When we found out we were pregnant, I knew immediately that I wanted to have a natural birth. It was important for me to be very present in every sense throughout the entire birthing process, to be able to make decisions, move around freely, and deliver the baby as peacefully and naturally as possible.
We found the Chapel Hill Birthing Center and liked the idea of delivering with a midwife in a homey clinic. They believe that birth is a natural process, not a sic
kness, and they treat it as such. Perfect for us. We took at 12-week Bradley method class to learn all about the husband-coached natural childbirth.My pregnancy was largely uneventful. I felt great most of the time and wasn't too sick or uncomfortable. Nothing unusual at all until the 32nd week when my BP started to climb.
Every week for the next 8 weeks I'd go in and they'd do a blood panel and urine tests to look for pre-eclampsia, but they all came back negative, so I figured it was just gestational hypertension or me overreacting to their continual monitoring.
On my last couple appointments, I was dilated at 3 cm and 80 effaced, and the midwives realized that Lucas was sunny-side up -- ugh, back labor. I did a million exercises to try to turn him, wrapped my belly in a sheet to pull him up and re-situate him, but he was stubbornly stuck.
On Saturday, July 16th, I started to feel really light-headed and out of sorts, so we called the birth center and they told us to come on in. Jewel met us there and took my blood pressure and urine and did a non-stress test to check the baby's heart rate and my own.
That all checked out, but the protein in my urine had doubled since I was there on Thursday, so the midwives decided that, if we didn't have the baby by Monday, they would go ahead and induce on Monday at UNC Women's Hospital. At that point, I was already overdue (original due date of July 12), so it was probably the best thing to get him out.
We still really wanted to have Lucas at the birthing center, so we talked to Jewel about natural labor-inducers and settled on a good, old-fashioned castor oil milkshake for Sunday morning. At 5 a.m., Josh mixed me up a Chunky Monkey ice cream and castor oil cocktail and I went back to bed. At around 7, I woke up with intense cramping, back pain, and diarrhea (not fun).
As the morning progressed, I realized that the cramping was in a pattern and that it was always accompanied by really intense back pain -- hello contractions. My water broke around 10, and we continued laboring at home until around 1 p.m. when the contractions were about 1 min long and coming in three-minute intervals.
We drove to the birth center, but as soon as they took my blood pressure, they decided we had to deliver at UNC -- total bummer. My mom came and met us there, and I knew immediately that I had to have her with me for the whole delivery. We hadn't really decided for sure until that moment, but I don't think I could have done it without her.
We got situated in the room at UNC where they hooked me up to a portable fetal monitor and we continued to labor -- on the toilet, in the tub, squatting with each contraction, doing lunges through the contractions, draped over the birthing ball -- you name it, we tried it. We were trying to get Lucas to turn his head so I wouldn't have back labor, but it was impossible. stubborn like his daddy.
Leigh Ann, another midwife, came to take over for Jewel around 8 or 9 at night. Before Jewel left, they tried to turn Lucas with a sheet which worked briefly and I got an hour or two of normal, non-back labor contractions -- heaven. When he turned back to sunny-side up, they decided to inject my back with water capsules to try to relieve the back labor. I should have known it was going to hurt when they told my mom to hold down one arm/leg and Josh to hold the other and they stuffed a towel in my mouth for me to scream. Yeah, it hurt. four shots in my lower back that felt like hot oil seeping into my veins. I've never screamed so loud in my whole life. It did help for a little while though.
Anyway, Leigh Ann checked me at around 10 or 11 p.m. and, while Jewel had thought I was 6 cm, Leign Ann said I was only 4 or 5 cm. My blood pressure was getting super high, so she recommended pitocin to speed the labor up and get him out of there. I asked her to do it without an epidural, but she said my blood pressure was getting too high and they wanted to see if an epidural would help to control it. She explained it to me that my options were "an epidural, a seizure/stroke (eclampsia), or a c-section" so I went with an epidural.
While the epidural helped me to get a little rest, my blood pressure kept on rising, and my midwife and the doctors there decided they needed to put me on magnesium sulfate (aka, the devil's drug) to keep me from having a seizure/stroke. Because of this, I was no longer under the care of my midwife, but under the Carolina Family Practice doctors. She was going to stay with me, but she couldn't direct my care anymore.
The mag sulfate is seriously awful. On top of back labor and contractions, I now had the shakes, was deliriously tired and throwing up, and was so freaking hot, I felt like I was in hell. I kept having them turn down the air until Josh and my mom were completely wrapped in blankets. I was still sweating and eating ice and my mom was continually putting cool wash cloths on my face. nothing helped.
The rest of that night is kind of a blur. I think we slept some. I remember my dad and Josh's parents leaving to go get some sleep. I remember telling Josh to ask our HG to pray for us because I was so afraid I was going to have a stroke and the baby would be dead.
At 6 a.m., they checked me again and I was 10 cm, so it was time to push. Sarah, my favorite midwife, came in at that point to help me through the pushing part. I was so relieved to have her there, I'm sure I cried. She was such a calming presence.
I pushed for four very terrible hours. Dr. Page (short, blonde, cute doctor) oversaw the delivery, but another resident was largely in charge of the pushing part. There was some intern looking on. The epidural made things hard because I couldn't feel my legs. Josh had to hold one while my mom held the other and it just felt like dead white. The magnesium made it almost impossible because it completely wiped me out. Not to mention, it made Lucas very sluggish, so he wasn't working himself down the birth canal how he was supposed to either.
So, I pushed and pushed. I pulled myself up on the hand rails and curled into a C shape and breathed low and down like a cow. I saw him crown and then nothing. I kept pushing and pushing and he was just totally stuck.
They told me to look down and see how far I'd come, to be proud of my progress. "That's all?!" I said when I saw just the top of his little head. after three hours of pushing, just the top. ugh. not encouraging at
all.At around 9 a.m., his heart rate started dropping and my BP started rising. Then everything happened like a scene out of ER.
There was a hyperactive nurse screaming his heart rate in my ear "70, 90, 60, 70, 90, 50" and then another someone yelling my high blood pressure (185 over 110, 190 over 100). The little petite doctor pushed the resident out of the way. Four NICU docs and two NICU nurses came rushing in the room with their little cart. Josh is crying as he watches the fetal heart rate monitor. My mom is crying as she watches Josh. I am looking at Sarah in the eye because she's the only one not crying or screaming at me.
Everyone is yelling at me to "push, push, push" as if I had forgotten. I was afraid though. I was hearing them screaming my high BPs and I just kept thinking "If I push any harder, I'm going to have a seizure and he's going to die." that was a little hard to verbalize at the time though, so I kept pushing.
Then the little blonde doctor gets in my face and tells me that, on her word, I have to push with everything I have, even if I'm not having a contraction. "Look at me," she yells. "You have to do this. You have to push as hard as you can no matter what you feel." Got it.
They put an oxygen mask on me as I push. Everyone is yelling. "PUSH." She tries to vacuum his head and the suction keeps breaking -- too much hair, too much mineral oil. "It's not working" I see her tell the resident. A change of plans now. A final push, an episiotomy, and our little gray baby gets pulled into the world.
I thought he was dead, he was so lifeless. Josh didn't have time to cut the cord. they put him on my stomach for one second while the doctor cuts it. I keep asking over and over again if he's going to be brain dead. He's so quiet. They take him away to the NICU cart in the corner where he started breathing and, apparently, peed all over the place.
They had wrapped him up and let me look at him for a second before wheeling him to the NICU.
All I had wanted to do was hold him on my chest those first two hours -- to feed him and love him and bond. no such luck. I was still on magnesium in a room away from my baby. so hard.
Sarah came in after that and we got to process the birth and express some colo
strum so they could give it to Lucas in the NICU. After that, I just slept. I had to stay connected to the mag for at least 6 hours, so I just laid in the room and slept and cried until about 3 p.m.They came in and told us they were moving me, and I could go meet our little man. He was so sweet and calm and I just held him and cried. Love at first sight.
The next day Dr. Page came in to ask me how I felt about the birth and to process things. I told her I was still unsure. I cried. She asked me if I wanted to hear her version of what happened, and I did. She told me that she thought I was strong and did the best that could
have been done in the circumstances, but everything got out of control so fast.She said, "I was talking to one of my colleagues today about offering care in third world countries and the lack of resources that they have there. I kept thinking about you and thinking how grateful I am that you had those interventions available to you because, without them, you wouldn't have made it and Lucas wouldn't have made it."
That was a sobering thought for me and helped me to put everything into perspective. No, I didn't get the birth I wanted, but I got the one that the Lord planned and I have peace about that.
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