hippydippymama
08-22-2008, 04:58 PM
A little background: I had my first child in 2004. He was an undiagnosed posterior presentation, and I was in labor for 46 hours with 4 hours of pushing ending in a C-section. A cervical laceration was created during the surgery, which split open one week postpartum and put me back in the OR to stop a life-threatening hemorrage. I was told that my pelvis was "misshapen" and that's why I couldn't birth my son vaginally. I did not discover that he was posterior or the reason for my cervical laceration until I recieved my medical records during my second pregnancy and studied them with my homebirth midwives.
Because of the laceration, it put me in a higher risk category for uterine rupture, similar to a T or J incision. I also learned that while my pelvis is not necessarily "misshapen," I do have a narrow pelvic arch, which could potentially make vaginal delivery difficult. Despite all of this, my midwives and I agreed to give it our best shot. We set up a makeshift birth center in an empty rental property owned by the mother of one of my midwives which was close to the hospital, and prepared for a homebirth with the possibility of transfer.
Late Wednesday night, I started having contractions that felt different than any I'd had before, the textbook "strong menstrual cramps" that mean labor is on its way. They were mild and I managed to sleep through most of them until early morning, when they began to get stronger. I stayed in bed and tried to get as much rest as I could, but I couldn't sleep any more, and I finally got up for the day feeling exhausted and achy. I remembered feeling this way in early labor with my first son, like I was about to come down with the flu. I knew this was the real deal. I called MW1, the midwife that lived closest to me, and she said to start timing contractions and call her back in an hour. I used a contraction timing website and they were roughly 2-3 minutes apart and lasting an average of 45 seconds each. I ate some granola, ravioli, and several pieces of garlic bread, and sat at the computer on my birth ball folding laundry and listening to reggae. The achy sick feeling subsided and I felt pretty chipper and excited.
By the time I called MW1 back, I had started to slip into the beginning of active labor. I could no longer talk through contractions and started to space out. It felt really good to sit on the ball and lay my head on my arms at my desk while I rocked my hips, a position I'd also found comforting in my first labor. MW1 came over and we gathered up the last of our birth supplies (most of them were already over at the birth house). My mom came over and took my older son to her house. DH stayed behind; we had agreed it would be best for him to wait at home since he is a bit of a worrywart and could potentially disrupt the peaceful birth environment; also, there was literally nothing at the birthing house but our birth stuff and he would have been bored out of his skull waiting around for however many hours it took. MW1 and I left; I wasn't looking forward to dealing with contractions in the car, but they weren't that bad, I just hung onto the door handle and breathed through them.
The birth pool hadn't been set up yet, so we did that first when we got to the house. I put sheets on the futon we'd brought previously. I put on a "birth CD" I'd made and labored while MW1 wrote down some things. I was starting to have to moan through the contractions as they got more powerful. I was dying to get into the pool but it was filling so slowly. When it was about as deep as a bathtub I got in, but the water only came halfway up my belly and didn't provide much relief, so I got back out.
I tried lots of different positions: standing and leaning my forehead against the wall, standing at the counter and resting my head on my arms, sitting on the ball with my forehead on the wall...basically, I had to be leaning my head against something. The contractions continued to strengthen in intensity, and so did my moans. I was getting tired again, and found that being on all fours on the futon was nice, because I could crawl up the wall to a kneeling position during contractions and then flop down on a big pile of pillows in between.
MW1 put a chux pad under me since I was starting to dribble blood. I suddenly started to feel very sad, and knelt on the futon crying. She asked me what was wrong. I said I didn't know, then I said that I was scared. I asked her to call the other midwife. By the time she arrived, I was back on all fours again. MW2 asked me how I was feeling when she walked in, but I couldn't answer. Suddenly with the next contraction, I felt a balloon come out of me and burst - my water broke with a loud POP! all over the bed. MW1 said, "I don't think I put enough chux pads down," which I found hilarious later. After my water broke, the contractions ramped up yet another notch. The midwives took turns pressing their fists down onto the small of my back. I was practically yelling now. I was surprised at how vocal I was, but there was nothing else I could do. All the happy little affirmations and visualizations I'd memorized during pregnancy were completely forgotten - all I could do was yell. It was like a tremendous force driving down through the top of my head and out the other end, and if I didn't let some of it out through my mouth, I felt like I might explode.
