Our Crazy "Not a Birth" Story

Today is my "due date" so to celebrate I'm posting this story from a few weeks ago that I finally got written up.  Hopefully I'll have an actual birth story eventually... ;)

So, a week ago last Wednesday morning, Nathan woke up at midnight throwing up and Micah went to check on him while I got up to grab towels.  Only, I got up & had a big gush of water... Micah heard it from Nathan's bedside and said, "What was that?"  Half awake and in shock, I informed him my water had broken.  I think his response was something like, "Are you serious?!"  ;)  At 38 weeks, we had been assuming we had at the very least another week!


After our midwife came, we found that baby was transverse.  We weren't able to get a positive reading on the amnio swab at first, but we did end up getting a positive reading from the puddle, so with the risk of cord prolapse, and with water broken so that obviously baby couldn't turn, we transferred for a c-section. 


It took us a short while to coordinate child care, grab the infant carseat out of storage, and pack a few essentials (as I supervised from lying on the couch), then we were on the road for the hospital.  It felt totally surreal... up in the middle of the night, leaving my poor sick kiddo in the capable hands of his aunts, and suddenly having a totally different birth before us.  As we drove we talked about what we'd ask for as far as c-section preferences... I knew that I wanted double layer suturing, skin to skin in the OR (ideally, on my chest right away, if not, skin to skin with daddy), no immediate swaddling or avoidable mama baby separation.  It was all surreal to think about and talk about.

We're about the same distance from three different hospitals, and I assumed initially we'd transfer to one of the two bigger ones, but we ended up heading to the small town hospital instead. They have a ridiculously high c/s rate (usually that would be a red flag, but it was what we were transferring for!), are a small hospital (nurses and doctors more laid back and likely to go along with our requests) and they handle a lot of the local Mennonite's hospital births so they're a little more used to natural birth moms and how they think and what they'll prefer.  

Since our midwife knew many of the staff, she called ahead and let them know we were coming in, so we skipped the ER & went directly up to L&D.  The nurse we had was nice and was even sympathetic about us possibly winding up with a csection instead of our planned homebirth. She got us settled into our room, directed me to put on the hospital gown, then strapped me into bed on the monitors.  This was all completely new to me, since I'd only even been in a L&D ward once, when visiting friends who had just had a baby.  (And can I just say that bed was the least comfortable bed EVER?)


This is when we got our first inkling that we weren't going to have a c-section.  The nurse palpated and frowned thoughtfully and said it certainly felt like a head down baby to her.  We all gaped at her, because both our experienced midwife and Micah and I (who, while not exactly trained in the art of midwifery, are on our third baby and can tell the difference between a baby that is up and down and one who is sideways!) knew that baby had without a doubt been transverse before transporting.  The nurse got amnio strips to test for broken water, and both of them came up negative.  She suggested that I'd had a "fore-bag" break and that although we'd have to wait for the ultrasound and the doctor to see us, we could probably go home if we wanted to and if baby was head down.


The ultrasound tech wouldn't be there for a few hours, so we tried to relax and process everything.  Mostly I played Words With Friends on my phone and distracted myself.  Our main concern at that point was that baby would actually be breech and that they would not discharge us or allow a trial of labor.  I was hopeful, though that even with a breech baby if I did not appear to actually be in labor or have ruptured membranes that they would let us go home.


Finally, the ultrasound technician wheeled in her cart and we got our first peek at our third little one... head down just like we were hoping!  Chubby cheeks, tiny fingers and toes, and measurements matching right up with our dates!  Although we had an overall good experience at the hospital, that was really the bright spot of the whole thing.


We waited a while longer to see the doctor on call.  She agreed with the nurses guess about it merely being a fore-bag break, and said that they really didn't consider that my membranes were ruptured, so we shouldn't consider ourselves "on the clock" as far as labor went.  She was fantastic and basically told us to go home and have a nice birth!


