A year ago today was when my labor began. It's got me thinking a lot about pregnancy, childbirth and the first year of my daughter's life.
Jeff and I always kind of went back and forth about whether or not we wanted to have kids one day. We both love kids, but also loved our freedom and ability to pick up and go whenever we pleased and never feeling like a lot was at stake. The ability to quit our jobs and travel if we wanted to, without worrying about someone else depending on us. A few different friends had children of various ages that inspired us to start a family of our own. Annie and Genevieve live in Australia on a plot of land, in a Strawbale house, and their two beautiful children are just so adventurous, curious and thrived in their environment. I saw little Oscar scale up and down a vertical ladder like it was nothing when he was just a few years old. Later that week he hauled ass down a hill on a bike while totally naked, smiling away. Did I mention the bike didn't have brakes? His big sister Olive had the best imagination in any child I had met. We also had friends here in Boise with kids who proved you don't have to sit around the house treating your kid like they're made of glass. They're actually more flexible than we are led to believe!
We decided we were ready in early 2015. I loved being pregnant. I was so intrigued by what my body could do, that I could grow a human being along with all of their organs and created a whole new organ of my own! I read a lot of books, watched documentaries, read all about hypnobirth. I had always been somewhat afraid of hospital environments and felt like it was partly a money making business. I bought into the idea that Dr's would have given me pitocin to speed up labor so they could make it home in time for dinner. I didn't want to have an epidural for various reasons, and while I didn't look down on people who decided to get them, I was adamant that I did not want one. I had a few acquaintances who had good experiences with a local birth center and decided to hop on down there on a lunch break one afternoon. Their website preaches placing trust in the process of birth and their care is based on the premise that birth is a normal, healthy event. They talk a lot about mutual trust and communication. After sitting with the head Midwife, I was sold. I loved the idea of women supporting each other, encouraging our strength and ability to trust our bodies to know what to do. Month after month we attended appointments with them, and felt like they allowed us to ask a lot more questions than we would be able to at a hospital with doctors always seeming to be in a hurry to move on to the next patient.
They recommended hiring a doula, which I had contemplated previously although was afraid they would step in and push Jeff to the side, making him feel excluded from the process. I wanted him to be my main source of support and didn't want anyone stepping on his toes. I decided to interview a few doulas and soon realized that they are actually not like that at all. They are actually great and supportive and provide so much more than I could ever imagine. If Jeff would need to step out to make a call or go to the bathroom or eat, a doula would be there to still provide support and be there for me. They were sort of a Mary Poppins of birth support in that they had an abundance of knowledge for physical ways to relieve pain, provided emotional support and always seem to know the right thing needed for every moment. After interviewing a few great women, we interviewed Candace, and knew within minutes she was the right one to complete our team!
I had gotten a prenatal massage around 7 months into my pregnancy and the next day felt like Marley had changed positions in my belly. Before she was head down and back forward (aka Anterior), and now I was feeling little knees in my belly, and I could no longer feel her back. I was certain she had turned around and was now in Posterior position. If you're not sure why any of this matters, check out this site. I mentioned it at my next appointment and with a brief gentle massage of my belly, I was told that she was still facing the right direction and not to worry. I still wasn't sure, but trusted that information and went on my way. At the next appointment I mentioned that I still felt like she was facing the wrong way. This time the midwife took me into the next room and did a brief ultrasound to find out that she was, indeed, turned around. She told me not to worry and that there was still time for her to turn on her own, but worst case scenario if she didn't in the next few weeks they could send me to St. Lukes to have someone manually turn her before she got too big to move around much on her own. I continued to mention my concern at each of the next few appointments, always met with the "don't worry" kind of response. Keep in mind that there are multiple midwives, so each appointment is with someone who may not have been at the previous appointment so this concern was new to each one of them. At this point I was still concerned, but tried to just continue to trust the process and not worry about it. I trusted their professional/medical advice and judgement.