I remember thinking, "if I was in the hospital, I would be begging for medication right now." I will never, ever fault a woman for recieving medication during labor, because it truly is intense. It takes you for a ride and there's absolutely nothing you can do except surrender. I was in a lot of pain but I was grateful for it, because I could feel everything. I could actually feel my cervix inching open. I felt like I was an active participant in this process, unlike how I felt during my first son's birth when I had an epidural and I was passive in a bed with things just being done to me instead of being part of what was happening.
The pool was almost full and MW1 suggested I get in again. Sliding into that hot water felt amazing. I let out a long deep sigh and sat down with my back against the side of the pool and my arms stretched over the edges. But when the next contraction hit, I found that I had no way to anchor myself like I had when leaning against the wall in all the out-of-water positions. My legs were floating loosely and it was very disconcerting to me at the time.
As I tried to gain footing, I felt my body spontaneously bear down. I gasped in surprise and whispered to MW2, who was sitting right beside me, "That was a push!" As it subsided, I said that I didn't like the pool, and got back out. I was surprised; I thought I'd be all about relaxing in some nice deep water, but it wasn't what I expected or needed at the time. So I got back on the futon in the all fours position with my pillows. I was so tired; I was already running on very little sleep and this was taking a lot out of me. I remember repeatedly wishing, both out loud and in my head, that labor would stop for just a little while so I could take a nap. But of course that wasn't going to happen.
My body continued to bear down all on its own after I got out of the water. I wasn't trying to push at all, it was doing it all by itself. One of the midwives asked me if I was doing that, but I couldn't answer. MW1 asked if she could check me to make sure I was fully dilated, and I was. Pushing felt great because there was no pain during the push, but once it would subside I felt a horrible pain, worse than contractions, down in the ligaments of my hips and in my scar. It wasn't a bad enough pain to make me think something was wrong, but it was bad enough for me to want to fight it, so I started adding additional pushes in between the spontaneous ones so I wouldn't have to feel the pain my scar as often.
I had been at it for a while without any significant progress, so the midwives started putting me in different positions, even though I loved being on hands and knees and could have stayed there forever. They had me lay on my side, sit on the birth stool, and the traditional McRoberts - on my back with legs pulled back. The midwives sat on each side of me, MW2 gently directing me how to best use my energy to push while MW1 checked to see how effective it was. I pulled back on their hands and tried my best to put my energy out through the bottom of me instead of out my mouth. The contractions were coming one on top of the next; the midwives would start to tell me something after one would end and I would start to have another in the middle of their sentence. I was getting no rest between them at all. I was getting closer, but it was taking a long time, and the midwives were getting worried. With my unusual scar tissue and small pelvic arch, they didn't want me to be pushing too long. We rotated positions again and I eventually wound up back on all fours on the bed.
MW1 suggested the pool again, which we hadn't tried since I got out of it last time. Nothing else had proved to be very successful, so I got back in. Again, the hot water felt so good as I descended into it. I wasn't sure how to position myself, it was so hard to get good footing in there. I knelt for one contraction, gripping the edge of the pool. Then, the one and only soundbyte that I remembered during the entire birth came into my mind: "Squatting opens the birth canal by 30 percent." I knew that was what I was going to have to do. Slowly, ever so slowly, I brought one leg around to my side and planted my foot under me, then did the same to the other leg. I clamped myself onto the side of the pool, my arms hanging down anchored onto the edge by my armpits, my knees and belly pressing into the side from inside. This way, I had a way to ground myself to something when I pushed. The water helped ease the pain in between pushes as well.
MW1 checked me and said, "You've got to feel this! Your baby's head is right there!" I reached down and felt a finger-sized sliver of head bulging right at the entrance of my vagina. I was so in awe. It felt so strange and so amazing at the same time. I kept my hand there for the next few contractions, marvelling at how it felt. MW2 kept piling cold washcloths on me, since I was complaining about how hot the water made me feel, and putting my cup of juice in front of my face so I could sip from the straw.
