Labor had begun. Though it was light and easy at first, I knew this was the real deal before we bothered timing the contractions or calling our midwife to “make sure.” But I could not resist, especially as it was now 8:30 pm and I did not take a nap that day, getting into my warm bath and drinking a glass of wine to see if it would slow things down. It didn’t. Not at all. Only the birth of my baby was going to stop this.
My water had not broken and I was having trouble sleeping, so my husband and I did some labor augmenting, erm, strategies to speed things up instead. I am glad we did in the sense that it would actually be some time before I was up for it again. And then I went into another room to let him sleep and for me to meditate and maybe get some rest myself.
I started to feel anxious and wanted our midwife to come. She arrived early the next morning and set up the tub. It was nice to get in the deep water, but I could not really get comfortable and I found myself wondering why so many women claim the water helped them so much. It was nice, but it wasn’t that nice. Still, I wouldn’t do it again without the option of having one.
Time just went by. It actually seemed to fly by as I let my mind and body go. I didn’t want to think about my baby; I was afraid I would get too excited too soon and I knew my job was to stay relaxed. The sun came up. The assistant arrived, and then the photographer. We were talking a bit between contractions, and then at some point my husband and I were alone again in the room. I remember asking him to tell the midwives to stop talking, even though I couldn’t even hear them, as they were way in the other end of our shotgun house. I think I was either just entering active labor or transition, depending on whether this happened first or the next thing happened first…it is so hard to remember everything chronologically, and as I did not have any cervical checks until the very end, I can’t be sure.
The assistant tried to do my first cervical check, but it hurt and I stopped her. They let me rest, but my labor didn’t seem to be progressing. Without checking me again, they wanted to speed up labor. They threw everything they had at me; herbs, a nipple pump, and a birth chair they wanted me to use since my baby didn’t seem to have dropped yet. It was an hour or so of torture, and the only part of my labor I truly hated. But once it was all over, my mucous plug had started coming out and labor was swinging. My midwife suggested I try a little push to see what happened, and suddenly it was all I could do!
It started to get dark again, which was very depressing. My midwife checked me this time, at my request, and proclaimed that I was “wide open, with waters bulging.” This brought my mood right back up. I was finally able to think about my baby and get excited to meet her! However, without explaining why, she and the assistant had me get on my back. My husband was to hold one leg and the assistant the other, and my midwife was between my legs. I started to feel upset again; why wouldn’t they leave me alone? Why was I laying here in the one position I know is the worst and the one I thought I was never going to have to be in while birthing at home? They ordered me urgently to push as hard as I could, and even though I hated them for it, I did as I was told. Some part of me still knew that if they wanted me to do something, it was probably for a good reason.
My waters popped. I was elated. It was beautiful. At that moment, I knew that if they said that standing on my head was going to get the baby out, I would do it. Unfortunately, my midwife had to give me some news…my baby was breech. That could be why I had not dropped, and as she had begun suspecting that to be a problem, she had had me push on my back to get baby under my pelvic bone so as to avoid cord prolapse. Luckily, it had worked. Her little butt was at a +1. But I was terrified! I had not prepared myself at all for a breech birth. In fact, in my attempts to prepare myself for that particular possibility, I had felt a little blown off by my midwives. In hindsight, I see that some part of me knew she was upside down, and that my midwives not only missed the signs while I was pregnant, but they missed the signs in my “Mommy instincts.” They assumed I was just having final stretch jitters (as did my husband, apparently), when I started talking about how if my baby was breech I knew I wanted to try for a vaginal delivery, but not at home. There are a few docs in my area who will attend breech births and are good at it, and I thought that sounded better to me.
So here I am, in the pushing stage with a bum somewhere in my birth canal. I stayed home a little longer; what felt like a short while was actually closer to an hour and a half. It was another period of torture. Later my midwives would say I had the longest transition they had ever seen. I was disappointed that they still did not understand that I was truly scared. Or maybe they did, but I couldn’t see it. I felt like to them it was a chance for the assistant to attend a breech and the photographer to get photos of it. I did not want to go to the hospital for an automatic cesarean but I had not made a backup plan at all, so if I went, I knew what I was in for, and was already leaning in that direction.