We took a birthing class, Intuitive Birth, in the weeks before Marley's due date. I'll forever be thankful for this class as it taught me a lot about how Birth doesn't always go as planned, and that just because it may end up completely different than you planned you can still have a positive experience. You can plan/hope for the best experience and there are certain things you can do to try and make it go that way, but ultimately baby will come when they are ready and we can't control the way it goes. In fact, we have to LET GO in order for our bodies to do what they need to do. It's almost like allowing ourselves to get to a primal state. I finished this class excited and confident and ready to just let my body do it's job. I had plans to try for a natural, unmedicated birth. I planned to let her umbilical chord finish pulsing before we cut the chord. I planned to have immediate skin to skin after she was born and had watched amazing videos of newly born babies army crawling from their mommy's stomach to the breast to feed for the first time because it was so instinctual. I planned to have uninterrupted time just me, Jeff and Marley for at least the first hour in a dim room. I planned to try for a birth in the tub but was ok with wherever it would be in that room in the birth center. We planned to give birth, spend a few hours at the birth center and take her home that same day. I looked at countless photos like this:
One year ago today, December 2, 2015, I arrived home from work, put on my pjs and started warming up some Thanksgiving leftovers to eat for dinner. I walked over to the table, set my plate down, and as soon as I sat down I felt a gush of fluid. I froze and looked at Jeff and said "umm... I'm not sure if I just peed my pants a little or if my water just broke..." I remember the butterflies in my stomach and laughing nervously. I stood up, took one step and felt it again, and again with every step. I laughed/screamed and ran down the hall to the bathroom where I vividly remember feeling "oh, shit. Here we go!" while at the same time feeling so excited to be meeting our Marley soon. I called the number for the on-call midwife, didn't hear anything back for a little bit and got a call back from the paging system to check in if I'd talked to her yet. We re-paged and I talked to the midwife who said to just wait for contractions and to call if they got to a certain frequency. If no contractions happened we would have an appointment in the morning to take a look. I let Candace know and then we tried to go about our evening as usual. We watched the season finale of Survivor, played some cards and then the contractions started.
My midwife told me to rest/sleep if I could to reserve energy. I downloaded an app to track my contractions, laid down and was able to sleep off and on between them throughout the night. Sometimes they were 3 minutes apart, sometimes 15 minutes. This went on all night until morning when they seemed to spread out even more, around 20 minutes apart. I called my mom to let her know I was in labor, but to keep it on the DL as I didn't want a lot of people texting me. I stood in the hot shower to let the water bring relief to my lower back. We went into the birth center to have an appointment, listened to Marley's heart rate through contractions and went over our plan. She gave advice on ways to get labor moving more progressively, including pumping milk, nipple stimulation, cuddling, walking curbs, etc. We went home, and tried to just be normal. We watched Home Alone, The Big Lebowski, and a documentary that will forever remind me of labor - Austin to Boston. Throughout the day my contractions had started to become more intense in my lower back, to the point of not being able to walk during them. We decided to go for a walk in the neighborhood to get things going more, said hi to the neighbors and made it to the end of our street before it was time to turn around and go home. I texted Candace when I got home, as it had been more than 24 hours and I was getting pretty discouraged. We played skip-bo to pass the time and keep my mind focused on something else (I won, by the way). By this point I was getting tired and discouraged and put Austin to Boston back on. Candace came over after we talked again, equipped with a bunch of candles and ways to help me cope with the pressure.
https://youtu.be/XEOPKpTyd4w
She is seriously the best. In a time where I felt myself starting to panic a little, She sat with me and helped remind me to breath with an open/relaxed jaw. She reassured me that it was ok, to not focus on the time that had passed. She recommended changing things up and getting out of our "cave" bedroom and into the living room where we could stand, use the exercise ball and try different positions to move baby down. We listened to Iron & Wine, The Staves, Nathaniel Ratliff and Ben Howard. Sometime late that night the on call midwife (a new one this time as the previous one was now off duty) came over to our house to check on me. She watched me through some contractions and ultimately decided it was time to head to the Birth Center soon. She left ahead of us to get down there and start filling up the birth tub and have the place ready for me. I remember every speed bump on the drive hurt like hell.