At this point I had been pushing for almost two hours. The situation was not looking favorable. I could feel my baby's head descend with the pushes, but it slid back again each time, and that was very disheartening since the same thing had happened during labor with my first son. I was convinced that he was not coming out. My forehead was resting on a folded towel on the edge of the pool, and I rocked my head back and forth in a silent "no, no, no." MW1 sat down in front of me and gently told me that she was going to call her DH and have him pick up my DH, and that if I couldn't push this baby out by the time they got here - roughly 40 minutes round trip - then we were going to have to go to the hospital. I was disappointed and upset but agreed. She went into the next room to call her DH. As I heard her talking, I mentally summoned up every ounce of my courage, power, and determination, and decided that no way in hell was I going to go to the hospital to get cut open after going through all this hard painful work. I HAD to do this. I wasn't sad anymore - I was angry. I had to make this happen, damn it all.
My hand was still cupping the sliver of my baby's head, and as the next contraction began to ramp up, I felt the skin in front and back begin to stretch beyond its breaking point. I couldn't put both hands down there since I was gripping the edge of the pool with one hand, so I put the hand that had been feeling my baby's head at the front of my vagina so I wouldn't tear upwards. I felt his head come down again, and I used that power I'd gathered and gave the most incredible, almighty push ever. His head did not slowly ease forward out of my vagina, it burst out so fast that I was shocked even though I knew exactly what I was doing. I yelled in a voice that was so slow and deep it felt like it came from the pits of my soul: "OH MY GOD, I DON'T BELIEVE IT!" MW1 was still on the phone in the next room; she threw it to the floor and came running in. She told me later that she was kissing my back and crying and saying, "You did it, you did it!" I wasn't cognizant of it at the time, I was too busy thinking, "There is a human head hanging out of my body, and it's shaped like a trapezoid." It felt so strange, and I was stunned that I'd actually, finally, done it. I yelled at MW2 to take a picture.
The happy moment didn't last long, though, because the baby had a nuchal cord and his head was purple. The midwives switched from ecstatic to adamant in a heartbeat; they said I had to get this baby out NOW. I tried to push, but my body was completely spent. It had worked so hard to get his head out that it was as if it were saying, "Well, that's that, I'm done now!" I didn't have a single contraction after that. MW2 helped me stand up, and MW1 pulled the baby out of me. I couldn't see him yet since she was behind me, but I heard them urging, "Come on Jacob, come on Jacob!" and my heart sank. They had him in a towel and carefully brought him around to the front of me; his cord was short, so it was awkward. "Talk to him, rub him," they insisted. His whole body was purple, his limbs were flopping limply, and his eyes were rolling around in his head. I'm glad I didn't have my glasses on because he looked truly scary.
They got me out of the pool and onto the futon with Jacob on my chest. I was rubbing and patting him frantically, MW1 was giving him puffs of air from her mouth. He was starting to respond but was gurgling; he had fluid in his lungs. The cord stopped pulsating shortly afterward and they clamped and cut it. MW2 wrapped him loosely in some recieving blankets and knelt next to me with him in her arms while she tried to invigorate him, holding him face down and using the squeeze bulb to try to clear out his mouth and nose. Right then was when DH walked in, and the room looked like a war zone: me laying there covered in blood with a severed umbilical cord hanging out of me, and a purple gurgly baby in MW2's arms. He didn't say a word but I could see the terror on his face. I told him if he couldn't calm down he would have to leave, because I was scared enough as it was. I'd been complaining, "ow, ow, my butt, my butt" throughout all of this, it felt like I'd fallen down a flight of stairs and landed on my butt on every single one. Turned out Jacob's nose had broken my tailbone on his way out; that may have been what was holding him back and once it gave way, there was nothing left to stop him and that was why his head shot out so fast.
