I want to give a humungous shout out to my doula, Cortney, as well as our birth team (my mom, David, Kali, and Corbee), my midwife and birth center staff (Mayanne, Becky, and Joanne). Everyone was incredible. I cannot thank Cortney enough for being there with us every step of the way.
At 40 weeks, I had made many minor attempts to push my body into labor, including accupressure, walking, talking to Lily, castor oil compress, homeopathics, tinctures, and more. But, at 41 weeks and 2 days, with all options considered and facing having Lily in a hospital at 42 weeks, I opted to try more vigorous natural labor stimulation techniques. On Thursday, one of the midwives did a stretch and sweep of the membranes to separate the sac the baby is in from the lower part of the uterus. I started cramping before I left the birth center. This was step one in a long natural labor stimulation process recommended by the midwives.
When I got home, I ate lunch. Luckily, I ate lunch. The instructions for castor oil said to take two hours before/after a meal. I almost took the castor oil before lunch to start early, but time would show that it would make me too sick to eat much else. Even though we believe the castor oil caused some complications that made Lily's birth a greater journey, it was the right decision for me. It was either get labor going this way or risk ending up in the hospital with pitocin a couple of days later, which would have opened us up to a wider range of interventions and complications.
At 2:00pm, continuing to cramp from the stretch and sweep, I took 4 oz of castor oil, as indicated by the labor stimulation instructions, and then I started a third four-hour round of homeopathics and tinctures in two weeks. At 3:00pm, light contractions started, but nothing different from the few pockets of deeper contractions that I'd had over the past two weeks. I soon have an onset of the infamous diarrhea facilitated by the castor oil. By 5:00pm, the contractions became stronger and more frequent. My mom made a grill cheese sandwich, which I was too nauseous to eat more than half of at that point. I continued to do the last hour of homeopathics, because I was nervous that the contractions would putter out and it would all be for naught.
By 6:00pm, I thought this was it, that labor was starting, and I knew that I need to sleep. When you think you're in labor, you need to sleep, eat, drink, shower, and take a walk. However, the castor oil had done such a number on me, laying down was extremely nauseating, so I got up. I tried to use my prerecorded Hypnobabies birth day prompts just for labor (as opposed to getting ready for labor), and I made it through the Easy First Stage Labor program once, and then decided I needed to try something different, because I needed something to coincide with my contractions.
Knowing that I really need to sleep, but unable to lay down, I eventually propped myself up on the bed with pillows. The contractions during this night were too strong to sleep through, so I dozed off for 5 to 10 minutes in between each contraction. I drank as much water and OJ as I could, and I took as many bites of fruit and peanut butter sandwiches throughout the night as possible. It is important to keep up strength during labor by eating and drinking. This would turn into a very long labor, so it was even more important that I got some food in me.
When the sun came up, Cortney and David headed over to my place to help me get down to work. We took a long walk to help speed labor, and I had to stop to work through the contractions. I could no longer walk through them as I could the day before. Rolling on the birth ball in the living room proved to be an effective technique for minimizing pressure. My back took the brunt of the pressure, because the nausea prevented me from using labor positions that would minimize that back pressure, such as laying over the birth ball and being on hands and knees. When I tried any position that would minimize back pressure and/or speed labor, I threw up. We continued to work in the living room, watching Once Upon a Time and other shows to pass the time.
The contractions became so strong that I couldn't move, couldn't speak, and couldn't listen during them. This was a great sign that things were progressing. The Hypnobabies techniques were vital during this period. I replayed the prompts in my head. During contractions, the silent incantation of peace and hypno-anesthesia targeted through my midsection were very effective in minimizing the pressure. I used the prompts to take myself deeper and deeper into hypnosis. I also discovered that if I stroked my belly that it diffused the pressure quite a bit. I eventually tried to sleep upright again during the afternoon.
At 7:00pm on Friday, when the contractions were four minutes apart, one to two minutes long, and so strong that I had to really concentrate through them, we decide to head to the birth center. After finishing packing the car, we headed out, and made it to the center by 8:00pm.
I still could only sit up, and I had to stop a couple of times between the car and my birth room. I couldn't even lay down to do an initial vaginal exam, so we did it over the toilet. I was 5 centimeters dilated after being in labor for 31 hours. I didn't want to have any vaginal exams, but after being in labor for as long as I was, I just had to know where we were at. As Cortney kept reminding me during the week and a half prior to labor, the number is not an indicator of how much longer we have. And, who knows if I'd hit natural alignment plateau before we got to the birth center or while we were there. Mayanne had previously told me that she'd like to do an initial vaginal exam, as well as a vaginal exam prior to pushing to make sure the cervix is dilated.
