West Leo’s Birth
I'm writing this birth story for two reasons. The first reason is so that I have a record of West's birth before I forget the details. But the second reason is to help spread the word that child birth is not scary. Child birth is not something to be feared and is a natural process that every woman is capable of. There seems to be a taboo in this country about talking about birth and I would like to change that. Women need to realize that the traumatic birth stories we are exposed to through pop culture movies and television are not the way that birth has to be. It can be an empowering wonderful experience if you just trust your body and the process. Here is my story:
West's story really begins when I was 5 months pregnant. Sitting alone at home one night I searched through Netflix and started watching The Business of Being Born. (Note to all women who may someday have a child...watch this movie NOW, not when you are 5 months pregnant) Grizzly came home about an hour into this documentary and I restarted it for him even though it was already 10pm on a work night (aka way too late for me to be up). But this movie really opened my eyes. It made me realize two things: one I was so terrified of actually giving birth that I had been refusing to even think about it. And secondly, this fear was bread through our birth phobic culture and was completely unfounded. I learned I was capable of birth and would most likely not need a c-section as I had assumed I would or an epidural for the pain. I also learned I would most likely not have a chance at having a natural birth in a hospital.
I researched local hospitals and found that every single one in the Buffalo area had a c-section rate of over 30%. I asked my OBGYN if I could deliver without constant fetal monitoring and without interventions and her response was "fetal monitoring is hospital policy, and you don't even want pitocin?" So that was the end of that doctor. From there I went on a search for birth centers in the area. The closest one was in Pittsburgh, so that wasn't an option. That left me with home birth as an option. Hmmm...sounded pretty sketchy if you asked me, but after lots of research it turns out its just the opposite as long as you are having a low risk pregnancy. There is only one certified nurse midwife in the Buffalo area that attends home births, so after going to her open house I started care with Eileen Stewart. So onto the story...
I woke up Tuesday morning the 19th, 3 days before my due date, with a cramp in my lower abdomen. Hmm...could this be a contraction? I lied in bed and waited for another one, one came along in about 20 minutes, then another in 15 minutes, then another in another 15 minutes. At around 6am I got out of bed and took a shower, and noticed several more contractions while in the shower. I was trying hard not to get excited because I thought they would stop if I got my hopes up. At 6:45 I decided that since the contractions hadn't gone away I better call my mom. So I summoned my mom who soon started the 9 hour drive from NH to Lockport with my Dad. Meanwhile, Grizzly and I hung out at home until 8am when stores would be open. I gave my midwife Eileen a call to let her know that I thought early labor had started, and that I was going into labor denial and was going to Wegmans. So off we trotted to Wegmans to get some labor food and some sandwich fixings for the following days. We also stopped by BJ’s for some paper towels, laundry detergent and baby soap. We ended up also going to Walmart too because BJ’s didn't have our laundry detergent. On our way home I stopped by my hair salon because I had an appointment that day for 4:30, and I wanted to see if my hairdresser could fit me in early. They did, so I also got my haircut before going home.
We got home around 11ish. From 11 to 2pm we just hung around the house, walked once around the neighborhood, Grizzly emailed work and we watched some tv. I called Eileen at 2:30 to give her update, still having contractions that were about 8 minutes apart now, but still not too painful, ie I was mostly laughing through contractions. I asked if I could take a nap and she said yes, so after eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich I napped from 3pm till around 4:30. I was a little bit surprised that I could sleep, and I had been reluctant to do so because I didn’t want the contractions to stop while I was sleeping.
At 5pm my mom and dad arrived, so my mom, Grizzly and I took another lap around the neighborhood. At around 6pm after sending Grizzly to the store for cocoa and confectionary sugar my mom and I started making a chocolate birthday cake with peanut butter frosting for West. It was around this time that contractions started to get more intense. I think my body had just been waiting for my mom to arrive. I was in charge of giving directions while my mom mixed ingredients, but giving directions became harder and harder. My mom made me call Eileen around 6:45 to give her an update. I called Eileen and told her my contractions were around 2-4 minutes apart and although I could still talk through them, I preferred not too. She told me that soon there would be a noticeable change. I would have some show, or my water would break or contractions would become more intense, but there would be a noticeable shift. I was to call her when I noticed this shift. I think this was probably the start of active labor.