Baby Jacob slowly began to pink up, but we weren't out of the woods yet - my placenta wouldn't detach. My body was done contracting and couldn't push it out. The midwives were trying to do all kinds of stuff to me - catheterize me, give me angelica, pull me up into a squat - and I was just getting annoyed and frustrated with it all. Where was the romantic after-birth moment where I held my lovely baby and fell in love and angelic choirs sang? I was so exhausted and sick of having to DO things. I just wanted to lay down and nurse my baby and go to sleep. They put Jacob to my breast, moved the birth stool onto the futon, and lifted me onto it. I joked that they should threaten me with the hospital again since that worked with pushing the baby out. It was an actual possibility, though, and once again I was terrified of having to wind up in the hospital anyway after doing all this work to stay out of it. I was pleading with them to try every trick I could think of first, including to give me Pitocin, which MW1 had at the ready beside the bed. Nothing was working, though, and my placenta was still way too high, so while Jacob nursed one nipple and I tweaked the other to get oxytocin flowing, MW2 held me up and MW1 reached inside me and manually removed my placenta. It fell out with a squishy plop. I was so relieved; I sank back against MW2 and sighed. Finally, it was over.
They laid me back down on the futon and examined my vaginal area; I'd sustained a small tear but it wasn't worth stitching. I had a lot of bruising, but none of that hurt as much as my tailbone. They said that I deserved some bonding time with my baby after all the crap they'd done to me, so they called DH back in and took my placenta into the kitchen to examine it. He laid down beside us and we stared at our baby, who was nursing vigorously now and no longer purple, except for a normal tinge in his feet and hands. I guzzled water and nibbled a granola bar. The midwives helped me to the bathroom, where I gingerly peed and they put my mama diaper on me. They gave me some pills and supplements and I took them, then they dimmed the lights and tucked me into bed. MW2 kissed and hugged me and went home, MW1 and her DH stayed the night in the next room, since it was 3 a.m. by the time everything wound down. We went home the next day.
Baby Jacob arrived at 11:45 p.m. after roughly 12 hours of labor, weighing 8 lbs. 4 oz. and measuring 21 inches long with a 13 inch head. He went to the pediatrician the next day and got a perfect bill of health despite his rough start (his 1-minute Apgar was only 4). He rarely cries and is a very enthusiastic nurser, gaining 12 ounces in his first week of life. Interestingly enough, this birth was physically harder on me than my 3-day labor ending in C-section, but I am so glad I didn't take the easy way out and fought for my HBAC. It was 100% worth it.
A few pics:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v629/barefootpoetry/birth%20pics/2008-08-17-004.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v629/barefootpoetry/birth%20pics/2008-08-17-108.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v629/barefootpoetry/birth%20pics/2008-08-17-072.jpg
Because of the laceration, it put me in a higher risk category for uterine rupture, similar to a T or J incision. I also learned that while my pelvis is not necessarily "misshapen," I do have a narrow pelvic arch, which could potentially make vaginal delivery difficult. Despite all of this, my midwives and I agreed to give it our best shot. We set up a makeshift birth center in an empty rental property owned by the mother of one of my midwives which was close to the hospital, and prepared for a homebirth with the possibility of transfer.
Late Wednesday night, I started having contractions that felt different than any I'd had before, the textbook "strong menstrual cramps" that mean labor is on its way. They were mild and I managed to sleep through most of them until early morning, when they began to get stronger. I stayed in bed and tried to get as much rest as I could, but I couldn't sleep any more, and I finally got up for the day feeling exhausted and achy. I remembered feeling this way in early labor with my first son, like I was about to come down with the flu. I knew this was the real deal. I called MW1, the midwife that lived closest to me, and she said to start timing contractions and call her back in an hour. I used a contraction timing website and they were roughly 2-3 minutes apart and lasting an average of 45 seconds each. I ate some granola, ravioli, and several pieces of garlic bread, and sat at the computer on my birth ball folding laundry and listening to reggae. The achy sick feeling subsided and I felt pretty chipper and excited.
By the time I called MW1 back, I had started to slip into the beginning of active labor. I could no longer talk through contractions and started to space out. It felt really good to sit on the ball and lay my head on my arms at my desk while I rocked my hips, a position I'd also found comforting in my first labor. MW1 came over and we gathered up the last of our birth supplies (most of them were already over at the birth house). My mom came over and took my older son to her house. DH stayed behind; we had agreed it would be best for him to wait at home since he is a bit of a worrywart and could potentially disrupt the peaceful birth environment; also, there was literally nothing at the birthing house but our birth stuff and he would have been bored out of his skull waiting around for however many hours it took. MW1 and I left; I wasn't looking forward to dealing with contractions in the car, but they weren't that bad, I just hung onto the door handle and breathed through them.
