Annie and Bailey

“No matter how your labor and delivery go, that day will be carved in your heart as the incredible day that you meet your child for the first time. It will be your birth and it will be special.”

I remember our doula, Jennifer, saying this to me during the labor of our first child as I was contemplating receiving an epidural for what at the time felt like insurmountably difficult contractions. This put my mind at ease and I decided to “wait a few more out” until eventually she turned, it was time to push, and out came Tori – warm as can be and ready to nuzzle into our arms and hearts forever.

This crossed my mind again last week, as my water broke and a surge of adrenalin left me shaking and completely terrified of the unavoidable process that stood between myself, my husband Ed, and the grand entrance of our second baby girl.

It comforted me again, because it was completely true. Natural childbirth was our Plan A. If we needed to move on to Plan B (medical pain management) or Plan C (interventions due to unforeseen complications) it would still and always be the day that we met our beautiful daughter and began our journey as a family of four.

After my water broke, we both scurried around the house making final preparations, contacting the midwives, our doula Jennifer, and Ed’s sister Ashley who would be watching Tori during our hospital stay. Tori is 16-months old and still nurses about twice a day. She woke up as I tried to sneak a few diapers from her room to tide me over on the way to the hospital. Going into “mom mode” was the best thing for settling my nerves. We had a very peaceful and cuddly nursing session and I choked up looking down at her long and lean frame stretching around my round belly and her sweet curls that fall in every direction. I knew in that moment that my sweet baby girl was growing up and would be a big sister the following day. It was a “tears of joy and sadness” moment that comes with all great changes in life – when you realize that you are so excited for where you are headed and that not moving forward isn’t an option.

We arrived at Evergreen Hospital around 11 pm and got settled into our birthing suite. The midwife on call, Shana, and the nurse were welcoming and we got all of the paperwork taken care of quickly. Since my water had broken, we decided not to do a cervical check, as it wouldn’t change a single thing in our course of action. We walked the halls for a bit, and then decided to take a rest. I won’t forget the image of my hubby, my belly and I curled up in that small hospital bed – if anything we were going to crowd the baby out of her comfortable home in the womb.

My contractions slowed a bit after laying down, giving me nice ten minute breaks between each, although the strength and duration of each contraction continued to grow. Eventually my position/breathing technique was no longer effective in getting me through on my own, and I was up and ready to try something new. Again we walked the halls, pausing for each contraction doing nice big hip circles while holding the railing and listening to Ed lead me in guided breathing. Even though we weren’t always in sync (his lungs are bigger than mine!) it was so nice to hear his voice and I felt very loved that he would get right in there with me, which he did every step of the way. Jennifer would touch my shoulders when they started creeping up and help me “breathe the baby down” as the contractions ended – once again I had my amazing team in place and we were going to do this!

When we tired of the walking, we returned to the birthing suite and I labored for a long while in a wooden rocking chair padded with pillows for my back and bottom. Ed sat across from me and held my legs as he gently rocked the chair and continued to breathe with me through contractions. One funny thing about labor is the time in between contractions. It is just casual conversation and life as usual and discussion about movies, children, and wise cracks ensued. I told Ed that two was a nice round number. He mentioned that 4 and 6 were as well. Nice try, buddy! Jennifer continued to coach me through body relaxation and reinforce how well I was doing after each contraction. Her presence as a place to go when a contraction got ahead of me or fear set in was invaluable. She could offer new positions, sounds, and breathing techniques for us to try – which passes the hours while the baby makes her great journey downward and into position. With Jennifer coaching me in one ear, Shana focusing on pressure points to press during contractions, and Ed in front of me, I felt very well taken care of and capable of what laid ahead.

The first time Shana did a cervical check I was dilated to 4.5 which was encouraging because in theory dilating from 0-4 takes the longest amount of time in labor. I knew the next “half” would be more intense and much harder, but I also had a sense of excitement that we were making great progress and nearing the actual arrival of our baby girl. The next few hours were spent in “labor land” where I just used the different sounds that came naturally to me to endure contractions. Ed followed my lead with making all the “yayayaya” and “mamamama” sounds and having his big voice present made mine just feel like background noise which I loved. I began to feel the urge to push around 6 a.m. so I tried to get myself positioned on hands and knees with the support of a bean bag on top of the bed. This wasn’t a good position for me so I tried laying on my side for what felt like transition and preparation for pushing.