When we arrived at the birth center, the tub was filling and the midwife and student midwife were waiting for us. I got into the tub to labor for a while and immediately had some closer contractions. We decided to get out of the tub and for the next 12 hours labored in various places/positions around the room. I needed to drink a lot of fluids, but every time I had to pee my contractions would be so intense I couldn't stand. Thank god for Jeff assisting me every time I had to go to the bathroom so I had someone to lean on! My contractions were consistent and intense, but labor didn't seem to be progressing beyond this stage. The midwives recommended Jeff and I make out our be intimate to speed things up some more. I'm sorry, but at that point it had been almost 48 hours and neither one of us felt in a place to be intimate and were starting to really feel concerned. Bless Candace's heart for continuously being there for us during this time. The midwives put an IV in my wrist and gave me fluids to keep me hydrated and also kind of jolt me awake/energize me again. It was raining outside and cold, and our midwife recommended we get up, change things up and go for a walk. I think we made it one time around the block, having about 5 contractions during that time, walking down state street with cars driving by. I was frustrated, exhausted, in pain and unsure of what to do next. At this point I think our families and some friends who knew I was in labor were expressing their concern and sending their love.
When we returned they recommended eating some castor oil and gave it to me in the form of microwaved scrambled eggs. I gagged and threw up after a couple attempts to eat it. I received another fluid bag. I remember feeling upset that it seemed like the midwives were starting to show they were unsure of how to proceed. It started to feel like a scramble. They decided to check me and determined I was 100% effaced, and dilated to a 3... After more than 48 hours I was only a 3... I don't know how to describe the emotions I felt and the disappointment after that news. I was relaxing, I trusted my body to be able to birth my daughter, but at this point I tensed up and felt scared for what lied ahead as it seemed like nobody knew. Candace was the only source of comfort for Jeff and I at this point. They had me labor in a few more positions on the bed, listening to Marley's heart rate through them. Her heart rate was increasing too much during them and my temperature was going up -- indicating possible infection, Choreoamnionitis. Basically, prolonged labor after the point where your water breaks and your uterus can become infected. They determined we would need to transfer over to St. Lukes Hospital as things weren't progressing beyond that and we needed some intervention.
At that point it felt like shit kind of hit the fan. I don't really know any other way to put it, other than it felt like as soon as it was determined we would not be having our baby at the birth center, they wanted to be done with us. The two midwives that had been with us for the past 12+ hours kind of went MIA. I don't even really remember them explaining anything to me, but rather Jeff and Candace told me that a new midwife would be accompanying us to the hospital for transfer. The procedure was supposed to be that we would follow the midwife to the hospital where they would kind of hand us off and make sure the hospital was in-the-know on what had happened up until that point. Several months before, as routine we filled out paperwork for St. Lukes in the event we would have to transfer during labor they would have it ready so the check-in process in triage would be quicker. We were told to go to our car and the new midwife would meet us in the parkinglot. We waited for an hour. ANOTHER HOUR. I was pissed, contracting in the backseat of our car, while none of us had any idea what was taking so long. We debated just driving down their on our own without them. Eventually she came out and we were informed that our paperwork we had filled out was missing and they had been trying to find it. We drove to the ER, I got in a wheel chair and went into triage. They asked me to pee in a cup during my contractions and I wanted to scream, as they were so painful and every single one radiated through my back and made me double over. I begged for an epidural. I could not even crawl up onto the hospital bed. The new midwife sat across the bed from me as I kneeled on the edge of the bed in pain. She did not smile, she didn't talk to me or offer any source of comfort. I have no idea what the hell was going on, but she seemed pissed to be there and irritated at all of us, which was really upsetting. We re-filled out the paperwork and they wheeled me up to the labor/delivery area.