The birth pool hadn't been set up yet, so we did that first when we got to the house. I put sheets on the futon we'd brought previously. I put on a "birth CD" I'd made and labored while MW1 wrote down some things. I was starting to have to moan through the contractions as they got more powerful. I was dying to get into the pool but it was filling so slowly. When it was about as deep as a bathtub I got in, but the water only came halfway up my belly and didn't provide much relief, so I got back out.
I tried lots of different positions: standing and leaning my forehead against the wall, standing at the counter and resting my head on my arms, sitting on the ball with my forehead on the wall...basically, I had to be leaning my head against something. The contractions continued to strengthen in intensity, and so did my moans. I was getting tired again, and found that being on all fours on the futon was nice, because I could crawl up the wall to a kneeling position during contractions and then flop down on a big pile of pillows in between.
MW1 put a chux pad under me since I was starting to dribble blood. I suddenly started to feel very sad, and knelt on the futon crying. She asked me what was wrong. I said I didn't know, then I said that I was scared. I asked her to call the other midwife. By the time she arrived, I was back on all fours again. MW2 asked me how I was feeling when she walked in, but I couldn't answer. Suddenly with the next contraction, I felt a balloon come out of me and burst - my water broke with a loud POP! all over the bed. MW1 said, "I don't think I put enough chux pads down," which I found hilarious later. After my water broke, the contractions ramped up yet another notch. The midwives took turns pressing their fists down onto the small of my back. I was practically yelling now. I was surprised at how vocal I was, but there was nothing else I could do. All the happy little affirmations and visualizations I'd memorized during pregnancy were completely forgotten - all I could do was yell. It was like a tremendous force driving down through the top of my head and out the other end, and if I didn't let some of it out through my mouth, I felt like I might explode.
I remember thinking, "if I was in the hospital, I would be begging for medication right now." I will never, ever fault a woman for recieving medication during labor, because it truly is intense. It takes you for a ride and there's absolutely nothing you can do except surrender. I was in a lot of pain but I was grateful for it, because I could feel everything. I could actually feel my cervix inching open. I felt like I was an active participant in this process, unlike how I felt during my first son's birth when I had an epidural and I was passive in a bed with things just being done to me instead of being part of what was happening.
The pool was almost full and MW1 suggested I get in again. Sliding into that hot water felt amazing. I let out a long deep sigh and sat down with my back against the side of the pool and my arms stretched over the edges. But when the next contraction hit, I found that I had no way to anchor myself like I had when leaning against the wall in all the out-of-water positions. My legs were floating loosely and it was very disconcerting to me at the time.
As I tried to gain footing, I felt my body spontaneously bear down. I gasped in surprise and whispered to MW2, who was sitting right beside me, "That was a push!" As it subsided, I said that I didn't like the pool, and got back out. I was surprised; I thought I'd be all about relaxing in some nice deep water, but it wasn't what I expected or needed at the time. So I got back on the futon in the all fours position with my pillows. I was so tired; I was already running on very little sleep and this was taking a lot out of me. I remember repeatedly wishing, both out loud and in my head, that labor would stop for just a little while so I could take a nap. But of course that wasn't going to happen.
My body continued to bear down all on its own after I got out of the water. I wasn't trying to push at all, it was doing it all by itself. One of the midwives asked me if I was doing that, but I couldn't answer. MW1 asked if she could check me to make sure I was fully dilated, and I was. Pushing felt great because there was no pain during the push, but once it would subside I felt a horrible pain, worse than contractions, down in the ligaments of my hips and in my scar. It wasn't a bad enough pain to make me think something was wrong, but it was bad enough for me to want to fight it, so I started adding additional pushes in between the spontaneous ones so I wouldn't have to feel the pain my scar as often.