When our second midwife, Sharon, arrived around 7 to relieve Shana, I was side-lying and enduring long and strong contractions while the pressure on my perineum continued to grow. She did a cervical check and let me know that while I was dilated to a 9, there was a bit of swelling beginning and we needed to get moving. Now Sharon delivered our first baby and I knew that she ran a tight ship. I knew that I could trust her implicitly and she would see to it that mom and baby would soon be united. So, goodbye side-lying and hello standing, let’s get this baby moving! It’s not easy to change positions at this point but again, I did what I was told and knew that this team had been through a bit more of these than I had. Transition came on strong and hard at that point and boy did I want to give up. I said several times, “I can’t do this” and I meant it, it simply felt too hard. I was exhausted having thrown up several times in response to the adrenalin pumping through me. I was administered an IV of saline and salt water has never felt so good.

At that point I knew that baby had done her work and now it was my turn. Like it or not, I needed to get in position, get strong, and prepare to push. I loved the strong and deep “Maaaaaa” sound for this stage because sentimentally, it said to me: “You are the mom. Your baby trusts you to know what to do and guide her through this. She can trust you. You can trust your body. This will be over soon.”

I listened closely to my coaches and communicated to them when contractions had begun and were ending. I accepted their guidance on when to push, when to hold, when to catch a breath, and when to push harder. The baby had the cord loosely around her neck which Sharon detected and corrected immediately. She had shoulder dysplasia, meaning she was a bit lodged at the shoulder level, and Sharon let me know that contraction or not, it was time for this baby to be born. I could tell that tension had heightened in the room, but like any good leader, Sharon took control of the situation and simply moved us through it. I pushed as effectively as I could and with Sharon’s help both at the perineum and externally on my belly, I felt the unmistakable “whoosh” of childbirth and knew we had done it. Our beautiful baby Bailey, warm, tiny and perfect, came onto mama’s belly for the first of a lifetime of snuggles with her parents.

I return to where I started, in saying that no matter how you birth your baby, it is the irreplaceable day that you and your partner come together and deliver on what you created together just less than a year before. That said, we have been blessed with two incredible births and two incredible little girls and I am so grateful for each person who had hand in their arrivals. I wish you all the best of luck and leave you with this: ““You are the mom. Your baby trusts you to know what to do and guide him or her through this. Your baby can trust you. You can trust your body. And yes, this will be over soon!”

Luba and Adrian

My water broke on Monday, January 17th, at 3:35 am, which woke me up. The amount of water wasn’t very significant, but I was sure it wasn’t something else. I went to the bathroom where I had my “bloody show”.

I paged both my midwife and my doula to inform them, and went back to bed per my midwife’s suggestion. Falling back to sleep wasn’t very easy because I was so excited, I could feel my knees shaking 🙂 I decided to try using my slow breathing techniques from Hypnobirthing to calm myself down and try to get some rest.

About an hour later, in my sleep, I felt the baby move and next thing I knew, there was a gush of water rushing out of me. It felt like there was nothing stopping it! 🙂 The amount of water released this time was shockingly large – my clothes were soaking wet and so was my blankets and sheets. I cleaned up and went back to bed.

I continued to release water (though in much smaller amounts) as well as blood throughout the day. Knowing that labor doesn’t always start right away, I continued with my day as if nothing happened. I started doing house chores – vacuuming, doing laundry, etc., and then went for a 2 mile walk with my husband and the dog. I then talked to my midwife and gave her a status update on where I was at, and subsequently kept in touch with my doula providing her with quick updates on my progress.

Around 3 pm that day, I started to have some mild contractions and around 4 pm, I thought it was time to give my husband’s contraction tracker application a try and started tracking my contractions using his Windows Mobile 7 phone. I also started to practice my hypnobirthing breathing as I knew the earlier I started, the better chances I would have coming in and out of my hypnosis later on, when the pain became severe.

