Forever, it seems, I've wanted to experience a completely natural birth. One that does not include hospitals or medical doctors or nurses and all that comes with it. There is something to say about being able to get in touch with your natural female instinct that is to labor and birth the way that nature intended, and I wanted that. Not to put others down who think different or made other choices, but for me, personally, this was something I felt I needed to accomplish in my life. Regardless of how raw and painful it may be, I wanted to know what natural birth felt like, because with my first child four years ago, I feel I was slightly robbed of that experience. The hospital took that away from me without me even realizing that happened. How I felt stepping away from my first hospital birth experience just left me disappointed in myself and in them, and downright upset that I had allowed them to manipulate me into accepting their various unnecessary interventions. This time, we chose to completely avoid the medical establishment, and went with a midwife. Together, she helped us prepare for the perfect home birth. My last midwife appointment before the baby came was the 20th of July, during which my midwife suggested we strip my membranes to get things started. I was due on the 23rd, and she was about to go on vacation. Neither of us wanted her to miss my birth. Since she told me that this procedure wasn't risky in any way, and wouldn't trigger labor unless my body was already gearing up for it, I agreed to let her do it. I discovered having membranes stripped is NOT a pleasant experience! She warned me it would feel like period cramps, but in my opinion it felt like the WORST period cramps I had ever had! And don't get me wrong, I have had god-awful periods most of my life. After the procedure, I noticed streaks of blood, as she had told me would happen, and continued to have moderate period cramps throughout the next 3 days! Mike's parents arrived on the 21st, and since I was experiencing such bad cramps, I thought I better call my mom and let her know because she wanted to be there for the birth, and so did I. She decided to come right away with my brother, so we had a house full of company fairly quickly. I endured many activities with them as we waited the days by. One of the most difficult was the 22nd, when Mike's parents decided to help us trade in our Jeep and buy a new Ford C-Max Hybrid! We spent ALL DAY at the dealership, as I was in early labor, and it was torture. The end result of driving a new car home was nice, however.
It was about 4:30 am on the 24th of July when I awoke with a sharp side ache that wrapped around my abdomen. They say that for every woman, the start of labor feels differently. Well apparently that's also true for each pregnancy, because that didn't happen with my first pregnancy. The way I knew I was in true labor the first time was when my braxton hicks contractions became painful, like period cramps. But since with my second pregnancy I had gotten my membranes stripped, having period cramps only confused me because I knew they were a result of that procedure, and weren't necessarily an indication of labor. But anyway, that sharp pain somehow told me that "this was it". I was in labor. I counted my contractions for an hour before Mike called our doula, Asiya. She came pretty quickly, and immediately dove right into massaging me, mostly on my lower back and under my belly where the contraction pains were the worst. The day just blurred by as I labored, one contraction at a time as they became increasingly longer and more intense with each passing hour. At one point, which I later learned was late in the afternoon, I was given the suggestion to rest for the next part of labor, and Mike laid with me and we dozed. It was actually so much more tolerable than the first time I labored with Sabina in the hospital. Near the end, I was in my birth pool, and I honestly had no idea that I had gone through transition until my midwife told me calmly, "Heather, if you feel you want to push, you can go ahead and push, okay?" It was incredible. I didn't believe her until I started feeling that intense pressure and urge to push almost immediately after she said that. I knew the pain was getting nearly unbearable there at the end, but I had to remember that this meant labor was almost done. Incredibly, the end came quickly and I was pushing HARD. The urge was like none other, and I found that my body did most of the work for me. It was forcing me to push, so unlike the experience I had in the hospital with the messed up epidural where they had to guide me to push. This was SO different. I didn't need anyone's help in this! I just pushed. My water broke like a water balloon popping in the pool as I pushed, and everything suddenly became real in my mind. I knew my baby was about to come out. I don't remember how long I pushed, but it wasn't long before his head was out. Instinctively, I flipped over to my knees and rested my arms on the edge of the pool the way I had while in transition, and pushed the rest of him out, since that was the most tolerable position (by a hair, but still, in that kind of pain you take whatever sliver of relief you can get!).
My son, Tristan Chase was born at 8:10pm on July 24, 2015 (one day before my birthday)! It was the most amazing experience, and the most incredible feeling on earth. I was on top of the world knowing that long hard day of pain was over, and that I just gave birth completely naturally and at home just as I had wanted for so long! My baby boy was suddenly in my arms, so tiny, yet so big! It was such a beautiful moment for me. I looked around the room at all the women who were there the whole day helping me. My midwife, Dr. Sunita, and her assistant midwife Kristin, and student midwife Binta, and the most incredible of them all, my doula Asiya. She had been with me the whole time, massaging, using acupuncture, and encouraging me all the way from counting the early contractions that morning at the bedside to gripping my hands on the edge of the pool that night. And of course Mikey, my loving husband stood by my side. When Tristan's cord stopped pulsing, he cut him free, and they soon had Mike take his shirt off and carry him skin-to-skin to keep him warm while directing their attention to me and getting my placenta out.