Still reeling, we checked out and headed to Walmart to grab an exercise ball (if labor did start, I knew I'd want it, but even if not I wanted it for good baby positioning) and other necessities, like fudge cookies and a mocha protein shake.  Our midwife went to take a nap, since we'd kept her up most of the night, telling us to let her know if anything happened labor wise.  We headed home and cuddled sick toddlers.  It was all very anticlimactic!  We were relieved and in shock and going home with an empty carseat and right back to wondering if we'd have a baby in a day or a week or two.  I'm so glad that we didn't end up with a c-section, but it’s hard going from thinking you're going to have a baby in your arms that day to going back to patiently waiting again!

On the plus side, you wouldn't believe how much of the "to do before baby" list we got knocked out that day! ;)

Some Favorite Birth Books

• The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth, by Henci Goer

I love how Henci Goer looks at specific interventions, specific research, specific risks... and gives you information to help you decide whether you're willing to consent to having your water broken during labor, for example.  During my pregnancy with Nathan, I read most of the book, but I read and reread the section on breech birth... the risks, the pros and cons of a vaginal delivery vs. a c-section, and the importance of an experienced care provider.  It really helped as we pondered our options.  I knew that I didn't want a c-section, and her helpful comparison of the risks showed that with an experienced care provider scheduling a c-section wasn't mandatory at all.  Thankfully he did turn before birth so we did not end up having to change our birth plans (our wonderful midwife wasn't comfortable doing a planned breech homebirth, although she encouraged a vaginal breech delivery if that was what we wanted), and he was born, head down, at home.

• Ina May's Guide to Childbirth

The person who loaned me this book (I have my own copy now, since I liked it) felt the need to give the same caveat I'm about to give- some of these birth stories are a tad odd.  You may not (I certainly didn't!) plan to give birth in a camper trailer with your children, spouse, and multiple midwives present.  You may not look at birth as an opportunity to bond with a bunch of other women over the shared experience of childbirth.  However.  I found it very encouraging and helpful to read the many different birth stories in this book, which all affirm that women are meant to do this.  Our bodies were in fact designed to give birth, and when allowed to do that in their own timing they usually do a very good job.  I also found it helpful to read them because it reinforces that labor is not the same for every woman.  It was especially helpful to me as I prepared for my first labor to read a variety of birth stories and know that there were lots of different labor patterns that were all within the range of a normal, healthy labor.

• Emergency Childbirth 

Written for police officers, firefighters, and others who might be called on to assist a woman giving birth, this book has very clear, simple directions on what to do and what not to do to assist the birth process.  I liked having this book around especially before our first, in case for some reason the midwife wasn't able to make it in time.

• and not a birth book but on birth and I watched it recently...  I enjoyed it and found it very interesting, but I wouldn't recommend it to everyone.  Much of it isn't really very husband friendly, in my opinion, due to some of the footage of women laboring and birthing, however.
  
• The Business of Being Born
  
• and not a birth book, but I love it and it is on a related topic...  
• The Nursing Mother's Companion (Kathleen Huggins, R.N.)

  
FYI: I'm an Amazon affiliate now, so all these links are affiliate links.  I had been meaning to work on updating the book list on my sidebar and adding links to it anyway and decided to go through it and categorize them and post them in separate posts that I can link to from the sidebar.

What are your favorite birth books? :)

Edited to add... I ran across this today and thought I'd add this in here since it is about labor:

"Since the evidence shows no benefits or harms, there is no
justification for the restriction of fluids and food in labour for
women at low risk of complications. No studies looked specifically at
women at increased risk of complications, hence there is no evidence to
support restrictions in this group of women."

Nice!  With a 25 hour labor with Nathan, I can't imagine having to push at the end without having eaten in 25 hours.  I'm so glad I was encouraged to eat as I wanted, and stay hydrated.

Miriam Rose

Sunday night, Miriam Rose was born peacefully at home, weighing 7 lbs 8oz, and measuring 20 1/2 inches long.

