Happy Birth Day Lily!

It was the most incredible three days of  my life.  Lily Anne was born on October 26, 2012 at 10:43pm at NOVA Natural Birth Center in Chantilly, Virginia. I had been nervous that if Lily's birth didn't go as planned that I would be devastated. And, I didn't have my vision of the perfect birth, but what I did do was make all of the right decisions for me, manage Lily's birth as well as I could, and I owned it.  The danger in not owning your birth story is that it can make connecting with new baby more difficult, as well as lead into postpartum depression.  Most importantly for me, I had a natural birth with a very healthy, happy, beautiful little girl.

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!

Hypnobabies Class #1

Hypnobabies is a birth class that builds on natural birth methodology by using self-hypnosis as the primary pain management tool.  In fact, it replaces words like "pain" and "labor" with "pressure waves" and "birth time" as a mechanism for training the brain to have a positive, easy birth experience.  When I first got pregnant, I started reading birth stories.  Some of them were painless birth stories that sited using self-hypnosis. The two main programs for self-hypnosis through birth are Hypnobirth and Hypnobabies.

Of course, I'm going to employ tools to have a happy and easy birth.  So, I ordered the Hypnobabies home study course.  It suggests that you have two months to go through the course materials and practice.  I didn't realize until I started going through the course that it advises to not do Hypnobabies with another birth class, even Bradley.  The reasoning is that those classes have stories of worst case scenarios and/or talk about managing pain.  The Hypnobabies program is supposed to work more effectively if mom is completely relaxed, expecting no pain, and has 100% confidence in the self-hypnosis tools.  The founder of the Hypnobabies program used to teach the Bradley birth method and much of the same material is supposed to be included.  I almost canceled the Bradley course after reading this, but I decided to go ahead and do both.    Since Baby Daddy won't be my birth coach, I felt that going through the Bradley class in person would connect Cortney and I together in this process.  And, that is so true.  I really do feel like it is already helping us to be a better team on Lily's birth day.  Then, it becomes a situation where I am adding hypnosis tools to the Bradley class, not the other way around.  I am also really thankful for the 12 week Bradley format and getting to check in with folks every week.  It keeps me accountable.

The two main components of the home study course is a workbook and CD's.  Two tracks are supposed to be listened to daily.  One track is a set of daily affirmations that runs 30 minutes.  The other track is one of the self-hypnosis tracks that also runs about 30 minutes.  Only one affirmation track can be listened to while driving.  Everything else is done through invoking a hypnotic state.

The program uses affirmations to change patterns of thinking.  The joyful affirmations CD is focused on creating a positive, healthy, and safe image of birth for a mother.  It is essential that we relax during the birth process.  Fear causes tension in the muscles, and tense muscles don't allow the uterus and rest of the body to function properly, so that causes pain.  A relaxed, calm birth will be less painful to the mother.  Hypnobabies goes one step further to encourage the body to release its own anesthesia into the body.  According to our Bradley instructor and the Hypnobabies workbook, birthing mammals instinctively seek out a dark, isolated, and quiet space in which to birth.  And then, they mimic sleeping while giving birth.  Humans can simulate this state by breathing deeply from our abdomen while making sure to completely relax.

This is starting off to be a great class.  I am working to make Lily's birth the most positive, happy, easy birth day possible.  I won't be disappointed if the plan has to change.  I can only do my best now and when the time comes to meet her.

First Bradley Birth Class - Exercise

I attended my first Bradley birth class yesterday with my new birth coach and doula, Cortney!  Read about her experiences on this journey on her birth coach blog.  Cortney's aspiration for the next part of her life is to become a certified nurse midwife.  As she's exploring how nursing school will fit into her life, she will begin midwifery school in September, and she just started training to become a certified doula.  While a midwife monitors and oversees the care of a pregnancy and birth, a doula can be enlisted to support a laboring mother in whatever way she needs.  This can include communicating the needs of the mother to others, getting food, suggesting new birth positions, suggesting ways to manage pain, and being emotional support, etc.

Bradley is a natural birth method delivered in 12 weekly classes.  The first class covered ways of handling pain and some simple exercises to build strength in areas of the body that we'll need to be strong for an easier birth.  Ways of handling pain include sleeping, eating, drinking water, applying pressure and changing position, etc.  Exercises for an easier birth include relaxing, walking daily, kegels, and pelvic rocking, etc.

We were in a class of about seven other pregnant families.  It is a method that encourages coaching and support by husbands or other birth partners.  These women are due within a month of when I am due (middle of October), from the middle of September to the middle of November.  While all of the husbands were super supportive, some of the men were more vocal than others.  Our class instructor mentioned that often fathers don't feel participatory in the pregnancy and the birth class gives them a great way to do become involved.  I am happy that Cortney and I get to attend together, because this will connect us both more with birthing together.

We answered some true/false questions about pregnancy myths.  All of the answers should have been false, but I thought a couple of them could be true. In fact, our instructor said that these could be true, but they aren't ideal.