I had been at it for a while without any significant progress, so the midwives started putting me in different positions, even though I loved being on hands and knees and could have stayed there forever. They had me lay on my side, sit on the birth stool, and the traditional McRoberts - on my back with legs pulled back. The midwives sat on each side of me, MW2 gently directing me how to best use my energy to push while MW1 checked to see how effective it was. I pulled back on their hands and tried my best to put my energy out through the bottom of me instead of out my mouth. The contractions were coming one on top of the next; the midwives would start to tell me something after one would end and I would start to have another in the middle of their sentence. I was getting no rest between them at all. I was getting closer, but it was taking a long time, and the midwives were getting worried. With my unusual scar tissue and small pelvic arch, they didn't want me to be pushing too long. We rotated positions again and I eventually wound up back on all fours on the bed.
MW1 suggested the pool again, which we hadn't tried since I got out of it last time. Nothing else had proved to be very successful, so I got back in. Again, the hot water felt so good as I descended into it. I wasn't sure how to position myself, it was so hard to get good footing in there. I knelt for one contraction, gripping the edge of the pool. Then, the one and only soundbyte that I remembered during the entire birth came into my mind: "Squatting opens the birth canal by 30 percent." I knew that was what I was going to have to do. Slowly, ever so slowly, I brought one leg around to my side and planted my foot under me, then did the same to the other leg. I clamped myself onto the side of the pool, my arms hanging down anchored onto the edge by my armpits, my knees and belly pressing into the side from inside. This way, I had a way to ground myself to something when I pushed. The water helped ease the pain in between pushes as well.
MW1 checked me and said, "You've got to feel this! Your baby's head is right there!" I reached down and felt a finger-sized sliver of head bulging right at the entrance of my vagina. I was so in awe. It felt so strange and so amazing at the same time. I kept my hand there for the next few contractions, marvelling at how it felt. MW2 kept piling cold washcloths on me, since I was complaining about how hot the water made me feel, and putting my cup of juice in front of my face so I could sip from the straw.
At this point I had been pushing for almost two hours. The situation was not looking favorable. I could feel my baby's head descend with the pushes, but it slid back again each time, and that was very disheartening since the same thing had happened during labor with my first son. I was convinced that he was not coming out. My forehead was resting on a folded towel on the edge of the pool, and I rocked my head back and forth in a silent "no, no, no." MW1 sat down in front of me and gently told me that she was going to call her DH and have him pick up my DH, and that if I couldn't push this baby out by the time they got here - roughly 40 minutes round trip - then we were going to have to go to the hospital. I was disappointed and upset but agreed. She went into the next room to call her DH. As I heard her talking, I mentally summoned up every ounce of my courage, power, and determination, and decided that no way in hell was I going to go to the hospital to get cut open after going through all this hard painful work. I HAD to do this. I wasn't sad anymore - I was angry. I had to make this happen, damn it all.
My hand was still cupping the sliver of my baby's head, and as the next contraction began to ramp up, I felt the skin in front and back begin to stretch beyond its breaking point. I couldn't put both hands down there since I was gripping the edge of the pool with one hand, so I put the hand that had been feeling my baby's head at the front of my vagina so I wouldn't tear upwards. I felt his head come down again, and I used that power I'd gathered and gave the most incredible, almighty push ever. His head did not slowly ease forward out of my vagina, it burst out so fast that I was shocked even though I knew exactly what I was doing. I yelled in a voice that was so slow and deep it felt like it came from the pits of my soul: "OH MY GOD, I DON'T BELIEVE IT!" MW1 was still on the phone in the next room; she threw it to the floor and came running in. She told me later that she was kissing my back and crying and saying, "You did it, you did it!" I wasn't cognizant of it at the time, I was too busy thinking, "There is a human head hanging out of my body, and it's shaped like a trapezoid." It felt so strange, and I was stunned that I'd actually, finally, done it. I yelled at MW2 to take a picture.
The happy moment didn't last long, though, because the baby had a nuchal cord and his head was purple. The midwives switched from ecstatic to adamant in a heartbeat; they said I had to get this baby out NOW. I tried to push, but my body was completely spent. It had worked so hard to get his head out that it was as if it were saying, "Well, that's that, I'm done now!" I didn't have a single contraction after that. MW2 helped me stand up, and MW1 pulled the baby out of me. I couldn't see him yet since she was behind me, but I heard them urging, "Come on Jacob, come on Jacob!" and my heart sank. They had him in a towel and carefully brought him around to the front of me; his cord was short, so it was awkward. "Talk to him, rub him," they insisted. His whole body was purple, his limbs were flopping limply, and his eyes were rolling around in his head. I'm glad I didn't have my glasses on because he looked truly scary.