I'm terrified of needles, but let me tell you I was RELIEVED to get that epidural. I was finally able to relax a little, lay back and prop a yoga ball between my knees. The nurses hooked me up to monitors and did an ultrasound and discovered pretty quickly that all this time, Marley was in fact facing the wrong way and was getting stuck trying to get out. Dr. Thompson came in to meet me and check me, and she was the sweetest yet direct person. She told me that she would give it about an hour and come back and check me again, but if I didn't dilate more I would most likely be looking at a c-section. She left us, my family came in to give their love and then I took a nap. When Dr. Thompson returned and checked me an hour later, I had dilated to a 7. SEVEN! I will never forget the look of excitement on her face when she told me that. You could tell that she was so happy things had progressed for us and we might be having a baby soon! She said "lets have this baby!" and those words just resonated with me. I fed off of that energy and it gave me a little boost of confidence that this whole thing might be over soon and I'd have Marley in my arms. They gave me some pitocin to speed things up some more and gave it a little more time before it was time to push.
Jeff turned on my birth playlist with some Reggae music and after 55 hours of labor, 1 1/2 hours of pushing, our swollen little Marley was born 12/4/15 at 11:45pm weighing 7lbs 12oz and 19-3/4 inches long. That epidural allowed me to relax and for Marley to turn like she needed to on her way out.They had to take her over to the side to check her since she came out so hot from the infection, and then they put her on my chest. We were able to hold her for a very brief moment before she had to be taken away to the NICU. We decided that Jeff would go with Marley and the nurses to the NICU while I got stitched and cleaned up. In the meantime, our eager families got to visit and meet our baby girl. I think it was a couple hours before I got to wheel down to the NICU and hold her and try breastfeeding for the first time. It wasn't easy and she didn't latch right on, but it was still so neat to see her instinct to know where to go for it. She was so perfect. I could not stop staring at her. After just spending 55 hours in labor and feeling completely exhausted, I didn't want to leave her side and wanted to hold her all night. But alas, I really needed to rest. I think that might be one of the hardest things for me to think back on-- that after all and any resemblance of our plan went out the window, other people got to spend time with our baby before I did, I had to leave her for the night only hours after being born and I couldn't even sleep in the same room as her for days.
We spent 4 days in the hospital, the final night she was able to stay in our room with us but still had to stay hooked up to all of the monitors. It didn't go at all as planned, and my views changed a lot in the process. I started out thinking that hospitals were just out to take your money and kick you out and that going to a Birth Center I would receive passionate care and feel totally safe. What ended up happening is that once I got to the hospital and received an epidural, everything changed for the better from there. I know that a lot of women still receive that care that I dreamed of, some of them even did from the same place that I went. I've hesitated to leave a negative review as I'm not out to trash talk a business, but if I'm being completely honest, I do believe that when it was "game time" they dropped the ball so to speak, and I've hesitated writing any type of online review for this reason. The lack of any type of apology or acknowledgement afterwards for dropping the ball during our transfer to the hospital is also pretty upsetting. I've gone through a lot of emotions over the last year regarding our experience. From sheer happiness when she was born, feeling emotionally hurt/trust betrayed by a provider, anger, and back to happiness. People always respond with "at least your baby is healthy!" whenever I talk about it. Of course! That is absolutely the most important thing to me and always has been. But I'm still allowed to grieve/process what happened and it will take time to get through. That is the only time (that we are planning anyway) we will experience labor/birth of a child so it was a bit of a crazy ride to process. I think I experienced every emotion possible throughout those 55 hours. I still am so incredibly thankful for Candace and her support as well as what we learned in that Intuitive Birth class, as I feel like things would have been much different without those.
In the meantime I have fallen completely head over heels in love with Marley and continue to do so every single day. A friend of mine said one time that the first year of being a mom was complete with the longest days and the shortest year. So true. I'm so happy to be Marley's mother, watch her relationship Jeff and to continue watching her grow up.