Finally, I demanded we go when I started wishing during the Doppler checks that something was wrong and we would have to go. That didn’t seem like the right attitude for a home birth. It was hard to convince them I was serious. The midwives seemed to stall to see if I was just “in transition” still and would change my mind as I was on my hands and knees in the middle of the dining room floor demanding we leave. Again, my perceptions may have been way off, but I can also imagine that to them, I was so close to having this baby that it didn’t make sense for me to want to leave. But I did not regret my choice for an instant.
We transferred to a smaller hospital right by my house. We were greeting kindly and with respect for the most part. The nurses understood that things were stable and so did not need to rush around like it was some kind of emergency, because it wasn’t. They “let” me stand while they monitored my baby during contractions (everything was fine), and said they were sorry things didn’t work out at home. The anesthesiologist told me her sister had her babies at home, and the OB, among other information, informed me that I had the right to refuse care. Through the haze of labor, I was grateful to be treated, well, as a normal intelligent person. I told them I really was fine with just getting the surgery.
I walked right into the OR. And when the anesthesiologist asked me to sit still during a contraction, I did so gladly, marveling at how different it felt to experience what you know is the last one compared to zillions of others before that just seem to go on for infinity. In spite of their power, I was able to be still and calm and take a deep breath though that last contraction. I loved my anesthesiologist. I see how women who want to birth naturally can do it by sheer will, and women who don’t, love their epidurals. I was both that night.
I was not afraid during my surgery. I was surprised at how quickly it all went by. I fell madly in love with my daughter’s squishy purple face covered in blood. We were not parted for long and we were together for pretty much every second after during my four day hospital stay. My one complaint about the nurses was the one who, when I went to un-wrap my baby for skin to skin contact, warned me that if my baby got cold she would be taken to the nursery. I knew she was wrong to be concerned; skin to skin is very effective at keeping babies warm. But I was afraid she might not like me and take my baby anyway. I was still suspicious of people at the hospital, especially people like her, and knew that unfortunately they had a lot of power. I knew I could fight it, but I was done fighting. This kind of power struggle and misinformation is one major reason I wanted a baby at home.
Recovery was good, nursing challenging, but we got through. I did often wonder if I had done the right thing in going to the hospital. We had avoided most of the dangers of breech by the time we left. But in accepting that I would never know what could have been, and that we had gone into it as informed as we were and still had this happen, well, it was appropriate to just be glad everyone was healthy. Generally, I hate that comment… “at least you had a healthy baby!” But we had been informed and treated with respect, so I did not experience the kind of birth trauma that makes such a comment dismissive and cruel to mothers who do.
I am now 37 weeks pregnant with my second, and planning a home birth again. This baby is clearly head down and even dropped this past week, which has made me excited beyond belief. We did change midwives; I felt trust had eroded enough that a fresh start was in order, even though I don’t think they were purposely negligent or irresponsible. They didn’t make my baby breech, even if they did miss it (and that happens sometimes). But I also know better now what style of provider works best for me, where with your first birth it can be hard to know what will work best for you in labor. I can’t say exactly what I would have done differently the first time. It would have been nice to have a chance to help her turn first, of course, but beyond that, I don’t know. I don’t think much could have convinced me then to do it at home, although I respect and even envy women who are completely comfortable with that. A breech friendly doctor may not have allowed me to labor as long as I did (22 hours at home). They may have wanted to push Pitocin and in the hospital environment I can easily imagine not being as comfortable and relaxed and able to deal with my labor as I was at home. I may never have got as far as I did had I known going in that she was breech, I might have been too nervous, at home or in the hospital. There are too many unknowns to be sure how a difference could have been better and too many scenarios where it could have made things worse, so I am fine with my surprise breech birth. Going in to my VBAC, we know I can handle a long tough labor without medications and we know I can fully dilate, something many VBAC’s don’t know about themselves until the second time around. Some things are not great about being a VBAC, but once again having done our research, we have learned it is not nearly as scary as society makes it out to be. Just like breech birth! ~Elisabeth