They got me out of the pool and onto the futon with Jacob on my chest. I was rubbing and patting him frantically, MW1 was giving him puffs of air from her mouth. He was starting to respond but was gurgling; he had fluid in his lungs. The cord stopped pulsating shortly afterward and they clamped and cut it. MW2 wrapped him loosely in some recieving blankets and knelt next to me with him in her arms while she tried to invigorate him, holding him face down and using the squeeze bulb to try to clear out his mouth and nose. Right then was when DH walked in, and the room looked like a war zone: me laying there covered in blood with a severed umbilical cord hanging out of me, and a purple gurgly baby in MW2's arms. He didn't say a word but I could see the terror on his face. I told him if he couldn't calm down he would have to leave, because I was scared enough as it was. I'd been complaining, "ow, ow, my butt, my butt" throughout all of this, it felt like I'd fallen down a flight of stairs and landed on my butt on every single one. Turned out Jacob's nose had broken my tailbone on his way out; that may have been what was holding him back and once it gave way, there was nothing left to stop him and that was why his head shot out so fast.
Baby Jacob slowly began to pink up, but we weren't out of the woods yet - my placenta wouldn't detach. My body was done contracting and couldn't push it out. The midwives were trying to do all kinds of stuff to me - catheterize me, give me angelica, pull me up into a squat - and I was just getting annoyed and frustrated with it all. Where was the romantic after-birth moment where I held my lovely baby and fell in love and angelic choirs sang? I was so exhausted and sick of having to DO things. I just wanted to lay down and nurse my baby and go to sleep. They put Jacob to my breast, moved the birth stool onto the futon, and lifted me onto it. I joked that they should threaten me with the hospital again since that worked with pushing the baby out. It was an actual possibility, though, and once again I was terrified of having to wind up in the hospital anyway after doing all this work to stay out of it. I was pleading with them to try every trick I could think of first, including to give me Pitocin, which MW1 had at the ready beside the bed. Nothing was working, though, and my placenta was still way too high, so while Jacob nursed one nipple and I tweaked the other to get oxytocin flowing, MW2 held me up and MW1 reached inside me and manually removed my placenta. It fell out with a squishy plop. I was so relieved; I sank back against MW2 and sighed. Finally, it was over.
They laid me back down on the futon and examined my vaginal area; I'd sustained a small tear but it wasn't worth stitching. I had a lot of bruising, but none of that hurt as much as my tailbone. They said that I deserved some bonding time with my baby after all the crap they'd done to me, so they called DH back in and took my placenta into the kitchen to examine it. He laid down beside us and we stared at our baby, who was nursing vigorously now and no longer purple, except for a normal tinge in his feet and hands. I guzzled water and nibbled a granola bar. The midwives helped me to the bathroom, where I gingerly peed and they put my mama diaper on me. They gave me some pills and supplements and I took them, then they dimmed the lights and tucked me into bed. MW2 kissed and hugged me and went home, MW1 and her DH stayed the night in the next room, since it was 3 a.m. by the time everything wound down. We went home the next day.
Baby Jacob arrived at 11:45 p.m. after roughly 12 hours of labor, weighing 8 lbs. 4 oz. and measuring 21 inches long with a 13 inch head. He went to the pediatrician the next day and got a perfect bill of health despite his rough start (his 1-minute Apgar was only 4). He rarely cries and is a very enthusiastic nurser, gaining 12 ounces in his first week of life. Interestingly enough, this birth was physically harder on me than my 3-day labor ending in C-section, but I am so glad I didn't take the easy way out and fought for my HBAC. It was 100% worth it.
A few pics:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v629/barefootpoetry/birth%20pics/2008-08-17-004.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v629/barefootpoetry/birth%20pics/2008-08-17-108.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v629/barefootpoetry/birth%20pics/2008-08-17-072.jpg