I went upstairs and took a bath waiting patiently for this "shift". While in the bath the contractions were getting stronger, so I had Grizzly start rubbing my back during contractions. I found that I could focus on his hands on my back and that took my focus away from the contractions in my tummy. It didn’t take the pain away, but it distracted me from it. After about 30 minutes or so I got out of the tub and retreated to the bedroom. Grizzly was still in his role as chief back rubber and would rub my back whenever I requested "rub". Now at this point Grizzly was still being a little bit chatty and would still be asking me questions or talking to me during contractions. I found it so distracting to have someone talking during contractions, so I asked him to not talk while rubbing. This was also the beginning of me wanting it dark. The lights were really low in the bedroom, and later when we went into the bathroom I requested that Grizzly remove 3 of the 4 light bulbs in the vanity.
With the absence of a midwife at this time Grizzly would suggest things for me to do, like “do you want to try walking up and down the stairs?” To which I think I replied “are you out of your mind?” But Eileen had always said I should be open to try different positions, so I agreed and after the next contraction took a trip down the stairs and back up. After this contractions started getting closer together. So close in fact that Grizzly was unable to even sneak in a bite of his sandwich between contractions, he kept running to the bathroom to get a bite and I would call him back before he got the chance to even chew. I was leaning over the leather chair in our bedroom at this point and Grizzly wisely suggested that perhaps I should call Eileen. So I called Eileen at 8:30 pm and told her that my contractions were stronger than before, I definitely couldn’t talk through them, and they were one on top of the other, and I felt like I wasn’t getting much of a break. She asked if I wanted her to check on me and I agreed that that would be a good idea. At this point I was still thinking I had hours to go because my water hadn’t broken, I had seen no show, and the marked change in contractions never seemed to really arrive.
Well I hung up the phone and things progressed quickly from there. The next 30 minutes the contractions increased in frequency and intensity and I began secretly cursing Eve for eating that apple, I believe my exact thoughts were “why the f*** did you eat that damn apple EVE!, YOU B****!” But I didn’t say these thoughts out loud. Some of the contractions left me a little nauseous, so at one point I went running to lean over the toilet. Nothing followed, just a little spit. So I moved back into the bedroom and decided to lay down on the bed just for one contraction. On the bed my water broke. It felt like a pop followed by a small gush. I was still wearing undies with a pad, so the gush was handily soaked up by the pad. From the pop sensation it felt like my cervix was about the size of the O made by your thumb and index finger, which after 18 hours of labor left me feeling a little discouraged, but also hopeful that my water breaking would get things moving. After the contraction ended I headed to the toilet hoping to limit any leaking that may occur to the toilet.
Once on the toilet transition officially started with a vengeance. With the first set of contractions I threw up three times and ended up lying on my side on the bathroom floor. When they were over all I had to say was “that was intense”. And it was. I retreated back to the toilet and through the next several contractions coped by trying to feel Grizzly rub my back over the pain in my front, and gripping the towel rod with a vice grip of death. I was drenched with sweat and would lean on the towel bar between contractions to catch my breath. I was worried I was going to pull the towel rack off the wall, but Grizzly told me that would be okay. With the transition contractions I also started moaning really loudly, it somehow seemed to help with the pain. My mom began to get worried at this point and started yelling up the stairs, “I think you should call your lady now.” I wanted to tell her that we already had and she was on her way but I couldn’t talk. Grizzly was afraid to talk incase he disturbed me, so poor mom had to say that several times before Grizzly finally assured her that we had called her and she should be here in 15 minutes.
We started counting the contractions because transition should consist of around 10 or less. When we got to 4 we got somewhat confused because there were two right after one another. I remember Grizzly asking me, “was that one or two?” As the contractions continued one of them started and I said “oh god”, thinking to myself “oh not another one,” but like the ones before I managed to live through it. During another set of contractions I switched from the towel bar to wrapping my arms around Grizzly, but for the next set switched back to the towel bar.
