Birth Day.

Ok, so it turns out that making a blog about cooking can get derailed after having major abdominal surgery to have a baby taken out of you. The only recipes I have to share with you at the moment go something like "Take something out of your freezer or fridge, put it in the microwave. Heat it up. Feed the baby. Change the baby's diaper. Reheat the food because it's already cold. Enjoy!"

In the meantime, this seems as good a place as any to post my birth story since I know there are a few people interested in reading it. Today is 2 weeks from Foster's birth day and I knew I had to finish writing it out before I forget any details. (Although I'm sure I left some out or got some wrong as it is.) Anyway, here goes...

Oh where to begin telling this story? I’ll warn you now that this will probably be long winded and rambly because that’s kind of how the experience was. I may try to edit down a version for those who don’t want to know every detail but for now I am writing it out for my sake (and Foster’s) so that I don’t forget a thing.

I started practicing HypnoBabies hypnosis for childbirth at about 20 weeks so I was well versed in it when we hit 40 weeks. The birthing affirmation “babies are born on their birth days and not when doctor say they should be and I will be patient.” became my mantra. So I was relaxed and calm knowing that most pregnancies, especially for first time moms, tend to go closer to 41 weeks than 40. At my 41 week appointment we chatted about what would happen if the birthing process didn’t start on its own. My midwife had a recipe for a labour cocktail that we could try and is usually effective and if we hit 42 weeks we would have to get a non-stress test and an ultrasound to check and make sure baby was doing ok. She checked my cervix and it was softening and I was one centimetre dilated but baby’s head wasn’t down low enough. The week dragged on and I was fine until a mini breakdown a couple days before baby came after getting too many “when are you going to have that baby?” messages from well-intentioned friends. I felt frustrated that I couldn’t do anything to make him come sooner and felt like my body wasn’t working for me. I hopped in the bath with candles, dim lighting, lavender essential oil and relaxed and focused on trusting my body and my baby and doing some deep breathing. Soon I was back to a place of knowing everything would be ok.

The next night we got up in the middle of the night and took the labour “cocktail”. It was a rather unappetizing concoction of castor oil, almond butter, apricot juice and lemon verbena. The grossest part was the lemon verbena oil which reminded me of drinking lemon pledge. Pressure waves (code for contraction in hypnobabies) started coming but they were mostly light and not rhythmic at all. This was 41 weeks 4 days so we had an NST and ultrasound scheduled. Both showed baby was doing well, lots of fluid left and still very relaxed although the ultrasound tech did predict that baby would weigh ten pounds. Pressure waves never really turned into much and I told my midwife I didn’t think I could take the cocktail again that day. Since her birthday was Saturday she was more than happy for me to wait for Sunday to try to get things started again so that became the plan.

Sunday morning Davis and I got up at about 1:30 since I wasn’t doing much sleeping anyway, took the cocktail and went back to sleep. I woke up at 7:30, vomited up the cocktail and went back to sleep for an hour. When I woke up at 8:30 pressure waves started. Again, fairly dull but definitely falling into more of a rhythm. I could actually time them and knew things were starting. Mom stopped in for support and was surprised to find that the support I needed wasn’t to do with frustration because of things not starting but actually supporting me through my relaxation and helping out around the house. After getting a load of laundry through Davis started filling up the pool and I tried to do squats and bounce on the birthing ball. I was still chatty and relaxed. Around 2:00 in the afternoon I got in the pool and put on my “Easy First Stage” hypnosis script and went into deep relaxation. At this point the pressure waves were picking up and I knew this was definitely for real even though I was a bit afraid of them dying out because I had been having a bit on and off for a few days beforehand. Our midwife was by at 6:00 and checked my cervix. I was dilated to 3 cm and cervix continued to thin. She was able to do a bit of a membrane sweep to try to keep things going. We were encouraged that things were moving along. She recommended I take the cocktail again and a gravol and try to get some sleep. I got a couple hours of sleep and woke up to things picking up and the pressure waves getting a bit stronger. We called Heidi (my friend who was going to serve as a support person) to come over and noticed a text from my mom saying she couldn’t sleep and to call her when we were back up so Heidi and my mom came over. My birthing time continued through the night with me alternating listening to hypnosis and my birthing playlist. Heidi and Davis hauled buckets in and out to keep the pool warm. I was surrounded by candles and had lavender and peppermint oil in the diffuser. Everything was calm and beautiful. In the morning we called Uta to update her. She was at the hospital but said she would stop by afterwards. She got here at about 9:00 and checked my cervix. I was at 4 cm dilated and she was able to sweep the membranes a bit more although the baby’s head still hadn’t moved down to where we needed it to be to move things along faster. I was a little frustrated that I had only made one cm progress since 6 pm the next day but stayed calm and focused on the fact that things were moving forward. Mom went home to take her foster daughter to school and at Uta’s suggestion I took the labour cocktail again (Ew!) and a gravol and we all went to sleep for a bit. She said she would come back in a couple hours to check. I woke up about an hour and a half later and wanted to get right back in the pool. Heidi gave me hand massages while I relaxed into the contractions and listened to my birth playlist some more as well as some of my HypnoBabies tracks.