I continued to do house chores while tracking my contractions and also communicating with my family in Russia as well as my friends here.
I kept updating my doula on my progress, and finally around 10:30pm when my contractions became 3.5 minutes apart and lasting 1 minute long, we agreed that she should come over. I continued to do my hypnobreathing and listening to my meditation music with candle lights around, which was very relaxing. I also started to have lower back pain so my doula kept giving me hot compresses which helped relieve the pain. The one thing I did not know would happen is that I would continue to have bleeding (clot kind) throughout the entire process, so I was a little surprised, but the doula told me that was normal and was a sign of dilation.

Pretty soon, the contractions got a lot stronger and I actually started to feel sick to my stomach. We paged my midwife to prepare to go to the birthing center. By the time we ended up leaving the house which was around 2:30am, I was vomiting pretty frequentl as well as trembling. At the same time, I began to feel somewhat excited though, thinking all of that could be signs of transition, hopefully! 🙂

We got to the birthing center which is 2 blocks away from my house (thank God:-)), they checked me there and to my surprise, I was only 4cm dilated! I was shocked.

I got into the bath tub which felt like a heaven-sent after all those hours, and helped me get back to my hypnobirthing techniques and actually get into a deeper relaxation. I tried various positions in the tub, got out and relaxed on the birthing ball, did cat and cow and other “all four” poses, and eventually got back into the tab. After several hours of doing all that, the contractions became unbearable and I started to lose my focus and could no longer control pain with hypnobirthing techniques. At the same time, I became very dehydrated – I couldn’t keep anything down, and every time I would get out of the tub (they told me to try to go to the bathroom), I would be shaking uncontrollably so I wanted to go back in immediately.

When they checked me again, they told me I was only 6cm, which was discouraging to hear after all those efforts, and as a result made me want to get transferred to the hospital for pain relieve with epiderral or have a C section, I don’t think I careed at that point! 🙂 The midwives tried to talk me out of it, of course, and told me I was so dehydrated, it would be best to put me on IV right away, and hopefully see how things go afterwards. I insisted they start the transfer process but agreed to get an IV and “stick around” for a couple hours, as it was going to take time to get transferred anyway (find a doctor, an available room, etc.). They didn’t want me to get back into the tub and wanted me to move around instead, but I was shaking so much, I just had to be in warm water, so as a compromise, they had me take a hot shower. That was such a relief and actually made me come to my senses (I literally couldn’t see straight up until that point), so I told myself I would give it another try and attempt to deliver as originally planned. A few hours later, they checked me again, and I was STILL at 6 cm! I said to myself “that’s it, it’s time to go”. It turned out I had also developed a fever, so at that stage everyone agreed a hospital transfer was the right decision after all.

We arrived at the hospital at 10:30 am on Tuesday, there I received an epidural as well as pitosin, since apparently my contractions hadn’t been strong enough and they needed to be, in order for me to make any progress. The epidural worked well and I was able to get some sleep. Hours later, around 3-3:30 pm, they checked me again, and (guess what), I was still at 6 cm…

The doctor said I was 100% efaced, -2 station, but the baby was ROP (Right Octiput Posterior) and facing up. Also, because he was a good size baby, the chances of him turning at that point were very slim. Because of that and because I had made absolutely no progress after so many hourse, the decision was to do a Cesarean…

I took me a few minutes to try to “digest” what I had just heard and attempt to keep my composure but unfortunately I wasn’t very successful at that. But then my logical side of me kicked in and I started analysing the whole situation, and there I knew that I had tried everything I could have, and given all the facts, surgery was the only way to go.

Additionally, they were concerned that my water had been broken for so long and that I was feverish; I myself finally started to feel pressure from the fever in my eyes, so I knew it was time to do what I originally dreaded the most.

They took me to the OR about 20-30 minutes later, and at 4:21pm, little Adrian finally made his appearance. 8.8 lbs and 21.25 inches long. Poor thing had a cone head from trying to get out somehow but it was just not meant to be. The surgeon also said he was too high up in my pelvis after all.

We stayed at the hospital for 3 days and went home on Friday morning.

I must say the whole labor experience as well as the surgery was quite something, but at the end of the day, when I look at this tiny little guy, it somehow makes it all worth it 🙂