Since childbirth is a natural function, women don't need classes, but can rely on their instincts to get them through it.  From what I've read to this point, I feel like I could give birth by listening to my body without further instruction.  Our instructor said that while this can be true, our cultural understanding of birth is different from most of the world.  Other cultures grow up seeing their family members give birth, so they intuitively know what works and what to expect.  In our culture, we don't see birth, and when we do, it's the worst case scenario on television.  I do think that for my personal beliefs about the medical industry and the human body, that I am less susceptible to influence by American cultural understandings of birth.  But, it surrounds us all, and she makes a valid point.  The Hynobabies home study course advises women to not allow negative or painful birth images or stories into their lives while preparing or birth.

It is all  right if your nutrition is not as good as it should be when you're pregnant because the baby can take what it needs from the mother. I felt like there is truth to this, because with everything Baby Daddy put me through, I was having trouble getting and keeping food down for several weeks.  I lost so much weight, I barely looked pregnant at five months, and I was so scared that I was going to miscarry or cause major damage to the baby.  I weighed less five months pregnant than I have weighed in the last 6 years.  However, at the 20 week ultrasound, the technician said that the baby was 13 oz.  My weekly Babycenter.com weekly email said that babies are around 10.5 oz at 20 weeks.  I was so happy that she was taking what she needed from me.  Our instructor said that while it is true that the baby will take what it needs from the mother, those nutrients still need to be there in the first place, or else the baby cannot take them.  That makes sense.

We each pulled a question about pregnancy to answer while we made our personal introductions.  My question was "What I expect to enjoy the most about our labor and delivery is..." I expect to enjoy experiencing the natural miracle of the human body as I explore the wonderful gifts that are innate within us.  I believe that we were built to have babies, and baring no major complications, I am so excited to see the natural process unfold.  I have been enamored with the many gifts that Mother Nature has given us, like breast milk, the life-enriching fluids of the umbilical cord, and the vernix, and I am so excited to continue to embrace these gifts of birth and the new gifts I am learning about for more easily laboring my bundle of joy into the world.

Near the end of class, we practiced some of the simple exercises, such as pelvic rocking and side lying.  As I was lying on my side, I looked back and realized that Baby Daddy wasn't there with me.  As I started to get sad, I had to remind myself how mean he was to me, how poorly he treated me, and that he didn't care about us anymore. That the man who was so excited to start a family with me didn't exist.  He wasn't real. I am so lucky that Cortney is so excited to be my birth partner.  I don't know what I would do without her as my friend and cheerleader.

Finding that Birth Center

I think that the comfort of having a birth at home for me is related to my living situation.  Right now, we have two wonderful roommates, there is not any real space to give birth, and everything is carpeted in the house.  I'm due in October, and we're planning to buy a house in July, so who knows what the situation will be then.  I've talked about why we don't want to use a hospital.  So, we were on a mission to find a nice birth center and a midwife with s similar philosophy to us about health.

When we started searching for birth centers in our area, we only came up with one.  There were certified nurse-midwives that worked there, and we discovered as we went along that we wanted to opt for a certified professional midwife instead to further remove ourselves from a conventional birth.  We didn't make an appointment with any midwife yet, because I was waiting to hear which place Sean recommended, as he's done way more research about childbirth than I have.  There was some spotting, so I started to freak out and just made an appointment with the certifed nurse-midwife that my pregnant coworker recommended just to make sure everything was all right.  After that experience, I was determined to find the right birth center, so I searched again.  Up popped  a new place that looked pretty fancy, so I scheduled us to attend the next open house.

The open house at the birth center went well. We sat in a circle in the cozy waiting room, shared our introductions, and then asked questions about having a baby at the birth center with the midwives. One of the women was having her fourth child, but this was the first child for everyone else.  Two of the men were doing their due diligence to the process by coming with a list of questions.  One of those gentlemen printed a list of questions off of the internet that was touted as good practice to ask prospective midwives. I had seen many of those question lists while researching midwives.  The other questioning gentleman was affixed on numbers and percentages of complications, deaths, and transfers to the hospital.

As long as we were in an environment with knowledgeable and experienced professionals where we had little interference from those who would push conventional medicine practices on us, we knew that we would make a fine choice. So, we were sure that we would have no problem at this birth center. We still had a few questions, but they were answered without us having to ask.  One of the midwives was originally a nurse that helped deliver babies at a hospital.  She said that she didn't want to work as a certified nurse-midwife in Virginia, because they are required to have a doctor back up and do tend to rely on conventional practices more so than certified professional midwives.  CNM's and CPM's do go through the same midwifery training.  That same midwife is also trained as a naturopathic doctor.  Before Sean could ask how they felt about hypnobirthing techniques, since we plan to use Hypnobabies, I pointed out that there were hypnobirthing pamphlets on one of the tables.  Score.  And, to put icing on the cake, the other midwife was drinking out of a glass VOSS water bottle just like we do.  This all said to us that it was very likely we shared many of the same philosophies about health.

