when I was having a contraction, so I didn’t know when to push. So I had to feel my belly to know when I was having a one. Every time I would feel that tightening, I would push with everything I had, flat on my back on the operating table! If not for the epidural, I’m sure it would have been very uncomfortable. Apparently, my pushes weren’t effective enough for the OB, so she informed me that she needed to use forceps to get him out before he went into distress again. I was pretty out of it at that point, and truly felt like I was having an out of body experience. Also, the reality of the surgery was very real, and I just wanted him out so that I didn’t have to get a C- Section.
So a few minutes later, at 1:37 am, Milo was born. All I saw was a bluish looking foot as they whisked him across the room to be checked out. I told my husband to go with him, and I was asking him what he looked like. DH told me he had long eyelashes and lots of hair! I couldn’t believe it! I really wanted to hold him, but I was just so relieved that he was born, and the threat of surgery was gone, and he started crying and he was absolutely perfect, 8 lbs, 4 oz.
The rest is kind of a blur, but I guess they stitched me up, since I tore a bit from the forceps, but I didn’t feel anything, again, from the epidural, at which that point, I was glad to not have to feel the afterpains. I have no memory of the placenta being born, or how we even got back to our delivery suite, where I finally got to hold my baby about 30 minutes later. I thought he looked a lot like his Grandpa, who had been in the waiting room all through this, and they came in to meet him. I wanted to nurse him, so they said their goodbyes, and I remember some male nurse trying to show me how to nurse my baby, and I was so uncomfortable and starting to sweat a lot, and just wanted him to get his hands off of my nipples! It was so awkward!
We were moved to the recovery wing, where I was put in the far corner of a very large room, equipped for 6 moms to be in at once- with one bathroom. Thankfully, I didn’t have to share. I remember a baby down the hall crying non- stop, like a crack baby, is what I kept thinking, and it was not very restful. My husband and I were so exhausted from the whole ordeal, even though it actually happened pretty fast, especially for a first birth. We were admitted around 10:30 pm, and he was born at 1:37 am.
The next day, they took the baby off to be circumcised, something I hadn’t even thought about at all before hand, and I kind of shrugged when they asked me if he would be, like, “I don’t really know, should he be?” and I don’t really remember anyone telling me any of the risks, but I really felt at peace with the Pediatrician who was on the floor that day, and it turned out she was of the same faith as me, and knew one of my best friends from growing up. So my husband went with Milo to be circ’d. When they got back, all Milo wanted to do was sleep and sleep and sleep. He wouldn’t wake up to feed, and they were very concerned about this. I remember that I had one very kind nurse who knew that I didn’t want to give him a bottle, so she showed me how to hold the baby and get his mouth open while he was sleeping, and use my hand to express colostrum out into his little mouth. She told me how many drops I needed to give him during every 2 hours, and as long as he was making wet diapers, it was OK if he kept sleeping- it was a coping mechanism from the Circumcision. When I found that out, I felt really bad, because before that, he had been pretty alert and a good nurser.
But then, the nurses changed shifts, and I had a really annoying nurse who decided that 3 am is a great time to go over paper work with me and make me sign lots of stuff that I could hardly keep my eyes open to hear what she was saying, but she wouldn’t go away. She looked at my breastfeeding log I was supposed to be keeping of how often the baby was feeding and peeing and pooping, and I guess I hadn’t written anything for several hours since we had been SLEEPING and she flipped out! She brought in the world’s biggest double breast pump which was more like a vacuum, and hooked it up to me while I was pretty much comatose, I was so tired! I remember she left, and I unhooked it, and just started hand expressing the colostrum into Milo’s mouth again, because that pump thing hurt SO BAD!!!
The next day, we were allowed to go home, and I was so happy to have my little baby at home, and he still was pretty sleepy for a couple of days. I did get pretty worried the first night we were home, he wouldn’t wake up to eat, and I was a wreck. My husband had a friend from church come over and give him a blessing, and after he finally woke up to eat, he never had any more problems nursing. My milk came in on like day 4, and he was much more awake once that happened!
I don’t remember being angry or upset about the way his birth went once we were home, I recovered very quickly, wanting to take walks and be outside to enjoy those sunny days after his birth, since they were rare. It wasn’t until I was pregnant with #2 a year later, that I started analyzing Milo’s birth, and how even though I was very pleased to have been able to labor in the tub and not be pressured to have drugs or stay in bed up until his heart rate dropped, I realized that had I not consented to them breaking my water, that he probably wouldn’t have had any problems. Or, if they had explained things to me, and given me choices, I think we could have avoided the OR completely. I found out that it is common for the heart rate to fluctuate after the water breaks during a contraction, but as long as the baby is handling the stress, they are OK. But it was a teaching hospital, and they were very quick to intervene at the slightest disruption or deviation from a “perfect labor.” So I decided that with the second pregnancy, things would change….
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