My husband feared he was going to lose both of us the morning our daughter was born.
The baby had the cord wrapped around her neck and didn’t breathe for six agonizing minutes.
I bled too much.
MONDAY, MARCH 9
It all started on Monday. I hadn’t left the house in three days. If I walked more than 10 minutes my feet hurt so bad all I wanted to do was drop to the ground. So I stayed in. On Monday, I started reading The Baby Book by Drs. Sears. I teared up constantly. I began to feel a bit sick, and ate only some yougurt that afternoon. I really, really wanted a nap, but held back. As I wasn’t working I felt like I needed to act as though I was working until 5 p.m. — then I was free to do whatever I wanted. Eight hours later I was really wishing I had listened to my body and taken the nap.
Jesse called me on his way home from work, like always. At 6:30 p.m., he made me laugh, and I thought I peed my pants. I hit the bathroom, then went upstairs to change my underwear and pants. A few minutes later it happened again. Then again a few minutes after that. It hit me then, that this could be my water breaking. So I told Jesse what was happening... Then I called my childbirth educator and friend Amy. Then my mom. Then midwife Jeanne.
Jeanne wasn’t sure it was my water breaking because there had not been a big gush of water. Additionally, there was no blood signifiying that my plug had come undone. She thought one layer of the bag might be leaking.
The contractions started within an hour. I got on my ball and watched my favorite shows, Chuck and Heroes, while Jesse started filling up the tub. It sat in the place of the kitchen table in the center of the house. It was filled only about 1/3rd when we ran out of hot water.
The contractions started coming about every five minutes. I was sure this was it, and the baby would be born soon. However, because they didn’t last longer than 30 seconds, the midwives weren’t as convinced. Jeanne told me to lay down and get some rest. I tried, but I only felt good walking around. I was so tired of walking, and my feet hurt so bad, but I couldn’t stop because then the pain really hit. I had missed supper in the excitement, but that was okay. I couldn’t keep what I had in my stomach down. It all came up — in 3 separate trips to the bathroom. I found that if I put ice on my face by the end of each contraction it stopped me from throwing up.
At midnight I had Jesse call Jeanne because I couldn’t take the pain anymore. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted someone there who was familiar with childbirth. I was freaking out. Jeanne said she’d send Pam, who had a shorter drive as she was coming from Forest Lake. Thank goodness. I felt immediately better. (Apparently I should have shown my fear and pain a little more. It doesn’t help to be stoic with midwives, because then they don’t realize what stage you’re at!)
It took Pam too long to get to me – an hour and one half — and I was freaking out again. Jesse didn’t know what to do. I wanted to call Amy - my mom - anyone — but it was the middle of the night. Once Pam arrived she told me to lay down and rest. Jesse escaped upstairs, and I wanted to follow him, but wasn’t sure I could make the stairs. (Jesse would like me to point out here that he “needed the sleep” and if he hadn’t have gotten it he wouldn’t have made it through labor and looking after the baby the next day. I would like to point out that I didn’t get any sleep at all.) Pam and I laid down on the couch, and I did my best to rest. The contractions kept coming, and I tried laying still through them, breathing through them. It wasn’t easy, and I started to feel so alone.
At 3 I gave up, and went upstairs to shower. Our hot water had finally returned. (Never again will I wait so long to fill up my tub. Without the water, I was minus my labor strategies: tub and shower.) The pain hit hard while I was in the shower, and I ended up on the floor. I didn’t think I could keep doing this; it was too much, way too much pain. When I got out of the shower, Jesse had woken up. I had him time me, and I let the pain show in my groans. Apparently, that was what the midwife had been waiting for, and she called Jeanne and told her she needed to get to us soon. My contractions were lasting more than a minute, and were on top of each other. I was so scared, I asked Jesse to call his mom and activate a prayer chain.
Downstairs I asked if I could get in the tub. And then I asked if I could push now. Pam asked how long I’d been wanting to push. Since I was in the shower.
It was the last stage of labor, and the baby was coming. I had known labor would be about 12 hours for me. That’s what my chiropractor had said, and that’s what I believed.
At 5 a.m., Pam told me I wasn’t totally effaced, so the baby was getting caught on a lip of the cervex. She reached in to help things out.