I rotated around the room in various positions in which I could sit up, from the birth pool, the toilet, the bench, and the recliner. Around 10pm, I was back on the toilet, with contractions so intense that I stated over and over that I couldn't do this. I couldn't do it. And, I stated out loud that I was in transition, meaning that I was moving from active labor to pushing. Everyone around me repeated to me that I had done it, that I was doing amazing. I knew that, if I was lucky, it would be less than a half hour before Lily was born. OMG!
My midwife asked me to get on the bed to do another vaginal exam. The contractions laying down were so intense that I couldn't stand it, but she asked me to stay there. It was intense, and I kept trying to wiggle away. She then asked me if I felt like pushing. Sure, I sort of felt like I could push during my last contraction on the toilet, but we just got to the birth center; I couldn't be ready to push yet, could I? But, she told me to push if I felt like it. I wanted to squat to push, because that is the best pushing position, but my back was so shot that I couldn't hold myself up anymore. So, I ran back to the toilet and pushed there. Cortney said that it was just 8 contractions worth of pushing. I wasn't pushing for very long, especially after they asked me to reach down and touch her head as it poked out. I could touch my baby's head! You mean that if I push a little harder that she could come out faster? I began to intone force through deep vibrations in my voice. I thought that I was screaming, but Cortney and my mom said that it sounded more like I was having an orgasm. Ha!
So, at 10:43pm on Friday, October 26, 2012, Lily Anne Baldwin was born on the toilet in the Aspen room at NOVA Natural Birth Center. The midwives immediately put her on my chest, and Cortney told me later that she did look up at me. I was in shock. I couldn't believe that I had just given birth. I couldn't believe that after a day and a half of hard work that this little baby was on my chest.
But, there was something wrong. There was meconium (a bowl movement) all over the place. The stress of the castor oil and long and arduous labor weighed on little Lily. The midwife waited a moment, and then clamped and cut the cord, so that she could begin to work on cleaning Lily's stomach out. She had ingested quite a bit of meconium.
While that was going on, we were waiting for my placenta to deliver. Lily's suctioning trauma made her reluctant to start to breastfeed right away, which would have help facilitate placenta delivery. But my body was done. It was just done. The ladies were asking me if I was feeling cramping. No, I wasn't feeling anything. No cramping, no after-birth contractions. They kept asking me to push the placenta out. My muscles wouldn't work. I couldn't pretend to pee or poop. I couldn't move anything down there. Because of the suctioning, it was almost two hours before we realized that the placenta was not going to deliver. The time had completely run out, and I had to make the decision to go to the hospital to have the placenta scraped out. But, I couldn't lift myself off of the floor, so I opted to have an ambulance called. By the time they arrived, I was barely conscious, and a half of a dozen people had to lift me and the whole bathroom rug onto the gurney.
As soon as the IV was pumping fluid into me, my body started having massive after-birth contractions. When we got to the maternity ward at the hospital, the doctor on call just had to tug a little and the whole thing fell out. I opted to toss it out, because of all of the meconium that was probably still in there. The doctor wanted to put me on pitocin to help the uterus make its next moves in order to prevent hemorrhage. I didn't want to do that, but after talking with my midwife, decided to do it just in case I did hemorrhage. Lily was safe out of the hospital, and she was born naturally. But, as soon as the slow drip started, I began having lots of cramping, so I asked them to turn it off to see if my body would take over, which it did.
I was so exhausted that I slept. Even after a nap, I couldn't get myself off of the bed without starting to black out. None of us had realized just how much blood I had lost over the past few days. Eventually that morning, I would have a blood transfusion. Sure, I could have rebuilt my blood supply over the next week or two. But, there was a brand new baby waiting for me to be her mama, and I couldn't do that if I couldn't walk out of the hospital. I am very happy with my decision to go to the hospital. I realize now that I wasn't going to be able to get myself off the floor of the birth center.
Lily is the most beautiful person I have ever seen, and I love her so very much. Despite our slightly difficult beginning together, we are doing amazing. More updates soon, as I am learning to manage this new life with Lily.
Happy birth day, Lily!