She is seriously the best. In a time where I felt myself starting to panic a little, She sat with me and helped remind me to breath with an open/relaxed jaw. She reassured me that it was ok, to not focus on the time that had passed. She recommended changing things up and getting out of our "cave" bedroom and into the living room where we could stand, use the exercise ball and try different positions to move baby down. We listened to Iron & Wine, The Staves, Nathaniel Ratliff and Ben Howard. Sometime late that night the on call midwife (a new one this time as the previous one was now off duty) came over to our house to check on me. She watched me through some contractions and ultimately decided it was time to head to the Birth Center soon. She left ahead of us to get down there and start filling up the birth tub and have the place ready for me. I remember every speed bump on the drive hurt like hell.
When we arrived at the birth center, the tub was filling and the midwife and student midwife were waiting for us. I got into the tub to labor for a while and immediately had some closer contractions. We decided to get out of the tub and for the next 12 hours labored in various places/positions around the room. I needed to drink a lot of fluids, but every time I had to pee my contractions would be so intense I couldn't stand. Thank god for Jeff assisting me every time I had to go to the bathroom so I had someone to lean on! My contractions were consistent and intense, but labor didn't seem to be progressing beyond this stage. The midwives recommended Jeff and I make out our be intimate to speed things up some more. I'm sorry, but at that point it had been almost 48 hours and neither one of us felt in a place to be intimate and were starting to really feel concerned. Bless Candace's heart for continuously being there for us during this time. The midwives put an IV in my wrist and gave me fluids to keep me hydrated and also kind of jolt me awake/energize me again. It was raining outside and cold, and our midwife recommended we get up, change things up and go for a walk. I think we made it one time around the block, having about 5 contractions during that time, walking down state street with cars driving by. I was frustrated, exhausted, in pain and unsure of what to do next. At this point I think our families and some friends who knew I was in labor were expressing their concern and sending their love.
When we returned they recommended eating some castor oil and gave it to me in the form of microwaved scrambled eggs. I gagged and threw up after a couple attempts to eat it. I received another fluid bag. I remember feeling upset that it seemed like the midwives were starting to show they were unsure of how to proceed. It started to feel like a scramble. They decided to check me and determined I was 100% effaced, and dilated to a 3... After more than 48 hours I was only a 3... I don't know how to describe the emotions I felt and the disappointment after that news. I was relaxing, I trusted my body to be able to birth my daughter, but at this point I tensed up and felt scared for what lied ahead as it seemed like nobody knew. Candace was the only source of comfort for Jeff and I at this point. They had me labor in a few more positions on the bed, listening to Marley's heart rate through them. Her heart rate was increasing too much during them and my temperature was going up -- indicating possible infection, Choreoamnionitis. Basically, prolonged labor after the point where your water breaks and your uterus can become infected. They determined we would need to transfer over to St. Lukes Hospital as things weren't progressing beyond that and we needed some intervention.
At that point it felt like shit kind of hit the fan. I don't really know any other way to put it, other than it felt like as soon as it was determined we would not be having our baby at the birth center, they wanted to be done with us. The two midwives that had been with us for the past 12+ hours kind of went MIA. I don't even really remember them explaining anything to me, but rather Jeff and Candace told me that a new midwife would be accompanying us to the hospital for transfer. The procedure was supposed to be that we would follow the midwife to the hospital where they would kind of hand us off and make sure the hospital was in-the-know on what had happened up until that point. Several months before, as routine we filled out paperwork for St. Lukes in the event we would have to transfer during labor they would have it ready so the check-in process in triage would be quicker. We were told to go to our car and the new midwife would meet us in the parkinglot. We waited for an hour. ANOTHER HOUR. I was pissed, contracting in the backseat of our car, while none of us had any idea what was taking so long. We debated just driving down their on our own without them. Eventually she came out and we were informed that our paperwork we had filled out was missing and they had been trying to find it. We drove to the ER, I got in a wheel chair and went into triage. They asked me to pee in a cup during my contractions and I wanted to scream, as they were so painful and every single one radiated through my back and made me double over. I begged for an epidural. I could not even crawl up onto the hospital bed. The new midwife sat across the bed from me as I kneeled on the edge of the bed in pain. She did not smile, she didn't talk to me or offer any source of comfort. I have no idea what the hell was going on, but she seemed pissed to be there and irritated at all of us, which was really upsetting. We re-filled out the paperwork and they wheeled me up to the labor/delivery area.