I discovered that I am one of those women who throw up at every contraction. I would throw up — and sometimes they’d get the bucket in front of me. And then Jesse would give me water, so I’d have something to throw up again. I didn’t think Jeanne was going to make it, but I didn’t care. The baby was coming out and I was ready for it to be over. I was getting so frustrated. No one told me how long it would take to push. How her head would come out and then go back in. Out and in. Out and in. It didn’t seem like the game would ever end. I gave up caring whether or not I tore, and I just pushed as hard as I could. Pushed and yelled and threw up.
At 6:15 p.m. Jeanne arrived. I barely lifted my head. Fifteen minutes later, Joselyn was born. Jeanne pulled her out, seeing that the cord was around her neck. Pulled her out and set her in my arms. It was a girl. A girl, I told Jesse. He replied that he knew. She was clean, but lifeless. Still, blue and clammy. I was scared to death and kept telling her to breathe, to come on and breathe. I remembered that Amy’s baby had trouble breathing when she was born, but Jeanne had been calm and collected and saved her.
Jeanne’s hand were busy rubbing Josey; so were mine. Jesse was behind me, watching everything. Jeanne gave her one — two — three breaths. Finally, six minutes later, she breathed on her own. Coughed a little. Cried softly. She was going to be okay.
But I wasn’t.
When I pushed out the placenta, too much blood came out. The pool suddenly turned red. It was time to get me out. I moved to the couch and Jeanne tried to get the blood to stop. She pulled out handfuls of clotted blood, over and over. She pushed so hard on my uterus; the pain was nearly as bad as labor. In the middle of it all, my mother-in-law showed up at the door, uninvited, and not welcome with me splayed out on the couch with a bucket of blood clots on the table. Jesse showed her the baby, and then told her he’d call when we were ready for visitors.
Jeanne worked on me for the next three hours. In all, she gave me two shots of pitocin to encourage the uterus to clamp down and stop the bleeding. I lost about six cups of blood. I had tried to breastfeed, but the baby wasn’t ready. The pain, oh the pain. I thought I’d be done with pain once the baby was finally out. That wasn’t the case. Oh, no.
I tried to keep my mind off what was happening by listening to Jesse call up everyone we knew to tell them the baby was born. It was so much fun to hear their responses. He also snapped a picture of her and sent out an email. Later that day, I had Jesse read me what those who emailed had said. The two of them bonded that morning. I didn’t move from the couch all day. We examined my placenta, and discovered a tear. The piece hadn’t ripped off, but it had torn. Jeanne surmised that had caused the hemorrhage.
Around 11 a.m., Jeanne told me I needed to eat. I had no fruit in the house, however, so I called up my parents. I asked for grapes and bread. When they arrived about one hour later, I had fresh bread with honey. It was so good. They were there for the baby’s wellness check. It is typically done shortly after birth, but because of my precarious situation it was delayed. We had thought she looked like a big baby, and when she was weighed it was confirmed. Nine pounds and 12 ounces. Wow. My parents were so impressed by Jeanne’s thoroughness.
Jeanne said she couldn’t leave until I had peed. The trouble was, I couldn’t get off the couch. I tried to get up, but nearly passed out. I tried to kneel and pee on a chuck pad, but that didn’t work either. She finally cathed me. Not the most pleasant experience, although not nearly as bad as having blood clots the size of golf balls pulled out of my uterus. Before Jeanne left at 5:20 p.m. I was able to just barely make it to the bathroom. My blood pressure had risen from the low of 94/62 to 132/80. She was confident I was going to be fine.
Both the baby and I were going to be fine.
I spent the next 2 1/2 weeks in bed, and got sick anytime I tried to overdue it. So I limited myself to tackling the stairs just once a day and spent the rest in my upstairs bedroom. It felt like forever to me, but while I was slow to recover, the baby was thriving. And that was the most important thing.
I've been asked if I'd do it the same again. I respond with a resounding, "Yes!" I gave birth the way I wanted to in a place I was comfortable with. I felt well cared by a professional who knew how to handle both the baby being slow to breath and my own hemorrhage. While things happened that scared me, it wasn't anything that is that rare.
Birth is a life and death situation. Thank God for experienced and knowledgeable midwives.
