As Dd’s first birthday
approaches, there are some things I’ve been meaning to share and document about
his birth and our pregnancy.
I am not accustomed to
feeling proud of my body but both of my kids’ births have been powerful
exceptions to that.
From the large volume
of birth stories and statistics I have heard and read over the past five or six
years I know that childbirth is a nebulous mix of choices, actions and
uncontrolled circumstances. Most of life
consists of a similar blend, but pregnancy and birth are tidily defined and
acute. This is to say that we can never
be sure how our choices affect our results.
Our kids’ birth
experiences have been very positive, with delightful outcomes. I know enough to
grateful for my good fortune and genuinely compassionate for women with less
positive birth experiences, yet at the same time I want to celebrate some of
the things I am most proud of here.
My pregnancy went
smoothly except for a few rocky parts in the beginning. At five weeks while walking up the steep part
of Yesler Way from downtown I had alarming cramps and bleeding. I spent a miserable weekend worrying
continuously, rather than just frequently, about a miscarriage. Then an early ultrasound confirmed Dd’s strong
heartbeat. At this point I moved from my
Fit 4 Mom HIIT classes to the Fit 4 Baby classes, which I did once a week up
until a month before Dd was born.
Exercising with other pregnant women was fun, motivating and just the
right amount of amusing. Picture
pregnant ladies doing burpees or planks where their stomachs touch the ground. I learned that jumping consistently made me
bleed, so I modified exercises and the class was great for me.
Then at 20 weeks the
ultrasound suggested Dd was in the 99th percentile for size. I was able to look back and see that D was
also massive at 20 weeks. Some of my providers got very serious about this and vacillated
between saying things about my “proven pelvis” (Thanks D!) and terrifying
complications like shoulder dystocia. They do not recommend elective c-sections for large babies, but I think it is still done.
Estimating fetal size
is a very inexact science. Ultrasound
size measurements can be off by as much as 30% and the estimate from the hands
of an experienced midwife are actually more accurate. More importantly, shoulder dystocia is about
the interaction of the size of the baby and the size and of the mother, so it unfortunately
happens with small babies too.
I worked really hard
to not let the specter of an 11 pound baby freak me out. We took a refresher birth class and spent
time rehearsing birth positions that open up the pelvis. I was simultaneously worried about labor not
progressing due to size and labor progressing too fast, based on the speed of
my mom’s deliveries and on the relative speed of D’s birth, considering his
size and status as a first-born. Fear is
not good for labor and I am really proud of how I trusted my body and kept my
worries in check.
I started off my
pregnancy with Dd much heavier than I started off my first pregnancy, but I
gained only half has much weight. The concern
about fetal size motivated me and I was trying to not gain too much, but really
it was about 10 times easier than my recent non-pregnant weight loss
experiences.
Those same long terms
weight struggles, a few injuries (knee, wrists) which somehow have felt like my
own fault have eroded the confidence I once had in my body, which probably
peaked at age 15 when I was a decent runner.
Birth and breastfeeding build me back up.
Enough about
pregnancy. Now, for the record, here is
the story of Dd’s birth.
As with D my labor began
with three weeks of slow dilation, with no noticeable contractions. This type of labor is absolutely not covered in
any of the books and sites I read, which I found frustrating. It felt like he could come any day and we
were ready, especially since we didn’t want him to grow too big as we sailed past
his due date. Here's what I looked liked, one day overdue.
I had acupuncture twice, bounced on a yoga ball, walked, had my membranes swept 3-4 times and
followed all of the other advice to bring on labor. I worked until the day before my due
date. My parents returned from their
trip to Maine without missing anything exciting. We planned to have an induction, as with D,
on Monday, Oct 1st, when we were five days overdue. Swedish was full though so Jack and I wandered
around the Mount Baker neighborhood, looking at houses and waiting to see if
space opened up. It turns out that my
water broke with a slow leak during the walk but it was really hard to tell and
the advice on how to check didn’t really work.
Dd was pushing down hard enough that hardly anything leaked out. Kathy came to take care of D in the event
that we got a spot, then returned home again.
In retrospect we were
glad that there was no room for us at the hospital on Monday because Tuesday
morning I woke up at 2:30 am with strong contractions that were about a minute
long and about 12 minutes apart. Kathy came back to watch D again.
Even with my history,
the midwife on call suggested we wait until contractions were 5-6 minutes apart. I was really not okay with that idea because
I expected things to go fast and I was supposed to have an antibiotic administered
four hours before birth for strep B. She
was accommodating enough to let us come in anyway, so we left for the hospital
at 4 a.m. on a clear starry Tuesday morning.
My contractions were
still 12 minutes or more apart, but they were strong. At the hospital a few miles from our house we
found our way out of the labyrinthine parking garage to the room waiting for us,
arrive at 4:30 a.m. They got the IV in
on the first try, unlike the hour it took with D’s birth, and I started the
antibiotic at 5.
The contractions sped
up to an interval of about 6 minutes. I threw up a bunch all over the
floor and a little bit in to a trash can. Jack asked me several times if
I wanted to walk around a bit, just like a good birth partner. I definitely did not want to. I leaned
back against him for a while and somehow managed a bizarrely deep sleep in
between contractions. We didn’t know my
water had already broken they did not check my cervix (which they do as little
as possible to avoid contamination).
We talked with the
midwife, Hilary, about waiting to see how things progressed and then breaking
my water at about 7:30 am. Around 7:40
she checked my cervix and I was already 7.5 cm and we learned my water was
already broken. I was feverishly hot and I threw up a bunch, again,
although my stomach was empty. Yuck. I rambled about epidurals. Then I got in the tub, which felt a little
better. The contractions were much more frequent. After 10-15
minutes in the tub I got out to use the toilet, and quickly realized I had
mistaken my bodily urge. It was time to
push, RIGHT THEN. Jack and I were on our
own in the bathroom. He called everyone
back in, using complete sentences, which seemed excessive given the urgency I
felt.
They got me back in
bed, confirmed I was at 10 cm and Dd was born about five minutes later at 8:05
(?). I think I only had two or maybe
three contractions in the bed, but Hillary had me push continuously, rather
than with contractions. I yelled a lot
and it was a blur. Jack did not get to
catch him, because of the speed and the fetal monitor cutting out. Hillary turned him as he came out, to unwrap
the cord. He was quiet and fairly blue,
but he came right up on my chest for the first hour and nursed pretty
well. We found out he was a boy. Happily he was a whole pound less than D,
though still big enough that they checked his blood sugar often.
We went home about 28
hours after birth. Jack and I were eager
to go for many reasons, including the fact that we both had painful sore
throats, presumably from the AC in the building. In no way do I wish I’d had a home birth, but
the hospital is certainly not a place for peace and quiet. Nurses, doctors, midwives, audiologists and photographers came in. I was amused to
realize that we didn’t know the last names of our midwives, with whom I was
intimately acquainted. The visits from family
were welcome interruptions.
I felt glad that I insisted we come in when we did and to have chosen providers who respected
our instincts. They said three hours of
antibiotics was close enough to four to be protective.
The immediate recovery
was way faster than with D, though the longer term changes to my body
linger. Nursing a newborn is a mix of
mother and baby learning and I was surprised by how much my experience
helped. Dd grew beautifully. Though he was smaller than D at birth, he
was bigger by three months and now, at 11 months, has achieved the 99th
percentile predicted by that unnerving ultrasound.