I'm terrified of needles, but let me tell you I was RELIEVED to get that epidural. I was finally able to relax a little, lay back and prop a yoga ball between my knees. The nurses hooked me up to monitors and did an ultrasound and discovered pretty quickly that all this time, Marley was in fact facing the wrong way and was getting stuck trying to get out. Dr. Thompson came in to meet me and check me, and she was the sweetest yet direct person. She told me that she would give it about an hour and come back and check me again, but if I didn't dilate more I would most likely be looking at a c-section. She left us, my family came in to give their love and then I took a nap. When Dr. Thompson returned and checked me an hour later, I had dilated to a 7. SEVEN! I will never forget the look of excitement on her face when she told me that. You could tell that she was so happy things had progressed for us and we might be having a baby soon! She said "lets have this baby!" and those words just resonated with me. I fed off of that energy and it gave me a little boost of confidence that this whole thing might be over soon and I'd have Marley in my arms. They gave me some pitocin to speed things up some more and gave it a little more time before it was time to push.
Jeff turned on my birth playlist with some Reggae music and after 55 hours of labor, 1 1/2 hours of pushing, our swollen little Marley was born 12/4/15 at 11:45pm weighing 7lbs 12oz and 19-3/4 inches long. That epidural allowed me to relax and for Marley to turn like she needed to on her way out.They had to take her over to the side to check her since she came out so hot from the infection, and then they put her on my chest. We were able to hold her for a very brief moment before she had to be taken away to the NICU. We decided that Jeff would go with Marley and the nurses to the NICU while I got stitched and cleaned up. In the meantime, our eager families got to visit and meet our baby girl. I think it was a couple hours before I got to wheel down to the NICU and hold her and try breastfeeding for the first time. It wasn't easy and she didn't latch right on, but it was still so neat to see her instinct to know where to go for it. She was so perfect. I could not stop staring at her. After just spending 55 hours in labor and feeling completely exhausted, I didn't want to leave her side and wanted to hold her all night. But alas, I really needed to rest. I think that might be one of the hardest things for me to think back on-- that after all and any resemblance of our plan went out the window, other people got to spend time with our baby before I did, I had to leave her for the night only hours after being born and I couldn't even sleep in the same room as her for days.
We spent 4 days in the hospital, the final night she was able to stay in our room with us but still had to stay hooked up to all of the monitors. It didn't go at all as planned, and my views changed a lot in the process. I started out thinking that hospitals were just out to take your money and kick you out and that going to a Birth Center I would receive passionate care and feel totally safe. What ended up happening is that once I got to the hospital and received an epidural, everything changed for the better from there. I know that a lot of women still receive that care that I dreamed of, some of them even did from the same place that I went. I've hesitated to leave a negative review as I'm not out to trash talk a business, but if I'm being completely honest, I do believe that when it was "game time" they dropped the ball so to speak, and I've hesitated writing any type of online review for this reason. The lack of any type of apology or acknowledgement afterwards for dropping the ball during our transfer to the hospital is also pretty upsetting. I've gone through a lot of emotions over the last year regarding our experience. From sheer happiness when she was born, feeling emotionally hurt/trust betrayed by a provider, anger, and back to happiness. People always respond with "at least your baby is healthy!" whenever I talk about it. Of course! That is absolutely the most important thing to me and always has been. But I'm still allowed to grieve/process what happened and it will take time to get through. That is the only time (that we are planning anyway) we will experience labor/birth of a child so it was a bit of a crazy ride to process. I think I experienced every emotion possible throughout those 55 hours. I still am so incredibly thankful for Candace and her support as well as what we learned in that Intuitive Birth class, as I feel like things would have been much different without those.
In the meantime I have fallen completely head over heels in love with Marley and continue to do so every single day. A friend of mine said one time that the first year of being a mom was complete with the longest days and the shortest year. So true. I'm so happy to be Marley's mother, watch her relationship Jeff and to continue watching her grow up.