We didn’t hear from Uta till the afternoon. She had been at the hospital all night and meant to take a nap but had fallen asleep. She came by late afternoon and I was at 5 cm but baby’s head still hadn’t moved down and Uta said he was positioned posterior. She decided that for things to move forward we needed to break my water but didn’t want to do it at home in case there was a reason baby wasn’t moving down. She said we would need to go to the hospital. I had been very calm and relaxed up until this point but really hadn’t wanted to go to the hospital so at this point I was heartbroken and started crying. I asked Uta if there was anything else we could do or try. At first she said there wasn’t. She said I was doing everything right and we had tried everything we could but after seeing how upset I was she racked her brain and suggested that she could try calling my chiropractor to see if she could do a last minute adjustment to try and turn the baby. Dr. Jenny said she could come over if we wanted but Uta, wanting to further torture me, decided that a walk would be good for me so off I waddled to the chiropractor’s office. Dr. Jenny did an adjustment on me, had me walk up and down the stairs a few times and did another adjustment. I waddled back home to see if it had made any difference and got into the bath tub with my “birthing day affirmations” playing and really focused on relaxing and deep breathing. Uta came back and checked me and I was still at 5 cm but the baby’s head had moved down enough that she felt comfortable doing the membrane rupture at home. So she broke my water and had me lay on my side for a while to monitor the baby and make sure he wasn’t in any distress. Baby was doing ok so after a bit of side lying I moved back to the pool. Uta had me hold deep squats through my pressure waves and eventually told me she would check my cervix again in an hour and see if there had been any progress and if not that we would have to “move in a different direction.” So as hard as it was for me to hold the squats I toughed it out because I knew it was a last ditch effort to avoid the hospital. After an hour I got out and Uta did another internal and I was still at 5 with no change in baby’s head position. She very calmly told me that she knew I was doing ok and the baby was doing ok but that we were basically stalled here and she thought we needed to go to the hospital to try using some pitocin to get things moving. At this point we were over 36 hours in and I was exhausted and also frustrated because I had done everything right but things weren’t moving forward so I agreed to make the move to the hospital.

Once we arrived at the hospital the on-call OB had to check in on me and after doing an internal he said that the baby wasn’t going to come out without a c-section. Uta said she was thinking of trying pitocin first and he asked her if the baby was in any distress. She said he wasn’t and the doctor basically said that we could try that if we wanted but he was pretty sure I would end up with a c-section after that anyway because of the baby’s size and position. Having focused and relaxed for 40 plus hours at this point I followed by instincts combined with the advice I was being given by the doctor and Uta and agreed to the section since the other option wasn’t exactly natural anyway. So, we arrived at the hospital at 11:30 and the “emergency” section was scheduled for midnight. Foster Merritt Dowe emerged at 12:34 am on April 20 weighing a whopping ten pounds, four ounces. As soon as he was cleared by the paediatrician Foster was brought over to me and we had a bit of cheek to cheek time before Davis took him into the recovery room to have some bonding time while I was getting stitched up. In no time at all I was in recover and able to nurse Foster within the first hour. Mom, Jim and Vivi (Davis’s parents) and Heidi all came in for short visits to meet the new family member.

So, in the end...we made the decisions we had to make. I wouldn’t change a thing about my birth experience unless there had been a way to make him fit through my pelvis naturally. By the time we got to the c-section I knew we had exhausted all of our natural options so I know that we did what was in the best interest of myself and Foster. I was still so thrilled with how the birthing pool and HypnoBabies worked for me. They enabled me to “labour” for 40 hours in comfort and relaxation. And that’s our birth story. Thanks for reading it!