"The Trouble With Repeat Cesareans"

Good article in Time magazine. This is an upsetting example of the way insurance policies and the fear of litigation are trumping the medical evidence and the best interests of mothers and babies.

Some quotes from the article-

"Much ado has been made recently of women who choose to have cesareans, but little attention has been paid to the vast number of moms who are forced to have them. More than 9 out of 10 births following a C-section are now surgical deliveries..."

"In a 2006 ACOG survey of 10,659 ob-gyns nationwide, 26% said they had given up on VBACs because insurance was unaffordable or unavailable; 33% said they had dropped VBACs out of fear of litigation."

"With each repeat cesarean, a mother's risk of heavy bleeding, infection and infertility, among other complications, goes up. Perhaps most alarming, repeat C-sections increase a woman's chances of developing life-threatening placental abnormalities that can cause hemorrhaging during childbirth."

Benefits of full term pregnancy...

"A study in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology in October calculated that for each week a baby stayed in the womb between 32 and 39 weeks, there is a 23% decrease in problems such as respiratory distress, jaundice, seizures, temperature instability and brain hemorrhages...
...What's more, experts warn that a fetus's estimated age may be off by as much as two weeks either way, meaning that a baby thought to be 36 weeks along might be only 34.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the March of Dimes are now urging obstetricians not to deliver babies before 39 weeks unless there is a medical reason to do so."

Rest of the Wall Street Journal article here.

I would just add that a baby thought to be 39 weeks could be 37, just as the 36/34 example in the article. That would mean that when it was supposedly safe to schedule an induction/c-section, for example, you would be risking an over 40% significant increase in respiratory distress, jaundice, seizures, etc.

There is a reason to wait for the beginning of labor on its own, whether at 40 weeks, 41, or 42! Finally, medical research is catching up with common sense... ;-)

Pregnancy Ticker

C-Sections Shown to Increase Risk of Type 1 Diabetes

"New research¹ reveals that mothers giving birth by Caesarean section have a 20 per cent higher risk of their baby developing Type 1 diabetes in childhood compared to those having natural births, warns leading health charity Diabetes UK.

The research examined 20 published studies on children with Type 1 diabetes born by Caesarean section and found that there was a 20 per cent increase in the risk of babies born by Caesarean section developing Type 1 diabetes. This could not be explained by other factors such as birth weight, the age of the mother, order of birth, gestational diabetes and whether the baby was breast-fed or not.

On average 24 per cent of pregnancies in England are delivered by Caesarean section, which is significantly higher that the World Health Organisation's recommended rate of 15 per cent.²"

From this article here.

The United States has a Caesarean rate of about 30 percent, according to this article.
This article from Childbirth Connection looks at the factors going into that, including care providers who put a low priority on supporting normal labors, side effects of common interventions, and a limited awareness of the risks.

Midwife "not practicing medicine without a license"

"The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ruled 5-2 on Friday that a Lancaster County, Pa.-based midwife was not practicing medicine without a license by assisting at home births, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. The ruling lifts a cease-and-desist order from the State Board of Medicine against midwife Diane Goslin. State officials initially charged Goslin because she is a lay midwife and not a nurse midwife (Couloumbis, Philadelphia Inquirer, 5/24)."
- From an article here, which showed up in my Yahoo! News Alert for "midwife".

This article mistakenly refers to Goslin as a "lay" midwife. This is incorrect, because as this other article notes, Goslin is certified as a CPM through the North American Registry of Midwives (NARM) which is recognized in 22 states, but not in Pennsylvania.

Nathan Laurence is here!

Nathan Laurence arrived at 2:38 Sunday morning. He was 8 lbs. 3 oz. and 21 inches long.

The week has passed quickly and I can't believe he'll be a week old tomorrow! Thursday (four days old) he smiled for the first time, and Friday (five days) I got this picture: