me an' ian: Birth Story III

I was ready for this baby. I had had false contractions for the two weeks prior to his birth, so even though my real contractions started the morning of my 39th week of pregnancy-- it felt like it was past due. I wasn't quite sure what to expect with this labor, as my first two were vastly different experiences. This one ended up being a perfect hybrid of the two.

I labored naturally longer in the beginning than I had with Joanna's birth because of some miscommunication with the staff at the hospital that day. It seemed to take forever to get the epidural-- I was already at 6 centimeters dilated! This may not seem significant to some, but it takes me about 9-11 hours to get that far. I had been at the hospital dealing with some pretty significant contractions by the time the epidural was in. I had a few hours of relaxed comfort, when the nurse came in and said the baby's heart rate was dropping a little at the end of each contraction-- and suggested I move positions. I switched to my other side and not long after my heart rate shot up. I didn't notice anything significant, except that the machine I was hooked up to started to beep. My nurse and doctors came in to see what it was about when suddenly my heart rate dropped significantly along with my blood pressure. Simultaneously, I could feel myself losing consciousness. I felt oddly calm as the doctors rushed around me and talked at me to stay awake and helped me to move positions while administering oxygen. It was a very scary few minutes for everyone. Mostly scary for Ian, I'm afraid. I had a strong sense of peace and knew that I was okay-- but I couldn't communicate that with Ian and I hated that he had to watch, helpless, from the sidelines. It makes me want to choke up thinking about it. The good news is that baby and I were okay. We are still not sure what happened exactly but the doctors believed it may have been linked to the epidural and thus shut it off.

This meant that by the time I needed to push, all help from the epidural had worn off. I was scared.

Peter's birth was ultimately traumatic for me. By the time I started pushing with him after laboring naturally for over sixteen hours, I was so spent and motivated for it to be over that I went to a kind of crazy place. I made a quick, emotional decision to stop trusting my doula who I'd felt wasn't sensitive to the trauma I was experiencing. It seemed as though she was shaming me against the idea of medical intervention-- wanting me to go natural for her own personal reasons. The issue with this is that because she'd lost my trust, I didn't feel safe listening to her about anything. And as doula's are not technically medical professionals-- they cannot push back if you disagree with something. I decided to push aided by gravity and squatted into it-- despite the suggestions of my doula. This made it very difficult for the doctors to direct me in pushing because by the time Peter crowned (which was still a good 45 minutes later) --the gravity made it impossible for me to stop him coming out completely-- very quickly, causing me to tear significantly.

I share this only because my birth with Oslo ended up healing a lot of qualms I had with Peter's birth. First of all, it was the same delivery room. Memories flooded back as I walked into that unique corner room of UK hospital. I prepared myself mentally for my birth to be something unexpected, which it ended up being. The other significant thing is that this time around I humbly put my full trust in the doctors surrounding me, who all happened to be women. I expressed my fear as the familiar pains of pushing settled on me-- and instead of background suggestions, I listened intently to stern direction from my doctor and her team. I had encouragement, direction and strong, experienced women literally moving my body into an ideal position for pushing. It was what I was missing with Peter's birth. In my labor with Peter I ventured out on my own, feeling spent and unsafe with the team around me. Ian was my only support and saving grace in that situation-- but he was as clueless about giving birth as I was. I needed someone to command the situation, gather me up, and help me through it. I had that with Oslo's birth. I expressed my fear and they buoyed me up, gave me stern direction and within fifteen minutes of active pushing-- Oslo was born.

I'm so grateful for these life changing experiences that have shaped my heart and opened me up to those around me. I'm so grateful to have experienced each of my children's births and the significance that has been in my life. I'm so happy to be a mom. It has been my greatest blessing and my greatest challenge-- one that I revel in tackling for the rest of my life.