After a while, I’m not sure how long, definitely less than 30 minutes I made it through to the other side of transition. Instead of the intense pain, the contractions were milder but were accompanied by an intense pushing feeling. My whole body would bear down without my even wanting to. I knew I was pushing the baby down, and I also knew I didn’t want to push the baby yet because Eileen hadn’t shown up yet. But bodies know what to do and the contractions continued to push out little Tigger. Just before Eileen arrived I was pretty sure I could feel the baby’s head down just about ready to come out. I wanted to reach down to check, but I was too afraid to. Nothing good could come of checking. If I checked and the head wasn’t there, then I would have thought “holy sh**, if there’s no head, then what the h*** am I feeling and what will it feel like once there is a head there?!”, and if I did check and there was a head, then I would have been super freaked out because Eileen was not there yet. So I just didn’t check. When the doorbell rang I said “THANK GOD,“ and continued to lean on my towel bar. I heard idle chatter between my mom and Eileen, so I yelled down “EILEEN!”, but they kept talking. I called out again “EILEEN!” but she still kept taking her time downstairs. Grizzly asked me if I wanted to him to shout louder and I couldn’t answer him. Finally I said “GO GET HER” and he walked to the top of the stairs and said “she’s calling for you.” I would have used slightly stronger language, like “the baby will fall out if you don’t get up here quickly” but I hadn’t told Grizzly about the head feeling.
So up came Eileen, she sat on the edge of the tub and asked me how I was. I told her calmly that I think I had gone through transition and now I was ready to push. Her response was “can I listen to the baby’s heart beat?” I thought, “Well okay, I’m pretty darn sure he’s alive as he kicks through every contractions, but go ahead check the heart beat, just hope he doesn’t fall in the toilet.” So she checks his heartbeat and then reaches in to see if she feels anything and says “There’s a baby there, Griz can you go downstairs and get the birth stool and my black bag?” She asks me where I want the birth stool, in here or in the bedroom, and I responded “I’m not walking anywhere.” So the bathroom it was. Grizzly came back with the birth stool. She placed it in front of the toilet and patted down the foam pieces on it and then let me on. Grizzly sat on the toilet to catch the baby.
Once on the birth stool I gave a single push and the head came out and a secondary push and out came the rest of him. I pushed with my eyes closed, so I didn’t see his grand entrance into the world. It didn’t hurt at all to push him out, in fact all I could think was “that was easy.” Not “oh what a beautiful baby” or “is it a boy or a girl”, but “that was easy”. Turns out it was a boy and he was screaming like a banshee. Like he was in excruciating pain or something, and nothing I did could comfort him. Not the best entrance to make a new mother feel confident.
I moved from the stool to the bathroom floor while Eileen strategically positioned pads to soak up blood and amniotic fluid. I was assured that the amount of blood was normal, but I couldn’t see it and I didn’t care. I was just trying to cuddle a screaming wiggling baby. He was born at 9:58 pm. The placenta was taking its time, so we moved to the bed once the majority of the bleeding stopped, and a short time later the placenta came out. We didn’t have sterilized scissors yet so the placenta sat in a bowl beside me for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile Tigger, who now had a name, West Leo, was still screaming. He eventually calmed down, but I don’t remember when, it was at least 20 minutes. Mom brought up the scissors and Grizzly cut the cord. I didn’t know that the cord was clear. That surprised me. It also surprised me that Tigger had a perfect little head, no cone shape or anything. I thought he was beautiful and perfect and as much as I tried I just couldn’t see that his nose was crooked. Everyone kept saying it was crooked and would straighten out, but I couldn’t even see that it was crooked. He just looked perfect.
Eileen stayed and after a while gave the baby a quick physical and weighed and measured him. He weighed 7lbs 5 oz and was 19.5 inches long. I was told to drink so I drank several glasses of juice and water. Eileen couldn’t leave until I peed, so I eventually got up and did that. It burned something wicked, and then Eileen wanted me to squirt my nether-regions with a squirt bottle which was not going to happen, so she offered to do it for me. That burned too. At some point she examined me and said that I didn’t need any stitches which was exciting. She finally left around 1:00am and Grizzly, West and I spent the night together. West slept on my chest and was passed off to Grizzly when I needed to use the restroom. It was a great night, not much sleep but it didn’t matter.
Having my birth at home, nearly unassisted was so empowering. I felt like super woman. Like I could now do anything. Everytime over the next several days when I tried to nap I couldn’t fall asleep right away because I kept going over the whole event in my head and how wonderful everything was. By the next morning I already had forgotten what the contractions felt like and what transition felt like. I know that it was painful, but I couldn’t describe the feeling for the life of me, and I don’t even think of the birth as painful, but rather as one big giant high. It was the best experience ever. I am very grateful to have such a wonderful midwife, and such a wonderful husband to support me in my decision to have an unconventional birth experience.