When we arrived, they wheeled me in and up the elevator to the maternity floor where an OB and nurses were waiting for me. More medical chatter about me between the EMTs and the nurses, and they moved me to a bed. As soon as the doctor got there, I was begging for pain medication as they told me they would have to try pushing my placenta out manually again. They told me there was no time and had to try now. So, once again, I had to endure more tortuous pain of people pushing on my abdomen and shoving their hands inside me WITHOUT pain medication. Once again, it was unsuccessful, so they quickly determined that emergency surgery was the only way, and after signing a waver form that stated I might wake up without a uterus, or even die during the procedure, I was wheeled in to the OR. I remember telling them to wait so I could kiss my baby and husband and in my cloudy awareness of the dire situation at hand, I told Mike, "Take good care of my babies." before they wheeled me away. The OR was both terrifying and comforting as I watched all these medical professionals rushing around me getting things ready. It rather surprisingly felt strange to have so many people in one place who seemingly cared about me, doing things for me. But then I have never had many friends in life, and have always suffered with self-esteem problems. It dawned on me that I have been feeling unworthy of being liked most of my life. I've had medical staff work on me many times in the past, but for some reason, this time was different, knowing they were an emergency medical team working hard to save my life.
When I awoke, I was in a dimly lit recovery room. It was really late, past midnight, and my midwife and birth team who followed us to the hospital had since gone home. Soon as I woke up, they let Mike in with the baby, and he sat with me while I recovered. Part of my placenta came out during that recovery time, surprising the staff and the doctor who did the surgery. Just goes to show, that thing was pretty darn stuck in my uterus if even surgery couldn't get it all out! Finally, they made the determination that it was out, by the way my uterus felt to the touch, then I was wheeled into a postpartum hospital room where I was to stay for the next 2 days. It was so good to wake up and see my husband and baby again. But I had no idea what had happened back at home during the big emergency scene. My mom told me later that she got to hold the baby while the EMTs were getting me out, and that my daughter got to see him and exclaimed, "Ooooh! He came out!" But sadly, that same moment, an EMT came and whisked the baby downstairs to bring to me in the ambulance, and Sabina screamed, "THAT'S MY BABY! BRING BACK MY BABY!!!" and burst into tears! Though I wasn't there to hear her, that story broke my heart. All I had longed for following such an amazing home birth was to have my family snuggled up together in bed, my daughter included. I dreamed of that moment, that first hour after birth of bonding with our new baby, breastfeeding in comfort and privacy and being able to sleep together as a new family. That didn't happen. Instead, I grieved alone in my hospital bed, thinking about how my little girl didn't even get to see her mommy before I was whisked away in the ambulance, and how scared she must have been. It really crushed me, especially since I had just given birth and my hormones were a disaster.
Even after all my efforts to have a natural childbirth, I still ended up in the hospital with nurses taking my vitals every half hour, bombarding me with opinions and suggestions (some nice, and some downright rude), blood tests, IVs, and prescription drugs. I was highly anemic, and ended up having to get 4 blood transfusions, due to the blood loss I had, and needed massive amounts of iron. The IV fluid puffed me up really bad, and I looked and felt horrible. It was hard to walk, and I needed help for the first couple days. I was just sad I ended up there. So then to have people tell me how irresponsible it was to have a home birth just infuriated me. I will never forget the nurse who told me that I almost bled to death because I didn't have a hospital birth. Not only was that a highly inappropriate thing to say to a postpartum woman, but it was a total lie! Had I given birth in the hospital, I still would've had a retained placenta and hemorrhaged. Where I gave birth had nothing to do with the fact that that would've happened regardless. Given the chance to go back and do it all over, knowing I'd have a retained placenta, you bet I would still chose a home birth over a hospital birth! Because my midwives prepped me for the rare eventuality that an emergency could occur and I might need to transfer to a hospital. They walked me through exactly what would occur, and you know what? They did a pretty damn good job of doing just that when an emergency did in fact occur. The hospital was less than a 10 minute drive from my house, and I got to the hospital still fully conscious and able to converse with the staff. Had that occurred in the maternity ward, they would have needed to wheel me down to the OR and it would've taken the same amount of time to prep me for surgery as they did taking me from my own house. The reason I chose a home birth was to avoid medical intervention in a process I believe is extremely natural. We don't all drive around in ambulances just in case we might get into an accident. I didn't want or need them to screw around with my laboring process, because who knows what kinds of other risks to me and the baby that could cause? It's wholly unnecessary, and dangerous to mess with the body's natural progression of labor and delivery. Now, in an emergency situation, I will absolutely hand over my trust in the medical professionals to help me, as I did. Trauma and emergency room workers are extremely good at what they do, for without them, I would have never been here to write my story and most importantly to raise my two beautiful, precious babies! Because of both my midwife birth team and the emergency medical staff, my kids get to have a mommy. For that I am eternally grateful.