The birth rooms there are nicer than any room in our house. Each has an electric fireplace, a birth tub, and their own private bathrooms with showers.  The use of the birth tub can be a last moment decision, as laboring moms are often guided to the right position by their bodies.

The only downside is that neither Sean's nor my insurance covers the birth center.  The total fee will be  $3,400 if we pay by cash or check before my 28th week.  So, we've made an appointment for the first week in April.

No Hospital For Our Baby

Sean and I knew that we did not want to give birth in a hospital.  There is this whole rigamarole with hospitals.   Parents have no control over how their baby is born or what happens to them or their babies when birthing in a hospital.  Eh, you get some illusion of control, but if the doctor deems it necessary, that goes out the window.  Parents might have let their provider know of their wishes and birth plan.  But, when you're in the hospital, you're in the domain of doctors.  What you want and what actually happens are two different things.

In the hospital, mothers give birth on their backs with their legs spread wide in stirrups.  This is the best position for the doctor to work.  However, this is not the best position for the mother and baby during birth.  In fact, women are encouraged to stay in bed and not move into comfortable positions.  A women's body will let them know what position it needs to be in if we let it do it's job.  When at a birth center or at home, women can move about and get into a range of positions that facilitate an easier birth for baby and mama, be it on all fours, sitting, standing, walking, on a birthing ball, and/or in a birthing pool.

Hospitals administer unnecessary drugs to facilitate the birth process.  These drugs stop the body from being able to do it's job, and the body knows what it's doing.  A woman should be encouraged to eat and drink normally during labor, because the body needs strength to give birth.  But, a woman in labor is given IV fluids and is unable to eat/drink during labor.  If labor is induced, this speeds up the process of cervix dilation, which causes contractions to come more painfully.  Instead of opening at the natural rate that the cervix wants to, the drugs cause it to open the same distance in a much shorter amount of time.  There are other options for a less painful, but more speedy birth, including just standing or walking around.  But, the mother isn't permitted to really get up and walk around at a certain point.  Natural birthing positions minimize pain, but being on her back and/or after the pain of inducing labor, she might opt for the epidural.  This prevents the body from being able to feel the muscles in the lower abdomen, which prevents a women from knowing when to push.  So, she pushes too hard and doesn't let the baby come naturally.  The baby is coming on the doctor's schedule, not the baby's schedule.  

Speaking of the doctor's schedule, if the labor isn't progressing at a doctor-accepted rate, the doctor can opt for an emergency c-section.  A mother is given all of these drugs and put in a position that's not optimal for child birth.  No wonder things aren't going as planned.  In a country where our c-section rate should be around 15%, it's actually more like 40%.  And, if the doctor wants to do it, you don't really have a say, because it's an emergency at this point.  So, the doctor can opt for major abdominal surgery just because something Mother Nature has been doing for thousands of years is taking too long (according to the doctor).

During a natural labor, a mother can reach down and touch the head of her baby when it's crowning.  A mirror can be used to see the baby as it's starting to be born.  And, fathers can even catch their baby as it's making it's way into the world.  Sean wants to catch out baby.  What an experience for a new dad to be the first person to touch their child as it's born. A natural birth can even be organismic.  Rent Orgasmic Birth and check out Hypnobabies for some ideas. 

Lighting is important when a baby is born.  The womb is comforting and dark.  They have never seen light before, and so little ones should come out into a world that is dimly lit.  Hospitals have lights blaring so that the doctor can see what he/she is doing, and this is very jarring for the newborn.   Home or birth center births allow parents to control the lighting to make it more comforting to a newborn.

When watching videos of natural birth versus hospital birth, the hospital babies are all bloody, but the natural babies are clean.  Something is really wrong with the hospital process if the difference is a bloody baby.  When the little one is born, it is immediately weighed and cleaned, but those first few moments after emerging from the womb are so important.  A baby should immediately be placed in the arms of it's mother.  There are so many studies about the correlation between a baby's development and how much it was touched and held just after birth.  In the first week, a baby should hardly be put down, and newborns should be as close to their mother as possible. 

And, then there are vaccines. There are some useful vaccines.  But vaccines nowadays are preserved cheaply with a highly toxic metal, mercury.  There are stories of children who have tragic and irreversible reactions to vaccines.  The issue with mainstream vaccination is that hospitals are drug pushers and new parents aren't educated about vaccines or given the choice.

Not all pregnant women have a choice of home birth or a birth center, because there are risk factors that make birth in a hospital safer, as things can get sticky quickly.  Hospitals are good for emergency medicine, even emergency medicine during birth  They aren't good for routinely keeping us healthy.  Giving birth is a natural part of life that our bodies do so well on their own.  If it's not broke, don't fix it.

More to come on where we decided to give birth.